Tag Archives: Reflecting on the news

Obama Silencing the Voice of Conscience

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Obama silencing the voice of conscience? Not!

“Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.” Matt 22L 21, Mark 12: 17, Luke 20: 25

When something is repeated in the Gospel as this is by three Evangelists, it means this is supremely important.  Of course, when you don’t like what the Gospel says, you simply leave the Church or come up with a version of church that makes you the Magisterium.  In other words, you become the Voice of the Holy Spirit.  Convenience, but not conscience!

Repealing this rule is, of course, one more issue of conscience vs. having none.

Here’s the NY Times report:

The rule prohibits recipients of federal money from discriminating against doctors, nurses and other health care workers who refuse to perform or assist in abortions or sterilization procedures because of their “religious beliefs or moral convictions.” Its supporters included the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Catholic Health Association, which represents Catholic hospitals.

Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican minority leader in the House, said, “This is the third action taken by Washington Democrats in the past 38 days to weaken American rules that are meant to safeguard the sanctity of human life.”

“The “separation of Church and state” does not mean – and it can never mean – separating our Catholic faith from our public witness, our political choices and our political actions.  That kind of separation would require Christians to deny who we are; to repudiate Jesus when he commands us to be “leaven in the world” and to “make disciples of all nations.”  That kind of radical separation steals the moral content of a society.  It’s the equivalent of telling a married man that he can’t act married in public.  Of course, he can certainly do that, but he won’t stay married for long.”

Talk Matters

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In Is Talk Cheap? Thomas Sowell warns that talk matters, words matter, and the ability to express oneself in speech matters tremendously.  He calls to mind the gripping power of Winston Churchill and the enormity of the  impact his powers of speech and expression had on history.  With will and words, Churchill carried the Britons to heights of hope and endurance against Hitler and his juggernaut.

Sowell’s thoughts:

“Talk matters for good reasons as well as bad…..Unfortunately, people on the make seem to have a keener appreciation of the power of words, as the magic road to other power, than do people defending values that seem to them too obvious to require words.

“The expression, “It goes without saying. . .” is a fatal trap. Few things go without saying. Some of the most valuable things in life may go away without saying– whether loved ones in one’s personal life or the freedom or survival of a nation.”

Sowell points to the shell game Obama and his new administration play with words.  Cloaked in vocabulary, this administration hides the blatant reality of legislation that would take away workers’ right to a secret ballot by calling it, “Employers’ Freedom of Choice Act.”  “Choice” what a lovely word.  Where have we seen it go wrong before?

Obama’s budget of deficits is labelled “A New Era of Responsibility.”  Sowell says of Obama, “You want responsibility? He’ll give you the word “responsibility.” Why not? It costs nothing.

Those of you who want your country back, be on the lookout for a Presidential candidate who can handle the language without speaking in the “patrician style of country club Republicans.”  Look, too, for someone with a good non-apologetic offensive.”  According to Sowell, “General Douglas MacArthur gave a one-word definition of defensive warfare: defeat!”

Last and most important!  Look out America!  I believe that the gift of gab that got Golden Mouth elected won’t stop with words.  Deception breeds deception, whether in word or deed.

Heresy and Human Nature

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Writing here about a heretical concept and human nature in The President, Shock and Awe and Tertullian” Roger Kimball states:

“Many people, I believe, have been stunned by the President’s behavior in his first weeks in office. It’s been a shock and awe performance. Historians of this period will look back in wonder: how ever did a new President waltz into office and, before he had even finished unpacking, extract $800,000,000,000 from taxpayers for partisan spending programs? …. But those historians will note with interest how, even at the beginning of March, some reputable commentators still referred to the President’s poverty program as ‘stimulus package’.”

Tertullian said, that the blessed in heaven would derive pleasure from witnessing the torments of the damned. While heretical, Old Tertullian does have a grasp of human nature, so too, does Obama, who is making hay while the Swells sweat and the Have-nots hoot.  “…it will cause pain among the affluent. It will also cause delight among the more than 43 percent of tax filers who pay no income tax.”

Unfortunately, we’ll all get a glimpse of Hell as this “stimulus package” unfolds.  When it’s actually read , we may find we’re funding Hamas and the Taliban.

Navigating Slippery Slope or Raping America

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Charles Krauthammer has Obama navigating a slippery slope into socialism. Obama’s speech to a joint session of Congress, says Krauthammer, “…constitutes the boldest social democratic manifesto ever issued by a U.S. President”.

To my mind, it is a social program that should be called the Rape of America.  Obama’s taking Miss Liberty in a direction she doesn’t want to go.  When Ronald Reagan came to office wanting to take America on a different trajectory,  Krauthammer says Reagan’s aim was to “shrink government, lower taxes, rebuild American defense.”  How long will it be before we will see that again in this nation?

Obama’s will is to force universal health care, universal education and  green energy via government funds, government regulation, by government Democrat’s and Presidential manifesto down our collective throat.   How?  Krauthammer explains, “We know what opportunity he wants to seize. Just as the Depression created the political and psychological conditions for Franklin Roosevelt’s transformation of America from laissez-faireism to the beginnings of the welfare state, the current crisis gives Obama the political space to move the still (relatively) modest American welfare state toward European-style social democracy.”

Is there the will or the way among Conservatives, Independents, Libertarians and still breathing Republicans to stop the plunder and pillage.  Michael Steele, the new chairman of the Republican National Committee and thinking Americans have their work cut out for them.  They need to find traction, indeed, rescue and deliverance, from Obama’s slide into Socialism.

Black Rednecks and White Liberals

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Attorney General Eric Holder’s remarks at a Justice Department ceremony Feb. 18, 2009,  commemorating Black History Month:

“Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial, we have always been, and we, I believe, continue to be, in too many ways, a nation of cowards. Though race-related issues continue to occupy a significant portion of our political discussion, and though there remain many unresolved racial issues in this nation, we, average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about things racial.”

Cowards come in all colors.  Cowards usually are incapable of facing the truth about themselves.  The blame for their problems are foisted on any but the obvious.   Case in point: the dysfunctional social patterns leading to the tragic dissolution of black families.  In itself it’s sad, but what makes it even sadder are the black leaders perpetuating and defending this behavior as part of the Black Culture. That to me is cowardly and for the black family it is disasterous, ending in them being victimized for political points.

In Thomas Sowell’s book:     Black Rednecks and White Liberals missing pieces of the Black mystique are researched, revealed, and make for some riveting reading.  This is the history you never read when dealing with slavery and it’s aftermath in this country.

Thomas Sowell is a Black man who has faced the struggles himself.  He makes no excuses and holds no one responsible for his destiny but himself. Town Hall.com includes in Sowell’s bio:

Thomas Sowell was born in North Carolina and grew up in Harlem. As with many others in his neighborhood, he left home early and did not finish high school. The next few years were difficult ones, but eventually he joined the Marine Corps and became a photographer in the Korean War.

After leaving the service, Sowell entered Harvard University, worked a part-time job as a photographer and studied the science that would become his passion and profession: economics.After graduating magna cum laude from Harvard University (1958), he went on to receive his master’s in economics from Columbia University (1959) and a doctorate in economics from the University of Chicago (1968).

In the early ’60s, Sowell held jobs as an economist with the Department of Labor and AT&T. But his real interest was in teaching and scholarship. In 1965, at Cornell University, he began the first of many professorships. His other teaching assignments include Rutgers University, Amherst University, Brandeis University and the University of California at Los Angeles, where he taught in the early ’70s and also from 1984 to 1989.

Attorney General Holder might do well to note that Black History is best served by scholars and honest men without agendas.


“Moral Corrosions”

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The Anchoress writes:    “America is scared, like I’ve never seen America scared before. After 9/11, we were frightened but together as a nation. Now, we’re frightened, and torn apart, as well.”

Thomas Sowell says it like so:  A Fatal Trajectory

“..looming ahead of us– and our children and their children– are dangers that can utterly destroy American society. Worse yet, there are moral corrosions within ourselves that weaken our ability to face the challenges ahead.

One of the many symptoms of this decay from within is that we are preoccupied with the pay of corporate executives while the leading terrorist-sponsoring nation on earth is moving steadily toward creating nuclear bombs.”

Does anyone imagine that we will care what anyone’s paycheck is when we see an American city in radioactive ruins?

Yet the only serious obstacle to that happening is that the Israelis may disregard the lofty blather coming out of the White House and destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities before the Iranian fanatics can destroy Israel.”

When clear thinkers worry, I worry!