What the Health Care debate is really about

Posted on August 20, 2009 by Scott

The debate on health care in the United States is hot. You can’t turn on the TV or talk radio or look at a newspaper without seeing or hearing something about it. That is as it should be. Thank God we live in a country where we have free access to the news of the day and have the ability to speak our mind about the issues.

Since we do have free access to information, we have no excuses. We must as a matter of maturity and responsibility make ourselves aware of the actual facts of the debate. In fact, our representative republic was founded on the idea that most everyone knew and understood the issues and spoke their minds accordingly. People of the day when our country was founded were very well informed even if they were not all well educated.

It seems to me that we live in a day when the prevailing way of living out our citizenship in our country is for citizens to make up their minds about issues of great importance to the future of our country with very little real information and whole lot of opinion. I have strong opinions and I am not ashamed of that, but I try to save my strong opinions for ideas that I know enough about to form an opinion. We hear so much rhetoric these days from both sides of the health care debate and much of it is merely opinion without many facts. That reason alone makes me a great fan of the idea of slowing down the whole process and allowing real and prolonged debate on the issue. I will not feel any real comfort about whatever the politicians decide upon unless they take some real time to think about the effects of the laws they may pass. To me the stakes are too high.

What are the stakes? The freedom of the Citizens of our great nation. The freedom to choose your doctor. The freedom to choose who your insurance provider is. The freedom to keep your income and use it as you see fit. I do not want a system in place that limits the amount of money I make or limits the choices I make, plain and simple. I have already made up my mind in this debate. I believe in the free market and in competition if there is true competition, not the stunted competition that results from not allowing consumers to buy their health care across state lines and the stunted competition that results from consumers not having the ability to buy health procedures based on knowledge of the costs of the procedures. Can you imagine how much your automobiles would cost if you could only purchase from dealers in your own county, and oh, by the way, you are not allowed to know how much they cost until after you purchase them! That is the kind of health care system we have now thanks to the regulations in place from the people who want to fix what they have in essence broken in the first place. Why would I want even more of the same?

Bottom line? Wake up. Find out the facts, look at both sides, think awhile, and THEN make up your mind. This is not a Democrat verses Republican issue. It is a freedom of choice issue. Choose wisely America.

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What are we focused on?

Posted on August 19, 2009 by Scott

I was thinking about my relationship with God this morning and about the way I view my life in general and my life as a Christian in particular. I realized that I tend think of things in terms of what is God going to be able to change in me today, what can I do better, what do I need to know that I don’t know now, etc. Do you see the general theme? I seem to be focused on myself way too much. I am looking in the wrong direction with all the right motives.

So you are maybe asking yourself, “What should he be doing differently?” I think that God made us to look outside of ourselves. He made us to serve and to look to the needs of others. Originally He made Adam and Eve to serve Himself and each other and to tend to the needs of the garden. Where did they go wrong? They went wrong when they decided that their own wants and desires were more important than the direction that God had given them. That is the case with me as well. I must constantly fight to keep from being self centered and wrapped up in my own wants, needs, desires, and even temptations. I find that I am at my best when I forget self and remember the people around me. I am a better listener because I am truly listening to the words and ideas of the other person instead of trying to think of the words that I will offer when it is my turn to speak. I am a better Christian because I am thinking of the needs of those around me rather than my own.

I say all of this to bring home the point that my most fervent prayer is, “God please make me less and You more. Please make me less and the people I love more. Please make me less and the people I meet as I live out the moments of my life more. Make me a servant. Amen”

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The Meaning of Life

Posted on June 20, 2009 by Scott

I know it is very presumptuous of me in light of present society’s ”enlightened” stance on absolute truth but I must say that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt what the meaning of life is. But I do. It can be summed up in two words, “to serve”. I can see the proof within my own heart and mind to support that statement. When I am selfish, I am miserable. When I look outside of myself and seek the good of others, I am fulfilled and happy. I know that my happiness is not what life is all about, but my happiness or other states of being are indications of my deeper soul and its condition. God, yes I said God, made us. He knew what he was doing. That deeper soul I speak of is my conscience and God made us with a conscience for a reason. We have spent so much time burying that inner voice of conscience that we wonder why we are miserable and over medicated in modern life. We seek medicine or narcotics to sooth our depressed hearts and minds or we seek constant activity of one source or another. A party, or a trip, or a social function, or more hours in our job, it all adds up to so much background noise that we cannot hear our hearts speaking to us and pleading for us to see what is really important.

 

So, who or what do we serve? We serve God and each other. God made us. He is a good God no matter what Hollywood or society tries to say. He gives us the chance to have life that lasts through all eternity if we will only acknowledge Him and his Son, Jesus Christ, and choose to follow His leading. What does he ask in return? Serve him and each other. What does that look like? Look at the following piece of scripture from the book of Matthew in the New American Standard version.

 

The Judgment

31.

“But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne.

32.

“All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats;

33.

and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left.

34.

“Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

35.

‘For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in;

36.

naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’

37.

“Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink?

38.

‘And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You?

39.

‘When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’

40.

“The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’

41.

“Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels;

42.

for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat ; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink;

43.

I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’

44.

“Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?’

45.

“Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’

46.

“These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

 

That last part seems scary and harsh to me. But I also see that it is a simple thing to keep from being one of those who suffer that fate. Serve, visit, clothe, feed. In other words, see to the needs of others around you instead on only to your own needs. Look outside of yourself. I am speaking to myself here as well. I do not want to find myself at the end of my days and realize that I was selfish and only looked to my own needs. That conscience I spoke of earlier is a good indicator of how good of a job I am doing in that department. God made me with a selfishness meter. When I do good for others, my selfishness meter is on low and I feel good about life. It Always works that way. When I look away from the needs of others, my meter runs high and I feel lousy, alone, and wonder “is this what life is all about?”. It truly is not hard to figure out. God is not as complicated at least in these areas as we try to make Him to be. He really does make it as simple as that. If you want to experience the meaning of life, give yourself to His Son, Jesus and start serving people. You will not regret it. You will, in fact, get to hear Jesus say to you, “Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”

 

 

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Sotomayor Debate Heating Up

Posted on June 3, 2009 by Scott

In the ongoing debate about the words and possible judicial style of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor the lines are being drawn in the sand and the discussion is heating up. There are those who say that the Republicans should not press the issue of delving into Judge Sotomayor’s words and record of rulings from the bench as a sitting judge. While others are asking for a full court press with no holds barred. It is my opinion that as always, the prudent path lies somewhere in between the two extremes.

As all are aware by now, the main issue for debate has been the words spoken by Judge Sotomayor in 2001, “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” The problem with her comment is the idea that she proposes that she should hand down rulings based on feelings and personal bias rather than by strictly enforcing the rule of law. You can read the entire speech and make up your own mind as to the context and meaning of her words at the following post by the New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/us/politics/15judge.text.html?pagewanted=5&_r=1.

Another part of the controversy sure to get heavy debate in the coming weeks is the timeline of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing to question Judge Sotomayor. Some Republicans want to hold the nomination hearings in September to give them ample time to review all 4,000 plus rulings that are attributed to Judge Sotomayor. On the other side of the aisle, Democrats want the hearings to begin quickly because President Obama wants a speedy confirmation. With the history of everything else that has been jammed through the political process in the last 6 months it is no wonder that they want it to be speedy. Give no-one the opportunity to look at the details because it is the details that kill legislation and nominations. It is obvious that the strategy and talking points the Democrats will push is the idea that it would be unfair to make Judge Sotomayor wait until September to confront her critics. The following quote was attributed to Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the Judiciary Committee chairman, when speaking of criticism from radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/06/02/politics/main5056456.shtml, “Leahy called the criticism “among the most vicious attacks that have been received by anybody” and said given the tone, it would be irresponsible to wait until September for hearings that will give her a chance to respond.” Both Limbaugh and Gingrich called Sotomayor “racist”. Speaker Gingrich later made the following statement. “My initial reaction was strong and direct – perhaps too strong and too direct. The sentiment struck me as racist and I said so. Since then, some who want to have an open and honest consideration of Judge Sotomayor’s fitness to serve on the nation’s highest court have been critical of my word choice.

With these critics who want to have an honest conversation, I agree. The word “racist” should not have been applied to Judge Sotomayor as a person, even if her words themselves are unacceptable (a fact which both President Obama and his Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs, have since admitted). So it is to her words – the ones quoted above and others – to which we should turn, for they show that the issue here is not racial identity politics. Sotomayor’s words reveal a betrayal of a fundamental principle of the American system – that everyone is equal before the law.” Newt Gingrich Letter, HumanEventsOnline.com, June 3, 2009, Vol. 4, No. 22

I appreciate the moderation in Speaker Gingrich’s words. The issue is not personal, it is about ideas. The debate should be about ideas and words like racist and others should be left out of the debate. In the interest of looking at the long term strategies of this situation, we should not make this a race issue. Republicans do not have the luxury to alienate Hispanic voters by fighting the nomination process in a way that may be perceived as racist. They have the moral obligation to “We the People” to respectfully ask their questions and to vote their consciences when the time comes for the vote. Republicans do not have the votes to block Judge Sotomayor’s nomination from going through, but they do have the power to make sure that a real dialogue happens, and that real probing questions are asked in the hearings, and they should. This is a case of behaving just like your grandmother told to behave. Be respectful, never belligerent, and quietly do your job without making a show of it. Many Hispanic voters agree with this philosophy. Let’s not alienate them before the next election. They are inherently conservative in nature. They are extremely hard working, family oriented people by nature and are a natural fit for the Republican Party of the future.

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The Cost of Freedom

Posted on May 24, 2009 by Scott

In my last blog post I wrote about the process of nominating and appointing a justice to the Supreme Court of the United States. And I wrote about our responsibility in the midst of the process. Our responsibility does not end with this one issue. We must keep going and we must become aware of all the issues that have the power to change life in America.

 

Look at the nomination process that I spoke of before. The upcoming nomination of a new Supreme Court justice is becoming a hotbed of conflict and debate in Washington. For that matter, when you look at all of the political processes that take place in Washington you see that every one of them is becoming more and more divided and politicized. Our elected representatives are becoming more and more divided and it seems that they have lost the ability to see what is best for America in the process. With the arguments flying thick, the leaders that we have elected seem to be mouthing a good game but when it comes time to follow through with real action, they are neutered and ineffective to say the very least. I mean both parties but especially the GOP. As a Republican and a Conservative, I wonder, is my party really paying attention to the people at home when it comes to making up their minds on the issues before them? I don’t know the answer to that one. What I do know is that “We the People” are the ones who feel the effects of the laws Congress passes. “We the people” are the ones who pay for the programs that our Congress and President enact. “We the People” feel the brunt of the social change that takes place when our courts side with the criminals and tie the hands of our law enforcement officials.

 

And, “We the people” are ultimately the ones who are responsible when our government fails to do its job in a way that makes sense. We have no right to blame Congress, the President, and the courts system, when we can’t take the time to educate ourselves to all sides of an issue, and then take enough time to make sure that our politicians really hear us when we have an opinion. Are “We the People” starting to wonder why our freedoms are slowly going away and why our taxes are slowly going up and why our government is steadily spending more and more of the money of our children and grandchildren? I certainly hope so. We really need to wake up to the fact that there are important things happening that need our attention. We are a nation that seems to think that “From each according to his means to each according to his needs” is a rational way to govern society. Every time that idea, Socialism, has been tried, it has failed. It leads to lower and lower productivity in society and more and more corruption in the seats of power. It happens every single time. We are spending so much time trying to see what we can get from our government that we cannot see that we are tearing ourselves apart at the seams in the process.

 

We are still a great nation. But there have been many great nations throughout history. Every one of them has fallen. Many of them have failed not because they were defeated by an enemy at their gates but because of the enemy from within, indifference. I don’t want to see us join in a history of failure and defeat because we are too lazy or preoccupied to see that that our nation needs our attention to stay on course. Our forefathers forged a nation of freedoms that can only be maintained at the cost of vigilance. Are you paying the cost?

 

 

To see who your elected officials are, use the following web site and enter your zip code:

 

http://www.congress.org/congressorg/dbq/officials/

 

 

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