Up & Coming Weekly

May 04, 2021

Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.

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6 UCW MAY 5-11, 2021 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM e crisis at our border continues to get worse and the fallout continues to mount. In the House Energy and Commerce Committee, we held a hearing on the opioid epidemic. We discussed how fentanyl- based substance use has skyrocketed over the past year while we have dealt with lockdowns and the pandemic. We also learned the Biden Border Crisis is only making this problem worse. Agents I met with at one station on my recent trip to the border told me they have seized 55 pounds of fentanyl this year. It's hard to imagine, but that's enough to kill up to 10 million Americans — or the entire population of North Carolina! Overall, Border Patrol has seized 5,500 pounds of fentanyl this fiscal year, an increase of 322% from last year. is astonishing amount is only what we know about. But there is no telling what cartels and smugglers are successfully getting across our porous southern border. Cartels are taking advantage of the lack of leadership from President Biden and Vice President Harris and making millions of dollars in the process. Last week on Fox Business Network, I outlined House Republican solutions that would actually end the border crisis. ese include finishing the wall, reinstating the 'remain in Mexico' policy, maintain- ing Title 42 authority to protect our public health, requiring a negative COVID test before releasing migrants, and sending a clear message around the globe: don't come to the United States illegally. We have solutions that have been proven to work and I will continue pushing to end this crisis. Another issue I continue to care deeply about is protecting the life of the unborn. Last week, I was proud to sign a petition to force Speaker Nancy Pe- losi to bring the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Pro- tection Act to the House floor for a vote. e Born- Alive Act would ensure that any child who survives an attempted abortion receives the medical care they deserve. It's a shame we need this common- sense legislation in the first place. However, Wash- ington Democrats have so far refused to allow a vote on it. As a dad and Christian, I firmly believe life is a sacred and precious gift from God that begins at conception. I am unapologetically pro-life and will continue to defend the most vulnerable. In another display of their desire to overturn protections for the unborn, Washington Democrats also unveiled legislation to pack the Supreme Court. Washington Democrats are determined to expand the Supreme Court to protect their power and would threaten rights including life, as well as the Second Amendment. In 1983, then-Senator Joe Biden called this a "bonehead idea" and "terrible mistake." In 2020, Biden said expansion would, "begin to lose any credibility the court has at all." Former Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said nine was "a good num- ber," and court packing "would make the court appear partisan." While Washington Democrats demonstrate they will do anything to hold onto power, rest assured I will continue to defend the Constitution and the rule of law. I am a cosponsor of an amendment to our Constitution to keep the Supreme Court of the United States at nine justices. Just like securing our border, I will continue to work to protect the integ- rity of the Supreme Court and your rights. OPINION Congressman shares his position on critical issues by REP. RICHARD HUDSON REP. RICHARD HUDSON, (NC-08). COMMENTS? Editor@upandcomin- gweekly.com. 910-484-6200. e problem with freedom is that other people may do things that trouble, annoy, or even anger you. In a free society, you have no authority to stop them. Strictly speaking, that's not a problem. It's a solu- tion. roughout most of human history, much suffering has derived from a lack of freedom. One faction obtained government power, wielded it to impose its moral, social, or political values on oth- ers, and then either successfully or unsuccessfully made its imposition stick with violence or intimida- tion. Another faction, aggrieved, eventually ob- tained power of its own and then retaliated. Abuses of power begat more abuses. Winner-take- all thinking produced many losers in a ceaseless circle of strife. Freedom is a solution in a world of conflicting values — which is, in fact, the only world we've got. If you are free to worship Baal and I am free to wor- ship God, one of us is likely to be in dire moral peril. But at least I am not also fearful of being tyrannized or killed for acting on my beliefs, and you can say the same. Moreover, in a free society I have more than just the right to worship as I please. I also have the right to attempt to evangelize you, just as you have the right to try to sell me the full Baal-Believers benefits package, complete with free ginsu knives for ritual sacrifice (did you know they can cut through these tin cans as easily as through a ripe tomato?) Of course, in a free society, there's nothing that says one has to listen. erein lies the problem. In my experience, liberty lovers fail to appreciate how difficult it is for most human beings to handle not being listened to, and to be confronted with the fact that others are doing something self-destructive or wrong but can't be enjoined from continuing. Such psychic pain is also an inalienable facet of human nature. It can be excruciating. Yielding to the temptation to use government co- ercion to make this pain go away is wrong — no less than yielding to other kinds of injurious temptations — but surely one can understand why it happens. It has become fashionable in today's society to attribute this behavior primarily to religious conser- vatives, who are typically portrayed as puritanical busybodies or hypocrites. But I find at least as much willingness among groups on the political Left to use governmental coercion to impose their beliefs at the point of a gun. ey try to police speech and engage in viewpoint discrimination on public-university campuses. ey seek restrictions on advertising, either because they don't like the products being sold or because they don't think consumers are smart enough to under- stand the claims being made. ey claim the right to impose restrictions on wages, prices, working hours, and other conditions of employment regardless of what the parties to an employment contract may seek or think is fair. And they claim the right to force devoutly Christian bak- ers and florists to help them celebrate weddings or communicate messages that violate the Christians' deepest religious convictions. Freedom isn't easy. It requires us to be grown-ups, to settle for living in a society in which some people, no matter how hard we try, just aren't going to do what we say or believe what we believe. It requires hippies to respect the rights of South- ern Baptists, and those with less to respect the rights of those with more, and gays to respect the rights of straights, and pacifists to respect the rights of hunt- ers. Yes, it also means the reverse in each case. It works both ways. Yielding to the temptation to coerce inevitably creates a more serious problem than the problem of learning to live with daily annoyances and outrages — just as yielding to a strong temptation to drink or overeat can make one feel good in the short run but cause severe harm in the long run. Guess it's time for a new 12-step program. Resist the temptation to coerce by JOHN HOOD JOHN HOOD, Chairman of the John Locke Foundation. Contributing Writer. COMMENTS? Editor@upand- comingweekly.com. 910-484-6200

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