Just a Thought

On Friday, President Obama gave the American people the standards by which he will make his nomination to replace  Supreme Court Justice Souter.  He said,  “I will seek someone who understands that justice isn’t about some abstract legal theory or footnote in a casebook; it is also about how our laws affect the daily realities of people’s lives, whether they can make a living and care for their families, whether they feel safe in their homes and welcome in their own nation.  I view that quality of empathy, of understanding and identifying with people’s hopes and struggles, as an essential ingredient for arriving at just decisions and outcomes.”

Please notice the formula.  Justice is not about rules, it is about caring.  In this day of legal activism and judicial legislation, President Obama is willing to put someone on the bench who is more concerned with stories than he or she will be in the rule of law.  This judge will be making laws that override congress’ decisions, the votes of the people, and even Presidential edicts; shouldn’t the nominee care about the law?

The Supreme sets the precedence for all of the courts in the nation, and our President desires to nominate someone who holds feelings higher than rules.  What happens when feelings change?  What happens when public sentiment is swayed?  In the early 1800’s the country would have been firmly in favor of slavery.  But now, not so much.  If public sentiment were to sway in the opposite direction and slavery were seen to have a positive impact on the, “daily realities of people’s lives,” should Obama’s new judge have empathy for Americans and be pro-slavery?  It’s absurd.

Just as absurd as picking a judge who cares more than he or she rules on what the law is.

Who needs congress?  We will havethe Supreme Court to make our laws, care for us, and feel our pain.

Tags: Podcasts // Add Comment »

One major difference between socialism and capitalism is the financial role of government in the private sector. President Obama said in a press conference on science today, “I believe it is not in our character, American character, to follow — but to lead. And it is time for us to lead once again. I am here today to set this goal: we will devote more than 3 percent of our GDP to research and development.” But has it been the government who has lead in technology?  Getty, Goddard, Ford, Jobs, Gates, and many others made incredible advances without being on the government payroll.
This is the American character. Pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps and being reliant on the ingenuity of our citizens and not our government is what has made America great. If we are to continue to be great, the government needs to get out of the way, not stand in the middle of it. If President Obama wnats to stimulate scientific research, he should cut taxes on private companies who do scientific research and allow the market to drive new technology, not raise taxes so that he can finance his projects.

Tags: Politics, Thoughts // Add Comment »

Take Your Team Seriously!

Tags: Podcasts // Add Comment »

President Obama has “ordered” his cabinet members to save a total of $100 million.  With a budget proposal for 2010 of $3.6 trillion, that would be equivelent to my family saving $1.67 this year.  That is tough budgeting!  I think I will skip buying a couple of cans of Moutain Dew this week so that I will match the percentage savings of the entire presidential cabinet.  If the government can make tough choices, I can too.

Tags: Politics, Thoughts // Add Comment »

I hear the prefix ‘anti’ all the time when it comes to conservatives.  They are anti-abortion, anti-homosexual, anti-socialist, and lately anti-government to name a few.  This tactic makes those who hold to a set of values appear as villainous hate mongers.  I think the tables should be turned and the liberals should be seen as the generators of fear, hate, and division they really are.  It is time liberals take the term anti-tolerant to be their own.

Tolerance is the acceptance of people despite their views.  Anti-tolerance, therefore, is not accepting the worthiness of a person because they do not agree with a given viewpoint.  Conservatives are often attacked for being ‘intolerant’ of people, but the continual stream of anti-tolerant rhetoric and behavior from the political left is currently the most divisive component of American culture.

At the Miss USA pageant on Sunday, Miss California, Carrie Prejean, was asked if more states should legalize homosexual marriages as Vermont just did.  Her answer: “I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman,” she said on the live broadcast. “No offense to anybody out there, but that’s how I was raised.”  The judge asking the question was famous homosexual Perez Hilton.  On his blog he recorded and anti-tolerant message veiled as an attack on her intellect.  Keith Lewis, a co-director of the Miss California pageant said, “I am personally … hurt that Miss California believes marriage rights belong only to a man and a woman.”  Miss Prejean takes a moral stand, and liberals make anti-tolerant attacks because she does not agree with their views.

Should Miss Prejean have won instead of being 1st runner-up?  Don’t ask me, I don’t think these pageants are very healthy for society.  However, this type anti-tolerant behavior is worse.  In our country, agree or disagree, we should fight for the right of individuals to freely and truthfully speak their mind (inside of not causing riots and the like).  The political left, though, does not think this way.  They are anti-tolerant.

Tags: Politics, Thoughts // 1 Comment »

I was recently asked this question by a former student.  Here is my short reply:

Your question is tough because we often do not understand that humans were created for a purpose.  God created man and woman to be companions for each other.  Why, He is the creator and that was His way.  He loves each of His creations dearly and wants what is best for them and in His character and wisdom, God has established that this is the best way.  There are obviously other ways, but they are not according to the design of the creation.

Let’s pretend you make an ashtray in ceramics (isn’t that the only thing students make in that class?).  You give it to a special friend and they say thank you so much.  Later that day, they need to put a nail in the wall so they use the ashtray as a hammer.  You probably grimace as you wait for your piece of art to break, since it wasn’t made to be a hammer.  Later you head outside and your friends use is as a Frisbee.  You protest that it wasn’t made for that, but they tell you, “you gave it away, it is not yours to control anymore.”

I think this is a lot like humans and homosexuality.  God gave us the gift of life and created us for certain purposes.  When we deviate outside those guidelines, we are not only going against His intended purposes, but we are not living inside of what is best for us.  Parents don’t let their children run around in the street because they care for them.   Although the children may think it is best for them to do it and it would be fun, it is clearly not.  The children may not be able to see this, but the parents can.  God has determined that homosexuality is not the best for humans whether we can see it or not.

Why is it not best?  Some of this we may not understand, but some we might.  If we are created for heterosexual relationships, then deviations from this are for our own desires and not the desire to serve God (just as using your ashtray as a Frisbee does not please you).  When we pursue our own desires, it becomes a distraction from seeking God.  Can heterosexual relationships be sinful?  Obviously!  But all of these are simply missing the mark of God’s desire to lead us to the best.

Tags: Politics, Thoughts // Add Comment »

President Obama may end up being a good President, but he, like almost all modern presidents, has lied his way into office.  During the campaign, the President made over 500 promises (check out his progress on those promises at the St. Petersburg Times).  How could he keep them all?  He can’t.  I continued to tell people during the campaign that he made way too many promises and was therefore untrustworthy.

With a $410 billion bill on his desk, do you think he is going to follow this promise from the first deb ate: “Absolutely, we need earmark reform. And when I’m president, I will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely.”  As soon as that came out of his mouth, I immediately called him a liar.  First of all, budget bills are thousands of pages long and he is going to read through that line by line?  Secondly, not one Senator or Representative goes through an entire budget bill.  NOT ONE, and the President is going to go through it line by line?

There is about $10 billion dollars of pet projects in this bill and the President will not be going through the bill line by line.  Two promises broken with one stroke of the pen.  I guess it is a case of the pen being mightier than the promise.

Tags: Podcasts // Add Comment »

Yesterday, President Obama singed an executive order which allows more embryos to be available for research and allows more taxpayer funds to be used for this.  Obama says, “And we will ensure that our government never opens the door to the use of cloning for human reproduction. It is dangerous, profoundly wrong, and has no place in our society, or any society.”  However, until the embryo is either implanted or destroyed, the process is the same.  Stem-cells are used to clone stem cells for just over a week.  Once the embryo is filled primarily with stem-cells, the embryo can be placed into a surrogate mother to bring the life to full term or the life can be terminated in order to use the stem-cells for research.

His stated reason for making the order is that this research could, “possibly cure, some of our most devastating diseases and conditions.”  To Obama, the ends justify the means.  He could have been blunt and said, “if we have to kill humans at the embryonic stage to cure people, then those are acceptable losses.”  Would he have said the same for a newborn however?

Imagine six children who all had difficult diseases.  One has dual kidney failure, another’s liver is not functioning, and a third has a defective heart.  If we continue and know that a fourth has ocular degeneration, a fifth has underdeveloped lungs, and a sixth is born without a pancreas.  If a healthy seventh child is born and is a perfect match to the other six, can we kill the child and portion our her parts for transplant to save the other six?  Why not?  This is similar to embryonic stem-call research.  Could we at least take the new born and kill it to perform tests?  If not, then why is killing embryos acceptable?

Tags: Thoughts // Add Comment »

Today President Obama signed an executive order allowing the Federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research.  His declaration is wrong on many levels.

On an economic level, is now the time to spend even more taxpayer money on research that has strides being made already with adult stem-cells?  Especially since private companies will garner the financial gain from my money’s investment.  He mentions, this research could, “possibly cure, some of our most devastating diseases and conditions. To regenerate a severed spinal cord and lift someone from a wheelchair. To spur insulin production and spare a child from a lifetime of needles. To treat Parkinson’s, cancer, heart disease and others that affect millions of Americans and the people who love them.”  Right now, adult and umbilical stem-cells are being used to treat these diseases so it is unnecessary to increase spending to pursue another avenue?

On a moral level, he did not comment on the true moral issue here.  He did not say that embryonic life is not human life.  If it is human life, then he probably could not in good conscience sign the order.  If it is not human life, then why the big speech?  Just say, “science has shown that a human embryo is not human life and so stem-cell research is justified.”  The problem for him is that he cannot truthfully say this.  A human embryo is human life.

On a logical level, he fails as well.  Obama says, “And we will ensure that our government never opens the door to the use of cloning for human reproduction. It is dangerous, profoundly wrong, and has no place in our society, or any society.”  First of all, in order to clone for research, a scientist follows the exact same steps as a scientist trying to reproduce life for cloning.  The difference comes in the end result.  In reproductive cloning, when the embryo reaches maturity, it is placed into a uterus.  In stem cell research, when it reaches maturity, it is destroyed for experiments.  The process is the same, one must clone humans to do embryonic stem-cell research.  However, he did not mention this and he either does not understand it or he is counting on us not understanding it.

Secondly, he says that reproductive cloning is, “dangerous, profoundly wrong, and has no place in our society, or any society.”  Can I ask why?  Couldn’t it lead to better humans?  More productive humans?  Why does he think it is wrong?  The only reason I think he believes it is wrong is because the public opinion polls tell him so.  There really isn’t another good reason to think that this type of cloning is wrong and therapeutic cloning is not.

Obama says he is not playing politics and yet he is.  He said, this order, “is about ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda – and that we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology.”  By spending taxpayer funds (read government money if you are a liberal) on this science, he is supporting this science WITH and THROUGH the government.  How is this a separation?  He has done the opposite of what he said yet again.

Surprise!

Tags: Thoughts // Add Comment »

I would like to be one of the first to endorse a proposition for the November 2009 ballot which would reduce the age for marriage without parental consent to 14.  As someone who has worked with high school students for 20 years, I have found them all to be bright, articulate, stable, and extremely mature people who can handle almost any situation.  If we are truly going to call ourselves a nation that supports the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all citizens, we must take action now.

It appears Californians have spoken for a third time to preserve the rights of 14 year-old girls to have abortions.  Without this protection, children may run away from home, leave the state, or commit suicide because they are afraid of their parents’ reaction to their pregnancy.  The same is true with the love between a 14 year-old and his or her partner.  Children have left home and committed suicide over the inability to be with the one they hold so dear to their hearts.  Remember Romeo and Juliet?  Never mind that a 14 year-old cannot get her ears pierced, go on a field trip, or go to a tanning salon without parental consent, we need to protect the rights of these children to have surgery or commit in matrimony without fear of their parents.  Both matrimony and abortion are life-changing choices, yet obviously young teenagers have the ability to make these difficult decisions in a responsible manner.  Without the ability to be married without parental consent, who knows the lengths these extremely bright and mature children may leap to in pursuit of marrying the person they love.

My fellow Californians, this is the time to act.  This is the time to protect rights.  This is the time for change.  Support the rights of life and liberty for children.  Support the youth of America and their choices.  Support teenage marriages.

Tags: Politics, Thoughts // Add Comment »