Live and Let Live

Peace on earth: it's what we say we want for Christmas, right?

Why, then, can't we all let each other live the way we want to live? That includes holding any views we want to hold, believing anything to be true that we want to be true, and feeling free to share those views and beliefs with others, who are free to accept or reject them. This is the path to peace--freedom. If we continue down the path we are on (look down the road just a little and you'll see the thought police lurking behind the trees) we will not be free to speak our mind, to worship God as we see fit, and the peace level that exists today (not that it's super great) will be only an Arthurian dream. Correct views will be dictated to us, and dissent will not be tolerated.  Prisoners of conscience will fill our jails.

Why do I think this could happen? Because it has happened elsewhere, and we're on the same road now. If you look at the Cultural Revolution in China, it was perpetrated by the young and naive who had been brought up to believe that there was only Mao's way or the highway. Same with the Hitler Youth, who aided and abetted in the persecution of Jews--young, naive, had their heads stuffed with totalitarian thinking. It could happen here, and the reason I'm convinced of that is because of the speed of the latest cultural convulsion, which took place under the guise of LGBTQ acceptance.

Now, if you read the title of this post, you'll understand that I do believe in LGBTQ acceptance. I accept that a person with sexuality different than mine is every bit as human as I, every bit a child of God as I, every bit as worthy of equal treatment before the law as I. And that is because...wait for it...your sexuality doesn't define you as much as you may think it does. It may define what you do in the bedroom, but LGBTQ people are just people and people spend the vast majority of their time outside of the bedroom.

Here's the point: I wish we would stop focusing on sexuality (and on race), and focus instead on what a person does or doesn't do for society.  THAT is what affects us all, not bedroom behavior, which only affects those together in the bedroom. Don't focus on whether you are straight or gay, but whether you are a producer or a consumer. Do you contribute to the good of society, or are you a drain on society? Are you a totalitarian or a libertarian or somewhere in between? Do you support, in word and deed, the right of others to disagree with you? Do you think you have a right to the fruit of the work of another person, or just your own? Are you a peaceful person, or do you support encroachment in any form? These are the things that affect ALL of us.

Encroachment, for anyone who needs a definition, is one person or group taking away the natural rights of others. Natural or negative rights, for anyone who needs a definition (fantastic article here), are those rights that exist within you: the right to life which includes the right to the fruit of your own labor, which supports life. The right to liberty, to be free to follow whatever route you want to take to happiness as long as you don't encroach on others. Negative rights are "negative" in the sense that they are "freedom from" rights--freedom from others intervening in your life in ways you do not want. Not included here are the positive rights, which are those that a parent owes to a child, but not that adults owe to other competent adults: food, housing, education, employment, health care, etc. Watch this video for a more thorough explanation of rights.
(There IS one more piece of Peace besides liberty, and that is compassion. What about the incompetent adults, or children without a competent adult family member--they need help. But helping them needn't destroy liberty, as voluntary action on the part of compassionate individuals can and will (in a society which is growing ever richer) fill these needs without government force in the equation.  Or it would do so, if government hadn't started trying to be everyone's parent. It could do so again, if this is handled right.)

Back to rights: So do I have a right to be a member of whatever church I want? Can I be excluded based upon my income, education, race, gender, sexuality or just a random whim? Yes, yes, and yes. It's called freedom of association, and it goes hand in hand with property rights. If I use my time and effort to build a home, I have the right to allow or disallow anyone to enter it.  If I use my time and effort to build a church, don't I have that same right? A store? Yep. A golf course? Yep. As long as you didn't encroach on anyone else's rights when you built that thing, you can use it however you want. If there are a hundred churches, golf courses, churches, etc. in my town that I can't enter, it doesn't materially affect me, since I am still free to build my own church, golf course, or store and let all my best friends in. It may hurt your feelings to be excluded from someone's store or church, but in this country we are free to hurt others' feelings. Laws are to protect us from real harm; religion, from which springs societal norms, is to help us not want to harm emotions, or to forgive them if they hurt us.

Now, I know a lot of you right now are saying, "oh, but that was so sad when segregation was rampant in America," and I agree with you. I am delighted to not see "whites only" signs above drinking fountains, etc. This is key: any services which are set up by the government should benefit everyone who has paid the taxes that fund them--no segregation or exclusion; the military fits into this category. But a church doesn't go around demanding at gunpoint that everyone pay tithing, (we all pay our taxes with the threat of deadly force backing up the IRS) so there is no one who can fairly demand that they be included in services provided by the church.

I am delighted that over the past century the world in general has become less sexist, less racist. I think that is mostly a result of the world becoming richer; less competition for scarce resources creates less tribalism. But that is a side note to the central point, which is that freedom of speech, freedom of religion and property rights are not optional in a peaceful society. From peace flows every other good blessing: health, wealth, safety, and, if you're lucky, happiness.

American Gestapo Raid Blanding, Utah: A True Story

About 15 years ago I read a very small piece in the Washington Post that went like this:

An early morning raid on a crack house in DC...DEA agents...three people killed, one wounded...no drugs were found on the premises.

After reading this I couldn't get it out of my mind.  Here are some people sleeping in the early morning hours when federal agents break in and start shooting.  "So what!  It was a crack house and they were just a bunch of dirty drug-dealers."  Well, oops, no drugs were found.  "Sorry for shooting your husband ma'am--we got the wrong address."  And what if drugs had been found?  Does that justify murder by federal agents? Do we not still have the right to due process?  Innocent until proven guilty?

I wondered if this was just the beginning of something bigger. Looking back in history, the "war on drugs" wasn't actually the beginning, since the prohibition of alcohol in the 1930's led to some of this style of policing.  But the idea of a growing federal police state is, in fact, on the right track.

With the election of Obama I tried to close my ears to stories that the federal government was now the biggest purchaser of guns, and not just for the DEA and DHS but for the Dept. of Agriculture and NOAA, about attempts by the ATF to decrease availability of ammunition to the public, stories of increasing federal power -- I just didn't want to know because it's scary.  But check this recent  USAToday article:

In the wake of the Baltimore riots, Al Sharpton is calling for the federal takeover of local police. Like most ideas from the loathsome Rev. Sharpton, this is a lousy one. But since federalizing local police is actually an Obama administration idea, it's worth paying a bit more attention.

The idea behind federal supervision of local police forces is that it will make them more accountable. Instead of a bunch of presumptively racist, violent hicks running things on a local level, we'll see the cool professionalism of the national government in charge.

There are (at least) two problems with this approach. The first is that federal law enforcement, especially in recent years, hasn't exactly been a haven of cool professionalism. The second is that no law enforcement agency is very good at policing itself, meaning that a national police force is likely to be less accountable, not more. And there's a third problem, too, but we'll get to that in a minute. 

If you fail to learn from history you are doomed to repeat it.  The Founding Fathers had just come from an oppressive political environment, and were determined to not let that happen again.  That is why the Constitution grants only very limited powers to the federal government: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Article X.

Why is it superior to have the states in charge of miscellaneous governmental duties?  Because if the state that you're living in becomes corrupt, oppressive, incompetent at protecting your liberties or even maliciously taking them away, you can move to a different one!  Then that state will fail and must reform because all the responsible people are leaving behind the group who likes to live "la vida loca"-- the producers are leaving behind all the consumers (think California).  But if the federal government grows corrupt and oppressive...yes, you can move to another country, but it's much harder.

Early morning raids and shows of overwhelming force are the province of the Nazis and other totalitarian regimes.  One fabulous way to exert control over the populace is to create specious and oppressive laws and then persecute those who break them.  And that's just what happened in 2009.

Blanding, Utah:  Anasazi Junk Heap

To have any kind of perspective into the following story one needs to know some brief history.  From around 700 to 1300 A.D. the Ancestral Puebloan people inhabited the area known as "Four Corners" where UT, AZ, NM, and CO meet.  Beginning around 1150 a three hundred year drought (climate change! outlaw those SUVs!) caused the population to decrease and likely to move to areas where there were more dependable sources of water, and the area around Blanding, in the southeast corner of Utah, was mostly uninhabited except for a few Navajo hunting parties. The Mormons, obedient to the request of their prophet/leaders, colonized the area in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The area is still out of the way, the populations is small.  It remains today what it has always been, a high desert, difficult to access, full of red rock formations, and to my eyes, completely beautiful.

And full of pots.  Southeast Utah is a bit like Egypt: very dry, nothing decays, nothing grows over and hides everything below it.  It just stays the same.  So you can very well imagine that centuries of Anasazi junk is laying everywhere--hundreds of thousands or probably millions pieces have been collected: pots, pieces of pots, weapons, turkey-feather blankets, baskets, moccasins,  beads, bone tools, cliff paintings, and more pots!  And there's still more--occasional rainstorms wash away sediment and more stuff emerges all the time.  Mormon farmers had to clear pottery out of their fields when they began plowing.  Builders of houses and diggers of wells would find themselves disturbing ancient graves.  In contrast, the area in which I live (Virginia) was home to millions of pre-Columbian inhabitants over the centuries, but there are very few traces left--it's just too damp here, and things decay in decades not centuries.  I mention this because some people have got it in their minds that people shouldn't disturb the remains of previous civilizations.  But that's silly if you put it into the lens of history, in which most human civilizations were built literally on top of the previous one: look at modern Rome, built on medieval Rome, built on ancient Rome.

Collector Bandits

Since 1906 there have been laws preventing the removal of archaeological artifacts from public lands.  But they have been selectively enforced, since it's a bit ridiculous to go collect an infinite number of pottery pieces and warehouse them away...especially when there's already warehouses full of them. In fact, BLM agents were once caught red-handed smashing pots, because the museums had all they wanted and there wasn't anywhere to store them.

When my father was on his LDS mission to Australia in the 50's, a federal agent of some sort came around visiting all the homes in Blanding and confiscated all the artifacts that his family had collected: a beautiful turkey feather blanket, moccasins, some nice pots, etc.  My grandma turned them over to him without a fuss, and without checking for proof that he was actually who he said he was or that he had legal authority to the items.  When my father got home from his mission he spent some time trying to track down what happened to the things he had collected.  He was never able to find them in any museum, and wonders if the "agent" was a swindler, or if he was really a federal agent, but sold them to other collectors on the sly to pad his pockets.

The artifact collection tradition continued however.  Just as I wouldn't hesitate to pick up a pretty rock while out on a hike, residents of the Four Corners area wouldn't hesitate to pick up a nice pottery shard--unless they already had a dozen just like it.  In neither case would the thought, "This (rock/shard) might be the key to finally unlocking the (geological/anthropological) history of this place!" cross the mind.

American Gestapo

I have heard from several sources that after Obama was elected, he directed the federal agencies to become more aggressive in their enforcing methods.  This has been seen in increasing penalties and in prosecutions for more minor infractions by many federal agencies.  It also came into play in antiquities.  Operation Cerberus Action had been a brain-child of the BLM and  FBI since 2007, and involved the bribing of an antiquities dealer to turn traitor and bring them dozens of names of collectors in southeast Utah.  If the investigation had concluded before the end of 2008, it may have been different.  But it carried into the next administration, after the "aggressive" policy was implemented.

The sad story that ensued is told in detail in this LA Times article "A Sting in the Desert" - which should be a Pulitzer prize winner -- complete with videos from the button camera worn by Ted Gardiner, the dealer/traitor, as he went into the homes of the residents.  The "sting" was a raid on the town of Blanding; about 80 FBI and BLM agents showed up in dozens of black SUVs, wearing body armor and carrying semi-automatic weapons.  They shoved their way into homes in the early morning hours of June 10, 2009, shouting and demanding native artifacts.  They manhandled the 24 defendants, chained many of them hand, foot, and around their middle, attaching them together like convicts in a chain gang.  My father told me that many of them were NOT ALLOWED TO GET DRESSED - if they were wearing their underwear when the agents burst into their homes, that's what they wore when hauled to the next town for interrogation.  The Gestapo tactics used on Dr. James Redd, the town's only physician, so disturbed him that he committed suicide the next day.  Two more suicides were to follow - one, a defendant in another town, and the other, Ted Gardiner.

Operation Cerberus Action was a tragedy on many levels.  The local sheriff  said that there was no reason for federal agent involvement. He could have knocked on their doors in broad daylight with a summons for them to appear in court, and they would have been there.  The agents already had video evidence that the artifacts were in their possession, so all that was needed was to determine how those things came into their possession, and what the penalties would be.  These were life-long residents of Blanding, most members of a religion that decries dishonesty and law-breaking (but doesn't have much to say about old pots sitting on the shelf in your china cabinet).  They weren't going to run for Mexico.

There is also reason to believe that the agents intentionally overestimated the value of the items so that the defendants would be charged with felonies instead of misdemeanors.  In the case of Dr. Redd, the tiny shell bead he had picked up--value $40 to $200 on the market--was inflated to $1000 in order to qualify as a felony.  A physician who is convicted of a felony will lose his medical license. They knew that.  So did he.

But I believe the biggest tragedy is the change in the relationship of the people to their government. The residents of Blanding were traumatized that day.   Shouting, threatening, intimidating, manhandling, dehumanizing behavior was heaped upon them by their fellow American citizens, employees of the Bureau of Land Management and Federal Bureau of Investigations.  They don't trust the feds any more.

And where are those 80 agents now?  What did that day do to their souls, to their attitude about proper conduct during law enforcement?  Who are the  people who trained them to act like that toward unarmed citizens, and how many others have they trained in these same tactics in the mean time?  Is this what "innocent until proven guilty" looks like now?  I'm not OK with that.

And in the end, it backfired on them.  The roughness with which they were treated, along with the suicides, came up in court and the defendants were given very light penalties (which a lot of people concerned with archaeology were miffed about).  The penalty implemented at the time of arrest was the true penalty, but it's difficult to quantify that type of abuse so I'm sure it didn't make a big splash in the world of black market antiquities dealers.

Too bad all around--lots of pain, no real gain for anyone.

When your own backyard is off limits

What would you do if your hometown, where your family had lived for generations, became so valuable to powerful outsiders that you were no longer welcome in the land around it.  That is happening to several small towns in southern Utah, where in many counties 95% of the land is held by federal government (see this map).  One of these is a small town dear to my heart: Blanding, in San Juan county, the southeast corner of Utah, where my father grew up and where I spent several weeks each summer as a child with my grandparents.

Settled by Mormon pioneers in the late 1800s and early 1900s, this land had been mostly abandoned since the Pueblo people moved out in seven centuries previously.  It is not an easy place to live--remote, arid, full of redrock and canyons.  It was very difficult for pioneers to get there without roads, and roads continue to be very important.

Enter the Bureau of Land Management, a federal agency that has very little to do east of the Continental Divide, but has been a presence in the twelve western-most states since their settlement.  In its previous iterations it was a management agency for cattle ranchers and miners who used the "land nobody wanted."  My grandfather was a uranium miner in the canyons around Blanding, working with his sons to create roads to access the deposits (many classic family stories there).

Was it legal for my grandfather to construct roads on this land?  Certainly.  In 1866 the US Congress enacted Revised Statute 2477, which simply stated that "the right-of-way for the construction of highways across public lands not otherwise reserved for public purposes is hereby granted."  Then in 1976, Congress enacted the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, which upheld the former statute: "Nothing in this Act, or in any amendment made by this Act, shall be construed as terminating any valid lease, permit, patent, right-of-way, or other land use right or authorization existing on the date of approval of this Act".  So in order to continue to use a road, it just had to be shown to have existed prior to 1976.

Now enter the environmentalists.  For those not familiar with their tactics, let me just state that most of these groups are what might be called a "racket":  allergic to what might be called "the American way," they demand a seat at the table where decisions are made that affect the lives of the average Joe.  Whenever they see anything that doesn't fit with their anti-human agenda, they file a "citizen suit" to get their way.  Government agencies with only vague guidelines to go on will frequently give way to their demands rather than face a costly lawsuit, and/or the groups win the cases mediated by liberal federal judges and receive boatloads of your tax dollars, with which they dream up their next assault.  Federal lands have been on their bullying agenda for a while now.  

The last player in this story is Phil Lyman, current San Juan County commissioner and my cousin's husband.  I hate to say he's a really great guy since you'll think I'm prejudiced--but it's true.  Watch just a bit of this interview, or some of the videos on this page, and you'll see for yourself--intelligent, brave, humble.   

So back to the question: 
1 - if a federal agency tells you that you can no longer use a road that your own ancestors helped build, the road through Recapture Canyon from Bluff to Monticello, because they say it's just a trail that was built in 2005, and 
2 - if the laws that govern the agency are clearly contrary to what the agency doing, and 
3 - if they say in 2007 that the road is just closed temporarily for two years, but now it's 2014 and they refuse to take any action on reopening it, then what do you do? 
If I were a citizen of Blanding I would raise this issue at a town hall meeting, and that's just what happened in February 2014.  And if I were charged with protecting the rights of the citizens of the county, I'd do just what Phil did--support the citizens' right to protest an illegal action on the part of the BLM.  He communicated what was planned (listen to the phone interview between Phil and Utah BLM director Juan Palma), and tried to make sure that everyone would be safe.  

There has been plenty of news coverage of the events surrounding the May 10, 2014 protest ride through Recapture Canyon, but unfortunately most of it has been wrong.  There was no illegal action because the road closure itself was illegal.  There was no damaged Pueblan archaeology because it had all been cleared when the road had been assessed years ago.  The road had been used from 2007 to 2009 to access a small mine, it is also the site of a water pipeline that was installed in the road bed, and the road is also used by ranchers during a cattle drive twice a year.  Clearly the 50 foot right of way through the canyon is not pristine wilderness, needing to be kept inviolate from the tires of any vehicles.  Pueblans built their homes in the canyon walls, not the canyon bed.

The protest ride did no physical harm to the canyon, and the usual penalty for riding on a closed road would be around $100 to $200.  But my cousin-in-law (along with Monte Wells, a local blogger with degrees in anthropology and archaeology) was convicted with conspiracy against the US government, along with riding on a closed road, and both face penalties of up to a year in prison, a $100,000 fine, and large penalties for restitution of the non-damage that was done by 50 or so ATV riders who showed up for the protest.  And that is disgusting to me--clearly a miscarriage of justice.

So why do this thing?  What's it all about?  There is an increasing feeling in this area of the country that federal agencies are over-reaching their own legal authority, that Utah is being treated as if it were not a state, but still a territory.  People "in the know" say that since 2009 the BLM has become much more aggressive.  If civil disobedience is widely hailed as heroic by the liberal media when discussing Rosa Parks and Gandhi--and the Occupy Movement-- why such hateful backlash when it is used by conservatives (in the comment sections of the news reports, and in the penalty from the trial itself). 

Here's a quote from Phil: I have said a number of times, this protest is not about Recapture, or about ATVs, it is about the jurisdictional creep of the federal government. I heard elected officials say that we need to find the “right” issue and then really jump on it. From my perspective, we have a chance every day to defend our local jurisdiction from the overreaching hand of the BLM and other federal agencies. 

Last, here's what Senator Mike Lee has to say about an initiative to transfer control of federal lands back to the states.

For more information, see RecaptureInstitute.org

“The Creeping Culture of Euthanasia”--Part 4

The above title was on the cover of a National Review magazine a while back, and it has stuck in my mind as overly appropriate.  Because euthanasia does creep, very quietly and behind the scenes.  It isn't just for the National Socialists of Germany in the 1940s.  It's not just for patients who are terminal and in pain.  It's not just for the future when the "death panels" of Obamacare are fully implemented.  It's here and it's now, and has been for a while.

As our cultural norms are "progressing" so also is our expectation of end of life care.  There are plenty of "death with dignity" folks out there working to legalize euthanasia--even infant euthanasia, which is now legal in several European countries.  And you don't have to have a terminal condition: 1%  of all deaths in Belgium are now due to euthanasia. Voluntary suicide is legal in Oregon, Washington, and Montana.  But laws are not necessary--euthanasia happens all the time in hospitals.  One by one, "progressive" healthcare practitioners have been changing the landscape of medical treatment with end-of-life decision making.  At least 30% of total healthcare dollars spent on a person during his lifetime are during his last year.  So if you shorten the life by one year, you can save a whole lot of $.  Liberals operate on that principle all the time.  How do I know this? I've seen it.

I have worked in six different ICUs in three different states over 20 years, but the first place I worked was a Medical unit. This was the mid-80s, and it was just becoming commonplace for a physician to order "Do Not Resuscitate" status for patients who were very old and sick or who had a terminal illness. One physician infuriated us by admitting terminal, dying patients to the hospital but refusing to write DNRs. So we'd end up doing CPR on them when they died: a futile and violent nonsense.

But the culture changed, and end-of-life discussions and plans now commonly go along with terminal diagnoses, which is good. But in emergency situations there is often no opportunity to consult the patient about his wishes, and the family is guided by the physician.  I noticed a direct correlation between the treatment decisions of doctors and nurses that I knew to be more liberal, and a haste in withdrawing or minimizing treatments for their elderly patients. One very liberal nurse (that I had many arguments with at 3 a.m. when things were quiet in the unit) even went so far as to say that "It's a waste of resources to admit old people to the ICU."  Not "Old people shouldn't be admitted because it doesn't do them any good--poor outcomes and suffering--quality of life--etc." but "It's bad for society."

One of my co-workers was actually caught attempting to "euthanize" a patient by administering massive doses of IV morphine--this was in the news, and she did get in big trouble. Yes, the patient would have died anyway--probably within the next week. But it's a very short trip in the mind of a progressive from letting someone die, to helping someone die more quickly to save resources. And she was the most liberal of anyone I've ever worked with--she told me that her teenage daughter's form of rebellion was to stop having sex with her boyfriend and "find Jesus"--she was very disturbed about that.  Just a window into her mind.

On one occasion (I can't give too many details because of confidentiality) I took care of an active older man (driving, golfing) who'd had a small heart attack and developed pneumonia and was put on a ventilator.  He did great during the night and his chest X-ray looked better in the morning.  I was shocked when I came back the next night to find that he was dead--they'd put him on a morphine drip and taken him off the ventilator and let him go.  I'd stop breathing too if I had pneumonia (which I did a few years ago) and was put on a morphine drip!  But his doctor was one of the liberal ones and had told his family that he would probably not recover--he'd only been in the ICU for 2 days--so they consented.

And patients are also quietly euthanized outside of the ICU.  I took care of a young-ish woman who had brain damage from an accident, but who was stable and off all treatments.  She had decent reflexes but would probably never recover much brain function.  The doctor and family decided that she wouldn't want to live that way, so they stopped her tube feedings and she died of dehydration.  This was a Terri Schiavo case that never made it to the Supreme Court, not even to the hospital's Ethics Committee--it was just done.  And it's done all the time.

To be clear, I am not in favor of administering every treatment to every patient all the time--comfort, yes, life-sustaining drugs, no.  But withholding food and liquids is murder in my mind.  What usually happens in these cases is that before too long the patient contracts pneumonia or a UTI, then gets septic, and, without antibiotics, passes away.  And that's OK in many cases where there clearly is no hope of a meaningful recovery.  But it takes too long for many of my liberal colleagues, who are in such a hurry to have a tidy, inexpensive death.

And that takes us back to the main point here.  When we have "socialized medicine" we are all pulling from the same bank account for our treatments.  Rationing becomes the name of the game, since healthcare is an unlimited demand on a limited pool of resources.  So if Patient A gets a treatment, Patient B will not get it, because the "powers that be" decide how many doses of each drug to purchase, how many salaries to pay, how many hospitals to build and equip, etc. and it will never be enough.  So if you receive a diagnosis of cancer and think you'll probably not make the five year survivor mark, you may, in the depression of the first stages of post-diagnosis grief, make the "heroic" decision that it's simpler and more altruistic to die rather than to fight for your life.  What a good socialist you are!  Bring on the suicide cocktail!

Cultures are changed by many forces and incentives.  But one undeniable one that is on our horizon is the pressure that "rationed medicine" puts on individuals and their life-or-death decisions.  Euthanasia goes from unthinkable, to a repulsive option only to be used in a few selected circumstances, to an acceptable option for many circumstances, to the desired "final solution" to the problems of having an aging population and not enough money or personnel to care for them.  Socialized medicine definitely weighs in on the euthanasia balance scale, tipping it toward death. 

When I was a missionary/nurse in Peru we would avoid taking sick missionaries to the "free" (government) hospitals, because people would DIE while standing in the long lines there; we would use the for-profit hospitals instead.  But I went to one once, and the level of grunge and despair shook me to my soul, and I remember thinking "Thank God we don't have socialized medicine in America." .......... :-(

So what the heck does this have to do with my starting point--Ken Cuccinelli?  In my fantasy world it goes:
Elect Conservative Leaders at the State Level>
The Conservative State Legislatures call a Convention (following Article 5 of the Constitution) to Propose Amendments to Strip the Federal Government of much of it's Ill-Gotten Power>
The States Repeal the 17th Amendment and Roll Back the Powers of the "Federal" (National) Government, including Obamacare>
Sensible Legislature is Proposed to Reduce Healthcare Costs, mainly based on Deregulation and increasing Competition

I know it would be an uphill battle, but following the events of the last three years (Obamacare passed over the objections of the majority, Obamacare challenge defeated in the Supreme Court, attempt to defund Obamacare defeated in Congress) I don't see an alternative.  A quote for you:
"Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have." -- Harry Emerson Fosdick

And If We Fail? The Future of Healthcare--Part 3

If nothing changes--if we continue down the road to a national consolidation of power--there will be many unforeseen changes to our country: God still has a plan for us, so the power-hungry won't have it all their way. But one thing I believe will happen like night following day is that within ten years or so we will have a "national" healthcare plan. Obamacare is flawed from the start–who knows–maybe that was intentional. So as soon as it is in full swing messing people up, they will cry for change. And the Statists will be there with a beautiful, simple, attractive "single payer" system of government healthcare. And we will love it.

At least the majority will love it, and that's all that matters in a democracy, right? Specifically, following the clear patterns of the Canadian and British healthcare plans, the majority of people in their 20s through 50s will be enamored of it--after a few years we won't know what we did without it. So easy! You just show your card when you go to the doctor or hospital and they take care of you. We also won't remember paying less than 50% of our income in taxes of one form or another (we're not that far away from that now) but at least we don't have to worry about paperwork or changing policies with changing jobs.

So about 75% of us will be happy with it. And who won't? Those who actually use the services to a significant extent--the old and the ill--the weakest members of society. Lest you think I'm just shooting from the hip here, I'll provide you with some hard data and some sad stories.

Currently in the U.S.A. our organ transplantation rates are TWICE those of Europe. Why is that significant? Organ transplant is something that is very expensive to do, and the person is frequently not able to return to an active, productive life but always has some limitations including being on costly medicine for the rest of her life. From a Social Darwinist viewpoint (like is prominent in atheistic Europe), it's not good for society: we can't spend a lot of our communal resources (money) on any one person, especially if that person is not able to re-enter the workforce. So we ration. Instead of calling it "socialized medicine" we should call it "rationed medicine" because that is what happens in every country that it is tried in. Organ transplants are already rationed by the nature of them, since there are only so many spare organs to go around. So to have this procedure be twice as common in the US is a solid indicator of the fact that we value human life in this country and try to preserve it at least twice as much as folks across the pond.

My friend Cheri Thiriot lived in England for 20+ years, and she's not happy to see Obamacare being rolled out (who cares about how rocky the rollout is--it's coming). She said that in Britain if you get cancer and try to get treated, you may be told "Sorry, the drug that you need is not available in this district--our quota has been used up." Rationing! Despite the propaganda-fest at the Opening Ceremonies of the London Olympics (I thought it was so creepy--didn't you?) Britains don't trust the NHS.

"A 2007 survey of almost 1,000 physicians by Doctors’ Magazine found that two-thirds said they had been told by their local NHS trust not to prescribe certain drugs, and one in five doctors knew patients who had suffered as a result of treatment rationing. The study cited one physician who characterized the NHS as 'a lottery.' A new study this year by GP magazine...found that 90 percent of NHS trusts were rationing care."

And Canada is no better: it is common to wait a year for a knee replacement. My brother-in-law is married to a Canadian, and when we went up to Toronto for the wedding we chatted with her grandmother . She told us that her son was diagnosed with Marfan's syndrome after his heart stopped one day and he was resuscitated. After being stabilized he was SENT HOME--there was no availability for a date with the cardiac surgeon for the next six months. So he waited, knowing each moment that his heart could stop again and next time he might not be so lucky. In the US he'd have been in the OR by the next day!

And what about here? In the US there are laws in place that mandate that people can get treatment for medical emergencies regardless of ability to pay–yes, they’ll bill you later and try to get you on Medicaid, etc. but that can’t hold up your ability to access treatment. My cousin is an anesthesiologist in a Texas hospital close to the border of Mexico. He says that every day the ER is packed with Mexicans who have crossed illegally to try to obtain medical care. So they treat them, but it is such an overwhelming problem that the treatment is often along the lines of "Oh, your arm is off? Here’s a band-aid." There are certainly no heart valve replacements (like the Canadian waited six months for) or long-term dialysis. Maybe they’ll take out an appendix, or stitch you up a bit, or give you some pills. And send you on your way. This is what rationing looks like here–insufficient funds or will to treat all the demand, so you just pretend to treat it. And that is very easy to do in medicine, since few people have a good grasp on pathophysiology, pharmacology, and all their treatment options (the internet is helping with that). More on this in Part 4 "The Creeping Culture of Euthanasia"

100 Years of the 17th Amendment--is ENOUGH!--Part 2

The Progressive Era gave us, in 1913, the 17th Amendment to the Constitution, which calls for the direct election of U.S. Senators by the people of each state.  No big deal right?  More democracy is a good thing, right?  But this single piece of legislature has altered the political landscape so much that after 100 years the Founders wouldn't recognize this as the system they set up, and Obamacare has put the nails in the coffin of the Constitution.
At the Constitutional Convention there was lots of debate regarding how the bodies of Congress were going to be chosen.  The Virginia Plan, created by James Madison, called for a large "first" House directly elected by the people, and a smaller "second" house (Senate) elected by the first.  The governor of Virginia, Edmund Randolph stated that the second house "ought to be much smaller than that of the first; so small as to be exempt from the passionate proceedings to which numerous assemblies are liable...(secure from) the turbulence and follies of democracy."  These men knew that if democracy (the House) were to have no balanced counterpart in the Senate, the various states would gradually lose power to an encroaching national entity.  In truth, we no longer have a "federal government" in which the states have significant power, but a national one, and that was exactly what the delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention feared.
But why does that matter today?  Surely it's OK if each state has the same laws--better even, since it makes it easier to move around and do business in the USA?  What has happened since 1913 is that the Senators have become, not agents and representatives of their states, but representatives of their political party.  So any special interest need only woo (read $$$) one party, and they have the vote of not only all the Congressmen of that party but all the Senators.  THIS was how we got Obamacare and many many other destructive programs.  A Senate elected by their own state legislatures, as the original Constitution had set forth, would be much harder to sway to a position that would centralize power in Washington.
Back to the point about democracy: Bryan Caplan, Paul's Econ professor at GMU, wrote a book called The Myth of the Rational Voter (video of him discussing it here), which dismantles the idea that democracies choose good policies.  In fact, democracies always tend toward socialism--this has been known for a long time.  And socialism comes armed with a flood of busybodies telling you how to live your life.  And these are not just suggestions, being backed up by the police power of the State.  Thus, Statists love democracy.
The hand-wringing surrounding the potential repeal of the 17th Amendment goes like this: "The Tea Party wants to strip from voters the power to elect their own Senators!"  Actually, each person has a much greater chance of influencing an election in their own district as they choose state legislators.  If you elect legislators that are in line with your own views of the proper role of government, then they can represent you as the debates surrounding the choice of Senators are on the table.  And those Senators would really listen to their state constituency, instead of just voting along party lines.
Why does this matter?  If we don't repeal Obamacare quickly the pain of extraction will be that much greater.  More on that in Part 3--the only part I have any real specialized knowledge in because of my 20 years as a Critical Care nurse--why socialized medicine is a disaster in every country it is tried in.

Why Virginians Must Elect Ken Cuccinelli--Part 1

The Virginia gubernatorial election is a week and a half away, and the liberal media is telling us that it's all over for Ken--the polls show him down 7 to 10 points.  His campaign has been outspent 2 to 1 by Terry McAuliffe; no surprise there, since $ has been McAuliffe's strong suit for years as a political fundraiser and DNC chairman under Bill Clinton.
This cannot happen.  We cannot elect Clinton's lapdog who has been involved in all kinds of shadiness over the years.  Ken Cuccinelli has been a principled leader as a State Senator and Attorney General, fighting for things I and other Mormons believe in: life, family and freedom.
I have been gloomy for a while now about the future of this country, as the federal government continues to ingest larger and larger chunks of American property (command and control of land, money, and everything down to what light bulbs you can use), American jobs, and American decision-making.  Obamacare represents a take-over of 1/5th of the American economy, and that's not the worst of it (see Part 3 on the future of healthcare--coming soon). 
But there is still a "chance and hope of escaping (that) fate" (Dickens' Christmas Carol): the federal government can be rolled back if we get enough freedom-loving leaders in positions of power at the state level.  I have been reading the new book by Mark Levin (I hate his personal attacks, but I love his political wisdom) The Liberty Amendments.  In it he calls for a Constitutional Convention following Article 5 of the Constitution: "...on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution."  The book addresses the history of the Constitution--why the various parts were put into place and how they have been mangled in the interim.  It also discusses the history of the efforts to amend the Constitution through various means.  This would be an uphill battle, but now is the time to engage in it--so many people are angry about Obamacare that there is some momentum that way.  And Ken is just the man to take it on--he's the first of several state Attorneys General who sued the federal government over the individual mandate to buy health insurance--and were told by a Supreme Court (stacked immorally by Obama with Obamacare-involved Elena Kagan) that the states were essentially just arms of the federal government now.  Which we'll get to next in "100 Years of the 17th Amendment."

Resurrection!

This blog was created when I was the Relief Society President of the Gainesville ward, and we had an ongoing book club that focused on reading books on history, politics, and economics.  I "needed" a place to write some observations and thoughts about the current state of the country, so this works.

"I'm 63 and I’m Tired" by Robert A. Hall

Robert A. Hall is the actor who plays the coroner on CSI if you watch that show.

I'm 63. Except for one semester in college when jobs were scarce and a six-month period when I was between jobs, but job-hunting every day, I've worked, hard, since I was 18. Despite some health challenges, I still put in 50-hour weeks, and haven't called in sick in seven or eight years. I make a good salary, but I didn't inherit my job or my income, and I worked to get where I am. Given the economy, there's no retirement in sight, and I'm tired. Very tired.

I'm tired of being told that I have to "spread the wealth" to people who don't have my work ethic. I'm tired of being told the government will take the money I earned, by force if necessary, and give it to people too lazy to earn it.

I'm tired of being told that I have to pay more taxes to "keep people in their homes." Sure, if they lost their jobs or got sick, I'm willing to help. But if they bought Mc Mansions at three times the price of our paid-off, $250,000 condo, on one-third of my salary, then let the left-wing Congress-critters who passed Fannie and Freddie and the Community Reinvestment Act that created the bubble help them with their own money.

I'm tired of being told how bad America is by left-wing millionaires like Michael Moore, George Soros and Hollywood Entertainers who live in luxury because of the opportunities America offers. In thirty years, if they get their way, the United States will have the economy of Zimbabwe, the freedom of the press of China, the crime and violence of Mexico, the tolerance for Christian people of Iran, and the freedom of speech of Venezuela.

I'm tired of being told that Islam is a "Religion of Peace," when every day I can read dozens of stories of Muslim men killing their sisters, wives and daughters for their family "honor"; of Muslims rioting over some slight offense; of Muslims murdering Christian and Jews because they aren't "believers"; of Muslims burning schools for girls; of Muslims stoning teenage rape victims to death for "adultery"; of Muslims mutilating the genitals of little girls; all in the name of Allah, because the Qur'an and Shari'a law tells them to.

I'm tired of being told that "race doesn't matter" in the post-racial world of Obama, when it's all that matters in affirmative action jobs, lower college admission and graduation standards for minorities (harming them the most), government contract set-asides, tolerance for the ghetto culture of violence and fatherless children that hurts minorities more than anyone, and in the appointment of U.S. Senators from Illinois.

I think it's very cool that we have a black president and that a black child is doing her homework at the desk where Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation. I just wish the black president was Condi Rice, or someone who believes more in freedom and the individual and less arrogantly of an all-knowing government.

I'm tired of a news media that thinks Bush's fundraising and inaugural expenses were obscene, but that think Obama's, at triple the cost, were wonderful; that thinks Bush exercising daily was a waste of presidential time, but Obama exercising is a great example for the public to control weight and stress; that picked over every line of Bush's military records, but never demanded that Kerry release his; that slammed Palin, with two years as governor, for being too inexperienced for VP, but touted Obama with three years as senator as potentially the best president ever. Wonder why people are dropping their subscriptions or switching to Fox News? Get a clue. I didn't vote for Bush in 2000, but the media and Kerry drove me to his camp in 2004.

I'm tired of being told that out of "tolerance for other cultures" we must let Saudi Arabia use our oil money to fund mosques and mandrassa Islamic schools to preach hate in America , while no American group is allowed to fund a church, synagogue or religious school in Saudi Arabia to teach love and tolerance.


I'm tired of being told I must lower my living standard to fight global warming, which no one is allowed to debate. My wife and I live in a two-bedroom apartment and carpool together five miles to our jobs. We also own a three-bedroom condo where our daughter and granddaughter live. Our carbon footprint is about 5% of Al Gore's, and if you're greener than Gore, you're green enough.

I'm tired of being told that drug addicts have a disease, and I must help support and treat them, and pay for the damage they do. Did a giant germ rush out of a dark alley, grab them, and stuff white powder up their noses while they tried to fight it off? I don't think Gay people choose to be Gay, but I damn sure think druggies chose to take drugs. And I'm tired of harassment from cool people treating me like a freak when I tell them I never tried marijuana.

I'm tired of illegal aliens being called "undocumented workers," especially the ones who aren't working, but are living on welfare or crime. What's next? Calling drug dealers, "Undocumented Pharmacists"? And, no, I'm not against Hispanics. Most of them are Catholic, and it's been a few hundred years since Catholics wanted to kill me for my religion. I'm willing to fast track for citizenship any Hispanic person, who can speak English, doesn't have a criminal record and who is self-supporting without family on welfare, or who serves honorably for three years in our military..... Those are the citizens we need.

I'm tired of latte liberals and journalists, who would never wear the uniform of the Republic themselves, or let their entitlement-handicapped kids near a recruiting station, trashing our military. They and their kids can sit at home, never having to make split-second decisions under life and death circumstances, and bad mouth better people than themselves. Do bad things happen in war? You bet. Do our troops sometimes misbehave? Sure. Does this compare with the atrocities that were the policy of our enemies for the last fifty years and still are? Not even close. So here's the deal. I'll let myself be subjected to all the humiliation and abuse that was heaped on terrorists at Abu Ghraib or Gitmo, and the critics can let themselves be subject to captivity by the Muslims, who tortured and beheaded Daniel Pearl in Pakistan, or the Muslims who tortured and murdered Marine Lt. Col. William Higgins in Lebanon, or the Muslims who ran the blood-spattered Al Qaeda torture rooms our troops found in Iraq, or the Muslims who cut off the heads of schoolgirls in Indonesia, because the girls were Christian. Then we'll compare notes. British and American soldiers are the only troops in history that civilians came to for help and handouts, instead of hiding from in fear.

I'm tired of people telling me that their party has a corner on virtue and the other party has a corner on corruption. Read the papers; bums are bipartisan. And I'm tired of people telling me we need bipartisanship. I live in Illinois, where the "Illinois Combine" of Democrats has worked to loot the public for years. Not to mention the tax cheats in Obama's cabinet.

I'm tired of hearing wealthy athletes, entertainers and politicians of both parties talking about innocent mistakes, stupid mistakes or youthful mistakes, when we all know they think their only mistake was getting caught. I'm tired of people with a sense of entitlement, rich or poor.

Speaking of poor, I'm tired of hearing people with air-conditioned homes, color TVs and two cars called poor. The majority of Americans didn't have that in 1970, but we didn't know we were "poor." The poverty pimps have to keep changing the definition of poor to keep the dollars flowing.

I'm real tired of people who don't take responsibility for their lives and actions. I'm tired of hearing them blame the government, or discrimination or big-whatever for their problems.

Yes, I'm damn tired. But I'm also glad to be 63. Because, mostly, I'm not going to have to see the world these people are making. I'm just sorry for my granddaughter.

Robert A. Hall is a Marine Vietnam veteran who served five terms in the Massachusetts State Senate.

September Book Club Meeting - The Real Benjamin Franklin

We will be meeting Friday, September 24th at 1:00 at 13104 Big Leaf Maple Ct. GV.

And for your reading enjoyment...
A new, updated, Dr. Seuss book:

I do not like this Uncle Sam,
I do not like his health care scam.
I do not like these dirty crooks,
or how they lie and cook the books.

I do not like when Congress steals,
I do not like their secret deals.
I do not like this speaker, Nan,
I do not like this 'YES WE CAN.'

I do not like this spending spree,
I'm smart, I know that nothing's free.
I do not like your smug replies,
when I complain about your lies.

I do not like this kind of hope.
I do not like it, nope, nope, nope!
Author Unknown