Dreams

For the sake of discussion, let us divide dreams between sleeping dreams and waking dreams.

Sleeping dreams seem to be a mental process to resolve issues that may be at work all the time without our awareness, but "bubbles up" when the distractions of sight and sound are minimized by the sleep state. I'm no doctor, but it's clear that my dreams at night - often hard to recall or to understand - seem to incorporate events in my life and the sounds and changes in illumination that take place when I am asleep.

Some mornings I wake up with a clear solution to a challenge I confront, but with no recollection at all of a dream the night before.

Lots of sleeping dreams have unpleasant content. I guess that is a way to confront and defuse lingering anxiety we don't deal with while awake. These are sometimes called nightmares.

Waking dreams are something quite different. Reveries, pipe dreams, and grand ambitions are all called dreams. I sometimes imagine the thinner, stronger, and younger me I used to be. I imagine the younger man with the strong, clear singing voice with lots of wind. I imagine the fellow who played handball. I also read about people who wish they were ranchers instead of accountants, or pilots instead of architects.

Possibly the most famous dream of the Twentieth Century was proclaimed by the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. at an agonizing time for our nation on August 28, 1963.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."

Dr. King's noble dream seemed Utopian in its day. Were he alive today, I believe he would agree that his dream - but for the paraphrase from Isaiah - has largely been fulfilled.

In the Twenty-first Century we confront the dreams of another Utopian: Barack Hussein Obama. His dream is well and truly a nightmare. Far from being rooted in the American dream, his dream is rooted in the aims of Marx, Hegel, and their acolyte Saul Alinsky. His dreams include a government that "levels the playing field" by punishing those who achieve to reward those who don't, all in the name of fairness.

President Obama reminds educated Americans of the cautionary words of Alexander Hamilton in The Federalist #1:

...a dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidden appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government. History will teach us that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants.

Whether it be medical care, taxation, employment law, international policy, man's influence on the climate, energy policy, the role of government in personal lives, the relationship between organized religion and society, or any other aspect of our society, President Obama and the majority of Democrats in Congress today line up against the principles on which our nation was founded and for the statist, socialist views of European Utopians. They chase after a false hope that they will achieve an earthly paradise in which disparity in outcome is prevented by the compassionate hand of the State. They either ignore or - if they are truly sinister - embrace the corrupting influence of power.

They seek to compel outcomes that comport with their ideals, regardless of the lessons of history that no society can ever survive without the natural stratification between those who are endowed or lucky on the one hand and those who lack gifts or are unlucky on the other.

The price of the Democrats' ambitions will be to impoverish most Americans for a whole generation to come. Sadly, their natural opponents, the Republicans, offer little hope for those who would rescue our next generation from this sorry fate.

All we can do is to make absolutely certain that everyone involved knows we reject Obama's designs. Stand up for the right. Email your representatives every day. Your voice counts only when enough of us speak up loud enough to penetrate the Washington echo chamber. Write your newspapers. Let no one doubt we want our country back.

Independence

Two hundred thirty-three years ago, brave men committed treason against their King and countrymen to declare a new form of government for the men, women, and children of thirteen English colonies in the New World. They risked not only their lives and fortunes, but also the lives of all those whom they loved and held dear, to create the opportunity for freedom to rise up and show the world how it could let human beings live, love, worship, and achieve without the heavy hand of masters.

There was no precedent for their planned society. It synthesized noble bits of many western cultures. Its idealism outstripped the practices of the day; almost a century passed before human slavery was outlawed in this new land. But its principles were, and remain, singular in human experience.

By declaring independence, the founders laid down a challenge to all of us who profit from their wisdom, bravery, and persistence. They challenged us to live up to the promise of the new nation they birthed on our shores. They dared us to keep our borders safe, our culture alive, and our God-given freedom. They declared that we are endowed by our Creator with unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the "pursuit" of happiness. They declared that the fit purpose of government is to safeguard these rights.

Now we are at war with ourselves over the desires of some to exchange these rights for more modern causes: security, fairness, and government-managed compassion for the poor. Men and women of good conscience vie for these causes with fortitude and perseverance. When they confront the ills their efforts have wrought on our society, they see only their good intentions and they redouble their efforts to accomplish their goals. Their faith is in the virtue of their cause. When opposed, they point to the ills that have befallen our fellow citizens and others in the land when the imperfect execution of the founders' plan has allowed bad outcomes. You see, outcomes matter to these warriors - when the outcomes may be blamed on their opponents.

I declare for freedom. Were I to lose all I have accumulated in my life and have no ability to earn another dime, I would rather depend on the charity of my fellow Christians than to receive government largess. Were I to fall ill and have no means to pay for my care, I would prefer to await my end than to conspire with the enemy to take what is rightfully yours for my care.

I declare for freedom. Though the taxman take a ghastly share of my income and deplete my accumulated earnings, I will continue to contribute to charities that help men, women, and children in the United States and abroad to learn, to know the love of Jesus Christ, and to be healed of their ailments. You who would increase my taxes, do you contribute to a poor child overseas? Do you support the homeless mission in your home town with your own money? Are you contributing to the ministry of God's word? Well, I will continue to do so for as long as I have the means.

I declare for freedom. No thief in the night will be safe where I live. While I cannot stop the thief who silently robs my paycheck, I can surely protect the property I hold. Yes, I will call the police, but the thief who breaks into my home is unlikely to hear me make that call, or anything else, ever.

I declare for freedom. I will not support any politician, any organization, or any business that would deprive me and those I love of the freedom to be born, to worship God, to express myself within the confines of decency, to spend my money lawfully, to invest, and to keep what I earn. I live in a state where neither senator enjoys my support. I will work to unseat them. I have put my political party on notice. I stopped shopping at Wal-Mart when they declared support for government-mandated health insurance (since Target had lower health care costs).

I declare for freedom. I want every lawful resident of the United States to have every opportunity to achieve individually to the maximum extent possible. No person should gain or lose a benefit through membership in a class - be it race, sex, religion, membership in a union, political view, or any other. I also want every unlawful resident of the United States to leave. We'll just have to figure out how to get along without you. We've done it before; we can do it again.

I declare for freedom. I want Congress and the courts to take a deep breath and read the Constitution of the United States. Then I want each member to remember the oath of office. Were this to happen, most of the legal structure of government would be struck down in a trice. There would be no McCain-Feingold limitations on free speech. There would be no Department of Education, no Environmental Protection Agency, no Federal Protective Service, no Department of Housing and Urban Development, no Department of Energy, and no deficit. The tax reductions would restore America to its past role as the manufacturing and productivity leader of the world.

I declare for freedom. Were we free in the sense the founders intended, there would be no forum to agitate for homosexual marriage, because there would be no benefit to be gained. The role of government in our lives would be so minimal that there would be no difference for those who claim this lifestyle. Personally, I want to be free from the claim of this and other social groups that I must acknowledge the moral equivalence of their choices. There is and can never be moral equivalence, or there would be no morality. Were we free in the sense our founders intended, the unwillingness of practitioners of the new morality to donate would not matter to the needs of those who must rely on charity for housing, sustenance, and health care; the unfettered productivity of free men and women who follow Christ would be sufficient to fuel the charities of our nation.

I declare for freedom. Left to the miracle of economics, the needs of the nation for water, power, and food would be met with ease. Only the heavy hand of government can create shortages.

Please, let me be independent. You go be independent, too. We will all benefit. And you liberals who suffer loss of self-esteem because time will prove we don't need you to tell us how to live will eventually get over it. Trust me. God has a plan for you, to prosper you and to keep you safe. You just need to put away the things of the world and listen to Him.

Happy Independence Day! Long live liberty in the United States of America!

Fraud

According to Merriam Webster...
1 a: deceit, trickery ; specifically : intentional perversion of truth in order to induce another to part with something of value or to surrender a legal right
b: an act of deceiving or misrepresenting : trick
2 a: a person who is not what he or she pretends to be : impostor ; also : one who defrauds : cheat b: one that is not what it seems or is represented to be

I would add some more examples.

H. R. 2454: American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009

The Waxman-Markey carbon tax bill is a massive fraud, founded on the lie that Americans are altering the climate through use of fossil fuels, framed with the perversion that government can manage the resources of the nation more ably than the free market, and capped with the shameless deception that the levies the government will make on energy not only will not throttle the economy, but also will usher in a nirvana of "green" energy. Nancy Pelosi puts it plainly, "are you going to believe me or your lying eyes?"

Utterly devoid of any factual basis for man made global warming, the bill asserts that combustion of carbon (you know, that thing you do when you breathe) must be diminished, and that Congress has the lawful power to set a limit on the amount of carbon that Americans may burn in a year. Congress, having plucked this power from some adumbration of the penumbras of the Constitution (that's a place where the Sun doesn't shine), will decide just who may burn carbon. However, given the humility that befits such an institution, it will allow trading of the authority to burn carbon, so long as Congress gets the proceeds of such trades. These proceeds will, of course, go to the noble cause of reducing the amount of carbon burned (the same way tobacco taxes help reduce consumption... right!). Of course, there may be a little growth in the bureaucracy to make all this groovy kind of love come to fruition. Recent experience in Spain with this approach has cost 2.2 real jobs for every temporary "green" job created to date.


Why doesn't this bother Idi Amin Obama, the One?

Maybe because he is today's second example. Have you recently encountered anyone more inclined toward intentional perversion of truth in order to induce another to part with something of value or to surrender a legal right?

Election night -

Let us resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long. Let us remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House – a party founded on the values of self-reliance, individual liberty, and national unity. Those are values we all share, and while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress. As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, “We are not enemies, but friends…though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection.” And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn – I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your President too.

Well, we have seen partisanship, pettiness, and immaturity... pretty much confined to the president and his party. After all, in the words of the president, "I won."

Inauguration day -

For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act - not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do.

How's that hope and change working out for you? Unemployment is on course for 10%. New jobless claims continue at more than 600,000 every month. The currency supply has doubled since Inauguration Day, while the actual worth of the economy has fallen. Inflation is certain to ravage our country. Regulation is up; freedom is down. After transferring billions to General Motors and Chrysler, those firms are nevertheless in staged bankruptcy aimed at stripping rights from their lenders and transferring ownership to organized labor. Forty-five banks have failed, and the overall worth of bank stocks continues to slide.

But the actual culprits in the real estate bubble, the central bankers who artificially lowered the cost of borrowing, Representative Barney Frank who badgered the quasi-private Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to underwrite loans to borrowers who could never repay them, rating agencies that magically converted bundled junk debt - based on these subprime mortgages - into AAA-rated securities, investment advisors that relied on the ratings despite the obvious falsework, and brilliant economists who swapped credit default guarantees, who among these perpetrators of economic collapse has been shamed, arrested, and convicted? Isn't Barney Frank guilty of fraud at least as grand as Bernie Madoff?

And the biggest fraud of all is Barack "the Messiah" Obama. Although he will "only raise taxes on 5% of taxpayers," the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 will tax everyone who uses energy to cook, heat or cool, or ride to work by increasing the cost of energy. Of course, today's 300-page amendment(!) will make direct subsidies to low income persons (whether they be lawful residents or not). And while the former shareholders of General Motors and Chrysler (once known as "widow and orphan" stocks because of their absolute safety and certain dividends) may not have been "taxed" out of their former worth, the effect is pretty much the same. Obama's biggest supporters - organized labor - bankrupted these companies (with help from Congress, regulators, and gutless, witless management). Obama rewards unions with control of a huge share of our nation's dwindling industrial core.


And the coup de grace, health care reform.

Although we can't actually locate victims who are denied health care, not even among foreign invaders who live in America in defiance of our laws, Barack Hussein Obama the Compassionate has decreed an emergency and - wait for it - the solution to the crisis will actually lower the cost of health care in America by spending trillions more through government programs!

When I was earning a tenth-grade education, every one of my schoolmates could see right through this kind of bald-faced lie. I have to guess that later students were more focused on Black History Month, the vital contributions of Sacagawea, the evil of Tommie Jefferson's dalliances, the depredations of American soldiers (Gengis Khan reincarnated) in southeast Asia, and their own self-esteem (don't confuse this with the sanctity of human creation by the one, living God). These later students have a new math approach to government finance. They all know that tax cuts cost jobs, but tax increases create jobs. They know that the Compassionate One has "saved or created" 150,000 jobs... while 6.7 million have been lost!

Some of you are old enough to remember when your employer stopped providing support for health insurance and moved you into managed care to control their costs. Costs were rising, because the government's Medicare and Medicaid programs paid less than the going rate for drugs and procedures, so providers had to raise prices to others to make up for the loss (and the slow payment). Naturally, the managed care companies followed government's lead, and bilked the providers, too. So only people who don't belong to PPOs or HMOs, or don't claim indigence at the emergency room, actually pay providers what they ask. And what providers ask must increase to compensate for all the discounts extorted and late payments by the government and the managed care companies.

What do you think your employers will do when the "penalty" for not providing insurace to employees is less than the cost of providing managed care? Only the most worthy firms will be able to resist the siren song of the "government option."

And when the majority of health care is paid for the same way government now bilks Medicare and Medicaid providers, what will happen to the supply of doctors, nurses, physicians assistants, clinics, and hospitals? Where will the profits of pharmaceutical companies come from to fund research into more effective cures? Where will you go to appeal the bureaucrat's decision that you are too old for a hip replacement, for prostate cancer therapy, or for an organ transplant? If you have "unhealthy habits" like smoking, alcohol use, or excess weight, do you think a government scrambling to lower health care costs will authorize treatment for you... unless you conform to their behavioral mandates?

Newport News, VA, October 4, 2008

So if you have insurance you like, you keep that insurance. If you have a doctor you like, you keep that doctor. The only thing that changes for you is that your health care costs will go down.

Or maybe we should believe this one from the All Barack Channel (ABC) web site after the Health Care Obamathon of June 24, 2009:

Last week, the president gave a speech where he made a more sweeping guarantee: "If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan, period."

But -- as the president acknowledged at his news conference Tuesday -- that's not really a pledge he can promise to deliver on. Private companies are always free to choose different health plans for their employees, and that's not something Obama's plan would change.

"When I say if you have your plan and you like it, . . . or you have a doctor and you like your doctor, that you don't have to change plans, what I'm saying is the government is not going to make you change plans under health reform," the president said Tuesday.

What he really meant to say is that he plans to drive the private sector out of health care funding the way he has "reformed" the auto industry and plans to deal with power generation in America. And just as GM and Chrysler will make little cars that nobody wants, health care will lack resources and impose rationing on you when you fall ill.

Perhaps, like so many people who have never been responsible for profit and loss, he imagines the private sector will continue to overcome the dead weight of taxes and regulation - no matter the imposition. (Think Atlas Shrugged.) Or perhaps he is indifferent to the general erosion of national welfare and security, so long as rich white men give back the wealth they have "stolen" from the worthy downtrodden. Maybe he just craves power, and is using his alliance with the angry and the envious to secure his position.

It's pretty clear he doesn't want the United States exercising hegemony in the world by resisting Islamic cultural expansion or by denying the demands of any faker who claims to speak for labor or the oppressed. It seems Barry Soetoro is, like most bullies and liars, just plain chicken.

One thing is certain, you can judge his actions by his words. If little Barry O told me the sun would rise tomorrow morning, I would stock up on flashlight batteries.

Theft

Every two weeks, a sneak thief takes something of value from me (theft: taking without my freely-given consent). In most states, this act constitutes grand theft, because the value of the appropriation exceeds $400. In addition, four times a year this thief deprives me of several thousand dollars all at once. Twice a year, my state compounds this felony by collecting a tax on the imputed worth of my automobiles at registration renewal, over and above the licensing fees.

Oh, you don't think taxation is theft. Why would that be?

Is is because the levying and collection of taxes is permitted by the fourth amendment? Not really; the due process clause refers to proper court proceedings, not to mere enactment of statutes by Congress and the legislatures. Is it because the same act is permitted by the sixteenth amendment? Now you are closer, but since the federal taxation is progressive, it runs afoul of the equal protection clause.

As to the state's property tax, that's a lost cause. There is nothing in the U. S. Constitution that prohibits states from taxing income or wealth, so long as the taxes do not violate the equal protection clause.

Lawyers will disagree with both of the preceding paragraphs. They believe the acts of Congress and the courts to trample the promise of equal treatment under Constitution have been allowed by case law, and that the status quo is completely lawful. But if one sets aside the craft of lawyering and thinks clearly about what is really happening in this nation, it becomes very clear that a great many of our citizens are being gravely wronged by our government.

We must all admit that some government is necessary. Men are not angels, and this would be a poor nation and a challenging place to live without the armed forces to protect us from foreign enemies and police to protect us from the criminals among us. The Founders envisioned specific responsibilities for the federal government, chiefly related to protecting our borders and preventing internal commercial mischief among the states. To accomplish these duties the Constitution provides for certain excises and Customs duties. Only when Congress acquired a taste for dominion over the states did the need arise for a large federal budget.

Sadly, that taste for power now extends far beyond the suppression of states' rights into the control of the wallets, diets, habits, education, and every other public and private aspect of citizens' rights. And, like sheep to be sheared, Americans wait dumbly to be deprived of their wealth and their freedom.

Taxation is theft. Nothing about paying taxes is voluntary. If you do not submit, men with guns will take everything you have. Now, you can search in vain through the Constitution for the vesting of police power in the federal government. But that government grew a lot of police power in the 20th Century, and it's not through growing. Armed agents have the power to freeze your assets, take your real property, and jail you if you don't give them what they say you owe. Their position is that you are subject to the laws and regulations of the federal government, regardless of whether you could or did vote for the folks who enacted them. No judge will hear any argument to the contrary. So, in fact, you are a serf to the government, or you are an outlaw.

The majority of persons in the United States are not victims of progressive taxation. While they may pay sales taxes on purchases, direct or indirect property tax on the place they live, and tax on their income for "Social Security" and "Medicare," they pay no federal income tax. The majority of wage earners pay nothing in income tax. This may be the reason that politicians can so easily seduce voters with entitlements. If I won't pay for it, why shouldn't I approve of federally funded (fill in the blank)?

Folks, Obama and the Congress have levied a 50% tax on everything you earn and possess! It's called inflation, and it is coming right at us all like a freight train. Since January 20, the federal government has doubled the money supply. That means the dollar in your pocket will shortly buy 50 cents worth of goods. Why are oil prices rising? Speculation? Nope, just dealers realizing that when they are paid in the future for delivery of that oil, they will be paid in dollars worth less than they are now. About the only thing you may own that won't be hammered by inflation is a commodity like precious metal, raw food stock, or land. These will fluctuate with the general level of economic activity in the land, but will generally keep pace with inflation, for their underlying worth will not change.

But the value of your labor is not immune to the cheapening effect of inflation. As the economy suffers the dislocation of wealth that takes place when currency value falls, your salary and tips won't keep pace with inflation. The value of your stocks, interest earnings, and dividends will lag behind inflation. You will be poorer, because inflation is the tax that attacks everyone.

This is the greatest theft of all. Obama is just fine with it. After all, we can't just keep driving our SUVs and set our thermostats at 72 when the rest of the world is poorer than we are. We need to spread the wealth around. We need to be as poor as they are. We need to pay back the terrible wrongs we did to our Islamic fellow beings in the Middle East. We need to befriend the regimes that hate America and the freedom we formerly cherished and shared with others. We need to become more like the dictatorships in Cuba, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia.

And we are, day by day.

To all you Obama voters: Thanks a bunch. Go straight to Hell, and the sooner the better!

Right

Right is:

• not wrong
• the opposite of left
• something to which I am entitled without the consent of others
• an angle of 90 degrees

Unless you are deranged, you probably want to be - and think you are - right most of the time. You probably are embarrassed when someone points out that you are not right. You might put a good deal of energy into trying to convince yourself and others that you are right. Caring about what is right is generally regarded as desirable. We reward others when we say about their action, "it was the right thing to do."

We distinguish the work of crusaders in our minds when we say they are campaigning for rights, rather than for liberties.

A civil liberty is not necessarily a right. If it were a right, that's what we would call it. This begs the question of why the American Civil Liberties Union calls itself that name. If medical care, jobs, housing, homosexual marriage, man-boy love, pornophilia, or a good many other disputed entitlements are rights, why is the organization that campaigns for them focused on liberties, not rights? Maybe the ACLU was founded by people who knew that they were advocating for something other than civil rights.

I think it is right to obey the ten commandments. That is to say, I accept that the commandments are not wrong, and that one who obeys them is right. Of course, there has been only one Person who lived an entire life without breaking one of those commandments, so no matter how hard we labor to be right, we will often be wrong. We can't take much pride in the part of our life we are not wrong, since we spend so much of our lives in transgressions, large and small.

There is a movement afoot in the United States to relegate the ten commandments and the Source of their authority to the dustbin. If this weren't so sad for the future of the nation and those on the left who are making this push, it would be amusing. The Author of Liberty gave us all the freedom to make stupid mistakes, and to ignore Him and His law. He sent His love one time in the person of Jesus Christ to absolve us of our sins, and commissioned His followers to tell the world about God's love. Any society that turns its back on this truth will fail miserably. Any society that denies the Creator a voice in the public square is founded on folly. Any society that claims that the public acknowledgement of God is "establishment of religion" is ignorant beyond imagination and merits contempt.

The same is true of a society that enshrines envy as a basis for government. If you believe government should ensure the more even allocation of resources among the populace, you have fallen prey to an insidious social weakness that defies human nature, centuries of experience, and simple economics. If you claim that taking (by force of law) from those who "can afford to pay" to give to those with less is "the right thing to do," you are deluding yourself. It is right that everyone - not just the rich - should give freely to the poor, the ill, the widowed, and the imprisoned. What is wrong - just plain wrong - is for government to take from the rich and the middle class to redistribute to others. Here is why:

1. Government of men can only be just if it reflects the will of the people. A government that has the power to take from only some of the people and redistribute to others has been taken over by a minority. Today in America, more voters pay no income tax than pay any. The ability of elected officials to pander to the entitled is no longer subject to restraint by the vote of taxpayers.
2. Government cannot act charitably. The donor is not willing and the recipient is not getting charity, but an entitlement. Entitlements are demeaning and socially destructive. This is why we have third generation poor on public assistance after the enactment of the Great Society 45 years ago. Meanwhile, taxation drives out true charity by reducing the disposable income available for it.
3. Government cannot reliably channel resources to those who need them. Most in need are far more lacking in human reinforcement than in money. Consider the public schools. Well intentioned, they perform much worse than private schools and at much greater cost because they are in the hands of politically correct administrations that will not enforce discipline and cannot provide love or instruction in the faith and values that built our nation.
4. Government is frequently suborned to pernicious causes that imperil the nation. What sort of country provides greater "rights" to foreign invaders than to its own citizens? What sort of country rewards sloth and indolence and punishes productivity? What sort of government ignores the simple truth of nature and follows unproven science to impoverish its citizens in pursuit of environmental causes that would only affect the world if all other nations also participated?

None of these truths is new to 2009, but the elected leadership of the United States is new. This "leadership" has debased our currency, doubling the amount in circulation since January 20. It has vitiated the meaning of legal rights by deforming the bankruptcy courts to steal the legitimate position of bondholders. It has forced banks into a form of federal receivership and rearranged the executive ranks of these firms. It has announced its intention to abdicate world leadership. It has appointed cronies to high office and fired those with the temerity to challenge it.

Are we not astonished that the handicraft of Barack Hussein Obama has gone unchallenged by the citizens of this once-great nation? How can we not have risen up as one and driven this incompetent tyro from office? Are we so enthralled by the sycophantic media as to ignore his usurpation of the right? Are we so deracinated that we no longer cherish the freedoms that enabled the United States to lead free men and women around the world for more than 60 years? Do we no longer remember the sacrifices made by those who prised our freedom from the grip of no less a tyrant than this Obama - George III?

I waken daily in the hope that some ill has befallen this unforgivable buffoon. I pray that we will be liberated in my lifetime from the penury and class-envy that he brought to office. Let us all strive to put him in his place - which is most certainly not the White House. His political precursors, Wilson and Roosevelt, were stricken down. Perhaps a merciful God will strike Obama as well.

Shame

One of the most rewarding things about following Jesus Christ is assurance that our sins are forgiven. This forgiveness is not something we earn. It is a gift from our Savior, that we receive when we acknowledge Him as our lord and follow His ways. The truth that Christ died for the sins of all makes Christians different from everyone else on Earth.

We won't spend eternity in Heaven because we are righteous nor because we earned our reward through our actions in this life. We will be rewarded because we acknowledge the redeeming truth from the lips of the Son of Man: ""I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die."

There is no shame in the world of Christians. Though I may sin and dismay the Creator in this life, my sins are washed away and I will be blameless on Judgment Day, because I have given my life to the Savior.

There is shame in the rest of the world. The world of Islam is built on a culture of shame and honor. Loss of honor is shameful. And no matter what you hear from advocates for Islam, there is no room in their world for the gift of grace we Christians have received. Jews strive for righteousness, and lament their shortcomings. Agnostics and atheists pursue honor and nobility, and know shame when their shortcomings are made public (well, those who don't hold public office seem to be able to be ashamed).

Where does shame come from for those who haven't embraced Christ? Shame is a normal human feeling when one thinks one should have behaved differently. It is particularly acute for many people when their shortcomings are made public. If you belong to the Muslim Brotherhood, and you hear the President of the United States tell you "Unlike Afghanistan, Iraq was a war of choice that provoked strong differences in my country and around the world," you will hear an admission that the Great Satan erred and that its president just acknowledged his shame over that error.

What about pride? When you hear President Obama say, "Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel's right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine's," you will certainly hear the latter part of the sentence loud and clear, untroubled by the first part, and your Arab pride will swell.

Islam is a culture where the religious follow a false prophet (Matthew 24:10-11 "At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people.") and the character of life is defined by a choice between shame and honor. It is shocking that a president who acknowledges he knows the Qur'an and claims to respect the culture of its adherents would deliver a speech without considering how it would be heard by Islamics.

Then again, if you have the messianic self-image that Barack Hussein Obama has made evident since he first appeared in the Illinois state legislature, you evidently know better than anyone else how to make friends with a Medieval culture bent on eradicating the culture of your nation. If you are Obama, you think Muslims - who know without any doubt that abortion is sinful - will overlook your history of defending the heinous practice of partial-birth abortion and hear your uplifting message of reconciliation between the United States and the Muslim world. You will be untroubled by the charging of interest on loans made in American banks, in violation of the tenets of Islam. You will ignore the films your political donors make that exploit and demean women and depict licentious behavior and the use of alcohol. The shame these behaviors rain down on you in the eyes of your audience means nothing to you.

Nor, if you are President Obama, will you be bothered to point out to the audience with justifiable pride the blood and treasure the United States has spent defending Muslims around the world - never once taking territory or treasure in return for this help.

And above all, you will not point out to your Muslim audience that the reason the United States is a safe place for 1.5 million adherents to their religion to live is that the government was founded on Christian principles.

There is hope for President Obama's soul. It is the hope available to all. Know and repent your error, ask God for forgiveness, and walk in Christ's footsteps. I am reliably informed it takes all three. Based on his behavior to date, he still has some distance to go.

Justice

What is justice?

Plato said justice is one of four cardinal virtues, the proper balance between self-interest and the rights or needs of others. The other virtues are prudence, temperance, and courage. These are civic, not moral, virtues.

Justice is usually portrayed as a woman holding a balance scale. A balance scale can only determine whether the weight of the two sides is equal or unequal. If the weights on one side are calibrated, we can know the weight of the other side, and then only if the scale is balanced. This is an interesting analogy to the concept of civic justice.

We have broad axioms about self-interest and the rights or needs of others. Free speech does not include the right to shout "fire" in a crowded theater when there is none. My freedom to swing my fist stops at the tip of your nose. When we examine the matters that come before the United States Supreme Court, these axioms shed little light. The stakes when comparing an individual or group's self-interest are not easily compared to the rights or needs of the "others" on the opposite side of the scale. That is why we depend on equal administration of the law for the foundation of civic justice.

The justices of the Supreme Court are authorized by Article III of the Constitution to hold their offices during "good Behaviour" as an appellate court for matters of fact and law, with few exceptions (when they can be the original venue, or in cases of impeachment), and subject to the regulation of Congress. We are told the decisions of this court are "the supreme law of the land," but you will not find this intent in the Constitution or the deliberative papers at the time of its adoption. The Supreme Court was designed to be a co-equal branch to Congress and the Executive, and the final decider of facts at issue and interpreter of laws in light of the Constitution. Chief Justice Marshall arrogated more authority to the Court, and Congress has yet to undo his error.

By their very title, justices of the Supreme Court embody the civic virtue of justice. To determine the fair and proper balance between one party's self-interest and the rights and needs of others, the justices must act impartially, in full knowledge of the facts at issue and the applicable laws, and without influence from the wealth, poverty, privilege, low estate, or other attribute of the parties. That may be why modern depictions of justice are blindfolded.

The continued health of our nation depends on the Court's role in preserving the rule of law instead of the rule of men. Only if the law is the basis of deciding between outcomes in the courts can the governed have confidence in government. To the extent the law becomes the servant of men, the government becomes fickle, untrustworthy, and a potential enemy of the common welfare of citizens. A Justice of the Supreme Court who substitutes personal perspective about outcomes or foreign legal opinion for the laws of the United States betrays his oath of office. A little departure from fidelity to the law begets a little distrust and disregard. Think of the national evasion of the 55 mph speed limit in the 1970s, or the commonplace violations of Prohibition. A large departure from fidelity to the law begets lawlessness, tyranny, and ultimately revolution.

Shortly after adoption of the Constitution, the government of the United States fell into the hands of professional politicians. The self-interest of these politicians leads them to view the apparatus of government through a prism of outcomes rather than principles - quite foreign to the intention of the nation's founders. Increasingly, politicians see the relationship between outcomes and their continued electoral success. If they tilt the playing field to favor a group of voters, they expect those voters to retain the politicians in office. If they stay true to the nation's founding principles, those voters may choose another politician who promises to serve the particular voters' interests over the common good. We know this as "identity politics." Politicians are far too clever to confess this aloud - rather, they claim that tilting the playing field to favor some is actually an effort to be fair to all.

With the growth of government in the 20th Century, the unhindered ability of politicians to secure reelection by ignoring the Constitution produced awesome distortions and expansion of political power. The courts become political, too, and many judges have legislated from the bench. The outcome of Brown v. Board of Education, however desirable, is not supported by law-based findings of the Supreme Court. Read the decision. The outcome of Roe v. Wade, however undesirable, is similarly rootless, torturing an earlier whole-cloth invention of a right to privacy that is found nowhere in the Constitution.

Little wonder, then, that presidents, the Senate, and the press view the appointment and confirmation of Supreme Court justices and inferior court judges through a political prism.

The current president has made a career of telling us in calm, measured tones just how unjust our nation has been to the poor and downtrodden at home and abroad. He has nominated a candidate for the Supreme Court who shares those views and is willing to act on them. This particular candidate is on record that the right to keep and bear arms - though confirmed by the Supreme Court to be an individual right - may be restricted by the states. It seems she has not yet read Amendments IX and X to the Constitution. She has made overtly racist statements claiming superior ability to dispense justice based on her race and social origin. She has stated that courts make public policy. She is clearly aligned with President Obama in her views.

The Supreme Court is no place for a justice with such publicly announced disregard for the obligations of a judge. A nominee merits lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land only after demonstrating:

1. knowledge of and fidelity to the Constitution;
   
2. a record of faithfully examining case facts and applicable law, then ruling impartially based on the evidence in accordance with the Constitution and the laws of the nation; and
   
3. clarity of argument and communication in service of justice in the United States.

Judge Sonia Sotomayor fails on all three counts.

Despite her manifest unfitness for the job, it is likely that Senate politics will lead to Judge Sotomayor's confirmation. Most Democrat senators want President Obama to triumph on any matter that will not harm their personal chances of reelection. Long ago, most Republican senators also shed their allegiance to the Constitution for political expediency. It is vain to hope that the Senate will suddenly waken to the need to limit the national government to its Constitutional role, much less insist that they and others in government behave with the humility the founders expected.

So we must take comfort that Judge Sotomayor is a less effective a proponent of President Obama's malicious doctrine than other potential nominees for the post. With God's help, the nation will have turned on President Obama before his next opportunity to nominate a justice, and we will be spared another, more effective voice for statist, secular humanist fascism.