What Is the American Dream?

People often talk about “the American dream” and how people come to the United States to achieve it. However, there is some question about what the American dream is. According to Merriam Webster Dictionary online, the American dream is “a happy way of living that is thought of by many Americans as something that can be achieved by anyone in the U.S. especially by working hard and becoming successful.” 

In her article titled “Perspective: The American dream isn’t just about money,” Naomi Schaefer Riley discussed the American dream. She wrote that the American dream traditionally was the idea that children should end up in a better position than the parents. “Achieving that intergenerational social mobility required that parents work hard, often at menial jobs, so that their kids could get a higher level of education and a better paying job.” 

Today, there are individuals and families who are missing part of the formula to find the American dream. Riley suggested that we should “examine the kinds of messages we are sending young people about the best way to create a happy, successful life.”

One of the areas that we should examine is the effect of technology on the rising generation. Lois M. Collins examined the connection between family structure and the use of technology. She found that children who live with their married biological parents “use social media and digital technology roughly two hours less a day than their peers who live in stepfamilies or single-parent households.” She added that “family structure could also be an important help or hindrance when it comes to enforcing rules around electronic device use.” 

America and the world suffered through the COVID-19 pandemic, which included cutting many or even most of our social interactions. The pandemic, particularly being kept out of school, greatly affected the mental and emotional health of children and teens. Being isolated from their friends, they relied on technology to maintain contacts, and some continue to prefer maintaining relationships through technology. Such behavior affects mental health. For example, depression “has been linked to excessive use of social media,” according to Collins.

Collins wrote that family structure makes a difference in how much time children and youth spend on technology. She quoted a report from the Wheatley Institute at Brigham Young University and the Institute for Family Studies. The study found that “enforcing the rules around technology falls to parents, but the challenges ‘may be greater for mothers and fathers in some family types than in others.’”

Collins suggested several ways for parents to help their children and youth to cut back on their use of technology. Her suggestions are as follow:

·         Keep electronic devices out of kids’ bedrooms after bedtime.

·         Do allow children younger than 13 to have social media accounts and seriously consider postponing it until at least 16 years of age.

·         Delay getting a smartphone for your child – or allowing them to buy one – until they are at least 16 years of age or even 18.

·         Set a time limit for a child to spend on digital media.

·         Look for nondigital ways for your children to interact with their friends.

·         Join other families who understand the importance of limiting use of technology.

Humans create and strengthen relationships with face-to-face encounters or at least listening to each other’s voice over the telephone. Texting is much faster than making a telephone call, but texts do not have the personal touch of telephone calls. Children and teens – as well as parents and spouses – need to know that they are loved. We can better show love by more personal contacts. By strengthening our families, we are more likely to help our children and grandchildren to achieve the American dream.

Who Is Paris Davis?

            My VIP for this week is retired Army Col. Paris Davis, age 83, who recently received the Congressional Medal of Honor for what he did on June 20, 1965, in Binh Dinh province in South Vietnam. On that fateful day, Davis was a Special Forces captain. His story was summarized on an Army website and reported by Jack Davis. 

Over the course of two days, Davis selflessly led a charge to neutralize enemy emplacements, called for precision artillery fire, engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the enemy, and prevented the capture of three American soldiers (Robert Brown, John Reinberg, and Bill Waugh) while saving their lives with a medical extraction. Davis sustain multiple gunshot and grenade fragment wounds during the 19-hour battle and refused to leave the battlefield until his men were safely removed.

Davis obtained more information from Military.com to fill in some of the blanks of what took place when Captain Davis’s patrol ran into hundreds of Viet Cong.

“I ran down to where the firing was and found five Viet Cong coming over the trench line. I killed all five, and then I heard firing from the left flank,” Davis wrote in his report.

“I ran down there and saw about six Viet Cong moving toward our position. I threw a grenade and killed four of them. My M16 jammed, so I shot one with my pistol and hit the other with my M16 again and again until he was dead,” the report said.

Davis suffered numerous wounds that day, including part of his trigger finger to an enemy grenade. The loss did not stop him, as he fired his M16 with his pinky. The battle continued, and two of the wounded men had been brought behind American lines. However, the third man – Brown – was in a rice paddy, and no one knew whether he was dead or alive.

“A colonel came by and, since we had two of the Americans and I wasn’t really sure of the disposition of the third, he gave me a direct order to … move out of the area, right now,” David said in a 1969 interview.

“I just disobeyed the order,” Davis said, according to CNN. “I said some words over the telephone I don’t really care to repeat right here, I did do a little swearing.”

During the Medal of Honor ceremony, President Joe Biden shared a conversation that Davis had with a medic he rescued. “When he got there, the medic, still alive, asked him, ‘Am I going to die?’ “Am I going to die?’ Captain Davis responded, ‘Not before me.’ Still fending off the Viet Cong assailants, Captain Davis hauled his medic up the hill, Biden said.

The battle lasted almost 20 hours, but all the soldiers were rescued. Davis was wounded eight times. He said that at one point he “thought that the battle was over because there was a place on that battlefield where there were so many bodies you couldn’t see the grass.”

The battle report said, “Davis’ selfless actions and personal courage were decisive in changing the tide of the battle, ensuring that American Soldiers were not killed or taken prisoner, preventing the South Vietnamese company from being overrun, and ensuring the defeat of a numerically superior enemy force.”

What was Davis’ motive that day? When asked, he gave a simple answer, “Others.”

Well done, Captain Davis! You deserve the Congressional Medal of Honor. It is sad that you had to wait more than sixty years to get it!

Should Biden and Cabinet Secretaries Be Impeached?

The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday is the main reason for the United States Constitution – to control the government and to protect the citizens from the government. The government continues to grow more corrupt as time passes, and Representative Dan Bishop (R-N.C.) is calling out the present administration during an interview with Samantha Aschieris from The Daily Signal at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Saturday. 

Bishop first mentioned Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas: “The thing about Secretary Mayorkas, first, is that he’s just utterly flouted American immigration law.” He continued:

There’s a laundry list of statutes that he has explicitly disobeyed. That is high crimes and misdemeanors. You got to build consensus within a Republican conference. Some want to use a light touch on these things all the time. A lot of people say, “Well, if we can’t, we’re not assured that the Senate will convict, and it’s in Democrat hands, why would we do any of it?”

There are reasons to do it, but we’ve got a process to go through, marshal the evidence, conduct the hearings in public and, if it leads in the direction and all the evidence adds up when you’ve done it in a real rigorous way like that, do you move forward with impeachment? I think so.

Mayorkas is not the only member of the administration on Bishop’s list. He suggested that President Joe Biden and other members of the cabinet should also be impeached. Bishop explained his thinking:

It’s a matter of degree and political judgment when you exercise the remedy of impeachment. But it goes right to President Biden. I mean, and I’m not, I think none of us are unaware of that. There are those who would question whether or not it is a good expenditure of political capital to, for example, pursue an impeachment inquiry against President Biden.

I can name a long list of things that he’s done that are fundamentally unconstitutional: the vaccine mandate … the rent subsidies and the moratorium on landlords back in the pandemic that he extended. [Another matter for Bishop is the potential treaty between the U.S. and the World Health Organization, and its impact on national and state sovereignty.]

There are things that Biden has flouted law also over and over, and you can take any number of his cabinet secretaries and say the same thing applies.

I think the important thing about Mayorkas one is it’s one of the clearest, most obvious, most recalcitrant, most brazen examples of defiance of law in a role where he’s required to execute law with the results that are most dramatic, compelling and destructive to the American people, the very fabric of our society. He’s a good place to start. Where it goes? I don’t really say there’s a limit to that.

Other Republican lawmakers are calling for impeachment of Mayorkas, with Representative Andy Biggs (R-Arizona) having already introduced articles of impeachment against him. Congress is holding hearings on the border crisis.

I think that impeachment of any member of the current administration is a waste of time and money because the Senate will never vote to remove them from office. I think that the only way to get rid of them is to vote Democrats out of office.

What Manner of Man Is This?

My Come, Follow Me studies for this week took me to Matthew 8, Mark 2-4, and Luke 7 for a lesson titled “Thy Faith Hath Saved Thee.” The following important counsel preceded the lesson: “Be careful to rush your study of the scriptures. Take time for prayerful pondering, even if it means you don’t have time to read every verse. These moments of pondering often lead to personal revelation.” The following paragraph introduced the scripture block. 

One of the clearest messages in the New Testament is that Jesus Christ is a healer. Accounts of the Savior healing the sick and afflicted are many – from a woman with a fever to a widow’s son who had died. Why the emphasis on physical healing? What messages might there be for us in these miracles? Certainly one obvious message is that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, with power over all things, including our physical pains and imperfections. But another meaning is found in His words to the skeptical scribes: “That ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins” (Mark 2:10). So when you read about a blind person or a leper being healed, you might think of the healing – both spiritual and physical – that you can receive from the Savior and hear Him say to you, “Thy faith hath saved thee” (Luke 7:50).

The scripture block contains many stories of Christ healing various people of diseases and other health problem. As I studied this scripture block this time, I imagined what I would do under similar situations of the people in the time of Jesus Christ. My husband has had one health problem after another for more than ten years. I would try to take him to a place where Christ could heal him. Other loved ones suffer for physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual problems. I would encourage them to go to Christ to be healed.

In addition to healing many people, Jesus Christ performed many miracles. One experience that shows the power of Christ is the story of calming the winds and the waves as found in both Matthew 8:23-27 and Mark 4:35:41. Mark’s record contains more details, so I will use his writing.

35 And the same day, when the even was come, he saith unto them, Let us pass over unto the other side.

36 And when they had sent away the multitude, they took him even as he was in the ship. And there were also with him other little ships.

37 And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full.

38 And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish?

39 And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.

40 And he said unto them, Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith?

41 And they feared exceedingly, and said one to another, What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?

Many of us have gone through experiences where we were being buffeted by “the winds and the waves” of life. It could be a relationship problem, a financial problem, a health problem, or the loss of a loved one. Like His disciples, we may even cry out, “carest thou not that we [suffer]?” The only way to find true peace is to turn to Jesus Christ and allow Him to calm our storms.

The version of the story found in Mark gives four important questions that are important for us to consider: (1) Carest thou not that we perish? (2) Why are ye so fearful? (3) How is it that ye have no faith? (4) What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?

I know that Christ does care about each one of us and how we handle the tests, trials, and tribulations that come into our lives. I know that He can bring peace into our lives even as we struggle with our problems.

I also know that Christ can work miracles in our behalf. However, faith comes before miracles. We must have faith that Christ can work miracles in our lives even if He chooses not to do so. In addition, I know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of the world. He came to earth to prepare the way that all of us may return to the presence of Heavenly Father.

How Can We Help Students Catch Up on Their Delayed Education?

Families, communities, and nations are stronger when children are properly educated. The nation and the world have been through a pandemic that shut down businesses and schools. Children were expected to learn remotely, but they fell behind in their studies. Some people say that children lost up to a year’s worth of education in addition to being denied social contacts.

Children and families will most likely struggle for years due to the shutdowns, but one man has a plan to help the children. Representative Burgess Owens (R-Utah) has a plan that could help children catch up in their schooling. He recently sponsored a bill that would offer scholarships for children to pay for private school tuition or private tutoring – on a temporary basis. Owens recently said the following in an interview with the Deseret News. “Education should be looked at as a civil right. Every child, no matter what their background, race, creed, or ZIP code has great potential when given the same opportunities.”

Owens is not interested in allocating more money for schools, but he does want to compel school districts the choices to use federal money that has already been allocated to education. Owen’s plan – the Raising Expectations with Child Opportunity Vouchers for Educational Recovery (RECOVER) Act – would allow parents and school districts to use money allocated to education in the $1.7 trillion American Rescue Plan Act. Joshua Lee gave the following explanation in the Deseret News article. 

Under the American Rescue Plan legislation, the U.S. Department of Education distributed $122 billion in March 2021 to states and school districts to help open classrooms and address the impacts the pandemic had on students’ learning.

Two years later, approximately 77% of the allocated money still hasn’t been spent across the country, according to Owens. The state of Utah and its school districts received a total of $615 million in education funds.

Owen’s bill would establish “child opportunity scholarships” to pay for other types of education – private school tuition, tutoring services or education therapy for children with learning disabilities. The amount of the scholarships would be determined by the individual school districts, but parents and local school administrators and teachers would carry the most responsibility in determining how best to help each child.

The scholarships would last until each school district exhausted their American Rescue Plan funds. The purpose of the scholarships would be to help students to catch up on their learning that was delayed due to the pandemic. Owens does not intend to make such scholarships permanent.

Critics of Owens’ bill claim that this attempt to help children will only “punish schools” for following the rules. They note that school districts have until 2024 to spend the money. One critic said that it is a way to take public school funds and “send them to private schools.” Critics also say that the allocated funds are already marked to help children catch up.

Owens believes that his bill would pass the Republican-controlled House but may not pass the divided Senate or ever be signed into law by Joe Biden. However, he believes that it will let parents know that there are people in Congress who are aware of the problems and parents and students face and are trying to help them.

Do Americans Have Equal Justice Before the Law?

The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday concerns the guaranteed right for equal justice before the law. The Department of Justice, the FBI, and every single law enforcement agency in the United States are obligated to provide equal justice to every person. Yet, many people in America are questioning if we now have a two-tier justice system – one tier for conservatives and another for Democrats and their supporters. Yesterday, Attorney General Merrick Garland was grilled by several U.S. Senators, and Tyler O-Neil of The Daily Signal reported on it. 

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, asked Garland about the case of pro-life activist Mark Houck, who faced charges for violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE Act. A jury found Houck not guilty, and Houck claims he did not attack an abortion clinic, but merely pushed an abortion activist who had been antagonizing his son. He cited Catholic Vote statistics on attacks against pregnancy resource centers and Catholic churches after the leak of the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

“In 2022 and for the first couple of months of 2023, DOJ’s announced charges against 34 individuals for blocking access to or vandalizing abortion clinics, and there have been over 81 recorded attacks on pregnancy centers, 130 attacks on Catholic churches since the leak of the Dobbs decision, and only two individuals have been charged,” Lee noted.

“So, how do you explain this disparity by reference to anything other than politicization of what’s happening there?” Lee asked.

Garland rationalized that the events at abortion centers are well documented and done during daylight hours, so it is easy to see the person. However, the attacks on pregnancy centers take place at night and in the dark. He said that the department has “put full resources on this” and “have put rewards out for this” and even asked for help from Catholic and other organizations to identify the people. He claimed that “every case against a pregnancy resource center” will be prosecuted if they can just find the people involved.

Catholic Vote faulted Garland’s response – “failing to distinguish between criminal acts and acts of protest protected by the U.S. Constitution.” The attacks at pregnancy centers are criminal and done in secret, while pro-life activists act during the day because they know their actions are legal and protected by the Constitution.

What Will Justices Decide on Student Loan Debt?

Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in two cases that challenge the claim that President Joe Biden has the authority to forgive student loan debt. The administration claims that the HEROES act can be used to cancel $430 billion in student loans borrowed by 40 million students. The HEROES Act is a law meant to give emergency help to military personnel responding to national security emergencies. Jack Fitzhenry and GianCarlo Canaparo explained the proceedings. 

An important question asked about court cases related to standing, a legal doctrine that describes the right to sue. The doctrine “requires that before a court will hear a case, the plaintiff must have suffered a concrete injury caused by the other party that a court can fix.”

The first case was brought by several states. They claim that their standing is based on the amount of revenue that they will lose if the Biden administration forgives student loans. The lost revenue would then be unavailable “for scholarships and other education programs meant to benefit citizens of those states.”

U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar’s argument was that the “state entities are not really arms of the states that they serve.” Therefore, the “states cannot sue on behalf of the agencies.” However, the conservative justices did not seem interested in Prelogar’s argument.

The second case was brought to “two borrowers who did not qualify for debt cancellation” and were not included in “the decision-making process.” Prelogar argued that the government is not required “to involve anyone in this process.” Her position was supported by the liberal justices, and some conservative justices seemed to be “more receptive to her counterargument that they did in the first case.”

The bottom line is that if “none of the plaintiffs have standing,” then the Supreme Court will not take the case regardless of whether or not Biden’s plan is legal. However, the case will continue if only one of the plaintiffs has standing.

The second important question is about merit. The outcome of this question “may depend on how the court interprets the language in the HEROES Act that empowers the secretary of education to ‘waive or modify’ the laws and regulations governing student loans.

Prelogar acknowledged that the HEROES Act does not express state that the Department of Education has “the power to cancel debt.” That did not seem to matter because “she insisted that the phrase ‘waive or modify’ is broad enough, using the terms separately or jointly, to infer that it gives the secretary the power to cancel student loans.”

According to the authors, the Biden administration and the Department of Education created the program “in secret, without public input, without consulting Congress.” In addition, “they designed the cancellation to deprive affected parties of a right to challenge this action in court.”

Chief Justice John Roberts and some of “the conservative justices were skeptical of Biden’s plan.” The justices seemed to think that Congress should manage the issue, not the executive branch. They did not seem anxious to grant more power to the executive branch. The authors concluded:

The burden of student debts was significant before this case and, sadly, it will remain so no matter how the court rules. Debt cancellation for one set of borrowers is no real solution.

But if the court determines no plaintiff has standing and declines to reach the merits, or if it defers to the secretary of education’s interpretation of the HEORES Act, we will see an ever-growing list of contested social issues addressed unilaterally by the president under the guise of an emergency.