Condoleeza Rocks!

I caught the last half hour of Secretary Rice's speech in Paris today on C-Span. I am impressed! Again. This woman has brains, charm, eloquence and a great understanding of history. She makes me so proud!! Proud to be an American, to be a woman, to be a conservative... and on and on.

Secretary Rice's summary of the march of freedom since the end of World War Two was particularly effective, I believe. It stressed the importance of France working together with the other Allies to forge the framework for NATO. Because of that framework, created in the midst of post-war crises like the Berlin blockade and the Czechoslovakian uprising, today there is a much larger NATO. Formerly slave nations such as Poland, Estonia and Latvia are now free members of NATO. Our freedoms today have arisen on the foundation of sacrifice and hardwork of our forebears.

She said it so much better than my little summary. I found myself saying after her speech, "Condoleeza for President!!"

Natural Law?

Does anyone still believe in Natural Law, the concept that truth is embedded within the very nature of things? Can we define right and wrong, healthy and un-healthy by studying nature? We always have done, whether consciously or not.

I believe in natural law and I'm sure most of us do, whether or not we think about it. We rely on the Declaration of Independence, which opens with: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all (human beings) are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

We take for granted that we are born with certain "endowments" that we didn't have to grab from anybody, earn by our merit, or even justify. They are just THERE. Part of the landscape, as basic as sand and water. Our birthright.

But I didn't want to get off onto a philosophical discussion of freedom. Rather I'm concerned that our country has not given enough thought to basic questions of PURPOSE. Specifically, in the issue of gay marriage and other hot-button topics, the calm, reasoning questions often get lost. Are many people asking what is the fundamental purpose of marriage? Are many people asking what is the fundamental purpose of education? How about such basic things as food -- what is the fundamental purpose of that?

What guidelines do we use to figure out our purpose for doing anything? If we ignore self-evident truths of nature, we can get lost real fast in our own small and ultimately self-defeating purposes.

The ultimate PURPOSE of America's institutions can easily be obscured by politics, by the demands of individuals or loud and well-organized groups of individuals.

I believe gay marriage can easily be shown to be counter-productive to society, and thus should not be sanctioned by society. I believe our educational system is topsy-turvy, serving the needs of administrators and other adults before and often in spite of the needs of children and thus the future of society. I believe too many Americans put flavor and pleasure first when choosing their food and denigrate nutritional needs, to the detriment of physical health. Thus we have high rates of obesity, heart disease, diabetes.

Much more later.....