Hello again, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to another episode of Freedom's Creed. Today is June the 28th, 2022. And unless you've been hiding under a rock or just not paying attention whatsoever, you know that on Friday, June 24th, 2022, the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe versus Wade. I will be talking about that in a few minutes, but if I may, I would like to make a couple of observations. As I observed some news accounts about that, watched videos, looked at social media, it was clear to me, as I'm sure it is to you as well, that this decision brought out a wide spectrum of emotion, and deservedly so, of course. Those who were opposed to abortion and are opposed to abortion seemed to be relieved and grateful that this decision by the Supreme Court had been overturned, whereas those who were in support of Roe v. Wade definitely exhibited some strong emotions reflecting their viewpoints about abortion not being part of a federal argument or discussion. We know now that the decision that the Supreme Court made takes the argument back to the states where it probably rightfully belongs. And the things that I have seen on the topic seem to tell me that perhaps half of the country still supports abortion and the other half does not. And I'm talking about the states. So 25 states in favor, 25 states against, and that number's obviously going to fluctuate over time. But this argument now, or this issue now, has been put back to the states where it probably rightfully belongs. As American citizens, we all have the right to make choices every day. We make choices about things that we're doing on a daily basis. Many of the decisions that we make are sort of subconscious. We just do them without even thinking about it. Other choices have greater consequences. And we have to be careful, I think, to decide what choices we're going to make because once we make the choice, the consequences are pretty much automatic. In April of last year, I did an episode about the consequences of behavior. And I get it. Sometimes we don't want to be reminded about the consequences of our behavior because then it means that we may need to do something to change our behavior, and human nature is that, well, we're a little bit lazy and we don't want to do that. We just as soon kind of go with the flow and whatever happens, happens. I make mistakes on a daily basis, and oftentimes my wife reminds me of those mistakes, and that's okay because we're in this together. We've been married for quite a long time, but we're still getting to know each other in some cases. So in my case, I appreciate the fact that I get these mistakes pointed out to me, even though I may not like it at the time, but I realize that it's for my own growth, for my own good, really. And if I make the decision to choose to improve my life, then that's going to be well worth it. If I just go along and just maintain the status quo of my life, I'm never going to change. And to me, that's not a good place to be. I actually want to share a quote from Barack Obama. This was given by Barack Obama in the summer of 2008 while he was a candidate for president of the United States. He gave this address as a Father's Day speech in his hometown of Chicago, I believe is where it was. And the premise of his address was about black fathers being more engaged in the raising of their children. He actually began his address by quoting scripture from Matthew in the New Testament, and this is the scripture that he read At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus closes by saying, Whoever hears these words of mine and does them shall be likened to a wise man who built his house upon a rock, and the rain descended and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock. I'd like to now read what he started off his address with by sharing with you this rather lengthy quote, but I think it has some pearls of wisdom in it, not just for black people, which is the focus of his address at the time, but for everyone. He said this and I quote Of all the rocks upon which we build our lives, we are reminded today that family is the most important, and we are called to recognize and honor how critical every father is to that foundation. But if we are honest with ourselves, we'll admit that what too many fathers also are is missing, missing from too many lives and too many homes. They have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men, and the foundation of our families are weaker because of it. We know that more than half of all black children live in single parent households, a number that has doubled since we were children. We know the statistics that children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime, nine times more likely to drop out of schools, and twenty times more likely to end up in prison. They are more likely to have behavioral problems or run away from home or become teenage parents themselves, and the foundations of our community are weaker because of it. But we also need families to raise our children. We need fathers to realize that responsibility does not end at conception. We need them to realize that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child, it's the courage to raise one. End of quote. Now I must say that I agree wholeheartedly with this quote from Barack Obama. My question, ladies and gentlemen, to each of you, would be what has happened in the short fourteen years since Obama uttered these amazingly true words? Has our society lost all of the moral underpinnings that have been in place for thousands of years? Think about this for a minute. Why is it not okay to talk like this in twenty twenty two? If what Obama said was applicable in two thousand eight, and I agree wholeheartedly that it was, why is it not applicable today? Why is it that people in politics and other people of prominence who have the ability to influence literally millions of people, why don't they talk like this today? I'm really sincerely wanting to know the answer to this question. Is it so different now, just fourteen short years later, that we would tolerate someone running for president to quote scripture and to talk this way about a particular culture, and now all of a sudden that that's not acceptable? Why? Well, I will say that I support this kind of language, whether it's from Barack Obama or from anyone else, I don't care who it is, or what their political stripes are. If you have the courage and the guts to tell everyone else how you feel and what you think, then that is your constitutional right to do so. And you will be heard. It is rather astounding to me that the Supreme Court's decision that overturned Roe v. Wade unleashed some seriously raw emotion from a lot of people. And if you've been listening to my podcast for any length of time, you know that I'm a huge proponent of the First Amendment. It protects the right of the people to peaceably assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Unfortunately, at times like this, we do see the display of raw emotion, but what we fail to see is how these grievances, if that's what they are, are addressed by those who are assembling. This time there hasn't been a whole lot of violence, though there has been some, but certainly I don't know if I would qualify it as the people peaceably assembling, if you know what I mean. I also think that some people unwisely seem to think that violence is the way to inspire change. In my view, that's certainly not the way to bring about change. I think what inspires change is applying the principles of the Constitution. And whether people want to hear it or not, the voices of reason must prevail in this matter and in all grievances that citizens may have against their government, our government. We've seen members of Congress even and the media express sentiments that can only be characterized as insightful, preying on the emotions and in some cases the ignorance of people. And the sad part about that is that they know this and they continue to do it. And to me, that is unacceptable. It's you cannot incite violence, you cannot prey on the ignorance or the emotions of people in the way that we have seen in the last few days. It's just not right. To put it really simply, that kind of behavior is just irresponsible, especially from the point of view of members of Congress. I mean, seriously, come on. This cannot be allowed to take place in the land of liberty that we live. And fine, I get it, I understand. It's something that brings out a lot of emotion in people. That's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. What's wrong with it is if the wrong way to overcome it or to bring about change is often what is done. So in other words, let's just go out, run in the streets, break things up, assault police, do those things that we are doing because we are running afoul of our emotions, and there's no release of those emotions other than taking it out on other people, in this case law enforcement, or upon structures, businesses, etc. Now, thinking about this recent Supreme Court case where they have turned the issue of abortion over to the states, I think it's interesting that Ruth Bader Ginsburg had this to say about the Roe versus Wade case in 1992 in a speech that she gave while a member of the federal judiciary. She said in 1973, when Roe issued, abortion law was in a state of change across the nation. As the Supreme Court itself noted, there was a marked trend in state legislatures toward liberalizing of abortion statutes. Around that extraordinary decision, a well-organized and vocal right to life movement rallied and succeeded for a considerable time in turning the legislative tide in the opposite direction. So in my mind, I get from that that there's an ebb and flow regarding Roe v. Wade. Sort of in the early days of it or the early decades of it, there was, as she said, a strong push in the legislatures toward liberalization of abortion statutes. And then later on, there was a well-organized right to life movement, and that movement succeeded in many ways, at least for a time, and it turned the legislative tide in the opposite direction. Well, here's what the court said in the Roe v. Wade opinion that was released on the twenty fourth of June last week. They said, quote, Abortion presents a profound moral issue on which Americans hold sharply conflicting views. Some believe fervently that a human person comes into being at conception and that abortion ends an innocent life. Others feel just as strongly that any regulation of abortion invades a woman's right to control her own body and prevents women from achieving full equality. Still others in a third group think that abortion should be allowed under some, but not all circumstances, and those within this group hold a variety of views about the particular restrictions that should be imposed. Continuing on, they said that the Solicitor General suggests that overruling Roe and Casey would threaten the protection of other rights under the Due Process Clause. The court emphasizes that this decision concerns the constitutional right to abortion and no other right. Nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion. I think it's important to point out that this issue now will no longer, at least for now, be decided by the judicial branch of government. Rather, it will go back to the states, to the individual states, where the people who elect their local representatives will make rulings or laws relative to abortion in their particular state. And it seems to me that that's the way it should be. Now, ironing out all of the other aspects of this, of course, will have to be addressed. And no doubt there will be new appeals in new cases to the judicial branch of government, and we'll have to wait and see how that all plays out. I'm going to tell you what my concern is, and it seems for me to always revolve around behavior. We can certainly do what we want to do, but there are consequences from our actions. I certainly respect the viewpoints of other people and for them to make the decisions that they need to make in their own personal lives. And what I expect, however, is to receive the same respect that I show other people, particularly with those people that I don't agree with and who don't agree with me. That's happens in our society all the time. There has to be a reciprocal respect shown by both parties, by both sides. Unfortunately, we just don't see a lot of that today, and that's a sad commentary on the state of affairs in our country. But in this abortion case that the Supreme Court ruled on, their decision puts the burden back to the states. The Tenth Amendment clearly spells this out. It says, quote, the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states are reserved to the states, respectively, or to the people. End of quote. I get it. There are sometimes laws that we don't agree with or rulings that we don't agree with, but guess what? Virtually all of the laws that we have emanated from a position of morality. There was a moral code or is a moral code. Call it the Bible, call it generally accepted principles of right and wrong, of religion, etc. You can call it whatever you want, but there is a strong foundation of morality that's the bedrock of the laws that are made, or at least that should be made in our country. Unfortunately, in our day, the interpretation of what is right and what is wrong seems to be left to the individual. And sometimes that can be a little scary because if there is ignorance of the law or of the Constitution, then that interpretation, in my view, is going to be flawed. I understand. I am not the arbiter of what is right and what is wrong. But for me as an individual, I'm going to make decisions based upon my experience, based upon my life choices, based upon a whole myriad of things. If there's no consequence as to what is right and wrong, then our prison system would be non-existent. We wouldn't need it. There would be no reason for it. If there was no consequences that anyone had ever had to suffer, but then where are we as a society if that's what we choose to believe? In my view, in order to remain a civilized country, doesn't there need to be an accepted moral standard? It seems to me that morality and strong morals or core values is cross-cultural. In other words, does it really matter the culture that we are from? We all can accept the culture of doing what is right and recognizing those things that are not beneficial to us as a nation to help us to grow, to help us to become a more perfect union. That's what it's all about. We can't become a more perfect union if there's all this strife and all of this animus and hatred that exists in our country just because we disagree with each other. Where is the moral fiber that we're going to reach down and grab a hold of and say, you know what? Enough is enough. Well, I hope that we can come to a point in the country where enough people will come together and find that moral center and trust in it. Because it is something that has provided stability to our society and to our culture for a very, very long time. So I'd like to end where I started by quoting from Mr. Obama, and I think that this quote is very much applicable to what is going on now in the country, where he said this, and I quote again, we need fathers to realize that responsibility does not end at conception. We need them to realize that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child, it's the courage to raise one. End of quote. And to men, I would simply say this support the woman that you conceive a child with. That is the best thing that you could do for her. So with that, if you can think it, you can plan it. If you can plan it, you can do it.