Let us Condemn this Tragedy Because it is Wrong


In the wake of the massacre in Connecticut we must pray. We must pray for the souls of those killed, for the healing of those shot, for all of those families and friends affected. We must also pray for the soul of the shooter so that he may be spared the eternal damnation that his actions deserve. However, we also must act. Like the agonizing pain that torments our bodies when something is gravely wrong, the pain we feel in response to this tragedy is a warning sign of something terribly wrong with our society.

If this post sounds familiar it is because this kind of evil tragedy has become all too familiar within our society and I have written the same before.

Unfortunately, while this shooting is unprecedented in America, it is only unprecedented in scale but not in kind. We already know what happens next: our loss will be politicized.   Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, they will go through the now all too familiar motions. This happened because guns are too accessible. This happened because guns aren’t accessible enough and regular citizens can’t defend themselves. Gun rights is an important issue, but in the case of shootings like this it is also an irrelevant one. This is not an issue of accessibility; this is an issue of morality.

Average people like the Connecticut shooter, described as “quiet” and “bright” and with no arrest record, commit mass homicide, seemingly on a whim, because we live in a morally dead society that can’t even label an act “right” or “wrong” anymore. This tragedy will be labeled insane; that is, it will be accused of mental deficiency. It will be called vulgar or disgusting; that is, it will be accused of a lack of manners. Finally, it will be condemned as loathsome and revolting; that is, it will be accused of a deficiency or destruction of aesthetic beauty. The shooter may have certainly have had a mental breakdown, the act was certainly disgusting and the scene, I’m sure, revolting but what makes this incidence evil is the simple fact that it was wrong.

A hundred years ago the great English journalist, G.K. Chesterton, said the following, “If the modern world will not insist on having some sharp and definite moral law, capable of resisting the counter-attractions of art and humor, the modern world will simply be given over as a spoil to anybody who can manage to do a nasty thing in a nice way. Every murderer who can murder entertainingly will be allowed to murder. Every burglar who burgles in really humorous attitudes will burgle as much as he likes.” Perhaps humanity has grown since then, maybe we’ve evolved – but I don’t think so. In fact, I believe that the future that Chesterton warned about is now.

Kill a human being with a scalpel and it is your right; kill a human being with a knife and you’re a murderer. Shoot innocent bystanders with missiles from a drone and you are defending democracy; shoot innocent bystanders with missiles from a gun and you are a monster. Deprive your dying uncle of food and water in the hospital and you are merciful; smother him with his pillow and you are a villain. Our society picks and chooses which of these acts to condemn and which it will embrace – all based on the most trivial superficialities – but they all possess one common characteristic: they are all intrinsically wrong.

Society, however, seems to have regressed into such an infantile state that it cannot even label an act evil anymore, simply on the basis that it is wrong. The younger generations of America have been brought up under the sentiment condemned by C.S. Lewis in The Abolition of Man, that when “we appear to be saying something very important about something . . . we are only saying something about our own feelings.” Right and wrong is only a matter of sentiment and when we make a value statement we are only valuing our own, subjective feelings. The modern educators seek to abolish these sentiments because America is “too diverse” to adhere to any one moral code. Instead, our society has tasked itself with the impossible burden of adhering to all creeds at all times – which is to say that we adhere to no creed ever. C.S. Lewis’ response? “The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts. The right defence against false sentiments is to inculcate just sentiments. By starving the sensibility of our pupils we only make them easier prey to the propagandist when he comes. For famished nature will be avenged and a hard heart is no infallible protection against a soft head.”

The shooter in Connecticut was a crude and violent person but only by the enabling hands of a crude and violent people did he become so. We have ripped out our children’s hearts through years of conditioning; We have bred a nation of men without chests. Thus, it becomes our task to restore America’s heart. As the rebounding gun control debate rages in politics let us foster soft hearts and hard heads in schools. Let us act: that is, let us act with morals. Let us call an evil thing wrong because it is wrong and a good thing right because it is right. Let us teach our children to do the same.

May the victims of the Connecticut shooting,

Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung, 47; Mary Sherlach, 56; Lauren Rousseau, 30; Victoria Soto, 27; Emilie Parker, 6; Rachel Davino, 29; Anne Marie Murphy, 25; Charlotte Bacon, 6; Daniel Barden, 7; Olivia Rose Engel, 6; Josephine Gay, 7; Ana Marquez-Greene, 6; Dylan Hockley, 6; Madeleine Hsu, 6; Catherine Hubbard, 6; Chase Kowalski, 7; Jesse Lewis, 6; James Mattioli, 6; Grace McDonnell, 7; Anne Marie Murphy, 52; Jack Pinto, 6; Noah Pozner, 6; Caroline Previdi, 6; Jessica Rekos, 6; Avielle Richman, 6; Benjamin Wheeler, 6; Allison Wyatt, 6.

Rest in Peace.

Gun-Owners: Almost as Dangerous as Doctors (But not Really)


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All gun-related fatalities in the United States total less than 32,000. Over 60% of those are suicides which don’t really fit as well into the “guns are dangerous” narrative as homicides and accidents do. Either way, whether your number is 32,000 or 19,000 its still both proportionately and absolutely far smaller than accidental deaths per physician.

It makes me wonder, is the anti-gun movement about preserving human life or is it about assigning blame? Guns must be controlled because they are “designed to kill people.” In contrast, medical errors are accidents. But does this make them less deserving of our attention? Do you think it matters to the person who was killed whether or not it was an accident?

The fact remains that medical errors take a far more catastrophic toll on humanity than gun-violence does. So why do guns get so much more attention?

Are Guns Risky?


In response to Bob Costas’ “anti-gun speech” on Sunday Night Football a friend of mine stated that “there is way too much gun violence in this country.” I’m inclined to agree. However, will there ever be a point when we don’t have too much gun violence?

When it comes to public policy, to determining what should be done to address the problem of gun violence,  how do we determine what an acceptable amount is and when public intervention is no longer necessary? Is our goal to reduce the number to 0 which, if even possible, would require invasive national intervention on a massive scale or would we be content with reducing the number of gun deaths from 31,672/yr to 21,672?

What about the fact that 19,392 or 61% of gun deaths are suicides? Would more gun control really stop people intent on killing themselves or will they find another means? Or, are we only interested in reducing the gun-related violence even if it leads to an increase in alternative methods? What about drugs? Both gun-related suicides and homicides are often linked to drugs and economist Milton Friedman argues that ending our war on drugs could eliminate 10,000 homicides a year, to say nothing of what could be done to reduce suicides by drug abuse prevention and treatment.

To put the numbers into perspective, while 31,672 deaths in 2010 in the United States are gun-related, preventable medical errors kill as many as 195,000 people per year in the United States. If our objective is to reduce loss of human life then it seems that our time and resources would be better spent reducing medical errors than controlling guns (or on suicide prevention since suicides are responsible for as many as four times as many deaths as homicides in the US).

I think that bigger issues like medical errors are ignored, however, because guns are dramatic. Its a better news story, it evokes more emotion, guns are noticeable. However, perhaps we should really think about endorsing a public policy driven by evidence rather than emotions.

So, are guns risky? Of course, but then what doesn’t involve some level of risk? Preventable fatalities caused by medical errors, suicides and accidents have all proven to be more dangerous than guns. Looking at the statistics it seems that you’d be better off around a gun than in a hospital.

Do I believe that gun-violence should be ignored? Of course not. However, our attention to gun-violence seems to risk being out of proportion when compared to significantly greater killers like medical errors which receive little public attention.

Dear Republican Establishment


This is the face of conservatism:

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And this is the face of a conservative:

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Rand Paul is promoting a bill to “end abortion on demand once and for all.” It will probably fail but at least this man is doing something. Meanwhile, old-guard Republican leaders like John McCain look at our nearly 40 year history of abortion on-demand which has killed over 53 million pre-born children and says, “meh.” The Republican Party increasingly views abortion as an unnecessary and, frankly, damaging issue to their platform. Thus, for years, they’ve taken the tactical response of down-playing the issue, repeating “I’m pro-life” to their base and then turning around and whispering to independents “sometimes” or hinting that, hey, while I gotta say that I’m pro-life, I would never actually try anything to ban or restrict abortion if elected. Or they just avoid the issue completely. Really inspiring.

Now, establishment leaders are contemplating dropping the issue altogether.

So, who’s really conservative here? The quixotic Republican who wants to defend the defenseless? Or the Republican political elite who want a “bigger tent”?

2012 Election Post-Analysis: What Are We to Do?


The 2012 presidential election is over and Republican candidate Mitt Romney lost. That means that it is now time for conservatives to reevaluate the Republican platform. Conjecture and plans for reform abound among the establishment GOP about why the GOP lost and what to do about it. Republican leaders at the very top believe that Republicans must accept Obamacare as the law of the land and drop social issues like abortion, adopting Democrat positions on these issues. All we need to do to win,  suggests McCain and other establishment Republicans, is to make ourselves more like the winners.

But isn’t that precisely what Romney did? Didn’t he abandon social issues when he stated his opinion on abortion but then left the issues alone, stating that he was against it (sometimes) but that he would not pursue any legislation whatsoever? What about when he compromised on same sex “marriage” and supported civil unions? He was silent on Obamacare’s HHS mandate and its violations of religious freedom much like Boehner is now, instead opting to focus on “the economy” and “national security” as McCain suggests.

Romney seemed to have foregone principle for political expediency, abandoning core conservative values in an attempt to establish a “bigger tent” as McCain put it, and now the party leaders want to double down on this proven failure as their path to victory.

But making the Stupid Party more like the Evil Party will not guarantee victory and it definitely won’t guarantee any positive change should such neoconservatives actually succeed. What it does guarantee is a party that is both stupid and evil.

For true conservatism based on Christian moral principles we must look outside the party establishment. For anyone looking for an election post-analysis and who might be wondering where the Republican party should go from here, Front Porch Republic columnist Jeff Taylor takes a long hard look at the GOP and gives it some tough love in his excellent analysis, What’s Wrong with the Republican Party?

The conclusion to be drawn from Jeff Taylor’s analysis and my own should be plain: unless the Republican party reverses the precedents set by Romney, McCain and other recent establishment Republicans then Christians will have little choice but to throw their support behind third-party candidates as their only viable option in defending and promoting Christian moral principles. Contrary to establishing a “bigger tent” we must make it clear to the GOP that by abandoning some of today’s most critical issues like abortion that pro-lifers will be forced to abandon it.

The Republican Party Continues to Self-Destruct . . .


. . . as its party leaders  “drop social issues important to conservatives” – in this particular case, abortion. Its necessary, according to John McCain, to stand down on peripheral issues like our government’s endorsement of the murders of over 50 million pre-born children so that the Republican Party can win and effect change where it is really needed: in the economy and national security. Unfortunately, not only are these issues of lesser importance, but Republicans have shown themselves to be increasingly bad on both over the years. Far from promoting a free market and protecting everyone’s rights equally, the Republican Party has chosen instead to embrace a corporatist agenda with bailouts for big business, tax-cuts for the rich (I think any federal tax cut is a good thing but, really, there are bigger economic issues than protecting those who are already the most equipped to protect and take care of themselves) and by expanding Medicare. Speaker of the House, John Boehner, has even pledged to stand down and cooperate with Obamacare as the law of the land. On national security, Republicans have been even worse, systematically stripping American citizens of their rights, most notably with their support of the Patriot Act and then again with the NDAA. Furthermore, the GOP has embraced a foreign policy that violates Just War Doctrine and has oppressed millions around the world, Romney endorsed President Obama’s drone strike program and executive kill list, and the GOP has been obstinate in increasing our military spending despite our already bloated military budget and insane debt – all in the name of “security”.

The result of these changes in the Republican party over the decades is that the line between Republican and Democrat has blurred making any possible distinction largely irrelevant. Let me repeat that, by abandoning pro-life and pro-family values and by embracing economic central planning and using war as a tool to spread Americanist ideology around the world the Republican party has rendered itself irrelevant. When John McCain states that the GOP needs a “bigger tent” the underlying mantra seems to be, “we’re all Democrats now.” This message is made even clearer by the fact that, while Republican leaders like McCain talk about establishing a “bigger tent”, the GOP has worked very hard to shut out some of the most staunchly conservative people in this country.

Don’t get me wrong though, if you are pro-life McCain and others like him still want your vote. In fact, they’ll tell you that you absolutely must vote for them if you care at all about protecting innocent children and if you don’t vote for them then your actions actually support abortion. Meanwhile, don’t expect McCain to actually do anything to help defenseless infants other than “state my position on abortion, but other than that, leave the issue alone.”

Contrary to rising to the challenge of a second Obama term the GOP has thrown in the towel and taken the lukewarm stance of “we need to be more like that guy – but just a little! We don’t want to abandon our party principles.” But is stating your personal opinion and then willfully cooperating in practice with an administration that diametrically opposes those beliefs really going to inspire anyone to vote Republican? Perhaps worse, even if this limp-handed and, frankly, duplicitous approach gets the GOP results can we actually expect any kind of real positive change from those who are so eager to give up on principle for the sake of political expediency? Can the GOP save us, even if they do, by some miracle, win next time ’round? Or can we expect abortion to remain the law of the land for another 40 years, perhaps with obamacare and maybe even “gay marriage” added to the list?

Object to Birth Control? Congratulations, You’re Guilty of Violating Human Rights, Says UN.


UN report: Religious objections to contraception and abortifacients violate human rights.

So in other words, according to the UN, the basic human rights of freedom of religion and freedom of speech violate basic human rights – and by “human rights” they mean ingesting particular chemical compounds. Making sure everyone is on a pill is more important than protecting their rights to say and believe what they want.

This development should disturb everyone, including supporters of birth control because what this means is that the UN is willing to protect your rights only insofar as you agree with them and that represents the beginning of the abolition of all rights. If you’re rights are only granted protection under selective conditions then they cease to be “rights” in the eyes of the State and become mere privileges granted to some and withheld from others.

What really scares me is that the UNFPA’s 2012 annual report, which declared birth control a “human right,” states that UN general comments are “the authoritative interpretation of the standards” that “help translate the right to family planning at the abstract…level into policies and programs.”

When human institutions like the UN declare themselves the ultimate moral authority on what constitutes a right and what actions or even thoughts violate those defined rights then all genuine rule of law has broken down and all that remains is an advantage of the stronger: whoever is in charge makes the rules. Anyone who objects is guilty of crimes against humanity.

It is the role of the state, not to continually redefine our rights in some attempt to “evolve” our understanding, but to recognize human nature as an unchanging thing, to view our rights as “self-evident” and to protect our rights universally. Contrary to viewing objections to contraceptives and abortifacients as a “violation of human rights” it must be recognized, regardless of personal disagreement, as the free exercise of our rights, and therefore these objections must be acknowledged and dutifully protected under the law.

In Case Anyone is Still Hoping That the GOP Will Save Them . . .


Its not going to happen. Obama winning the election means very little because his opponent’s policies were hardly distinguishable from his own anyway. And now Republican leadership has given up any pretense of a meaningful difference as House Speaker John Boehner has pledged to cooperate with Obamacare. When Republicans can “sleep like a baby” knowing that Obama won and promise “never to give up on this president” then it is reasonable to conclude that the politics of the Democrat and Republican parties are not driven by opposing ideologies, perhaps one designated as on the “left” and the other as on the “right”, but by a shared political expediency that has no interest in “bettering America” but solely in furthering politicians’ careers.

Nothing is going to get better through politics because politics follows culture. Obama, Romney, Boehner, Pelosi and the rest are not “leaders”, they are followers. They follow whatever will get them into office and keep them there and that is determined by culture. If we want to see a more moral, prosperous and responsible nation then we must live our lives and raise our children that way. Being a good husband or wife, a good father or mother, is infinitely more important than being a good Republican or Democrat. Our votes will not determine our country’s future but how we live our lives will.

I Was Going to Write About Redistribution . . .


But then I found this story from St. Maximilian Kolbe on that very topic from the Kolbe Reader:

When he sees the luxurious residence or the charming country house of a wealthy person, a poor workingman often asks himself: “Why is there such inequality in the world?”

How many volumes have been written about equality among men! How much blood has been spilled for this idea! And yet, in spite of it all, we still have the rich and the poor…

Let us imagine that one day all the inhabitants of the world would assemble to put into effect this sharing of all goods; and that in fact each person, granted that the world is very big, received an exactly equal portion of the wealth existing on earth.

Then what? That very evening one man might say, “Today I worked hard: now I am going to take rest.” Another might state, “I understand this sharing of goods well; so let’s drink and celebrate such an extraordinary happening.” On the other hand, another might say, “Now I am going to set to work with a will so as to reap the greatest benefit I can from what I have received.” And so, starting on the next day, the first man would have only the amount given him; the second would have less, and the third would have increased his.

Then what do we do? Start redistributing the wealth all over again?

Even if everybody began to work right away with all his might and at the same time, the results would not be identical for all. There are, in fact, different kinds of work which are unequally productive; nor do all workers enjoy the same identical capacities. This leads to a diversity of results achieved, and consequently to differences in people’s profits.

What would have to be imposed so that, once the division of goods was accomplished, people could continue to live on a basis of equality understood in this sense? All workers would have to perform the same tasks, all possess equal intelligence and ability, have similar professional training, the same degree of health and strength, and especially the same ability and desire to put forth the necessary efforts. All of this is quite utopian.

To continue the argument, even if there were only two persons in the world, they would not succeed in maintaining absolute equality; for in the whole universe there are no two things completely identical in every respect…

In spite of this, the human mind still desires to bring about certain equality among men. Is there any possibility that this can happen? Yes, no doubt. Every man, whoever he is, whatever he possess and whatever he is capable of doing, owes all this to God the Creator of the universe. Of himself man is nothing. From this point of view all of us are absolutely equal.

Furthermore we all possess free will, which makes us masters of all our actions. This too constitutes the basic equality of all men on earth. But the use made of our free will is not the same in all cases; it depends in fact on each man’s own determination, on the extent to which he makes use of this precious gift; for not all do so to the same degree. It follows that not even after death will perfect equality be achieved; it will not in fact exist, because every man will receive a just reward or punishment according to his deeds, good or evil.

In Defense of Marriage


One of the most heated and controversial debates happening in our culture right now is over gay marriage. In a culture that is ever increasingly guided by relativism, progressivism and hedonism it is to be expected that the traditional definition of marriage (that is, a monogamous and publicly recognized relationship and commitment between a man and a woman) should be challenged. Marriage should be “whatever we want it to be” and anything that two consensual adults agree to is “no one else’s business.” ProCon.org provides some of the most common arguments in favor of eliminating any objective standard defining “marriage,” including:

“It is no one else’s business if two men or two women want to get married. Two people of the same sex who love each other should be allowed to publicly celebrate their commitment and receive the same benefits of marriage as opposite sex couples.”

Now, from a libertarian perspective, the pro-gay marriage crowd seems to have the upper hand. After all, libertarians love contracts: if two consenting adults want to enter into a contract then, as long as no harm comes of it, they should have every right to do so. Government should stay out of the “marriage business.” But what if marriage isn’t just a matter of business? Certainly there is a legal, contractual aspect to marriage but what if its more than just a contract?

Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D., Founder and President of the Ruth Institute and the author of Love and Economics: It Takes a Family to Raise a Village, makes the case that 1) marriage is more than just a contract, 2) Libertarians should oppose the privatization of marriage because it will actually expand the role of the State, and 3) privatization of marriage is unjust to children.

It is the third point that is the most important. Traditional marriage is important, not because straights are better than gays or because gays cannot be allowed the same rights as straights but because, as Morse states “Marriage is society’s institutional structure for protecting these legitimate rights and interests of children.” Traditional marriage does this by “attaching mothers and fathers to their children and to one another.” Furthermore, Morse argues, “This is an irreducibly public function” and, therefore, as a public institution it must be defended by the State in promotion of the common good.

Morse argues that we must approach the issue of marriage from the perspective of children.

We can’t begin our lives as objects to which other people have rights, and somehow, magically, become persons with rights of our own. Yet, the redefinition of parenthood is doing precisely this: treating children as objects. The idea of “contract parenting” is becoming the new institutional structure proposed by people who want to “get the government out of the marriage business.” Under this concept, two or more adults negotiate among themselves for parental rights. Perhaps the sperm donor will be a friend of the lesbian couple. They all agree he will be called “uncle” and get to see the child once a week. Or perhaps one woman will “donate” the egg, which is implanted in another woman’s womb. The women agree that they will both be mothers, and exclude the anonymous sperm donor father.

These cases suggest that there is something fundamentally flawed about the contractual approach to children. Rather than just recoil from the weirdness of it all, let me spell out these conceptual flaws.

You can read the rest of Morse’s argument in her article, Privatizing Marriage Is Unjust to Children.

Morse’s conclusion is that privatizing marriage to mean “whatever we want it to” is unacceptable because it violates children’s rights and does them harm. Now, while Morse offers strong reasons why this is the case, many proponents of gay marriage will argue that “the evidence” proves that children outcomes are the same or even better in gay marriages than in traditional marriages. The evidence, however, would be against them.

First, the evidence cited in favor of the “no difference” thesis is insufficient for making any such claim. Family studies scholar Loren Marks of Louisiana State University reviewed the 59 studies that are referenced in the 2005 American Psychological Association brief that came to the conclusion that there are “no differences.” Marks concludes that “not one of the 59 studies referenced … compares a large, random, representative sample of lesbian or gay parents and their children with a large, random, representative sample of married parents and their children. The available data, which are drawn primarily from small convenience samples, are insufficient to support a strong generalizable claim either way.”

Second, sociologist Mark Regnerus of the University of Texas at Austin, presents new and extensive empirical evidence that shows there are differences in outcomes between the children of a parent who has same-sex relationships and children raised by their married, biological mother and father. This new evidence was gathered by Dr. Regnerus, the lead investigator of the New Family Structures Study (NFSS) of the University of Texas, which in 2011 surveyed 2,988 young adults for the specific purpose of collecting more reliable, nationally representative data about children from various family origins. (The Witherspoon Institute provided funding for this study.) Already, the NFSS has been acknowledged by critics to be “better situated than virtually all previous studies to detect differences between these groups in the population.”

In response to Regnerus’ findings The Witherspoon Institute concludes:

On 25 out of 40 outcomes evaluated by Regnerus, there were statistically significant differences between children from IBFs and those of LMs in many areas that are unambiguously suboptimal. On 11 out of 40 outcomes, there were statistically significant differences between children from IBFs and those who reported having a GF in many areas that are suboptimal. The “no differences” claim is therefore unsound and ought to be replaced by an acknowledgement of difference.

Acknowledging the differences between the children of IBFs and those from LMs and GFs better accords with the established body of social science over the last 25 years, which finds that children do best when they are raised by their married, biological mother and father. At the turn of the millennium, social scientists widely agreed that children raised by unmarried mothers, divorced parents, cohabiting parents, and step-parents fared worse than children raised by their still-married, biological parents. Although data on gay and lesbian parenting were not yet available at that time, it was difficult to imagine that gay and lesbian parents would be able to accomplish what parents in step-parenting, adoptive, single-parenting, and cohabiting contexts had not been able to do, namely, replicate the optimal child-rearing environment of married, biological-parent homes.

Furthermore, there is the evidence provided by the personal accounts of actual flesh-and-blood people. One bisexual man tells his story of growing up with two moms and the effect that it had on him. Robert Oscar Lopez’s testimony is powerful and I recommend that you read the whole thing.

In his testimony he does not say that it was a bad family environment that led to his poorer outcomes, making his case indistinguishable from other kids brought up in a bad traditional marriage. No, he argues that it was his non-traditional upbringing specifically that caused him so much harm. Furthermore, Lopez goes to great lengths to defend Regnerus’ study. Far from condemning it as homophobia thinly-veiled as research as many gay activists have, Lopez views it as one of the few doses of honesty to penetrate the LGBT rhetoric. With that, I’ll end with a quote from Robert Lopez:

I thank Mark Regnerus. Far from being “bullshit,” his work is affirming to me, because it acknowledges what the gay activist movement has sought laboriously to erase, or at least ignore. Whether homosexuality is chosen or inbred, whether gay marriage gets legalized or not, being strange is hard; it takes a mental toll, makes it harder to find friends, interferes with professional growth, and sometimes leads one down a sodden path to self-medication in the form of alcoholism, drugs, gambling, antisocial behavior, and irresponsible sex. The children of same-sex couples have a tough road ahead of them—I know, because I have been there. The last thing we should do is make them feel guilty if the strain gets to them and they feel strange. We owe them, at the least, a dose of honesty. Thank you, Mark Regnerus, for taking the time to listen.