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Reece Terry, publisher
Opinion
Mark Boehler, editor
4A • Sunday, December 27, 2015
Corinth, Miss.
Our View
School board needs to make appointment The Alcorn School District Board of Education should appoint a person to serve after the resignation of James Voyles becomes effective on Dec. 29. Voyles had to resign after winning the second district supervisor race. He takes office Jan. 4 in his new role as a new leader for Alcorn County. Voyles has served on the school board the past three years. We believe an election for the county school board seat is unnecessary. Here’s why. If there were two or three years left in the term, it would certainly make more sense for an election. But not with one year left. Not only will the school board save taxpayer’s money with no election, but they can demonstrate their leadership ability by appointing a good person for the job. With Voyles’ term set to expire at the end of 2016, an election is already scheduled for the fall with the elected individual to begin office in 2017. Board Attorney Arch Bullard explained the procedure during a recent school board meeting. “The board is required to fill the vacancy within 60 days after the board member resignation is tendered,” Bullard told the board. “If the remaining board members cannot decide on an appointee within that time period, then a request will be issued to the local election commissioner and a special election will be held.” A second district resident asked the board to consider foregoing the appointment process and hold a special election for the post. The resident said he was worried that an appointee would enter the fall election for the post and would be given an unfair advantage. Board members said a special election is not the answer. We agree. “I would certainly hope that we would not have to have a special election,” said President Mary Coleman. “A special election would waste time and be an added cost to the public. I feel like we can be united in an appointee decision.” We agree with Mrs. Coleman. It’s the best solution. Board member Carroll Morton did offer the concerned citizen a promise. “We have in the past asked those we appointed to the board to not run for re-election, and I think we will do that this time, as well,” he said. Bullard said the board cannot keep an appointee from entering the election for the position. “Whoever the appointee is, we need to point out that we would rather them not seek election,” added board member Randy Wilbanks during the meeting. We like this idea. Although the appointee is not legally bound to say he or she won’t seek the position during the next election, it’s a good idea to find a person who wants to serve on a short-term position. Besides, if the board got this promise from the appointee and then they officially sought the office, it would certainly not speak well of the person’s character and voters could voice their opinion then. No names were given as possible candidates for the appointment position during the meeting and the deadline for appointment is Feb. 29. The next meeting of the school board is set for Jan. 11. This would be a good time for anyone with interest to serve and lead the Alcorn School District who lives in the second district to step forward and make it known to the board. Bring a resume with references and leadership roles you have served. With a new school superintendent about to take office and present for the first meeting of the new year, bring some fresh ideas. We believe the school board will make a good appointment.
Daily Corinthian
Prayer for today Lord God of life, give me the desire to learn, and the wisdom to live in my best. May I not fail to culture my mind and heart and make life productive and worthy. Help me to see the mistakes that I have made in the past, and in the year that is approaching not only try to avoid them, but try to make amends for them. Amen.
A verse to share “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” — Proverbs 22:6
The right’s post-constitutional moment No one will ever mistake Donald Trump for a student of James Madison. The real-estate mogul has demonstrated about as much familiarity with the U.S. Constitution as with the Bible, which is to say, none. Trump has captivated a share of the tea party with a style of politics utterly alien to the Constitution. In the year of Trump, the right is experiencing a post-constitutional moment. This wouldn’t have seemed possible a few years ago. In 2010, the newly arrived tea party produced a class of constitutional obsessives like Sens. Rand Paul and Mike Lee who were focused not just on what government shouldn’t do, but on what it couldn’t do and why. After the compassionate conservatism of George W. Bush and earmark-happy excesses of congressional Republicans in the Bush years, the tea party rebaptized the GOP in the faith of limited government and constitutional constraints. It was a time of first principles. Rand Paul, who sells autographed copies of the Constitution, is a libertarian distillation of these concerns. He makes constitutional persnicketiness
a high art. Obamacare, the National Security Agency surveillance program, Rich the Violence Lowry A g a i n s t Women Act, National Review P r e s i d e n t Obama’s war in Libya and intervention in Syria are just a few things he considers unconstitutional (and don’t even get him started on Obama’s tax-information treaties). Paul, by the way, is the guy objecting that closing down part of the Internet, as Donald Trump has proposed, would be unconstitutional. Not that it seems to have made much impression, on Trump or anyone else. Donald Trump exists in a plane where there isn’t a Congress or a Constitution. There are no trade-offs or limits. There is only his will and his team of experts who will figure out how to do whatever he wants to do, no matter how seemingly impossible. The thought you can’t do that doesn’t ever occur to him. He would deport the American-born children
of illegal immigrants. He has mused about shutting down mosques and creating a database of Muslims. He praised FDR’s internment of Japanese-Americans in World War II. You would be forgiven for thinking that in Trump’s world, constitutional niceties – indeed any constraints whatsoever – are for losers. It’s only strength that matters. It shouldn’t be a surprise that he expresses admiration for Vladimir Putin, a “powerful leader” who is “highly respected within his own country and beyond.” Trump’s call to steal Iraq’s oil and kill the families of terrorists is in a Putinesque key. For some on the right, clearly the Constitution was an instrument rather than a principle. It was a means to stop Obama, and has been found lacking. Trump is a reaction to Obama’s weakness, but also to his exaggerated view of executive power. Trump rejects the former, but is comfortable taking up the latter. Whereas Obama has a cool contempt for his political opponents and for limits on his power, Trump has a burning contempt for them. The affect is different; the attitude is the same.
What, after all, is the worst-case scenario for a President Trump’s strongman tendencies? Could Trump defy the law as written and give Congress the back of his hand in order to impose a new immigration system more to his liking? President Obama has already done it. Progressives have been perfectly willing to bless Obama’s post-constitutional government. Trump’s implicit promise is to respond in kind, and his supporters think it’s about time. A pure, Trump-style populism is inherently in tension with constitutional conservatism. The Constitution is a device for frustrating popular enthusiasms, as are federalism, checks and balances, and the rule of law. It’s why impassioned factions usually have very little patience for them, and why they are so central to checking government and protecting individual rights. If the right’s devotion to them wanes, it will be a loss not only for conservatism, but for the American polity. (Daily Corinthian columnist Rich Lowry can be reached via e-mail: comments.lowry@nationalreview.com.)
No peace or goodwill Not for a long time has the world seemed so removed from the angelic proclamation of 2,000 years ago: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men” (Luke 2:14). Millions have died in countless wars over the last 100 years. People continue to die today as the result of worldwide terrorism and daily shootings in too many American cities. The prophecy delivered by the Christmas Child that there would be “wars and rumors of wars” until He comes again, seems more like current events than a far-off future. One hears a lot of silliness from theological illiterates and institutions whose sole interest in Christmas appears to be profit. Consider the conspicuous consumption associated with “Black Friday,” a day that began for some businesses days earlier. People speak of “the spirit of Christmas,” or when ob-
Reece Terry
Mark Boehler
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Willie Walker
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Cal Thomas Columnist
serving some special act with which they approve or seek to inspire, refer to “the true meaning of Christmas.” They are never asked what they mean by
either. The true meaning of Christmas is this: God took on the form of a human to die in our place, paying for our sins, so that humans who receive Him might be forgiven and be with Him forever. You are free to reject that message and the One who delivered it, but what you are not free to do is to redefine or change the message into something that fits your own beliefs and choices. In “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” (part of his classic “The Chronicles of Narnia” series), C.S. Lewis writes of a frozen land
ruled by a “White Witch,” devoid of hope. In that world, it is “always winter, but never Christmas.” It is a metaphor for a world that has rejected God and His redemptive power. It is a world where humans choose to live as they please, rather than be transformed, even renewed. It is this world in which we now live, full of mendacity, envy, greed, lust, anger, terrorism, war, political divisions and confusion. We have forgotten who we are, because we have forgotten Whose we are. It is these and so many other human deficiencies the Christ child came to reset. Like a gift under a tree, however, the transaction is not complete until the one for whom the gift is intended receives it. If anyone refuses a gift, the transaction is incomplete, its purpose thwarted. Does it matter that so many reject Him? Look around and consider the result.
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While some point to the occasional violence mistakenly done in His name to “prove” God does not exist, there are far more examples of good, such as charities, hospitals and inner-city missions that help the poor and homeless. If the bad disproves God, what does the good prove? These good acts rooted in faith are motivated not by selfishness, but selflessness, the kind of selflessness demonstrated by the One who left perfection and emptied Himself, taking on the form of a servant, to come to a fallen world and save us from the consequences of unbelief. Isn’t that message worth celebrating? Isn’t that child worth worshipping? Isn’t that Man worth receiving? As the carol says, “Where meek souls will receive Him still, the dear Christ enters in.” (Readers may email Cal Thomas at tcaeditors@ tribpub.com.)
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