On April 23rd Governor Jan Brewer signed into law a bill which takes extensive measures against illegal immigration in the state of Arizona. Unsurprisingly, certain groups are up in arms over this legislation. Al Sharpton (sans reverential title) founder of the National Action Network has stated his unequivocal opposition. According to USA Today, others including Janet Murguia head of the National Council of La Raza, and Rep. Raul Grijalva, are calling for economic sanctions including boycotts of Arizona businesses and tourism. Still others have taken to protestation which at times has become violent. Furthermore, Attorney General Eric Holder and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano have stated their concerns and suggested that the law may be challenged by the Justice Department.
All this notwithstanding, the legal ramifications may yet be overshadowed by the ideological implications. Even if upheld by the courts, this law will become another line of demarcation between the political left and right. Each side has become entrenched while preparing to battle for the moral high ground. The fight may be fraught with desperate attempts to force the other side to withdraw from the field. With this in mind, I predict that the left will probably make such an attempt in the near future. I believe there will be an effort to contrive circumstances (complete with videotape- à la James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles) which will be used to conjure up a charge of racial profiling. This claim will in turn be thoroughly investigated by the Justice Department.
Admittedly this is speculation on my part, but I think it is well within the realm of plausibility.
Humbly submitted.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Illegitimacy and the Imago Dei
This post is a response to an article on the Heritage Foundation website. The article should be read first for the purpose of critiquing my response. I also posted it as a response on the article page itself.
The claims within this article include:
1. Illegitimacy is on the rise
2. Mainstream media ignores the detrimental impact of illegitimacy
3. Liberals need illegitimacy in order to further their anti-marriage agenda
4. Illegitimate children and their mothers suffer greater social deprivations such as poverty, poor health, poor educational achievement, high crime rates, substance abuse, etc.
Ultimately, there need not be a conspiracy per se in order to achieve these kinds of egregious results. Despite its disparate occurrence among Blacks in the U. S., illegitimacy has no intrinsic racial cause. Moreover, it has always been a part of every culture among both rich and poor. Whereas it is seemingly accepted as an inevitability among the poor, its Hollywood style practice has given it an almost exotic appeal among the more well to do. Additionally, statistics reveal its entrenchment in the society as a whole.
All this notwithstanding, both rich and poor, educated and uneducated, black and white possess an irrevocable commonality in our human nature. Despite those things correctly identified in this article, this aspect was not considered; perhaps due to the article’s limited scope. Or perhaps its assumption precludes its exposition. Nevertheless, it has great ability to explain why this phenomenon is occurring so regularly even in a nation which describes itself as Judeo Christian.
Familial disintegration is self-perpetuating among human beings. Why? Because our nature is such, that our children learn parenting skills largely by being parented. Unlike less sentient beings, our basic instincts only provide us with nominal survival skills. Humans have souls, and parenting requires the care of the soul, not just the feeding of the body. To whatever degree the concept of the Imago Dei (Image of God) in man is omitted from our education, knowledge and wisdom are depleted accordingly. To whatever degree the practice of its reality is removed from our relationships, children suffer from the lack thereof. A void is created in which children's beliefs and affections are directed toward the imago publica (image of the state); a state which portends to meet their needs in the absence of paternal provision.
With due respect to Mr. Roy Eappen of Montreal, I wholeheartedly disagree with his assessment that “children are never illegitimate”. ‘Illegitimacy’ bears witness to the fact that there is a higher purpose to child bearing and rearing than the mere continuation of the species. It is more than a legal designation or cultural faux pas. It is an unwitting yet unavoidable homage to divine purpose and intent in regard to our children. Children are illegitimate when born outside of a very specific familial context, aka marriage; marriage being the intentional and direct homage to the Imago Dei. The Imago Dei is the ultimate reason why we can conceptualize illegitimacy. Outside of this framework we have no logical or moral reason to discern that illegitimacy is undesirable by any measure. Without such a framework, we may only consider it to be slightly disadvantageous to the degree that it is outside the social norm. Yet this causes one to speculate what would be the consequences if illegitimacy itself become the norm. Perhaps we can extrapolate from already observable effects. Such results are documented in another article from the Hoover Institution. I will let it speak for itself.
Humbly submitted
The claims within this article include:
1. Illegitimacy is on the rise
2. Mainstream media ignores the detrimental impact of illegitimacy
3. Liberals need illegitimacy in order to further their anti-marriage agenda
4. Illegitimate children and their mothers suffer greater social deprivations such as poverty, poor health, poor educational achievement, high crime rates, substance abuse, etc.
Ultimately, there need not be a conspiracy per se in order to achieve these kinds of egregious results. Despite its disparate occurrence among Blacks in the U. S., illegitimacy has no intrinsic racial cause. Moreover, it has always been a part of every culture among both rich and poor. Whereas it is seemingly accepted as an inevitability among the poor, its Hollywood style practice has given it an almost exotic appeal among the more well to do. Additionally, statistics reveal its entrenchment in the society as a whole.
All this notwithstanding, both rich and poor, educated and uneducated, black and white possess an irrevocable commonality in our human nature. Despite those things correctly identified in this article, this aspect was not considered; perhaps due to the article’s limited scope. Or perhaps its assumption precludes its exposition. Nevertheless, it has great ability to explain why this phenomenon is occurring so regularly even in a nation which describes itself as Judeo Christian.
Familial disintegration is self-perpetuating among human beings. Why? Because our nature is such, that our children learn parenting skills largely by being parented. Unlike less sentient beings, our basic instincts only provide us with nominal survival skills. Humans have souls, and parenting requires the care of the soul, not just the feeding of the body. To whatever degree the concept of the Imago Dei (Image of God) in man is omitted from our education, knowledge and wisdom are depleted accordingly. To whatever degree the practice of its reality is removed from our relationships, children suffer from the lack thereof. A void is created in which children's beliefs and affections are directed toward the imago publica (image of the state); a state which portends to meet their needs in the absence of paternal provision.
With due respect to Mr. Roy Eappen of Montreal, I wholeheartedly disagree with his assessment that “children are never illegitimate”. ‘Illegitimacy’ bears witness to the fact that there is a higher purpose to child bearing and rearing than the mere continuation of the species. It is more than a legal designation or cultural faux pas. It is an unwitting yet unavoidable homage to divine purpose and intent in regard to our children. Children are illegitimate when born outside of a very specific familial context, aka marriage; marriage being the intentional and direct homage to the Imago Dei. The Imago Dei is the ultimate reason why we can conceptualize illegitimacy. Outside of this framework we have no logical or moral reason to discern that illegitimacy is undesirable by any measure. Without such a framework, we may only consider it to be slightly disadvantageous to the degree that it is outside the social norm. Yet this causes one to speculate what would be the consequences if illegitimacy itself become the norm. Perhaps we can extrapolate from already observable effects. Such results are documented in another article from the Hoover Institution. I will let it speak for itself.
Humbly submitted
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)