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Statue Destroyed, Mike Tyson, Power Outages

By Theresa Fritz Camoriano

Statue Destroyed – Some young people from Louisville’s Southeast Christian Church were attending a camp in southern Indiana, where they were learning about the evils of worshiping idols.  They apparently decided that a man in the area who had a statue of the Virgin Mary on his property was worshiping an idol and decided to remedy the problem by destroying the statue, which they did.  Of course, when it was discovered that the trespassing, property-destroying vandals were from Southeast Christian Church, the church was embarrassed, reimbursed the man for his loss, and decided to teach “tolerance”.  Instead of teaching “tolerance”, which is just shorthand for “anything goes”, Southeast Christian ought to be teaching more about the dangers of worshiping idols, and they ought to be teaching about the need to respect private property. 

Of course, if the church began to teach these lessons, it would find that the young people were simply following the example of their elders when they decided to invade and destroy a person’s private property in order to enforce their religious views on others.  In recent months, Southeast Christian Church has been on a jihad against businesses that involve strippers or the sale of sexual stuff, promoting the use of zoning laws and regulations to move these businesses out of the area, and cutting their hours to the point that they could not function, with the goal of putting them out of business.  This jihad has shown a total lack of respect for private property rights, and it has involved worshiping the idol of government to enforce morality – both of which are contrary to the teachings of Jesus as well as being harmful and counterproductive to Christianity.  These tactics drive people away from Christianity and do nothing to save people’s souls.  However, they do inspire young vandals – not exactly what a Christian church should be seeking to achieve.

If the members of Southeast Christian Church want to save souls, they should be seeking to change the people from the inside out, rather than using force to control their behavior. For example, they could offer help and counseling to the people who frequent the strip clubs and shops or other people they think are following the wrong path.  They could try to embarrass the strip club customers and apply community pressure to shame them into changing their ways.  Remember Jesus and the woman who was to be stoned?  He said that he who is without sin should cast the first stone, and then he told the woman to go and sin no more.  He didn’t support the use of force but rather used persuasion.  If the Southeast Christian members who are so adamant about eliminating the strip clubs were able to successfully follow Jesus’ example and persuade the customers to change their ways, the sex-oriented businesses would close down for lack of business, not due to the use of force.  Instead, the force-based approach merely makes people fear putting any power into the hands of the “religious right”, drives them away from Christianity, and inspires young Christians to become hoodlums.

Mike Tyson – There has been a big fuss about Mike Tyson coming to Louisville for a boxing match.  Many say the state’s licensing laws are too lax, and Kentucky should not have allowed Tyson to box here.  But why should the state prevent Tyson or anyone else from earning a living by providing services to voluntary customers?  If Tyson wants to box, and if people want to pay to see him box, then the state should leave him alone unless he commits a crime or breaches a contract. 

This idea of requiring everyone to be licensed by the state before he or she can earn a living reminds me of my visit to Soviet Russia many years ago, where people who offended the state were essentially starved to death, because the state controlled all the jobs and refused to hire them, leaving them with no way to support themselves.  Attorneys, hair dressers, undertakers, electricians, and many other jobs already require a license from the state, with more licensing requirements being added all the time.  Why not let the purchasers of goods and services make up their own minds?  You won’t see me buying a ticket to watch Mike Tyson fight, but, if that’s how you want to spend your money, I respect your right to do it.

Power Outages – The state of Kentucky is undertaking a new marketing campaign to promote an image that will attract tourists and businesses to the state.  But no matter what kind of PR it uses, the truth eventually will come out.  While Kentucky is a beautiful state, has a nice, central location and generally good weather, it has some negatives that need to be corrected if we want to attract people and businesses here.  First, we need to be much more business friendly – reducing business taxes and regulations and creating an atmosphere in which we appreciate all the benefits that businesses bring, rather than attacking businesses and business people as if they were the devil incarnate.  Second, we need to have reliable electrical power.  This summer, our house has been without power for extended periods of at least 15 hours five times.  This latest outage lasted three days.  The damage that has been caused by these outages is enormous – basements flooding because sump pumps cannot work, food spoiling, businesses being unable to function, many households having to buy generators, and so forth.  I have lived in many places that have violent storms and in which trees sustain damage, but I have never had such poor electrical service anywhere else.  If Kentucky wants to be taken seriously as a place to live and do business, it has to do better than this. 

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