Where was her common sense? What were her morals? 

When people think of the word “morals” they normally, at least in the United States, think in terms of rules of behavior based on the Ten Commandments and the teachings of Jesus. But there are other sets of morals.

For many, money is their idol and constitutes their moral base. The more money, or possessions indicating money, that you have, the better you are as a person. At an easy level, consider some of recent revelations of the bonuses paid to themselves by leading industrialists. Less easy, as the news media avoid the subject, consider the leaks of how some of our leading politicians, such as Senator Dodd, have acquired wealth and privilege, while doing “good” for the nation.  I read one report that claimed that AIG distributed over eight million dollars to Congressmen, half to Democrats and half to Republicans.  Obama was reported as one of the recipients. Money is moral.

For others, power is what is important. At its most generally despised level, we find spouse abuse. Typically reported among the lower classes, abusers find righteousness in the ability to dominate, to abuse, their spouses. But it is not limited to the poor. While employed at WashingtonUniversity I did industrial consulting. The owner of a trucking firm telephoned and reported that his firm was losing millions of dollars every year. (He was a member of an extremely wealthy family.) We set up a battery of tests to evaluate his entire workforce. My assistant, an attractive young woman, did the testing. She reported to me that he offered to double any salary the University was paying her, but that she would never work for him. She said he treated his employees horribly: shouting and swearing at them. Employees also did horribly on tests. None of his mechanics scored better than the bottom ten percent of the population on the Bennett Mechanical Aptitude test, none of his secretaries could type faster than twenty words a minute. No wonder his trucks were always broken down and he was losing money. But he had power. (For the interested, we discussed this in the office and my boss, King Wientge, an experienced and accomplished psycholgist, said that he had best report the results, not me, inexperienced in such problems. He later told me that he had a very frank talk with the man, whose first response was to say he would fire everyone.)

Then there are those for whom notoriety is all important. If you make the front pages, then you are good. Watch the faces of some of the criminals, including murderers, during their trials. They are important: they are on television and they enjoy it. But you don’t have to be a criminal to enjoy prestige. Consider all the “beautiful” actors and actresses. As long as they are on the front page of the tabloids and the news media, life is good – any publicity is good publicity – and they receive it by exposing their bodies. For many, that is all they have to offer.

It appears that Jessie belonged to this group. Obviously, she valued her looks and her body. To expose what she appears to have valued most, could have led to the nude picture of herself that she sent to her boyfriend. His bragging rights led him to distribute it, sort of a “see what I have” approach. Then Jessica discovered, to her horror, that such fame could lead to unpleasant consequences. She was unable to tolerate this, and hung herself. But, how much of her behavior is a result of her home life? Time spent with parents, what they support and praise, is important.

Once, while teaching and doing volunteer work at the mental health clinic, a mother and her ten-year-old son came to my office and demanded my time. She said she had heard that I did free work and she needed help for her son, who was failing in school. Not only did she irritate me, I was in a hurry. The result was calculated cruelty on my part. I looked at the boy and asked, “When did you last read a book?” “I don’t.” “Do you go to the library?” “No.” “Do you have a library card?” “No.” “When was the last time your parents complimented you and for what.” After a long pause, he said, “Last summer, for riding my bicycle.” I turned to the mother and asked her, “Why should he care about school if you don’t?” 

Jessica’s mother is now starting, or attempting to start, a campaign to get the government to control the Internet and cell phones, I suppose to install government morals. There are cruel questions I would ask her. How much time did you and your husband spend with Jessie while she was growing up? Did you go camping together, or to plays or concerts together? Or were you and your husband busy with work, so as to provide measurable luxuries rather than that of companionship? Did you send Jessie to Sunday School or attend church with her, church where Ten Commandment type morals are taught? If not, who taught her the values and morals she learned?

I’m sorry, for Jessie’s mother, but the federal government in WashingtonDC cannot raise a child. It takes a family to raise a child to competent and happy adulthood, typically it is easiest (It is never easy!) in a family which includes both a mother and a father. It is from family that children learn what is important, what is moral.

Christian Nation

By

William D. Dannenmaier

In one of his speeches, Senator Obama said that the United States is “no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of non-believers” (Christian News Network: June 28, 2006). I thought of his claim while listening to a sermon on Moses leading the children of Israel out of Egypt.

What he said is simply not true. Just as Moses led the children of Israel, leaders of the Pilgrims and Quakers led their people out of the discrimination and poverty of England, Holland and Germany to America. Here, they and their descendants established a government based on the principles that all people are created equal before God and that all people should be equal before the law. Most importantly, the Quakers of Pennsylvania, under the leadership of William Penn, accepted all peoples as equals before the law, without regard to their race or religion. You could be a Jew or a Muslim or a Hindu or a Buddhist or an atheist, it didn’t matter. What did matter was that you obeyed the laws based on Christian principles. In that sense, an important sense, it was a Christian state. 

I know little about Israel, but I have slight experience. While teaching in Canada I bought a book written by a Christian Israeli. He documented that the Christian community in Palestine had supported the Jews in their struggle for independence. He also named Christian communities that had fought with the Jews that were forcibly removed from “strategic” areas to other areas in the new nation. His own family, he reported, had lived and farmed in the interior of what is now Israel for generations. One day the Israeli military decided it wanted his family’s home and farm. The family went to court and the judge ruled in their favor, but the military ignored that, demolished his home and took his land. I gave that book to a student, intending to purchase a new one after I returned to the United States. Later I was sorry. The book, published in England and available in Canada was not available in the United States.

I have two other, lesser, examples.  A friend of my youth, Alex Tecklin who owned a tailor business and whom I came to know well during my years as a stockboy in men’s clothing at Famous Barr, offered me a partnership when I went to see him after leaving the army. In a later visit he told me that he, an orthodox Jew, was closing his business and migrating to Israel, his religious home. A few years later I encountered him in downtown St. Louis. When I expressed surprise he said, “Israel was disappointing, it is not a democracy, it is a military dictatorship. 

In a second incident, years later, I had a student at AustinPeayUniversity who liked me and ran a business. He came to offer me a job, having received a contract as a minority business owner. Chatting – I wasn’t interested in the job – he told me his history. Originally from Cuba, with a Hispanic name, he had migrated to Israel and served in the Israeli army. After completing his service, he migrated to the United States. I told him Alex’s story and he agreed. He said it was a military dictatorship and hard on any citizen who did not belong to the correct, orthodox, minority. He said that was why he left. 

In terms of the United States being a “Muslim” nation, I don’t believe that and wouldn’t want it. I know a lot more about it from the refrain on newspaper articles on Muslim’s killing innocent people who happened to belong to the wrong sect even though they were Muslim, not to mention what they do to non-Muslims when they control a nation and administer its laws. I have also read some of the Muslim Qur’an. Once you get past the first two or three short surahs (chapters), which are almost condensed versions of the first few books of the Old Testament, you find a religious document, which places women in a second place, Christians and Jews in an even lesser place and advocates death for all other minorities. How is it possible for laws based on such a religion to co-exist peacefully with laws based on Christian principles? The answer is, “It can’t!” For proof examine the problems of Holland and Belgium. 

I know less about Buddhists and Hindus, although I occasionally read articles about Buddhist mobs attacking Christians and Hindu mobs burning Christian churches and killing adults and children alike in varied far eastern nations. I’m always sorry for those Christians and, if I consider it, glad I don’t live there.

Mr. Obama may want the United States to be a land of Christian, Jewish, Muslim and other religions and laws, but I don’t. I want it to continue to be a nation based on Christian principles, which permit people of other faiths their beliefs provided their practices do not violate our Christian based laws.