Primary Issue Voter

I call myself a "primary issue voter"...not a single-issue voter.

From Noah Webster's 1828 Dictionary, we can define the term:
PRI'MARY, a. [L. primarius. See Prime.]
1. First in order of time; original; 2. First in dignity or importance; chief; principal. 3. Elemental; 4. Radical; original.

I am a first-in-order issue voter.
I am a first-in-dignity issue voter.
I am a chief issue voter.
I am a principal issue voter.
I am an elemental issue voter.
I am a radical issue voter!
...oh, I like that. Radical issue voter.
Makes me feel positively anti-establishment!
But it's one of those good hearty words that stewed too long with the Birkenstocks...it's lost its flavor.

I'll stick with primary issue voter.

When I vote, I look at the person who wants my vote and I want to know one thing:
Is my life valuable to them?
They may say it is when they're on t.v.
But how do I know?
Will they ensure my protection? Will they ensure my liberty?
Those two things are not contradictory.

After 9/11, I think many people came to the conclusion that we had to sacrifice our liberty for our protection. I didn't think so, because I voted for George W. Bush based on the primary issue.
So, is my primary issue defense?

No.

It is life.

How a person views life at its most vulnerable is the lens through which they view all other issues.
This is an important concept.

If a leader believes that life begins in the womb and should be protected, then it's highly unlikely that person's other policies will harm me.
Taxes, healthcare, foreign policy, education, civil law...all these issues are the water that flows out of the pro-life faucet.
If a leader recognizes the life of an unborn citizen, that leader will recognize the value in my life.

My right to make a living and not remove my incentive by taxing me into a hole and making me dependent on government assistance.

My right to seek out medical care that meets my needs and not be forced into a system where money is "saved" at the expense of my life.

My right to live in my country in freedom without fear of foreign invasion or control.
In addition, a recognition that countries need protection...there will always be a dictator somewhere in the world salivating at the thought of being more powerful than America.

My right to teach my children as I see fit, give them my values, instill in them my beliefs...recognize they are my children, given to me by God.
A leader who sees life in the womb will understand this concept and not see children as vessels of the state to be filled with state-approved curriculum, for the good of all.

My right to be treated equally under the law as the child in the womb is treated.

But most important of all is that person's belief in the right of women to have a choice.
And abortion is not a choice.

Abortion is what women do when they have no choice.

It is prison they are sent to when there is no support, no help, no encouragement for them to have their babies.

A pro-life leader sees the potential of life in everything...especially in the lives of women.
Women have the right to give birth to the child growing within them.

It is our right.

Women should not feel threatened when a leader shows their love for life.
And when a leader condemns Roe v. Wade, women should feel secure, safe, reassured.
Because that leader understand a woman's value, and they understand that the law let loose on this land in 1972 was a Pandora's Box of death.
They understand it destroys women and takes from them their real birthright.

A pro-life leader loves women and wants them to live lives of wholeness and joy.

A pro-life leader does not want a country filled with broken-hearted women who have to live a life of pain; a life without their child; a life wondering every year how old their baby would have been, what he would have looked like, what he would have done.

A pro-life leader doesn't play on the fears of women, a pro-life leader reassures them.

How much of our country's real ills and woes would vanish if we protected women and their wombs?

How high would our taxes be if we had leaders who encouraged parents to keep most of the money they earned to care for their children?

How well-educated would our children be if our leaders broke the bureaucratic stranglehold on the public schools for the sake of parents and their children?

How much stronger our defenses and respect from other countries, if they saw us care for the least among our own? If they trembled at the thought of what we would do to protect our children?

How much better for our healthcare if our leaders valued the life of the vulnerable? Would we see doctors and hospitals protected from frivolous lawsuits? Would we see more innovation in medicines and cancer treatments? Would there be less anti-depressants for women and more birth centers?

One can imagine a world without abortion...and see real beauty.

Or see the lies and fears put upon women by leaders who don't want to lose the power derived from those lies and fears.
Abortion is an industry, a multi-billion dollar business of death for our children and crippling self-hatred for women.
A leader who supports abortion is not concerned about women's rights.
A leader who supports abortion has no compassion for women or their babies.
A leader with a pro-choice ideology sees society as a thing to be controlled, curtailed and packaged into a workforce which serves those ideals.

A leader who supports life is concerned about women's rights.
A leader who supports life has compassion for women and their babies.

A leader with a pro-life ideology sees society as individuals who need the freedom to live, work and grow for their own reasons...not the state's.

That is why I call myself a Primary Issue Voter.

Because life is first in order, principal, chief, elemental...life is primary.

Everything else is secondary.



redink

http://prolife.villanova.edu/images/maternal%20bond.JPG

The Tower is Under Construction

There's so much going on in the world right now.
Global everything.
I think that's what drives people into craziness...TMI: Too Much Information.
There's so much information, we're forced into changing our language.

IMO, BFF, LOL, ROFL.

This isn't a rant against technology. I'm all for technology. This blog is technology. Facebook is technology. Paying bills online is a technological marvel IMO.

But I do resist the dogpile.
I don't think people are meant to absorb so much information. It doesn't produce knowledge.
Because information is not the same as knowledge. And with too much information, we lose the ability to discern the truth.

Information does not have to contain facts or logic.
Knowledge is application of facts and logic.
Information tells us only what another person thinks.
Knowledge tells us who that person is and whether they can be trusted.
To gain knowledge out of information we have to know three things about the source:

*If the source is experienced in the subject.
*If the source has a trustworthy character, proven through actions.
*If the source's ideal, or vision, is based on a precendent that has proven effective.

Now we have knowledge. But how to apply this knowledge?
Let's take for example, a subject with lots of information out there, but little knowledge:

Healthcare Reform

The information is a 1200-page document outlining the President's plan for changing our system. It holds within its pages, the information that tells us what we can expect if the government runs our healthcare.
Have you ever read a 1200-page book?
It takes awhile, folks...and it better be interesting.
The size of this bill alone should give us pause.

Here's an excerpt from page 58:
"(D)enable the real time (or near real time) determination of an individual's responsibility at the point of service and, to the extent possible, prior to the service, including whether the individual is eligible for a specific service, with a specific physician, at a specific facility, which may include utilization of a machine-readable health plan beneficiary identification card.

Translation: This is an identification card issued by the government with all our medical records on it...all in the name of efficiency, I'm sure. And we all know how efficient government is. They just created millions of jobs with that trillion dollar stimulus package. Oh wait...

Here's page 59:
"(C) enable electronic funds transfers, in order to allow automated reconciliation with the related health care payment and remittance advice;"

Translation: The government will be able to access your private bank account to pay for universal healthcare.
There's that efficiency thingy again.
But there's also that pesky liberty stuff.

Page 239:
"Limitations in physician's services included in target growth rate computation to services covered under physician fee schedule."

Translation: Limitations. This is rationed care folks. Now I don't know about you, but reading through this bill was very creepy.
It was dehuminizing. It was demoralizing. There is nothing in there that talks about saving life, extending life, caring for the weakest, providing options for the fearful. There was no humanity.

Now let's apply what we know about the source.
*Is the source experienced in the subject?
Obama has experience in organizing communities to protest the injustices of the world...but what does he know about how to remake the entire American healthcare system?
Is it even a crisis that needs remaking?
Does he know what to do with a sixth of the U.S. economy?
Does he understand the medical community?
Does he understand the outcome? Has he thought of all the unintended consequences?
What kind of bureaucracy would take place? Who would run it? The Hemlock Society? Hey...I'm semi-serious here. Obama put tax-cheats in charge of our taxes.
With more questions than answers, I believe it shows the source is inexperienced.

*Has the source proven his trustworthy character through action?
The President signed a stimulus bill which has proved 'unstimulating'.
He promised in April the unemployment rate would not top 8.5%...it is almost 10%.
He promised not to sign the stimulus if there were earmarks in it...there were 9000 earmarks in the stimulus bill.
He promised to give the public 5 days to review the bill before he signed it...he signed it the day after congress passed it.
These examples are dated, I know. The stimulus bill is so last crisis. But it is tangible proof of something he has now done...a record of Obama's actions. Do they show a trustworthy character?

*Is the source's vision based on a precedent that has proven effective?
Canadian, British and Cuban healthcare (well...let's stick with basic democracies, shall we? Canada and Britain), have their supporters and opponents. But their government-run healthcare does as all government-run entities do...they ration care.
Their reasons for rationing are sensible of course...to save taxpayer's money. I mean why would a governement spend extra money for only a few years of an unproductive citizen's life? These are the questions only a bureaucracy can ask.

Now Canadians and Brits also know they can come to the U.S. when their life is on the line and their government doesn't want to spend the money on an elderly patient's life-extending medicines, a terminal patient's life-extending medicinces, or a disabled child's life-extending medicines. Which leads me to believe they aren't clamoring for private sector healthcare because they still have a choice.
The precendent for government-run healthcare has proven ineffective.
The conclusion is that government-run healthcare removes liberty, is inefficient, devalues life to the greatest extent, has no vested interest in the individual and plunges the country into unretractable debt, providing a vicious cycle of higher taxes and less freedom.

Our President is telling Americans they are getting disinformation about his bill.
How to get to the truth?
Go to the source first. Read the bill. It is Obama's bill, even though he hasn't read it.
He is responsible for it. He wants it. He owns it.

If you believe in your heart of hearts that Obama would never sell you down the river, that he has a heart of gold, that you are the change he's been waiting for...then I suppose you have all the information you need.

But if you really want to know what this bill will do to your life as an individual, how it will change our economy, how it will shape our society, then gain some knowledge.
Because all that information does is build a huge tower to glorify another human being.

It's been done before.

redink

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/e/e1/20080330134658!Brueghel-tower-of-babel.jpg

Prestobama and His Sorcerer's Pen

From the archives.

Worth posting again what with our health care on the chopping block...along with the rest of the free-market economy.

Oh, and that pesky terrorism thing...er, I mean "man-caused disaster".
How's that working out, Mr. President?

redink: Prestobama and His Sorcerer's Pen

redink

Community Disorganizer

COMMUNITY, n. : 2. A society of people, having common rights and privileges, or common interests, civil, politcal or ecclesiastical; or living under the same laws and regulation.

This definition is from the American Dictionary of the English Language, Noah Webster, 1828.
...so let's start with definition.

If we define a community as a society of people under the same laws, then suppose we define what a community organizer does, because if this society of law-abiding citizens needs organizing as the 2008 Presidential election showed; then shouldn't we know what's in store for us all?

From "The Community Organizing Toolbox"
http://www.nfg.org/cotb/12organizers.htm

"Organizers challenge people to act on behalf of their common interests."

America has long been a country defined by individual interests, with our Constitution and the Bill of Rights laying the boundaries within which we pursue our version of what makes us happy.
Communities within our nation are made up of people who have a common interest:
rich communities, poor communities, religious and secular, liberal and conservative.
The individual American decides what his definition of happiness is and gravitates to the communitiy which shares his views, ambitions (or lack thereof), and ethics.

To me, this defines America's common interest as one of liberty...freedom.
Which makes community organizing rather useless on a national scale.

"Organizers motivate people to act by creating experiences to challenge those feelings which inhibit action, such as fear, apathy, self-doubt, inertia and isolation with those feelings that support action such as anger, hope, self-worth, urgency and a sense of community."

Now this is interesting.

So the CO will motivate me to act by:
replacing my fear with anger; my apathy with hope, my self-doubt with self-worth; my inertia with urgency and my isolation with a sense of belonging.
Extraordinary!
One person has the capability to change my very soul!

...wait! didn't Jesus already do that?

Actually, this tactic has a name with its own definition: manipulation.
Again, I must point out, that to organize a community of individuals by manipulating emotions...well, it flies in the face of liberty, does it not?

"Organizers work at constructing communities which are bounded yet inclusive, communal yet diverse, soladaristic yet tolerant. "

...er,
...uhh,
I can only offer this challenge to anyone who is a community organizer or thinking of joining:

If you can explain with credible logic what "bounded yet inclusive", "communal yet diverse" and "soladaristic yet tolerant" mean without bringing on an aneurysm or speaking in a Martian dialect...I will shave my head and pass out daisies on the nearest street corner while wearing a placard promoting community organizing...amen.

'Reveille for Radicals' by Saul Alinsky

"A People's Organization is not a philanthropic plaything or a social service's ameliorative gesture. It is a deep, hard-driving social force, striking and cutting at the very roots of all the evils which beset the people."

"A People's Organization is dedicated to an eternal war...A war is not an intellectual debate, and in the war against social evils there are no rules of fair play."

'Rules for Radicals' by Saul Alinsky

"Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people. They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and change the future."

"the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom – Lucifer."

Saul Alinksy: Community Organizer, radical Marxist.
President Obama absorbed Saul Alinsky's teachings during his formative years, when his ideology became entrenched.

Community organizing is not an action...it is an ideology.
It produces no work; it foments rebellion; it gives the illusion of freedom while taking it away.
It uses whatever means necessary to achieve its ends.

I think I'm ready for a little disorganization.

How about you?


redink

http://www.freeimages.co.uk/

It's a Wonderful World!

Enjoy!

redink

Truth in Baking

When I first started baking, I made all kinds of complicated doughs: natural sourdough starter doughs; brioche; flatbreads with three different kinds of flour; french bread with four different proofing stages and sponges so delicate they evaporated with a sneeze.

Some of them turned out great...others not so great.

But, one day when I tried my hand at the simplest dough of all--pizza dough--I got stuck.

Pizza dough is merely flour, yeast, water, sugar, salt and a little oil.

You just put all the ingredients in a bowl and mix; an hour later a nice, large pouffy bowl of risen dough should be the result.

...not for me.

I tried the same recipe for two weeks straight and all I could get was a lump of the same dough I started with.

It refused to rise.

I became obsessed. I went over that recipe with a fine-toothed comb. I tried different combinations at different times. I thought the water was too warm or too cold; I thought I kneaded it too much or too little; I tried bringing my bowl of dough over to my neighbor's house to rise, because I thought the temperature or humidity in my house was the culprit.

I must have thrown away a hundred pounds of dough.

Finally, I just gave up. I walked away from the recipe for a couple of days because I would cry every time I read it.

Six simple ingredients, and I couldn't handle it. My ego was severely bruised.

But I learned something from this...humility was the most important ingredient of all.

You see in baking--the truth is absolute.

You can play with flavors, but when it comes to measurements...there is no room for mistakes.

I took another look at the recipe a few days later and saw something different.

The recipe called for 4 tsp. of salt...that means teaspoons.

Now, salt is vital in giving giving the dough texture and support. Without it the dough would be a flavorless mass of nothing. But too much salt will turn dough into a hardened lump which would bake into a teeth-breaking loaf.

Too much salt prevents the dough from rising like it should.

...I had been using 4 tablespoons of salt.

For some reason, my eyes saw this: tblsp.

But, the real measurement was this: tsp.

And for two weeks I went insane trying to fix something a little dose of humility would have caught right away.

I knew the rules of baking; I knew if you got a measurement wrong it wouldn't turn out.

But, I was convinced I had gotten all the measurements correct...I kept reading the stupid thing day after day.

I just refused to see the truth.

The truth is irrefutable. We all arrive at the truth through different means, but it takes the same dose of humility to recognize it.

This is a link to an article by a columnist for the Chronicle Hearld: Andrew W. Smith.

http://http//thechronicleherald.ca/Opinion/1119680.html

Think of it as a recipe for President Obama's first 100 days:

From the article:

"•Obama’s first two major bills alone, the "stimulus" and "omnibus," cost nearly twice as much as was spent on Iraq over six years – $1.2 trillion vs. $650 billion.

•Obama abandoned his campaign promise of "a net spending cut," his first annual deficit – not counting bailouts – being three times the worst deficit under President George W. Bush.

•Obama’s objective in his first G20 summit – commitments to spend our way to prosperity with massive stimulus boondoggles across the G20 – was rejected out of hand.

•Obama’s objective in his first NATO summit – commitments to combat troops for Afghanistan from "our European allies," which Obama and his party imagined were ready and willing to fight if only someone "enlightened" like him were running things – was predictably refused, with some more European non-combat contingents offered as a token.

•Obama’s Defence Department announced cuts of $1.4 billion to missile defence, the day after North Korea test-fired its long-range, multi-stage ballistic missile.

•Obama’s "tax cuts for 95 per cent" turned out to mean $13 a week from June to December, to be clawed back to $8 a week in January – as compared with President Bush’s 2008 tax rebates of $600 to $1,200 plus $300 per child, which were notably scoffed at during the election campaign by Michelle Obama.

•Obama abandoned his campaign promise to reform earmarks, signing the omnibus bill which contained 8,816 of them.

•Obama took more money from AIG than any other politician in 2008 – over $100,000 – and signed into law the provision guaranteeing the AIG bonuses which later had him in front of the cameras "shaking with outrage" and siccing the pitchfork crowd on law-abiding citizens who had fulfilled their end of a contract and had their payment upheld by Obama’s own legislation. "

Now look carefully at that recipe and ask: if America were the dough, do you think it would rise?

redink

Churchill in May

Today is the first day of May.

I just wanted to use this day to spread my gratitude.
To see what is beautiful in the world.

The truth is beautiful, like sunshine--and like sunshine it can be a little harsh at times.

But, today I just want to pull back the curtains gently and let a little sunshine in.

Did you know the sun has antibacterial qualities?

So, here's some quotes from a man who deserves to be quoted...and a little sunshine to brighten the first day of May!

From Winston Churchill:

"The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is."

"Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm."

"Continuous effort--not strength or intelligence--is the key to unlocking our potential."

"Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others."

"We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give."

God Bless!


redink