Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

“Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one” – H. L. Mencken   A seasoned Connecticut political reporter notes in CTMirror , “A less popular topic for [Senate Minority Leader Stephen Harding, R-Brookfield] is President Donald J. Trump, whose rise in national politics has coincided with hard times for blue-state Republicans — even more so in Connecticut. Harding’s caucus issued no assessment of the president’s first 100 days…Republicans, who had come close to parity in the General Assembly when Trump took office in 2017, lost more state legislative seats in Connecticut than any other state during Trump’s first term. They now hold 11 of 36 seats in the Senate and 49 of 151 in the House.”   The unstated premise of such assertions, gently suggested by the reporter, is that had Connecticut Republicans more fervently denounced President Donald Trump, the titular head of the Republican Party during his first, and now second, term in office, Republicans might have fa...

A Doxology of the Left   If you find yourself agreeing, even sleepily, to three or more of the italicized propositions below, you may proudly count yourself a man or woman of the left.   1) A Feodor Dostoevsky character exclaims in one of his novels, “If there is no God, anything is possible.” There is no God, and anything is possible .   2) Punishment is no answer to crime, because crime is a social disorder that should be treated by psychologists and sociologists, not prison wardens, and social disorders may be adjusted through the adjustment of antique societal structures.   3) Laws and punishments do not restore order . They exacerbate social disorder and provide employment to lawyers and law schools.   4) Both education and parenting are forms of oppression . See Paulo Freire ’s book, The Pedagogy of the Oppressed , copyright 1970.   5) “ History is bunk ” – Henry Ford.   6) The present must always trump the past , bec...

T he birth control pill has been with us for a long time. The “morning after pill”, as it has been called, a pill designed to abort birth after conception, is readily available in Connecticut for about $25, and surgical abortion, Planned Parenthood’s money maker, is also readily available in birth control Connecticut.   When churches, synagogues and mosques make the distinctions mentioned above – for both scientific and theological reasons – it is unscientific and contrary to settled theology to accuse them of political or theological apostasy. In the imperial Roman world, the Christian Church was among the first social organizations to oppose abortion. Opposition to abortion in the year AD 70 was “cutting edge” reform.   The Didache, also known as The Lord's Teaching Through the Twelve Apostles to the Nations, parts of which constitute the oldest extant written catechism, dating from AD 70, states: “The second commandment of the teaching: You shall not murder. You sha...

States – Connecticut in particular -- should avoid deficit spending whenever possible for the same reason Mr. Micawber in Charles Dickins’ David Copperfield suffered misery because he had failed to keep his eye on personal debt.   If a man had twenty pounds a-year for his income, and spent nineteen pounds nineteen shillings and sixpence, Micawer tells us, he would be happy, but if he spent twenty pounds one he would be miserable -- and committed to a debtors’ prison. Dickens’ father was committed to such a prison. The Debtors' Act of 1869 limited the ability of the courts to sentence debtors to prison, a sign that such prisons were slated for abolition.   What we might call the Micawber principle never-the-less still stands as an ominous warning to both persons and states.   Although the state of Connecticut is sitting on a massive accumulative state pension debt of some $35 billion, most of the chatter in our media concerns the state’s biennial “surplus.” ...