The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/979496
C-10 Wednesday, May 9, 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 Evil throughout the ages has been defined as acting in oppo- sition to the cultural norms of a civilization; this produces wick- edness, immorality, and a lack of goodness toward others. The Law of Moses gave warn- ing to those who followed after their desires: "You shall not fol- low a crowd to do evil; nor shall you bear witness at a trial so as to side with a multitude to pervert justice." The psalmist wrote, "Depart from evil, and do good; and dwell for evermore." Evil won last week. Former Congressman Ron Paul [who is also an obstetrician and gynecologist] opened his latest column with an obituary: "Twen- ty-three-month-old Alfie Evans passed away in a British hospi- tal on Saturday. While the offi- cial cause of death was a degen- erative brain disease, Alfie may have been murdered by the Brit- ish health system and the British high court. Doctors at the hospi- tal treating Alfie decided to re- move his life support, against the wishes of Alfie's parents. The high court not only upheld the doctors' authority to override the parents' wishes, it refused to allow the par- ents to take Alfie abroad for treat- ment." This episode is similar to that of Charlie Guard a few years ago who had a similar diagnosis and outcome. Alfie Evans was born on May 9, 2016, and seemed to be a healthy baby. However, in December 2016, he was admitted to Alder Hey Chil- dren's Hospital in Liverpool after suffering seizures. He would nev- er leave that facility. Eventually, the doctors at the Children's hospital diagnosed a degenerative neurological condi- tion, which a precise definition has eluded the experts. Alfie's parents and the hospital clashed over what should happen to him, and the hos- pital claimed that he had been in a semi- vegetative state for more than a year. The doctors told the parents that Al- fie would not recover, and it would be best to alleviate his suffer- ing by withdrawing all food and medical assistance. This advice is daily given to thousands of families of loved ones who have reached a point in treat- ment where medical care cannot provide any more hope. Here is where the controversy over Alfie's treatment, and the in- terjection of evil surfaces. Bambino Gesu Hospital in Rome, Italy, offered to treat Alfie. His parent's told the physicians at Alder Hay Children's Hospital that they wanted to fly him to another hospital, but this was blocked by Alder Hey, which said continuing treatment was "not in Alfie's best interests." The hospital usurped the par- ents' rights and petitioned the court to stop the parents from re- moving him from the hospital. The court agreed. Evil won because Alfie died. Al- fie may have died soon, but that is not the issue. The issue is that the parents were stripped of their rights to choose what is best for their son, and another individu- al made the decision to allow the boy to die, again against the par- ents' wishes. Let us not fool ourselves and allow the narrative to be bogged down by the bureaucratic rules of Britain's Nation Health System. Alfie was offered free treatment elsewhere, and the doctors at Children's Hospital said no. They knew what was best for Alfie. The Hippocratic Oath says, "I will do no harm." The doctors did harm; they did evil in the sight of the parents, the world, and God. Regardless how it is justified mor- ally among the doc- tors, they acted im- morally; they played God, which doctors do routinely in mat- ters of life-and-death, but they took a life that the parents wanted to try to save elsewhere. Edmund Burke wrote, "The on- ly thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do noth- ing." Many good men and wom- en, including an appeal from Pope Francis, tried to intervene, but evil won this round. My purpose is to expose the sys- tem. No system is nameless; a per- son or persons had to sign off on Alfie's death, and four levels of ju- dicial oversight gave legal cover to the death. The system repre- sents the people who administer its rules. At least in Britain, it is obvious a doctor has the right to determine if withdrawing life-support treat- ment is in "the best interests" of a terminally ill child, and not the parents. Jeremiah the prophet wrote cen- turies ago, "The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; who can know it? " We know the answer through Christ who said, "A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things." Charlie Guard and Alfie Evans are just two examples of the soul- lessness of the National Health in Britain. Pray these two will be the last. Think about it! Minority View by Walter E. Williams Pursuit of the Cure by Star Parker Colleges: Anti-diversity, pro-exclusion Points to Ponder by Rev. Ford Bond Evil won, for now Wisconsin and welfare: Work works Heritage Viewpoint by Edwin J. Feulner "It's so evident that work is the only way to get people out of pov- erty." Chris Kapenga, a Wisconsin state senator, said the sentence above in regard to welfare reform legislation recently passed in the Badger State. "We're going to help people get 30 hours of work and move them closer to being self- sustained." Of course, the state senator is only half right; the other steady road out of poverty is a healthy marriage. But the basic facts about the gains of work and marriage still seem to elude some people. Promoting work and marriage are the goals of welfare reform. Contrary to the caricature paint- ed by liberals, conservatives don't lack compassion for the poor. Quite the opposite. We know a fail- ure to institute work requirements robs those in poverty of their digni- ty — that if they're able to work, we do them no favors by engaging in a simple handout. And the collapse of marriage in low income commu- nities has had devastating effects on men, women and children. That's why Gov. Scott Walker and his state deserve credit for taking the lead on reform issues. Among other things, the latest reforms establish work require- ments for housing programs, and strengthen already existing work requirements in food-stamp pro- grams. It may surprise some people that such requirements are even nec- essary. Don't we, they may ask, already have them at the federal level? We do, but it's not as widespread as they may think. There are more than 80 means-tested federal welfare pro- grams, yet only two have substantial work requirements: The Supplemental Nutri- tion Assistance Pro- gram and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. And of the 3,000 federal housing au- thorities, only 39 re- quire any sort of work as a condi- tion for housing assistance. That's where the Wisconsin re- forms come in. They expand work requirements to all work-capable state residents who receive feder- al housing assistance. "The generosity of federal hous- ing subsidies and the expense of the program make it a good target for reform," writes welfare expert Marissa Teixeira. "This measure will help those who utilize hous- ing vouchers to reduce their de- pendency on government." Another new Wisconsin mea- sure that would encourage self- sufficiency: Increasing the num- ber of work hours required of able- bodied adults without dependents from 20 a week to 30. The state is also expanding work requirements for parents with children above the age of 6 who apply for food stamps. Some critics paint this an unrea- sonable. But if we're interested in actually lifting individuals and their dependents out of poverty — to break the crippling cycle that of- ten ensnares multiple generations — this is what we need to do. Consider the success of the 1996 reform, which the Wis- consin one is built on. "That law, among oth- er things, introduced work requirements to the Temporary Assis- tance for Needy Fam- ilies program," Ms. Teixeira writes. "The result was a 50 per- cent increase in em- ployment among nev- er-married mothers and a one-third decrease in pov- erty among that group." Wisconsin's latest reforms of- fer a model for other states. Its ef- forts, in fact, remind me of a key recommendation in "Solutions 2018," The Heritage Foundation's latest policy briefing book: that when it comes to welfare reform, we should return fiscal responsi- bility to state governments. Those governments administer many federally funded welfare pro- grams, but inefficiency abounds — which is hardly surprising, consid- ering that it's not their money on the line. But if we began to shift things so that states not only ad- minister but pay for the programs with state resources, we can ex- pect that to change. The final crucial element of re- form, courtesy of "Solutions 2018": We need to do much more to pro- mote marriage, which is a proven weapon against child poverty. Marriage reduces the probabil- ity of child poverty by a whopping 80 percent. Children in single-par- National Day of Prayer Continued on page 11 Continued on page 11 Continued on page 11 My Point of View by Dr. H. K. Fenol, Jr., M.D. Just within the past week or so, some shocking professorial behav- ior has come to light. In the wake of Barbara Bush's death, Califor- nia State University, Fresno pro- fessor Randa Jarrar took to Twit- ter to call the former first lady an "amazing racist." Jarrar added, "PSA: either you are against these pieces of s— - and their genocidal ways or you're part of the problem. that's actually how simple this is. I'm happy the witch is dead. can't wait for the rest of her family to fall to their demise the way 1.5 million iraqis have. byyyeeeeeeee." In New Jersey, Brookdale Com- munity College professor How- ard Finkelstein, in a heated ex- change, was captured on video tell- ing a conservative student, "F— - your life! " At the City University of New York School of Law, students shouted down guest lecturer Josh Blackman for 10 minutes before he could continue his remarks. When Duke University President Vin- cent Price was trying to address alumni, students commandeered the stage, shouting demands and telling him to leave. None of this professorial and student behavior is new at the na- tion's colleges. It's part of the left- ist agenda that dominates our col- leges. A new study by Brooklyn College professor Mitchell Lang- bert — "Homogeneous: The Po- litical A ffiliations of Elite Liberal Arts College Faculty" (http://ti- nyurl.com/ycfomjy6) — demon- strates that domination. (By the way, Academic Questions is a pub- lication of the National Association of Scholars, an organization fight- ing the leftist propaganda in aca- demia.) Langbert examines the political affiliation of Ph.D.-hold- ing faculty members at 51 of the 66 top-ranked liberal arts colleg- es according to U.S. News & World Report. He finds that 39 percent of the colleges in his sample are Re- publican-free — with zero regis- tered Republicans on their facul- ties. As for Republicans within ac- ademic departments, 78 percent of those departments have no Re- publican members or so few as to make no difference. Langbert breaks down the fac- ulty Democrat-to-Republican ra- tio by academic department, and there are not many surprises. En- gineering departments have 1.6 Democrats for every Republican. Chemistry and economics depart- ments have about 5.5 Democrats for every Republican. The situa- tion is especially bad in anthro- pology departments, where the Democrat-to-Republican faculty ratio is 133-to-1, and in communi- cations departments, where the ra- tio is 108 -to-zero. Langbert says, "I could not find a single Republi- can with an exclusive appointment to fields like gender studies, A fri- cana studies, and peace studies." Later on in the study, Lang- bert turns his attention to Dem- ocrat-to-Republican faculty ratios at some of our most elite colleg- es. At Williams College, the Dem- ocrat-to-Republican ratio is 132-to- 1. At Amherst College, it's 34-to-1. Wellesley's is 136 -to-1. At Swarth- more, 120 -to-1. Claremont McKen- na, 4-to-1. Davidson, 10 -to-1. On- ly two colleges of the top 66 on U.S. News & World Report's 2017 list have a modicum of equality in numbers between Democratic and Republican faculty members. They are the U.S. Military Acade- my, aka West Point, with a Demo- crat-to-Republican ratio of 1.3-to- 1, and the U.S. Naval Academy, whose ratio is 2.3-to-1. Many professors spend class time indoctrinating students with their views. For faculty members who are Democrats, those views can be described as leftist, social- ist or communist. It is a cowardly act for a professor to take advan- tage of student immaturity by in- doctrinating pupils with his opin- ions before the students have de- veloped the maturity and skill to examine other opinions. It is also dereliction of duty of college ad- ministrators and boards of trust- ees to permit the continuance of what some professors and stu- dents are doing in the name of higher education. Langbert's findings suggest bi- ases in college research and aca- demic policy, where leftist politi- Humor is a good and important thing. The ability to laugh at life, to laugh at oneself, shows faith, op- timism and humility. Laughter in the face of adversity is a sign of a healthy spirit. In this sense, the annual White House Correspondents' Associ- ation dinner was once a positive event. Poking fun at the highest cen- ters of power in Washington showed that, despite differences of opinion, our commitment to our most fundamental values — par- ticularly our First Amendment protections for freedom of speech and religion — held us together and our sense of nationhood. But something has happened. The common ground that held us together is shattering. There was no humor in this year's correspondents' dinner. What pretended to be humor was politicized vulgarity driven by an- imosity and hate. The attacks on members of the Trump administration by leftist comedienne Michelle Wolf were shots across a ravine — a ravine that now divides America into two sides that have so little in com- mon, and share so few values, that it is not clear whether our national fabric can withstand the great ten- sion pulling on it. Wolf called Vice President Pence a "weirdo", saying he "thinks abortion is murder, which, first of all, don't knock it till you try it. And when you do try it real- ly knock it. You know, you got to get that baby out of there." It interesting that Wolf referred to the humanity in the mother's womb as a "baby." If she thinks the infant is a baby, then she agrees May 3, 2018 was National Day of Prayer. I attended the prayer ser- vice at our local courthouse. Ev- ery year for the past several years our community has come together in a spirit of faith and unity. There were a lot of people who participat- ed and took the time and effort to celebrate this occasion. At noon, the ceremony start- ed, the National Anthem was per- formed by the Pike Central Swing Choir. The acoustics in the court- house was exceptionally great and it sounded like the voices of the choir members rose up to the heavens. Then the opening prayer was offered by Rev. Leon Pomeroy, the Pledge of Allegiance was led by Scout Master Chuck Froehle, then several speakers offered their pay- ers: pastors of different churches and also our Mayor R.C. Klipsch. I was struck by the comment of Rev. Pomeroy- he related he has been to many places in his pasto- ral work and he had never seen a coming together of a community to celebrate the National Day of Prayer the way we had done it in this county. I agree. Having been to three different countries to live and experience the life and culture of each one of them. Our United States of America is unique indeed in it's expression of faith and the love of a nation. It is hard to understand what I mean unless you had the chance to immerse your life into the cul- ture of different places. We truly enjoy the blessings of our Creator in this beloved nation. Many of you, who had traveled and gone to see different countries, many of those Continued on page 11 Michelle Wolf vs. Mike Pence