I loved seeing the US women’s soccer team at the Olympics.
Everyone of them were singing. Read later that this was one thing
they had agreed on before the games, that they would learn
the words of our national anthem and sing along.
So many don’t know more than the first and the last lines.

Thanks, Reb — and thanks also to Marjorie and Lovisa for those posts.

I have been reading some things lately which make me both angry and sad. There are still thousands of our sons and daughters in Afghanistan, and the casualty numbers keep coming in as they go about their appointed and selfless rounds. But they are rapidly becoming the forgotten men and women. The war now gets minimal coverage in the media. It is scarcely mentioned at all in the heat of the political campaign. We, the People, seldom address it. Some pundits have remarked that our kids are becoming part of a forgotten war not unlike what happened in Korea more than half a century ago.

But there are still thousands of parents and siblings waiting here at home for either good news or bad news. And the flag-draped caskets still arrive at Dover AFB. Just awhile ago, a young USMC lance corporal told his folks joyfully that he was to be transferred back to his base in Hawaii in just a very short time. A few days later, the Marine Corps had to tell those same parents that their son had been killed in action only a fraction short of end of tour. Increasingly this kind of tragedy is taking place behind some kind of closed curtain. Moreover, when polls are taken on the issue of the war in Afghanistan and we are asked to focus on it for just a moment, they show that the public is becoming largely in favor of ending it and getting out of there as fast as possible. Not only are our kids fighting in a forgotten war but they are fighting in a war the nation no longer wants to fight. One must imagine what that does to heart of a brave soldier, even one who is a volunteer under that Star Spangled Banner.

We fought a very bloody civil war over whether God’s absolute truth was telling the country to embrace the expansion of slavery to the west or if God’s absolute truth was abolitionism. Supporters of both sides claimed God was on their side.

Is the god of the national anthem supporting the Taliban or Christian fundamentalism in the Afghanistan war?

ACT, you finally understand that Morality and Truth become relative as soon as you get to human implementation. You can say you have absolute truth but it means nothing without discussing how that truth is going to change one’s actions.

You might use the Bible to defend economic slavery (e.g. Indentured servants) who were freed after the debt was paid and whose children were always free. I don’t believe there is biblical truth to defense of slavery as applied to Africans. You can spin your relative morality but treating humans as animals generation after generation resulted in real damage to black families..higher crime rates, poverty, and single mother households.

Again with the facts and reason?!? You are starting a trend. Shame it is wasted. Keep plugging Jack.

If the minimum wage and welfare were the cause (instead of the lingering effects of slavery) why the difference in impact between racial groups when minimum wage and welfare changes applied to everyone without regard to race?

Jack, your hypothesis is easy to test. If such an easy solution was supported by data it would have been done already since each state can set welfare rules and local minimum wage rules exist.

I hope Sowell is correct since that simplifies public policy solutions to unemployment. I’m not a fan or defender of minimum wage. However I suspect the issue is more complex than you imply.

jack, if only your belief that government should stop helping people extended to important issues like who can marry whom, reproductive rights, restrictions on self medication and decisions on war and capital punishment. It seems disingenuous that you proclaim to trust corporations to make economic decisions for individuals that you don’t trust government to make but then are completely comfortable with government making life and death decisions for those same individuals. Why do you not trust individuals to make acceptable moral choices?

This is a game of Rock-Paper-Sissors-Lizard-Spock. There is always a need to balance the power between corporations, government (political parties), religious institutions, social institutions (e.g. unions) and individuals. If one group gets too much power another group needs to step in and balance power. If you weaken government and give the power to wall street corporations, we end up with a financial meltdown which strengthens government more than before when things were in a steady state. If you over-regulate business (e.g. Sarbane-Oxley) you hurt individual stockholder wealth–exactly the opposite of the intended purpose of the regulation. Powerful unions are a drain on productivity; weak unions fail to protect workers from exploitation. Minimum wage helps some people, hurts others.

Your suggestions for wild swings in power between groups is disruptive and dangerous like the thumping of unbalanced tires at 50 mph. Prediction: If Romney wins the election the next Vriginia govemor will be a D as voters attempt to level the political field.