Why?

“Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.” Henry Ford

The most important question about anything is to ask why. The answers to who, what, when and where are information that is important but why is the hardest to answer; it is also the answer that will most likely lead to understanding the truth. Anyone who has had children knows that their most common question is “Why?”; parents who become frustrated with this most incessant question of childhood, sometimes posed as a challenge to what children are told, need to be careful because the question requires them to think beyond the ready “Because I told you so!”.

The why is about the reason that someone did something or how to understand behavior. The news, both mass and social media, reports everything in the world, but so often provides little to nothing about the why; amazingly, you hear few providing facts that can inform us as to the reason. What we hear in place of the reason is all too often opinion posturing as facts; whether the issue is inflation, abortion, immigration, free speech or any other flashpoint topic, the news will provide commentary in editorial context, depending on the partisanship of the source.

This is not a new phenomenon considering Mark Twain once observed that “If you don’t read the newspapers you are uninformed. If you do read them you are misinformed.”Given the absence of reliable journalism, thinking people are left with little that would lead them to understand the why of the matter and must therefore use their common sense and experience to guide them to the most likely reasons.

An example of this is abortion; whether someone is a “pro-choice” or “pro-life” advocate is less important than the reason they chose so. The odd thing about the various narratives each side provides about the Dobbs Decision is the absence of the decision itself; it returned the decisions on abortion back to the States, which according to the constitution is the people. However, why government is still involved in regulating an individual’s rights is not questioned by either side of the argument. What we hear from the pro-choice advocates is that it deprived women of their rights under Roe, and from the pro-life advocates is it respected states’ rights; neither reference why this is so.

It was not until 1821 that any state made abortion illegal, while other states allowed it under certain regulations. The failure of Roe was its dependency on the medical science of viability, which is both subjective and variable. The Roe decision should have been based solely on the IX Amendment that states that no one can be deprived “…of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” Our constitution is based on the humanism of natural law which guarantees each individual life, liberty, and property; clearly you own your own body, which makes any issue regarding a person’s decisions about it not subject to debate, or lockdowns, or forced vaccinations, or forced pregnancies. Such laws are in violation of a person’s rights and therefore subject to constitutional review and rejection; that is exactly what is now happening as people bring action against states that have passed restrictive abortion laws.

If governments respected this essential humanism and constitutional protection of rights, there would be no grounds for such militant advocacies; it is government medleying which causes the huge political, cultural, and social divide. Polls show that most people do not consider abortion a major issue anymore and see immigration and the economy far greater concerns. So why do governments focus so much on abortion? One reason is religious advocacy, but that consideration conflicts with the first amendment. The less apparent but more viable reason is the political imperative that saw government seize unconstitutional powers during covid that brought on lockdowns, forced vaccinations and all sorts of interventions. If government can dictate medical regulation which is in direct conflict with constitutional rights, it can dictate anything…and they have.

One way to get around the constitution is to call something other than what it is; such is the case with student loan “forgiveness”. In reality it is a transfer of a debt to others, in this case those that did not take the loan, but now have the burden for its payment. While the Supreme Court correctly determined that this was unconstitutional, the Biden administration continues to try a workaround; in this case the why is an apparent attempt to seek favor with those of the electorate that would benefit from such an obvious and corrupt vote grabbing scheme.

If people focused more on the why, they would be less prone to lose their way in trying to understand the reasons about what’s going on. They would more likely come to better conclusions than relying on partisan narratives; this is important for business, science, and society in general as it creates the greatest potential for getting to the truth.

“Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton was the one who asked why.” Bernard Baruch