Monthly Archives: March 2017

Parents often hope their children will carry on their traditions, walk the righteous paths they have trod, and uphold the ideals they held dear.

Soone must wonder thatwhen it comes to the Kennedy family, is it shocking that Ted Kennedys son, Connecticut State Senator Ted Kennedy, Jr. should take the family traditions of collectivism and thievery to their next logical steps -- all the way to literal grave robbing?

Fresh into his first term, Edward, His Royal Duke of Kennedy, has proposed SB 750, a bill that would mandate all citizens in the state be put on the Organ Donor list, keeping them fresh for harvest upon death unless they first take the initiative and demand they be taken off.

In essence, thescion of one of the greatest proponents of wage slavery in U.S. history is now saying that the government also owns the literal flesh, blood, bone, and sinews of every person in the state, and, like Doctor Frankenstein (who turned 199 years old on March 10), the bodies can be torn apart with the assumption that one has givenhis or her permission.

Said Dr. Kennestein:

There are people right now who are sitting at home, waiting for a phone call for a possible donor, and meanwhile were burying hundreds of people every day with perfectly good organs who could have donated those organs.

Thats right, Doctor. And just like aborted fetuses used for fetal stem cell harvests -- they never gave you their permission to cut them up for parts.

As noble as heir Kennedys intentions are, his is yet another case of the consequentialist mindset, which embraces the idea that the ends justify the means, and disregards the subjective intentions and valuations of the individual. Thus, force is applied by such thinking, force that now mandates that for the greater good, all citizens must act to defend their religious beliefs or personal preferences from the acquisitive hands of the state.

But perhaps ironically, Kennedy's own fatherco-sponsored a law in the U.S. Senate that forbids people from willingly selling their own organs. Since the law, known as the National Organ Transplant Act (co-sponsored by Kennedy, Al Gore and Orrin Hatch) was passed in 1984, hundreds of thousands of people have died waiting for donors, while arguablythousands would have been willing to donate if they or their families could have profited. As grisly as some might feel this harsh fact is, these are real outcomes of an unconstitutional law.

So while Mr. Kennedy bemoans the dearth of organs to save lives, he never mentions the role his own dad played in destroying the chances of thousands, perhaps tens or even hundreds of thousands, to live longer and better. Instead, he introduces a bill that perfectly befits a Kennedy: one of coercion, state control, and literal cannibalism for parts backed by the power of government.

Like the Son of Frankenstein, the Kennedy tradition continues. To Ted, Jr., people are the property of the state, there to be used for the greater good."

The hypocrisy appears to be genetic, as well, and its doubtful that any form of scientific intervention can stop it. It's unlikely that, in the future, mankind will invent a technology to transplant integrity.

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Ted Kennedy Jr. Proposes a State Bill That Would MANDATE Organ Harvesting - MRCTV (blog)

Subscribers dont usually get the last word when it comes to the Opinion page, but after Danny Morrison called me out in his most recent column for schooling him on his you-can-be-both-pro-choice-and-pro-life stance, I requested and received equal time to rebut his rebuttal of my rebuttal.

As with his first column, Mr. Morrisons more recent commentary on abortion and how he does/doesnt support it was a dizzying discourse that addressed everything from voter suppression and wage gap myths to how men are basically a big tribe of troglodytes. Everything except the question I actually put before him.

The question he so vigorously ignored centered on his contradictory belief that, though he is personally opposed to abortion, an act he considers shameful, the practice still deserves his enthusiastic support. So I asked him what it is he personally finds abhorrent about abortion. No comment.

Instead, he went with the assumption I must be a Christian conservative who is patently ignorant of American history, the law, womens rights, and the uterus-challenged, a dopey phrase that supports another of his arguments that men shouldnt be chiming in about abortion and other women-related subjects they apparently find incomprehensible.

His reference to some people interjecting religion into the abortion debate was curious as it was not I but he who made a faith-based argument. While I share with people of many faiths the belief that human beings are created in Gods image, and therefore are of inestimable worth, I rarely make faith-based arguments because they carry little weight with abortion supporters, who tend to dismiss them out of hand.

I prefer instead to appeal to the god they do revere the god of science, who routinely demonstrates through the miracle of ultrasound that from the moment of conception the unborn are wholly human. Its a reality that even the most ardent abortion supporters no longer deny because to do so is to deny science.

To establish his creds as an informed supporter of womens rights, Mr. Morrison lauded womens multigenerational fight for equality dating back to the days when suffragettes like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton campaigned for equal economic and political opportunities. You know what these early champions didnt support? Abortion.

The weekly newspaper Anthony founded and ran with Stanton, The Revolution, refused to carry ads for abortifacients and published articles from feminist leaders denouncing abortion as evil. Another feminist pioneer, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman to become a medical doctor in the United States, was passionate in her opposition to the cruelty of abortion, of which she once wrote, the gross perversion and destruction of motherhood by the abortionist filled me with indignation.

Thankfully, the early pioneers of womens rights believed equal rights extended to all women even those not yet born.

Finally, why any advocate for choice would bring up slavery and the Holocaust in a debate about abortion is beyond me, but Mr. Morrison did so, ostensibly to make some point about the legalities of those reprehensible practices. Still, placing those human rights violations on the same shelf as abortion is appropriate. Like abortion, each was legal in its day and each succeeded for a time because in the eyes of the courts Jews and slaves were not recognized as persons. Even so, can any of us imagine being personally opposed to slavery, but unwilling to impose that view on someone else? Cant you just hear the pro-slavery slogan of the day? Dont believe in slavery? Dont own one.

Sorry, Mr. Morrison. Your pro-life-is-pro-choice mantra may be convenient, but for the unborn lives you say you value, that line youre trying to straddle is so fine as not to exist at all.

Marylee Shrider is executive director of Right to Life of Kern County.

Originally posted here:

Community Voice: Straddling a line so fine it's nonexistent - The Bakersfield Californian

All of a sudden, much is being written on the pursuit of happiness, of 6 hour working days, of three and four days of work each week instead of the constancy of indenture and the trauma of wage slavery. Years ago, when I was the general manager of the Murdoch University Student Guild I went for all sorts of changes in workplace conditions only to be advised by the union, the NTEU (National Tertiary Education Union), to slow down, to not give away too much too soon. I did not slow down. I pushed through 17 changes to our Enterprise Bargaining Agreement. Happiness is everything, it is wellbeing and the dawn of all our meanings.

When I took on the management of this particular student guild, and the management of five of its commercial operations, it was a key concern facing the risk of insolvency. I inherited six industrial disputes and a sinking ship. But we turned it all around. We became one of the nations strongest guilds financially and politically. I was appalled at the low level of remuneration of many of my colleagues, most of them long-serving. Some were without tertiary qualifications and this was an argument used against them but I recognised equivalency of learning and skills acquired in the workplace over time. I did the position translations and increased everyones remuneration. My colleagues were stunned, the NTEU was stunned. We should not wait for the right side of history to loom in order to do what it is right. My sense of urgency and in putting people first led to high-morale. I also reduced the 40 hour week to a 37.5 hour working week but remuneration remained equal to a 40 hour week. I was unsuccessful in pushing for a 35 hour week after failing to secure the original goal of 30 hours a week. The 6 hours a day was scoffed at by the NTEU and by the student guild board members.

Society needs to be about people and subsequently the people will deliver the economy we should have, not one that some want for the majority. We must always remember that all structures are people. We are always working with one another.

The pursuit of happiness is imperative and just like the 1968 Paris workers rights protests argued for shorter working weeks, for three and four working days in a week, for balanced lives, for the right to be happy and free, these rights to our natural freedoms should remain inalienable.

If social justice and human rights are to continue unfolding then happiness, universal happiness has to be at the forefront. The shortest possible working weeks should be the deal. The assurance of work and financial security to everyone equality should be the reality of our generations. Life needs to be balanced to allow for what we were born into the inherent to be happy, free, to enjoy community, family and experiences other than work. In the contemporary maladies of this workplace driven world the above has been sidelined. We have been screwed over by unnatural imposts, where all our doings and expectations are maddeningly work-related and we compete with each other to achieve them; career, the climbing of the ladder, accolades. It is all theatre but one of unhappiness. A theatre of misery. We are taught about a world order that is dog-eat-dog, that we will make enemies in the workplace, that jealousy is a driver and that it can be ambitions fuel.

Human beings have become the most miserable species on the planet.

Art is the only outlet that may run a counter-narrative, where the outburst of unhappiness in the work-mad world, one of servitude to drudgery is disconnecting us from happiness. The revolution that is needed is becoming less likely as institutional and structural power imbalances are relentlessly shored up.

Disaster capitalism exploits dictatorially humanity. It is so bent on profit for the few that it leaves behind even more humanity in even direr circumstance. Capitalism is the maker of abject poverty and billions live utterly dirt-poor.

In this disaster capitalism, some nations do better than others. Some nations try to balance work and freedoms, to factor in the right to some relief and the hope for some happiness. Norway has amassed $885bn (727bn) to look after its ageing population rather than the elderly scrimp by in hovels in the last decades of life. In the face of the excesses that is capitalism this effort by Norway is noble. Norway nationalised some of its industries, and instead of an individual owning a resource company and the bulk of the revenue Norway does.

Australians are being asked to work more years in order to provide relief to an ailing economy. In this, the economy is not about the people. Australia does not own the resource companies that benefit from the oil and gas they drill, pump, barrel. A few individuals benefit from this obnoxious notoriety. Today a pension averages about $20,000 a year and it is tough going for pensioners. It is poverty. In twenty years the pension will be worth the equivalent of $70 a week comparatively in todays value dirt-poor lives. Unless Australians have a home paid off by the time they retire and have $1 million in superannuation they will do it poor. With the passing of each year less Australians will be on track to achieve this feat.

It is an indictment of Australias social policies that it does not have the sovereign wealth funds of nations such as Norway. If Australia refuses to nationalise industries and own its resources then there will come the time that Australia will be poor despite this today as seemingly unimaginable.

Australia needs to save for tomorrow. But not at the expense of peoples right to happiness and freedom. Australias only hope is to nationalise industries and resources and reduce work hours so that there is work for everyone. Let us spread the love and be that better society.

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The pursuit of happiness - The Stringer