Tom's Views

I believe we should abolish the death penalty in our justice system because:

1. Once executed, the death penalty is irreversable; even if we later discover that the now-dead person is innocent.
2. There’s no definitive proof that killing capital offenders with the death penalty actually deters crime.
3. The death penalty does not undo the crime. The families of murdered victims often wish the murderer put to death to, as they say,  ”achieve closure.” But the evidence that this helps them make peace with the loss is inconclusive at best. In fact, many survivors get over the tragedy just fine even when the death penalty is not imposed on the murderer.  Killing the killer need not happen therefore, for that peace and closure to occur.
4. We’re not setting good examples by supporting state-sponsored killing. Over half the countries in the world have stopped capital punishment. Yet here in the US, the death penalty remains a valid punishment. Collective America persists in this backward and Old Testament-style thinking of eye-for-an-eye. i.e. He killed. So let’s kill him. Now I’ve always admired the United States for leading the way in positive social reforms, and lighting the pathway out of barbarism for the rest of the world. But on the issue of the death penalty, we’re leading no one.  In fact, we’re trailing far behind the pack ourselves.
5. Evidence is too easily altered in death penalty cases, and quite often in fact, IS altered by zealous detectives, forensic specialists, and lawyers. Fairly implementing capital punishment requires that officials in the judicial system (from police officers all the way up to Supreme Court justices) be, well, just. They should not be corrupt. But many are corrupt and unjust. Consider that lots of death penalty cases have been overturned of late due to the discovery of faked evidence used against defendants by unscrupulous attorneys. The recent commuting of nearly 150 death row sentences proves beyond doubt that our system is just too vulnerable to cheating, to trust it to accurately sort out who lives and dies.
6. Unless we actually see someone commit a murder with our own eyes, how can we in good conscience order their death? As jurors, we never see the crime done. Instead, we must accept on faith that prosecutors and defense lawyers are telling the truth about what happened, and that the conclusions they want us to draw from their evidence are the right ones. But often, they’re wrong; often enough that we should not trust them so much that we’re willing to kill based on their “good word.”
7. Our wide-spread support of the death penalty while also claiming to value human life supremely, makes us appear hypocritical.
8. The death penalty is a collective cop out. We employ it because we don’t want to bother looking for more civilized solutions to the problems of protecting ourselves from hardened criminals. So, we go the easy route, and just kill them. Never mind that we might be wrong. Keep them off the street? Yes. But kill them? Not on your life!
9. The death penalty wastes resources. We could save billions of tax dollars by bringing back the chain gangs, and have these death row prisoners construct roads and railways, lay pipes and broadband lines, and teach us about how and why they sinned as they did, so that we might understand what we’re doing collectively as a society that creates such monsters. But in our short-sightedness, we kill them, and so, miss these learning opportunities. Go figure.
10. The death penalty promotes the idea that at times, it’s okay to kill someone. The thoughts of a potential capital criminal might be, “If society does it, then why can’t I?” Perhaps rarely, it is appropriate to kill. But people want to kill in self defense way too often when other, less drastic ways to leave the situation exist.
11. Proving capital cases beyond a shadow of a doubt is difficult if not impossible, and it’s quite expensive to boot. So if we took the death penalty off the table altogether, we’d also rid ourselves of such lengthy appeals processes and associated costs.
12. The death penalty unfairly puts to death more minorities (non whites) than whites.  Blacks for example are more often sentenced to death for the same crime than whites.

Conclusion: America will not truly have evolved beyond the barbarism of the middle ages until we stop this crazy killing practice that the death penalty mandates.

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Illinois Abolished Capital Punishment!

References

• Capital Punishment   on Wikipedia

‎70% of Americans oppose the Muslim mosque near ground zero.  That’s a mandate majority.  That’s indeed strange, because   our constitution   was structured to protect entities from the whimsy and blind passion of the majority (mob rule). Is our constitution sacred enough to us to protect   Muslim   interests this time around?  Hopefully, the constitution will continue to safeguard freedom of religious expression for both Muslim and Christian Americans. 

But I also hope that we will not change our constitution or write new laws that curtail religious freedoms for specific faiths.  Punishing the whole Muslim following for the actions of less than a tenth of one percent of them, is unjust and so, further deepens the divide between Muslims and Christians. Consider that men commit violence against women. But in general, we don’t punish the entire male population for the crimes of a few. Christians in general?  Heck, Jesus followers are always getting into trouble.  Yet no one denies Christians their freedom to lawfully erect churches anywhere they please.  It should be the same for Muslims, as only a small handful of people calling themselves Muslim executed the 911 attacks. That’s just.

Lots of Jews commit bad crimes too. But do you see restrictions being imposed on Jews as a whole group as result? Nope. Not to this degree.  Why are we so much harder on Muslims?  No, the fact that Muslim extremists perpetrated the 9/11 attacks is not a valid answer. 

Deny any man or group anything based on their religious leanings, and you’ve violated their civil rights. You’re forcing them to endure segregation and other hardships simply because of their faiths. In this (the Muslim) case, popular opinion seeks to cut back freedoms based solely on the fact that the 9/11 hijackers claimed to be Muslim. It denies other Muslims rights that they would have without question, if they were not Muslim. In effect, the public is blaming the Muslim religion for the acts of a very small handful of its members. This is like the parent who can’t figure out which of his children spilled the milk on the kitchen floor. So he sends them all to bed early. Thus, denying this mosque is indeed punishing innocent Muslims wrongfully, just as sending all the kids to bed early is wrong to atone for the acts of just one of them.

Because a few extremists call themselves Muslims (those that committed the 911 attacks) we’re potentially subjecting all Muslims in the area of the proposed mosque to restrictions on how and where they practice their religion. Why should the wanton acts of a few bring condemnation to the whole?

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Mosque At Ground Zero
• Support Muslim Mosques Anywhere In America
• Two Weak Arguments Against Mosque At Ground Zero

One concern that people opposing the   mosque at ground zero   cite is that the   funding   for this mosque is coming from terrorist organizations.  But this dispute appears premature, for they don’t yet know precisely who will fund the mosque. They’re still assembling a portfolio now.

Is there direct evidence that the funding for the mosque at ground zero is being raised in shady ways and from shady groups? If so, let’s hear it. I’d be happy to entertain the data. But without direct evidence, then this claim is probably just hot air.  Might these people accuse that the funding is illegitimate because they think it may come from Muslim sources?  Have they implicitly equated Muslim with terrorist, and is this why they’re raising the funding issue? 

If not that the sponsors of the ground zero mosque are Muslim, there’d be no issue with the funding of this establishment. The funding issue is just one more vane attempt by opponents of the mosque to further their hate-filled, oppressive agendas.  Yes, people accept a church (non Muslim) but not a Muslim mosque so it seems.  But how much more clear-cut does this sort of discrimination need to be before people realize that it’s far less about funding specifically, and really about denying religious freedoms?

I support most any nativity display so long as it’s done on private property. But when such scenes show up on publicly-paid-for land?  Then I object, because public lands are compulsorily paid for by people from ALL religions. That is, we don’t get to choose which public properties our tax dollars support. So, it would be unfair to expect the Christian Americans for example, to pay for land on which a Muslim display is housed. Likewise, it would be likewise unjust for Muslims, Jews, atheists, et al to pay to maintain Christian scenes on publicly-paid-for lands. So, to make sure no one religion has to pay to promote another, our laws forbid religious displays in publicly funded schools, government buildings, or any other location that obtains its operating capital from the tax payers at large. This is as it should be, since America is comprised of much more than a single religion or faith.

I’d make a similar argument for prayer in public schools. Said schools these days serve not just Christians, but many other religions as well. So why should the Jews for example, be made to sit through Christian prayers? Why should the Christians be made to observe Muslim rituals? No one should be forced to participate in religious practices not their own, and especially not in schools that they contribute tax dollars to operate (public schools). Since most public schools in America are integrated, it is likely that people of many different and conflicting faiths attend them; they are open to all. So to avoid trying to fairly host prayer in these situations, the best solution was (and still is) to not allow said prayer, by any religion, in these schools. Now if you want your kid to partake in prayer, then pay the extra money and send him / her to a privately-funded religious school. But if you want to take advantage of the cheaper costs of publicly-funded education, then the sacrifice you make is that prayer, in the name of fairness. Yes, I support the no-prayers policy in public schools.

One more thing: People object to the mosque at ground zero for far different reasons than they object to religious displays on public land.  The objections in the public land case make good social sense.  But similar objections against the mosque do not.  Why?  Because the mosque is to be privately funded as I understand it, and it’s to be built on private property and in compliance with local laws.  But when churches want to put a cross or picture of Jesus in a court house, on a downtown street corner, or on some other publicly-funded and maintained property, this is a horse of a different color. Such placements do break laws in fact. 

I’m agnostic, and so, prefer that my tax dollars fund no religious stuff on public property.  Likewise, if I was Christian, I would not want my money funding Jewish or Muslim displays, publications, or other promotional activities.   Why should I be forced to fund religions in which I do not believe?  Surely you can see that with so many religions out there, that allowing any of them to post material on public lands is unfair to the rest.  Further, you couldn’t just allow all of them to put up scenes; lest you completely destroy the aesthetic appeal of landmark spots like court houses, congressional buildings, and so forth. Again, I maintain that the best solution, the one that serves everyone the best overall, is to disallow religious displays on ANY public property.  Indeed, you can get enough display by visiting the numerous private religious establishments around the country.  We don’t need that stuff on public lands.  Just like other churches (ones the people object to far less), this mosque is to be place on private property.  So from a funding standpoint, I fully support  building the mosque at ground zero, or anywhere else in America where it’s legal to do so, as defined by local regulations.

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Majority Oppose Muslim Mosque Near Ground Zero
• Mosque At Ground Zero
• Support Muslim Mosques Anywhere In America
• Thoughts on Bigotry

Dear [Brandon],

Many views I struggle to tolerate, though I actually wish not to put up with them at all.  But I stomach them to preserve peace with others and avoid the heated arguments that face-to-face discussions of them can produce. 

One common opinion I strongly oppose is the wide-spread opposition to building   mosques   at   ground zero   or   anywhere else   throughout America.  I find this hostile view toward Muslims offensive because such unfriendliness promotes inequality and perpetuates discord and hatred among religions.  When one religion (Christian) denies another (Muslim) the freedom to build a church (mosque), then much anger occurs as seen in the near-hysterical demonstrations against building the mosque at ground zero.  Curiously though, the Muslims supporting the mosque were virtually invisible and quiet, while it was their rivals (the Christian-American majority) who were doing most of the yelling, taunting, vandalizing the construction equipment, and so on.  Those acting the most righteous in this conflict were typically the most violent and hateful in the whole mosque-at-ground-zero affair. 

It’s infuriating that the Christian-American majority is so uninformed and intolerant about how benevolent and peaceful non radical Muslims are. Ask Christian Americans why they oppose mosque building at most any location, and most are hard-pressed to answer.  Of course, because prejudice can rarely answer the tough questions like this without lots of stammer and uncertainty.  But when they do respond, their rationale seems woefully inadequate to justify the sorts of restrictions on an entire religion that opposing Muslim mosques in America embodies.

The Majority   is a great place to be as long as it never turns against you, as it apparently has against the religious freedoms of American Muslims. People hide their flawed thinking behind the banner of preponderance (behind each other), and so, never really have to justify their misguided positions on their own; without backup from others like them. It’s the old “safety in numbers” phenomenon. That is: Subscribing to majority rule makes it much easier to persecute a person, as many others are doing the same.  Majority rule (or better yet, mob rule) is  also very dangerous for those in the minority. Certainly, majority might makes not majority right. Yet Christian Americans continue to relentlessly fight Muslims who wish to build mosques. 

You and I have lived in the minority throughout our lives.  Your sexual orientation makes you a minor (so to speak), as does my visual impairment make me a minor. So perhaps this has given us a keener appreciation and thus sensitivity about the sort mob oppression that happened surrounding the building of the Muslin mosque at ground zero. Nowadays though unlike yesteryear, I’m happy with my dealt hand of vision impairment, because it has made me a more tolerant and compassionate person toward those who are different.  I’m different myself, and I believe that that has enabled me to better appreciate and more fully accept others’ differences.  I understand the supreme benefits of a diversity-appreciating society, and the need to promote such a collective yet diverse existence.  Thus, I have no problem with Muslims building mosques anywhere they wish so long as the adhere to local ordinances.

Christians may dominate the American political landscape currently. But America is by no means an exclusively Christian nation.  We’re not supposed to be of one faith here; but a diverse and numerous set of faiths.  Both Christians and non Christians alike should keep reminding the population at large of that.  We need to replace this Christian righteousness regarding the mosques with a healthy dose of good old fashioned humility.

Many Christian American newspaper columnists I’ve read seem to just want to fight with all Muslims; particularly when they argue that the connection between Islam and terrorism is immutable — like Islam is a single person, and when a small few of them commit a violent crime, then the Christians fault all of Islam.

Finally, liberalism is sometimes discredited in America these days because it supports Muslim mosques. Well, liberalism has prevailed in most of the election cycles in the past century due to the high regard it places on the ideal of total equality. But while liberalism proved to be out of vogue in 2010 elections, many folks nonetheless espouse the liberal agenda. Numerous conservative columnists are dreaming if they think that liberal ideals carry no weight with folks.  When people are hard pressed, their conscience punishes them when they show too little compassion.  Many folks today are feeling ashamed that at one time, they opposed Muslim freedom, gay rights, enfranchisement of all races, and so on.  So too will it be the case with the Muslim mosque at ground zero. 

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Majority Oppose Muslim Mosque Near Ground Zero
• Mosque At Ground Zero
• Muslim Americans’ Rights
• Two Weak Arguments Against Mosque At Ground Zero

Some oppose   Planned Parenthood,  because as they see it, Planned Parenthood needlessly restricts population growth.  These types feel that people should “be fruitful and multiply” whether or not they can afford the resulting children financially, and whether or not they’re mature enough to properly raise babies. In their view, population growth should never be restricted; no matter the chaos that ill-advised pregnancies continues to impose on society. 

My response: I’m wondering why they think that restricting population growth is a bad thing. We already fail at taking care of many of the babies that are out there now (lots of kids dropping out of school, joining gangs, doing drugs, and generally left by their parents to their own devices). We currently have over-crowded inner cities, schools, and jails.  So it’s obvious that our ability to adequately provide for all these babies, is stretched too thin, as we’re doing a way inadequate job at caring for and educating these children born strictly from lust.  So maybe we should have fewer children for a while. 

This is where Planned Parenthood comes in.  Though perhaps an unintended side-effect, This group achieves lower birth rates by way of its educational materials, contraceptive devices, and if necessary, abortion provisions.  The higher the education levels in society, the lower the birth rates generally.  So since Planned Parenthood achieves higher education of the masses about sex, pregnancy, babies, and such, their efforts are probably responsible for at least some of the lower birth rates seen over the past three decades, though they do not campaign for government dollars on this point.

Now understand that Planned Parenthood’s mission   is not   to promote restricted population growth per se, but rather to thwart unwanted pregnancy and encourage well-thought-out pregnancies. One byproduct of this effort however, is likely to be restricted population growth, though Planned Parenthood does not specifically state this as one of their objectives. In fact, I would not expect them to list restricting population growth in their educational materials, given how strong the be-fruitful-and-multiply ideology is in America, even still today. 

Abortion is by no means a perfect solution, and it’s probably one that I’d avoid if ever faced with an unwanted pregnancy. But abortion is a necessary offering to help ensure a brighter future for society (fewer unwanted children roaming the streets getting into trouble).  So I’m glad that as a last resort, Planned Parenthood makes the abortion option available to young couples.  It is abortion, probably, more so than the issue of restricting population growth that those purporting to favor unlimited population growth are taking issue with. That is: they probably care more about stopping all abortions than about halting the over all restriction of population growth.  Sneaky, aren’t they?

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Planned Parenthood Cost Effectiveness
• Planned Parenthood Funding Debate

References

• Planned Parenthood   web site
• Population Growth    explanation on Wikipedia

Cost effectiveness is a basic consideration when devising any public policy. This must be so in general. Otherwise, said policies could not be implemented without totally bankrupting the public; just like what’s going on here in America currently.  Since people want to get the most for their dollar, they’ll probably opt for the most cost effective over the less efficient policies. With the US being so far in debt, many government expenditures have come under scrutiny thus, and the funding of the Planned Parenthood family planning organization is no exception. The question of the cost effectiveness of Planned Parenthood has come up for debate again and the ways it addresses the unplanned pregnancy problem, as it has periodically over the past four decades.  Many want to stop the flow of government money to Planned Parenthood; saying that this group is highly cost ineffective, as it duplicates services already offered at local levels, and it pays way too much for what it does offer, according to opponents. 

Indeed, cost effectiveness neither determines the rightness nor the wrongness of a policy. But it does drive public perception about the policy’s practicality.  How affordable the policy is indeed influences how effectively that policy is executed.  Then, how effectively the policy is executed drives how good or bad people feel about funding it with tax dollars.  Indeed, the cost verses. benefit ratio of a policy heavily influences public opinion about (either for or against) the policy. Whether that’s right or wrong, I will not say. That’s just the way it is. Those opposing Planned Parenthood funding believe the group “is wrong” for it’s stand on abortion.  But since the abortion angle is so divisive, they instead focus on what they believe to be Planned Parenthood’s cost ineffectiveness.

It’s interesting that some folks rail against determining the validity of a policy by considering among its other attributes, how cost effective it is. But some work is necessary to fund even if it is expensive.  Yet these same people also argue to de-fund organizations like Planned Parenthood in order to trim the nation’s over-swollen budget. So, is cost effectiveness important to them, or isn’t it? Apparently in some degree, cost effectiveness weighs at least a little in their choice to oppose the policy to subsidize Planned Parenthood.

Children should be loved so that they can grow into socially well-adjusted, productive adults. Planned Parenthood helps insure that children are loved by their parents, because they aid in curbing unwanted or unplanned pregnancies in the first place.  Children are markedly neglected generally, when born into households where adequate planning for them has not first taken place.  So if we can keep children from this sort of neglect, we reduce the chances that they’ll grow up to be criminals.  Thus, we save the costs of housing them in our jails and funding their rehabilitation.  In this way, the small cost of funding Planned Parenthood is paid for down the road by the huge savings in prison and re-education costs of neglected children. 

I submit therefore, that Planned Parenthood is indeed cost effective because we should not create children when ill-prepared to provide for them. Planned Parenthood and other similar resources give the ill-prepared potential parents the means to head off these unplanned pregnancies, so that these “future people” they might otherwise give birth to, do not become excessively burdensome on and overly dangerous to society.  Planned Parenthood may cost a little today.  But it will save us much more in the future.  It’s an investment that we as a nation should continue making. 

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Planned Parenthood Funding Debate
• Planned Parenthood Ideas Restrict Population Growth
• Unplanned Pregnancies Make More Neglected Children

References

• Planned Parenthood   web site
• Unplanned Pregnancy   definitio on eHow

Illinois just abolished capital punishment!!! This may be fall-out from when those 150 plus death row prisoners had their sentences commuted some years ago due to corruption and other irregularities in the Illinois justice system. One day I hope no state (or anyone else for that matter) will kill anybody. But as the law is arguably more civilized than the criminals, the law needs to take the first step and stop the killing.

Yes, they’ll likely have to build more prisons as well as reduce sentences for the so-called lesser crimes.  These measures would make room for the would-have-been death row inmates; people that will now largely become life-long prison inmates in Illinois. 

But giving up the death sentence is but a small price to pay to preserve and increase the sanctity of human life in our culture.  Abolishing capital punishment everywhere would get society out of the highly hypocritical practice of execution.  I mean, if we followed the golden rule, no one would want another person to be put to death, as they would not wish to be put to death themselves.  That’s the hypocrisy.  We do death to others that we would not want to have done to ourselves. 

Also, by phasing out executions, Illinois will avoid having to answer all those tough questions that routinely surface about how painful an execution may or may not be, whether or not a person was really guilty of a capital crime, and other impossible-to-definitively-answer quandaries.   Then too, we’d save a ton in legal fees as well as court and other administrative costs that must be spent to make sure that we’re not killing willy-nilly, and executing people without sufficient due process accorded them. 

I’d say that in Illinois at least, the value of a human life just went up significantly.  Last I heard, a life in America is worth around a half a million dollars.  I wonder what it will be worth once the rest of the nation fully digests Illinois’ bold but humane move of abolishing capital punishment? 

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Against   Capital Punishment

References

• Capital Punishment    definition on Wikipedia
• Capital Punishment In Illinois   explanation on Wikipedia

Republicans arguing to dismantle   collective bargaining rights   complain that so much union money goes to aiding democrat politicians.  Unions aiding democratic politicians would stand to reason because historically, the whole concept of the union was brought into existence by the democrats. So historically, the democrats have been politically more friendly to unions.  So, that’s not surprising.

But republicans have their own “unions” that like them.  Those are corporate entities.  Indeed, corporate dollars go to republican politicians as surely as union dollars fund democrats, to get them what they want; help with campaign funding, lobbying, and special interest groups. In fact, republicans have traditionally opposed workers rights from the very start of their party, and so have corporate leaders. So again, it’s not surprising that corporate management tends to fund republican politicians. So it’s hard to argue credibly that democrats receive more help from their unions than republicans receive from their corporations. Indeed, corporate management is to republican politicians as union leadership is to democratic politicians.

So the question is: If the goal is to stop the union dollars from fund democratic politicians, then what shall be done about those corporate dollars that fund republican politicians? Anything bad to be said about the democrats doing this can also be said about the republicans. Doesn’t seem fair to take the power (the money) from the democrats without doing something equally as “budget balancing” on the republican side.

I don’t know.  It looks like the numbers of those in the streets opposing the   collective bargaining rights   restrictions in Wisconsin do not reflect just a small percentage of the people in that state upset with this bill.  Based on the television images from there, I’d say a good many are unhappy. They didn’t realize the true extent of what they’d be giving up when they elected republicans. Well, the reality of their choice has hit them now. 

You don’t balance bugets by taking away people’s   collective bargaining rights   and undoing a hundred years of work place evolution and advancement for the working and middle classes however. But that’s just what the republicans did recently in Wisconsin.  Historically, republicans have lain in wait for this sort of opportunity to clip the wings of union influence in business, and they’re using the current nationwide debt crisis as a rallying cry against unions, to further a century-old anti-union agenda.   

Republicans attribute much unwarranted “evil” to   collective bargaining   itself.   Collective bargaining is just a means that enables people to come together and speak to management as one large voice in negotiations for better pay and work conditions. Again, without that ability, workers rights are doomed. Would you want to go back to eighteen hour work days, unsafe and deplorable work conditions, people being terrified to voice grievances with management, and lower standards of living for the working class? I would not.

We supposedly live in a free country.  This means that people should be allowed to   collectively bargain   if they wish, without corporate collective management supporting laws to deny that right.  But that’s no longer completely true for the public workers in Wisconsin.   The republicans, sighing that age-old complaint that the unions have too much control, have seriously reduced said rights. 

But allowing people to group together and   collectively bargain   does not give them complete power.  Indeed, when union demands exceed available resources, then government can break the union, as Reagan did with the air traffic controllers in the 1980s. Many teachers unions have folded as well over the past forty years when their demands surpassed the school’s financial ability to meet. So   collective bargaining   itself does not totally insulate unions from their economic or political realities. Thus,   collective bargaining rights   do not grant unions absolute power.  But they are the lifeblood of the union because without these rights, then there’s much less reason to ever organize a union in the first place.   

All that   collective bargaining rights   do, is supply to unions a strong negotiating position and ability to defend their members against corporate injustices. In fact, history shows that such injustices abound without unions to keep them in heck.  Repeatedly it’s occurred that without this strong and unified voice, management will invariably exploit its workers. So I suspect that worker misuse, now that   collective bargaining rights   for public workers have been restricted in Wisconsin, will happen sooner rather than later.  Hopefully once people get a real taste of what life without a strong union is like, they’ll reinstate those rights that were lost earlier this year.  I hope. To preserve what organized labor has fought for, I strongly support preserving   collective bargaining rights   for all workers. 

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Wisconsin Collective Bargaining Rights Debate

References

• Collective Bargaining    definition on Wikipedia
• Wisconsiin Collective Bargaining Protests   description on Wikipedia

The   Three-Fifths Compromise Definition   follows: It was an agreement reached between the North and South in 1787 at the first constitutional congress in Philadelphia, PA. It laid out a way to count the slave population for purposes of congressional districting and taxation. In short: It counted a black man as only three fifths of a white man for said purposes.

It appears that anti-slavery advocates wished not to count the Negro at all, while slave owners wanted to count him as a whole person. The fact that this debate came up at all hints that there was widespread belief that blacks should be less sovereign than whites. On the surface, it looks like that sentiment was felt more among the anti slavery sect. But not counting blacks as human to any degree would have given the anti slavery movement greater congressional voting power, which they would have used to abolish slavery. So admittedly, there were other reasons for discounting the black man as a whole person than simply the belief that he was a subhuman. In fact, not counting him might have brought about his freedom sooner, since the anti-slavery movement would have had more congressional votes to do it than slavery proponents.

For a more complete  Three Fifths Compromise definition see the Wikipedia article    here. 

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Arguments Against The Three-Fifths Compromise 

References

• Three Fifths Compromise    definition on Wikipedia

Indeed, I   support NPR funding   and believe that the government should do this to minimize news bias, just as it supports to other public educational sources. Because of the NPR funding, all sides can enter the discussion to ensure that bias is discouraged. This makes NPR is more than JUST a news outlet; it’s a sort of forum for all sides to meet and be heard with equality, uncolored by profiteering. Thus, NPR a place where people can get the least biased news around because all sides have an interest in the reporting. So keep funding NPR.

I support NPR funding because I doubt that any other news services offer   less bias  than NPR. We’ve acknowledged that all news services appear biased to somebody. But I’ve listened to thousands of hours of news, and perhaps a couple hundred hours of NPR’s broadcasts over the years. NPR at least, has processes in place to minimize bias, and I find that comforting.

NPR in its entirety does more than just news, yes. But they broadcast numerous shows that would indeed qualify them as (among other things) a very high-quality news service: All Things Considered, Morning Edition, On Point, and Talk to the Nation to mention a few.  For the minimal amount the government pays to NPR, this rich and diverse news information makes supporting government funding of National Public Radio money well spent.

Indeed, NPR does have biases; it would be impossible for any human-run news gathering service not to. But they don’t slant their reporting for profit or increased audience sizes. That is what makes them a unique and (in my opinion) essential part of the complete news media picture here in the US.  So I fervently support continued NPR funding. 

But in spite of all of this, thethe house just voted to move forward with the defunding of NPR. However, this will probably not survive the senate much less the president’s pen.  Thanks goodness that supporting NPR funding will continue, at least for the next couple years.

So let’s see. The government funds NPR at a rate of roughly five million dollars per year. Seems like small change compared to the savings that could be realized if the republicans focused more on what they promised they would in November, 2010, and worked with the democrats to devise a significant deficit reduction plan; one that cuts   hundreds of billions   instead of the mere millions that NPR funding costs.

Why did they spend so much house floor time debating the NPR issue? Do they just not like the content on NPR?   Apparently, they didn’t like someone speaking out against them, even though they taped the “foul” mouthed fellow without his knowledge. Pretty shady I’d say. Definitely a witch hunt, and certainly this does not justfy voting against support for NPR funding.

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• NPR Funding Debate
• Paying Too Much Tax?

References

• NPR Funding Sources   description on Wikipedia