Obamacare vs. Freedom

A great deal has changed in the US since I last posted. The upholding of Obamacare by the Supreme Court being the major change. Astonished by the court's ruling, I hardly know where to start. I have to say a few very pointed statements.

John Roberts whiffed his opportunity to defend the intent and spirit of the Constitution and its authors.

As power concentrates freedom evaporates. This bill and the way it is instituted constitute the largest power consolidation in the history of the US, a direct affront to the Constitution itself which is designed to limit the power of government. The Democrats in Washington have pulled off the greatest loss of freedom in one piece of legislation ever in the US.

While we are readying ourselves for retribution at the poles in November they are doing everything they can to lessen the impact of the reaction by insuring that no state successfully reforms their election laws to insure elections are fair. Every voter ID law in the US is currently under legal attack from Eric Holder's Justice Department. Yes, fast and furious Eric Holder.

In contrast to the current administration I happen to believe that freedom works. It not only works, it is a creative force that defies explanation. Our Founders believed this by faith because they had never seen it instituted and protected any time or place before in history. Their faith was wise and well placed.

We are now watching an assault on the self evident truths they articulated in the American founding. We are seeing what Democrats do when trusted with power, they grab more. Apparently, personal freedom is a foolish pipe dream to them.

I'll sign off with 2 things you can do to fight this and do what John Roberts did not have the courage to do.

Call you local Congress person and tell them to pass election reforms NOW.

Call your Federal Congress person and tell them Eric Holder needs to go NOW.

Freedom??? (Yawn)

I have written several times about the unique nature of American freedom. History has shown us that the conception of the American experiment emerged from Christianity. I offer Original Intent by Barton and The Light and the Glory by Marshall and Manuel as my well documented supports for this statement. These two works let the Founders themselves tell of the philosophies and beliefs that inspired them.

With this kind of a conception, birthing and rearing (Christian), the U.S. launched on its way to an incredible future that included saving various peoples and the world from tyranny on several different occasions. Yes, the kind of freedom that comes from God (as defined in the Declaration) is that empowering.

Our Founders sought to establish a government "of the people, by the people and for the people" so that no one person could force their narrow views on the rest of us by fiat. All citizens including those elected to public office are to be governed by laws. It was their intent to establish the "rule of law" to prevent any one person from assuming dictatorial power.

In the past our Christian upbringing kept us vigilant against any threat to this system where we acknowledge that all men were created equal and the laws kept the playing field unbiased for all to have the same opportunity for improvement.

Since we have lost our Christian moorings, even shunned them, do we really love, admire, respect, covet, cherish our freedom? Do we appreciate the cost it came with? Do we understand how fleeting it is or how rare?

I hear one gigantic national yawn.

We have a president with the allegiance of his party that has begun the business of ruling your life through running your health care, being the sole dispenser of student loans, prosecuting only the laws they as an administration agree with (not prosecuting charges of voter fraud when they are brought by white citizens, not enforcing the DOMA legislation, by-passing immigration rules, making recess appointments while congress is not in recess...), regulating the banking system out of making loans to you, executing a monetary policy that is destroying the value of your savings, pension, salary, wages, life insurance... anything else measured in dollars, proposing legislation and policy that forces one to violate their conscience (not just the recent push for Catholic hospitals to provide contraception and abortion but also the forcing of Christian Pharmacists to dispense abortifacient drugs, the forcing of Christian public officials to write marriage licenses to gay couples, forcing Christian orphanages to place children with gay couples...) The list is ongoing and extensive.

The current administration and his party are actively destroying what is left of our Christian influence. In its wake will be a nation of government-dependent sheep seeking to avoid the rail car to the processing plant.

Moral conviction is what comes from an experience with a righteous God, a God who values human life to a degree we can hardly understand, a God who ascribes meaning and purpose to all of human experience. But I digress...

The conception of this country and what she would represent to the world was the culmination of Christian philosophy working in men who dreamed of a free nation on earth... because men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights and that AMONG these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Friends this is a Christian moral concept. Without Christianity this flavor of freedom dies.

If this administration is how it ends, well, it was our own doing.

It has been a long a glorious ride for the United States as a Christian nation. We understood and pursued good as a nation (with some missteps no doubt) with grand effect. We have delivered a world relatively free and certainly with an experience of freedom that has changed the course of human events.

Friends, Christianity will not die, but Its stalwart champion among nations may. We are in grave danger.

Seek God. Seek freedom through His truth. Seek a return to pursuing good with His guidance as a nation.

Shun those who know nothing of what is morally good. Call evil for what it is, evil. Evil is the spiritual way of saying something is harmful. It's not that hard. When you embrace something harmful, it will bring your pain. When you know something is harmful, yet compromise with it, you guarantee someone will be harmed.

The Seeds of Socialism in the Hearts of Men

De Tocqueville is always worth hearing. He had some incredibly insightful comments on early American government and society. Here's one on the depraved desire in the heart of man to crave "equality."

"There is, in fact, a manly and lawful passion for equality that incites men to wish all to be powerful and honored. This passion tends to elevate the humble to the rank of the great; but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom. Not that those nations who social condition is Democratic naturally despise liberty; on the contrary, they have an instinctive love of it. But liberty is not the chief and constant object of their desires; equality is their idol: they make rapid and sudden efforts to obtain liberty and, if they miss their aim, resigned themselves to their disappointment; but nothing can satisfy them without equality, and they would rather perish than lose it."

Democracy in America – Alexis de Tocqueville page 53

Things haven't changed much Mr. President. Playing to and encouraging the basest of human desires is not honorable, inspiring or good.

The Bible Says That?

I just finished reading an article by Metaxis, the author of Bonhoeffer. It is really telling. The cultural pillars, sayings and principles that have been supplied to us from Christianity are so numerous it is hard to list them all (e.g. why we take Sunday off, why our government has 3 branches, where saying like "I took my life in my hands" came from etc...). Yet the elite are so devoid of knowledge of the Bible they make glaring errors about sources and histories that are entertaining at best and tragic at worst. The article is a fascinating read.

God Bless.

Things Unseen

I cannot accept that what we SEE is all that there is because there are things going on inside of me that I can't see that I know are important, that are true, that make my life meaningful:

Thought, knowledge, understanding, love, empathy, compassion, a sense of justice, wonder, awe, worship, gratefulness, and appreciation of beauty…

History Lessons

I am currently reading a book by Jon Meacham about president Andrew Jackson call American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House.

Meacham is not a conservative author by any means by I am struck by the content of his book. Our history is so steeped in Christian heritage that he has spent the first one third of the book describing a moral dilemma President Jackson faced in his own cabinet.

Seems one of his cabinet members, John Eaton, married a woman of poor reputation. It was rumored that she had conceived a child through an adulteress affair and had had many male partners in her young life. The scandal played havoc in his first administration.

My observation is this. If we were not a nation guided by Christian morality there would have been no controversy would there? We had very Christian beginnings.

I'm not condoning or condemning the treatment Mrs. Eaton got. I'm saying there would not have been a scandal had there not been high moral standards in that day.

The standard that they embraced and that was thought to be violated was this: sex was to be enjoyed only in the bonds of marriage. Only in the security of a family should a child be born. In Jackson's day there were no social programs to support someone who strayed from the protection of this moral standard. Destitution defined those who did.

It was also considered a lack of character for someone to engage in reckless behavior for such momentary self gratification when the stakes were so high.

We have come a long way. We think nothing of this kind of behavior now and fully expect too write the check for it. In doing this we encourage the bad behavior. All parties are damaged in the process, including the children born.

Since we cannot teach a strict abstinence morality in schools these days, because you know we are not a Christian nation, we can expect you men to feel at liberty with young ladies. The destitution of fatherless children will continue to grow in our country.

If only we could learn from our own history.

I can't end this without making an appeal to young men. I beg you, do not demean and defame the rites of manhood before you have the substance of character to make good on the commitment required to really go "all the way."

Obamacare Patriotism

Couldn't pass this without commenting.

Michael Moore is making foolish and dishonest defense of Obamacare. It is interesting that he is now admitting there will be longer waits for medical care. I don't remember this being mentioned before the bill passed, at least not by Moore.

Michael Moore defends Obamacare and healthcare programs similar to it around the world. Moore says the only "things you maybe have to wait for" are a knee replacement surgery or cataracts.

"Things that are not life-threatening," Moore said on HBO's "Real Time" with host Bill Maher. "The reason why you have to wait sometimes in those countries is they let everybody in the line. We make 50 million people out of the line so the line is shorter, so sometimes you have to wait as long. If you are a patriotic American, you want every American to be covered the same as you. No, not 'I'm going to get ahead because I have health insurance and they don't,'" Michael Moore explained.

The fact is no one was out of the line. Everyone can get medical care in the US even if they do not have insurance. It is not that we are adding 50 million people to the line, it is that we are reducing hundreds of lines to one. Hundreds of private health insurance providers are being whittled down to one, the US government. And thousands of health care providers are being reduced to who knows how few because the incentive to go into the medical profession has been greatly reduce along with the doctor's income potential.

It's not that there are more in line. It's that there will be fewer lines.

So friends, your patiently enduring a bad policy that will certainly hasten our financial ruin is you mark of patriotism.

I would rather think that saving the country from this disastrous bill would be more patriotic.

Shorter waits for medical care are just a bonus.