The child wept. He screamed, cried, clawed and bit to avoid going to the doctor’s office. The mother was fed up with his antics but took him to the doctor’s because he needed it.

The blood tests and strep screens taken at the doctor’s office showed that the child had meningitis, a swelling of the brain tissue that can be fatal.

The condition was caught in time and treated appropriately. Fortunately for the child, his mother was not elected, or she might have taken the path of least resistance.

The pouting of politicians and the screams of special interests inundate our society today. These wails drown out reasonable and needed action.

Take for instance the recent tantrum that occurred when a local Congressman talked of abolishing the National Endowment of the Arts.

The cry babies quickly came to the defense of the NEA. They extolled the virtues of the NEA (support of symphonies, operas and museums) and minimized and excused the excesses (support of hard-core pornographers and pedophilliacs).

If this same selective judgement was used on Hitler (who revived the economy, restored national dignity and gave youth purpose) then he wasn’t a bad man, but a hero. This, however, would be wrong, for a person or project is the sum of all its parts. An occasional failure is forgivable, but nine million systematic executions or unabashed support of degenerate filth is not.

The excuse that the NEA gives of its support of the pornographic and tasteless is that it is art. If this is true, then so were the lamp shades made out of human skins at Auschwitz.

Honest debate on the future of the NEA is a must if this nation is to recover from the economic and moral cancer that besieges it.

It is regretful that there aren’t more politicians who care more for the well-being of the constituents than their own approval ratings.

Many of the children that come into my father’s office don’t want to be there. But the health of the child is what dictates the actions taken.

At this point in U.S. history we are at a crossroad. We must decide whether to face the facts and take the necessary, even painful, steps (i.e. killing the NEA) or leave it as an inheritance to our children (those that ate not exploited, abducted and/ or murdered).

Our national debt is approaching five trillion while we cannot balance the budget for a single year. We ate literally borrowing on our children’s future with no hopes of ever paying the debt.

The moral infrastructure is eroding as fast, if not faster than the economic. Crimes against women affect one of every four girls by the time they reach 20. Divorce, murder, theft and disease leave no family untouched.

What do we do about it? Well, some politicians actually take action to correct and help heal out nation’s wounds. They attempt to cut needless expense, and clean up the gutter where maggots spawn.

Others say that if you don’t want to go to the doctor, then you don’t have to.

I would call that child abuse.

See opposing view by John Affleck

by Philip Pfanstiel
published March 31, 1997