Do the ends justify the means?

Have we become a nation where all morals are relative? And if so, then has the notion of the ends justifying the means even matter? Or are there any absolutes anymore?

Maybe we have become a polarized nation because any foundation of morals has been so muddled that common ground has been all but lost.

P.S. to our countrymen in the path of the snow storm, hunker down and stay well!

History of Progressivism

It's all about trying to evolve the Constitution away from the power being with "We the People" towards a central government having the power. However, as President Reagan pointed out in his farewell address to the nation, "There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts."

Why is contacting liberties bad news? Well, for one thing, our country has a reputation of better success when we our liberties are the greatest, so why we would willingly give up our freedoms just does not make sense.

Secondly, humans are imperfect, we all know and accept that. Governments are made up of imperfect beings, too. However, when all the power gets centralized, then their imperfections are magnified, because their failings affect more people (think Katrina).

We need to reject the notions of progressives that think it's natural to move in the direction of less freedom. It is true that having freedom does require responsibility, but who knows better what is right for you and your family more than you do? So, while having freedom may mean you might fail, that is a small price to pay for the opportunities that can arise from the freedoms we have, even after failing.

My Ah Ha Moment

Some background to my revelation this morning:

Z at geeeeZ always has a Sunday Faith blog, and today the message I got out of it was the "love transcends imperfections" with the underlying thought that God loves us even though we are imperfect human beings (thank goodness for that!)

At Always on Watch yesterday was posted an interview with "The Obama Girl" who during the campaign had a You Tube song about how she was infatuated with Obama. The recent interview was about how she was at the time infatuated, but now that he is president, she sees that he was all talk and was not who she thought he was. To which I thought of my feelings at Z's blog about real love transcending imperfections, but Obama girl admits it was not a real "love" with Obama but infatuation. So, I take from that the idea that we should not let ourselves be fooled by our politicians by mere words, and we must recognize that they are going to be imperfect, as we all are.

Now, Glenn Beck has been discussing the history of progressivism lately, about how socialism always turns into communism, and how it always turns out bad because brutal dictators end up killing a lot of people. But why is this so? Well, this is how I see it. When the leaders want to be in charge of everything, they have a lot of responsibility to do well. So, they think they need to create a Utopia and be perfect. Therefore, they feel the need to get rid of anything or anyone who they think gets in the way of perfection.

Glenn mentioned this on his Friday show, but it all came together for me in realizing this: our founding fathers knew we were imperfect as humans, which is why they believed in the separation of powers. But the more we move towards giving the government control of our lives, then we allow too much power in the hands of the few. And recall, then they feel the need to be perfect. It's a recipe for disaster!

Steve from The Moderate Republican, and Glenn Beck have recommended the book Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg, and I definitely want to read that book now. We must learn from history!

More about history

It wasn't until my den meeting was over and the kids in bed Sunday night that I had the chance to watch Glenn Beck's documentary called "The Revolutionary Holocaust: Live free...or die", and it has taken until today to get the chance to blog about it.

I mean, what a contrast in the Cub Scout meeting, from talking about the greatness of our country, our rights and our duties, and what it means to be a good citizen, to watching this documentary about how other countries under communism turned into the extermination of millions of people. History always brings up the atrocities under Hitler, yet Stalin and Mao caused the deaths of many more millions than Hitler. Why is that? Is it because people don't want anyone to see how communism always turns out? And why is it that communism always causes the destruction of human lives? Perhaps it is because the communist system is unsustainable.

As I mentioned before, we need to learn from history, not try to forget it, not think that we can take pieces from it and make them work where they have never worked before. Our country's history has shown that our Republic government actually works the best when we stick to the principles our Founding Fathers established. And don't you forget it!

Den meeting tomorrow

Tomorrow's meeting is going to be one of my favorites if not THE favorite one this year, because we are going to be doing the Citizens badge for the Webelos Cub Scouts. This is the one where we discuss the rights and duties we have as citizens, as well as Pledge of Allegiance and the proper respect for the flag.

By the way, this is one of the REQUIRED badges, thank God that the Boy Scouts of America still hold the values of our nation sacred!

Exceptionalism Part 2

I had promised Dave Miller a continued discussion on Exceptionalism, and now he is leaving the country to do mission work and I realized I never got back to that discussion. But my commentary also is driven by my friend Z-man's latest posting where he somehow tries to agree with liberals in theory because he agrees with the minimum wage, saying we do need a source of outside judgment sometimes.

My first point that I have been meaning to discuss with regards to exceptionalism is when did it become a bad word? I think it started with the political correctness movement, coupled with the whole attitude that we cannot have kids' teams keep score and everyone gets a trophy, and we can't grade children because bad grades might hurt their feelings. Well, that is when the motivation for exceptionalism went out the door. Now I can recognize that not all kids are gifted in math, mine happen to be, but my kids aren't very good at athletics. So, it's okay that my daughter recently won a national math award, but I don't expect her to get a trophy for basketball when she can't make a basket. Why is that such a wrong concept to be recognized for one's accomplishments?

My next point comes from Z-man's posting about how the minimum wage is necessary because he thinks people are basically corrupt and would pay peanuts if they could. I disagree, and it goes along with exceptionalism. A minimum wage puts a value on a job and then where is there the motivation to do better than expected? An exceptional worker is not going to be worrying about getting paid enough, they will be paid for the value of their work.

So, the bottom line is that we need to promote exceptionalism within our nation, not discourage it, and definitely not limit it. As I said in my first blog about exceptionalism, when each individual is striving for it, it will follow that the nation will be exceptional, too.

And Dave, something tells me that when it comes to your mission work, you are striving for it, and thank God you do, because what a good thing it is that you do!

History

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, right? So, it is never a bad idea to brush up on history, to be sure that we're on the right path, away from the things that went wrong, and towards the things that worked, right?

Glenn Beck's newest mission is to teach us (or remind) us of some history lessons. How can anyone argue against looking back at history? I recommend to all to tape his show if you are unable to watch it at 5:00 p.m. EST (not the ideal time for me either).