HR 3200: America’s UN-Affordable Health Choices Act

You can’t make a weak man strong by making a strong man weak. -Abraham Lincoln.

Mike Rogers, Congressman from Michigan, comments astutely on HR 3200, America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009.

9-12

A time-lapse sequence of the march on Washington DC on September 12, 2009:

The Morning After

 

We asked for change, and we’re getting it. All things are possible, but not everything is profitable. The “dream of our founders” is dying.

The USA is no longer politically centrist but has slipped far left. Given the liberal/socialist control of Congress, the Executive branch and the judiciary, we have no balance of power. All government power is now left-leaning and this nation will tumble in that direction and eat the fruit of its desire for change, celebrity and comfort. Our gates will be left unguarded. We will be vulnerable to attack from outside and within. Our productivity and creativity will wane due to the lack of reward. Businesses will seek friendlier shores, liberty will deteriorate into licentiousness, comfort will override character, free speech for all will be reneged on and our government will grow into an overwhelming burden on the backs of its citizens. 

Rather than our government existing for the protection and peace of the people, the people will exist to feed the government.

History has proven that not all change is good. We have sown the wind for these past two years at least. Get ready for the whirlwind, because it’s on its way.

Voters in Harlem Interviewed on Howard Stern’s Radio Show

I don’t listen to Howard Stern, but found this clip rather eye-opening.

Why I’m Not An Undecided Voter

Every person has a world view, a set of beliefs that informs our thinking, our decisions and our actions. It is how we interpret the world and deal with it. 

My world view is not only how I understand things to be, it is the basis on which I vote. I will never be one of those much-wooed “undecided voters”. In fact, to be undecided, in my world view, is a symptom of not knowing which end is up, or even of being uninformed. A person who is undecided between two such starkly contrasting world views as we have represented in this election doesn’t know what they believe about the world and won’t be voting based on issues.

I gave some thought to my world view and how it informs the choices I will commit to while I’m in the voting booth. These are a few of the things that I will never be undecided about:

Marriage is one man and one woman. Period. Anything else and it’s not marriage. You can’t take a horse and slap a giraffe label on it and expect it to be a giraffe; it’s still a horse. Marriage is, has always been and always will be one man and one woman.

Don’t open the door to the enemy. If the enemy is in the neighborhood, don’t let him stay there. The concept of turning the other cheek was originally intended to address the idea of personal revenge, not protection and security.

Israel is the only democracy and our only ally in the Middle East. We need to support it for that reason alone.

Family solidity and stability is crucial for the survival of humanity. 

Parents have jurisdiction over the training and molding of their children.

Care for the least, the lost, the unborn, the newborn, the elderly, the disfigured and the disabled. Human beings are worthy of being valued at any stage of life.

Governments exist for the protection of the people, not to provide programs and privileges.

Natural law cannot be violated without consequences.

Civil rights are not the same as human rights. Citizens of a government enjoy the rights afforded by that government. Non-citizens do not.

Good stewardship over our resources is required, but the environment, animals and plants do not have the same value as a human being.

Capitalism is more equitable than socialism.

Truth is absolute. Truth is true for all people, at all times, in all places. It does not change.

Neither party platform is perfect. I will vote for the platform that most closely aligns with my world view. No candidate has all the answers. But I will vote for those who are nearer to my way of understanding how the world works.

A Hard Lesson From Softball

 

I live across from a community park where I often walk my dogs. Last weekend the softball fields and warm-up areas were activated by girls of various ages batting, throwing and catching; and parents watching, eating and yelling. A regional tournament was in full swing.

While I lingered to watch a few innings, I reminisced back to when my daughter played on these same fields and I managed and coached her teams. I remember the practices, the drills, the trips to the batting cages, the girls’ competitiveness and the parents’ cliques. On top of that there was the important goal of being selected for the all-star team or a travel team, which conferred an elite status on the players who made it. Between rec ball, all-stars and travel ball, a girl could conceivably play softball year round.

I remembered the parents who encouraged and those who complained. One the one hand there was the dad whose daughter didn’t make the all-star team that year and who verbally attacked me for the better part of an hour, accusing me of ruining his girl’s chances to play high school ball which could lead to a college scholarship. On the other hand there was the dad who coached with me for three seasons and overlooked no player. Ours was the most unified team one year and we won the league trophy.

Each spring was given over to all things softball: practices, games, planning, snack shack schedules, weather reports, field maintenance, team sleepovers… It all seemed so vital to the formation of happy, well-rounded kids.

It’s all so entirely unimportant to me now. I do and I don’t miss those days on the ball fields. The point was to have fun, to build skills, friendships, discipline and character in our kids. The actuality also consisted of strife, scheming and gossip. All that time, effort and money we spent… was it worth it?

This is what I know: We parents have good intentions in enrolling our kids into extracurricular activities. And then we sit on the sidelines or in the audience to watch them succeed and fail. We stop participating, leaving it up to coaches like me to form good character and marketable skills in our kids. But character is formed in the home and then brought to the ball field.

My daughter, who never once played on the all-star team, opted for water polo during high school and is now serving as a United State Marine. We play catch when she’s home on leave.

What of the daughter of the ranting father? She was good enough to be picked for the high school JV team as a freshman but stopped playing altogether the following year. I was saddened to subsequently read about her in the police blotter in our local newspaper.

The important thing about training our kids is what happens at home, not at home plate.

Heroes

Something completely different: A campaign ad devoid of ad hominen attacks. It’s quiet, unassuming and tells a story.
How refreshing.

Misspeak

Because of recent events regarding the recall of former events, I decided to hit the dictionary (the wonderful Oxford American Dictionary that resides on my Mac) to confirm my understanding, since “words have power” and we want to use the right words when describing our experiences. Here are the definitions of the 3 most talked-about words on the news channels in the past couple of days:

Misspeak: a verb meaning to express oneself insufficiently, unclearly or inaccurately;

Misconstrue: a verb meaning to interpret something wrongly;

Lie: a verb meaning to intentionally make a false or deceptive statement.

From these definitions it is clear that a lie is not a mistake.

If a person lies and we overlook, excuse or mitigate it, do we become liars? If our children lie, do we excuse it, rationalize it or redefine it? What if our employees lie?

It seems to me that if a person makes a false claim it is not a mere insufficiency or misconstruction on his part. It’s a lie.

Word Play

Uh… “Crisises?” 

That won’t fly very far in a Scrabble game. I challenge! 

  

This story was reported by Associated Press and was captured today (March 3, 2008) on Yahoo!®News. I clicked on the lead because of the misspelled word.  

Conclusion: I’d better make sure all my spellings are “Scrabble-worthy”, huh?  

Torn On Super Tuesday

Christine Pelosi, author, activist, attorney and daughter of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, stated in an interview today on FoxNews that she had not yet decided who she was going to vote for. She was torn between her generation and her gender. Obviously, she will be choosing between Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton.

I found Ms. Pelosi’s comments something to think about. And so I began thinking about why people vote the way they do. Is it the platform, the promise or the person that we vote for. Ms. Pelosi also enjoined the candidates to “chill”, to stop bickering like little kids and deal with the concerns that will affect the future. She has a point about being concerned about her future and wanting candidates to eschew the put-downs and focus on the issues. Yet I question the basis on which she remains undecided in her vote. She talked about issues, but her stated basis for uncertainty would seem to belie her desire for a focus on the issues.

Is it right to vote based on gender? Is it right to vote based on age? Somehow it is expected that, if you’re a woman, you’ll vote for a woman, and that if you’re young, you’ll vote for youth. I understand that Oprah Winfrey is considered by many women’s groups to be a traitor to all women everywhere because she has publicly endorsed Barak Obama.

It is inconsistent that we cry foul when a job candidate is turned down due to age or gender and then turn around and choose a candidate for the job of President on that very basis. This double-mindedness is pure hypocrisy. We who are anti-discriminatory based on sex and age will be certain hypocrites when it comes to the choice of a presidential candidate, if we vote for a person simply because of their sex or their youth.

As for me, I will vote for the person who I believe is the best fit for the office, based on their track record, their values, their vision and their ability to back it up. For me, it’s not a matter of age or gender.