Category: Critical Issues

Critical Issues

Privatizing Prisons?

Posted on by John W Gillis / 0 Comment

Jazz Shaw has a troubling post on the blog over at HotAir.com, dealing with a recent suggestion from Pennsylvania Auditor General Jack Wagner to freeze new prison construction funding in PA. As the Entitlements Chicken comes home to roost, states are likely to begin looking at their corrections systems for ways to save. Nothing wrong with that in theory, but I have a hard time seeing how the typical alignment of political squabbling will produce a good path forward. To wit, Shaw’s two-cent’s worth on available options: Wagner is excluding the ranks of mu...

Critical Issues

People cannot claim a right to kill you simply because they will not recognize you as a person

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Quote of the Day for Wednesday, January 26th, 2011: Joe Carter, writing an “On the Square” column over at FirstThings.com, on Being a Person: But should all human beings be considered persons? Historically, the answer has been a resounding “no.” Slaves, women, infants, Jews, and “foreigners” all share a common history of being denied legal or moral standing as persons, despite being recognized as humans. The judgment of recent generations, however, has without exception concluded that denying personhood to these members of the human family is a great mor...

Critical Issues

There can be no lasting prosperity without a moral foundation in law

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Quote of the Day for Monday, January 24th, 2011: Indiana Congressman Mike Pence addressing the rallying assembly this morning before beginning the annual Walk for Life in Washington DC: We gather to mark the 38th anniversary of the worst Supreme Court decision since Dred Scott. And we gather today in the shadow of a new pro-life majority on Capitol Hill. And we will keep gathering until Roe v. Wade is sent to the ash heap of history where it belongs. These are trying times in the life of this nation. Our economy is struggling and our national government ...

Critical Issues

They couldn’t help noticing the disgusting conditions, the dazed patients, the discarded fetuses

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Quote of the Day for Thursday, January 20, 2011: From page 8 of the Grand Jury report of the First Judicial District of Pennsylvania concerning the long-unfettered illegal practices of abortionist Kermit B. Gosnell, M.D: Pennsylvania is not a third-world country. There were several oversight agencies that stumbled upon and should have shut down Kermit Gosnell long ago. But none of them did, not even after Karnamaya Mongar’s death. In the end, Gosnell was only caught by accident, when police raided his offices to seize evidence of his illegal prescription...

Critical Issues

Definitions Are Not Neutral

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Quote of the Day for Friday, November 26, 2010: Rita L. Marker and Wesley J. Smith on euthanasia & euphemism, from a paper first appearing in the Duquesne Law Review Vol. 35, No. 1 (Fall 1996) pp. 81-107 under the title “The Art of Verbal Engineering, ” published on-line by the International Anti-Euthanasia Task Force: Today when mercy killing is discussed, it is couched in euphemisms — words of gentleness or the language of rights. Titles of euthanasia advocacy groups contain words like “compassion,” “choice,̶...

Critical Issues

Gay Marriage and the Handicapped Parking Spot Problem: A Parable

Posted on by John W Gillis / 1 Comment

Once upon a time, a certain society made a conscious decision to confer a particular benefit upon a specific segment of the population: the rationale being that people with various physical ailments encountered particular hardships when attempting to access various public places, because of the long distances they often needed to locomote themselves after parking their cars in parking lots and garages – their physical ailments and disorders making such treks tedious, and sometimes even dangerous. As a remedy to this perceived problem, the society – let’s...

Critical Issues

Body/Soul Dualism, the Commodification of Man, and the Contradiction of Death

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As a rule, I like Jeff Jacoby’s columns, and even agree with him as often as not, but every now and then he comes out with something I find downright unconscionable. His July 5th Boston Globe op-ed promoting the marketing of human organs is an unfortunate example of the latter. With the recent liver transplant of celebrity tech guru Steve Jobs having again roiled the waters of the debate over the “fairness” of our current organ donation system, Jacoby has added his voice to the rising tide of liberal, utilitarian opinion promising free market “solutions”...

Critical Issues

Tiller and the Reaper, Part 2

Posted on by John W Gillis / 2 Comments

Still thinking tonight about the assassination of George Tiller; a few things have surprised me. I lead a busy life, and don’t spend a lot of time perusing news sources and other media outlets, so my sample size is rather small, but it seems from my limited perspective that the press coverage has been strangely muted. There is no serious debating that the journalistic class almost purely represents the cultural elite that embraces abortion, and I really thought they would be harping all over this. I suppose it’s early yet, and it could still become a cau...

Critical Issues

Tiller Meets the Reaper

Posted on by John W Gillis / 2 Comments

So, “Tiller the Baby Killer” has met his demise – assassinated this morning during church services. I can only groan over the anticipated avalanche of righteous indignation cascading from the heights of the pro-abortion ranks. Like the proverbial mandatory pinch of incense for Caesar, everyone who is publicly pro-life will be required to preface any and all remarks on the matter by condemning the assassination. I am not an advocate of violence – assassination or otherwise – so I have no personal  problem with condemning the act, but I do have a prob...

Critical Issues

Discrimination Could Maybe Use a Little Discrimination

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Is there any end in sight to the inanity of Homosex discrimination claims? I have watched, befuddled, as my society has lurched like a drunken monkey along the road to recognizing the legal validity of the inherently absurd and self-contradictory notion of “gay marriage” (having had a front-row seat for one of the opening acts of the circus here in Massachusetts), and today Reuters is reporting that the online dating service eHarmony.com has been forced, via lawsuit, to offer dating services that meet the particular aims of homosexuals. Accor...