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"Peace was not made for the sake of justice; justice was made for the sake of peace."
"I am much afraid that schools will prove to be the great gates of hell unless they diligently labor in explaining the Holy Scriptures, engraving them in the hearts of youth."
"For where God built a church, there the Devil would also build a chapel." "If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at the moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battle front besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point."
-- Martin Luther |
Racism is ended not by pursuing equal results, but equal opportunity. The pursuit of equal results (egalitarianism) results in everyone becoming equally low.
An unfettered market price is the supreme indicator of what can be done in a corporeal world. Tariffs, minimum wages, subsidies, rent controls, and other legislated price-fixing result in a lowering of total economic activity.
Spending $1 Billion with an $85 million budget should get you fired. Instead, it qualifies you for government management.
 As a frequent flyer since 1998 (nearly 500,000 miles earned on Continental alone without the use of points from credit cards or hotel stays), I flew frequently before and after 9/11/01, and the only degree to which I feel safer now is that the baggage screeners are American citizens. In my opinion, we would have saved airlines and US taxpayers a lot of grief and money if the US government had instead devised standards of air carrier security, and posted the results for the public to see what ticket price constituted more security.
Proponents of Campaign Finance Reform misdiagnosed the problem that needed to be fixed. The problem is not too much money in politics, but rather too much influence to be sold.
When supposedly religious right-wing Christian fanatics bombed abortion clinics, pastors from churches all across the country (e.g. Southern Baptists) informed their congregations that this was a Bad Thing. When it comes to supposedly religious Muslim fanatics, we're not hearing Moslems correcting their fellow man. The only authority I've heard saying Islam is a religion of peace is Dubya. The imams contradict themselves as to what the Koran says.
The foremost lesson of the First Thanksgiving is that socialism doesn't work. Embedded in their experimentations with communal farming, we find:
- People working for themselves are more productive than people working for a common wealth:
At length, after much debate of things, the Governor (with the advice of the chiefest amongst them) gave way that they should set corn every man for his own particular, and in that regard trust to themselves; in all other thing to go on in the general way as before...This had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Governor or any other could use, and saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave far better content.
- Furthermore, when equal results are given for different amounts of effort, the superior performers will deem the result unfair, and the inferior performers will deem the duty inappropriate for them:
For the young men, that were most able and fit for labor and service, did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children without any recompense. The strong, or man of parts, had no more in division of victuals and clothes than he that was weak and not able to do a quarter the other could; this was thought injustice. The aged and graver men to be ranked and equalized in labors and victuals, clothes etc., with the meaner and younger sort, thought it some indignity and disrespect unto them. And for men's wives to be commanded to do service for other men, as dressing their meat, washing their clothes, etc., they deemed it a kind of slavery, neither could many husbands well brook it.
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