Paul Mero

6/23/2014

Recently, Utah’s Catholic Bishop John C. Wester released a statement arguing for Medicaid expansion, specifically calling on the Utah Legislature to accept Governor Gary Herbert’s Medicaid expansion plan. His words were direct and, at times, sharp. Bishop Wester’s moral defense of Utah’s poor and needy was on display. I like how he speaks. I appreciate a moral defense of anything. For me, there is no argument more important than a moral argument.

That said, I disagree with his endorsement of Medicaid expansion – and I disagree on moral grounds as well as a matter of good government. read more

Every year since 2001, the Gallup organization has surveyed Americans regarding the moral acceptability of 19 social issues. These social issues range from birth control to extramarital affairs, from divorce to suicide and from human cloning to medical testing on animals.

Of the 19, the most morally acceptable behavior is the use of birth control, even across party lines. Largely accepted, although with less consistency across party lines, are divorce, sex between an unmarried man and woman, stem cell research, gambling, the death penalty, buying and wearing animal fur, out-of-wedlock births, homosexuality and medical testing on animals. read more

I got my first job when I was 15 years old loading groceries into cars at one of the nation’s first membership stores in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. I made $2.15 an hour that, for a 15 year old in 1973, was nothing to sneeze at. After a while I got a ten-cent raise and was promoted to work inside the store in its warehouse.

I remember vividly the day that the union representative from the retail workers’ union stopped by to sign me up. He explained all of the benefits to joining the union. I knew how hard I worked and I recall asking him how much the guy pushing the broom all day was paid hourly. The union rep told me proudly, “He makes the same as you! That’s the strength of our union!” I told him I didn’t want any part of an organization that would pay that guy the same as me. We did different work. Furthermore, I did more work than the other guy and I expected to be paid more. I didn’t have anything against unions – how could I, I was 15 years old? – but I had a strong sense of self-interest. read more

Here is a name you won’t soon forget: Brendan Eich. Like so many other success stories out of Silicon Valley, Brendan Eich is a computer programmer who struck it big. He created a popular web browser language called JavaScript. In 1988, Eich co-founded a tech project that turned into the Mozilla Corporation that owns the web browser Firefox. Mozilla named him its new CEO on March 24 where he remained for eleven days when he unceremoniously resigned his position on April 3.

After two decades of brilliant work inside a corporation he built, what sort of scandal must have befallen Brendan Eich to get him to resign his post in only eleven days? What caused him to resign his prestigious job is that six years ago he donated $1,000 to Proposition 8 in California – and, for that high crime, homosexual activists drove him from office. In his resignation letter, Eich said, “Under the present circumstance, I cannot be an effective leader.” read more

It seems that the 40th annual convention of American Atheists is coming to town next spring and its organizers sound like they’re looking to pick a fight with Utah’s Latter-day Saint population.

A spokesman for the atheists tells the Deseret News,

It is our perception that the Mormon Church is interfering with freedom of religion and freedom of speech in Utah by intimidating people…We’d love to be proven wrong on that, but everything we see and hear about how the Mormon Church controls things in Utah seems to be a prime example of religious oppression. They are pushing Mormon values on people. I consider that to be un-American. read more

Do you have a right to behave badly? Most people probably would answer “no” to that question even if, in their heart of hearts, they feel quite differently. And, by all counts today, Americans do feel differently.

There is no constitutional right to bad behavior. In fact, the United States Constitution exists, in large part, to keep bad behavior in check at the federal levels of government. The same goes for state constitutions and a whole raft of state and local laws. Laws exist because of bad behavior – not to encourage it but to discourage it. A free society requires order, meaning good behavior, and a free society cannot long endure a culture of bad behavior – it can’t afford it neither can it naturally counter it. There are no neutral corners in a free society where bad behavior simply vanishes because men all of the sudden become angels. read more