The Gender Relationships Question

This will be the shortest of articles in LKM Speaks Out. That is because all that needs to be said on this issue was once succinctly said by the famous late-great Hollywood movie star, John Wayne. The Duke had this to say on gender relations: "Women can do anything they want to----as long as they have supper ready for us men when we come home from work." Amen!

The U.S. Supreme Court: Not So Very Supreme

The United States Supreme Court, a supposedly auguste and grim symbol of the nation's highest and best justice, bears the words EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER LAW on its front doorway entrance, to tell all who would look upon this noble mantra that the high court means business, in the business of righting all of society's wrongs of Constitutional significance. There, the casual visitor also sees the magnificent godess of justice, with her blindfold over her eyes, holding a sword in one hand, and a set of balance-scales in the other, to accomplish this task with the utmost of impartial finesse.

There exists a great chasm between image and reality, however. Are highly-educated judges, very humanly fallible despite their impressive backgrounds in legal-eagledom, up to the task for which they were supposedly appointed and confirmed? Are they truly proverbial shadows of God on earth? Former New York governor Al Smith once said, "Let's look at the record." So, let us, the American people, not fear to judge the judges!

To begin with, it costs $3000, just to file a case with the high court. The court justices agree to hear only 1% or fewer of all petitions presented to it, usually only on appeal from a series of lower courts. This represents a financial expense prohibitive to the average American citizen, with odds most likely that the cost of filing a petition to the high court will be for nought. Not many of us have that kind of money to just throw away, and this presents great discouragement to those who may even rightly deserve by constitutional standards to have their cases heard. Justice before the nation's highest bar of justice is only for rich people, and for wealthy institutions, organizations, and for various political entities.

Some justices of the Supreme Court believe it acceptable, even desirable, to sacrifice American sovereignty by traitorously looking to foreign law, as a guide to decide issues of U.S. Constitutional importance. Would that such justices had been among the first brave American patriots who knew what it meant, to take up the gun and fight for this nation's independence from Great Britain in the latter half of the 18th century. The blood of such noble patriots cries out for divine revenge against those on the high court bench, who would betray that for which the same-said courageous souls gave their lives at Cambridge, the Boston Commons, Lexington, Concord, Valley Forge, Yorktown and elsewhere, so that this fledgling young nation might be free of all foreign control.

Other justices of the Supreme Court believe the Constitution should be played with, like a piece of legal Silly-Putty, as they read into that founding document values and concepts not explicitly stated in its text, per se. Perhaps the most infamous example of this legislating from the bench is the pernicious doctrine of "separation of church and state". It is to be granted that our ability today to discern the original intent of the Constitution's authors is very limited. It is also to be granted that the wording of certain provisions of the Constitution may be applied to modern contemporary situations not foreseen at the time by the founding fathers. Indeed, they provided for an amendment process, acknowledging their own inability to foresee the nation's future, and know at the time, what would be most beneficial to future generations of Americans. Nevertheless, the words "separation of church and state" appear nowhere in the text of the Constitution, to suggest that high court decisions should be made only after a thorough inspection of the Bible, to insure that no Biblical values and concepts should be included therein. The First Amendment mandates that legislatures shall make no law which interferes with religious freedom per se. That is very different, from attempt to kick God completely out of all public consciousness, and out of all public life. Instead, government is mandated to remain neutral towards, not hostile towards, religion, i.e. refraining from using its coercive powers to come between a man and his conscience, between a man and his god. In short, any area of human legal concern not explicitly addressed in the text of the U.S. Constitution is to be left to the legislatures to resolve. Judges are not to legislate from the bench, injecting into their rulings their personally-felt preferences in place of the Constitution's textual requirements. Indeed, even with words explicitly present in the text of the Constitution, judges still say words mean only what they, the judges, say they mean, and at least in this sense, they remain guilty of judicial activism.

Congress is often grievously egregious, in its attempt to destroy the independence of the judiciary, and make it a mere auxilliary adjunct to the legislature. That is, when the U.S. Senate considers a presidential appointment to the high court, it will usually try to coerce the judicial nominee to promise in advance to rule a certain way on certain issues(most notably, abortion), as a corrupt quid-pro-quo of winning the Senator's confirming vote. Such practice in the U.S. Senate should not be tolerated by the American people. Rather, the job of the Senate should be confined to the ascertainment of the nominee's academic excellence in jurisprudence, as well as a record of previous legal service demonstrating unquestionable impartiality.

In summary, the American people are thoroughly justified to feel a complete lack of confidence in their ability to get justice from the highest court in the land. Its historic record reveals decisions which have done more socio-political damage to America, than any bomb-throwing college campus terrorists. Perhaps it is best, that we leave the slogan, "IN GOD WE TRUST" on our money, as we certainly cannot trust men for anything even vaguely approaching His absolute divine justice.

-Lawrence K. Marsh

Ethnic Minority America Cuts Its Own Political Throat

It is no secret, that most Hispanics and black African Americans vote knee-jerk for liberal Democrats, in hopes of being able to secure their own civil rights and prosperity. They make a faulty presumption that ever bigger government will give them more personal freedom. NOT SO!

Former President Ronald Reagan once said that government has a tendency not to solve problems, but merely to re-arrange them. This is true of slavery. It was supposedly abolished with the passage of the 13th amendment to the Constitution, when in fact, slavery was not abolished, but merely re-arranged. In 1900, "tax freedom day"--the day when Americans stop working to earn money to pay their taxes in support of their governments and start working to keep the fruits of their labor for themselves--came at the end of January. Today, it does not come for most Americans until the end of April, and "tax freedom day" threatens to be pushed back ever later into the year, as government grows and becomes ever-more expensive. Americans of all races and colors are thus to an increasing extent denied the right to keep the fruits of their own labors for themselves, and use them according to their own wishes. It is indeed a basic civil right, for people to be able to dispose of the fruits of their own labors as THEY see fit, rather than as government sees fit.

Ethnic minority persons very rightly clamor for and demand their God-given rights, they are altogether justified to do this. However, their approach towards this goal is all wrong. By voting for liberal politicians--mostly Democrats, but RINOs too--they are voting for the continuation of one of America's most sinful and egregious practices: ABORTION.

It is known, that most Planned Parenthood abortion clinics are set up in black and Hispanic neighborhoods. It is also known, that proportionately, more black and Hispanic babies are aborted, than are white babies. Planned Parenthood was started originally by Margaret Sanger, a woman who was an admirer of Adolf Hitler and his race theories. The original purpose behind abortion had nothing to do with women's rights; rather, Margaret Sanger had in mind the limitation of reproduction of races of people deemed "not fit to live", because they were allegedly diseased and/or defective one way or another. Today, under the pretense of supporting women's rights, the liberal Democrats--and RINOs too--support this shameful practice of abortion, even to the extent of compelling the tax payer to support it with tax money, even if for reason of religious belief the tax payer opposes abortion.

Again, black and Hispanic America is absolutely right to see their rights as God-given, not man-given, and thus not negotiable with any men anywhere. But if we do not have, first and foremost, the right to life, we can just forget about all the other rights ethnic minority persons might otherwise enjoy. Ethnic minority America makes a most grave mistake, to fail to realize this truth, and continue to perennially put into office with their votes those politicians who are pro-abortion. There is no doubt about it, abortion devalues and depriviledges all human life. With human life thus cheapened, there is no way those races of people most heavily victimized by abortion can possibly feel themselves to be worth anything.

The institution of marriage is also under severe attack from Democrats and RINOs, as quick-easy divorce laws enacted by them encourage the dissolution of marriage for light and transient causes. What is badly needed for ethnic minority America is re-commitment to strong family values, beginning with a solid and uncompromising commitment to the institution of marriage. Much of the source of ethnic minority social troubles can be summed up in three words: DAD NOT HOME. Ethnic minority America definitely votes to cut its own political throat, by voting for liberal politicians who sneer at traditional Bible-based marriage and other associated family values.

It is time for black America to come off the liberal Democrat plantation. Agreement to the proposition that government knows best, rather than I know best, what is best for me, is merely a warmed-over version of the "yassuh, massuh" response of the black slave to his white master prior to the Civil War. By voting for "liberal" politicians, black and Hispanic America is cutting its own collective political throat. It is a universal truism that as government power waxes, human freedom wanes. The sooner ethnic minority America awakens to this reality and starts voting at the polls accordingly, the better.

-Lawrence K. Marsh

Prejudice and Stereotyping Are Normal

On first glance, this essay title would be outrageously immoral and inexcusable to most people. Yet, a closer, dispassionate examination of facts in this matter would verify the truth of the title's assertion.

Firstly, a distinction should be made between "normal" and "just". Most people would agree that for the most part, we live in an unjust world, where lack of fairness is the unfortunate norm. Every disparity between people always comes across as unfair, to those on the "short end of the stick".

It is human, to attempt to interpret and discern all that which we see and hear around us, and attempt to make sense of it in terms of our own expereiences. But when it comes to judging members of a particular group of people--be the grouping based upon race, gender, religion, age or national origin--we make our assessments of other people based upon very limited knowledge and experience with that other group of people. More often than not, this is because the entire group of said people is composed of several millions of people, with all of whom we cannot possibly be closely familiar. We therefore draw our conclusions about entire groupings of people, based upon the few with whom we have had some kind of experience, PLUS what we read and hear of them through the national news media. It is to be admitted that the news media is a very powerful opinion-shaper.

Every individual person likes to show his best side to the rest of the world, in order to win its approval. This author remembers, as a boy, frequently going to a men's clothing store, in the which he always bought his clothes. In that clothing store was a three-way panel mirror, which afforded those who stood before it an opportunity to see themselves from six different sides and angles. It is not every day that each of us gets to see himself/herself from the same sides and angles from which others see us. Therefore, in some cases, it may take us by shock surprise, to understand that somebody else sees us as being something somehow less than noble, when all along, we ourselves wanted to project a glorifying and even deifying image of ourselves.

This author also remembers, long years ago, reading about the training of FBI agents at their Quantico, Virginia training base. An instructor would be lecturing to a class of prospective agents, when suddenly, a completely strange man would frantically crash into the classroom, look wildly around the room, grab an object in the room, and make a quick dash to the exit. All this would take place within a ten-second time frame. The instructor would know in advance that this incident was scheduled to happen, but he did not tell the class about it in advance. Afterwards, each student is asked to describe to the best of his ability, the man he saw, and what he saw him to do during his brief presence in the classroom. Very often, there would be considerable disparity, between what the students saw, and what they THOUGHT they saw.

Likewise, when each of us sizes up another person for the first time, there is usually a considerable gap, between what we see, and what we THINK we see.

We can all observe the outward actions and behaviours of other people; but more often than not, their motives for said actions and behaviours is anybody's guess.

Yes, prejudice and stereotyping are normal, based on a primitive human need to make sense out of the world around us. There is nobody who feels no such need and so does not act accordingly. Otherwise, people would not feel prepared at all, to respond to and deal with the world in which they live. Yet, it is to be admitted always, that our information upon which we act is both flawed and incomplete. It is all like the story of five blind men, who touched five different parts of an elephant's body, and came to five different conclusions, as to what it is that they are touching.

One dark night, when the moon was bright, two dead boys got up to fight. Back-to-back they faced each other, drew their swords and shot each other. The deaf policeman heard the noise, came and killed the two dead boys. If you don't believe this story is true, ask the blind man--he saw it, too!

-LKM