Criminalizing Homelessness?

I heard Michael Medved say something interesting again yesterday. He was talking about homeless people, and he said that people don't have a right to live on the streets. Ok. So where are people who have no place to stay supposed to go? What is the law that Medved would like to see enforced supposed to do with the homeless? Throw them in jail? For what fair reason? For how long? And to what effect? If you have no place to stay, where are you supposed to live? Where are you supposed to sleep? What are you supposed to do? You can try to get a job. But what if you can't? And what if the job you get doesn't pay enough to rent a place to stay, or it will take a long time to save enough from it to rent a place? What's a person to do until then? What is the law to do with him? How should we as a society regard and treat him?

Michael Medved seems like a smart person. He also seems like a fool.

In The Right Way

Michael Medved made an interesting remark yesterday on his talk show. He urged his fellow conservatives to stop attacking Obama's presidency before it even begins and to get behind him and give him a chance to succeed. After all, our nation is in such a mess right now that everybody should want to see him succeed "in the right way."

I found that "in the right way" to be revealing. What Medved seemed to be saying is that he wanted the nation to prosper, but only by Obama following the conservative ideology of minimal taxation and government, huge military, and one nation under the Judeo-Christian God.

I wonder if this means that Medved would prefer that the country fail rather than succeed if Obama follows liberal principles of bigger government, higher taxes (especially on the wealthy), a smaller military, and continued separation of church and state. I further wonder if Medved would rather see the country fail under conservative policies than to see it succeed under liberal ones.

I suspect that he would, even though he'd probably never admit it, even to himself. I suspect that he's so wedded to his conservative ideology that it's more important to him than practical results.

It would be easy to condemn him for this. But then, to be fair, I'd probably also have to condemn myself too for being something of a mirror image of Medved. For, deep down in my heart, I'd probably rather see the country flail and flounder under liberal policies than prosper under conservative ones. I try not to feel that way. I try to open my heart and mind to whatever truths lie along the entire political spectrum and to value results more than ideology, but it's an arduous uphill climb.

In the final analysis, I want to see as many people in this nation and entire world be as healthy and happy as possible, and to see the Obama administration enact policies that foster this condition. I suspect that such policies would have to incorporate elements of both liberalism and conservatism to such an extent that they ultimately transcend both. That, ideally rather than emotionally speaking, is what "in the right way" means to me.

That's a tall order, but one I hope to see begin to come to fruition under President Obama.

Religion and Declining Birthrates

Michael Medved talked recently about the declining birthrates in western Europe and how this trend threatened to seriously harm economies as fewer and fewer working people would be around to support more and more elderly and ailing retirees. He proceeded to argue that this declining birthrate was largely the result of western Europe's growing apathy toward monotheistic religions which teach that human life is a "gift" and that we should fill the Earth with as much of it as we can.

Medved may be right about how a population's declining interest in religion causes its birthrate to decline. Or he may be wrong or, at least, he may be overestimating the importance of religion's and underestimating the importance of other factors' contribution to this decline. But let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that he's thoroughly right. Does this mean that we should cling to dubious if not ridiculous religions in order to boost our populations? I don't think so.

Does it mean that we should be as fruitful and multiply as much as possible in order to keep our economies strong? Again, I don't think so. For I suspect that I speak for the subconscious if not conscious convictions of many that life is more of a curse or, at least, an unpleasant struggle than a blessing that we, nevertheless, cling to not because we love it so much but because, partly as a result of religious teachings, we fear dying and death more than we love life and because we feel nagging responsibility to hang in there for our loved ones.

If I'm right about this, we should celebrate declining birthrates in western Europe and fervently hope to see this same trend take place the world over so that the human population will shrink to a much more sustainable and environmentally friendly level.

Now I'll grant that the economic impact of a declining birthrate could be harmful to many, making life in an economy top-heavy with elderly retirees even more of an unpleasant struggle for everyone than it is already. But I don't believe that this justifies raising the birthrate. To me, it is the height (or should I say "depths"?) of selfishness to bring more children into this harsh and chaotic world to struggle and suffer so that they can take care of the rest of us. And if life is really as unpleasant for most of us as I've said, we're not doing the unborn any disfavors by not giving them the so-called "gift" of life. And if some might have had wonderful lives if only they'd been conceived and brought into this world, I say that if these potential persons will never know what they missed by not becoming actual persons, and the world will never know what it missed by not bringing them into it.

Listening to Michael Medved

I often listen to some of the Michael Medved radio program as I drive to work on weekday afternoons. I disagree with almost everything he says, but I respect his intelligence, articulateness, and the respectful way he treats callers who disagree with him, and I feel challenged to examine my "liberal" views more closely.

Yesterday, I heard him say that it's "ridiculous" for government to provide meals for public schoolchildren below the poverty line. But is it "ridiculous" for impoverished children to be guaranteed a wholesome meal or two every weekday? I don't think so? Do you? And if government won't guarantee it, WHO will?

Later, in the same program, Medved argued that homosexual marriage shouldn't be allowed, because the "core of marriage" is "sexual intercourse between a man and a woman" leading to the procreation and raising of children. Yet, does this mean that people can't marry for other reasons? Maybe they don't want children. Maybe they can't have them. Maybe they marry because they love each other and want to honor that love with a formal lifelong commitment to be there for one another "in sickness and in health." Isn't this the real "core" of marriage? If so, why can't it extend to homosexual as well as heterosexual couples?

No More KSAC

I woke up this morning and turned on 1240 AM, as I often do, to listen to Stephanie Miller. I heard the same young woman doing the news update, but something seemed different, and when she gave out the call letters of the station and they weren't KSAC, my heart sank. It rose a little when I heard a radio spot from someone running against conservative Congressman Dan Lungren. He'd been doing similar spots on KSAC. But that small relief was short-lived. After the spot, I didn't hear Stephanie Miller and her talented crew's satirical political commentary. Instead, I heard something about "praising the Lord" day and night followed by gospel music. I hoped briefly that this was some kind of premature April Fool's joke, but it quickly became apparent that it wasn't. KSAC, "Sacramento's only progressive talk radio station," had changed its call letters and adopted a full-time gospel music format.

I went online to find out what had happened. I quickly discovered a story in the Sacramento Bee explaining it. It seemed that while KSAC had plenty of listeners, it couldn't find enough commercial sponsors to keep it afloat with its liberal or progressive format. Other progressive or liberal talk radio stations in this country have apparently suffered the same fate or are on the brink of doing so.

This is too bad. Of course, I can still listen to Stephanie Miller, Ed Schultz, Randi Rhodes, Mike Malloy, and Peter B. Collins on the Internet. But this isn't nearly as convenient as being able to hear them on the radio in the house or in the car when I'm driving to and from work. I liked to switch between progressive KSAC and conservative KTKZ (1380 AM) and get the counterbalancing views of Laura Ingram, Dennis Prager, Michael Medved, Dennis Miller, and Hugh Hewitt But now I can hear only one political persuasion on local radio, the conservative one, and I think I and the public at large are ill-served by this.

This isn't a rant against big business or conservative talk radio. I'm just saying that it's too bad the Sacramento area lost its progressive radio voice because it couldn't find enough commercial sponsors to keep it alive. I'm wondering how hard and how skillfully the management tried. Are there really not enough progressive minded businesses around to keep progressive talk radio on the air? If there are, they need to put their dollars where their convictions are.

Right Wing Civility and Substance?

As I drove home from the bowling center this morning, I tuned in to the Dennis Prager show and heard a caller say that he'd just had an unpleasant exchange with liberal talk show host Ed Schultz on Schultz' program in which Schultz had angrily called Prager insulting names. Prager replied that while there are certainly exceptions on both sides, he generally finds people, including media representatives, on the political right to be far more civil and substantive in their arguments than are those on the political left. Prager opined that people on the left habitually engage in name calling and other ad hominem attacks to compensate for the weakness of their positions. Is this your perception as well?

My own perception, as one who has traditionally leaned decidedly to the political left in most respects, is that Prager may be correct. Not that I've sampled that many right wing television and radio programs, but I've sampled enough on the other side of the aisle to conclude that there is a lot of name calling and personal attacking from the left, and that people on the right, such as Prager, Michael Medved, and Hugh Hewitt, do tend to stick to issues rather than attack persons, and to frame rational arguments even if I disagree with many of their conclusions. Perhaps your perception is different.

In any case, I would love to see people in the media from all across the political spectrum express their views and disagreements with other people's views with civility, respect, and reason instead of resorting to intellectually bankrupt personal insults. I would also like to see more of this in Internet discussion forums. And while I can't force others to live up to this ideal, I can strive do a better job of living up to it myself.