Which Environment should be Priority #1?

“We spend enormous sums of money to rid ourselves of air pollution and water pollution. We have established a veritable army of state and federal employees whose only task is to improve the quality of our environment. If our physical environment is that important (and I believe that it is) then surely our intellectual and cultural environment– the environment in which our minds and our souls must exist– is at least equally important. It follows that government– both local and national — must be in the business of…”

-Rex E. Lee A Lawyer’s Look at the Constitution p. 114

What do you think the government has the moral obligation to control? This is probably my single biggest reservation in regard to the democrats position. They value a clean physical environment very much, but defend the ‘right’ to pollute the intellectual and cultural environment in the name of liberty, free speech, and freedom of expression. Their priorities are just baffling to me. They’d be willing to chain themselves to a tree to keep it from being cut down, and the next day they will be the first in line to picket the FCC to allow profanity and nudity on TV as freedom of expression. Just as a dirty river will make downstream villagers worse off in every way, so will a polluted intellectual and moral environment make our nation worse off. A big argument is to dismiss the river analogy saying the government cannot dictate what they call a moral/religious dilemma; it’s outside their realm and up to individual choice. They say that polluting a river is illegal yet polluting society is a liberty. While there is a kernel of truth to that (the government cannot dictate too much as far as ‘expression’), I feel it falls short of a sufficient proof.

Have you heard of these people? They just crack me up, that’s all.

“It is an insufficient response that the matter is one of individual free choice. The person who prefers to avoid contact with [immorality] may be able to diminish his contact, but he cannot avoid it. Moreover, conscientious parents have no more compelling objective than the optimum intellectual, cultural, spiritual, and emotional development of their children. Sizable portions of the family budget and parental time are expended for this purpose. More important than technical training in special skills that results from these expenditures is that children derive from such opportunities an appreciation of things that stimulate the mind and spirit. Certainly government has an interest in the welfare of it’s citizens. It is a proper function, therefore, for government to assist those parents those parents whose objective is to help their children develop an appreciation of such things of the mind and things of the soul. The reality is that parents cannot, and should not, exercise constant control over where their children are, what they see and do, and with whom they associate, It should lie within government’s prerogative, therefore, to take some steps to control the environment in which its citizens live. The censors cannot be given unlimited power, however.”

Anyways, I have more to say, but it’s taken me a few days to even jot this much down and if I wait until it’s all complete it’ll never get posted! So here you go for now.

Rex E. Lee graduated first in his class from the University of Chicago Law School. He clerked for the Supreme Court, became the founding dean of the BYU Law School, and later became the Solicitor General of the US.

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