KING OPINION

It is a sad time in America...for we are saying goodbye to our dearest friend, the one that has sustained us a nation for 200 years: the distinction between right and wrong.

It is a time of peril in the world...for we have said adieu to our dearest friend, the one that has sustained humanity and civilization from the beginning: the distinction between right and wrong.

That distinction is rooted in actuality It is determined not by mere opinion, conjecture, unsubstantiated belief, whim, caprice, fancy...but by objective fact. An idea, a thought, a principle, an ideology, is right or wrong because it provably conforms to reality; it is true. Absent that proof, it is but a subjective feeling and wish residing only in one's mind.

"Who's to say what is right or wrong? I can decide that for myself." That is today's mantra. Truth has been dethroned and Opinion (subjective belief) reigns supreme.

I heard a tv commercial yesterday calling for the governor of a state to raise taxes on the rich to pay for additional school costs. In a country that honors equality under the law, is it right that some should have to pay more simply because they have more? No discussion.

I heard an interview in which a law school professor was asked whether a law that requires everyone in the country to have health insurance violates the Constitution. No, he answered, because if the Supreme Court so rules, it would have to overturn 90 years of their prior case Opinions. Well, if those Opinions are shown to be wrong, ought they not gleefully be corrected? No discussion.

There was good reason for the Founders to reject democracy and its reliance on majority rule. They knew that because an Opinion is held by most does not make it right. "We hold these truths (not Opinions) to be self evident," they proclaimed. They appealed to the Supreme Judge of the World "for the Rectitude of our Intentions" ....rectitude, as in correctness, rightness. I wonder whether they intentionally referred to our freedoms as "rights" to connote their objective certitude.

Truth, dear friend, do not stray too far.