Autobiography - The Galindo Group

Ram Galindo THE MAKING OF AN AMERICAN Page 41
elements of policy that public officials can apply to our body of law, thus helping
preserve the basic economic elements of our system.
While it is the right of the founders, owners or members of these new organizations to
promote their own points of view, I find that some of them are too heavily influenced by
what is contemporaneously known as the “Religious Right.” Extreme views that call for
bigger rather than leaner government are equally bad from both ends of the political
spectrum. Proposals from the extreme right are usually intrusive of our personal
freedom to decide private issues. Their one-sided moral judgment is implicit in their
suggested policies. Their implementation would undoubtedly require more intrusive
government guidelines and would be injurious of some individual freedoms. These
policies would drive the formation of new bureaucracies and add to the cost of
government. They can become threatening to the liberties enunciated by the
Declaration of Independence and guaranteed by the Constitution. Without alluding to
the validity of their so-called constitutionality, oppression and greater cost to the
taxpayer could be the consequences of accepting some of these suggestions. I wonder
how these same people attack liberals for wanting bigger government.
The exchange of opinions, pressures and even intimidations that accompany the work
of these moralistic “entrepreneurs of thought”, is possible only because of our cherished
freedom of speech. The benefit is that in these debates, some conclusions gain majority
support and they eventually congeal into public policy. Fortunately for our future, some
issues of personal choice seem to escape collegiality and remain points of discord. The
fact that no side gains common acceptance in the public’s mind is, to me, the best
evidence that the government should adopt no public policy on these issues.
An example of the desire to impose their morality into government regulations or laws is
a step-by-step crawl to erase the line between separation of church and state. It could
undermine the total secularity of our government at all levels. Another example of
imposing personal morality into individual decisions deals with overthrowing the
Supreme Court decision that allows women to decide in their heart of hearts if abortion
is the best future for the embryo and for them. Letting a general law make the decision
in each case, no matter how different the conditions may be from one instance to
another, would be personally and socially detrimental. Denying couples use of the
“morning after” pill harks back to the obscurantism of the Middle Ages and is very
counterproductive to society.
Constant attempts to censor the right of an adult person to access controversial
literature and to make private behavior among consenting adults illegal if it doesn’t suit
their religious tastes are Orwellian. Scientific learning may at some point prove that
sexual preference could well be determined by each individual’s human genome. Thus
dictating by fiat that same sex preferences are illegal may be akin to trying to direct the
economy with traffic policemen. Even worse is the attempt to limit scientific research on
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