4 January, 2013<\/p>\n
Dear Editor,<\/p>\n
It is often difficult for people to see the folly of their own times.\u00a0 German philosophers speak of the Zeit Geist<\/i> (the \u201ctime ghost\u201d or “spirit of the time”) in which certain prejudices take root and fads prevail to the point of radically, even if temporarily, altering the mindset of the population.<\/p>\n
As recorded in his letter, \u201cResponsibility Starts Here\u201d (WNJ, July 17, 2012) President Kirchner\u2019s goals are four: \u00a0stop deficit spending, balance the budget, cut unnecessary high-paid administration, and protect fire and police services. Simple and apparently reasonable.\u00a0 His efforts have been opposed by half the council bringing sharp division among the city rulers. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It is not really a wonder when we consider the unfathomable debt that Americans have tolerated its leaders to perpetuate.<\/p>\n
In response to Mayor Riley\u2019s announcement in early December that $1 million had been cut from his proposed 2013 budget, Councilman Stuckert noted that, in fact, such was not the case.\u00a0\u00a0 He charged the mayor in a letter printed in the Journal (December 13) as follows:<\/p>\n
You say that $1 million was “cut” from the 2012 budget. That implies that there are $1 million in 2012 expenses that no longer exist.<\/p>\n
As you noted, our first reaction was to congratulate you. However, upon examination of the budget presented, we discovered that, in fact, hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenses are simply moved from the General Fund to the Water, Sewer and Waste Funds which are paid by our utility bills.<\/p>\n
Taxation and the management of a budget is not just a matter of running numbers, it is an accounting for money which has been duly extracted from the citizenry by a lawful process.\u00a0 Wars have been fought over what has been regarded as excessive or illegitimate taxation.\u00a0 The American Revolution is the one most dear to our national memory.\u00a0\u00a0 Our biblical memory informs our tendency toward smaller government.\u00a0 Under the laws of God a ten percent levy upon each household\u2019s income was to be paid to the great Legislator Himself through the temple priests.\u00a0 A king who demanded as much as the divinity Himself, must surely be a tyrant, but such is what an impious king would do (2 Sam. 8:15ff.).<\/p>\n
Nationally, we have come a long way in our preference for Godless tyranny and its evolving laws and morality.\u00a0 Governments take from the workers and give not just to the needy but to the indolent.\u00a0 And inexcusable are the deeds of a government which takes the people\u2019s money and then pays for the butchery of \u201cunwanted\u201d human beings with that money. \u00a0Indeed, and we re-elect such people to keep the horror coming.<\/p>\n
Back to our local government, the hopeful citizen might find some comfort in the actions of the tenacious citizenship of Paul Hunter.\u00a0 This man for the past 20 years has been attending city council meetings, researching issues, and contributing ideas to those in office. He has said that from all the years of doggedly faithful attendance, he views the current city council as the best he has seen.\u00a0 They are grappling with the issues of responsible government and looking for innovative ways to honorably keep the people\u2019s trust and to uphold justice. Councilmen Kirchner, Stuckert, and Wells have stayed this course without wavering.<\/p>\n
Ponder, for a change in Zeit,<\/i> the mindset of Plato as he considered the danger of depopulation to a nation. The fourth century Clement of Alexandria writes about Plato\u2019s attitude toward population and those who thwart the good that growing numbers brings to a society:<\/p>\n
The renowned Plato orders the man who has not married to pay a wife\u2019s maintenance into the public treasure, and to give to the magistrates a suitable sum of money as expenses.\u00a0 For if they shall not beget children, not having married, they produce, as far in them lies, a scarcity of men, and dissolve states and the world that is composed of them, impiously doing away with divine generation.<\/p>\n
The modern man looks down his nose at such bizarre notions as though they were the curious stock of quaint fairy tales. \u00a0\u201cPopulation is a curse<\/i> to the environment!\u201d he screeches. No matter the generation of national strength and prosperity which population growth brings.<\/p>\n
We grant that it is not just the procreation that makes for healthy civilization.\u00a0 The Christian ethical system was brought to bear upon the Greco-Roman culture and elevated it in many ways as it established the sanctity of both marriage and human life.\u00a0 Sodomy, pederasty, and polygamy were out; monogamy, the work ethic, political optimism, and the humanitarian transformation of society were in. The kingdom of God had come; Christ was seated in power \u201cat the right hand of the Father\u201d; the world was advancing, not regressing.\u00a0 And it was moving toward a conclusive moment of evaluation by an inerrant and omnipotent Judge.\u00a0 Yes, Judgment Day was at the end of time and then a fork in the road by which two groups would part company forever.<\/p>\n
As we enter the 40th<\/sup> anniversary of the Roe v. Wade<\/i> edict and complete four decades of our American atrocity, our Zeit Geist<\/i>, is one which lethargically permits the continued butchery of future generations.\u00a0 Would that we had the spirit to change and that God would be willing to forgive us without pouring out well deserved real-time national judgment.<\/p>\n Perhaps it is anti-climactic to return to the Wilmington City budget.\u00a0\u00a0 The decision to choose right over wrong is always important for the people and their governors to weigh – \u00a0whether the issue\u00a0 of creating debt for the backs of the next generation or that of the life of a child is in the balance.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 4 January, 2013 Dear Editor, It is often difficult for people to see the folly of their own times.\u00a0 German philosophers speak of the Zeit Geist (the \u201ctime ghost\u201d or “spirit of the time”) in which certain prejudices take root and fads prevail to the point of radically, even if temporarily, altering the mindset of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wilmington-ohio-news-journal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1185"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1191,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1185\/revisions\/1191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}