Musings

There has been much debate on health care for many years now. The debate has become especially heated this past summer after the House wrote a 1000+ page bill that was published online and people actually read what was contained in the bill. What many people read there caused them concern, worry, and anger. So they started contacting their elected officials in Washington, from both houses of Congress, and they went to the townhall meetings that were held in August.

The results of ordinary everyday people attending townhalls and also attending protests since February has been that they have been labeled as Nazis, ignorant, paid agitators, and have been insulted in myraid ways by those who are their employees but who act as if they are the employers with whose words one must always agree. Yet there are still those who support the elected officials in their inappropriate, rude, contemptable behavior.

One of the other things that has come out of the debate is a use of the Christian religion to try to convince people that having the government take over health care lock, stock, and barrell is the right thing to do. As a Christian, as a Christian pastor, I find this to be an arguable point. Yes, Jesus did say that we, as Christians, are to be looking out for each other, providing for those among us who are experiencing poverty and all that encompasses. Jesus did not say that we are to look to government, ever, to provide for the least of these among us. Jesus did not say that we are ever to look to government for anything at all. His only mention of government was to say that we are to pay Caeser what belonged to him. Recently I heard someone using the Golden Rule to say that he did not want to have government run health care, so why would he want it to be imposed on his neighbor. I really like that comment. I don't want government run health care because from where I sit the government cannot run anything without screwing it up. I defy anyone, anywhere to name me just ONE government run program that actually, honestly, really runs efficiently and in an economically sound way.

My biggest objection to government getting into the health care business is that government should not be in ANY business at all. It is not Constitutional for government to have its fingers in any business in any way. Period. There are those who will argue that the Commerce Clause of the Constitution gives the Federal Government the right to do so according to the way that the Supreme Courts of various eras have interpreted it. I say that the courts got it wrong. That is not what the writers of the Constitution intended.

There is a word that theologians use: isogesis. When one engages in isogesis, one is looking at a biblical passage and then interpreting it so that it says what the person wants it to say. While there are those who accuse conservatives of cherry picking which passages they will obey, isogesis is also a way of cherry picking. It is cherry picking how one wants to interpret what the Bible has to say. In much the same way, previous Supreme Courts are guilty, in my opinion, of isogetically interpreting what the Constitution has to say in the Commerce Clause. In other words, they decided that it gives the government rights to do things that our founding fathers never intended for the federal government to have.

I will post more on this later.

This, that, and another thing

In the past week there has been the news about the ACORN video tapes showing questionable activity happening at many ACORN offices the result of which is the Senate voting to cut of HUD funding and the House to cut off all federal funding. Will this do anything to the organization? Only God knows and right now He is not telling anyone. ACORN workers are under indictment in several states for voter fraud also, but even with both these things, I still answer my own question with: Who knows?

Then right here in Illinois there is a video tape of Mark Kirk, who right now is a Republican representative from this state and who has announced that he is running for the Senate seat vacated by Obama when he became President, who basically says that he will not pander to special interests as a Senator as he has as a Representative. AND he expects us, the voters of Illinois, to believe him. Yeah, ain't happening here.

Oh and just yesterday, Speaker of the House Pelosi, after spending the summer maligning and insulting those who were showing up at townhalls and exercising their Constitutionally given rights to free speech is suddenly concerned with other people being responsible with their words and actions. This was after she allowed the House to censure Rep. Joe Wilson for truthfully calling Pres. Obama a liar during his recent speech in front of both houses of Congress because he rightly refused to apologize on the House floor, yet she has yet to apologize to the CIA for calling them liars even though it is quite apparent that she had been told about the interrogation techniques that were being used and did not object to them.

Not only that but now those same people along with those who have been involved in protests since February known as Tea Parties are being labeled as racists. That last one is a bit confusing as mostly that label is used against white people who speak up against something that a black person has said. I say it is confusing because there are plenty of black people who have been a part of the Tea Parties. So, now, all of a sudden, black people can be racist too???? OR is it that people are just speaking out against policies and un-Constitutional actions that have been taking place for too long. Yes, some of them occurred under other presidents and some of us are just now waking up to exactly what has been happening while we weren't looking. But we are looking now and we are fighting back. IT DOES NOT HAVE TO DO WITH THE PRESIDENT'S SKIN COLOR. For heaven's sake he is half white.

So far, the federal government has taken over two of the big three automobile companies, many banks, student loans and is trying to take over the health care system here in the US. THIS IS NOT RIGHT NOR IS IT WHAT OUR FOUNDING FATHERS INTENDED. Read our Constitution. Read what it actually says, not some progressive's interpretation of it. Read the words that those who wrote it prayerfully considered before they put down even one word. Read the words that were put down with the idea that they would last for a long time. They wrote them with knowledge of human nature. They wrote the words with the intent to create a country that would be around for a long time. They didn't write the words so that 150 some years later they could be ignored not only by the president, but also by those who are members of the House and the Senate. That is what the Tea Parties are about. That is what the protesters are protesting. Not the color of some man's skin.