Faithfulness to Your Homeland Should not be Considered a Vice

      Seeking out injustice and setting it right is what lawmaking should be about. Those elected to office should think much in terms of creating laws that bring justice where justice is not currently had.
   Like, our oath of citizenship, and how we require our immigrants to renounce allegiance and faithfulness to their past countries.
   Tonight, after a beautiful music performance by a family, I was in a conversation with the mother of the family when politics and the U.S. presidential race came up. The mother said she could not vote because she isn't a U.S. citizen. After, I don't know, maybe 18 years here, and being in the process of raising a wonderful family here, she remains a Canadian citizen.
   I asked her why she hasn't applied for U.S. citizenship. She told me she didn't feel right about renouncing her Canadian citizenship. She felt that would be kind of like being a traitor.
   I think it sad that the naturalization process in our country requires people to renounce their homelands. I think of the many wonderful countries around the world, and of how people should feel proud to be from those places, and should, indeed, recoil in horror at the thought of renouncing faithfulness to them. I consider on how there must be reasonable percentage of immigrants who retain warm feelings toward their homelands, and I am a little surprised that we don't hear of more who, due to their principles, decline to become Americans because they feel it wrong to renounce their homelands.
   And, I think it a wrong that we should require this of them.
   You can pledge to be true to America, to stand by it, and to fight for it, if necessary, without being required to renounce your fidelity and love of your homeland. If justice is justice, we should drop this requirement.
 

Making Foster Parenting a Volunteer Endeavor Provides Hope

   I am not coming up with more as I seek to create a law that would protect foster children from being placed in homes where sexual abuse would take place. Yesterday, I posted on how foster parenting should not be a paid endeavor, in order to keep the motives pure for taking in the children.
   I think it wise advice. I think it would reduce the chances of a child being placed in an abusive home. The parents doing it for free, would be doing it for love. Yes, it might reduce the pool of potential foster parents, but among those gone from the pool would be many of those more likely to abuse the children.
   Background checks? I would guess those are already required.

No One Should be Held Liable for the Unendorsed Actions of Another

   No one shall be held liable for the actions of another, if he or she did not endorse or condone the errant actions of the other.
   This, I would make law.
   I think on the Navajo siblings who filed lawsuit against The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They seek damages for placement in foster care homes earlier in their lives, placement that allegedly was in homes where they were sexually abused.
   If the children were abused, that is a great wrong. We should seek and consider what we can do to shield children from such abuse, what we can do to screen out harmful foster parents. But, we should also be concerned with protecting people and organizations from fault that is not theirs. If one person in an organization in good faith places a child with another member of that organization, and that second member then commits an offense, the second person should be held liable, not the first.
   Blame should be where blame belongs.
   If we see an injustice in our society, we should change it. If people are to be sued for the wrongful actions committed by others -- actions that they did not condone nor endorse nor participate in -- that is an injustice. We would do well to change our laws to prevent this.

If Love is all There is to Gain, They'll be More Likely to Love the Children

   If we were chipping away at the ills of society one by one, we probably should change up the foster care program. If we can find enough volunteer families, then we should no more pay people to be foster parents.
   I'm sure many of the paid foster parents are wonderful. The problem is, some take the children for the money and then do not properly take care of them, treating them roughly and without love. The danger of the children becoming a paycheck without being truly loved is not a thing we should be doing.
   Children are perhaps our greatest responsibility, certainly one of them. Placing them at risk is not something we should do.
    As I said, and I want to emphasize it, I would guess most of the foster parents are tender and loving. But, I would also guess the share of them who care not for the kid but only for the money is more than we should allow. There is a rule about life: Where you place your carrots determines the results you get. If money is the carrot, some will become foster parents just to receive a paycheck though they don't bring love into the relationship.
   But, if they volunteer to take care of the children, they almost always will be doing so because they want to help. The carrot, then, is to help, to love, to benefit the child.
   Are children important? Is the raising of them a matter of utmost importance? Then, we should make this change.

St. Matthew Passion

  Perhaps it would have been neat to take in Bach's St. Matthew Passion at the Cathedral of the Madeline yesterday. I'm told it is rarely performed, partly due to it requiring a double choir and numerous soloists. I wonder if the oratorio is good enough to be considered one of the best offerings our culture has to offer during the Easter Season. Is it good enough, that if it were offered enough, it might be equal to what "A Christmas Carol" is to Christmas?
   If so, I missed out.
   We have stories, songs, concerts, and plays a plenty that come with Christmas. It would be good to have more offerings for Easter, not to commercialize the season, but to contribute to its observance.

Suit by Navajo Siblings Points to Need for Two New Laws

   One of the responsibilities of a state legislator -- perhaps the responsibility -- is to feret out where injustice is being done, and, in those cases where laws are the proper vehicle for change, to change things.
   Pass laws that protect against unfairness and injustice.
   I am running for the state legislature, and it occurs to me that a person could be kept busy introducing such legislation. I pick up my paper and read a story I had been meaning to catch up on for a couple days now. Two Navajo siblings are suing The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for placing them in homes where sexual abuse took place. They allege that it happened not just in one home, but in a series of homes.
   Obviously, if we can do anything to prevent children from being placed in bad homes, we want to do that. I ponder on what kind of legislation is possible.
   But, there is also another injustice to be concerned with here. I question whether the church should be made responsible for the abuse when it is clear the church does not condone, does not knowingly encourage, and does not want to be affiliated in anyway with sexual abuse. On the contrary, it fights against it.
   I do not know all the facts of the case. It might be, church representatives knew their was danger in placing children in the homes they did. There might have been culpability.
   But, I can see the need for protecting the church from injustice.
   I will post in the coming days on both sides of this question -- what can be done to protect the children and what can be done to protect the church. For those who might not want to wait, look up my July 1 blog from last year. It has some application here, and I will probably be reposting it, with some revision.

All Lives Matter, Even the Lives of Criminals

   I read a guest column in the Deseret News, titled, "My view: Amidst Rio Grande shooting investigation, police should be commended."  A man was shot by police, and a riot broke out in response. The column praises the police for how they handled the affair.
   While I do not know whether the police should be praised for the overall event, the riot, it seems a little much to praise them for the shooting of Abdi Mohamed.  Almost taking the life of a person -- even a criminal -- is not something we should be quick to praise. I also reflect on one of the online comments to the article, it saying the officers' concern is not for the safety of the perpetrator, but rather for the victim. That is a common sentiment, spoken so often it undoubtedly does carry into how officers respond to such situations. I see a slippery slope in such thinking. It can lead to dismissing the lives and safety of some. I think we should want to be careful against thinking anyone's life does not matter. I think of the popular expression, "All lives matter," and I believe it. All lives matter, even the lives of criminals.