Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Defining the family

I copied the image below off the web.  I have no idea who these people are, but they appear to be two parents, male and female, and two children presumably image belonging to said parents.  While their backs are turned there is no reason to believe they aren't all perfectly happy and healthy.  The universal response anyone looking at this picture would have - "This is a picture of a family" - reaffirms at its most fundamental level a family is an archetype and requires no one to reach for the dictionary when they see one or hear the word. 

In spite of it really needing no definition, the legislature likes to remind us what family really means and this year is no exception.  One guesses they do this out of concern some of us see something other than a family in the above picture.  Worse yet,  the picture or others like it may trigger some kind of liberal Pavlovian response causing some of us to propose "anti-family" policies like universal health care or a living wage law so one parent can support the family and the other can stay home with the kids if they choose.

An archetype is defined by my dictionary as "the original pattern or model for all things of the same type."  A child's family is the original and, assuming it is a loving functional family, certainly the best model for the expanding circle of relationships developed over the course of a lifetime.  But the archetype is the "original pattern" upon which future patterns are based.  It is not the limit or extent of all future patterns. 

When I consider those who are part of my family either because of some genetic relationship, by marriage, or simply because there is an emotional bond similar to that found between parent and child or siblings, certainly the archetype the image above represents is not inconsistent with any of these relationships. 

How often have we either personally said or heard others say they love someone "like a son/daughter", "mother/father" or a "brother/sister"?  Are such strong relationships not to be considered a part of our family if we choose to treat them as such?  Why should the Utah legislature care if we do?  Certainly there is no real marital or biological bond here.  No real mother or father, brother or sister in the original archetypal sense. 

For my part my wife and I had a daughter together.  In addition, I have someone I have come to love as a son.  Both will receive whatever support I can give when needed for the remainder of my life. I worry about both when I know they are struggling or suffering and I miss both when they are absent.  Both I consider part of my family. 

The fact the law doesn't recognize someone who is "like a son" to me as a son is beside the point.  With the recent exception of legislation dealing with gay marriage the definition of family being promoted by the legislature or by town councils and county commissions in recent years are written into non-binding resolutions carrying no more legal weight than my personal choice about how I define my family outside the existing legal framework.  In other words, they are both patronizing and irrelevant.  They would be worth completely ignoring if they were not also intended to divide people rather than bring them together while diverting attention from more pressing issues.

I find it ironic a state whose predominate religion asks its members to greet each other in fellowship as "brother" or "sister" finds it necessary to also keep passing resolutions and bills premised upon a definition of family which is so narrow.  In referring to one another as "brother" or "sister" Mormons and members of other faiths with this same/similar tradition are broadening the meaning of family at least to members of their own denomination if not to humanity at large.  While this practice is modeled upon the archetype, the new pattern created is one of greater inclusion.

The resolution the legislature is considering will probably pass.  No one wishes to appear "anti-family" and it has no legal effect anyway.  It will have no practical effect on people either.  Humans are endowed with an incredible amount of freedom and most of us will go about defining and building our families in our own deeply personal and immensely meaningful ways. 

But such resolutions are still worth questioning.  They enable legislators to claim at election time they have supported the family while real threats to families such as a decline in real wages, growing lack of health insurance coverage and the rising tide of bankruptcy and unemployment are largely ignored.  These problems certainly place many families in real distress, often contributing to spousal and child abuse and ultimately to divorce. Perhaps a society that took a more inclusive view of family wouldn't be so willing to sweep such problems under the rug.

Regardless, I for one pity those who see family as simply the archetype and nothing more.  Those of us who know it is all of that and much more are well aware what blessings they are missing.

Monday, February 8, 2010

If we're really serious about states' rights...

Confederate flag

As the Utah State Legislature is busy demonstrating, the question of states' rights remains a divisive issue in the United States.  While some historians might argue it was more or less put to bed 145 years ago with the defeat of the Confederacy in The Civil War, this clearly isn't the case.

More than 300,000 Utahns are without health care coverage, we rank fifth in the nation in the number of foreclosures and a record number of our citizens are currently on Food Stamps.  Now wouldn't seem a very propitious time to be insisting the federal government butt out of our affairs, especially since the Utah Legislature has shown absolutely no interest in dealing seriously with Utah's health care crisis or expanding, or even maintaining social programs to help those most in need during the current crisis.

The bills and resolutions being considered this year effectively telling the United States Government to take a hike include a prohibition on state agency cooperation with the government on implementation of health care reform (assuming the Congress ever gets around to passing something), legislation exempting guns made in Utah from any federal gun laws, resolutions trumpeting states' rights and Utah's "sovereignty", a resolution opposing regulation of green house gas emissions by the feds and a resolution insisting on the removal of the wolf from the Endangered Species List allowing us to kill any wolf that dares enter the Beehive State.

Okay, so we elected these folks and they have clearly determined the state's top priority, or maybe second priority after cutting education and fraying the safety net even further, is to emancipate Utah from the clutches of the federal government.  Fine, let's not mess around.  The slave states of the south may have lost, but they didn't mess around and neither should we if this is really what the people of Utah expect from their elected officials.

Turning down all federal funding for Medicare, Medicaid, transportation, education and the school lunch program, just to name a few, is the best place to start if this is about Utah demonstrating sovereignty and self reliance as legislators claim.  It is the height of hypocrisy, not to mention ingratitude, to take all this federal money but insist the feds have no right to tie strings to it.  If we don't like the strings, don't take the money.

In addition, public lands management is an ongoing sore spot with our legislature and apparently at least a few vocal Utahns.  Instead of passing endless resolutions insisting federal land managers really have no business managing federal lands, let's make an offer and see if the feds won't sell them to us.  We'll have to raise taxes just to come up with the down payment, but the US Government could use the money right now and we would finally be out from under their thumb.

Finally, no truly sovereign state can have such a heavy United States military presence on its sacred soil.  Utah abuts no foreign country, so there can really be no reason beyond intimidation for the US government to have two Army facilities and an Air Force base within our borders.  Time for the military to get lost.  And while the feds are packing up, they can build that massive National Security Agency facility they are planning in some other state where people don't care about their freedom as much as we do.

If the federal government doesn't allow us to turn down all their money, accept our offer to buy the public lands, and withdraw its military presence, then the legislature should vote to secede.   All this bloviating about states' rights is getting tiresome.  Either Utah lawmakers mean we are a sovereign state and the feds are exceeding their constitutional powers or they don't.  Something about getting off the pot comes to mind here.  If all these bills and resolutions amount to nothing but posturing, then stop wasting taxpayer time and money and get down to actually conducting the people's business.

Friday, February 5, 2010

Tell the legislature municipal waste incineration is not "renewable energy"

Incinerator The following was an alert sent out via email by the Wasatch Clean Air Coalition.  The CEP asks its members and followers to join with them in opposition to HB 228 designating municipal waste incineration a form of "renewable energy".

 

 

Please call or write your Utah Rep and ask them to vote NO on HB 228. This bill may be voted this Monday, Feb 8.

HB 228  Renewable Energy Source Amendments -- Barrus, R.
http://le.utah.gov/~2010/htmdoc/hbillhtm/hb0228.htm

This bill would add municipal waste incineration to Utah's list of
renewable energy.  That would allow garbage incinerators tax credits and it would count to Utah's renewable energy goal.  See below for more info about municipal waste incineration, some highlights:

A study by Ontario's Ministry of the Environment concluded that
state-of-the-art garbage incinerators release 15 chemicals that cause cancer, lung disease and nerve damage. These include dioxins and furans, lead, cadmium, and mercury.

  • A British study in 1996 of 14 million people living within 7.5
    kilometers of 72 municipal incinerators concluded that these people have an increased likelihood of getting several different cancers.
  • Three municipal incinerators in France were closed in 1998 because milk from cows on nearby dairy farms was contaminated with high levels of dioxins.
  • In 1997, scientists in Japan found that the rate of infant deaths in areas neighboring incinerators were 40% to 70% higher than average.

Please call or write your Rep this weekend.  If you know any constituents of Rep Barrus, please ask them "What is he thinking, incentives for incinerators?"

Find your Rep at http://www.le.state.ut.us/house/DistrictInfo/newMaps/State.htm

Peace,
Kathy Van Dame, Policy Coordinator
Wasatch Clean Air Coalition
(801)261-5989  dvd.kvd@juno.com