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Hot Off The Press – A Bird’s Eye View of Gov’t, A Proposal For Cleaning Up The Mess in Frankfort, The Catholic Church and Politics, and The Drug War’s Latest Victim

by Theresa Fritz Camoriano

1.     Bird’s Eye View of Gov’t – Last Friday morning, when I arrived at my office, I shoveled the snow off the steps, sprinkled on some salt, and then went downstairs to make myself some tea.  I was very surprised to find a large bird flying around in the basement of my office, throwing itself against the windows and flailing its wings, trying to get out.  I quickly opened the windows and tried to shoo the bird toward an open window.  However, the bird kept going to the far left of each window, and kept flailing and struggling against the glass, while the window openings were on the right, only a few inches away. As I stood there feeling sorry for the small-brained bird, I was suddenly struck by the fact that this bird was providing an allegory for Kentucky politics.  The Democrat party, and its mouthpiece, The Courier-Journal, have, for many years, been flailing about and striving to reach utopia by the far-left, socialist route.  Just like the bird, they never make progress along that far-left route, because it defies the reality of human nature.  However, instead of recognizing that they are pursuing a failed course and considering a better approach, like that poor bird, they continue to flail in the same far-left direction.  As Governor Fletcher’s new administration proposes budget cuts and begins to try a new and hopefully more successful approach, the Democrats and The C-J simply squawk and continue their flailing.  Let’s hope the citizens of Kentucky will give this administration a chance to try a new path, and let’s hope, for the sake of everyone, that it will be a shift in the direction of respect for private property rights, which will lead to greater success, freedom, and prosperity.

2.       Cleaning Up Frankfort -   If the Fletcher administration wants us to believe that it is doing its best to clean up the government in Frankfort, a good first step would be to post its books on the Internet so the citizens can see where their money is going.   Taxpayers and legislators should be able to go on-line to a sortable, searchable database that is kept relatively current, so they can see where their money is going.  If, after looking at the books, people see places where they think cuts or savings should be made, they can let their elected officials know.  Or, if people like the Democrat party leaders and the editors of The C-J think the state is not spending enough money in certain areas, they can write checks and send in some more money, earmarking it for the projects they think are most important.  Posting the books in this manner would certainly go a long way toward showing that our elected officials are doing their best to spend our money wisely rather than lining their own and their buddies’ pockets at our expense.

3.     The Catholic Church and Politics – A Catholic bishop has told Catholic elected officials that, if they continue to support legal abortion, he will instruct their churches not to allow them to receive communion.  The elected officials complain that this is coercion and is excessive, but where’s the coercion?  The church is not forcing anyone to be a member.  It is simply saying that people who plainly do not adhere to its tenets should not be treated as full members of the church.  Sounds fair enough to me.  Actually, it is the elected officials who are in the coercion business, not the church.  Almost every time the elected officials pass a new law, they are authorizing the police to shoot anyone who does not comply with that law.   Now that’s coercion!

4.  The latest victim of the drug war – A Louisville policeman recently shot and killed a young black man who was running away from an undercover drug buy.  It is not difficult to imagine that the young man was shocked and upset to find that his willing customer, whose wishes he was trying to serve, was actually a policeman intent on putting him in jail.  This is just another example of the destructive nature of our laws against vice.  Now, the young man is dead at the hands of the police, and his former customers simply will move on and find another source for the drugs they want to buy.  And the good, upstanding folks who insist on pursuing the “war on drugs” have a little more blood on their hands.

"Being a role model is the most powerful form of educating.
Youngsters need good role models more than they need critics.  It
is one of a parent's greatest responsibilities and opportunities.
Too often fathers neglect it because they get so caught up in
making a living they forget to make a life." --John Wooden, former
UCLA Basketball Coach

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