In many industries, such as taxi cab services, commercial river running and dentistry, unfettered competition is not allowed. This is done to prevent various types of chaos–cutthroat competition, overcrowding and indiscriminate teeth pulling. I propose one more area that cries out for some type of regulation-- the ever burgeoning and prolific industry of telephone directory services–hard copy and internet services. Perhaps the biggest–the Quest Dex–demands more than Uncle Sam does in federal taxes with the promise that if it doesn’t increase your wealth at least you’ll be entertained with the contortionist antics of its millionaire pitchman.
After selling your soul to Dex, you will have to decide which of the dozen other phone book companies to spend your pension and health insurance money on--the Regional Yellow Pages, the local Yellow Book, the Valley Wide Directory, the Dex Hispanic Section, the Hispanic Yellow Pages, the Local Union Directory, the City Directory, the Gay Yellow Pages and so on and so forth. What’s a business owner to do? Which book will the home owner keep and which name comes up most on the internet? And how many times have you either paid or almost paid a fake directory solicitation posing as a bill? I say please, for the love of Pete, let’s reach some kind of truce here in which either only a limited number of phone directories are given license to compile directories or lets all enter into a pact to only keep the directories that we buy advertising space in and join together to create a collective bargaining agreement to negotiate lower prices. Okay?
Loren M. Lambert
November 6, 2007 ©
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
THE NEW CEO OF WATER BOARD INC.–MICHAEL MUKASEY
President Bush’s nominee for attorney general, Michael Mukasey, says he doesn’t know if water boarding is torture. Where on this planet does President Bush find these guys? What hole, rock, prison, escape hatch from hell did he scout out to find these jewels of intellectual duplicity?
I was pondering this question when I realized what a genius Mukasey is. Could it be that he, like many of Bush’s cronies, has or wants some connection to big business--like maybe starting up a company that manufactures equipment to use for water boarding? Or perhaps he has stock in the company that just came up with the new video game that gives people like him the thrills of torture? Or just maybe he’s being cute, like the US Supreme Court’s pronouncement on pornography--"I don’t know how to define pornography [torture], but I know it when I see [feel] it."
Someone should check on this. In the meantime, unless he actually supports Bush’s torture policy and doesn’t want to let on, his response indicates that he’s either been hiding out in a cave for his entire life or he has the IQ of a nematode and thought that, after wake boarding, water boarding would soon be that next big X-Game sport. Whatever the explanation, is this the guy we want providing leadership to ensure that the United States of America can repair the damage done from the sub-par leadership that gave us the endless stream of failures in Iraq?
No. He, like the company that just released the new torture video game that would be proud to have him as its huckster, should be boycotted, shunned, booed and rejected. Get someone that has the courage to stand up to the Bush team’s disdain for the law and disregard for human dignity, and who can stop dragging us into the Bush Presidency’s morass of twisted rationalization.
Loren M. Lambert
November 6, 2007 ©
I was pondering this question when I realized what a genius Mukasey is. Could it be that he, like many of Bush’s cronies, has or wants some connection to big business--like maybe starting up a company that manufactures equipment to use for water boarding? Or perhaps he has stock in the company that just came up with the new video game that gives people like him the thrills of torture? Or just maybe he’s being cute, like the US Supreme Court’s pronouncement on pornography--"I don’t know how to define pornography [torture], but I know it when I see [feel] it."
Someone should check on this. In the meantime, unless he actually supports Bush’s torture policy and doesn’t want to let on, his response indicates that he’s either been hiding out in a cave for his entire life or he has the IQ of a nematode and thought that, after wake boarding, water boarding would soon be that next big X-Game sport. Whatever the explanation, is this the guy we want providing leadership to ensure that the United States of America can repair the damage done from the sub-par leadership that gave us the endless stream of failures in Iraq?
No. He, like the company that just released the new torture video game that would be proud to have him as its huckster, should be boycotted, shunned, booed and rejected. Get someone that has the courage to stand up to the Bush team’s disdain for the law and disregard for human dignity, and who can stop dragging us into the Bush Presidency’s morass of twisted rationalization.
Loren M. Lambert
November 6, 2007 ©
ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
If due to fear we are too timid to confront a friend and ally with the awful truth of its past, then what hope have we ever of mustering the courage to confront others with the alarming truth of their present–the same truth that compels them forward to relive the failures committed by the Ottoman Empire a hundred years ago?
Besides, wouldn’t we all be bigger if the Turkish parliament simply apologized for its past history, promulgate its own resolution declaring as genocide the United State’s treatment of the Native Americans, and then called it even?
Finally, to make it all feasible, I will apologize in advance for my ancestors and the American people.
Loren M. Lambert
October 16, 2007 ©
Besides, wouldn’t we all be bigger if the Turkish parliament simply apologized for its past history, promulgate its own resolution declaring as genocide the United State’s treatment of the Native Americans, and then called it even?
Finally, to make it all feasible, I will apologize in advance for my ancestors and the American people.
Loren M. Lambert
October 16, 2007 ©
PAKISTAN'S LAWYERS FOR DEMOCRACY
Thousands of Pakistani Lawyers, showing great courage in stepping out of the privileged lives they enjoy, have been beaten, jailed and most likely tortured, for opposing Pakistan Dictator, General Pervez Musharraf’s declaration of Marshal Law. These lawyers, who probably have great influence and widespread support throughout all levels of Pakistan, are bulwarks for democracy. They should be supported by any means available. They, instead of Musharraf, are best positioned to bring about real change and democracy to Pakistan.
Both Shakespeare and Mao Se Tung understood that, before obtaining complete control over a population, dictators first obliterate the legal system by killing the lawyers and judges. They are the proverbial canaries in the mine. After they go, so will everyone else that is a friend of democracy and of law and order.
General Musharraf only does enough to aid the US in its fight against Pakistan to placate the west and perpetuate his power. But don’t expect the Bush administration to really care about the lawyers. Like Musharraf, the Bush administration, masterful in pronouncing superficialities, will publicly, but mutely, condemn Musharraf while then continuing to aid his government and going on as if nothing has happened. In the long run, this will be a disaster and will cause the radicalization of Musharraf’s opposition, which, out of necessity, will also have to rebel against Musharraf’s most ardent supporter, the United States of the Bush Administration.
Loren M. Lambert
November 6, 2007 ©
Both Shakespeare and Mao Se Tung understood that, before obtaining complete control over a population, dictators first obliterate the legal system by killing the lawyers and judges. They are the proverbial canaries in the mine. After they go, so will everyone else that is a friend of democracy and of law and order.
General Musharraf only does enough to aid the US in its fight against Pakistan to placate the west and perpetuate his power. But don’t expect the Bush administration to really care about the lawyers. Like Musharraf, the Bush administration, masterful in pronouncing superficialities, will publicly, but mutely, condemn Musharraf while then continuing to aid his government and going on as if nothing has happened. In the long run, this will be a disaster and will cause the radicalization of Musharraf’s opposition, which, out of necessity, will also have to rebel against Musharraf’s most ardent supporter, the United States of the Bush Administration.
Loren M. Lambert
November 6, 2007 ©
GEORGIA BELIEVES A YOUTHFUL INDISCRETION MERITS 10 YEARS IN JAIL
When I heard about Genarlow Wilson, who had his 10-year prison sentence overturned for having consensual oral sex when he was 17-years-old with a 15-year-old female, I was flabbergasted and astounded. First, because of the length, second, because it took two and a half years to overturn the sentence, and third, because I hadn’t heard about it before. When the sentence was first passed, it should have caused a firestorm. This case typifies almost every idiocy of the United States federal and state criminal justice systems. In our constant haste to show, by authoritarian force, how we are allegedly tough on crime, we weld our laws to impose our fanatical religious excesses and our bias ridden philosophies on the immature, impoverished and impaired. Often, it is not the blind matron of Liberty, with her equal scales of justice being held up to the multitudes, that best symbolizes our sense of fairness. Instead, it is the many-eyed, bloated black widow who is discriminately spewing out sticky webs to entrap and imprison all who are unfortunate enough to have blundered into her traps to be bundled up, stung, and stored away to have their life slowly sucked away.
Genarlow’s 10-year prison sentence is a stark example of Georgia’s, if not the Nation’s, religious and racial bigotry. Passing draconian laws to control the human race’s sexual proclivities because of our religious zealotry is like trying to control a fistful of slime by squeezing it more tightly in your hand. The harder you squeeze the more dismal will be your loss of control. While, as a society, we certainly need some boundaries to curb the dangerous sexual excesses of the few, we do not need to crucify the handful of the millions who engage in a youthful, or even adult indiscretion and are caught. The truth is there are perhaps hundreds if not thousands of thousands that have engaged in some sexual activities that would, when acknowledged publically, be deemed inappropriate by the "moral majority." This alleged "moral majority" needs to again learn the lesson that Jesus gave the world when he rescued the adulteress from stoning. I am confident that the same Jesus would stand at Genarlow’s side and many of the other alleged criminals crushed by our system of mandatory minimums and ridiculously long prison sentences. This punishment is meted out by those in authority who, if they were honest, are not without sin and, therefore, not worthy to cast such an unforgiving and unmerciful stone.
Some may think that Genarlow’s case is a single anomaly of things gone horribly wrong. It is not. It could never have happened without the combined effort of hundreds of religious extremists and secretly racist zealots in the Georgia State legislative, executive, and judiciary branches of government who have joined forces to promulgate, enforce, prosecute, and impose a law that would knowingly be selectively used against black Americans and other disfavored minorities and groups. Now, how can I make such a claim when the law is religiously and racially neutral? I can because, while the dictator of Iran may claim there are no homosexuals in Iran, and the elite in Georgia may claim there are no other 17-year-old men that have had consensual sex with 15-year-old women, every honest human being who has knowingly experienced this life with their eyes fully open and their ears fully engaged (no matter how "pure" their own lives) know this is just not the case. The only reason it may appear so is, because in Iran any homosexual who dares reveal his or her orientation is murdered; and in Georgia you can bet when some elite white law enforcement officer’s child is caught in the act, discretion is exercised by quietly looking the other way. Intuition would also indicate that, although it was not said, Georgians most likely passed such a law to wield against any black American who dared touch a white woman. In essence, if they couldn’t get away with lynching, then a mandatory 10-year sentence could maybe pass under the radar (which it apparently did).
The other issue brought to the front by the Genarlow case is the fallacy, in its current day application, that statutory rape and statutory sexual abuse laws can be wholly justified without serious question. These laws often impose unduly harsh sentences for engaging in sex with a minor even though there is not a great disparity in age of the participants and the female was honestly perceived for being of adult age. Also, most of these laws are imposed, either explicitly or by implementation, against only the male partner of the consensual sex. This is not appropriate.
The notion that consent when given by a minor child to engage in sex or that a mis-perception of the age of one’s partner in consensual sex should not drastically mitigate the consequences is unjustifiable. Moreover, the additional cultural sentiment that the minor female never bears responsibility for consensual sex sends the wrong message and is inequitable.
As an attorney, I have encountered many cases in which the female partner’s choices, actions, and own criminality, were equal too, if not more condemnable than her male partner. In such cases, should not society be as equally concerned about redirecting the female participant as well as the male? Additionally, there is a great difference in a male who knowingly pursues and entices an underage female into engaging in sexual relations than a male who honestly believes he is having sex with an adult who is fully capable of understanding the consequences of her choices. In short, instead of disintegrating into a revengeful society bent on metaphorical lynching and stoning, as Bill O’Reilly has said, we need a fair and balanced approach in our laws that attempt to manage human sexuality within reasonable boundaries without creating criminals of all who are unwilling or unable to adhere to our religious and moral views on human sexuality.
Loren M. Lambert
November 6, 2007 ©
Genarlow’s 10-year prison sentence is a stark example of Georgia’s, if not the Nation’s, religious and racial bigotry. Passing draconian laws to control the human race’s sexual proclivities because of our religious zealotry is like trying to control a fistful of slime by squeezing it more tightly in your hand. The harder you squeeze the more dismal will be your loss of control. While, as a society, we certainly need some boundaries to curb the dangerous sexual excesses of the few, we do not need to crucify the handful of the millions who engage in a youthful, or even adult indiscretion and are caught. The truth is there are perhaps hundreds if not thousands of thousands that have engaged in some sexual activities that would, when acknowledged publically, be deemed inappropriate by the "moral majority." This alleged "moral majority" needs to again learn the lesson that Jesus gave the world when he rescued the adulteress from stoning. I am confident that the same Jesus would stand at Genarlow’s side and many of the other alleged criminals crushed by our system of mandatory minimums and ridiculously long prison sentences. This punishment is meted out by those in authority who, if they were honest, are not without sin and, therefore, not worthy to cast such an unforgiving and unmerciful stone.
Some may think that Genarlow’s case is a single anomaly of things gone horribly wrong. It is not. It could never have happened without the combined effort of hundreds of religious extremists and secretly racist zealots in the Georgia State legislative, executive, and judiciary branches of government who have joined forces to promulgate, enforce, prosecute, and impose a law that would knowingly be selectively used against black Americans and other disfavored minorities and groups. Now, how can I make such a claim when the law is religiously and racially neutral? I can because, while the dictator of Iran may claim there are no homosexuals in Iran, and the elite in Georgia may claim there are no other 17-year-old men that have had consensual sex with 15-year-old women, every honest human being who has knowingly experienced this life with their eyes fully open and their ears fully engaged (no matter how "pure" their own lives) know this is just not the case. The only reason it may appear so is, because in Iran any homosexual who dares reveal his or her orientation is murdered; and in Georgia you can bet when some elite white law enforcement officer’s child is caught in the act, discretion is exercised by quietly looking the other way. Intuition would also indicate that, although it was not said, Georgians most likely passed such a law to wield against any black American who dared touch a white woman. In essence, if they couldn’t get away with lynching, then a mandatory 10-year sentence could maybe pass under the radar (which it apparently did).
The other issue brought to the front by the Genarlow case is the fallacy, in its current day application, that statutory rape and statutory sexual abuse laws can be wholly justified without serious question. These laws often impose unduly harsh sentences for engaging in sex with a minor even though there is not a great disparity in age of the participants and the female was honestly perceived for being of adult age. Also, most of these laws are imposed, either explicitly or by implementation, against only the male partner of the consensual sex. This is not appropriate.
The notion that consent when given by a minor child to engage in sex or that a mis-perception of the age of one’s partner in consensual sex should not drastically mitigate the consequences is unjustifiable. Moreover, the additional cultural sentiment that the minor female never bears responsibility for consensual sex sends the wrong message and is inequitable.
As an attorney, I have encountered many cases in which the female partner’s choices, actions, and own criminality, were equal too, if not more condemnable than her male partner. In such cases, should not society be as equally concerned about redirecting the female participant as well as the male? Additionally, there is a great difference in a male who knowingly pursues and entices an underage female into engaging in sexual relations than a male who honestly believes he is having sex with an adult who is fully capable of understanding the consequences of her choices. In short, instead of disintegrating into a revengeful society bent on metaphorical lynching and stoning, as Bill O’Reilly has said, we need a fair and balanced approach in our laws that attempt to manage human sexuality within reasonable boundaries without creating criminals of all who are unwilling or unable to adhere to our religious and moral views on human sexuality.
Loren M. Lambert
November 6, 2007 ©
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Utah Mormons and Mitt on Polygamy
During an interview with Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes, Mitt Romney indicated that he couldn’t "imagine anything more awful than polygamy." He also apologized for his great-grandfather who took on additional wives because he was ordered to do so. This is same sentiment that many Utah Mormons have expressed during the Jeffs trial.
Please spare me the political and self-righteous prattle. Maybe Mitt and Utah Mormons can’t think of something more awful (with the exception of losing the political support of the Christian right), but I can. I’ll start with Mormons who try to pretend that polygamy was just some strange aberration with no connection to early Mormon doctrine.
To the contrary, polygamy was a core tenant taught from every pulpit and expounded by the highest leaders as a practice needed for eternal salvation. While I don’t have a problem with fellow Mormons who personally believe that polygamy is an awful idea, I do have a problem with Mormons who disavow our forefathers and history in order to more conveniently comport with our modern sensibilities. This approach is hypocritical and repugnant.
If polygamy was needed for eternal salvation one hundred and fifty years ago, don’t brand as abhorrent those who believed it then nor those who believe this same "truth" today. There is nothing inherently wrong with polygamy, nor is there anything inherently right about monogamy– it’s just the most sensible ideal for our modern age– nothing more, nothing less.
Loren M. Lambert
March 1, 2007 ©
Revised Sept. 25, 2007 ©
Please spare me the political and self-righteous prattle. Maybe Mitt and Utah Mormons can’t think of something more awful (with the exception of losing the political support of the Christian right), but I can. I’ll start with Mormons who try to pretend that polygamy was just some strange aberration with no connection to early Mormon doctrine.
To the contrary, polygamy was a core tenant taught from every pulpit and expounded by the highest leaders as a practice needed for eternal salvation. While I don’t have a problem with fellow Mormons who personally believe that polygamy is an awful idea, I do have a problem with Mormons who disavow our forefathers and history in order to more conveniently comport with our modern sensibilities. This approach is hypocritical and repugnant.
If polygamy was needed for eternal salvation one hundred and fifty years ago, don’t brand as abhorrent those who believed it then nor those who believe this same "truth" today. There is nothing inherently wrong with polygamy, nor is there anything inherently right about monogamy– it’s just the most sensible ideal for our modern age– nothing more, nothing less.
Loren M. Lambert
March 1, 2007 ©
Revised Sept. 25, 2007 ©
Sunday, August 5, 2007
Ex-Congressman Cannon Calls All to Multiply and Replenish the Earth
Well now we know, thanks to Deseret News Editor Joseph A. Cannon, it is not the threat of nuclear war, global warming, middle east strife nor environmental degradation that threatens our planet, it is the "impending ‘empty cradle’" that most threatens our world. Moreover, we also know that those who choose not to have large families to drive around in their 15-Person Ford Assault-Vans are just plain selfish and most probably Godless and unfeeling. And if you think about it, Jesus Christ would fit into this category (apparently he was single and had no children). Now, I do not necessarily disagree with Ex-Congressman Cannon that it is indeed sometimes selfishness that causes people to choose to be childless, but it is also that same selfishness that causes people to gut steel mills and send jobs to cheaper labor markets, own huge homes, drive around in Hummers, and act as if there’s no one else in the world but them (or me, you, or Ex-Congressman Cannon).
Ex–Congressman Cannon’s editorials go on to champion those countries that have promulgated policies to encourage procreation while he castigates Malthus and his adherents who warned the world of overpopulation. Never does this proponent of exuberant procreation stop to analyze why declining populations present a crisis for westernized countries. It is this: Declining populations are a threat to consumer-based economies and are the bane of xenophobics who realize that in order to maintain their consumer-based, market-driven economies, foreign workers of different races, cultures, colors and religions must be immigrated into their economies to maintain their standards of living. You see, if populations decline, then there is less demand for food, clothing, and shelter and all of us that are depending upon our land values to remain high would see them plummet with the population. We are all part of a giant house-of-cards Ponzi scheme that is one deadly flu virus away from crashing down on our heads. That is what concerns the President Putins of the world.
Ex-Congressman Cannon concludes that this empty cradle dilemma was purposely foreseen by God who therefore gave the commandment to humankind to "multiply and replenish the Earth." His opinion, naturally and not surprisingly, comports with what many of the LDS faith believe as an unquestionable doctrine of the Mormon Church; that is, they are commanded to have large families. Therefore, at least in Utah, his editorial will ride high above the grinding truth mill of serious public discourse. However, the LDS Church has never established a doctrine regarding the number of children a couple should bring into the world. Moreover, as occurred with polygamy, what the individual, the couple, or the body of the church may be asked to do, when it comes to procreation, may very well depend upon individual circumstances and the collective exigencies of a particular era.
Once, when asked if Mormons were directed to have large families, a prominent LDS leader responded that Mormons, "plan to have children, and plan to take care of them." The problem is that Mormons, as well as with many of similar bent, very naturally remember the "multiply" part of God’s commandment and engage in it with exuberant, often mindless abandon but forget the equally relevant requirement to "replenish" and to plan to take care of their families. "To plan" does not mean to tumble into bed for a 10-year love binge and then when the fog of procreation lifts with the advent of six children under the age of 10, to get two jobs, go to night school, max out the credits cards and, if all this fails, go on welfare and take out bankruptcy. Nor is the Earth replenished, when during the pleasure-filled fog of procreation or birth-controlled sex you are able to provide your many progenies (or yourself) with a 500,000 square foot home, a houseboat on Lake Powell, and an SUV for each child’s graduation or for all you friends.
There is a balance and it is a balance that we humans either need to establish or it will be forced upon our heads. Nature in its natural God-given cycle goes through its replenishment process in cycles of population growths and population declines. Population declines occur when there are insufficient resources. Having the benefit of foresight, Humans should not be so arrogant that God will spare them from this natural law, and He therefore will not save us from our failure to replenish the Earth. Perhaps the "impending empty cradle" crisis is a solution to humanities’ inability to find this balance. It will force upon us a solution that doesn’t involve mass human extinctions, which will occur if all give heed to Congressman Cannon’s call to multiply.
To seek this balance, and avoid a Cannonisian tragedy, some people should not have children, some people should have fewer children, and some people who are responsible and plan to take care of their children should be allowed the privilege of having several children. However, no society should be allowed, with or without half a dozen kids a couple, to deplete, degrade, and destroy the Earth and thereby extinguish all of its many creatures. Similarly, no couple, including Ex-Congressman Cannon, should steep themselves in opulent luxury. We are all guilty of this in the United States, as it is the common denominator of the Godless and the God-fearing.
Despite Ex-Congressman Cannon’s inference to the contrary, I do not believe it was ever God’s plan that every square mile of Tierra Firma be a developer’s paradise with sterile theme parks and the few animals we deem worthy to live. To survive physically and spiritually, we need our wild places, our tundras, our teaming seas, our barrier reefs, our jungles, and unpolluted expanses.
I say, do not fear the Cannonisian prophecy of doom and an impending "empty cradle." Fear more a world populace that cannot find balance; that, instead of becoming an educationally driven society engaged in developing the depths of its love, knowledge, skills, abilities, and spirit, it is only interested in expanding its waistline, families, portfolios, houses, vehicles, and resorts. Yes, plan to have families and plan to take care of them, but more importantly give money and time to those who would fill and enlighten your minds and mold and develop your bodies, and not to those who would overfill your eyes or your bellies. This is the only path towards a sustainable, replenished and peaceful Earth and provides a place for both the childless, the "child wealthy," and all of our fellow creatures.
Loren M. Lambert
August 5, 2007 ©
Ex–Congressman Cannon’s editorials go on to champion those countries that have promulgated policies to encourage procreation while he castigates Malthus and his adherents who warned the world of overpopulation. Never does this proponent of exuberant procreation stop to analyze why declining populations present a crisis for westernized countries. It is this: Declining populations are a threat to consumer-based economies and are the bane of xenophobics who realize that in order to maintain their consumer-based, market-driven economies, foreign workers of different races, cultures, colors and religions must be immigrated into their economies to maintain their standards of living. You see, if populations decline, then there is less demand for food, clothing, and shelter and all of us that are depending upon our land values to remain high would see them plummet with the population. We are all part of a giant house-of-cards Ponzi scheme that is one deadly flu virus away from crashing down on our heads. That is what concerns the President Putins of the world.
Ex-Congressman Cannon concludes that this empty cradle dilemma was purposely foreseen by God who therefore gave the commandment to humankind to "multiply and replenish the Earth." His opinion, naturally and not surprisingly, comports with what many of the LDS faith believe as an unquestionable doctrine of the Mormon Church; that is, they are commanded to have large families. Therefore, at least in Utah, his editorial will ride high above the grinding truth mill of serious public discourse. However, the LDS Church has never established a doctrine regarding the number of children a couple should bring into the world. Moreover, as occurred with polygamy, what the individual, the couple, or the body of the church may be asked to do, when it comes to procreation, may very well depend upon individual circumstances and the collective exigencies of a particular era.
Once, when asked if Mormons were directed to have large families, a prominent LDS leader responded that Mormons, "plan to have children, and plan to take care of them." The problem is that Mormons, as well as with many of similar bent, very naturally remember the "multiply" part of God’s commandment and engage in it with exuberant, often mindless abandon but forget the equally relevant requirement to "replenish" and to plan to take care of their families. "To plan" does not mean to tumble into bed for a 10-year love binge and then when the fog of procreation lifts with the advent of six children under the age of 10, to get two jobs, go to night school, max out the credits cards and, if all this fails, go on welfare and take out bankruptcy. Nor is the Earth replenished, when during the pleasure-filled fog of procreation or birth-controlled sex you are able to provide your many progenies (or yourself) with a 500,000 square foot home, a houseboat on Lake Powell, and an SUV for each child’s graduation or for all you friends.
There is a balance and it is a balance that we humans either need to establish or it will be forced upon our heads. Nature in its natural God-given cycle goes through its replenishment process in cycles of population growths and population declines. Population declines occur when there are insufficient resources. Having the benefit of foresight, Humans should not be so arrogant that God will spare them from this natural law, and He therefore will not save us from our failure to replenish the Earth. Perhaps the "impending empty cradle" crisis is a solution to humanities’ inability to find this balance. It will force upon us a solution that doesn’t involve mass human extinctions, which will occur if all give heed to Congressman Cannon’s call to multiply.
To seek this balance, and avoid a Cannonisian tragedy, some people should not have children, some people should have fewer children, and some people who are responsible and plan to take care of their children should be allowed the privilege of having several children. However, no society should be allowed, with or without half a dozen kids a couple, to deplete, degrade, and destroy the Earth and thereby extinguish all of its many creatures. Similarly, no couple, including Ex-Congressman Cannon, should steep themselves in opulent luxury. We are all guilty of this in the United States, as it is the common denominator of the Godless and the God-fearing.
Despite Ex-Congressman Cannon’s inference to the contrary, I do not believe it was ever God’s plan that every square mile of Tierra Firma be a developer’s paradise with sterile theme parks and the few animals we deem worthy to live. To survive physically and spiritually, we need our wild places, our tundras, our teaming seas, our barrier reefs, our jungles, and unpolluted expanses.
I say, do not fear the Cannonisian prophecy of doom and an impending "empty cradle." Fear more a world populace that cannot find balance; that, instead of becoming an educationally driven society engaged in developing the depths of its love, knowledge, skills, abilities, and spirit, it is only interested in expanding its waistline, families, portfolios, houses, vehicles, and resorts. Yes, plan to have families and plan to take care of them, but more importantly give money and time to those who would fill and enlighten your minds and mold and develop your bodies, and not to those who would overfill your eyes or your bellies. This is the only path towards a sustainable, replenished and peaceful Earth and provides a place for both the childless, the "child wealthy," and all of our fellow creatures.
Loren M. Lambert
August 5, 2007 ©
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