My friend Joe has posted an excellent, succinct article on the newly revealed House Health Care Reform bill. He has boiled it down to the most salient points of concern; and believe me, we ALL should be concerned.
Now, Joe is a smart fella. He does his research & doesn't post based on knee-jerk emotion, but on cool, level-headed reason. Any time you visit his blog, you can depend on quality, thoughtful writing, even if you're on the 'other side' of an issue. This time is no exception.
PLEASE go visit this post. You won't be disappointed.
This weekend has been great. My husband surprised me with - get this - children staying with his dear parents, and tickets to a Michael W. Smith concert last night: 7th row!
It. Was. Fabulous!
The concert included Phil Stacey (American Idol), Matt Maher & Meredith Andrews.
I wish that I could convey the bigness of the sound, the energy of the music, the intimacy of the lyrics & the palpable movement of the Holy Spirit. Be assured, dear friends, that it was BIG!
These two videos (2 of my favorites from last night) can't convey all that, but they can sure give a peek. Enjoy!
I am so thankful to have been a part of that experience, & I thank my dear, generous, thoughtful husband for giving it to us.
I believe people's hearts were moved in that room last night. I believe healings of all kinds took place, & people left different than they came. I believe people tasted the sweet pelting of Healing Rain & know, truly, that Help is On The Way.
I believe this happened; I know it's true, because I'm one of them. Glory Hallelujah!
Okay so this week, I got a little revved (okay, a lot revved) about this UN Climate Change Treaty thing, & what BHO's signing it would do to our nation's sovereignty. My heart was racing & I had to go into my yoga breathing. One of my sweet friends, who is on my blog-send email list, apparently got revved too & shared it w/ her husband. He's a student (& teacher) of history, & the closest thing to a Constitutional Scholar that I rub elbows with!
While I still don't trust BHO (or his administration) to not send me into cardiac arrest, I'm somewhat more secure that our Nation is not on 'the brink.' The following is my friend's husband's response to 10-20-09's post:
Su-girl: Don't worry too greatly about the treaty - other than its implications for those who have never read closely our beloved Constitution. Yes, our bundle of sticks - which I commonly refer to as liberty - is made smaller by any small foray into international meddling. In two different places in the Constitution, there is outright argument for there being NO LAW higher than the Constitution. The first and most obvious is the SENTENCE of the Article that begins with something to the effect, "This Constitution...shall be the supreme Law of the Land." The other occurs in an earlier Article and lists, in order, that the Supreme Court and its lower Courts behave "under the Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made under them."
So, the Brit [Lord Monckton] first of all, doesn't seem to understand OUR Constitution. He further assumes that the President's signature is the end of the game. Two-thirds of the Senate - after its "advice and consent" on any treaty negotiated by a president - must vote in favor of Ratification of said Treaty. Let's recall that it was a Republican president - the younger Bush - who wanted to be able to fast track trade negotiations like the FTAA. Has the FTAA landed yet? No, thanks to John Birch Society grass roots efforts. Bush did get through CAFTA to extend NAFTA, so shame on the Senate for not speaking up! Shame on us for not standing watch! So, screw Obama, let'sre-take Congress, one house at a time.
Write BURR and HAGAN [NC Senators] to get their input on how they will vote, write letters to newspapers exposing their view, then start the letter writing campaign to both... emphasis mine
Godspeed, [Your sweet friend's Husband]*
So, for now my pulse can slow; I can breathe easier. But our friend admonishes us with good reason. We have not been "standing watch." And now we know better. It's time to live better. For it's not only our own pulse at risk, but the heartbeat of our very Nation that depends on it.
~~~
*Many thanks to 'my sweet friend's husband' for the response, & for the necessary permission to post it here.
Last night, Annie sent me a video that I want EVERY AMERICAN to see: conservative, liberal, apolitical; religious, atheist, apathetic; black, white, pink, green; canine, feline, bovine - I don't really care - just LISTEN TO THIS!!
On October 14, Lord Christopher Monckton (policy advisor to Margaret Thatcher) gave a presentation in St. Paul, MN on the subject of global warming. In this 4-minute excerpt from his speech, he issues a dire warning to all Americans regarding the United Nations Climate Change Treatythat is scheduled to be signed in Copenhagen in December 2009. **Debate has been raised about Monckton's conclusion that the Copenhagen Treaty would cede US sovereignty. His comments are based upon The Supremacy Clause in the US Constitution (Article VI, paragraph 2). This clause establishes the Constitution, Federal Statutes, and U.S. TREATIES as the supreme law of the land. Concerns have been raised in the past that a particularly ambitious treaty may supersede the US Constitution. In the 1950s, a constitutional amendment, known as the Bricker Amendment, was proposed in response to such fears, but it failed to pass.
PLEASE watch this video! It is crucially important to international relations (logistics, as it were).
*Many, many thanks to my friend, BetteJo for emailing me the embed code for the video - which wasn't included in the earlier draft of this post, but appears in this edition!
And to the others who emailed, the tips are MOST appreciated! (Just goes to show what my Mama always says, "It ain't what you know, it's WHO you know!")
She also said, "It's great to have all kinds of friends."
Conservatives take note: "while many of us learn liberalism from liberals, I fear that far too many of us have learned what conservatism is from liberals as well." So says our friend at A Voice in the Wilderness.
In the coming weeks/months, A Voice in TW will offer an "explanation and defense of the [conservative] things I believe in and what led me to believe in them...my intent is to clarify the positions and underlying assumptions of conservatism that bind us, however loosely." This ought to be interesting reading & discussion for us all, & thought I'd put in a plug for it!
Meanwhile, one of the keenest conservative minds of our time has a few words about Obama foreign policy, moral leadership & American Exceptionalism:
Please listen carefully to Dr. Krauthammer's clear & measured treatment of Obama's systematic dismantling or of the "moral foundation of American dominance."
Key phrases: American Exceptionalism: refers to the theory that the United States occupies a special niche among the nations of the world[1] in terms of its national credo, historical evolution, political and religious institutions and unique origins. The roots of the term are attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville,[2] who claimed that the then-50-year-old United States held a special place among nations, because it was a country of immigrants and the first modern democracy.
hajj: the fifth pillar of Islam is a pilgrimage to Mecca during the month of Dhu al-Hijja; at least once in a lifetime a Muslim is expected to make...
undermine: to cause weakness in a foundation, to weaken gradually
moral claim to world leadership
moral confidence any nation needs to have to justify to itself (& to others) its position of leadership.
mandate of Heaven: a philosophy, rooted in Imperial Chinese history, assumed by the evolution of American democracy, which presented itself to the world as something like a heaven-sent template for the democratic future of humankind.
So, now that the new non-exceptional, "humbled America" has abdicated world leadership, how does this 'new world' govern itself?
Odd, now that he has stripped the world of its 'governor,' we don't hear Mr. Obama posing structure & means for such governing, do we?
Here's an old allegory told in a fresh way, updated for the times we're in...
OLD VERSION: The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.
MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself!
MODERN VERSION: The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.
CBS, NBC , PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.
America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?
Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper and everybody cries when they sing, 'It's Not Easy Being Green.'
ACORN stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing, 'We shall overcome.'
Rev. Jeremiah Wright then has the group kneel down to pray for the grasshopper's sake.
Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.
Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government Green Czar.
The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing the last bits of ant's food while the government house he's in (the ant's old house), crumbles around him for lack of care.
The ant has disappeared in the snow.
The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident.
The house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once peaceful neighborhood.
MORAL OF THE STORY:Be careful how you vote in 2010.
~~~
Curtsy to my Lisa, who emailed this earlier in the week.
"The cool and deliberate sense of the community ought, in all governments, and actually will, in all free governments, ultimately prevail over the views of its rulers." ~James Madison, The Federalist #63
