In considering policy decisions regarding budget and tax reform, charitable deductions should be protected as our foundation for personal and social freedom.
100 YEAR TRADITION
Congress enacted the charitable deduction in 1917, shortly after passage of the permanent income tax, to encourage the continuance of private giving to the community. 1.
For nearly 100 years charitable deductions have encouraged Americans to make decisions about the social programs that are best providing resources for the well-being of the community and country and to contribute monetary support for their continuance.
PERSONAL CHOICE -SOURCE OF INNOVATION AND SOCIAL BETTERMENT
This opportunity to contribute to the social organization of their choice has encouraged and motivated citizens to take an interest in their community and an interest in volunteering to support and contribute to social betterment.
Charitable deductions have been a source of innovation for programs of social betterment through nonprofit organizations. These groups support education, religion, health, scientific breakthroughs, crisis relief, music, art, literature, recreation, youth activities and a multitude of other interests.
When giving is a personal choice, donors are encouraged to volunteer their time and money to support the interests of their choice. The foundation of our freedom rests on the assurance that we know better than government bureaucracies what best serves our values and needs.
NONPROFITS AT RISK
Americans are a generous and giving people. However, according to a recent United Way poll, nearly two-thirds of the respondents say that without the charitable tax deduction they would have to reduce their giving significantly. Many nonprofits that are supplying vital services to the community would find it necessary to reduce or abandon their efforts. Billions of dollars of donations could be put at risk, undermining America's nonprofits and the people who are supported by them. 2.
PROTECT AMERICA'S STRENGTH
The strength of America lies in the wisdom of its citizens to care for the well-being of the communities in which they live through nonprofits, philanthropy, and personal charity.
We need to protect the American citizens' ability to continue these responsible contributions by protecting charitable tax deductions.
References:
1. Carson, Emmett D. "Charitable deduction should be the last thing Congress cuts." San Jose Mercury News.
2. Biemesderfer, David. Hansen, Teri A and Jerde, Roxie. "Guest Columnists: Don't cut charitable deduction." Herald-Tribune. Wednesday, June 5, 2013.
Monday, August 12, 2013
Friday, June 28, 2013
Chipping Away at Our Moral Foundation
Recently I was sorting my files and I came across an article written by my Father in 1980. As I read it I realized how appropriately it speaks to contemporary social concerns. I reproduce his concerns here.
THE RELIGION OF MORALISTIC CHIPS
by Weston Hare March 20, 1980
The Thesis of this essay is:
The inherent morality of the Christian religion has been, to a considerable degree, been put on the museum shelf and a superficial morality made up of "chips", slogans and decals has replaced it.
A minor example would be the smiling face symbol. A more general example would be the "Rights" explosion. You may think that these are flowers and fruits of Christianity growing on the Christian tree.
Well, let us consider this.
The basis of the morals of Christianity and Judaism are the Commandments of God: "Thou shalt not kill", etc. Start with that one. The U.S. Supreme Court recently said: It is proper to kill children before birth at the will of the mother.
Now, last I heard, we kill 1,200,000 babies each year by abortion. Why would the Supreme Court undertake to become conspirators - before-the- fact - of annual "Megamurder" (mega meaning a million)?
If God believes abortion to be killing, why should they legalize that? Taking an awful chance, aren't they?
Well, the reason for doing so is clear from the next Commandment.
"Thou shalt not commit adultery".
Clearly the Moralistic Chip religion has to squirm out of that one, because they have all sorts of ideas beyond THAT barrier. To rationalize these ideas, they invented birth control. And they reason that if unwanted children do not result from disobeying this Commandment, surely God would excuse us for putting this also on the shelf.
Because, Love, they say is of God.
At this point, they have fallen into a trap invented hundreds of years ago, when the English language made the word - LOVE- much broader in meaning than Greek & Latin words.
The English word came to include three Greek words for lust, unselfish love and marital love. The King James version of the Bible (370 years ago) avoided this trap by using the word "CHARITY" for unselfish love.
But, by the turn of the century and probably earlier 'love' often included all three. So, now, at this date, in many high places, the word includes adultery and even homosexuality.
God disapproves of the former and according to the Bible (even newer versions) literally 'hates' the latter.
So I guess it is a trap, all right. So they put that Commandment regarding adultery on the shelf and have many superficial chips or decals to take its place.
Take another Commandment "Thou shalt not covet - anything that is thy neighbor's".
That is a pretty good one for getting along together. But it is too much for the 'chips' religion.
It has been substituted by the "Rights" explosion of moralistic chips.
Now we are told among other things that it is our Right (nay, duty) to sue anyone (especially large organizations or insurance companies) for millions of dollars, it any of our "Rights" defined by the chips are violated.
Clearly, if a person may gain more by having some "Rights" violated than he could earn by a lifetime of hard work, no-one would fail to covet things belonging to his neighbor.
Therefore, the Rights Explosion (Let the chips fall where they may) is nothing but a Pig Factory making the people more like pigs than people. The word "Sue-ee" has long been used to assemble pigs. Ask any farmer.
The Rights explosion also destroys families and the normal passing along of social principles.
Children have 'rights' and need not obey their parents, they may sue their parents, or have contempt for them. They are to call - 800 - numbers if they think they are abused in any way. Therefore there must be a tendency to let the kids go uninstructed. Good parents may produce unworthy children because they are talked out of "bringing up children in the way they should go" and the children are talked out of believing them anyway.
So here we have another Commandment put on the museum shelf: "Honor thy father and thy mother."
Enough of that for the present,
but of what does this situation - The Moralistic Chips Religion - remind one?
Clearly it reminds one of the legalistic "Chips Religion" taught, in place of the laws given to Moses, by the Pharisees when Jesus came to the earth. Jesus went to great extremes to condemn the Pharisees (as children of Hell, sons of Satan, hypocrites, blind leaders of the blind, a generation of vipers, etc. etc.)
They had made up a large number of replacement rules (chips) which essentially put the basic mosaic laws aside and substituted others, which often relieved the leaders from obeying them.
I have not studied them in detail but clearly they were offensive to Jesus.
It seems to me that we are now being given by the Moral Establishment a similar, substituted, superficial religion which may well be no more respected by Jesus than the Pharisee's religion was then.
It would be wise to shy away from the Chips Religion and adhere to the more deeply seated program of the Bible.
Then, should Jesus return to the earth, we would be on His side, rather than on that of the Neo-Pharisees who seem to be in charge of much of the teaching today.
THE RELIGION OF MORALISTIC CHIPS
by Weston Hare March 20, 1980
The Thesis of this essay is:
The inherent morality of the Christian religion has been, to a considerable degree, been put on the museum shelf and a superficial morality made up of "chips", slogans and decals has replaced it.
A minor example would be the smiling face symbol. A more general example would be the "Rights" explosion. You may think that these are flowers and fruits of Christianity growing on the Christian tree.
Well, let us consider this.
The basis of the morals of Christianity and Judaism are the Commandments of God: "Thou shalt not kill", etc. Start with that one. The U.S. Supreme Court recently said: It is proper to kill children before birth at the will of the mother.
Now, last I heard, we kill 1,200,000 babies each year by abortion. Why would the Supreme Court undertake to become conspirators - before-the- fact - of annual "Megamurder" (mega meaning a million)?
If God believes abortion to be killing, why should they legalize that? Taking an awful chance, aren't they?
Well, the reason for doing so is clear from the next Commandment.
"Thou shalt not commit adultery".
Clearly the Moralistic Chip religion has to squirm out of that one, because they have all sorts of ideas beyond THAT barrier. To rationalize these ideas, they invented birth control. And they reason that if unwanted children do not result from disobeying this Commandment, surely God would excuse us for putting this also on the shelf.
Because, Love, they say is of God.
At this point, they have fallen into a trap invented hundreds of years ago, when the English language made the word - LOVE- much broader in meaning than Greek & Latin words.
The English word came to include three Greek words for lust, unselfish love and marital love. The King James version of the Bible (370 years ago) avoided this trap by using the word "CHARITY" for unselfish love.
But, by the turn of the century and probably earlier 'love' often included all three. So, now, at this date, in many high places, the word includes adultery and even homosexuality.
God disapproves of the former and according to the Bible (even newer versions) literally 'hates' the latter.
So I guess it is a trap, all right. So they put that Commandment regarding adultery on the shelf and have many superficial chips or decals to take its place.
Take another Commandment "Thou shalt not covet - anything that is thy neighbor's".
That is a pretty good one for getting along together. But it is too much for the 'chips' religion.
It has been substituted by the "Rights" explosion of moralistic chips.
Now we are told among other things that it is our Right (nay, duty) to sue anyone (especially large organizations or insurance companies) for millions of dollars, it any of our "Rights" defined by the chips are violated.
Clearly, if a person may gain more by having some "Rights" violated than he could earn by a lifetime of hard work, no-one would fail to covet things belonging to his neighbor.
Therefore, the Rights Explosion (Let the chips fall where they may) is nothing but a Pig Factory making the people more like pigs than people. The word "Sue-ee" has long been used to assemble pigs. Ask any farmer.
The Rights explosion also destroys families and the normal passing along of social principles.
Children have 'rights' and need not obey their parents, they may sue their parents, or have contempt for them. They are to call - 800 - numbers if they think they are abused in any way. Therefore there must be a tendency to let the kids go uninstructed. Good parents may produce unworthy children because they are talked out of "bringing up children in the way they should go" and the children are talked out of believing them anyway.
So here we have another Commandment put on the museum shelf: "Honor thy father and thy mother."
Enough of that for the present,
but of what does this situation - The Moralistic Chips Religion - remind one?
Clearly it reminds one of the legalistic "Chips Religion" taught, in place of the laws given to Moses, by the Pharisees when Jesus came to the earth. Jesus went to great extremes to condemn the Pharisees (as children of Hell, sons of Satan, hypocrites, blind leaders of the blind, a generation of vipers, etc. etc.)
They had made up a large number of replacement rules (chips) which essentially put the basic mosaic laws aside and substituted others, which often relieved the leaders from obeying them.
I have not studied them in detail but clearly they were offensive to Jesus.
It seems to me that we are now being given by the Moral Establishment a similar, substituted, superficial religion which may well be no more respected by Jesus than the Pharisee's religion was then.
It would be wise to shy away from the Chips Religion and adhere to the more deeply seated program of the Bible.
Then, should Jesus return to the earth, we would be on His side, rather than on that of the Neo-Pharisees who seem to be in charge of much of the teaching today.
Monday, April 8, 2013
An Open Letter to the Boy Scouts of America National Council
Dear Leaders and Friends of Boy Scouts of America;
I encourage the National Council of Boy Scouts of America to uphold the ban on gay leaders when it votes in May. As a cub scout leader and scout mother in the 1970's and now a scout grandmother, I am concerned that this change in behavioral expectations for our sons will undermine the foundations of moral, religious and family values in our country.
As a professor of sociology, now retired, I have given considerable thought to examining this issue from the differing perspectives. I am enclosing a paper presented at the Southwestern Sociological Association Meetings in 2010.
The PDF file of this paper - "Over the Rainbow: The Gay Battle for Social Reorganization of America" is located on my website, www.wrestlingwithangels.com. It can be downloaded on to electronic readers at no cost.
Concerns are summarized on page 1. "The normalization of homosexuality in society will create profound changes in social organization, especially in the areas of social integration, social reproduction, social health and the inter-generational transfer of cultural values. The social discourse has been rampant with charges of bigotry, hate mongering and charges of homophobia. However, neither intimidation, tolerance nor back slapping love fests are appropriate means to bring about change in social behavior that has wide reaching consequences."
Personal concerns are outlined in two articles from my blogsite. "On Telling Children to Play in the Traffic" (Sept. 3, 2012) and "Prude Pride - Restoring Sexual Sanity" (Sept. 27, 2012).
"For God and Country" has been a foundational motto for the Boy Scouts. The normalization of homosexuality would place the Boy Scouts at odds with religious family values, making it inappropriate to support and protect these values within the organization.
Thank you for your consideration of these concerns.
Marjorie L. Coppock, Ph.D.
I encourage the National Council of Boy Scouts of America to uphold the ban on gay leaders when it votes in May. As a cub scout leader and scout mother in the 1970's and now a scout grandmother, I am concerned that this change in behavioral expectations for our sons will undermine the foundations of moral, religious and family values in our country.
As a professor of sociology, now retired, I have given considerable thought to examining this issue from the differing perspectives. I am enclosing a paper presented at the Southwestern Sociological Association Meetings in 2010.
The PDF file of this paper - "Over the Rainbow: The Gay Battle for Social Reorganization of America" is located on my website, www.wrestlingwithangels.com. It can be downloaded on to electronic readers at no cost.
Concerns are summarized on page 1. "The normalization of homosexuality in society will create profound changes in social organization, especially in the areas of social integration, social reproduction, social health and the inter-generational transfer of cultural values. The social discourse has been rampant with charges of bigotry, hate mongering and charges of homophobia. However, neither intimidation, tolerance nor back slapping love fests are appropriate means to bring about change in social behavior that has wide reaching consequences."
Personal concerns are outlined in two articles from my blogsite. "On Telling Children to Play in the Traffic" (Sept. 3, 2012) and "Prude Pride - Restoring Sexual Sanity" (Sept. 27, 2012).
"For God and Country" has been a foundational motto for the Boy Scouts. The normalization of homosexuality would place the Boy Scouts at odds with religious family values, making it inappropriate to support and protect these values within the organization.
Thank you for your consideration of these concerns.
Marjorie L. Coppock, Ph.D.
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Wrestling With Angels on the Web at No Cost
After retiring from teaching sociology in 2002, I was concerned about how quickly social and moral values and public legislation were changing from support for stable family relationships to sexual license and family dissolution. I spent the next year pulling together information for my book Wrestling With Angels - The Sexual Revolution Confronts the Church.
Wrestling With Angels, published in April of 2003, examines the last 60 years to document:
1) the influences that encouraged or resisted changes in sexual and family patterns;
2) the consequences for individuals and society;
3) how these changes in behavior affected Judeo/Christian policies and practices; and
4) how different religious organizations responded to these changing behaviors.
Organizations and individuals responsible for encouraging or resisting these changes are identified and discussed. Chapters include discussions on radical feminism, sex education in the schools, childhood sexual abuse, abortion, homosexuality, pornography, divorce, sexual misconduct in the church, reproductive technologies, and changing influences within seminaries.
While each chapter is discussed sociologically, identifying different perspectives and how denominations are responding in various ways, I conclude as a concerned Christian mother in regard to the consequences of these changing behaviors for individuals, families and religious practices.
The original printing of 2500 books has been sold and distributed.
** The PDF file of the book is now located on the website: www.wrestlingwithangels.com.
The book can be downloaded on to electronic readers at no cost.
You are welcome to do so.
*********************************************
Also available to be downloaded from this website at no cost are related professional papers I have presented at meetings, Including:
*Pornifying America: Rape of the Culture and What Can Be Done
*Over the Rainbow: The Gay Battle for Social Reorganization of America
*AmeriNazification: The Doubling of the American Soul
*Eugenics: The Ethical Dilemma of Reproductive Technology
* Who's Rocking the Cradle? From Procreation to Production
*Abortion Divides the Nation
* Bias and Error in the Death Penalty
*Euthanasia Comes to the United States
*******************************************
You are invited to consider these significant social issues and to invite your thoughtful family, friends and colleagues to join you.
Having recently purchased an electronic reader, I have become aware of the convenience and efficiency of electronic books and reading material.
Wrestling With Angels, published in April of 2003, examines the last 60 years to document:
1) the influences that encouraged or resisted changes in sexual and family patterns;
2) the consequences for individuals and society;
3) how these changes in behavior affected Judeo/Christian policies and practices; and
4) how different religious organizations responded to these changing behaviors.
Organizations and individuals responsible for encouraging or resisting these changes are identified and discussed. Chapters include discussions on radical feminism, sex education in the schools, childhood sexual abuse, abortion, homosexuality, pornography, divorce, sexual misconduct in the church, reproductive technologies, and changing influences within seminaries.
While each chapter is discussed sociologically, identifying different perspectives and how denominations are responding in various ways, I conclude as a concerned Christian mother in regard to the consequences of these changing behaviors for individuals, families and religious practices.
The original printing of 2500 books has been sold and distributed.
** The PDF file of the book is now located on the website: www.wrestlingwithangels.com.
The book can be downloaded on to electronic readers at no cost.
You are welcome to do so.
*********************************************
Also available to be downloaded from this website at no cost are related professional papers I have presented at meetings, Including:
*Pornifying America: Rape of the Culture and What Can Be Done
*Over the Rainbow: The Gay Battle for Social Reorganization of America
*AmeriNazification: The Doubling of the American Soul
*Eugenics: The Ethical Dilemma of Reproductive Technology
* Who's Rocking the Cradle? From Procreation to Production
*Abortion Divides the Nation
* Bias and Error in the Death Penalty
*Euthanasia Comes to the United States
*******************************************
You are invited to consider these significant social issues and to invite your thoughtful family, friends and colleagues to join you.
Having recently purchased an electronic reader, I have become aware of the convenience and efficiency of electronic books and reading material.
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