Author: Rice County Republicans

To celebrate America’s 1976 bicentennial, ABC released one of my favorite animated Schoolhouse Rock songs, “I’m Just a Bill”. The dancing, rolled-up piece of paper named “Bill” dances on the U.S. Capitol steps singing, “I’m just a bill, I’m only a bill, and I’m sitting here on Capitol Hill”.  Little did “Bill” know that he could stop wasting his time sitting and just speed through the process by becoming an Executive Order. “Bill” should disregard the slow process of engaging 435 representatives and 100 senators, representatives of the people’s voice, debating and deliberating the pros and cons of legislation, compromising, and building consensus.  “Bill” could encourage the President to push through personal policies and reward supporters with a single stroke of a pen: Sign an Executive Order! Even though the U.S Constitution does not expressly allow for Executive Orders, “Bill” discovers in Article II of the Constitution as head of the Executive Branch and commander in chief of the armed forces, the President “shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed”. Since 1789, approximately 15,700 Executive Orders have been signed using this implied power. With this knowledge, “Bill” is excited for the sitting President to use Executive Orders to enlarge the Executive branch while the Legislative branch’s role shrinks, and the backbone of the Republic weakens.  But hey, with an Executive Order the desired policy now has the...

Social Justice dictates that human participants in society should be equal.  But equal in what? Who decides how to measure equality? The history of Social Justice began around 1840 as a Catholic term for the call to all people to be morally good toward others.  Individuals, acting within families and communities, were to voluntarily organize to address society’s needs.  The organizations made up of those morally just individuals would advance social justice.  Individuals and their associations, deciding for themselves how they can best serve society will perform better, achieve greater self-satisfaction, and behave more compassionately toward others.  This is “classical” Social Justice—a bottom-up, decentralized model for social interaction. As society moved into the Information Age, Social Justice took on a whole new meaning and began to focus on equalizing the outcome of people’s efforts.  This new idea holds that organizations, if properly established and regulated, can achieve that equality of outcome.  It also holds that social disadvantages exist because groups of people are victims of other groups’ privileges.  Desired changes in people’s behavior and circumstances can be achieved by establishing policies targeted at their specific group.  Government and institutions determine what are “just” outcomes.  As more power is given to the government arbiters, individuals’ diversity of natural ability and skills is increasingly suppressed.  The result is forced conformity.  This is “progressive” Social Justice—a top-down, centralized theory of interacting with others....