Merry Christmas

On this Christmas Day with so much sadness and worry in the world, it compels me to speak of the true meaning of Christmas. I was watching “A Charlie Brown Christmas” with my grandchildren where they pitted the modern reality of worldly commercialism against the remembrance of the birth of Christ; the sadness of human existence against the hope of eternal salvation.

I see no need to expand on this and I would prefer to just quote young Linus who used the stage of the Christmas play to explain the true meaning of Christmas to a weary and troubled Charlie Brown. It is simple, child-like and heartwarming. As you read these words, may you find the comfort of your faith and embrace the divine gift of this miraculous birth and find the wealth of spirit that it brought to all mankind. I wish all of you a merry and blessed Christmas.

"And there were in the same country shepherds, abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them! And they were sore afraid ... And the angel said unto them, "Fear not! For, behold, I bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all my people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ, the Lord."

"And this shall be a sign unto you: Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger." And suddenly, there was with the angel a multitude of the Heavenly Host praising God, and saying, "Glory to God in the Highest, and on Earth peace, and good will toward men."

Linus Van Pelt

Congress and Christmas

It isn’t as though we needed a reminder of the iconoclastic nature of Congressional Democrats but just to make sure we haven’t forgotten what they represent, they have scheduled the final Senate vote on healthcare reform for Christmas Eve.

Isn’t ironic that they chose the day that many of us will spend preparing to celebrate the birth of Jesus to move this legislation forward? For Christians, Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s promise, the messiah that was to free the world from suffering and the lamb that would eventually be offered for the forgiveness of all sins. The founding fathers recognized that man’s rights descended from God and that all mankind was born free through the grace of God.

The unalienable rights so carefully described by these extraordinary men were not accorded by the act of a beneficent King or through the acts of an enlightened government; they are divine, eternal and inexorable. Jesus represents God’s promise that man should not be slave to man and that our rights, both enumerated and implied in the Constitution, are an affirmation of that liberty. Curiously, the healthcare bill places many of those rights in jeopardy as the roughly seventy new agencies and administrative boards formed under this legislation will for the first time, allow government to determine how we live our lives.

We will find ourselves under government mandate to live healthier lives based on a government agency’s definition of healthy. The bill already contains a special tax on beverages containing sugar and on tanning salons since the current heath advisory panels have already determined these are unhealthy. As the left gain more control the extremists will have more to say about your life than you will.

Animal rights activists have tried to advance their agenda by promoting the health benefits of a vegetarian lifestyle for decades. Studies conducted with the same unscrupulous manipulation of data corrupting the Climate Change argument have already suggested that consuming meat presents a hazard to one’s health. Cass Sunstein, Obama’s regulatory Czar, has already weighed in on the subject in previous writings and would be more than happy to “nudge” people into a meat-free lifestyle using the regulatory authority of the government and the weight of punitive “sin” taxes to achieve that goal.

Gun control, animal rights, leisure activities, hunting and a whole host of other things that we take for granted now, can all be reigned in given the broad brush healthcare officials will be given to paint with. This bill is not centered on healthcare but on preventative care which would give the administration an incredible amount of new power where basic lifestyle choices are concerned.

Worse of all, the sanctity of life itself will be jeopardized by this bill. The new agencies and health panels will mete out care based on your current health, age and their actuarial assessment of how many years of “quality” life you have remaining. As Dad approaches 80, the usual course of medical intervention for prostate cancer may be limited to a regimen of less effective treatment only because it is less costly. For the first time in American history, choices will be made by authoritative government boards that will determine how resources will be allocated based on the need to contain the overall cost of healthcare and not on the need of the patient or the desired outcome of treatment. Grandma may get a prescription for pain medication and a wheelchair instead of the hip replacement she would receive now.

This legislation enacts new taxes and the cuts in Medicare reimbursements immediately even though the benefits of the bill are not fully realized for four years; a little accounting trick to show “budget neutrality” over a ten year period simply to gain passage of the bill. The truth is that the cuts are not going to reduce the cost of the program but to fund a host of entirely new entitlement programs, including subsidies for the low income purchase of insurance through the exchange. Without the promised cuts going to reduce the cost of the overall program, the program must go into financial difficulty in year five through fifteen, forcing cuts in services and draconian rationing of healthcare to anyone that does not fall under the government definition of a “contributing” member of society.

No? Well that was one of the prescribed ideas of Dr. Ezekiel Emmanuel, architect of the Healthcare Bill and brother of White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emmanuel. Dr. Emmanuel believes in redefining the doctors Hippocratic Oath to allow assisted suicide and euthanasia. He also believes in the rationing of care based on an assessment of the patient’s ability to contribute to society and that only government can possess the impartiality required to make those assessments.

In order to pass this legislation, the government has had to manipulate the definition of commerce just to claim the authority for government to intervene in healthcare. They are using the Commerce Clause in the Constitution to find that authority, similar to what FDR did in the 1930’s. Even though you are seeking local medical care from a local doctor and purchasing your medicine from a local pharmacy, the government makes the leap that even this activity has a broad effect on the interstate relationship of the entire healthcare industry. That is a sham and they know it.

The fact is, and the general admission from Congressman James Clyburn is that most of what Congress does is not authorized in the Constitution. It is only the complacency of the American public that has allowed this to continue for as long as it has. Progressives have created an entire segment of the population that not only pays no taxes at all, but actually receives payments from the government for being good little dependents. With only 53% of the population actually paying taxes, we are fast approaching the tipping point where an election based on issues instead of preserving a government entitlement will no longer be possible.

The American people have been lied to since the debate on healthcare began. The truth now, is as it always was, is that the government’s lust for healthcare reform is that they must reduce the costs of their own failed and corrupt programs of Medicare and Medicaid. These programs were in trouble a mere three years after their inception and the short term cure in 1968 was to raid the Social Security trust fund and use that money to prop up Medicare/Medicaid, leaving Social Security as a hollow promise that they would deal with later. Well, later is now and thanks to the Federal government, all three programs are bankrupt and threatening the solvency of the United States. Without an enormous infusion of money, the government will have to admit their gross mismanagement and close the books on the Federal entitlement system or close the doors of the Federal government. The easiest way to achieve that was to channel the American healthcare system through the Federal entitlement machine. Dumping one sixth of our economy into the wide end of that funnel and regulating what drips out of the small end through cuts in benefits and services will allow them to keep the illusion of success alive, but for how long?

In the end, best estimates are saying that the current healthcare bill will only extend the life of Medicare and Medicare through 2019. Beyond that, it will have to collapse because there is little left they can take from us to keep it going. Not to worry, the loss of freedoms guaranteed by this bill will allow our benevolent government to make even more of those hard decisions on our behalf and euthanasia may even become a mandate based on who and what you are. If we let our rights dissolve now, how can we stop it then?

Don’t forget the government already has a free hand to do what the rest of us are still prohibited from doing. Government is still the only place in America where it is allowable to use race in the execution of policy. Government is still the only place where prejudice is allowable e.g.: rich vs. poor in the tax system, right vs. left in public broadcasting and let’s not forget government vs. religion in nearly every expression of faith. The government’s National Endowment for the Arts is prohibited from using public funds for religious art so it will not support the creation of a devotional scene involving a crucifix but it will find art where a crucifix is submerged in a beaker of urine.

As we near Christmas all Americans must ask themselves what they believe. What are our rights? Where do those rights come from? Most importantly, will we heed the call of duty Thomas Jefferson charged us with and fulfill our obligation to defend those rights for our progeny?

Paul

It's beginning to look a lot like a secular winter holiday season.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas; everywhere you go….that is, unless that everywhere is public school where it’s beginning to look like a random winter festival devoid of any meaning. Every December we are cursed with another flurry of moronic edicts from school districts to prove that once again, the anti-religious groups, the ACLU and the courts have little or no understanding of the Constitution.

Our nation was founded on the principal of the free and unfettered worship of God. The Constitutional separation of Church and State was designed to prevent the government from adopting a State religion to the exclusion of all others and was meant to be a guarantee that all people could worship in the religion of their choice without interference. What we have today is a defective interpretation of the First Amendment that has transmuted the Separation of Church and State into the Separation of Church from State resulting in State suppression of religious freedom.

During the adoption of the Constitution some were afraid that the First Amendment Separation of Church and State as written might be misconstrued in exactly this way. August 15, 1789. Peter Sylvester of New York had his doubts...He feared the First Amendment might be thought to have a tendency to abolish religion altogether. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts said it would read better if it was that "no religious doctrine shall be established by law." James Madison of Virginia said he understood the meaning of the words to be, that "Congress should not establish a religion, and enforce the legal observation of it by law."

The founding fathers were overtly religious and recognized the importance of religion in a truly free society. Moral convictions could allow America to enjoy unparalleled freedoms without descending into anarchy or without the need for draconian rule to maintain order. It was really the spread of Marxist ideology that sewed the seeds of religious oppression. After all, European monarchs all claimed to have derived their power directly from God so if those governments were to fall in favor of Socialist or Communist rule, then God would necessarily have to fall as well. Lenin described religion as “the opiate of the masses” in that religious doctrine placated the general population and kept them from seizing control of their own destiny.

Communism required loyal followers and the ruling party had no intention of sharing that loyalty with an unseen God. Later, the Socialist assault on God became part of their doctrine of demoralization. As long as man would fight for “God and Country”, the prospects for Communist victory remained elusive. Soviet influences began to chip away at the fabric of the American faith structure. The “useful idiots” as Lenin called them, began the process of using our laws against us and once the courts had a sufficient number of progressive, activist judges in place; the legal battles that would redefine the First Amendment began to yield results.

Atheists such as Madalyn Murray O'Hair led the charge in the United States. After receiving a Bachelors Degree from Ashland University, O’Hair attended law school at the South Texas College of Law. She completed her law degree in 1952 but failed the bar exam and subsequently, never practiced law. She is reported to have attended meetings of the Socialist Workers Party while living in Baltimore in 1957. In 1959, O’Hair applied for Soviet Citizenship and after receiving no reply, traveled to Europe by ship with her children with the intention of defecting through the Soviet Embassy in Paris. To her surprise, the Soviet Embassy denied her entry. Soviet Communists may have been Godless thugs, but even they recognized a screw-ball when they saw one. In the end, O’Hair would return to the United States to embrace her new calling of disrupting the American way of life.

In 1960, O’Hair filed a law suit against the Baltimore School District on behalf of her son, William O’Hair claiming that he was forced to participate in religious exercises and that teachers at the school ridiculed William for resisting. The law suit was consolidated with a similar action (Abington School District vs. Schempp) and invariably led to a Supreme Court decision that proclaimed that school prayer and the reading of religious materials in public schools were unconstitutional under the First Amendment separation of Church and State and that all such practices should be banned from public schools.

In 1963, Madalyn Murray O’Hair founded the American Atheists, a group dedicated to Atheist ideals (or lack of ideals) and began a systematic assault on religious freedom through the American courts. Curiously, her son William was baptized at a Baptist Church in 1980 and took up work as a preacher. This enraged Madalyn which led to a permanent estrangement between William and his mother. Commenting on her son’s religious awakening she said “One could call this a postnatal abortion on the part of a mother, I guess; I repudiate him entirely and completely for now and all times...he is beyond human forgiveness."

That tells me O’Hair’s 1960 law suit actually had little to do with her son and everything to do with her own twisted views on religion and politics. Madalyn O’Hair also claimed to be a “sexual libertarian”; openly stating her beliefs that children in sixth grade should be given sexual education and that people should be allowed to engage in sexual intercourse as soon as nature intended and not according to the age restraints of existing law.

O’Hair remained at the helm of the American Atheists until her death in 1995 at age 76. Curiously, Madalyn O’Hair, her son Jon and her granddaughter Robin were kidnapped, murdered and dismembered by an employee of the American Atheist group she had founded. Some claimed that she received her just due and this was God’s retribution for a lifetime of work against religion. I don’t believe in a vengeful God. I believe that God has given us free will and that we follow because our faith compels us to do so and not because of the threat of divine vengeance. No, Madalyn and her family did not die because of an angry God; they died because she had surrounded herself with people as devoid of moral constraints as she was. After all, murder may be against the law but the only thing that makes it morally reprehensible is faith in the word of God and belief in the divinity of the Ten Commandments.

The most fitting eulogy for Madalyn Murray O’Hair was delivered by her son William, the Baptist Preacher. He said "My mother was an evil person... Not for removing prayer from America's schools... No, she was just evil. She stole huge amounts of money. She misused the trust of people. She cheated children out of their parents' inheritance. She cheated on her taxes and even stole from her own organizations. She once printed up phony stock certificates on her own printing press to try to take over another atheist publishing company....Regardless of how evil and lawless my mother was she did not deserve to die in the manner she did."

I am sure it pained him to have to say that about his mother and as a preacher, I am sure he spent many hours on his knees praying for her salvation because that is what the faithful do. In the end, it is only Madalyn Murray O’Hair’s legacy that lives on. The landmark lawsuit she brought had lasting implications and has been the basis for many subsequent law suits against any public display of religion in America. Today, schools have gone as far as banning music for their “winter festivals” that have any religious connotations, even if it is just played as an instrumental piece.

Anyone with children in public school is familiar with school fund raising events, one of which is (or was) the Christmas sale. The Christmas sale displays items donated by parents and then allows the children to buy those odds and ends for their parent’s Christmas gifts. Not only is the name of “Christmas” barred from the event but one school district in New Jersey has gone as far as sending a list home to the parents to tell them what is and is not acceptable. Items with a religious theme are banned and they have even prohibited red and green tissue paper because some modern day Madalyn O’Hair might make the connection between those colors and the observance of Christmas.

It is time we ask for an honest interpretation of the First Amendment based on the known intent of the crafters of our Constitution and not some lawyer’s twisting of the English language. Our First Amendment right to embrace our beliefs openly and without harassment has been diluted and it is now the religious equivalent of “don’t ask-don’t tell”. So you tell me….what is more dangerous; religious displays or Atheism? I would ask Madalyn O’Hair but she was murdered by a fellow Atheist.

Paul