Donald Trump Falters on Question Over Privacy, Abortion

Um, I guess you didn’t get my point. I don’t have specific numbers, but I’m willing to bet the farm that all the Sharia-based dismemberments that ever occurred in the history of the world don’t come anywhere near the number of dismemberments performed by abortion butchers. Your “concern” for the GOP’s strong stand against the brutal dismemberment and murder of unborn boys and girls is, at best, absurd.

However, I understand you have a personal story that informs your belief. I too have a personal story, one that supplements my theoretical beliefs with the grit of truth lived. I have seen the sad ending and the happy ending, the destruction of innocent life and the preservation of innocent life. And I can tell you this, that nothing is more destructive to a society than teaching its members that life is cheap, that might makes right, that there is no consequence to the abandonment of the moral guardrails set in place by those who went before us. That is a faster, surer path to poverty and dissolution than having to deal with finding a way to feed that extra, little mouth. It’s not their fault they’re here, and they should not be punished for it. In fact, sometimes a challenge like that is just what a person needs to learn to grow up and become a responsible, contributing member of society. Even if they’re a grandparent. God bless the little children and preserve them from becoming victims of cold-hearted political calculation.

“...having to deal with finding a way to feed that extra little mouth.”

First of all, regarding that extra mouth. Why is the GOP so against the WIC program that does exactly that, and moreover is cost effective in that it reduces other costs borne by taxpayers like emergency room visits, prolonged hospitalization for premature births, expensive special education programs, etc. And this doesn’t even begin to cover the later costs involving the criminal justice system. I hope you and others you know have been lobbying Congress to restore these critical funds.

You mention my personal story. I cannot even begin to imagine the strength needed to take care of several preschool children and an infant in a condition of poverty, and without the presence of another caring and helpful adult. What outreach are conservative churches making to help women in that condition who have chosen not to abort, or for whom abortion has been made too difficult. Preborns may live, but for God’s sake in what condition, and to face what future??

A couple of quick thoughts, because I do have other irons in the fire.

First, it is just as Paul Ryan predicted. The Democrats have demagogued the proposed budget cuts for maximum political effect without any regard for accuracy. The proposed cuts are broad-based, and not at all targeted specifically to women and children. The proposed WIC cuts represent only 10% or less of the overall budget for the program, depending on who you listen to, and are not being treated any differently than the other government programs under review.

Here’s the deal. We really are broke and getting broker at an alarming rate. If you’ve seen the debt service curves, it’s enough to make the hair on the back of your neck rise. I’m serious. So any government program that can be pressured into making more efficient use of resources should do so. The problem is not the desire to help the needy. The devil is always in the details. And government agencies have a rightly deserved reputation for running inefficiently. Why? Because they can. Water always seeks the lowest level, and people, sadly, are not different. Remove the motive to operate efficiently, and inefficiency there will be. Women and children will not be served poorly just because money will be spent more efficiently.

Second, the premise of the WIC program is wrong. The government should never have got into the charity business in the first place. We have the most caring, charitable culture on the planet, bar none. I love American generosity. But the government was never designed to take on such a great burden. It has a specific, well-defined constitutional role, and it is supposed to stay within that role to give the private sector the maximum freedom it needs to realize its full potential in terms of uplifting everyone, including both the successful and the poor and the weak.

And I have a personal connection with this. My dad was an educator, first a teacher, then a principal, in Chicago, in the inner city. His work there, some four decades, was trashed by the Chicago political class who wanted to perpetuate the dependency of the people he was helping. How was he helping? He created an educational plan that rewarded success and refused to reward failure. His school began generating class after class of ghetto children with very high academic performance, who were then able to go to law school and medical school and break the cycle of poverty.

And that’s the point. The Democrat party, as a whole, doesn’t give a rat’s behind about actually helping people get out from under what’s holding them back. You hear that statement from the conservative talking heads, and maybe you think it’s just a talking point, but I know it’s true, because I’ve seen it up close and personal. My dad’s program threatened their control, so they shut him down. But what do they encourage in place of success by merit? Government largess, a fawning dependency on the public feeding trough, the exchange of dignity and true self-worth for the security of a slavish dependency.

The deliberate, cynical creation of a dependent class is a profound moral wrong, and there is a positive virtue in seeking ways to end it over time. That is what is at the core of the Republican budgetary agenda, and it deserves better that to be misreported and twisted to score cheap political points.

As for what churches do to support young mothers and their children, you have to be living under a rock or living on Planet Kos to not know how big the project is within the churches to save both the children and their mothers. Large numbers of pregnancy resource centers and many other charitable organizations exist to serve, from private funds, the needs of pregnant moms and new mothers. There’s probably one near you, if you know how to look for them.

The problem with private charity is that it depends to a large extent on private wealth, and private wealth does not do well when the government is drawing private resources into it at ever increasing rates that are simply not sustainable, acting not unlike a black hole, sucking everything into its ever more powerful vortex till nothing near it can escape, not even light.

But here, at this place in time and history, we have a shot at escaping that black hole that we may not have in just a few short years. And a small sliver of money cut from the ballooning budget of government sponsored charity is only a small but necessary step in the direction of empowering greater private charity, through the stimulation of investment and the growth of greater private wealth. That’s where a true lifting from poverty has its greatest hope, and why such demagoguery as the Democrats are now deploying is really so against the cause of those who truly need our help.

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