I've been thinking about this quote the last couple of days. These words are popularly attributed to Edmund Burke an Irish Statesman/Philosopher, though there is little evidence he spoke or wrote this exact phrase. Still, regardless of where the words originated, I have to admit they seem to ring true. These words call to mind the atrocities brought about under political leaders like Mao, Stalin, and Hitler. Each of us hopes we would have been the one to hide Jews in our attic, or be the one who would voice opposition to such abhorrent acts as occurred under these leaders even if it meant harm would come to us or those we love. But then it is easy to think "Those were different times. No evil like that could persist in a free society like ours."
But, then I have to ask,"Is this really true? Am I sure there are not evils that persist in this country? Am I doing nothing or next to nothing to stop them?"
In over 40 years since Roe v. Wade, 55 million babies have been aborted. The population under 40 in this country is about 165 million. So since Roe v. Wade, roughly 25% of the population has been willfully exterminated before birth. Some may deny this is evil and even celebrate it as a triumph of "Choice" or "Reproductive Freedom," but this truly is the intentional termination of a unique human life. If you deny this I challenge you to define exactly when a human life begins if it is not when the egg is fertilized and a new, unique DNA sequence is created. Science proves that it's just varying stages of development from that point forward. So in my book, this is evil, murderous evil.
But this is an old story. Abortion has been the most divisive issue in this country throughout my lifetime. Abortion in itself is not what has brought the dawning phrase of this post to my mind so much recently . . .
On March 25th, the supreme court will hear arguments regarding whether the Government has a right to force Hobby Lobby to violate its conscience . . .
When the Enron scandal occurred, I thought "Wow, these guys sought profit above integrity and morality and they are getting what is is coming to them. The country is really laying into these guys for valuing profit over morality." In reality our entire financial system is built on truthful disclosure of information. In a sense, the law requires a corporation to have a conscience. But, now we have the case of a company, Hobby Lobby, that clearly places their morality above profit, because closing of a retail store on Sunday is undeniably not a profit maximizing behavior. If this were a publicly traded company, it could be argued that closing on Sunday is a breach of their fiducuary duty towards their shareholders. Still, I don't see this country coming to their defense when they fight to follow their conscience. We can't in the same breath claim that corporations should have a conscience and then deny their right to exercise their conscience.
Hobby Lobby is refusing to provide abortion causing drugs in their health plans for employees. Anyone who believes that human life is created when new human DNA exists, must agree that these drugs are evil, murderous evil. While less visible and seemingly less violent than other forms of murder, if we believe all human life is inherently valuable we must accept this is truly a form of murder.
To me this is truly historic, because our government is transitioning from simply condoning evil to forcing its citizens to participate in evil. In short, if this is not the moment when good men and women need to do something then I do not know what is.
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