The Masked Conservative

Rosa Parks earned her place in American iconography for refusing to go to the back of the bus. But at least she would have been permitted to remain on the bus, which would have been more than is being allowed for three Saint Paul school children who were kicked off a bus, they were initially told, because they were no longer good enough to ride the bus because they spoke English.

According to a KSTP.com titled ‘Kids kicked off a bus for speaking English”, bus service along the route in question was now reserved for students other than those speaking English because of the importance of keeping the non-English speaking pupils together.

Illegals are often of the mind now that since they supposedly pay into the tax system, that should somehow earn them a slot at the government trough. But what about boring, run of the mill citizens born here and who don’t get special holidays and entire months set aside celebrating what they happened to be upon emerging from their mother’s birth canal, aren’t they just as deserving of the services they are having increasingly high taxes taken from and assessments levied against them to pay for?

Those enamored by all things foreign and repulsed as equally by all things American will respond that these children must be kept together since they might get lost since they don’t speak English. If that’s the case, perhaps it should be the non-English speaking parents that are leveled with the responsibility of taking their children to and from school rather than the English-speaking citizen. For if we are to constantly have it thrown in our faces how those coming here came from such far-flung corners of the world, they shouldn’t have too much of a problem getting their children to school on time since they have obviously demonstrated a mastery of geography.

Scheming bureaucrats in the St. Paul case appear that they will be able to wiggle out of this one over the technicality that the aggrieved family is no longer eligible for bus service since it has been discovered that they had moved beyond the boundaries of this particular school. Interesting how this fact was not made an issue until after the pupils were kicked off the bus for the outrage of verbalizing in English.

Sticklers and regulation fetishists will drone on how the students no longer had any business on the bus and maybe they are right. However, I wonder just how many of the non-English speaking students live beyond these inviolable frontiers enforced upon the utterers of American idiom and diction; more importantly, I wonder how many have parents that aren’t even here legally.

As the nation’s schools increasingly come to resemble the linguistic confusion at the Tower of Babel where the non-English speaking come to predominate and the handouts and preferences they militate for proliferate, I wonder how many other American children across the country have been denied access to school transportation because of what manner of language flows from their lips but the parents have not stepped forward to expose the conniving of bilingualism for either fear of some kind of retaliation by multiculturalists or as the result of higher order cognitive conditioning (brainwashing) where he have had it pounded into our heads that only “racists” oppose the obliteration of America’s socio-linguistic identity.

With Black History Month just around the corner, in the coming weeks we will hear on and on about various civil rights protests such as lunch-counter sit-ins and of valiant souls asserting their God-given rights by refusing to give up their seats just because someone with a bit of authority in his belly wearing a uniform told them to. The next time a child is told they cannot board a bus or ordered to disembark for any reason other than misbehavior such as, oh lets say, because they happen to speak English or for not belonging to a specific ethnic group being granted an accommodation denied to every other child at school, they should simply refuse to comply with the order. What better way for students to learn of the importance of standing up for themselves even when its not popular with those wielding power?

Dutiful statists will shriek “How dare you instruct a fellow American to disobey non-police authority!!!!!!” But aren’t I merely encouraging them to follow the example set by either Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King?

For if you think it was OK for these Black leaders to disobey authorities that have transgressed legitimate boundaries but inappropriate for a member of the majority being disadvantaged by the ruling elite to do so, it must be pointed out that it is you, my hyperpluralist colleague, that may be the one suffering ethnocentric prejudice.

It has been said that we have come as far as we have only because we stand on the shoulders of giants. One of the strengths of ethics when studied as part of a survey of Western civilization has been the discipline’s emphasis on consulting the accumulated wisdom of the past. However, in doing so one must not fail to apply these principles to the situations arising in our own time.

Talbot School of Theology Professor Scott Rae in “Moral Choices: An Introduction To Ethics” maintains this balance by not only analyzing the foundations of this field as set forth in Biblical and historical sources as well as more contemporary systems but also by examining a number of issues arising from advances in technology.

“Moral Choices” is an excellent resource for believers to investigate the complexities of this field of study since Rae does not overly advocate any one particular position per say but rather examines both sides by comparing where each either measures up to or falls short of either the outright teachings of Scripture or the traditional ethical norms derived from sacred revelation. The student will also come away with a better understanding of the legal or scientific developments giving rise to these disputes.

For example, some of the issues examined in Moral Choices include abortion, reproductive technology, human cloning, and physician assisted suicide.

In regards to abortion, Rae builds a Biblical position on the topic centering around the Fifth Commandment (Thou shalt not murder) by showing how this injunction applies to the fetus since the child in question retains a distinct personhood from conception onward until death. Rae also goes into the background of a number of court decisions establishing the legal framework for this procedure in the United States such as Roe v. Wade, Planned Parenthood v. Danforth, and Webster v. Reproductive Health Services.

C.P. Snow lamented in “The Two Cultures And The Scientific Revolution” of the widening gulf between those educated in the humanities and those schooled in the hard sciences. Moral Choices does a commendable job of bridging the gap.

Often average citizens shy away from these complex issues for lack of understanding the science involved. However, by defining terms related to reproductive technologies and genetic engineering such as somatic cell gene therapy (the addition of a gene), somatic cell nuclear transfer (the taking of cells from an adult and placing them in an egg in order to grow a clone), and an overview of various infertility treatments such as intracytoplasmic sperm injection and intrafallopian transfer, “Moral Choices” won’t qualify the reader to be a Doctor Frankenstien but will certainly give the concerned laymen a better idea of what exactly goes on in the lab late at night.

Like stage magicians, often scientific and philosophical elites prefer to dazzle the common man by keeping much of the process by which they arrive at their proclamations shrouded in secrecy. “Moral Choices” by Scott Rae not only applies fundamental ethical principles to the daunting challenges facing society today but also provides the steps helping one to arrive at an informed decision.

The steps are as follows: (1) Gather the facts. (2) Determine the ethical claims. (3) Determine what principles have bearing on the case. (4) List the alternatives. (5) Compare the alternatives with the principles. (6) Consider the consequences. (7) Make a decision.

“Moral Choices: An Introduction To Ethics” begins with the question “Why Be Moral?”. From considering the ramifications of the issues examined in the text, the reader will conclude how can we afford not to?

In discussing her book “Thrill Of The Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On” on the Albert Mohler Show, journalist Dawn Eden made an observation that many young adult or singles ministries are centered around drinking.

This author is to be commended for exposing what is probably a little known and shocking fact.

I myself came across this startling truth when I was visiting a PCA Presbyterian Church (a supposedly more conservative denomination) off and on a few years back.

Though I never attended any of the functions since I could just as easily stay home and feel like less of a total outcast since hardly anyone in the Sunday school class would hardly even speak to me at church so why bother elsewhere, it always seemed an inordinate number of the e-mail invitations for class social functions mentioned alcohol would be present.

Interestingly, this shortcoming was never brought up in class even though I was reamed a new one in discussion and in an email exchange with the Associate Pastor of the church that led the Young Adult class about my short coming of exhibiting"individualisti c tendencies" and not becoming a dutiful member of the COMMUNITY, and one student from China was excoriated on the listserv for questioning the propriety of holding a babyshower for a member of the class that spawned outside of marriage.

However, the blame cannot be placed solely on the indiscretions of youth.

After all, for in this case, they are only mimicking the behavior of their elders.

And in this case, I literally mean elders. For eventually pictured on the pages of the Washington Post in a story about a men's book discussion was a photo of two elders of this church in question boozing it up in some bar.

Though one does not like to see people injured or maimed, can you imagine the almost comic irony of a headline reading something like "Family Killed By Drunk Driver Leaving Church Function"?

One of the more recent James Bond movies was titled “The World Is Not Enough”. It would seem the expression also summarizes Donald Trump’s worldview and philosophy of life.

Not satisfied trying to maneuver New Orleans residents and little old ladies out of their property standing in the way of his expansive domain, the famed tycoon is now taking it upon himself to acquire the rights to the First Amendment, grant access to it to whomever he pleases, and demand the masses venerate him like some deluded Roman Emperor. Responding to remarks made by Rosie O’Donnell on The View regarding the irony of someone of Trump’s questionable reputation standing in judgment over the propriety of Miss USA’s inebriated deportment, Trump is threatening to sue.

But on what grounds does he have standing? It is pretty much public perception that Trump got his boost in life with the help of daddy’s money and that Donald has come perilously close to bankruptcy.

He must think he is so rich that he ought to be able to expunge the historical record to suit his own fancy.

If Trump is going to try and corner Rosie on something other than hurt feelings, what is it going to be? Wouldn’t for charges of slander or defamation it have to be proven that Rosie knowingly uttered false statements?

Most of the time, when the average person is ridiculed for something they have said or done (even if enunciated against them unfairly or inaccurately), we stew about it for a while and then go on our merry way. If Trump demands to be fawned over and catered to to this degree or he’s going to fly off the handle, no wonder his first two marriage didn’t last and it prompts you to speculate how long the third will endure.

If we are going to fall for the assertion that Trump’s reputation might be damaged as a result of O’Donnel’s allegations, then why isn’t he as eager to go after late night monologist Jay Leno for musing that Trump went easy on Miss USA because she has a luscious bosom? Doesn’t such a comment impinge upon Trump’s character as much as O’Donnell’s since it insinuates he’s not willing to apply rules objectively but rather stroke them for something that jiggles and catches his eye?

Does anybody in a position to do business with Donald Trump really care what Rosie O’Donnell has to say anyway? After all, they are probably just as lecherous as he is.

Those among the 49% thinking the First Amendment is an impediment to an orderly society that ought to be curtailed will argue that obnoxious louts like Rosie O’Donnell need to be reined in. Yet it must be pointed out that Trump not only responds this way to the obnoxious most would consider needing to be taken down a beg or two but also more serious journalists as well.

In Give Me A Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, Scam Artists, And Became The Scourge Of The Liberal Media, John Stossel writes about exposing Trump’s efforts to force an elderly widow out of her home of over 30 years so that a parking lot could be built for one of his gambling dens. For daring to call the tycoon a “bully”, Stossel was warned, “Nobody talks to me that way (25).” Stossel muses that maybe someone should.

There is nothing wrong with the hyperrich accumulating vast fortunes. However, such monetary resources should not allow them to trump the basic rights of the rest of us deemed to be beneath their elevated status.