"Town Hall" Meetings... Right

My Congressman Elijah Cummings (D,MD) has hosted call in High Tech "Town Hall" Meetings to inform constituents on the Government(Democrat's)proposed Health Care Legislation. I applaud the concept but question the medium.

At a face to face Town Hall Meeting, there is public discourse and free access. Opposing views are physically present and can be heard without going through a staff member who can "screen" calls and can "terminate" any "objectionable" calls.

While the concept seems efficient and increases access, it also, for a skeptic as I am, gives a subtle and silent ability to the host (Congressman Cummings and his staffers)to control discourse and influence public opinion by selectivity in which caller are given "air time".

I do not trust the transparency of any politician, especially on highly inflammatory issues such as this.

With the Obama White House asking for the NAMES of critics of the Health Care Legislation, I am reminded of President Nixon's Enemies list. Does anyone else see the similarity? But don't expect it to get the air time Nixon's list did.

Change is here, like it or not! Just please don't believe them when they say it has popular support.

Serious Threat

I fear that the true purpose of the "Change" our President intends is starting to be revealed. In one sense it is politics as usual and that is no real surprise. The radical tenor of the change and the recanting of political campaign rhetoric after the election are no real surprise.

The bail out of the economy which is in fact rewards for and to campaign supporters will bankrupt our economy. Yet, where is the stimulus and what positive affect has been realized?

The rush for Health Care reform, actually, the installation of a socialized Health Care System, is another unaffordable burden which increased Government involvement in our daily lives and actually in our very continuation of life. If this passes, the Freedom of Choice legislation will be totally unnecessary since the legislation requires federal support for abortion. Managed Health Care is another term for rationing.

Our newly elected Supreme Court Justice is another Liberal who will insert her Living Constitution on us. She had demonstrated via the most recent Supreme Court REVERSAL of her landmark decision the rush to opine based upon beliefs with a total lack of analysis or due consideration of existing case law.

The refusal to consider simple requests for legislation to be published 48 hours before any vote and a request that Congressmen and Senators actually READ the bills before they VOTE on them has been dismissed as IRRESPONSIBLE! Imagine that!

We must remain vigilant. Pray that our Republic survives until after the 2010 election and the populace wakes up and reconsiders the support for a radical Democratic policymakers.

In 2010 VOTE EVERY INCUMBENT OUT regardless of party.

Clean House and start over.

American Papist: Not Your Average Catholic!: Round-up: Bishops who have responded to Notre Dame's Obama invitation (27)

American Papist: Not Your Average Catholic!: Round-up: Bishops who have responded to Notre Dame's Obama invitation (27)

The Political Coffeehouse: Jake DeSantis

The Political Coffeehouse: Jake DeSantis

REAL Responsible Education About Life Act

Rather than look at the realization that Government is ready to take on the sex education of all children under the guise that morality is not effective, the main issue is the expansion and acceptance of a secular society and a dismissal of morality as ineffective.

It is also the intrusion of Government into our daily lives into areas previously reserved for family and faith. Government "Leaders" have accepted that sex is rampant and that is acceptable behavior. Day care in High Schools is expected. The majority of the children born in the USA are out of wedlock. If we expect success here then look at the stellar results in the basics: reading, writing and arithmetic! With all the funds going into education now, our graduates should be more than spoiled illiterates! Look at the examples we see daily in the Capital and then answer the question; Are these individuals the ones we want to hold up as examples of respectable, prudent, intelligent, responsible, moral behavior? I thought not!

Permissiveness is demanded. Accountability is denied.

The issue isn't "allowing" sex education in school, the real issue is where is our morality? What needs to be taught is that every action has a result. Our children need to be taught that along with the result there comes responsibility. All behavior is not acceptable. To delegate to the Government our responsibility to teach our children how to be moral and responsible is in itself irresponsible.

What if she had said no?

On the feast of the Annunciation, I went back into my "library" and found this article from http://www.universalis.com/.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


What if she had said No?

The question may strike you as irreverent. How dare I suggest that the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of Heaven, Co-Redemptrix of mankind, could have left us in the lurch like that?

But what if she had?

Could she have said No? You might say that of course she couldn’t, she was far too holy — but you would be guilty of demeaning and dangerous sentimentality. It is demeaning because it turns Our Lady from a free human being into a sanctified automaton. The whole glory of the Annunciation is that Mary, the second Eve, could have said No to God but she said Yes instead. That is what we celebrate, that is what we praise her for; and rightly so.

This sentimental view is dangerous too. If we believe that the most important decision in the history of the world was in fact inevitable, that it couldn’t have been otherwise, then that means it was effortless. Now we have a marvelous excuse for laziness. Next time we’re faced with a tough moral decision, we needn’t worry about doing what is right. Just drift, and God will make sure that whatever choice we make is the right one. If God really wants us to do something he’ll sweep us off his feet the way he did Mary, and if he chooses not to, it’s hardly our fault, is it?

So Mary could have said No to Gabriel. What if she had? He couldn’t just go and ask someone else, like some sort of charity collector. With all the genealogies and prophecies in the Bible, there was only one candidate. It’s an alarming thought. Ultimately, of course, God would have done something: the history of salvation is the history of him never abandoning his people however pig-headed they were. But God has chosen to work through human history. If the first attempt at redemption took four thousand years to prepare, from the Fall to the Annunciation, how many tens of thousands of years would the next attempt have taken?

Even if the world sometimes makes us feel like cogs in a machine, each of us is unique and each of us is here for a purpose: just because it isn’t as spectacular a purpose as Mary’s, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. When we fail to seek our vocation, or put off fulfilling some part of it, we try to justify ourselves by saying that someone else will do it better, that God will provide, that it doesn’t really matter. But we are lying. However small a part I have to play, the story of the Annunciation tells me it is my part and no-one else can do it.


Faced with the enormity of her choice, how was Mary able to decide? If she said No, unredeemed generations would toil on under the burden of sin. If she said Yes, she herself would suffer, and so would her Son; but both would be glorified. Millions of people not yet born would have Heaven open to them; but millions of others would suffer oppression and death in her son’s name. The stakes were almost infinite.
You might say that Mary didn’t worry about all this, just obeyed God; but I don’t believe it. What God wanted was not Mary’s unthinking obedience but her full and informed consent as the representative of the entire human race. The two greatest miracles of the Annunciation are these: that God gave Mary the wisdom to know the consequences of her decision, and that he gave her the grace not to be overwhelmed by that knowledge.
When we come to an important decision in our lives, we can easily find our minds clouded by the possible consequences, or, even more, by partial knowledge of them. How can we ever move, when there is so much good and evil whichever way we go? The Annunciation gives us the answer. God’s grace will give us the strength to move, even if the fate of the whole world is hanging in the balance. After all, God does not demand that our decisions should be the correct ones (assuming that there even is such a thing), only that they should be rightly made.

There is one more truth that the Annunciation teaches us, and it is so appalling that I can think of nothing uplifting to say about it that will take the sting away: perhaps it is best forgotten, because it tells us more about God than we are able to understand. The Almighty Father creates heaven and earth, the sun and all the stars; but when he really wants something done, he comes, the Omnipotent and Omniscient, to one of his poor, weak creatures — and he asks.

And, day by day, he keeps on asking us.

Parent's Prayer

There are frequently prayers which we come to love.

This one I found in the church missile when I had my two young sons living at home.

This prayer faithfully captures the essence of parenthood to me in an extremely personal way.

Not only did I pray this prayer but I attempted to live it daily.

I hope it will be as beneficial to you the reader as it has been to me.

Parent's Prayer

Most loving Father, the example of parenthood, you have entrusted our children to us to bring them up for you and prepare them for everlasting life. Assist us with your grace, that we may fulfill this sacred duty with competence and love. Teach us what to give and what to withhold. Show us when to reprove, when to praise and when to be silent. Make us gentle and considerate, yet firm and watchful. Keep us from the weakness of indulgence and the excess of severity. Give us the courage to be disliked sometimes by our children, when we must do necessary things which are displeasing in their eyes. Give us the imagination to enter their world in order to understand and guide them. Grant us all the virtues we need to lead them by word and example in the ways of wisdom and piety. One day, with them, may we enter into the joys of our true and everlasting home with you in heaven.

Amen.

AIG, Congress and the Constitution

We all object to the outrageous bonuses paid to the AIG executives with the rationalization that they need the expertise these individuals have to continue operation. The complexities of the market in which AIG operates gives plausible rationale to this. But how much is a "fair compensation"?

Shouldn't the concept of contributory negligence or some similar concept be employed. These experts are needed to get themselves, and us, out of the mess THEY engineered and got them selves into. They should be appreciate that they are still employed and not in the courts or incarcerated.

Congress however with their righteous indignation is going after them but in this case, I cannot support this legislative effort. It seems to be blatantly punitive and directed as a specific group for punishment. That is a Bill of Attainder which is prohibited by our Constitution. The document which Congress has SWORN to uphold and defend. The legislation flies in the face of the Constitution and James Madison's comments in Federalist Number 44.

Please let us survive this Congress!

Bill of Attainder

Definition: A legislative act that singles out an individual or group for punishment without a trial.

The Constitution of the United States, Article I, Section 9, paragraph 3 provides that: "No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law will be passed."

"The Bill of Attainder Clause was intended not as a narrow, technical (and therefore soon to be outmoded) prohibition, but rather as an implementation of the separation of powers, a general safeguard against legislative exercise of the judicial function or more simply - trial by legislature." U.S. v. Brown, 381 U.S. 437, 440 (1965).

"These clauses of the Constitution are not of the broad, general nature of the Due Process Clause, but refer to rather precise legal terms which had a meaning under English law at the time the Constitution was adopted. A bill of attainder was a legislative act that singled out one or more persons and imposed punishment on them, without benefit of trial. Such actions were regarded as odious by the framers of the Constitution because it was the traditional role of a court, judging an individual case, to impose punishment." William H. Rehnquist, The Supreme Court, page 166.

"Bills of attainder, ex post facto laws, and laws impairing the obligations of contracts, are contrary to the first principles of the social compact, and to every principle of sound legislation. ... The sober people of America are weary of the fluctuating policy which has directed the public councils. They have seen with regret and indignation that sudden changes and legislative interferences, in cases affecting personal rights, become jobs in the hands of enterprising and influential speculators, and snares to the more-industrious and less-informed part of the community." James Madison, Federalist Number 44, 1788.

Supreme Court cases construing the Bill of Attainder clause include:

• Ex Parte Garland, 4 Wallace 333 (1866).
• Cummings v. Missouri, 4 Wallace 277 (1866).
• U.S. v. Brown, 381 U.S. 437 (1965).
• Nixon v. Administrator of General Services, 433 U.S.425 (1977).
• Selective Service Administration v. Minnesota PIRG, 468 U.S. 841 (1984).

Quoted from http://www.techlawjournal.com/glossary/legal/attainder.htm

Update

I have been missing for a period of time but now feel compelled to share my thoughts.

In taking a view of business and the various challenges I think it is important to appreciate that one of the joys of business is the opportunity to work with and have contact with some exceptionally good people. We work in an environment where everyone expects perfection and we strive for perfection but sometimes try as hard as we may, perfection is elusive.

It is at those times that we are challenged; do we face the reality and accept responsibility, a rare item these days, and try to resolve the problem or do we rationalize or find fault elsewhere. Are the people we deal with looking to resolve the problem or looking for someone to fault?

Over the years I have found that being honest and working with others as you would like them to work with you, the golden rule, is truly the best approach. Finding those clients and friends who look to work together for the collective best interest of all is exceptionally comforting, if not contagious.

Sirach 6:14-17
A faithful friend is a sturdy shelter; he who finds one finds a treasure.
A faithful friend is beyond price, no sum can balance his worth.
A faithful friend is a life-saving remedy, such as he who fears God finds;
For he who fears God behaves accordingly, and his friend will be like himself.

The New Pope and the Press

I find it an interesting commentary that the media entirely misses the importance of the election of the Pope. This is not political; it is a religious event. The Pope isn’t elected to bring divergent sectors of the Catholic Church together. He isn’t elected to please one group or to punish another. His role is that of being the head of one of the oldest established institutions on the face of the earth, the Roman Catholic Church. He helps Catholics by being a shepherd over the beliefs of the Church.



It seems that the commentators and reporters want an election with the incumbent changes brought by the winner. They want to report that the Pope will be responsive to the demands and desires of society. Let us hope that he does not respond in such a way. He is the leader and specifically he is the person who is responsible to maintain and interpret God’s Word and the Gospels. He isn’t a Supreme Court Justice who must past a litmus test on one topic or another. Our belief is that by the power of the Holy Spirit, the cardinals elected the best person to take on the responsibility of being the figurehead and leader of the Church today.



The appropriate verse from scripture to consider the mission of the Pope which should be understood by the media is found in Matthew Chapter 26 verse 39 which states in part: “Yet not as I will, but as You will.” The Pope is charged with leading the Church and following God not the other way around.

Observation on Feb 13, 2005

As I read through the Howard County Times, there was an article on religious holidays and the school system. The issue was that the Muslims were demanding that the School Board not have exams during their holy days. The Superintendent stated that the system had a policy in place that no student would be penalized for honoring a religious holiday and that the administration was aware of this rule.

My immediate reaction was that the Muslims were overly sensitive and were trying to gain special treatment. My impression was that if this were a theocracy, similar to the Muslim Theocracies in the Arab Countries, a similar request by Christians would not even be heard much less have any chance of gaining consideration. Initially I was incensed. Then I stopped and thought that this was something which differentiates us from many of the "third World" and other countries.

By protecting their rights, we protect ours. No matter how much we object to the other and no matter that if the positions were reversed that they would not grant us similar consideration, we must grant equal protection to them if we expect it for ourselves. To do otherwise would betray the Constitution and the responsibilities placed upon us by the Framers of the Constitution.

Holiday Observations

As we enter into the Holidays, I often think how we have become less tolerant of others. Or is it that others are less tolerant of us? It seems that the middle class, those upon who's shoulders the government and society depend, are expected to be the ones to make concessions, to accept compromises, to be tolerant of other customs and beliefs. But when it comes to our customs, our beliefs, if they offend a minute minority who are intolerant of us and what happens? We need to stop what we have done for generations. Why can't those who are offended attempt to show a little acceptance and understanding of us,just as the majority are demanded to give to them?

The thought of a Nativity Scene on the Court House steps when it was once expected is now unimaginable.

The expression "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance is now being attacked as being offensive.

What is going on and how did we get here?

I doubt it has come upon us via the legislative process, since the politicians would never visibly support such an attack on middle class values. No it is more insidious than that, it has come from the bureaucrats and the judges, the hidden force which controls our daily activities. They are empowered by the laws enacted by the legislature but unintended consequences have emerged. They have the power to push their agendas and force us to accept them.

When will we awake and take back our society? When will the pendulum swing back toward the center?

Remembrance Day

This weekend will be the 141st anniversary of Lincoln Gettysburg Address. In Gettysburg, the town will host numerous "living historians" and reenactors who will gather to in their own way to honor the men who fought in the bloody insurrection known as the American Civil War. There will be a grand parade with the Union Forces in front followed by the Confederates. As you watch the various units and organizations march past you will see a wide spectrum of study in the uniforms and 'elan of the troops. Some will be dressed in their finest dress uniform, some will present the image of hard fought men. Some will look like they just stepped out of a cheap costume store, they are called FARBS. Some will look as if they just stepped out of a Brady photograph. But most if not all, love history and they are trying to preserve it accurately so that it isn't re-written or sanitized. If you are in the area and you also love history, come to Gettysburg and watch the parade.

First Post

Welcome to my journal and blog. I hope that my entries will be engaging. There is no promise other than that they will be candid. There is no expressed mission or goal other than to candidly express my thought of the day. Please accept the poor writing, in that is part of the energy of a blog. Also excuse the spelling and typos. If you can read and understand what was written, then it could not have been that bad. Welcome aboard and enjoy the ride. I will look forward to hearing from anyone who stumbles upon my tomes. While I cannot guarantee daily entries, I will try to be regular and relevant. Not like this initial entry. Themes will develop and we will just have to see where this takes us.