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June 8, 2005
Too open a mind will make your brain fall out
As a junior in high school I was given an English assignment to write the pros and cons of the statement "Having too open a mind will allow the brain to fall out." The basic precept is that much like the quote from Chesterton in that if you are willing to have an open mind on things, you must by definition deny there can be but one answer to any problem. This mind set is how those who favor slavery were able to convince the U.S. Congress, Supreme Court and President to accept the Missouri Compromise, endorse the Dred Scott decision, and later to embrace Jim Crow laws 80 years after the end of the Civil War. Not wishing to inflame the passion of one side or the other, centrists have allowed many of the most evil ideas to persist when difficult solutions presented themselves. In the 1930s a centrist Prime Minister from Great Britain met with the leader of what was to become the most horrific dictatorship and killing machine in recorded history. To keep the peace, Neville Chamberlain would sign off, in the spirit of compromise, the rights of Czechoslovakia in the false hope of providing peace in our time. More than 50 million people would pay the price for his wisdom. One historical event after the other has shown that weakness and compromise benefit only those needing time to gain strength so they can break the compromise with a better chance of winning. For most of the recent past, those who held honor, dignity and respect as contemptible aberrations of weakness have been secularists such as Hitler, Mao Tse-Tung, Stalin, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, Ho Chi Minh, and Saddam Hussein. In their view of the world, the ends justify the means, including dispensing with anyone who might not think as they do. This destruction of the person can be literal through lies and innuendo or much more final as with Hitler and the camps or Stalin and the Gulag. Their lack of faith or belief in anything higher than themselves allows them to perform such acts without conscience. This is why secularists can argue that people cannot be held responsible for their own actions individually, unless those actions are contrary to their current belief. It is why it is wrong to cut down a tree to build a house but OK to put a metal spike in a tree and try to kill a human being cutting it down. And the weak minded believe their arguments. They can decry allowing individuals to keep the money they earn by taxing them individually but deny them benefits collectively because they can earn more money themselves. They can condemn business as heartless for not hiring enough workers, yet pass regulations and tax laws punishing companies for hiring or employing people. This thinking allows the mayor of Las Vegas to justify salary increases for his friends and cronies as being their due because they could make much more in private enterprise without ever having to answer the question of why they are not. Perhaps a few non-pro-government questioners should be allowed to confront the real issue of long-term costs in terms of health and retirement benefits yet to be paid. It should also be pointed out the raise for one crony was more than half the average salary of a Nevada private sector worker. The Nevada legislative gang of 63 proved their inability to serve the public again this session when they were barely able to think of a way of returning a revenue surplus reaped from people who were misled about the need for the increased taxes in the first place. As it turns out, state revenue and spending have now increased at more than twice the population and inflation growth rates of the state. In their minds, this will prove there is no way growth can pay for itself, so get ready for more tax increases next session. There are always voices of reason, but they are rarely heard in ways that can help. If they say tax increases are not necessary, the news account says they want to cut education to our children. If they ask for schools, administrators, judges and bureaucrats to be held accountable for the results of their work, they are attacked for being against helping their fellow man. Perhaps the publics peril can be summed up best with the following Internet short. "Despite how you may have personally felt about the issue, there was a good logical reason for removing the Ten Commandments monument from (you name the state) Supreme Court building. You cannot post things like "Thou Shalt Not Steal," "Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery," Thou Shalt Not Lie," and "Thou Shalt Not Covet Anything Which Art Thy Neighbors," in a building full of lawyers, judges, politicians and bureaucrats. It creates a hostile work environment." Little writes from Pahrump. His column, "The Other Side," appears here on Wednesdays. |
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