HT: dougwils.com

“Simply put, if Congress is going to pass a law, then it must also have to live with the consequences of that law.”

Amen.  Preach it, brother.

He followed it up with this: “Don’t Turn Citizens Into Subjects.”

They’re both good, check ‘em out.

http://www.http://www.dougwils.com/index.asp?Action=Anchor&CategoryID=1&BlogID=6772dougwils.com/index.asp?Action=Anchor&CategoryID=1&BlogID=6772

Words have power, and at times, Palin knows how to say the right thing.

See the post here.

By the way, the $1 Billion set aside for covering turned in clunkers, at $4500 a pop, would provide for something like 222,222 vehicles, to say nothing for the cost of running the program itself.  I’m sure the figures are not quite this high in 2009, but in 2006, Americans purchased 7,667,066 passenger vehicles.  That is roughly 147,000 vehicles each week.  Assuming that as many potential buyers as possible would attempt to take advantage of the deal, you can see that a program covering only 222,222 trade-ins would run out in just a few weeks.  How come little ole’ me can figure that out just from Wikipedia and applying some common sense but our government cannot?

What would be a more realistic figure?  Let’s assume that Americans would buy 6 million vehicles in 2009. Let’s also assume that just one-fourth of those sales would rely on the cash for clunkers program, that’s 1.5 million cars.  Do a little math and you can see that that program would require $6.75 Billion.  But still that’s quite an assumption!

How about this: what if government would stay out of market manipulation and stop applying direct pressure to the market?

See the article, “Cash for Clunkers Runs Out of Gas,” on the Wall Street Journal.

UPDATE: Congress has voted to add a couple more $billion to the program.

It directly confronts the massive problems with Obama’s proposals but does not accept the current status quo and ends by saying this:

The best solution is to move to a let-freedom-ring regime of high deductibles, no community rating, no standard benefits, and cross-state shopping for bargains (another market-based reform that’s strictly taboo in the bills). I’ll propose my own solution in another piece soon on Fortune.com. For now, we suffer with a flawed health-care system, but we still have our Five Freedoms. Call them the Five Endangered Freedoms.

Folks, we had better become informed and do something about this before it is too late.  What are you going to do when your government tells you which doctor you must see?  Or, tells you that your condition is too serious to waste money on expensive procedures?

Personally, I’m working hard to take care of my own healthcare costs for 90% of things I, or my kids, may ever go to the doctor or dentist for, via a Health Savings Account.  In my opinion, some version of HSA and putting more choices and responsibilities in the hands of the individual is the answer.  I am quite angry over a plan that will socialize our system, take on a massive burden that it will not be able to handle in the long term, strap my children’s generation with even more debt, restrict my choices, interfere with my very personal medical decisions, and, in the end, still be unable to insure everybody.  That’s the truth that is being ignored, at the end of the day and inspite of all promises millions will go uninsured.  Why?  Because no one can afford it!  Even by taking more money from the rich (i.e. stealing), there will not be enough to go around!  What should that say about this plan?  If it cannot even do it what it promises at the outset to do, then what is the real reason for this plan?

Read the rest: “The Five Freedoms You Would Lose In Health Care Reform.”

I’d like to know your thoughts on health-care reform!  I’m trying to think through this myself.  It is a complicated issue but one that we should be very, very careful to think through. Personally, as you can see from above, I’m stating from the outset that I don’t believe government should be involved in our healthcare to any great extent.  The risks for abuse of power and control in this situation are just too great.  We’ve talk often in the US about a wall of separation between church and state, well perhaps we need a wall of separation between hospital and state.

Anyway, speak out on this!  What are you thinking??

An interesting witness to this point is Salman Rushdie, the novelist who was once put under a Muslim sentence of death because he had insulted Muslim sensibilities in his novel The Satanic Verses. Mr. Rushdie presents an argument that Christians must take seriously.

“The idea that any kind of free society can be constructed in which people will never be offended or insulted is absurd. So too is the notion that people should have the right to call on the law to defend them against being offended or insulted. A fundamental decision needs to be made: do we want to live in a free society or not? Democracy is not a tea party where people sit around making polite conversation. In democracies people get extremely upset with each other. They argue vehemently against each other’s positions,” Rushdie insists.

As the novelist continues: “People have the fundamental right to take an argument to the point where somebody is offended by what they say. It is no trick to support the free speech of somebody you agree with or to whose opinion you are indifferent. The defense of free speech begins at the point where people say something you can’t stand. If you can’t defend their right to say it, then you don’t believe in free speech. You only believe in free speech as long as it doesn’t get up your nose.”

And we need Christians must live by the same rule we desire others to follow towards us.  This means that we must not run around screaming for the govt. to shut up people we don’t like either!

HT: Al Mohler

HT: Between Two Worlds

Why This Election Will Be Close: Hushed Confessions

Did you hear the contorted rhetoric here?  On the one hand Obama says: “culture wars are so 90′s” and on the other hand he states, “I will not yield.”  So let me ask, how can there be culture wars unless there are two opposite sides?  He is accusing pro-lifers of being contentious, divisive people.  He is wishing we would just surrender and go away – yet he himself will not do so.  The arrogant elitism here is profound and disturbing.  Is Obama just elitist or he is also cold?

The pro-abortion cause is not yielding an inch and is as militant and frantic as ever. To paint the pro-life movement as contentious is hypocritically absurd.  Let’s pray that this is a sign of desperation and that the pro-abortion movement is loosing its grip.

My hope is that one day the majority of us will look back on such pro-abortion politicians the same way we do the powerful leaders of the Antebellum South such as John Clay: great speakers, powerful politicians of brilliant leadership, but deeply flawed and very mistaken.  My prayer is that one day we will look back on this time in the same way we now look back on the pre-Civil Rights Era and the Antebellum days before the Civil War and sing, thanks be to God abortion is gone, and “His truth is marching on.”

If you are on the fulcrum here you need to carefully listen to his words and you need to read Justin Taylor’s post below.  Those of us criticizing Barack Obama as an extremist and radical pro-abortion politician are not exaggerating.  The Freedom of Choice Act would completely sweep away all pro-life progress and hopes of lasting change besides completely destroying the rights of the unborn, the rights of parents, and the rights of pro-life physicians and counselors.  Furthermore, this will not ease up the culture war but it will divide this country as never before.

HT: Justin Taylor, What is the Freedom of Choice Act?

We must ask ourselves: how different are we than the other nations we have judged?  Are we any better for conducting our business as a democratic republic and accepting the horrible decisions of the various branches and institutions of that republic than if the horrible decisions had been foisted on us by a dictator?  No, unrighteousness is not made righteous by popular vote, democratic or federal government processes. I digress.

Thus, I cannot vote for Barack Obama based on other issues and I am very disturbed by those who otherwise claim to be pro-life that will do so.  Obama’s position is not a matter of debate or opinion; his record is clear: he is pro-abortion.  There are a lot of other reasons to not support Barack Obama, such as his near socialism view of government, his lack of experience, his professorial manner, and such, but this is the issue that decides my vote.

On Obama’s position, see these posts and read for yourself:

Justin Taylor refers to the work of Robert P. George:  Robert P. George: “Voting for the Most Extreme Pro-Abortion Political Candidate In American History is Not the Way to Save Unborn Babies.”

Dr. Al Mohler refers to George’s works as well as his own excellent comments:  The Abortion Question and the Future.

I highly recommend that you read these posts and if you are on the line on this question think about it!  Whether you like it or not your vote is a moral issue, not merely a political one.

Barack Obama, the first to be interviewed, did not hide his positions on abortion, the war in Iraq, the Supreme Court, and marriage, though he was somewhat hesitant. It was disturbing to hear Obama referencing the Bible on “thinking about the least of these,” and then support Roe v. Wade on the very next question (and embryonic stem-cell research)! It should be obvious on both of these issues who the “least of these” are. Infants yet in their mother’s womb and harvested embryos-both in the early stages of human development but still human-are totally without a voice unless we speak up for them; that would qualify as the “least of these.”

Even more disturbing was Obama’s statement that the question of when a baby qualifies for human rights is “above his paygrade.” This is an unbelievable statement, particularly since he also says that he is decidedly pro-choice, implying that he’s already taken a position on the question: that the pregnant mother has rights to decide whether to birth the baby in her womb, who has no right-to-life that trumps his/her mother’s right to choose. Furthermore, in a country where we believe that basic human rights are “self-evident” and “endowed by our Creator” it is absurd political sidestepping to claim to pass this question on to the “professionals” and “specialists.” Simply put, Obama, as other pro-choice advocates, does not want to be caught on camera saying what his position screams: human babies in their mother’s womb have no human rights.

On the Supreme Court, Obama tripped up considerably. He stated that he would not have nominated Clarence Thomas and it would have been enough to say so on the basis of idealogy but to say, “I don’t think that he was as strong enough jurist or legal thinker at the time for that elevation” is too much. Barack Obama is a young, junior Senator running for the office of President of the United States! Thomas, according to Obama, was not qualified for the bench then, but Obama is claiming to be qualified to run the executive branch of this country. Think about that for a minute.

I’ve critiqued Obama without saying too much about McCain. That’s because I think McCain got it right on the questions he was asked. At the end, it seemed quite apparent that one of these two men was certainly qualified and prepared to fill the office of the President of the United States of America and the other was not. You read and decide.

Rick Warren and the folks running Saddleback Civil Forum deserve applause for their creativity and efforts. The format was far better than a debate, avoiding all the pitfalls of a debate yet keeping all its strengths. Rick Warren’s questions were very good and meaty. He did not avoid the tough questions, and what a waste it would have been had he done so.

For all those who think that such a forum held in a church is an attack on the separation of church and state need to think again. You know there was a time in America when in many a town, there was a place called the meeting house. A congregation may had church there on Sunday and the town council met there in the middle of the week. How ridiculous to think that a large group of American citizens are wrong to invite men they will soon vote for to come and answer questions on where they stand? And how ridiculous to think that by simply asking questions this group and their pastor are forcing their thoughts on these two men seeking office? Obama and McCain accepted, appreciated the opportunity for which many of us are now grateful, and that’s all that matters.

Also, read Dr. Al Mohler on the Saddleback Civil Forum here.