A Concern for "Morality" in our Land, or not?

[Linda]

In the poem, the neighbors do their yearly walk along the fence, shoring it up where needed.  I think that yearly ritual strengthens their relationship which is made up of both interdependence (neighbors helping each other in need) and respect (individual privacy afforded by a fence in good repair).  Good poetry, good song, and good music brighten life.

Linda

[RandyBosch]

Now, about "Morality in our Land"..., Alveda King had something that addressed the subject the other day:

“Abortion has taken a heavy toll on the human community – here in America we’ve had over 60 million legal abortions since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973. Almost one-third of those babies are African-American babies. So again, as an African-American woman, it is very important for me as an African-American mother and grandmother to stand not only for my rights as a woman but for human rights – abortion is a crime against humanity.”

[Brian Stoffregen]

And that is your OPINION on all fronts (ineffective, contrary to national values, harmful to neighbors, potentially deadly...), and there is evidence on both sides to support or deny your OPINION.  However, being on both sides, a good chunk of that evidence suggests you are in fact quite wrong.

There is evidence that walls don't work. Tunnels have been dug under them. Drugs are thrown over them. It's been demonstrated that a saw can cut through them. In addition, we have thousands of miles of ocean on our borders were there are no walls that can be reached by boats. Without humans monitoring the wall, it only slows down those who want to cross illegally. If humans are monitoring the wall for illegal traffic, a wall isn't necessary.


In addition, when you say that the walls "work", what do you mean? Does it stop terrorists from entering the U.S.? (They usually fly into our country.) Does it stop drugs from entering the U.S.? (Those are usually driven in through checkpoints.) The ones it affects the most are the poor refugees trying to save their lives. (Rich folks can fly or get on a boat and avoid the wall.)

By that measure, no human endeavor works.  Why plant crops?  There is always a drought somewhere.

Human endeavors often work, just not every time. Where we lived in Nebraska, all the crops were irrigated. They didn't worry about drought. As one farmer said, "One of the best things that can happen for us is a drought in other corn-growing areas." That drove the price of corn up. They did worry about hail damage - so many took out crop insurance. If their crop was hailed out, they still could get some money. Although one friend didn't buy insurance. He figured out that he could lose one crop every ten years and be ahead of paying the insurance premiums.


What works? When the odds favor getting a crop. Although it means putting down fertilizer in the sandy soil, planting seeds, adding water, and waiting for the growth. Some areas of the county weren't level enough for irrigation. They became pasture lands for cattle. The odds of growing a crop in those lands wasn't so great, so they didn't try it.

Why treat patients?  They will only die eventually.

We don't treat patients necessarily to keep them alive, but to improve the quality of their lives between now and death. At some point the better quality of life is under hospice care - who helps their clients have a pain free, peaceful death, often in their own homes. I spend hundreds of dollars on prescription medicine. They probably will help me live longer. They certainly help me avoid complications that would make my life more difficulty before death, e.g., blindness, amputation, strokes.

Why have any laws?  Someone, somewhere, will break them or find a way around them.

Most of the people obey the laws. So that we have a mostly peaceful society. We also have found that ineffective laws need to be changed. We tried prohibiting alcohol. The laws didn't work. They were changed. Marijuana laws have been changed. The laws were ineffective. There are medical benefits to marijuana use. There are also medical benefits to opioid use, but we continue to have laws and are creating more laws to restrict their use to avoid abuse of them. When the odds of people abusing something become too great, laws are passed to try and curb the abuse.

It’s all ineffective.

Yes, but depending on the degree of ineffectiveness we continue to pass laws, offer cures, grow crops. The odds of them helping many people is very great. It's worth the expense. Is the effectiveness of the wall worth the expense of building it? Many of think the answer is no. There are more cost-effective ways of protecting our borders.

[Charles Austin]

Is your view of abortion the only morality you care about?  Are you concerned about the personal morality of our top leaders? Are you concerned about the corporate morality, and yes there is such a thing, that is harming so many people?
Are you concerned about the morality of leaving our neighbors to suffer and die, especially those who are asking for our help and seeking refuge in our land?
I guess not, because I never hear any concern for that.

[Eugene Crowner]

As mentioned earlier above that journalism is the first draft of history:

If President Trump had commissioned his writers, with all their imagination, to write a fictional story about "Fake news", the writers could not have done any better than what has and is unfolding right in front of our eyes.

Hollywood even got into the act, recommending the kids be thrown into a woodchipper.

Eugene Crowner

[Dan Fienen]

Is your view of abortion the only morality you care about?  Are you concerned about the personal morality of our top leaders? Are you concerned about the corporate morality, and yes there is such a thing, that is harming so many people?
Are you concerned about the morality of leaving our neighbors to suffer and die, especially those who are asking for our help and seeking refuge in our land?
I guess not, because I never hear any concern for that.

Is abortion the only area of morality that you don't care about?  Or is it your view that concern about the morality of abortion laws and the abortion industry should be so down on our list of moral priorities that none of us should express any concern for the unborn until all the rest of your priorities are taken care of?

[Linda]

If someone else is able to choose whether or not you can exit the womb alive; that moral choice has to have priority over all other choices.

Linda

[Steven Tibbetts]

As I watch this current budget impasse play out day after day I have to wonder: Is this the new normal?  Are the days when legitimate compromise was an art now gone and replaced with hard-line partisan standoffs?

It's been happening with increasing regularity since 1990.  I think after a whole generation, it's pretty normal, and there's nothing "new" about it.

Whether it's "effective" or not is another matter entirely.  The historian in me can't help but think that one of the chief reasons for a Parliament was to cut off funds for a free-spending monarch -- The Power of the Purse it was called.  It's clearly an impotent power now, except perhaps to force the Executive Branch to spend money, even against its will, whether the Legislative Branch provides for it or not.

Kyrie eleison, Steven+

[Dan Fienen]

Are the laws recently enacted in New York State concerning abortion in line with the stated public teaching of the ELCA as stated in it's social statement on abortion, to wit public funding for abortion and abortion to be legal and readily available for any reason up until the moment of birth?  The Presiding Bishops of the ELCA have a proud history of issuing statements concerning governmental policies and laws in line with the church's social statements, speaking the truth to power.  Can we expect a statement from P.B. Eaton concerning the new New York abortion laws pointing out the ELCA's teaching on abortion?

[Charles Austin]

Pastor Fienen writes;
Can we expect a statement from P.B. Eaton concerning the new New York abortion laws pointing out the ELCA's teaching on abortion?
I comment:
I don’t know. Why don’t you ask her?
Ironically, our previous presiding Bishops were criticized for speaking too much toward public issues, and it seems clear to me that presiding Bishop Eaton has backed off a bit from that activity. So perhaps we lose her voice on issues that some of us champion, and will lose her voice on issues that others of us champion.
Personally, I favor less speaking.
And your answer to my previous question is evasive and nonresponsive, just as I expected.
Carry on.

[RandyBosch]

Is your view of abortion the only morality you care about?  Are you concerned about the personal morality of our top leaders? Are you concerned about the corporate morality, and yes there is such a thing, that is harming so many people?
Are you concerned about the morality of leaving our neighbors to suffer and die, especially those who are asking for our help and seeking refuge in our land?
I guess not, because I never hear any concern for that.

You are deaf to almost everyone's loathing of the personal morality of our top leaders - of all "Parties".
You have been given 60,000,000 reasons for where the personal morality of our top leaders ranks - and reasons why many of them are loathed.  60,000,000 -- the American self-genocide including the intentional ethnic cleansing of 25,000,000 African-Americans.

60,000,000 for which your level of concern, your "Are you concerned about the morality of leaving our neighbors to suffer and die..." is outweighed 60,000,000 to a few dozen/hundreds of politicians passing in the wind or allegedly close to the judgment of the Special Counsel.

Will you raise your eyes for forgiveness when the American 60,000,000 reaches the number counted by the Nazis and Communists? 
Oh, wait, we're soon to be way past that in America.

60,000,000.  And the floodgates open for many more, nay celebrated by "your" personal "top leaders".

When this nation finally resolves to care for those "who are asking for our help and seeking refuge in our land", "your leaders" will carve off their pound of flesh to add to the 60,000,000 and celebrate that added business for the American abbatoirs, as well.  Do they sit around saying, "first they'll vote for "us" (think again) and then we'll harvest our share of them as well"?

Check my grammar, spelling, and punctuation (especially if an Oxford comma is used correctly, or incorrectly), English Major, but focus well upon:

60,000,000.  Should it be written "sixty million"?

History books will marvel in horror at the blindness of even the fellow travelers of the leaders who promote and celebrate this greatest abomination in the history of the world. 60,000,000 and rising hundreds each and every day. 

Someone sadly noted that (paraphrased), "All that is required for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing"?

Have you no sense of decency at least, at long last?

God help us all.

[Dan Fienen]

Is your view of abortion the only morality you care about?  Are you concerned about the personal morality of our top leaders? Are you concerned about the corporate morality, and yes there is such a thing, that is harming so many people?
Are you concerned about the morality of leaving our neighbors to suffer and die, especially those who are asking for our help and seeking refuge in our land?
I guess not, because I never hear any concern for that.

Is abortion the only area of morality that you don't care about?  Or is it your view that concern about the morality of abortion laws and the abortion industry should be so down on our list of moral priorities that none of us should express any concern for the unborn until all the rest of your priorities are taken care of?

And your answer to my previous question is evasive and nonresponsive, just as I expected.
Carry on.

Very well.  Am I concerned about the personal morality of our top leaders?  Yes.  I was too young to really be aware of the personal morality of JFK, although in retrospect his personal morality was questionable at best.  Perhaps the president of recent memory with the best personal morality was Jimmy Carter but as a president he was not very effective.  Should that be a concern also?  How about the personal morality of Bill ("I did not have sexual relations with that woman!") Clinton?  Should he be revered for his personnel policies for White House Interns?  How about the continuing questions of financial shenanigans?  And while we're talking about Clinton, how about the personal morality of Hillary Clinton who not only stood by her man, but trashed those who dared accuse him of sexual improprieties?  No apologies even to this day even after truth came out and even while paying lip service to #MeToo.  Concern about telling lies?  How about concern for the lies told by Barack Obama about the Affordable Care Act in trying to sell it to the nation in part on the basis of false promises?  Cozying up to Vladimir Putin and giving sweet heart deals for American uranium to Russian companies by Barack Obama.  For that matter viewing religious freedom dispensable if it gets in the way of his social programs.  An order of nuns don't want to fund birth control or abortion - penalize them until they give in or go under.


Does any of this excuse the personal failings of Donald Trump?  Of course not, but if all you want to talk about is his moral failings while all but canonizing his predecessors whose politics you approve your concern seems strangely limited and lecturing others for being concerned about abortion before Trump's personal failings, or in addition to them self serving.  Are there no moral issues in our nation other than the failings of a president you loathe?

[John_Hannah]

I have always been grateful for the example of family fidelity exhibited by the presidential families Carter, Bush Sr., Bush Jr., and Obama. All were certainly running against the tide. (Only accidental that this array happens to be bipartisan.)   

Peace, JOHN

[Mike Bennett]

Is your view of abortion the only morality you care about?  Are you concerned about the personal morality of our top leaders? Are you concerned about the corporate morality, and yes there is such a thing, that is harming so many people?
Are you concerned about the morality of leaving our neighbors to suffer and die, especially those who are asking for our help and seeking refuge in our land?
I guess not, because I never hear any concern for that.

So, Simon Wiesenthal, is the Holocaust the only morality you care about? Are you concerned about the personal morality of the top Nazis? About the greed of the German war profiteers enriched at the expense of ordinary people? Are you concerned about leaving the residents of war zones to suffer and die when their livelihood and land have been ravished? I guess not, because I never hear any concern for that.

[Eileen Smith]

We've seen 140 pages and 2097 posts since this thread began with the sentence, "I doubt this topic will last long in this modest forum; for it is nowhere near "theological" enough, nor does it have to do with sexuality (at least not mostly) or abortion."

I'll disagree on two points:  1)  It obviously has lasted quite long; and 2) it has much to do with sexuality and, most especially, abortion.

Morality in our land is not a function of the person who may sit in the White House.  He's crass, hard to like, has a less than stellar track record with wives (and apparently those who never made it to that status).  If we think morality in our land began to crumble with the election of Donald Trump we've either been in denial, have never read a history book, or both.

Morality in our land has everything to do with respect for God's gift of life.  When we lost that respect in our culture it could do nothing but crumble.   Respect for the sanctity of life is essential to morality.   Respect for God's gift of life is central to protecting the life in the womb but it is also central as to how we honor our own body and the body of others.   

Within the last week, as has been noted above, New York State took extreme measures in what the Assembly considers protecting the rights of women.  I saw some of the politicians speak on various newscasts.  The legislation itself is sickening.  The response of lawmakers - well there are no words for the celebration of death that took place in the New York State Assembly.   My cousin is a born again Christian who sees Satan in every nook and cranny.   And while I tend not to listen too much to what she says my first thought was that Satan rejoices with these legislators.  A woman actually rejoiced that a man being held for the death of a child in the womb can no longer be tried under this new legislation.   We can kill a child with no recourse.

The same week that the legislation was passed this was the prayer in "For All the Saints"
Almighty God, whose Son our Savior Jesus Christ is the light of the world: Grant that your people, illumined by your Word and Sacraments, may shine with the radiance of Christ's glory, that he may be known, worshipped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns one God, now and for ever.  Amen

I commend President Harrison for his statement and wish that our ELCA Presiding Bishop had done the same.   Much of the church has ceded its call to be a reflection of Christ's life in the world.  The incongruity of Mario Cuomo's boasting that New York State recognized abortion two years before Roe v Wade as a great accomplishment and then affirming his Roman Catholic faith and childhood as an altar boy is a tragic example of where the church is today.   

Morality in our land is not attached to the person sitting in the Oval Office.  It is God's children living out our calling - sharing the light of Christ in a very dark world.   It's the church that needs to step up.