State of the Union 2015 Wish List

I know most of these positions will be completely avoided by President Obama, but permit me to dream. Also notice that with most of these, I'm calling on the President to encourage action by the people, not to use the force of law.

Explain That the Federal Government Is Not the Answer to Every Challenge, Problem, or Choice - Rather, it is the Last Resort Answer to Very Few. That is what freedom and liberty are all about.  Challenge individuals, businesses, congregations, nonprofits, and local and state governments (where appropriate) to take action instead of relying on the federal government. The federal government is there to protect the union from foreign threats and to and resolve some disputes between states.

Tout the Successes of the War on Terror. Laud those military, intelligence, and law enforcement personnel who have uncovered and prevented terrorist plans and actions, pointing out that is has been over thirteen years since terrorists have carried out a major attack in the U.S. Apologize for Benghazi and what happened in the wake of that terrorist attack. Stress that ISIS and other such organizations must be obliterated.

Border Control Is a Matter of National Security. Explain that allowing illegal aliens any advantage in gaining permanent legal status ahead of legal immigrants is a slap in the face to legal immigrants and naturalized citizens. Announce that, effective immediately, the National Guard will secure our borders to prevent terrorists, disease-carriers, and smugglers from entering the U.S. They will stay there until suitable barriers and checkpoints are constructed – however long that takes. We will NOT encourage further invasion by offering amnesty, health insurance, and other tax-funded benefits for citizens of other countries who illegally enter/stay in the U.S. Speed up the process for legal immigration for those who want to come to the U.S. legally to become citizens and can find sponsors who will ensure they will stay off of public assistance. As for illegal aliens currently living in the United States – do not offer amnesty; they can go through the same channels of those who are trying to immigrate legally. If the border is secure, this problem will eventually take care of itself because their children born here are citizens and the illegals can continue to function as they have until they die off, if they don't want to go the legal route. Any illegal alien who serves honorably in the U.S. armed forces should be granted citizenship. If a true shortage of labor occurs (meaning American unemployment is low and employers need more temporary labor), a true guest worker program can be developed.

We're One Race - Human. Yes, "race"-based slavery was our national birth defect, and injustices persisted after slavery was abolished, but hostile racists have very little power now in our overall system. Law enforcement must have limited powers, and rioting shouldn't be tolerated.

Break the Street Gangs. Pledge federal agencies to assist state and local law enforcement "sweep and hold" gang-infested urban areas.

Encourage Responsible Gun Ownership. As it is the duty of every able person to stand up to evil & crime in protection of the innocent, responsible gun ownership, training, and practice should be encouaged, and state and local laws should allow for this. Apologize for Fast & Furious.

Declare the Growing National Debt Unacceptable. Explain that it is a basic function of the federal government to adopt a budget, and that it is unsustainable and immoral to accumulate increasing debt, thereby burdening future generations. The government should not encourage further dependency on government.

Don't be Santa Claus. Don't propose new federal programs and expansions of existing federal social programs. Enough already. There are 50 states in the union and a few territories that are supposed to be handling their own matters – that is, the matters that are not supposed to be left up to "the people".

Stop Using the Tax Code For Social Engineering. Tell the Congress that instead of taking the carrots (taxes) from the people and then dangling some of them back in front of the people, that the people should keep their carrots in the first place and do with them what they will. Call for tax simplification and a move away from income/payroll taxes. If someone pays taxes, everyone should pay taxes.

Individuals Should Plan for the Future. Talk about the numerous options individuals and families have for saving for the future. Encourage them to save and invest for the future and not rely on the federal government to take care of them in their senior years. Point out that a reduction in federal spending will allow people to keep more of their own money to aid in saving for retirement.

Explain that Planning for Your Health Care is Part of Planning for the Future. Call for more freedom, competition, and private decision-making in health care.

Equal Access to Free Markets. Explain some of the major benefits of free markets, and that the best thing the federal government can do to foster a good business climate that provides jobs is to provide protection from interstate crime and foreign terrorists, and to be involved as little as possibly in voluntary employment and business transactions, not picking winners or losers in business, subsidizing some and restricting upstarts while protecing established businesses.

Property Rights and Personal Freedom. Most Americans understand that people should be considered as individuals and based on their behavior and abilities, not as members of a non-ideological group (ethnicity, etc.). Therefore, the federal government should no longer be involved in preventing people from renting, selling - or not - to whomever they choose for whatever reason, and should no longer be involved with who an employer hires and fires and why. Airlines, for example, should not be forced to carry anyone who makes the majority of their employees and passengers uncomfortable. It is clear that people can succeed in the USA regardless of skin color, sex, or sexual orientation, and focusing on slights, imagined or real, based on these personal characteristics, is fostering hostility and division and self-defeating thinking, doing more harm than good.

Encourage private innovation and solutions to reducing reliance on terrorist oil.

Education Is a Private Responsibility. Given the state of American public education since the Carter administration, call for the dismantling of federal involvement in education.

Strong Marital Unions Are Good For the Union. It brings together both sexes to raise the next generation of citizens. Men and women are different, and unifying them in the marital union forms a strong, inclusive building block for society, benefiting the individuals and society. Call on the Federal government to help by continuing to affirm, as Presidents Clinton and Bush did, that marriage unites a man and a woman, and pledge that the federal government will not force states to recognize counterfeit marriages. Encourage people to voluntarily take marriage seriously, thinking for the long term, getting good pre-marital counseling - and counseling during marriage as necessary. Encourage individuals, families, congregations, businesses, and the media to respect and value marriage, and support marriages instead of undermining them. Encourage individuals to save sex and childrearing for marriage, because doing so is good for them and good for the country.

Encourage Proven Conservation Techniques. Quote the scientists and activists who, in the 1970s, warned that we were heading for a new ice age, and quote those who said that by 2000, the rainforests and the oceans would be destroyed. Go on to say that we must not hastily and uncritically accept alarmist warnings and use federal government force to impose destructive restrictions on the people and business that may not result in significant environmental benefit.

Civility. Call on partisans to vigorously debate the issues, but refrain from threats of violence and character assassination, as they renew their vow to defend the Constitution.

Valuing Diversity

The Left, or champions of "equality", have been insisting for many years that diversity, including gender diversity and gender integration, makes an organization stronger and is generally beneficial. It is good, we have been told, for the military, for universities (including dorm rooms), colleges, and other schools, it is good for businesses and the workplace, it is good for hospitals, fire departments, and police departments, it is good in who provides our entertainment and information, it is good for leadership in charities, civic organizations, scouting, and churches, it is good for country clubs, and it is good for legislative bodies.

Gender diversity is good. Gender diversity makes us stronger. Gender diversity brings benefits to those involved. Gender diversity is required.

Right?

And yet, some of the very same activists who've been telling us this for years in their news releases, their picketing, their lawsuits, their plays, literature, and media productions, their classrooms, and any other way they can, suddenly contradict their claims when it comes to parenting, and when it comes to marriage, with or without parenting (though most marriages involve parenting).

Literally the same people who insist gender diversity makes organizations stronger deny it makes a gender-diverse relationship any different (let alone better) from a same-sex relationship, or adds anything important to parenting. They really want us to believe that everything they've said about gender diversity when it comes to everything else somehow doesn't apply to family.

We have overwhelming data that the absence or virtual absence of their father in their home while growing up correlates to many negative indicators in adolescents and adults. We don't have nearly as much information about the absence of mothers, so let's just stick with the absence of fathers. Many of those "fatherless" children had at least one other adult in the house in addition to their mother, including an aunt, a grandparent, etc. However, that isn't the same as having a father. Those who advocate that groomless marriage or same-sex parenting is no different than or at least not lacking anything worthwhile in comparison to the bride+groom union want us to believe that the absence of a father is entirely rectified by the presence a second female guardian. However, just as no man can satisfy a homosexual woman's desire for a woman, no woman, no matter how great a person she is, no matter how much she may love the mother of those children, can fulfill the need children have for a father.

Unfortunately, the neutering of state marriage licensing makes it official state policy that there is no difference. This is an insult to both men and women, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, and to our intelligence and innate sensibilities. This is anti-science.

Neutering state licenses means that bride+groom unions can't in anyway way be encouraged or incentivized or preferred over brideless or groomless unions under the law or in any program relying on taxpayer funds. For example, adoption or foster care agencies under state control or receiving any state funds can't prefer a bride+groom couple over a groomless union in placing children. They have to operate as though
giving a child two mothers and giving a child a mother and a father is the same thing. It obviously isn't.

We're all better off recognizing and encouraging bride+groom unions and parenting within such unions, but under neutered licensing, we'll have much less ability and fewer ways of doing that.

Studies also indicate that intentional parenting is generally better than "oops, we got pregnant" parenting, but it would take a substantial increase in the size and reach of government to even try to ban the latter to give every child the former. However, all it takes to set aside gender-inclusive unions as special, and thus hold up in our public policy the value of fathering, is a pair of already-there government documents, and maintaining the bride+groom requirement - the worldwide, historically celebrated core of marriage - in state marriage licensing.

It doesn't exactly encourage men to marry when or before having children, nor stick around to father their offspring, when we have public policy and a culture that disrespects them and insists they bring nothing of value to marriage nor parenting. But hey, it isn't like we're having any difficulties these days with fathers being around for the children, right?

The Left should abandon its absurd, self-contradictory claims that heterosexual unions are no different than homosexual unions. Leftist homosexuality advocates have proven effective at organizing and appealing to emotion and wielding their power, but just because they can get precedents and common sense tossed aside, judicial activists to rule for them, and elected officials to abandon their obligations, protocols, and ethics doesn't mean they should press ahead with the neutering of marriage, which would ultimately leave everyone, including them, worse off. Their efforts are more admirably spent on fighting the criminalization of homosexuality abroad and fighting actual prejudice, homelessness, assault, vandalism, bullying, suicide, domestic violence, substance abuse, mental illness, and sexually transmitted diseases, which are real problems in "gay and lesbian communities".


Previously:

Bride-and-Groom is the Right Side of History

The Ideal of a Married Mother and Father

Slippery Slopes and Neutering Marriage

More good stuff from Stand to Reason.

Is invoking polygamy, etc. a "slippery slope" that doesn't make for good argumentation?

I can't recommend STR more strongly. (For some reason blogger eats YouTube embedding the first time around, at least on this blog. It's not like they are both owned by Google, or anything. I forgot about that. Sorry.