The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/1051754
C-8 Wednesday, November 14, 2018 The Press-Dispatch OPINION Submit Letters to the Editor: Letters must be signed and received by noon on Mondays. Email: editor@pressdispatch.net or bring in a hard copy: 820 E. Poplar Street, Petersburg Be at peace, be happy My Point of View by Dr. H. K. Fenol, Jr., M.D. From time to time especially in moments like these when the dust of politics is trying to settle down, I go over things I have accumulat- ed over the years. I had kept this article for ma- ny years, serving as a consolation to my being in this seeming trou- bled world we live in. The title of this piece is "Desiderata" and ac- cording to Wikipedia it is a Latin word meaning "desired things." It was written by an American writ- er Max Ehrmanan in 1927. It goes this way: "Go placid- ly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possi- ble without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly, and lis- ten to others, even to the dull and ignorant, they too have their sto- ry. Avoid loud and aggressive per- sons, they are vexatious to the spir- it. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career however humble; it is a real possession in the chang- ing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your busi- ness affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; ma- ny persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of her- oism. Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cyn- ical about love, for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass. Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of the youth. Nurture strength of the spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imag- inings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline be gen- This morning we awoke to the outcome of Elections 2018, and there is good news and bad news. The bad news is nothing has changed; if anything, gridlock will become more intense in Congress. The good news is Jesus is still Lord! The promise of The Reve- lation remains, "The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever! " Much anguish, hope, and even faith is connected to politics but little changes. Our era is addicted to the promiser of progressivism. That appears to be the spirit of the age and if that is so, voting hoping to reverse change is futile. Politics, if you reduce them to the essentials, entails the use of power, coercion, and redistribu- tion of wealth through taxation and regulation. Long ignored and forgotten is the axiom "the gov- ernment that governs least gov- erns best." The prophet Samu- el warned Israel what would result when they demanded a king. He warned their desire to be like other nations was in essence jettisoning the leader- ship of their God. Before Israel be- came like other na- tions, God was their leader, the priests were responsible for the religious issues of daily life, and in time of crisis, God would interject proph- ets and judges to defend the na- tion. The Twelve Tribes though united in theology were in a loose confederation that was in essence a decentralized system of govern- ment. Nevertheless, Israel cried, "There must be a king over us! We too must be like other nations, with a king to rule us and to lead us in warfare and fight our battles…" The prophet Sam- uel protested to their demands, but God re- minded Samuel what was actually trans- piring: "[Samuel], It is not you they reject; they are rejecting Me as their king." Samuel warned Is- rael what demanding a King would bring about, and he was cor- rect as to how government func- tions regardless of organization. In our vernacular, the translation of I Samuel 8:4-22 results in "a cen- tralized authority, high taxes, the unchecked use of power, military draft, conscription of the people in- to the affairs of the state, intrusive policies that affected families, sei- zure of land and assets, and regu- lations that confiscate the best re- sources of the people and transfer Points to Ponder by Rev. Ford Bond The kingdom of God is at hand Continued on page 9 Continued on page 9 Continued on page 9 Continued on page 9 The Weekly by Alden Heuring Enjoy the views Minority View by Walter E. Williams Skin in the game Continued on page 9 Continued on page 9 In describing the GOP tax cuts, House Minority Lead- er Nancy Pelosi said that they and bonuses American workers were getting were "crumbs." They were "tax cuts for the rich." Some argued that the tax cuts would reduce revenues. Pe- losi predicted, "This thing will explode the deficit." How about some tax facts? The argument that tax cuts reduce federal revenues can be disposed of quite easily. Accord- ing to the Congressional Bud- get Office, revenues from fed- eral income taxes were $76 bil- lion higher in the first half of this year than they were in the first half of 2017. The Treasury Department says it expects that federal revenues will continue to exceed last year's for the rest of 2018. Despite record federal revenues, 2018 will see a mas- sive deficit, perhaps topping $1 trillion. Our massive deficit is a result not of tax cuts but of profligate congressional spend- ing that outruns rising tax rev- enues. Grossly false statements about tax cuts' reducing revenue should be put to rest in the wake of federal revenue in- creases seen with tax cuts during the Ken- nedy, Reagan and Trump administra- tions. A very disturbing and mostly ignored issue is how absence of skin in the game negatively impacts the political arena. It turns out that 45 percent of American households, nearly 78 million individuals, have no fed- eral income tax obligation. That poses a serious political prob- lem. Americans with no federal income tax obligation become natural constituencies for big- spending politicians. A fter all, if one doesn't pay federal income taxes, what does he care about big spending? Also, if one doesn't pay federal taxes, why should he be happy about a tax cut? What's in it for him? In fact, those with no skin in the game might see tax cuts as a threat to their hand- out programs. Whenever tax cuts are called for, it's not long be- fore they are called tax cuts for the rich. Let's look at who pays what in feder- al income taxes. Us- ing IRS data for 2015, the latest year avail- able, the Tax Foun- dation reports that the top 1 percent of earners made about 21 percent of the nation's income, but their share of federal income taxes was 39 percent. They paid more in income taxes than the bottom 90 percent, who paid 29.4 percent of federal income taxes (http://tinyurl.com/y7t4ljv8). In 2015, the top 50 percent of taxpayers paid 97.2 percent of all individual income taxes. Also, the top 1 percent had an income tax rate of 27 percent, while the bottom 50 percent had a tax rate of less than 4 percent. It turns out that 892,420 households — out of roughly 34 million total house- Being born here is only half of the Fourteenth Amendment's equation Heritage Viewpoint by Edwin J. Feulner Lucid Moments By Bart Stinson A tale of two veterans My son's not a six-footer any- more. A fter too many parachute jumps with the 75th Ranger Reg- iment, medics told him his skele- ton has compressed by a half-inch, and that he's not getting it back. It probably didn't do his skeleton (or brain stem) any good to get blast- ed off a ladder by an improvised bomb, either. Even the routine and repetitive discharge of Army weap- onry at the firing range can result in cumulative concussions that complicate questions of free will and moral accountability. The burdens of defending our freedoms and our country's stra- tegic interests have never been equally or fairly distributed. But he came home reasonably intact and upright, and is having a great life now as an entrepreneur, inven- tor, husband and fierce soccer dad on the grassy battlefields of Cali- fornia. His cousin Jake wasn't as for- tunate. Jake's mom and dad got his body back from Syria in May. I don't know much about how he died, but thanks to a remarkably meaty, substantial funeral, and thanks to long talks with his com- rades at the wake, I know how he lived. Not that Jacob Klipsch was ever a stranger to me. I remember him as a freakishly intelligent child. He talked with smart adults all day and I'm not sure he ever learned baby talk. He was so big and so ar- ticulate that most people assumed he was much older. We got back in touch after the invention of email chat rooms. His was a restless intellect. He had not paused from reading broadly and thinking deeply. It was never a su- perficial conversation with Jacob. He was at least agnostic, may- be an atheist then. Not a sneer- ing, dismissive secular humanist like I was at that age, but rather a sincerely unconvinced pagan. He wasn't going to pretend he be- lieved, if he didn't. He knew of ancient "god-slaugh- ter" cults with suspicious similar- ities to Christianity, and was con- versant in the Gnostic claims of Ro- man hanky-panky in the selection of the Biblical canon. I thought he was mistaken, but too smart and inquisitive to stay wrong. He was young, and had plenty of time to sort it all out. But he was dead by age 36. I felt some panic when I heard he had died, and guilt. Throughout his lengthy funeral, I thought that de- spite all his virtues and selfless deeds, I'd have to bet he is proba- bly roasting in Hell now, and from now on. We had let the clock run out on Jacob. But it's not our clock. The final speaker at the funer- al mentioned in passing that Jake tried to take Communion last Christmas at an ancient Syrian church near the front lines. Any- body sitting behind me at the fu- neral may have been startled to see my head snap up sharply. It was the only thing I heard all morning that actually matters anymore. He wasn't able to get to the church last Christmas, but that's not the point. Jacob wouldn't have just gone through the motions. He wouldn't even consider taking Communion unless he was a be- liever. I'm sure of that. Glory! I learned later that he had told his dad that he was operating in "Yahweh's stomping grounds." The contested Syrian territory in- cludes Chaldean villages that still speak Aramaic, the native tongue of Jesus. They trace their lineage to Aram, son of Shem, who was on the ark with his father, Noah. It's from Shem that we get the term Semite. Aram's brother Arphaxad is the ancestor of Abraham. Of course it's ALL Yahweh's stomping grounds, including the next gazillion galaxies past ours, but I get Jake's point: Yahweh had worked many judgments and won- ders in Syria, according to the Bi- ble. And He wasn't done yet. Maybe Jacob was called to Syria, not just to fight for the freedom and human dignity of complete strang- ers (which God could have accom- plished much more efficiently), but for an intimate and unmistakable encounter with Christ, who knows a thing or two about unequally, un- President Trump's critics have found something else to rend their garments over: His determination to end so-called "birthright citi- zenship." Why, they thunder, it's unconstitutional. And even if it could be changed, it can't be by executive order. They're wrong on both counts. That probably comes as a sur- prise to many Americans, includ- ing some who consider themselves Trump supporters. Haven't we all been told for years that if you're born here, you're automatically a U.S. citizen? It's all right there in the 14th Amendment. No matter who your parents are or what their status is, you're an American. Sim- ple as that. Or is it? Consider the actual wording: "All persons born or nat- uralized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the States wherein they re- side." Seems pretty cut and dry, but check out that crucial clause: "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof." It's easy to mumble over it, but we shouldn't. The Senate included it there for a reason when they passed the amendment in 1868: To make it clear that not everyone born here is automatically a citizen. Being born here is only half the equation. You also must be "sub- ject to the jurisdiction thereof." The original proposed wording of the amendment did not include that phrase. It was inserted spe- cifically to make it clear that the law did not, in fact, confer citizen- ship on everyone born here. Sen. Jacob Howard of Michi- gan, a member of the Joint Com- mittee on Reconstruction and a strong supporter of the Citizen- ship Clause, noted that Congress intended to exclude "persons born in the United States who are for- eigners, aliens, [or] who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States." Supreme Court cases decided in the years soon after the Amend- ment's passage con- firm this view. Moreover, says con- stitutional scholar Ed- ward Erler: "It is hard to conclude that the framers of the 14th Amendment intend- ed to confer citizen- ship on the children of aliens illegally pres- ent when they explic- itly denied that boon to Native Americans legally pres- ent but subject to a foreign juris- diction." Notes Hillsdale College's Mat- thew Spalding: "Few developed na- tions practice the rule of jus soli, or 'right of the soil.' More common is jus sanguinis, 'right of blood,' by which a child's citizenship deter- mined by parental citizenship, not place of birth." In short, it was wise of Con- gress to limit the scope of the Amendment. And those who mis- interpret it are wrong. President Trump should be commended for It's quickly turning from sum- mer right past fall into winter, but the autumn scenery is out in full force this week. This weather is best enjoyed one of two ways: bundled up heavily enough to stay out in it for a few hours, or watch- ing it through a window. I've had the pleasure of doing the latter a couple times already by taking some scenic drives while the girls napped in the back seat, so this week I'd like to recommend a few nearby places, one for each point of the compass, that are great for driving or walking. First let's head north, where the reddening trees make a shady arch over Highway 231. This high- way, like most on my list, has been somewhat forgotten after Inter- state 69 was finished, but it's still just as lovely a drive as I remem- ber from my college days. It goes through lots of tiny towns on its windy way towards Indy and Lafay- ette, so there are plenty of places to stop for a meal or veer off the main road for a jaunt through the fields. To the east, you can make a day of driving down Interstate 64. There's plenty of pretty country and not much traffic, so you can set your cruise and take it all in (at 70 miles per hour of course). For stops, there's Santa Claus or Co- rydon, both with plenty of charm for passers-by to enjoy. Southward is of course Ind. 57, another casualty of I-69 that was recently paved and has rolling hills and fields on either side. If