“Walls of Silence”
Sydney M. Williams
“And we can’t let Washington stand in the way of our recovery…The most important thing Congress needs to do right now is stop taxes going up on 160 million Americans at the end of this month.” Amen! Those Reaganesque words were not spoken by one of the Republican candidates for President. They were not said by Governors Mitch Daniels, Chris Christie or Scott Walker. They were not spoken by Florida’s Senator Mark Rubio or Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan.
They were uttered, amazingly and audaciously, by the man who in three years has signed at least twelve tax increases in the midst of recession and who has passed more sweeping legislation designed to get Washington in front of the private sector than anyone since FDR. They were said by President Barack Obama on Friday, at a speech – read from a teleprompter, of course – in Arlington, Virginia about his veteran’s jobs plan. Remarkably, the press was notably silent as to the inherent contradiction between the President’s actions and his words. If there is any truth to the story of Pinocchio, Mr. Obama’s nose must have grown twelve inches!
Earlier during the week, Mr. Obama approved new regulations from the Health and Human Services Department that require Catholic individuals to buy, and Catholic institutions (i.e. hospitals, schools, colleges, social services, etc.) to provide, health insurance plans that cover sterilizations and artificial contraceptives, including those that induce abortions. Individually we may agree or disagree as to the merits of abortion or sterilization. But we should always keep in mind that there are those on the other side of our beliefs who deserve respect and tolerance. When government proves intolerant that should be news. A decision not to provide such services would result in a fine, the size of which might easily bankrupt the entity. In a blatantly political move, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that while the rule will go into effect on August 1st of this year for everyone else, Catholic organizations would have another year to comply – conveniently meaning forced implementation for Catholics would be after the November Presidential election – not dissimilar, from a political perspective, to the seven tax increases scheduled to go into effect on January 1, 2013.
Unsurprisingly, this has raised a maelstrom in the Catholic world, but mainstream media has largely gone mute. Controversy, when it affects their favorite politician, is not news fit to print, to borrow and bastardize the banner line of America’s most liberal paper.
I am not a Catholic. I believe a woman, just like a man, has a right to make her own decisions regarding anything that might affect her body, her mind or her conscience. But those are my opinions, not to be imposed on anyone, anymore than should Mr. Obama’s opinions and beliefs be imposed on me. Religious freedom is a fundamental right of the American people, as is my fundamental right to join, or not join, any church or synagogue. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” (emphasis, mine) is the first line of the First Amendment. I suspect that those words, as well, apply to Executive orders, which increasingly are being substituted for Congressional-passed laws in our country where Czars rule, people obey and Washington too often stands in the way. That, also, should be news.
Despite the uproar from within the Catholic hierarchy, the amoral, but Catholic Nancy Pelosi, sided with the President, proving once again that politics trump morality and that toads should never be entrusted with power: “First of all, I am going to stick with my fellow Catholics on this. I think it was a very courageous decision that they made, and I support it.” God bless her hypocrisy.
Two years ago, Peggy Noonan led the charge against the charges of pedophilia and its blind denial that was destroying the Catholic Church, a corruption fomented by priests and others who considered themselves infallible. On Saturday, siding with the Church, she penned an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, arguing that the President, in signing Ms. Sebelius’ new regulations, may have made a mistake fatal to his re-election possibilities. It was entitled: “A Battle the President Can’t Win.” Supporting the notion of a press that has become mute, she wrote: “a bomb went off that not many in the political class heard, or understood.” She added, accurately in my opinion: “There was no reason to make this ruling – none. Except ideology.”
President Obama was uncharacteristically silent during his State of the Union on two of his, what Victor Davis Hanson has called, “supposedly signature achievements,” the $800 billion dollar stimulus that only stimulated our deficits and the increasingly unpopular Affordable Care Act. Republicans have been in control for only one third of Mr. Obama’s Presidency, yet to hear him talk they are “Washington” and he is “Mr. Outside.”
When the press is not silent, it is actively pursuing a favored, activist agenda. In Ross Douthat’s Sunday column in the New York Times, aptly entitled “The Media’s Abortion Blinders,” he writes of the controversy that arose when Nancy Brinker of the Susan G, Komen for the Cure foundation, a fund dedicated to preventing breast cancer, would withhold a previously announced $700 thousand donation to Planned Parenthood. Anti-choice activists had argued that Planned Parenthood encouraged abortions over adoptions. Despite the fact that in 2010 Planned Parenthood referred only 841 pregnant women toward adoption versus 329,445 toward abortions, the press went wild. As Mr. Douthat writes, “But on the abortion issue, the press’s prejudice are often absolute, its biases blatant and its blinders impenetrable.” Ms. Brinker bowed to the pressure from the press and reinstated the donation.
My point is not to moralize in favor of or against abortion. My complaint is with the press. The role of the fourth estate should be to report the news, to be alert to the usurpation of power and to defend the individual’s inherent rights of freedom. It does the people it serves a disservice when it imposes a wall of silence to protect those it favors, while permitting reporters to editorialize, especially when it purports to be a national newspaper. Its editorial pages alone should express the opinions of its editors and publishers. A wall of silence serves no one, other than those in power.
Thought of the Day
“Walls of Silence”
February 6, 2012“And we can’t let Washington stand in the way of our recovery…The most important thing Congress needs to do right now is stop taxes going up on 160 million Americans at the end of this month.” Amen! Those Reaganesque words were not spoken by one of the Republican candidates for President. They were not said by Governors Mitch Daniels, Chris Christie or Scott Walker. They were not spoken by Florida’s Senator Mark Rubio or Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan.
They were uttered, amazingly and audaciously, by the man who in three years has signed at least twelve tax increases in the midst of recession and who has passed more sweeping legislation designed to get Washington in front of the private sector than anyone since FDR. They were said by President Barack Obama on Friday, at a speech – read from a teleprompter, of course – in Arlington, Virginia about his veteran’s jobs plan. Remarkably, the press was notably silent as to the inherent contradiction between the President’s actions and his words. If there is any truth to the story of Pinocchio, Mr. Obama’s nose must have grown twelve inches!
Earlier during the week, Mr. Obama approved new regulations from the Health and Human Services Department that require Catholic individuals to buy, and Catholic institutions (i.e. hospitals, schools, colleges, social services, etc.) to provide, health insurance plans that cover sterilizations and artificial contraceptives, including those that induce abortions. Individually we may agree or disagree as to the merits of abortion or sterilization. But we should always keep in mind that there are those on the other side of our beliefs who deserve respect and tolerance. When government proves intolerant that should be news. A decision not to provide such services would result in a fine, the size of which might easily bankrupt the entity. In a blatantly political move, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that while the rule will go into effect on August 1st of this year for everyone else, Catholic organizations would have another year to comply – conveniently meaning forced implementation for Catholics would be after the November Presidential election – not dissimilar, from a political perspective, to the seven tax increases scheduled to go into effect on January 1, 2013.
Unsurprisingly, this has raised a maelstrom in the Catholic world, but mainstream media has largely gone mute. Controversy, when it affects their favorite politician, is not news fit to print, to borrow and bastardize the banner line of America’s most liberal paper.
I am not a Catholic. I believe a woman, just like a man, has a right to make her own decisions regarding anything that might affect her body, her mind or her conscience. But those are my opinions, not to be imposed on anyone, anymore than should Mr. Obama’s opinions and beliefs be imposed on me. Religious freedom is a fundamental right of the American people, as is my fundamental right to join, or not join, any church or synagogue. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” (emphasis, mine) is the first line of the First Amendment. I suspect that those words, as well, apply to Executive orders, which increasingly are being substituted for Congressional-passed laws in our country where Czars rule, people obey and Washington too often stands in the way. That, also, should be news.
Despite the uproar from within the Catholic hierarchy, the amoral, but Catholic Nancy Pelosi, sided with the President, proving once again that politics trump morality and that toads should never be entrusted with power: “First of all, I am going to stick with my fellow Catholics on this. I think it was a very courageous decision that they made, and I support it.” God bless her hypocrisy.
Two years ago, Peggy Noonan led the charge against the charges of pedophilia and its blind denial that was destroying the Catholic Church, a corruption fomented by priests and others who considered themselves infallible. On Saturday, siding with the Church, she penned an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, arguing that the President, in signing Ms. Sebelius’ new regulations, may have made a mistake fatal to his re-election possibilities. It was entitled: “A Battle the President Can’t Win.” Supporting the notion of a press that has become mute, she wrote: “a bomb went off that not many in the political class heard, or understood.” She added, accurately in my opinion: “There was no reason to make this ruling – none. Except ideology.”
President Obama was uncharacteristically silent during his State of the Union on two of his, what Victor Davis Hanson has called, “supposedly signature achievements,” the $800 billion dollar stimulus that only stimulated our deficits and the increasingly unpopular Affordable Care Act. Republicans have been in control for only one third of Mr. Obama’s Presidency, yet to hear him talk they are “Washington” and he is “Mr. Outside.”
When the press is not silent, it is actively pursuing a favored, activist agenda. In Ross Douthat’s Sunday column in the New York Times, aptly entitled “The Media’s Abortion Blinders,” he writes of the controversy that arose when Nancy Brinker of the Susan G, Komen for the Cure foundation, a fund dedicated to preventing breast cancer, would withhold a previously announced $700 thousand donation to Planned Parenthood. Anti-choice activists had argued that Planned Parenthood encouraged abortions over adoptions. Despite the fact that in 2010 Planned Parenthood referred only 841 pregnant women toward adoption versus 329,445 toward abortions, the press went wild. As Mr. Douthat writes, “But on the abortion issue, the press’s prejudice are often absolute, its biases blatant and its blinders impenetrable.” Ms. Brinker bowed to the pressure from the press and reinstated the donation.
My point is not to moralize in favor of or against abortion. My complaint is with the press. The role of the fourth estate should be to report the news, to be alert to the usurpation of power and to defend the individual’s inherent rights of freedom. It does the people it serves a disservice when it imposes a wall of silence to protect those it favors, while permitting reporters to editorialize, especially when it purports to be a national newspaper. Its editorial pages alone should express the opinions of its editors and publishers. A wall of silence serves no one, other than those in power.
Labels: TOTD
posted by Thought of the Day @ 5:47 AM
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