Saying No to this Junk – American Family Association of Indiana
Saying No to this Junk
There is an important bill that has a hearing this afternoon at 1:30 in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Senate Bill 12 (Tomes) Materials Harmful to Minors – This bill has passed the Senate and House in past sessions but has never made it to the Governor’s desk. It simply states that sexually explicit items that are illegal for a minor to see or read outside of a school, are also illegal inside a school. SB 12 has a hearing at 1:30 in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
On Monday, in Gibson County, a teacher was arrested for showing children a video on oral sex. She is charged with a felony for distributing Matter Harmful to a Minor. However, without this bill as law, she can claim it was shown for educational purposes and avoid a criminal penalty. However, if someone showed that same video to kids outside of the school, they would almost surely be tried and convicted. If it is illegal outside the school, it should be illegal inside the school. This bill seeks to close that loophole. It is a shame that this bill did not become law last year.
You can call your Senator about this bill at 317-232-9400.
You can find and contact your Senator for SB 12: here.
Missing What Really Matters
There is a very interesting article from the Institute for Family Studies about the things that matter most to today’s parents.
It may surprise you that a large new study involving 3,757 US adults finds that a significant majority of parents say they encourage their children to prioritize work, money, and financial success over other life goals like marriage and parenthood. Nearly 9 out of 10 (88%) said it was either “very” or “extremely” important that their kids become financially independent and have enjoyable careers. Only a fifth said getting married and having children is very or extremely important to their child’s future.
Even more disturbing is that nearly half of the parents said getting married one day (46%) and having kids of their own (46%) were “not too important” or “not at all important.”
For myself, I wouldn’t trade all the money or fame in the world for being single and without my wife and kids. I can’t imagine much fulfillment without my family.
A large body of research shows that money and a career are not the keys to happiness. In fact, the top predictor of overall life satisfaction is marital quality – how happy people are in their marriage. A new book about the world’s longest study of happiness from Harvard finds that social ties, such as those found between family and friends, are better predictors of happiness than professional and financial success.
This is much like the old saying that no one on their deathbed will wish they had spent more time at the office. They will wish they had spent more time with their family.
There is much more to this that you can read here:
https://ifstudies.org/blog/prioritizing-money-over-marriage-todays-parents-are-making-a-big-mistake
So Many Are Struggling
This may be tied to the story above as to what most concerns parents at this moment when a poll is taken.
According to a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll, four in 10 Americans indicated that their financial situation has worsened since Joe Biden become president. This figure is the highest in their polls going back 37 years!
Alcohol Consumption in Indiana
Canadian health officials recently revised government recommendations for alcohol consumption. They changed the “low risk” level from two drinks per day to two drinks per week.
The US has not gone that far. The Centers for Disease Control defines “moderate” drinking as 2 drinks or less per day for men and no more than one drink per day for women. However, more than two-thirds of adult drinkers regularly exceed those levels.
Indiana ranks 29th in the nation for alcohol consumption. This is slightly below the national average. The CDC and Canadian warnings mostly involve individual health risks for drinkers. Still, 19% of all driving deaths in Indiana between 2016 and 2020 involved alcohol. In some states, the traffic death rate involving alcohol is as high as 46%.
Who’s Watching Joe?
Last week’s State of the Union ratings were down a whopping 29% from 2022. According to the Hollywood Reporter this makes it the second-smallest audience for State of the Union addresses in the past 30 years, behind only President Biden’s first address to Congress in 2021.
This is somewhat amazing since in 2020 Joe Biden supposedly had the highest vote total in US history and in his better moments, he has always had an amusing mouth on him.
One of the whoppers in President Biden’s address was when he claimed that Republicans want to cut Social Security and Medicare. (It was the Democrats who raided Medicare to pay for Obamacare.)
I know this is a concern for many readers of this email who now rely on these two programs.
I doubt that he remembers, but Biden himself has proposed cutting those programs multiple times. For example, in 1995, he stated in his over-the-top way:
“When I argued that we should freeze federal spending, I meant Social Security, as well. I meant Medicare and Medicaid. I meant veterans’ benefits. I meant every single solitary thing in the federal government. And I not only tried it once, I tried it twice, I tried it a third time, and I tried it a fourth time.”
In Their Own Words:
“It is the duty of the government to make it easy for the people to do right, and difficult for the people to do wrong.” – William E. Gladstone
