The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Preventions and Interventions

5.16.05 @ 12:01AM

(Page 2 of 5)

PLEDGE WEAKENED
Re: George Neumayr's Bring It On:

Instead of trying to force government-funded broadcasters to balance their politics, it would be easier simply to bar them from any news reporting or political commentary. It is impossible to balance political coverage as a practical matter. It would be much easier to say, if you want taxpayer money, you stay out of politics, including "news" reporting. If you want to get political, go find another source of funding.
-- John Friedman

One of the reasons I dropped PBS from view is the insufferable Beg-a-thons they ran every few weeks, where they played reruns of the best BS of PBS, and promising to quit when their pledge goal was reached. Had they had one pledging to go off the air I would have been interested. These people blather about their self-serving importance and commercial-free programming while playing what would appear to be ads for the leftist foundations they get funding from and running the drivel filled Beg-a-thons. I am not aware that Big Bird has ever contributed, though he and his buds have taken in millions from the public sector. It's time for PBS/ NPR to have to subsist on their own or go off the air. Public funding for this stuff is an insult to the taxpayer.
-- GMS
Media, Pennsylvania

Don't worry. I emailed the link to George Neumayr's story to all six people in PBS's viewing audience....
-- unsigned

THAT HAPPINESS THING
Re: Lawrence Henry's On Banning Things:

Thank you, Mr. Henry, for standing fast for liberty. We ought not blame things for "causing" wrong acts committed by people. Nor ought a free people subject themselves to the loss of their own possessions merely because some selfish men misuse those things to hurt others.

No "thing" has a rational mind. No "thing" has a soul. No "thing" has a conscience. Only mankind holds these blessings. With them Almighty God gives us the duty to behave ethically. That includes the duty to do right with all the "things" (property) with which God also blesses us.

Many commentators have puzzled over Thomas Jefferson's phrase in our Declaration of Independence: that man has a God-given right to "the pursuit of happiness." Most folks today would generally presume that he meant something along the lines of "the right to enjoy myself, if necessary with assistance from OxyContin or other aids." I show my college students precisely where the true notion arises. Jefferson cribbed the key concept, I believe, from William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England. All the Founding Fathers would have been well aware of this work.

On the second page of his introductory lecture "On the Nature of Laws in General" Sir William gives us this choice evidence of the infinite goodness of God: "...the Creator... has graciously reduced the rule of obedience to this one paternal precept: "that man should pursue his own true and substantial happiness." This is the foundation of what we call ethics, or natural law. Blackstone sets out his equation in the lecture as: human ethics = universal natural law = the Will of God. (No wonder Blackstone is never studied in American law schools anymore.)

So, to achieve true and substantial happiness, a man must obey God's commandments. We could rephrase Jefferson in this way: our untransferable, God-given human rights include "the right to do what is right." (A better word would be "duty" to do what is right.) God commands man to do what is right. Because man does not, he requires laws, governments, and force to restrain his selfish desires.

Sinful man naturally strives to avoid this kind of vertical accountability. Blackstone points out that man's "reason is corrupt, and his understanding full of ignorance and error." Man wants to believe that he is morally and ethically "good." Any "badness" is caused by externals, "things". Consequently, in all branches of government our lawmakers cater to man's pretensions. They ban "things" -- medicines, alcohol, fireworks, guns, tobacco, hemp, atom bombs, you name it.

Rulers who would ban things rather than punish people for their misuse deny our "right to pursue our own true and substantial happiness."

Always enjoy your articles. Keep writing, Mr. Henry.
-- David James Hanson
Fayette, Iowa

OxyContin is an opioid analgesic that truly is a double-edged sword.

Yes, it can be dangerously addictive, particularly to those for whose use it's not intended. It's a major cause of crime, violent or otherwise, in Central Appalachia, particularly southwest Virginia and southern West Virginia. It's so powerful that people still from their families, each other, write forged checks, batter each other -- with or without weapons, you name it -- to get the money to support hundreds-of-dollars-a-day habits.

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