KATE CLARE
CONSERVATIVE COLUMNIST
There’s an old saying that goes: “The man who pays the piper calls the tune.” It’s no secret that money can sway decisions and policy according to who holds the purse strings and why. Now, as businesses become corporations that involve more and more people internationally and become more and more influential in the world of national and international politics, it’s important to remember for whom the government is intended and for what purpose.
The constitution was created, Thomas Jefferson said, for a moral people. In the absence of an agreed-upon, objective moral standard, something else will rise to take its place as the determiner of “right” and “wrong.” In many cases, it’s money. The financially beneficial option will often be considered more favorably because of its pay-out. Granted, money isn’t inherently a bad thing. We need money to ensure stability. From stability comes the ability to flourish, to provide for your family and to live well.
Let me be perfectly clear: neither having money nor seeking to prosper financially is wrong. But the prioritization of money in the area of government is. Placing personal wealth over the needs of the vulnerable is.
Moreover, the duty of politicians – civil servants – is to sacrifice in order to protect the vulnerable, especially at the international scale where the problem of pay-out determining policy is the most present, despite the United Nations’ promise in its original charter to uphold and protect the human dignity of all peoples.
In a presentation last week at the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women, a panelist from Africa declared that the U.N. is ignoring the real needs of women in the developing world. She said that what is needed and wanted is education. Stability. Safe family life. An end to violence. But what they are receiving are “comprehensive sexual education” packages funded by the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) in alliance with several other corporations, all of which work tightly with the U.N.’s governing body. The money that should be going into building infrastructure in the developing world (such as schools, local and community-run businesses, hospitals and public services, like water purifiers) is being funneled in a business cycle. In short, by deploying secretly ineffective condoms to the developing nations, the IPPF is creating a reason to open abortion clinics in the same towns when pregnancy rates rise due to more “unplanned pregnancies.” The money made goes back into the pockets of IPPF. With interest.
The “need” for comprehensive sexual education is being created in the developing world. It does not exist naturally. But it’s a lucrative business. It is dominating the world of international politics. And it will continue to do so if international corporations are granted nation-state status in the next 10 years, as is being discussed. In the absence of an absolute morality reminding politicians that their duty before God is to care for the souls and lives of their people, money is calling the shots.
This column isn’t intended to vilify the wealthy by any means. Again, wealth is good and necessary. But it comes with a responsibility to use that wealth for good, instead of seeking only to increase it. Wealth should never be sought at the expense of human persons.
We need leaders who will consistently put the needs of their citizens before their own good. We need them now. And if we cannot find them, then we need people who will remind them of their duty or rise to accept the duty themselves.