SPEAK OUT

We want the prayers

SO THAT'S it. We're not going to pray before Jackson High School football games any more. Our school board and Ron Anderson never received a complaint and never received a signed letter requesting us not to pray. And never have any of our opponents ever asked Jackson not to pray before home football games. Once again, it's lawyers who are running our school district. The board members were elected to represent who we are as a community. This is another decision by our school board that does not reflect who I am. Jackson board members: Do these two passages sound familiar? "I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other." And, "I tell you the truth, before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times."

Mark these words

WHEN THE television was invented, they said it would be very good for society. That's the same thing they said about the Internet.

Losing our liberty

IN SPITE of the tax burden, capitalism has been so successful in eliminating disease, pestilence, hunger and gross poverty that other human problems now appear to be both unbearable and inexcusable. Free enterprise is thus threatened today not because of its failure, but somewhat ironically because of its success. Although the rise of capitalism brought about better treatment of women, racial minorities, handicapped, criminals and the insane, social reformers assert that it doesn't work and is dehumanizing. In the name of ideals such as income equality, sex and wage balance, affordable housing and medical care, orderly markets, consumer protection and energy conservation, to name just a few, we have imposed widespread government controls that have subordinated us to the point at which considerations of personal freedom are but secondary matters. If you take tiny steps toward a goal, one day you will get there. And the ultimate end of the process is totalitarianism under socialism, which is no more than a reduced form of servitude. Or, as it's been said by one of the great men of the past, it's seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once.