MTP BlogAll The President's History - "Release The Birth Documents"
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By: Michael Johns
Contact
Michael at Email: michaeldjohns@gmail.com
One of
the most constructive developments of the past eight months is that tens of
millions of Americans appear to be reawakening to the critical importance and
relevance of the U.S. Constitution. The brazen growth of the federal
government, which now controls sizable portions of the economy (automobiles,
banks, health care, mortgages and other industry segments), violates the tenets
of free market capitalism, the system that has been the foundation of our
nation's globally unprecedented growth and prosperity. But this debate is not
merely a policy one. Increasingly, as millions of Americans associated with the
burgeoning Tea Party and 912 Project movements are demonstrating, the debate is
about whether such expansions of federal powers are even Constitutionally
permissible.
It is
difficult to pinpoint exactly when the dangerous disregard for our nation's
founding legal document began. It certainly predates this administration. But
the culture upon which it rests might be best exemplified in the apparent
Congressional and media group think that our 44th President holds no obligation
to respond to questions about his Constitutional eligibility, under Article II,
Section I of the Constitution, to hold the office to which he ran and was
elected. This Constitutional provision states unequivocally that no person
except a natural born citizen shall be eligible to the Office of President.
Is
Barack Obama a natural born citizen of the United States? Probably. But because
Obama is going to great lengths to conceal the documents that would settle this
issue definitively, it is impossible to say for sure. Since October 2008, Obama
has spent in excess of $1.35 million in legal fees to file protective and
privacy motions in at least eight federal lawsuits to avoid releasing the
documents--his mother's hospital admission record, his Hawaii certificate of
live birth, his educational records during his four years of residence in
Indonesia, his Indonesian citizen status at that time and the time of his
subsequent reentry to the U.S., and his college and law school admission
records--that likely would definitively establish his Constitutional
eligibility. Congress, the media, and even many Obama opponents, meanwhile,
have failed to exert any pressure on him to halt his pro-active legal measures
to avoid disclosure of these documents.
Quite
obviously, the question of a President's Constitutional eligibility is serious
business. It was serious business when, in February 2008, The New York Times
called into question Senator John McCain's eligibility for the office because
McCain was born on an American Naval base in the Panama Canal Zone, which was
then under U.S. control. "It is certainly not a frivolous issue," The
Times quoted Atlanta attorney Jill Pryor as saying at the time. The questions
also were serious enough for the U.S. Senate to investigate them, with the
Senate ultimately concluding in a unanimous vote that the U.S. administration
of the Panama Canal Zone at that time meant that McCain was indeed a natural
born citizen and eligible for the Presidency.
Whatever
these records might reveal, Obama's extensive, year-long efforts to conceal
them are now inexplicable, inexcusable and harmful to the nation. There is no
innocuous explanation for his extensive efforts to conceal them, especially
since their release is easily authorized and would settle the controversy,
permitting the nation to move on with full confidence in his Constitutional
eligibility and the Constitutional foundations of our nation in 2009. But Obama
has refused to do this and, as a result, a frightening and growing number of
Americans now understandably ask the question: What exactly is he hiding?
Let me
stipulate that, despite following this issue for a year, I am utterly unable to
answer that question. But logic dictates that one would not expend in excess of
a million dollars in legal fees, as Obama has done, knowing that the only
likely result is that a certain percentage of the American people will view
such efforts as non-transparent, or even malfeasant. Conversely, it also is
wrong to conclude, in the absence of these documents, that Obama has
necessarily misrepresented anything about his birth location or Constitutional
eligibility, as some critics of Obama's concealment of these documents continue
to do. Under pressure to settle the issue during his Presidential candidacy,
the Obama campaign ultimately produced a Certification of Live Birth in 2007,
but that document, skeptics argue, is manufactured by the state and is not an
unequivocal authentication of his birth location.
The most important point is this: No national interest is served by permitting these important questions to linger and persist. To settle them, Obama should cease blocking release of the documents sought by the plaintiffs in the various federal cases over his eligibility. And going forward, it seems reasonable to insist that our nation's Federal Election Commission (FEC), which is charged with regulatory oversight of Presidential elections, require Presidential candidates to submit, along with their candidacy filing, the documents that clearly establish their natural-born eligibility for the office. Americans' confidence in our Constitutionally-rooted democratic political system requires no less.
Elections Matter - "District 83 & The Memphis TEA Party PAC"
The TEA Party movement began as a visceral response to the out of control spending in our nation’s Capitol. Rallies were held around the United States and people vented their frustrations in a peaceful demonstration of “we’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore”. Signs were made, meeting and rallies were attended, “instant TEA” protests held and all culminated in the summer of discontent during the August recess of Congress.
However, while these rallies and events served to develop a sense of group outrage and a way in which the conservative values of millions of Americans could be demonstrated, the subsequent “what next” questions began to be asked.
It was clear that the MSM was not going to cover these events or even the movement. The over one million people who marched on Washington were ignored and even Obama stated that he didn’t know that a rally was going on as he jetted off to his healthcare rally in Minnesota. Up until this time, most people were content with their collective expression of anger and frustration. No matter that they were ignored! The political pundits believed that this too shall pass and given enough time, the TEA Party movement would collapse of its own emotional exhaustion.
However, early in the formation of The Memphis TEA Party, it was apparent to this author that the emotion engendered in these early activities needed to be met with a clear call to action if we were indeed going to make a difference in the body politic. To be sure, there were those in the movement who believed that the TEA Party had to be about keeping our “grass roots” orientation with no formal political affiliation. This fact resulted in some splintering of groups, even here in Memphis.
Nonetheless, our view was that in order for the TEA Party movement to be effective, it had to express the collective power of its membership in conjunction with the emotional energy that was being generated through rallies and other events. There were also calls to remain politically neutral to ensure that the movement wouldn’t be tainted by supporting one particular party or another. And while I agree with the notion of not becoming a subsidiary of the Republican Party, I also believe that, just like the old bank robber – you go where the money is, and that is where most of the conservative constituents and representatives reside.
In this context, The Memphis TEA Party recognized the need to create a PAC and so we formed The Memphis TEA Party PAC for purposes of developing candidates and supporting them through the primary election cycle through to their hoped for election to local, state and national offices. We launched a twice weekly radio show, Memphis TEA Party Live! For God & Country on the local AM station, KWAM990. In conjunction with this directed effort, we also began to formulate a strategy around the establishment of a Conservative Precinct Leadership organization that would be run by The Memphis TEA Party and therefore beholding not to any actual party organization. This overall approach would allow us to raise money, develop exploratory committees, recruit candidates and get out the vote during the election cycles. And while we would support various national efforts, such as the NY23 Congressional race with Hoffman, our focus would be on localism.
Our first efforts were to support a state representative candidate in his primary election here in TN for the TN District 83 special election. This position opened up after the incumbent, Brian Kelsey, decided to run for State Senator to replace the incumbent who had resigned in disgrace. Mark White, a solid conservative, small business owner who had always lived in the district and who I had the opportunity to meet through our TEA Party efforts, was contending against John Pellicciotti in the Republican primary.
In order to assist Mark, we had him on our radio show, Memphis TEA Party Live! For God & Country, to do morning and evening interviews, supported his fund raising activity and participated in his calling campaigns and GOTV initiatives. In the end, Mark won the primary by 300 votes and will contend for the general election on January 12, 2010 against the Democrat candidate. The district is heavily Republican and Mark should be able to win with the party and the TEA Party’s help. When asked about our involvement, Mark White stated, "It has been said that all politics is local. The strength of this nation has always been the individual in every community across our great country. The Tea Party Movement represents Grassroots politics at the local level. If we are ever to change the giant bureaucracy that Big government has given us it will be that "We The People" join together community by community and stand firm for the freedoms that our Constitution has given us."
Mark White is a perfect example of how the TEA Party movement can make a difference from the primary election cycle through to the general election and drive the change it seeks. To be sure, we do not believe that The Memphis TEA Party PAC was solely responsible for his election; however, we amplified his own campaign efforts and those of the Republican party throughout the primary cycle achieving our goal of electing Mark White.
So where do we go from here? First, we will help Mark White in the general election. Next, The Memphis TEA Party PAC has formed an exploratory committee to present a candidate to run in a largely Democratic, black district against the incumbent, Congressman Steve Cohen. We will be announcing her candidacy as we move along the vetting and exploratory process. And of course, we have the 2010 election cycle which includes our Shelby County mayoral race, the county commissioner races, sheriff and other elected positions that we will be engaged in helping candidates who reflect our conservative values and orientation towards fiscal responsibility and personal responsibility.
In the end, we believe that the TEA Party movement must focus itself on taking back the levers of power through candidate development, support and elections. There is no success in a third party movement. Our goal should be to establish PACs, collaborate across states, regions and nationally, but be focused on our own local elections to groom the future candidates for national office. The Memphis TEA Party is focused on bringing to bear the emotion, energy, ingenuity and conservative values of its membership in meeting the challenges of our nation and those who would represent us!
Jobs Summit - "Tax Day Tea Party Prescription"
As I reflect on the latest "Job Summit" announced by the President for Thursday, December 3rd, I was reminded of the speech I first offered at the Tax Day TEA Party in Memphis on April 15, 2009. I thought it would be interesting to go back and republish the prescriptions for job creation and then compare those to the likes of the President's initiatives and even those of Newt Gingrich as shared in his "The Real Jobs Summit". See what you think after you get a chance to digest the details! And remember, what may seem like prescience is in fact, common sense. And it is exactly common sense that seems to be sorely missing from this administration!
Good afternoon,
Thank you for coming to this kickoff event in Memphis and thank you for your support of the nationwide TEA Party movement. I say this is a movement because we are here not simply to vent our frustration, but to begin the process of organizing and developing a charter to reduce government in size and scope, drive responsible fiscal policy along with reduced spending and keep taxes low.
Before getting to my prepared remarks, I just wanted to make sure that this group was not comprised of “radicalized right wing extremists”, who as Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano reported, “can be broadly divided into those groups, movements and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration."
You cannot ignore the context or the timing of this DHS report. It's no small coincidence that Napolitano's agency disseminated the assessment just a week before the nationwide April 15 Tax Day Tea Party protests. The grassroots events organized by fiscal conservatives, independents, Libertarians and, yes, even some Blue Dog Democrats were fueled by the "current economic and political climate" of bipartisan profligate spending and endless taxpayer-funded bailouts. The growing success of the loose-knit movement has invited scorn, ridicule and fear-mongering from Obama's supporters. Liberal bloggers have likened the Tea Party movement to neo-Nazis, militias and even Weather Underground terrorists.
However, our objective is not to spew hate or to sow the seeds of discord. Our efforts are based on the underlying premise that “We The People”, have the right to make our voices heard and through peaceful assembly, demonstrate our frustration with unabated spending and borrowing. We are creating the basis of a grass roots movement that will further those efforts necessary to hold our government representatives accountable for their actions, both through policy influence and at the voting booth.
For too long -people who have worked hard, kept the faith and did what was expected of them in life, business and family – we have held our tongues and were counted on to keep our place while those who would lord over us made policy. This is not to say that all government is bad or that the responsibility of American citizens does not include contributing for the national good. However, the spending policies of our previous administration and the current administration have saddled every man, woman and child with a debt of over $29,000! Current discretionary spending has reached the $1 trillion dollar mark. The stimulus package, the federal budget and government guarantees now exceed $12 trillion dollars!
In the city of New York, just over 41,000 people pay 50% of the city income tax. And nationally, the top 25% of income earners pay over 86% of all Federal Income tax. Can we expect to balance the budget and pay down these deficits without expanding the tax base? Do you really expect that you will not be impacted by these facts and the ensuing inflation from printing so much money?
And as it relates to our national security, can we really sleep at night knowing that the Chinese are the major financiers of our debt?
Of course the answer to all of these questions is a resounding NO.
Now to be sure, all is not lost. The effort we are undertaking today will allow us to become a political force to be reckoned with. So what could our prescription look like over the current administration’s views?
Investment & Tax Policy:
First, productive people need to be the drivers of economic improvement. I don’t mean to suggest that people who are lower wage earners should not be helped, but if those who are productive, entrepreneurial and innovative aren’t succeeding, than no one will benefit. In this context, I would propose making the Bush tax cuts permanent thus providing certainty about tax legislation and which will stop or at least reduce the need for “tax strategies” in 2010 that may create aberrations in the current economy. Uncertainty is the worst thing that can happen in tough times and the current tax environment only creates further complexity and noise. Source: thestate.com/business/story/687874.html
Second, take the corporate tax rate down to a cap of 35% from the current 39.3%. The 35% rate would be 1% lower than our friends to the north (Canada for those of you in Rio Linda) and 2% higher than Mexico. But if we really wanted to get radical, we could reduce rates to that other English-speaking nation, the UK and cap it at 30%. Source: taxfoundation.org
Third, individuals invest for their retirement and are motivated by return on investment just like those nasty Wall Street bankers. Look at your 401K lately, those money markets? Well unless you are in various debentures or tax free muni’s, you have either lost money or are earning a whopping 2-3%! So, let’s rev up the returns engine and take the long term capital gains from the current 15% down to 0%. This would incentivize investment while allowing people to take the long view. Heck, you might even buy some of those foreclosed homes, rehab them, lease them out and later sell them, knowing that you would keep all the upside! No longer would just the big guys play this game but the average investor could do the same! Oh, and we would be just like that other bastion of democracy and member of the “special status” of the Republic of China – Hong Kong! Source: lowtax.net
Fourth, instead of all of these bailouts, let the companies fail and allow private equity to come in and buy the assets. However, we do need to assist the financial institutions through organized bankruptcy and backed by the normal insurance practices of the FDIC. These exotic instruments that turned an illiquid asset like real estate liquid are to blame for much of the current pain. But let’s also make sure that the regulatory oversight that was missing in the current environment and the use of a quasi-state enterprise like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are no longer allowed to make loans without sufficient down payments and only to home owners, not home “investors”.
The current bailout tab is $2.2 trillion with a committed liability of $9.9 trillion dollars! Source: nytimes.com/interactive/2009/02/04/business/20090205-bailout-totals-graphic.html. That represents 70% of the GDP of the United States. Putting this in context, we could let all of these banks and institutions fail, move them through a planned bankruptcy and pay out those monies to every man, woman and child in the United States. Now this would mean that an average family would receive a check for over $29,000 based on current expenditures and nearly $128,000 when all liabilities are included. Of course, this still doesn’t deal with the fact that our currency will be made nearly worthless and result in hyperinflation in the future, but it’s fun to imagine the “rebate” checks you would have until our “chickens came home to roost”. So, while this might be fun to imagine – I don’t recommend it and would cease any further bailouts or accepting any further liability unless we were able to unwind the government’s position in the asset in a timely fashion. Interestingly, the government has stopped publishing the M3 money supply but that hasn’t stopped the impact of so much printing resulting in higher costs of goods! Source: seekingalpha.com/article/83506-rising-money-supply-and-the-economy
Energy & Renewables:
First, we are not getting off oil any time soon. Oil powers the country and impacts almost every industry that either manufactures something or moves something. We need oil for the near term and likely for the long term. However, we must move away from our reliance on foreign production and drive local production. Current drilling techniques and technology make drilling less likely to impact the environment and allows for deeper exploration with lower risk. We need to open up off-shore drilling, ANWAR in Alaska, tar sands - the richest of which are in Utah and California with 60-80 billion barrels and 11 billion recoverable (DOE estimates), and of course friendly country exploration.
Second, we need new refinery capacity in this country. We need to incentivize and make available fast track legislation to develop the necessary capacity as no new refineries have been built in this country in the last 20 years. If you wonder why gasoline didn’t drop as fast as oil over the last 6 months, it’s because we buy so much of our gasoline from overseas refiners. Since 1982, we have gone from importing 200,000 barrels per day to approximately 1.3 million barrels per day of foreign refined gasoline – an over six fold increase! Why, because we have insufficient refining capacity. There is plenty of oil just insufficient refining capacity in this country. Anybody want a job? Source: tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/wgtimus2w.htm
Third, as it relates to gasoline, as of 2005, we have at least 11 special blends of gasoline mandated by states and metropolitan areas. When factoring in the various grades of gasoline, we have at least 45 different blends and grades that have to be managed through the supply chain! Since 2005, this has increased although the GAO of the US government isn’t sure how many currently are mandated. This fact has increased complexity in delivery of gasoline and the occasional supply interruptions we now see when a storm hits, as did Katrina. As those of you who remember the fitness guru Susan Powter would say – “Stop the madness”. The Federal government (yes even I think they have some function in the economy) needs to present a coherent standard for all states, perhaps reducing the grading system and move to fewer blends. Do any of your actually fill up with 89 Octane versus 87 Octane versus 93 Octane. Couldn’t we just do with 87 and 93 Octane and one or two special blends for environmental benefits? This alone would have an impact on distribution and refining costs. Of course this would create transparency in the supply chain and probably result in the refiners making less money! Source: Highlights of GAO-05-421, a report to congressional requesters
Fourth, we need to leverage our coal technology and figure out how to improve and reduce environmental impact. We are already seeing a delay in the development of coal fired plants which will impact electricity availability in the future unless and until this government gets clear on policies and regulations proposed to the utility providers. How can we create such lack of transparency in the regulatory environment without an alternative? Encourage improved coal fired technology through tax policy and work with the utilities on the best know and future technologies to reduce carbon emissions. Provide a certain regulatory environment and get electricity production moving forward. With over 20 plants cancelled or delayed, parts of the west and southwest will see rolling brownouts and blackouts in the future without further electricity production. Source: articles.latimes.com/p/2008/jan/18/nation/na-coal18
Fifth, we need to go nuclear. Of the 30 countries with nuclear power, the percentage of electricity supplied by nuclear ranged widely: from a high of 78 percent in France; to 54 percent in Belgium; 39 percent in Republic of Korea; 37 percent in Switzerland; 30 percent in Japan; 19 percent in the USA; 16 percent in Russia; 4 percent in South Africa; and 2 percent in China. Present nuclear power plant expansion is centered in Asia: 15 of the 29 units under construction at the end of 2006 were in Asia. And 26 of the last 36 reactors to have been connected to the grid were in Asia. India currently gets less than 3% of its electricity from nuclear, but at the end of 2006 it had one-quarter of the nuclear construction - 7 of the world´s 29 reactors that were under construction. India´s plans are even more impressive: an 8-fold increase by 2022 to 10 percent of the electricity supply and a 75-fold increase by 2052 to reach 26 percent of the electricity supply. A 75-fold increase works out to an average of 9.4 percent/yr, about the same as average global nuclear growth from 1970 through 2004. So it is hardly unprecedented. So, let’s get on with it and stop acting like a third world country and at least meet the goals established by those French Europeans Obama is always talking about! We are at least as smart as the French and the Belgians, are we not? Source: iaea.org/NewsCenter/PressReleases/2007/prn200719.html
Finally, we need to keep working on green technologies to include wind and solar. But these should be developed in concert with the aforementioned approaches. If tax incentives are to be used, they should be capped and limited to a maximum of 10 years. If we can’t make it feasible in that time (remember we sent a man to the moon when we set that goal), then let the technology evolve on its own why relying on traditional approaches.
Healthcare & Education:
Okay, I have lumped the last two into one box because I am tired of fixing all the other problems government has created! So here goes.
First, Healthcare costs are out of control due in part to litigation and insurance. Litigation requires doctors to do more tests, through which they make money – MRI’s are ordered by doctors who own the MRI machine and lawyers would sue if the doctor missed something that would have been caught by an MRI. See how well this loop works? Additionally, doctors have been loath to implement new patient care technologies and office automation. We need this to change to enhance outcome based services and reduce the inefficiency of medical records and diagnostics. As such, both litigation needs to be dealt with through tort reform and for this; doctors will need to commit to embracing these proven technologies. With lower malpractice insurance and improved patient care, doctors will make more money, patients will be better cared for and the lawyers won’t be as busy taking one third to one half of your settlement. I would rather keep my life in any case rather than have my heirs get my half of the settlement. Technology is key here and as a technologist, I have sold and deployed these capabilities in the past. They work and the doctors need to get on the band wagon. Source: ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?article_id=3047
Second, insurance must be made transportable. Existing conditions should not be a deal breaker and mandating that anyone who needs insurance can get insurance is a requirement of this policy. To be sure, we need to manage the charges for this approach and while I am not prescribing an economic model, people who want to pay and often can pay are not able to buy insurance. In addition, I would go back to President Regan’s approach to a “catastrophic health insurance plan”. He was right then and it is right now. This approach would allow for an effective method of reducing the destruction of wealth that occurs in the uninsured while enhancing the insurance people are able to purchase at a lower rate. I would expand this to all uninsured. Source: nytimes.com/1987/02/13/us/text-of-statements-by-reagan-and-white-house.html?sec=health
Ok, now here comes the one bit of social policy I will prescribe. No amount of money is going to correct for the amount of single parent families and the poverty and developmental problems this creates in educational outcome. This does not mean that all single parent families are failures or that children from single family households can’t succeed. It is simply a fact that the research finds that these households are at greatest risk in terms of poverty, lower educational success and delayed emotional development in general. Source: Living arrangements of single-mother families: Variations, transitions, and child development outcomes
While mixed families and transitional arrangements tend to see improved outcomes, the traditional mother and father working with their children has the greatest propensity for success. The current report on births in the USA stated that 4.5 million children were born in the country last year. Over 40% were to single mothers! While some choose to have children and simply live together (think Hollywood), most are out of wedlock births. Source: abcnews.go.com/Health/ReproductiveHealth/wireStory?id=7111878
So with such staggering statistics evident in our society, what is my prescription? Well, first, get the message out and share the statistics. Second, continue to invest in outcome based education such as the “No Child Left Behind Act”. Third, encourage marriage and the family – stop accepting the current behaviors and promote the traditional family as a source of benefit to children. Divorce is too easy and men are too eager to ditch their responsibilities. For until we unite financial, moral and spiritual elements of education and family development, these trends will result in further degradation to our children’s lives and their success – at school and in their adult life!
So there it is – my domestic agenda and my specific actions if I were king – I mean president. It is an alternate vision to this country over the current track President Obama is taking us. Each of these ideas can be personally felt, determined in the household and evaluated in context of your own life and outcomes. There is little ambiguity here and it is a transparent approach to those things that have motivated the American dream for centuries – self worth, self action, collective creativity and a unified nation through its traditional family structure. Would it work? Can’t tell you for we won’t ever get to try. But ask yourself this one question, if these recommendations took place immediately, would you do better financially, would job opportunities in energy, manufacturing, health care increase, would your family be better off financially, would you feel more secure about your future and would you appreciate the value placed on your family and its values?
Thank you for listening!
Junk Science & Liberalism – “Intended Unintended Consequences”
Obama is in a free fall, the Democrats are under pressure for their rabid ideology, the real unemployment rate (U6) is at 17.5% or one in five Americans and now we get confirmation of what we knew all along – global warming is the greatest hoax and power grab ever perpetrated on mankind!
Liberalism lives in a sort of “bizaro” world where good intentions and ideology dictate that the elitists know better and you are simply a rube who is too stupid to understand and recognize what is good for you! Essentially, we see this over time from the progressive “New Deal” policies of FDR to Johnson’s “Great Society” programs and the “Redistributive” practices of the current White House resident. In every case, the intended consequences were to improve life for people, share the benefit of our wealth and prosperity and provide a safety net for Americans from all walks of life.
However, as we moved from safety nets to “save the world”, the ideas became bigger, the taxes and control by a global governmental structure more obvious and the need to “prove” the case that we are in imminent catastrophic danger more urgent. Al Gore first used this idea to promote his agenda and generate his wealth, Ban Ki Moon sees the need for a UN treaty that will bind all nations to this policy and Prince Charles tells us we have only a few months before our destruction. I love this last one because it is his “boys” that created the sham!
But the most interesting fact of all is that when science or the discovery of facts that do not fit the narrative are generated through reasoned inquiry, the liberal needs to square their worldview with the new fact by either a) ignoring the facts, b) attacking the messenger, c) propagandize and d) lie.
Take the New Deal and Great Society programs. Social Security and Medicare, which were to be modest programs providing a safety net, are either bankrupt or about to bankrupt this nation. Can the liberal look back at their own history and review the facts that their projections and desire to expand these services created the failure? No, it doesn’t square with their worldview, so they ignore those facts and obfuscate the issues by attacking anyone who would point this out.
Welfare and public housing were two other “good ideas” that would help the poor, particularly the black inner city population. For over forty years, these programs have paid and paid in what is arguably the largest transfer of wealth ever in the history of man – some $8.2 trillion dollars, according to a study published by the Heritage Foundation. And yet, we have no improvement in poverty, education or family dissolution! In fact, dropout rates are at the highest level in history, out of wedlock births are approaching 50% and over 70% in some communities and incarceration is increasingly the norm on the resume’ of most poor and particularly, inner city populations.
So, as we turn to global warming, we find these same “do gooders” wanting all of us to partake in their Kool-Aid and tax ourselves into oblivion while their science is quoted as proof that we are indeed a world in trouble. Yet when the skeptics attempted to demonstrate otherwise, these same liberals decreed that consensus had been reached and the proof was in the fact that so many scientists and the global community had agreed that global warming was a threat and needed to be addressed. The treaties that have been proposed were such an affront to an freedom loving person as to be completely unacceptable. And of course, the world community would have been able to transfer huge sums from the “rich countries” to the “poor countries” all through a global governmental agency that was to be formed through this treaty!
The problem with this argument all along has been the fact that consensus is not science. It only takes one person to refute the assumption with the facts and you have a correction to that consensus. Most people believed that the earth was at the center of the universe. In fact, Copernicus postulated that it was the sun at the center of the universe. But it was Galileo that proved the sun was actually at the center of our solar system.
It was with great pleasure that I discovered that some crafty hackers were able to discover the “facts” of the chief scientific community when they downloaded 61 megabytes of emails. In a sense, you could say that technology proved the global warming alarmists wrong! And it will be through that same technology that we will discover the depths to which “junk science” is used to prove the case of the ideologue when it comes to climate change and the political implications that go along with such nonsense. You see, these ideologues will not succumb to the facts when it comes to their worldview and their desire to change that world. It is after all the resulting outcome of the intended unintended consequence.
Come to think of it, I believe there is another such ideologue who resides in the White House. But that’s another blog for another day!
Healthcare Reform - "Pass The Taxes Please"
Download | Duration: 00:23:07
Manhattan Declaration - "When Government Declared War on Life"
The Dialogue Has Changed
The current status of the health care legislation is becoming clear. While the TEA Party movement has generally not been about social issues, the declaration of war by the House and Senate on those who hold a pro life view is obvious. The taking of our tax dollars and allocating those same dollars to institutionalize a practice which more than fifty percent of America deems unacceptable is nothing less than an affront to any life affirming person.
In this context, we can no longer stand silent and say that we should only oppose those elements of the legislation that would increase spending, taxes and decrease the quality of health care. With the Senate bill now embedding language which will pay for abortions with those same tax dollars, we must take a stand. From our perspective,liberty includes religious liberty and freedom of speech. While we have never condemned those who take other decisions about life or their views about marriage and the family, it is incomprehensible that these legislators would take this initiative and create such a division between people of faith and their fellow Americans when it comes to the use of our tax dollars.
Most importantly, the continued and often rabid approach to diminishing the role and views of these same people of faith is all to evident in the secular press and now our government. This disregard of the right to abstain from such acts or to confiscate and allocate taxes for such purposes must be opposed with the greatest of efforts. It is interesting to note that several legislators have asked for the IRS to investigate the Catholic Church due to their own opposition of abortion in these bills. This fact should concern anyone who disagrees with this administration or those who do not support such a radical agenda.
It is for this reason that people should inform themselves and make their voices heard with these Senators. On a personal level, I have always argued the point of distinction that the costs and the degradation of our health care services were sufficient to oppose these bills. However, I am also a person of conscience and in this context, I must oppose the use of my tax dollars to support this act of barbarism.
When Roe v. Wade was decided by the Supreme Court in 1973, ultrasound and CAT scan technologies were in their infancy. Our understanding of life in utero was not nearly as complete as it is today. We know that these lives knowingly respond to stimuli, feel pain, dream, recognize sound and taste and have all the attributes of any human before they are viable outside the womb. Our science has allowed us to fully comprehend this fact and it is why thirty-two states are moving towards personhood laws. Contrast this reliance of scientific fact with the fuzzy logic and scientific ambiguity of global warming. Yet those who are "true believers" bellow we are all fools not to embrace their agendas. "Save the world" and "Stop global warming" has resulted in all sorts of reductions in liberty and personal choice. Yet the one choice they will not allow is the choice of that unborn child.
In the end, this is no longer a dollars and cents discussion, but due to the obvious choices of the liberals in our Senate and Congress, it is a matter of life or death. We can no longer sit on the sidelines in this matter. Please read the Manhattan Declaration for yourself and consider your own views on this matter. For me, I will most strenuously object to any legislation that is not fiscally responsible and life affirming.
Preamble
Christians of a 2,000-year tradition of proclaiming God's word, seeking justice in our societies, resisting tyranny, and reaching out with compassion to the poor, oppressed and suffering.
While fully acknowledging the imperfections and shortcomings of Christian institutions and communities in all ages, we claim the heritage of those Christians who defended innocent life by rescuing discarded babies from trash heaps in Roman cities and publicly denouncing the Empire's sanctioning of infanticide. We remember with reverence those believers who sacrificed their lives by remaining in Roman cities to tend the sick and dying during the plagues, and who died bravely in the coliseums rather than deny their Lord.
After the barbarian tribes overran Europe, Christian monasteries preserved not only the Bible but also the literature and art of Western culture. It was Christians who combated the evil of slavery: Papal edicts in the 16th and 17th centuries decried the practice of slavery and first excommunicated anyone involved in the slave trade; evangelical Christians in England, led by John Wesley and William Wilberforce, put an end to the slave trade in that country. Christians under Wilberforce's leadership also formed hundreds of societies for helping the poor, the imprisoned, and child laborers chained to machines.
In Europe, Christians challenged the divine claims of kings and successfully fought to establish the rule of law and balance of governmental powers, which made modern democracy possible. And in America, Christian women stood at the vanguard of the suffrage movement. The great civil rights crusades of the 1950s and 60s were led by Christians claiming the Scriptures and asserting the glory of the image of God in every human being regardless of race, religion, age or class.
This same devotion to human dignity has led Christians in the last decade to work to end the dehumanizing scourge of human trafficking and sexual slavery, bring compassionate care to AIDS sufferers in Africa, and assist in a myriad of other human rights causes - from providing clean water in developing nations to providing homes for tens of thousands of children orphaned by war, disease and gender discrimination.
Like those who have gone before us in the faith, Christians today are called to proclaim the Gospel of costly grace, to protect the intrinsic dignity of the human person and to stand for the common good. In being true to its own calling, the call to discipleship, the church through service to others can make a profound contribution to the public good.
Declaration
We, as Orthodox, Catholic, and Evangelical Christians, have gathered, beginning in New York on September 28, 2009, to make the following declaration, which we sign as individuals, not on behalf of our organizations, but speaking to and from our communities. We act together in obedience to the one true God, the triune God of holiness and love, who has laid total claim on our lives and by that claim calls us with believers in all ages and all nations to seek and defend the good of all who bear his image. We set forth this declaration in light of the truth that is grounded in Holy Scripture, in natural human reason (which is itself, in our view, the gift of a beneficent God), and in the very nature of the human person. We call upon all people of goodwill, believers and non-believers alike, to consider carefully and reflect critically on the issues we here address as we, with St. Paul, commend this appeal to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.
While the whole scope of Christian moral concern, including a special concern for the poor and vulnerable, claims our attention, we are especially troubled that in our nation today the lives of the unborn, the disabled, and the elderly are severely threatened; that the institution of marriage, already buffeted by promiscuity, infidelity and divorce, is in jeopardy of being redefined to accommodate fashionable ideologies; that freedom of religion and the rights of conscience are gravely jeopardized by those who would use the instruments of coercion to compel persons of faith to compromise their deepest convictions.
Because the sanctity of human life, the dignity of marriage as a union of husband and wife, and the freedom of conscience and religion are foundational principles of justice and the common good, we are compelled by our Christian faith to speak and act in their defense. In this declaration we affirm: 1) the profound, inherent, and equal dignity of every human being as a creature fashioned in the very image of God, possessing inherent rights of equal dignity and life; 2) marriage as a conjugal union of man and woman, ordained by God from the creation, and historically understood by believers and non-believers alike, to be the most basic institution in society and; 3) religious liberty, which is grounded in the character of God, the example of Christ, and the inherent freedom and dignity of human beings created in the divine image.
We are Christians who have joined together across historic lines of ecclesial differences to affirm our right - and, more importantly, to embrace our obligation - to speak and act in defense of these truths. We pledge to each other, and to our fellow believers, that no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence. It is our duty to proclaim the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in its fullness, both in season and out of season. May God help us not to fail in that duty.
Life
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. Genesis 1:27
I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. John 10:10
Although public sentiment has moved in a pro-life direction, we note with sadness that pro-abortion ideology prevails today in our government. The present administration is led and staffed by those who want to make abortions legal at any stage of fetal development, and who want to provide abortions at taxpayer expense. Majorities in both houses of Congress hold pro-abortion views. The Supreme Court, whose infamous 1973 decision inRoe v. Wade stripped the unborn of legal protection, continues to treat elective abortion as a fundamental constitutional right, though it has upheld as constitutionally permissible some limited restrictions on abortion. The President says that he wants to reduce the "need" for abortion - a commendable goal. But he has also pledged to make abortion more easily and widely available by eliminating laws prohibiting government funding, requiring waiting periods for women seeking abortions, and parental notification for abortions performed on minors. The elimination of these important and effective pro-life laws cannot reasonably be expected to do other than significantly increase the number of elective abortions by which the lives of countless children are snuffed out prior to birth. Our commitment to the sanctity of life is not a matter of partisan loyalty, for we recognize that in the thirty-six years since Roe v. Wade, elected officials and appointees of both major political parties have been complicit in giving legal sanction to what Pope John Paul II described as "the culture of death." We call on all officials in our country, elected and appointed, to protect and serve every member of our society, including the most marginalized, voiceless, and vulnerable among us.
A culture of death inevitably cheapens life in all its stages and conditions by promoting the belief that lives that are imperfect, immature or inconvenient are discardable. As predicted by many prescient persons, the cheapening of life that began with abortion has now metastasized. For example, human embryo-destructive research and its public funding are promoted in the name of science and in the cause of developing treatments and cures for diseases and injuries. The President and many in Congress favor the expansion of embryo-research to include the taxpayer funding of so-called "therapeutic cloning." This would result in the industrial mass production of human embryos to be killed for the purpose of producing genetically customized stem cell lines and tissues. At the other end of life, an increasingly powerful movement to promote assisted suicide and "voluntary" euthanasia threatens the lives of vulnerable elderly and disabled persons. Eugenic notions such as the doctrine of lebensunwertes Leben ("life unworthy of life") were first advanced in the 1920s by intellectuals in the elite salons of America and Europe. Long buried in ignominy after the horrors of the mid-20th century, they have returned from the grave. The only difference is that now the doctrines of the eugenicists are dressed up in the language of "liberty," "autonomy," and "choice."
We will be united and untiring in our efforts to roll back the license to kill that began with the abandonment of the unborn to abortion. We will work, as we have always worked, to bring assistance, comfort, and care to pregnant women in need and to those who have been victimized by abortion, even as we stand resolutely against the corrupt and degrading notion that it can somehow be in the best interests of women to submit to the deliberate killing of their unborn children. Our message is, and ever shall be, that the just, humane, and truly Christian answer to problem pregnancies is for all of us to love and care for mother and child alike.
A truly prophetic Christian witness will insistently call on those who have been entrusted with temporal power to fulfill the first responsibility of government: to protect the weak and vulnerable against violent attack, and to do so with no favoritism, partiality, or discrimination. The Bible enjoins us to defend those who cannot defend themselves, to speak for those who cannot themselves speak. And so we defend and speak for the unborn, the disabled, and the dependent. What the Bible and the light of reason make clear, we must make clear. We must be willing to defend, even at risk and cost to ourselves and our institutions, the lives of our brothers and sisters at every stage of development and in every condition.
Our concern is not confined to our own nation. Around the globe, we are witnessing cases of genocide and "ethnic cleansing," the failure to assist those who are suffering as innocent victims of war, the neglect and abuse of children, the exploitation of vulnerable laborers, the sexual trafficking of girls and young women, the abandonment of the aged, racial oppression and discrimination, the persecution of believers of all faiths, and the failure to take steps necessary to halt the spread of preventable diseases like AIDS. We see these travesties as flowing from the same loss of the sense of the dignity of the human person and the sanctity of human life that drives the abortion industry and the movements for assisted suicide, euthanasia, and human cloning for biomedical research. And so ours is, as it must be, a truly consistent ethic of love and life for all humans in all circumstances.
Marriage
The man said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man." For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. Genesis 2:23-24
This is a profound mystery - but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. Ephesians 5:32-33
In Scripture, the creation of man and woman, and their one-flesh union as husband and wife, is the crowning achievement of God’s creation. In the transmission of life and the nurturing of children, men and women joined as spouses are given the great honor of being partners with God Himself. Marriage then, is the first institution of human society - indeed it is the institution on which all other human institutions have their foundation. In the Christian tradition we refer to marriage as "holy matrimony" to signal the fact that it is an institution ordained by God, and blessed by Christ in his participation at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. In the Bible, God Himself blesses and holds marriage in the highest esteem.
Vast human experience confirms that marriage is the original and most important institution for sustaining the health, education, and welfare of all persons in a society. Where marriage is honored, and where there is a flourishing marriage culture, everyone benefits - the spouses themselves, their children, the communities and societies in which they live. Where the marriage culture begins to erode, social pathologies of every sort quickly manifest themselves. Unfortunately, we have witnessed over the course of the past several decades a serious erosion of the marriage culture in our own country. Perhaps the most telling - and alarming - indicator is the out-of-wedlock birth rate. Less than fifty years ago, it was under 5 percent. Today it is over 40 percent. Our society - and particularly its poorest and most vulnerable sectors, where the out-of-wedlock birth rate is much higher even than the national average - is paying a huge price in delinquency, drug abuse, crime, incarceration, hopelessness, and despair. Other indicators are widespread non-marital sexual cohabitation and a devastatingly high rate of divorce.
We confess with sadness that Christians and our institutions have too often scandalously failed to uphold the institution of marriage and to model for the world the true meaning of marriage. Insofar as we have too easily embraced the culture of divorce and remained silent about social practices that undermine the dignity of marriage we repent, and call upon all Christians to do the same.
To strengthen families, we must stop glamorizing promiscuity and infidelity and restore among our people a sense of the profound beauty, mystery, and holiness of faithful marital love. We must reform ill-advised policies that contribute to the weakening of the institution of marriage, including the discredited idea of unilateral divorce. We must work in the legal, cultural, and religious domains to instill in young people a sound understanding of what marriage is, what it requires, and why it is worth the commitment and sacrifices that faithful spouses make.
The impulse to redefine marriage in order to recognize same-sex and multiple partner relationships is a symptom, rather than the cause, of the erosion of the marriage culture. It reflects a loss of understanding of the meaning of marriage as embodied in our civil and religious law and in the philosophical tradition that contributed to shaping the law. Yet it is critical that the impulse be resisted, for yielding to it would mean abandoning the possibility of restoring a sound understanding of marriage and, with it, the hope of rebuilding a healthy marriage culture. It would lock into place the false and destructive belief that marriage is all about romance and other adult satisfactions, and not, in any intrinsic way, about procreation and the unique character and value of acts and relationships whose meaning is shaped by their aptness for the generation, promotion and protection of life. In spousal communion and the rearing of children (who, as gifts of God, are the fruit of their parents’ marital love), we discover the profound reasons for and benefits of the marriage covenant.
We acknowledge that there are those who are disposed towards homosexual and polyamorous conduct and relationships, just as there are those who are disposed towards other forms of immoral conduct. We have compassion for those so disposed; we respect them as human beings possessing profound, inherent, and equal dignity; and we pay tribute to the men and women who strive, often with little assistance, to resist the temptation to yield to desires that they, no less than we, regard as wayward. We stand with them, even when they falter. We, no less than they, are sinners who have fallen short of God's intention for our lives. We, no less than they, are in constant need of God’s patience, love and forgiveness. We call on the entire Christian community to resist sexual immorality, and at the same time refrain from disdainful condemnation of those who yield to it. Our rejection of sin, though resolute, must never become the rejection of sinners. For every sinner, regardless of the sin, is loved by God, who seeks not our destruction but rather the conversion of our hearts. Jesus calls all who wander from the path of virtue to "a more excellent way." As his disciples we will reach out in love to assist all who hear the call and wish to answer it.
We further acknowledge that there are sincere people who disagree with us, and with the teaching of the Bible and Christian tradition, on questions of sexual morality and the nature of marriage. Some who enter into same-sex and polyamorous relationships no doubt regard their unions as truly marital. They fail to understand, however, that marriage is made possible by the sexual complementarity of man and woman, and that the comprehensive, multi-level sharing of life that marriage is includes bodily unity of the sort that unites husband and wife biologically as a reproductive unit. This is because the body is no mere extrinsic instrument of the human person, but truly part of the personal reality of the human being. Human beings are not merely centers of consciousness or emotion, or minds, or spirits, inhabiting non-personal bodies. The human person is a dynamic unity of body, mind, and spirit. Marriage is what one man and one woman establish when, forsaking all others and pledging lifelong commitment, they found a sharing of life at every level of being - the biological, the emotional, the dispositional, the rational, the spiritual - on a commitment that is sealed, completed and actualized by loving sexual intercourse in which the spouses become one flesh, not in some merely metaphorical sense, but by fulfilling together the behavioral conditions of procreation. That is why in the Christian tradition, and historically in Western law, consummated marriages are not dissoluble or annullable on the ground of infertility, even though the nature of the marital relationship is shaped and structured by its intrinsic orientation to the great good of procreation.
We understand that many of our fellow citizens, including some Christians, believe that the historic definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman is a denial of equality or civil rights. They wonder what to say in reply to the argument that asserts that no harm would be done to them or to anyone if the law of the community were to confer upon two men or two women who are living together in a sexual partnership the status of being "married." It would not, after all, affect their own marriages, would it? On inspection, however, the argument that laws governing one kind of marriage will not affect another cannot stand. Were it to prove anything, it would prove far too much: the assumption that the legal status of one set of marriage relationships affects no other would not only argue for same sex partnerships; it could be asserted with equal validity for polyamorous partnerships, polygamous households, even adult brothers, sisters, or brothers and sisters living in incestuous relationships. Should these, as a matter of equality or civil rights, be recognized as lawful marriages, and would they have no effects on other relationships? No. The truth is that marriage is not something abstract or neutral that the law may legitimately define and re-define to please those who are powerful and influential.
No one has a civil right to have a non-marital relationship treated as a marriage. Marriage is an objective reality - a covenantal union of husband and wife - that it is the duty of the law to recognize and support for the sake of justice and the common good. If it fails to do so, genuine social harms follow. First, the religious liberty of those for whom this is a matter of conscience is jeopardized. Second, the rights of parents are abused as family life and sex education programs in schools are used to teach children that an enlightened understanding recognizes as "marriages" sexual partnerships that many parents believe are intrinsically non-marital and immoral. Third, the common good of civil society is damaged when the law itself, in its critical pedagogical function, becomes a tool for eroding a sound understanding of marriage on which the flourishing of the marriage culture in any society vitally depends. Sadly, we are today far from having a thriving marriage culture. But if we are to begin the critically important process of reforming our laws and mores to rebuild such a culture, the last thing we can afford to do is to re-define marriage in such a way as to embody in our laws a false proclamation about what marriage is.
And so it is out of love (not "animus") and prudent concern for the common good (not "prejudice"), that we pledge to labor ceaselessly to preserve the legal definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman and to rebuild the marriage culture. How could we, as Christians, do otherwise? The Bible teaches us that marriage is a central part of God's creation covenant. Indeed, the union of husband and wife mirrors the bond between Christ and his church. And so just as Christ was willing, out of love, to give Himself up for the church in a complete sacrifice, we are willing, lovingly, to make whatever sacrifices are required of us for the sake of the inestimable treasure that is marriage.
Religious Liberty
The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners. Isaiah 61:1
Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's. Matthew 22:21
The struggle for religious liberty across the centuries has been long and arduous, but it is not a novel idea or recent development. The nature of religious liberty is grounded in the character of God Himself, the God who is most fully known in the life and work of Jesus Christ. Determined to follow Jesus faithfully in life and death, the early Christians appealed to the manner in which the Incarnation had taken place: "Did God send Christ, as some suppose, as a tyrant brandishing fear and terror? Not so, but in gentleness and meekness..., for compulsion is no attribute of God" (Epistle to Diognetus 7.3-4). Thus the right to religious freedom has its foundation in the example of Christ Himself and in the very dignity of the human person created in the image of God - a dignity, as our founders proclaimed, inherent in every human, and knowable by all in the exercise of right reason.
Christians confess that God alone is Lord of the conscience. Immunity from religious coercion is the cornerstone of an unconstrained conscience. No one should be compelled to embrace any religion against his will, nor should persons of faith be forbidden to worship God according to the dictates of conscience or to express freely and publicly their deeply held religious convictions. What is true for individuals applies to religious communities as well.
It is ironic that those who today assert a right to kill the unborn, aged and disabled and also a right to engage in immoral sexual practices, and even a right to have relationships integrated around these practices be recognized and blessed by law - such persons claiming these "rights" are very often in the vanguard of those who would trample upon the freedom of others to express their religious and moral commitments to the sanctity of life and to the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife.
We see this, for example, in the effort to weaken or eliminate conscience clauses, and therefore to compel pro-life institutions (including religiously affiliated hospitals and clinics), and pro-life physicians, surgeons, nurses, and other health care professionals, to refer for abortions and, in certain cases, even to perform or participate in abortions. We see it in the use of anti-discrimination statutes to force religious institutions, businesses, and service providers of various sorts to comply with activities they judge to be deeply immoral or go out of business. After the judicial imposition of "same-sex marriage" in Massachusetts, for example, Catholic Charities chose with great reluctance to end its century-long work of helping to place orphaned children in good homes rather than comply with a legal mandate that it place children in same-sex households in violation of Catholic moral teaching. In New Jersey, after the establishment of a quasi-marital "civil unions" scheme, a Methodist institution was stripped of its tax exempt status when it declined, as a matter of religious conscience, to permit a facility it owned and operated to be used for ceremonies blessing homosexual unions. In Canada and some European nations, Christian clergy have been prosecuted for preaching Biblical norms against the practice of homosexuality. New hate-crime laws in America raise the specter of the same practice here.
In recent decades a growing body of case law has paralleled the decline in respect for religious values in the media, the academy and political leadership, resulting in restrictions on the free exercise of religion. We view this as an ominous development, not only because of its threat to the individual liberty guaranteed to every person, regardless of his or her faith, but because the trend also threatens the common welfare and the culture of freedom on which our system of republican government is founded. Restrictions on the freedom of conscience or the ability to hire people of one's own faith or conscientious moral convictions for religious institutions, for example, undermines the viability of the intermediate structures of society, the essential buffer against the overweening authority of the state, resulting in the soft despotism Tocqueville so prophetically warned of.1 Disintegration of civil society is a prelude to tyranny.
As Christians, we take seriously the Biblical admonition to respect and obey those in authority. We believe in law and in the rule of law. We recognize the duty to comply with laws whether we happen to like them or not, unless the laws are gravely unjust or require those subject to them to do something unjust or otherwise immoral. The biblical purpose of law is to preserve order and serve justice and the common good; yet laws that are unjust - and especially laws that purport to compel citizens to do what is unjust - undermine the common good, rather than serve it.
Going back to the earliest days of the church, Christians have refused to compromise their proclamation of the gospel. In Acts 4, Peter and John were ordered to stop preaching. Their answer was, "Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God's sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard." Through the centuries, Christianity has taught that civil disobedience is not only permitted, but sometimes required. There is no more eloquent defense of the rights and duties of religious conscience than the one offered by Martin Luther King, Jr., in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail. Writing from an explicitly Christian perspective, and citing Christian writers such as Augustine and Aquinas, King taught that just laws elevate and ennoble human beings because they are rooted in the moral law whose ultimate source is God Himself. Unjust laws degrade human beings. Inasmuch as they can claim no authority beyond sheer human will, they lack any power to bind in conscience. King's willingness to go to jail, rather than comply with legal injustice, was exemplary and inspiring.
Because we honor justice and the common good, we will not comply with any edict that purports to compel our institutions to participate in abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide and euthanasia, or any other anti-life act; nor will we bend to any rule purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality and immorality and marriage and the family. We will fully and ungrudgingly render to Caesar what is Caesar's. But under no circumstances will we render to Caesar what is God's.
1Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
Drafting Committee
- Robert George
Professor, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, Princeton University - Timothy George
Professor, Beeson Divinity School, Samford University - Chuck Colson
Founder, The Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview (Lansdowne, Va.)
Signers (as of November 19, 2009)
- Dr. Daniel Akin
President, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (Wake Forest, N.C.) - Most Rev. Peter J. Akinola
Primate, Anglican Church of Nigeria (Abika, Nigeria) - Randy Alcorn
Founder and Director, Eternal Perspective Ministries (EPM) (Sandy, Ore.) - Rt. Rev. David Anderson
President and CEO, American Anglican Council (Atlanta) - Leith Anderson
President of National Association of Evangelicals (Washington, D.C.) - Charlotte K. Ardizzone
TV Show Host and Speaker, INSP Television (Charlotte, N.C.) - Kay Arthur
CEO and Co-founder, Precept Ministries International (Chattanooga, Tenn.) - Dr. Mark L. Bailey
President, Dallas Theological Seminary (Dallas) - Gary Bauer
President, American Values; Chairman, Campaign for Working Families - His Grace, The Right Reverend Bishop Basil Essey
The Right Reverend Bishop of the Diocese of Wichita and Mid-America (Wichita, Kan.) - Joel Belz
Founder, World Magazine (Asheville, N.C.) - Rev. Michael L. Beresford
Managing Director of Church Relations, Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (Charlotte, N.C.) - Ken Boa
President, Reflections Ministries (Atlanta) - Joseph Bottum
Editor of First Things (New York) - Pastor Randy & Sarah Brannon
Senior Pastor, Grace Community Church (Madera, Calif.) - Steve Brown
National Radio Broadcaster, Key Life (Maitland, Fla.) - Dr. Robert C. Cannada, Jr.
Chancellor and CEO, Reformed Theological Seminary (Orlando, Fla.) - Galen Carey
Director of Government Affairs, National Association of Evangelicals (Washington, D.C.) - Dr. Bryan Chapell
President, Covenant Theological Seminary (St. Louis) - Most Rev. Charles J. Chaput
Archbishop, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Denver - Timothy Clinton
President, American Association of Christian Counselors (Forest, Va.) - Chuck Colson
Founder, The Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview (Lansdowne, Va.) - Most Rev. Salvatore Joseph Cordileone
Bishop, Roman Catholic Diocese of Oakland, Calif. - Dr. Gary Culpepper
Associate Professor, Providence College (Providence, R.I.) - Jim Daly
President and CEO, Focus on the Family (Colorado Springs, Colo.) - Marjorie Dannenfelser
President, Susan B. Anthony List (Arlington, Va.) - Rev. Daniel Delgado
Board of Directors, National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference; Pastor, Third Day Missions Church (Staten Island, N.Y.) - Dr. James Dobson
Founder, Focus on the Family (Colorado Springs, Colo.) - Dr. David Dockery
President, Union University (Jackson, Tenn.) - Most Rev. Timothy Dolan
Archbishop, Roman Catholic Diocese of New York, N.Y. - Dr. William Donohue
President, Catholic League (New York) - Dr. James T. Draper, Jr.
President Emeritus, LifeWay (Nashville, Tenn.) - Dinesh D'Souza
Writer and Speaker (Rancho Santa Fe, Calif.) - Most Rev. Robert Wm. Duncan
Archbishop and Primate, Anglican Church in North America (Ambridge, Pa. ) - Joni Eareckson Tada
Founder and CEO, Joni and Friends International Disability Center (Agoura Hills, Calif.) - Dr. Michael Easley
President Emeritus, Moody Bible Institute (Chicago) - Dr. William Edgar
Professor, Westminster Theological Seminary (Philadelphia) - Brett Elder
Executive Director, Stewardship Council (Grand Rapids, Mich. - Rev. Joel Elowsky
Drew University (Madison, N.J.) - Stuart Epperson
Co-Founder and Chariman of the Board, Salem Communications Corporation (Camarillo, Calif.) - Rev. Jonathan Falwell
Senior Pastor, Thomas Road Baptist Church (Lynchburg, Va.) - William J. Federer
President, Amerisearch, Inc. (St. Louis) - Fr. Joseph D. Fessio
Founder and Editor, Ignatius Press (Ft. Collins, Colo.) - Carmen Fowler
President and Executive Editor, Presbyterian Lay Committee (Lenoir, N.C.) - Maggie Gallagher
President, National Organization for Marriage (Manassas, Va.) - Dr. Jim Garlow
Senior Pastor, Skyline Church (La Mesa, Calif.) - Steven Garofalo
Senior Consultant, Search and Assessment Services (Charlotte, N.C.) - Dr. Robert P. George
McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, Princeton University (Princeton, N.J.) - Dr. Timothy George
Dean and Professor of Divinity, Beeson Divinity School at Samford University (Birmingham, Ala.) - Thomas Gilson
Director of Strategic Processes, Campus Crusade for Christ International (Norfolk, Va.) - Dr. Jack Graham
Pastor, Prestonwood Baptist Church (Plano, Texas) - Dr. Wayne Grudem
Research Professor of Theological and Biblical Studies, Phoenix Seminary (Phoenix) - Dr. Cornell "Corkie" Haan
National Facilitator of Spiritual Unity, The Mission America Coalition (Palm Desert, Calif.) - Fr. Chad Hatfield
Chancellor, CEO and Archpriest, St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary (Yonkers, N.Y.) - Dr. Dennis Hollinger
President and Professor of Christian Ethics, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (South Hamilton, Mass.) - Dr. Jeanette Hsieh
Executive Vice President and Provost, Trinity International University (Deerfield, Ill.) - Dr. John A. Huffman, Jr.
Senior Pastor, St. Andrews Presbyterian Church (Newport Beach, Calif.); Chairman of the Board, Christianity Today International (Carol Stream, Ill.) - Rev. Ken Hutcherson
Pastor, Antioch Bible Church (Kirkland, Wash.) - Bishop Harry R. Jackson, Jr.
Senior Pastor, Hope Christian Church (Beltsville, Md.) - Fr. Johannes L. Jacobse
President, American Orthodox Institute; Editor, OrthodoxyToday.org (Naples, Fla.) - Jerry Jenkins
Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Moody Bible Institute (Black Forest, Colo.) - Camille Kampouris
Publisher, Kairos Journal - Emmanuel A. Kampouris
Editorial Board, Kairos Journal - Rev. Tim Keller
Senior Pastor, Redeemer Presbyterian Church (New York) - Dr. Peter Kreeft
Professor of Philosophy, Boston College (Mass.) and at the Kings College (N.Y.) - Most Rev. Joseph E. Kurtz
Archbishop, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Louisville, Ky. - Jim Kushiner
Editor, Touchstone (Chicago) - Dr. Richard Land
President, The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the SBC (Washington, D.C.) - Jim Law
Senior Associate Pastor, First Baptist Church (Woodstock, Ga.) - Dr. Matthew Levering
Associate Professor of Theology, Ave Maria University (Naples, Fla.) - Dr. Peter Lillback
President, The Providence Forum (West Conshohocken, Pa.) - Dr. Duane Litfin
President, Wheaton College (Wheaton, Ill.) - Rev. Herb Lusk
Pastor, Greater Exodus Baptist Church (Philadelphia) - His Eminence Adam Cardinal Maida
Archbishop Emeritus, Roman Catholic Diocese of Detroit - Most Rev. Richard J. Malone
Bishop, Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland, Maine - Rev. Francis Martin
Professor of Sacred Scripture, Sacred Heart Major Seminary (Detroit) - Dr. Joseph Mattera
Bishop and Senior Pastor, Resurrection Church (Brooklyn, N.Y.) - Phil Maxwell
Pastor, Gateway Church (Bridgewater, N.J.) - Josh McDowell
Founder, Josh McDowell Ministries (Plano, Texas) - Alex McFarland
President, Southern Evangelical Seminary (Charlotte, N.C.) - Most Rev. George Dallas McKinney
Bishop, Founder and Pastor, St. Stephen's Church of God in Christ (San Diego) - Rt. Rev. Martyn Minns
Missionary Bishop, Convocation of Anglicans of North America (Herndon, Va.) - Dr. C. Ben Mitchell
Graves Professor of Moral Philosophy, Union University (Jackson, Tenn.) - Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr.
President, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Louisville, Ky.) - Dr. Russell D. Moore
Senior Vice President for Academic Administration and Dean of the School of Theology, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Louisville, Ky.) - Most Rev. John J. Myers
Archbishop, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark, N.J. - Most Rev. Joseph F. Naumann
Archbishop, Roman Catholic Diocese of Kansas City, Kan. - David Neff
Editor-in-Chief, Christianity Today (Carol Stream, Ill.) - Tom Nelson
Senior Pastor, Christ Community Evangelical Free Church (Leawood, Kan.) - Niel Nielson
President, Covenant College (Lookout Mt., Ga.) - Most Rev. John Nienstedt
Archbishop, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis - Dr. Tom Oden
Theologian, United Methodist Minister; Professor, Drew University (Madison, N.J.) - Marvin Olasky
Editor-in-Chief, World Magazine; Provost, The Kings College (New York) - Most Rev. Thomas J. Olmsted
Bishop, Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix - Rev. William Owens
Chairman, Coalition of African-American Pastors (Memphis, Tenn.) - Dr. J.I. Packer
Board of Governors' Professor of Theology, Regent College (Canada) - Metr. Jonah Paffhausen
Primate, Orthodox Church in America (Syosset, N.Y.) - Tony Perkins
President, Family Research Council (Washington, D.C.) - Eric M. Pillmore
CEO, Pillmore Consulting LLC (Doylestown, Pa.) - Dr. Everett Piper
President, Oklahoma Wesleyan University (Bartlesville, Okla.) - Todd Pitner
President, Rev Increase - Dr. Cornelius Plantinga
President, Calvin Theological Seminary (Grand Rapids, Mich.) - Dr. David Platt
Pastor, Church at Brook Hills (Birmingham, Ala.) - Rev. Jim Pocock
Pastor, Trinitarian Congregational Church (Wayland, Mass.) - Fred Potter
Executive Director and CEO, Christian Legal Society (Springfield, Va.) - Dennis Rainey
President, CEO, and Co-Founder, FamilyLife (Little Rock, Ark.) - Fr. Patrick Reardon
Pastor, All Saints' Antiochian Orthodox Church (Chicago) - Bob Reccord
Founder, Total Life Impact, Inc. (Suwanee, Ga.) - His Eminence Justin Cardinal Rigali
Archbishop, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia - Frank Schubert
President, Schubert Flint Public Affairs (Sacramento, Calif.) - David Schuringa
President, Crossroads Bible Institute (Grand Rapids, Mich.) - Tricia Scribner
Author (Harrisburg, N.C.) - Dr. Dave Seaford
Senior Pastor, Community Fellowship Church (Matthews, N.C.) - Alan Sears
President, CEO, and General Counsel, Alliance Defense Fund (Scottsdale, Ariz.) - Randy Setzer
Senior Pastor, Macedonia Baptist Church (Lincolnton, N.C.) - Most Rev. Michael J. Sheridan
Bishop, Roman Catholic Diocese of Colorado Springs, Colo. - Dr. Ron Sider
Director, Evangelicals for Social Action (Wynnewood, Pa.) - Fr. Robert Sirico
Founder, Acton Institute (Grand Rapids, Mich.) - Dr. Robert Sloan
President, Houston Baptist University (Houston) - Charles Stetson
Chairman of the Board, Bible Literacy Project (New York) - Dr. David Stevens
CEO, Christian Medical and Dental Association (Bristol, Tenn.) - John Stonestreet
Executive Director, Summit Ministries (Manitou Springs, Colo.) - Dr. Joseph Stowell
President, Cornerstone University (Grand Rapids, Mich.) - Dr. Sarah Sumner
Professor of Theology and Ministry, Azusa Pacific University (Azusa, Calif.) - Dr. Glenn Sunshine
Chairman of the History Department, Central Connecticut State University (New Britain, Conn.) - Luiz Tellez
President, The Witherspoon Institute (Princeton, N.J.) - Dr. Timothy C. Tennent
Professor, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (South Hamilton, Mass.) - Michael Timmis
Chairman, Prison Fellowship and Prison Fellowship International (Naples, Fla.) - Mark Tooley
President, Institute for Religion and Democracy (Washington, D.C.) - H. James Towey
President, St. Vincent College (Latrobe, Pa.) - Juan Valdes
Middle and High School Chaplain, Florida Christian School (Miami, Fla.) - Todd Wagner
Pastor, WaterMark Community Church (Dallas) - Dr. Graham Walker
President, Patrick Henry College (Purcellville, Va.) - Alexander F. C. Webster
Archpriest, Orthodox Church in America; Associate Professorial Lecturer, The George Washington University (Ft. Belvoir, Va.) - George Weigel
Distinguished Senior Fellow, Ethics and Public Policy Center (Washington, D.C.) - David Welch
Houston Area Pastor Council Executive Director, US Pastors Council (Houston) - Dr. James Emery White
Founding and Senior Pastor, Mecklenburg Community Church (Charlotte, N.C.) - Dr. Hayes Wicker
Senior Pastor, First Baptist Church (Naples, Fla.) - Mark Williamson
Founder and President, Foundation Restoration Ministries/Federal Intercessors (Katy, Texas) - Parker T. Williamson
Editor Emeritus and Senior Correspondent, Presbyterian Lay Committee - Dr. Craig Williford
President, Trinity International University (Deerfield, Ill.) - Dr. John Woodbridge
Research Professor of Church History and the History of Christian Thought, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (Deerfield, Ill.) - Don M. Woodside
Performance Matters Associates (Matthews, N.C.) - Dr. Frank Wright
President, National Religious Broadcasters (Manassas, Va.) - Most Rev. Donald W. Wuerl
Archbishop, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. - Paul Young
COO and Executive Vice President, Christian Research Institute (Charlotte, N.C.) - Dr. Michael Youssef
President, Leading the Way (Atlanta) - Ravi Zacharias
Founder and Chairman of the Board, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (Norcross, Ga.) - Most Rev. David A. Zubik
Bishop, Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh
Localism - "Politics Is Still High Touch"
Hoffman Concedes to Owens in NY 23
Scozzafava's Revenge
Her Endorsement of Democrat Owens Gave Him a 3 to 1 Edge with Undecideds Over Last 72 Hours
| November 4, 2009 |
Obama Presidency - "Bush Derangement Syndrome"
With nearly ten months into his administration, the current holder of the office of president seems to think that the previous administration is still in charge. With the failure of the current stimulus package, Obama and his minions continue to excoriate the former Bush administration for all that is wrong with the economy. This is a tactic which ensures that the “useful idiots” continue to look backward as opposed to the present and the facts before them. However, if we consider the 30,000 jobs saved or created under the current stimulus plan initiated by “we got to have this now” Obama and his Democrat leadership, we find that the rear view mirror looks pretty good!
For much of the recent history, "former" news organizations calculated and presented the misery index. It really wasn’t all that scientific, but it gave people a sense of the impact of unemployment and inflation related to the administration in office. Looking in that same rear view mirror, we can find that only Clinton and Bush had approximate equivalency in their respective administrations along the unemployment/inflation scoring of the misery index. However, given Obama’s penchant for demonizing Bush, we find that the “Misery Index” also improved, as measured by that same combination of inflation and unemployment.
In contrasting the current administration and their first nine (9) months in office we would get a “Misery Index” (unemploymentrate of 9.8% and the inflation rate of -.96%) of 8.84 which is higher than all years during the Bush administration and the Clinton administration, with the exception of Clinton’s first year in office. With unemployment projections likely to be over 10% and inflation beginning to rise in 2010 due to expansion of the money supply and the falling dollar, we would anticipate that the Obama misery index will be more reflective of the Reagan presidency when evaluated in context of the core unemployment rate.
So it would appear that Obama can indeed claim the mantle of the Regan presidency in context of the misery index and the horrific effects of his early and failed policies. But context of such an index is indeed important. Because while the relative number is nearly the same, the unemployed is substantially different. In fact, the lack of job creation in conjunction with those who are uncounted due to loss of unemployment benefits would likely drive the misery index up to Carter levels while doubling the unemployment of the Carter years! So however you look at it, the old adage rings true – recession is your neighbor losing his job, depression is you losing your job – and from our way of thinking, recovery is when Obama loses his job.
But the problems he is creating by going on the socialization of our economy pales in comparison to the aforementioned indexes. Obama, with a majority Democrat Congress, is pursuing a debt policy that will double the deficit left by Bush while increasing entitlements and the associated liabilities by trillions of dollars more. The graph below provides a view to those actions and the rampant spending that was initiated by Obama and his administration. And these calculations exclude the impact of healthcare or the impact of cap & trade, should those both pass into law.
And all the while, the president plays basketball, holds entertainment events at the White House, attacks Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, continues to appoint the most perverse and radical group of people to his administration and continues to blame Bush and the right wing media. And now he is trying to control the internet through the FCC and the Net Neutrality law that seems benign enough but will have a disastrous effect on the free flow of information by creating the “right” for the FCC to regulate the internet itself and the associated content, distribution and costs related to its use! Throughout all of this, we see a cool and restrained president, never rattled, never angry in his demeanor yet who has calculated the required efforts to “remake” this country. He no longer listens to a large block of the American electorate and is engaged in his mission of change and damn you if you disagree.
As 2010 approaches, we must work hard to undo the domination of the Congress currently held by the Democrat party. Obama knows this and is racing against the election year in which he and his cohorts in crime will be held accountable for their actions. His “hope” is that the “change” he has put in place and the spending and debt he has committed the people of the United States to, will be enough to ensure his radical legacy and enshrine the power of his party over time. So, while you may be interested in watching Dancing With Stars or American Idol, your time would be better spent watching the actions of an administration that is foisting changes on our culture and our nation that pale against past administrations. And they hope to keep you looking in the rear view mirror at the Bush presidency so that you don’t see the train wreck you are about to experience, which is Obama’s American vision. “Bush Derangement Syndrome” and its associated symptoms of blindness, loss of hearing, confusion and an inability to speak clearly, will allow this administration to offer prescriptions for change that won’t cure the disease, but will likely kill the patient! Now that’s healthcare reform that needs a major surgical extraction, as Obama likes to say, in 2010 and 2012. Perhaps the patient can recover if we act soon enough. It's up to you America.
Liberal Republicans - "An Oxymoron in New York"
|
October 19, 2009 When
asked for specific details of the Clinton County committee member vote in an
exclusive interview with The TCOT Report, Duprey stated that she ripped up
the results after the July 16th Plattsburgh candidate forum where the vote
was taken, and couldn’t recall specific breakdowns between Maroun, Scozzafava
and Doheny. When further asked for the names of the Clinton County attendees
of the Plattsburgh candidate forum who had supported Scozzafava, she refused
to do so.
After the first round ballot, many of the
chairmen in attendance settled in for a long day. Though the liberal Scozzafava
was only five percent shy of a majority, the two conservative candidates
split fifty-five per cent of the vote. Susan
McNeil, the newly named Republican Chairman in Fulton County started hearing
complaints from Republicans in her county about Scozzafava's liberal views
soon after she was nominated. In an exclusive interview with The TCOT Report
over the weekend, she articulated this dissatisfaction: |
The 9/12 NATIONAL TEA PARTY
The following letter was sent to me by Mrs. Judy Guthrie and is reprinted with her permission. The sentiment is elegantly expressed:
On September 12, I joined not thousands, but tens of thousands of Americans on the national mall in Washington, D.C. for the 9/12 Tea Party. The Tea Party movement has no central leader. It is, rather, voluntary and spontaneous. It brought to mind the Suffrage Movement and the marches for Civil Rights. These are the manifestations of Americans whose hearts become so full that they are fairly bursting to be heard.
In
leaving our hotel around 10:00 on the morning of the 12th, I turned a corner onto
Pennsylvania Avenue and sucked in my breath at the sight before me. There it was, a river of humanity spilling
onto the streets and flowing like a slow-moving tidal wave toward the Mall. As I
joined this crowd, everywhere I looked I saw smiling faces, not anger, not
hate, but smiles. However, the air was
fairly crackling with intensity.
Excitement, yes, but there was also a singularity of purpose, and that
was to have our voices heard in Washington.
The
people were young and old, of every race, Republicans, Democrats, Independents,
and Libertarians. They came from every
walk of life imaginable: doctors,
nurses, lawyers, government employees, nuns, farmers, miners, business owners, retirees,
and musicians. Mothers were pushing
babies and even a few were pushing their dogs in baby strollers. A-n-n-d they brought their signs. The creativity and originality of those signs
was exceptional. Most were homemade,
some were made professionally, some were comical, others were outright works of
art and they became a type of “mouthpiece” for the Tea Party. Without them it would have been like a
birthday cake without the candles.
People
came from every state in the nation. Some
came from as far away as Alaska and even Hawaii. They
filled the Mall as far as the eye could see.
From our ground level position, our cameras couldn’t capture the
enormity of the crowd, but we later caught an aerial shot that gave us the real
picture. It jolted ones senses and was
one of the most stirring sights I have ever witnessed. . . that this many
people had come from such great distances, at great expense and tons of
logistics to make this trip. We heard of
two buses that left Knoxville, TN, late Friday, drove all night, attended the
rally, and drove back all night Saturday with no sleep except what they could
catch on the bus. That’s
dedication!
There
were many, many speeches. Some were
quite eloquent. Some were simple. But to a one, they were sincere and from the
heart. They spoke of how our system of
government is broken. The common thread
that ran through them all was the urgent need for us to return to the
constitutional principles upon which our Founders established our nation; to go
back to what is common sense and to return hope and pride in our great
country.
There
were thousands who were so far from the speakers’ podium they were unable to
hear them, but the startling thing was that even at the end of the day, no one
was making any effort to leave early.
They just kept standing there in unison wearing their love of
country.
Upon
reflection, I was so privileged to be a witness to this electrifying force that
is the American spirit that is our Freedom of Speech and our Democracy at
work. I believe that this silent
majority has finally come awake and can no longer be ignored in Washington. It can no longer watch while their Social
Security, their retirements, their businesses, their health care, and the
future of their children, their very life’s blood, is being leached away as
though they no longer count for anything.
The 9/12 Tea Party is a ground
swell that is growing in this nation. It
is an awakening giant that will no longer be silenced. Congress cannot afford to continue to ignore
this Washington Tea Party and the many others held around the nation. It was emblematic of a large majority of
Americans, the voters who will be at the polls in 2010.
I
can comment only with pride about the stellar behavior and the overall courtesy
and consideration of the people who were there.
A sense of camaraderie permeated the crowd, and dare I say, a shared
hope that Washington will listen to us.
It
was an event that I was so privileged to be a part of, and one that I will
remember for the rest of my life. It was
a beautiful thing to see Freedom at work.
