Meanwhile, the U.S. and Britain are still deeply mired in recession, having acquired a vast amount of new government debt to no constructive purpose. No amount of juggling with unemployment figures can obscure the fact that in both countries real jobs are still being lost and that the creation of phony government ones is not altering the drop in family incomes. . . .

* * * *

One of the great modern myths taught in some university economics departments is that government treasuries can be run in a fundamentally different way from the finances of private families. This mythology includes the belief that adding to public debt is a form of investment and that spending the taxpayers’ money on a colossal scale and in a wanton manner may have positive economic virtues.

But before we deal with these minor details, let’s be sure to get wrapped around the axle over the completely extraneous issue of health care.  And let’s not create a business-friendly atmosphere, say, by cutting corporate tax rates and increasing domestic energy supplies.  No!  Let’s screw with business.

And when we’re done with that, let’s be sure to bring up legislation—“comprehensive” legislation, have no fear—that will grant instant citizenship and a free medical school education to illegal immigrants.

Our workers will be back on the job, wages rising, and the economy humming before you can say “bad national acid trip.”

”There Is No Keynesian Miracle.” By Paul Johnson, Forbes.com, 2/12/10?

Good, kind and compassionate Democrats, I ask thee, thumbs up or down? 
Well, cats be nimble, I’ll bet every Congressman, and this includes Nancy Pelosi, wants the uninsured to live and let live. Isn’t that special. Let’s let the uninsured breathe on and seek for themselves the American dream and perhaps find it. Let us raise our glasses to their health. For they are our brothers and sisters and we wish them nothing but well. They truly are. We really do. Okay, Rachel’s cool with that. I’m very comfortable driving down that road. In fact, Rachel, obviously, was pulling your leg, tugging your chain, taking the road less traveled, pulling a Swifty; not considering seriously the actual implementation of an end of life decision that neither Rachel nor a governmental panel, under man’s law possesses. But here we come to a fork in the road. And don’t forget what Yogi said.

So what about the other side of the coin, the north end of the south bound question, the dependent clause of the proffered, preposition-inhabiting proposition? Pelosi, Reid, Barack, I’m speaking most directing to these three. If they were reading, I’d say “Don’t look away. Look me straight in the eye and say so I can hear clearly that disposing of unborn inconvenience, ripping brains from bodies like wrapping from presents; “well, yes, I’m comfortable with that.” Yet, how can that leave you at peace?


Is not an unborn life as valuable as an uninsured one?

The unborn life could grow up to find the cure for greed and corruption; or, for that matter, some other awful disease. Likewise, the uninsured could conceivably do the same. However, one of these groups the Congress as a body values; the other is taken out with the trash. 
Pelosi, Reid, Obama and every other one of you who just couldn’t resist keeping your precious abortion language in your insane, uncouth, unacceptable and unconstitutional, bleeping StealthCare Bill, I’m here to say in no uncertain terms, you make every serious life taker preceding you in death look like the choir boys at St. Anne’s church in Fairlawn, New Jersey. If I weren’t so lady like in manner and way, I’d call you three lost leaders from the local five and dime pompous, pig headed, excuses for civilized life. I’d deplore your zest and zeal for baby butchery in spades. I might even grab the heavy artillery and call Pelosi, Reid and Zero, Tom Hanks in disingenuous disguise. I can’t say how others feel, but you’ve killed my last nerve in the abortive attempt to dress up your actions to unbeat the hearts of the unborn in the attire of “caring for women’s rights.” No such right exists speaketh the United States Constitution. The right to life and liberty trumps the right to jive with the Slaughterhouse Three whose overriding concern is caring for themselves.


When that Stimulus money is taken, and vote friendly pals are paid off with jobs and whatnot born of unspent Stimulus funds, people smarter than I will follow the money; track you down and bring you down. As George said, “Nothing but scurvy spiders weave their webs of deceit until the People stand up and say enough’s enough”. You do what you will. You go on and tell yourselves the ends justify the means. But they never have and never will. You have a right to your opinion, but not to the truth. If this Bill is the abortion I think it is, the people behind it and the ones who sell their souls and votes to the Devil, are infinitely and interminably worse. What’s ahead for them?


The irony of all ironies. Pelosi, Zero, Reid, et al could have lived out their natural lives in the lap of luxury, and been eternally at peace. But when they started picking off the unborn like the soldiers of Japanese descent hiding in the Guadalcanal palm trees picked off the Marines, well that’s a game changer. The Almighty deal breaker. For as wonderful as all their days turn out, there is one that might not work out quite as well for the Pelosi crew. Everybody, even hapless Harry with his multi million unborn kill rate, can figure out where this is headed. It’s where the James Earl Jones voice is heard. It’s not a Friday. Or Monday. Or even a Sunday. Trust me. You don’t want to go there.


(Respectfully I cite Jonathan Swift, 1729, A Modest Proposal for the idea of the entire piece), (It’s a Wonderful Life, writers, Philip Van Doren Stern and Frank Capra, for the great quotes) and my mother and father who always encouraged me to travel my road, even if at the end of it is a brick wall.  (And Arthur Herzog who reminds me that truth doesn’t need an exclamation point.)

A people that faces hard times is a people in need of sustenance and comfort.

No man's temporal sustenance is guaranteed. It's not always the case that "the sweat of your face" will buy you what you need to survive, much less to flourish. This is particularly true of an economy that promotes extreme specialization, such as that of America.

Most of us are still "above water." Most of us. For those that aren't, physical and emotional survival could well depend upon the generosity of a neighbor, or a stranger. Yet among us who are still doing all right are many who, because they're not quite as well off as they were before the dislocations struck, feel they can't afford to be charitable, or as charitable as they were before the recession.

That's an understandable attitude. We tend to be charitable in proportion to our discretionary incomes. When our margins decline, we retrench along with those margins. Looking out for oneself and one's own is, after all, the first of anyone's temporal responsibilities. But that doesn't change the consequences of such a retrenchment.

I've been overjoyed to note these past two years that, in aggregate, Americans have been as charitable as ever, despite our national economic setbacks and our sense of heightened danger from a government run amok. There appears to be a conviction abroad that, in the best sense, we are one another's keepers. We might not be objectively liable for the well-being of our countrymen, even in a sense that God would take seriously. Yet we've responded to needs national and international with the generosity that's characterized Americans since we became a nation. It's a marvelous thing to witness.

But that's only half the job.

"Man does not live by bread alone," as Christ said to Lucifer near the conclusion of His time in the wilderness. He requires food for all three of his active agencies: body, mind, and soul.

Food for the body, whatever its provenance, is consumed by an individual for his own benefit. It need not serve anyone else's purposes to sustain his life. He eats it, its nutrients couple with his physiology, and his body gains strength. Whether we take our repasts in solitude or in company, there's nothing more individual than the consumption of food for the body.

The food of the mind, though we normally seek it as individuals, is societal in orientation. It consists of tasks suited to our individual skills, by which we demonstrate that we're still capable and valuable to others. It's not the sense of personal power that nourishes one's self-regard nearly so much as the sense that others want and can benefit by what we do. When there's no consumer for our efforts, we close in upon ourselves. We wither away.

The food of the soul is more complex yet. Few persons can consume it all by themselves; no one can harvest it without the active assistance of Another.

Spiritual sustenance consists of reassurance that we matter: not in the ephemeral sense of mattering to other human beings, but in the absolute sense that cannot be destroyed by the passing of those who've loved us. For one who resides exclusively in time, among beings as mortal and forgetful as we, cannot hide from the ultimate loss of such significance as he can attain during his lifetime.

The reductio ad absurdum is Robinson Crusoe. Imagine if that unfortunate had known, beyond all question, that there is no God and no eternal life, that he would never again seen a human face, and therefore would never again matter to anyone. What would that have done to his labors for his own survival? Is it even imaginable that he would have struggled on, doing everything in his powers to tame his new home and amass comforts within it? I can't see it, and I doubt that anyone else could convince me otherwise.

Yet Crusoe, marooned alone for a long spell on his island, never ceased to give thanks to God for what deliverance He had vouchsafed him. His faith was all he had to sustain him, and even in the absence of human company it proved sufficient. His story is suffused with Christian feeling from first to last: a conviction of absolute significance, meaning that transcended his mortal life by an infinite degree and that obligated him to strive to his utmost on his own behalf, that he could not possibly have sustained without his faith.

One of the great puzzles of life is why so many persons, in straits of one sort or another, turn away from Christian faith when it would be of greatest benefit to them.

The reason I've heard most frequently from those who've turned away when under unusual stress is that "I haven't got time for that right now." Yet somehow, "right now" never seems to elapse. The distance between the afflicted one and God grows greater with time. After some unspecifiable point, he sees the gulf as unbridgeable, and his departure as permanent.

Such a severance constitutes a tragedy beyond my ability to express. Why, when food for the body or the mind becomes scarce and hard to gather, would one voluntarily eschew food for the soul? What benefit could be gained that way?

It could be a devil's bargain, I suppose. One who isn't thinking clearly might be seduced into believing that spiritual nourishment can be traded for other sorts. But that's not the way human life works.

It could also be a misconception about the demands of Christian faith. Neither God the Father nor Christ His Son demanded anything of Man but appreciation of Creation's gifts to us and respect for the laws graven into human nature. Self-abnegation is not required of us; neither is the renunciation of any wholesome pleasure. Granted that various clerics and churchly bodies have made such demands, those were and are men speaking, not the tongue of God. I believe wholeheartedly that such persons will face Divine justice for their presumption.

Christ Himself said it:

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. [The Gospel According To Matthew, 11:28-30]

In return for faith in God and respect for our fellow men, we get the hope of eternal life, and the assurance of unquenchable Divine love. No sacrifices are required. Nor will the ushers throw you out for having nothing to put in the collection basket. As Ann Coulter wrote recently, if you can find a better deal than that, take it!

I often come to the end of these Ruminations feeling as if I could have condensed the whole thing into a single paragraph, perhaps even a single sentence. Christ did so, as indicated above. But (as a certain Robert Zimmerman would surely remind me) I'm not Him. I have to circumnavigate my points if I'm to feel they've been properly encapsulated. I hope that doesn't put too many Gentle Readers off.

Every man has a burden or twelve: a "cross to bear" that often feels too heavy for mortal strength. Faith, actively used, can and will lighten the load. Pray! Don't be an arrogant asshole; admit that you need help! You'll get it, though its form might not be what you specifically request. When the wood begins to rub your shoulder raw, call upon Jesus. Presently you'll feel His shoulder right alongside yours.

Of course you will. You matter to Him. Look at the burden He undertook to carry for you.

May God bless and keep you all. ]]> 2010-03-14T14:40:00-05:00 http://www.eternityroad.info/index.php/weblog/4022/ Until Fran’s post a few weeks ago, I’d never heard of the idea of political cross-dressing.  Now that I know what it is, I find that I do it a lot.  I especially like to doll myself up for conservatives.

There is a tendency for those who call themselves conservatives, especially social conservatives, to think of libertarians as dopers and perverts who want to see their preferred vices embraced by society at large, or at least legalized.  At the very least, their ideas and attitudes are viewed with suspicion over their real-world practicality, which the conservative, being a conservative, is not going to embrace despite his penchant for the general ideal of liberty.  The libertarian “just takes a good thing too far.”

I certainly can’t speak for all libertarians.  Maybe there are some out there who want marijuana legalized so they can smoke the stuff freely.  But most of the ones that I know, myself included, are pretty much boy scouts.  I don’t have much interest in that kind of thing.  So, what’s in it for me and others like me?

My libertarianism is mostly informed, as you might guess, by my attempt to understand the monetary and financial system and seeing how government “regulation” and involvement completely corrupted the entire economy and quite a bit else along with it.  This is not exactly a new and insightful point of view – the idea that government pretty well corrupts anything and everything it touches. 

But what was particularly captivating, for me at least, was the way that once it was allowed to creep down to the very core of the valuation and exchange system of the economy, the monetary system, and unshackle it from the ancient principle of gold as an absolute and physical repository for economic accounting, the entire thing became completely disconnected from reality, taken over by an almost demonic animating influence, al a the conspiracy in That Hideous Strength.  To read a history of how government and the banking system systematically dismembered every last inhibiting accountability to the ancient standard of gold-as-money, which to that point had been primarily enforced by human convention far more than law, and to see the effect that it had is really quite bone chilling.  It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the individual actors involved were bumbling idiots who had no idea what they were doing, only that they needed some kind of release for the consequences of their own particular fraud, and yet the clear intent of the entire movement, animated by God-only-knows-what and which took upwards of a century, was to place the entire economy on a foundation which had no external accountability, only the whim of a select few overseeing masters.  Today, we are inheriting the consequences of this long process.

At almost every step, the same fraud was perpetuated.  “We’re changing the rules, just a little, but we’re still using gold.  Don’t worry.”   First, it was actual gold as money.  Then, gold deposit receipts, a.k.a. bank notes or paper money, exchanged in lieu of gold but redeemable for gold, if desired.  Then, a Federal Reserve that could create money from nowhere, but somehow that money was still “backed by gold” and could be redeemed by the few antiquated “unsophisticated” types of people who chose to do so.  Then, the Great Depression, and the need to suspend gold redemption, and eventually seize all gold and adjust the exchange rate to fix the accounting disaster created by the Federal Reserve in the 1920’s.  Then, a ban on gold coinage altogether, for fear of upsetting the FED’s monetary games, made necessary by “economic necessity” and the Cold War, of course.  Finally, suspension of any pretense of exchangeability of gold altogether when the dollar was floated in the 1970’s.   Through the hand of government, the point was reached that nobody cared about gold—the old, outdated value system—anymore and just accepted as government fiat what the valuation system for the economy was going to be.  In fact, if you are somebody who holds to ancient principles of monetary conduct, and rejects a completely government scripted money-value system, you are considered a screwball, a dinosaur, a crank, or worse, maybe an enemy of the state and the public at large.  You will be ridiculed and hated.  Talk about turning evil to good and good to evil!

But it would take some time, motivation, and a lot of research for the average person to find out the way things used to be, back when people cared about such outdated things.  People have other things to worry about, and they’d rather leave these types of concerns to the nice government men to take care of for them.

I shudder to think what the future holds for us when abortion, euthanasia, childcare, and other such issues have been so thoroughly imbued with government attentions.

A particular article which discussed such effects on issues more contemporaneous with the cares of most conservatives caught my attention some while back.  Here is a snippet:

First, the problem with the European model, namely: It drains too much of the life from life. And that statement applies as much to the lives of janitors--even more to the lives of janitors--as it does to the lives of CEOs…

… To become a source of deep satisfaction, a human activity has to meet some stringent requirements. It has to have been important (we don’t get deep satisfaction from trivial things). You have to have put a lot of effort into it (hence the cliché “nothing worth having comes easily"). And you have to have been responsible for the consequences.

There aren’t many activities in life that can satisfy those three requirements. Having been a good parent. That qualifies. A good marriage. That qualifies. Having been a good neighbor and good friend to those whose lives intersected with yours. That qualifies. And having been really good at something--good at something that drew the most from your abilities. That qualifies. Let me put it formally: If we ask what are the institutions through which human beings achieve deep satisfactions in life, the answer is that there are just four: family, community, vocation, and faith. Two clarifications: “Community” can embrace people who are scattered geographically. “Vocation” can include avocations or causes…

…Put aside all the sophisticated ways of conceptualizing governmental functions and think of it in this simplistic way: Almost anything that government does in social policy can be characterized as taking some of the trouble out of things. Sometimes, taking the trouble out of things is a good idea. Having an effective police force takes some of the trouble out of walking home safely at night, and I’m glad it does.

The problem is this: Every time the government takes some of the trouble out of performing the functions of family, community, vocation, and faith, it also strips those institutions of some of their vitality--it drains some of the life from them. It’s inevitable. Families are not vital because the day-to-day tasks of raising children and being a good spouse are so much fun, but because the family has responsibility for doing important things that won’t get done unless the family does them. Communities are not vital because it’s so much fun to respond to our neighbors’ needs, but because the community has the responsibility for doing important things that won’t get done unless the community does them. Once that imperative has been met--family and community really do have the action--then an elaborate web of social norms, expectations, rewards, and punishments evolves over time that supports families and communities in performing their functions. When the government says it will take some of the trouble out of doing the things that families and communities evolved to do, it inevitably takes some of the action away from families and communities, and the web frays, and eventually disintegrates.

If we knew that leaving these functions in the hands of families and communities led to legions of neglected children and neglected neighbors, and taking them away from families and communities led to happy children and happy neighbors, then it would be possible to say that the cost is worth it. But that’s not what happened when the U.S. welfare state expanded. We have seen growing legions of children raised in unimaginably awful circumstances, not because of material poverty but because of dysfunctional families, and the collapse of functioning neighborhoods into Hobbesian all-against-all free-fire zones.

Meanwhile, we have exacted costs that are seldom considered but are hugely important. Earlier, I said that the sources of deep satisfactions are the same for janitors as for CEOs, and I also said that people needed to do important things with their lives. When the government takes the trouble out of being a spouse and parent, it doesn’t affect the sources of deep satisfaction for the CEO. Rather, it makes life difficult for the janitor. A man who is holding down a menial job and thereby supporting a wife and children is doing something authentically important with his life. He should take deep satisfaction from that, and be praised by his community for doing so. Think of all the phrases we used to have for it: “He is a man who pulls his own weight.” “He’s a good provider.” If that same man lives under a system that says that the children of the woman he sleeps with will be taken care of whether or not he contributes, then that status goes away. I am not describing some theoretical outcome. I am describing American neighborhoods where, once, working at a menial job to provide for his family made a man proud and gave him status in his community, and where now it doesn’t. I could give a half dozen other examples. Taking the trouble out of the stuff of life strips people--already has stripped people--of major ways in which human beings look back on their lives and say, “I made a difference.”

I conclude that government is not at all up to the task of upholding our values, and is, in fact, inimical to them.  Taking over the functions of other institutions, determining right and wrong behavior, and politicizing then neglecting every aspect of our lives and value systems is not helpful, it is hurtful.  Government should not be entrusted with anything that is important to anybody, least of all our most cherished principles.  It should be appointed the bare minimum that allows society to function.

So, conservatives out there…

-- if you want to ensure that marriage becomes a meaningless institution, by all means, put the government in charge of defining what it is.

-- if you want the family thoroughly discredited and destroyed, by all means, have the government engaged in supporting the family, through welfare programs, public education, drug enforcement, vice regulation and the like.

-- if you want the church ground into oblivion, by all means, have the government become a source of social welfare and moral authority.  Give people no material reasons to come to church whatsoever.  Just make it a fun place for people to get together and talk about… well… whatever!

Basically, if you want to completely destroy social mores, by all means, put the government in charge of them.  Get government involved in any way you can.

But if you care about any of these things, by all means take care of it yourself and keep the government strictly out of it!

Do not think that taking government out of the equation and shrinking it down will result in anarchy and a loss of all values whatsoever.  Think of it this way.  There is no rule stating that cars should be made of steel, yet virtually every car you will encounter will have a great deal of steel incorporated into its design.  This is because steel is the best material for the job. There aren’t many good substitutes. If you “have faith in your faith,” then by all means have faith that your values will survive and flourish when left to stand on their own merits, and that chaff will go the way of chaff.

Time was, people had many more places to turn when it came to such questions besides national government.  In medieval times, there wasn’t really even much of a notion of the idea of a nation.  Governing authority was couched in many different institutions, from feudal family and nobility structures, to the church, which had real clout back then, to the king and his power apparatus.  We like to think of ourselves as sophisticated and materially prosperous, but I have a feeling that the people who lived back then had far richer lives in many respects, particularly when it came to variety and depth of social awareness, and probably felt much more secure in their values and the perpetuation of those systems that they cherished.

One of the most recurring motifs in fiction is to pit a human civilization against some alien group with a social structure like colonizing insects:  armies of mindless drones with no concept of “self” that do the bidding of some queen for which issues of ethics or morality are unknown and/or of no concern.  These beings are driven by biology and exponential growth, not value structures that govern behavior.  The story usually ends in such a way that the humans’ value systems allow them to triumph over the enemy, and we all get to feel really good about ourselves.

I am beginning to wonder if we haven’t turned that story on its head.  Some time ago Jonah Goldberg wrote a book called Liberal Fascism, which I read only recently, and is yet another of Fran’s recommendations.  (Aside:  if Fran ever recommends a book, and especially if he starts quoting from it, by all means, drop what you are doing and read the durn thing.  You’ll be glad you did.)  In that book, Goldberg talks about the history of the Progressive movement, how it “progressed” into fascism, how it basically makes a religion of politics and the state, and how it now colors almost every aspect of political thought, despite nominal revulsion expressed by the political right.  Although the book doesn’t address it, the corruption of the money system was intimately tied up in this movement.  It took more than a century, which is why nobody really recognizes it or bothers about it.  Again, we take it all for granted.

In our unthinking embrace of Progressivism and fascism, which as he points out, now animates as much of the left as the right, I wonder if we have not become a bit less human, and a bit more like those alien bugs.  Does collectivizing and nationalizing childcare in the public schools, collectivizing and nationalizing finance, collectivizing and nationalizing our moral codes, and nationalizing basic charity through welfarism, not push these concerns out of mind and “let the government take care of them?”  How well does it take care of them – how well has it taken care of them in the past?  Does this not ensure that these ideals will be utterly corrupted and destroyed, and our civilization becomes like the thing it most hates?   I do not want my civilization to become like a hive of bees – mindless, selfless workers who do not understand nor want to understand their world, leave all value judgments to the Authorities, and fulfill their role as breeders and workers just as they’re told. 

I say, screw the statists.  All of them, whatever side of the aisle they sit on.  My values are too important to leave to those not-so-nice government men.  I want them to stay far, far away from anything that I love.  I want the job done right, and I intend to do it myself.  I will not have the government corrupting my marriage, church, values, and especially not my children.

Preserve social mores – get the government out of them.  Make them sacred, keep them sacred, and keep filthy hands away.  Begin by liberating yourself from the Progressivist mindset that I can assure you that you harbor.  Read Liberal Fascism if you don’t believe me, and even if you do.  Read about the disgusting things done in the name of “progress,” and see if you don’t find a little of your own thinking in them.  Then, read C. S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy.  See how the rot goes all the way to the top.

Give some serious thought to libertarianism.

Not so fast.  The media has been issuing conflicted stories for over a week now, but I believe that many stories out there have been written in such a way as to exaggerate the momentum for Obamacare.  This story is a case in point. In fact, I believe there is an equally compelling, and untold narrative surrounding next weekend’s marathon voting session.

First, the media is reporting that Pelosi still appears to be 5 or 6 votes short.  If true, what does this really mean?

• There are many more members who want to vote no, but may go along if there are enough other Representatives willing to walk the plank.
• More importantly, Pelosi is gambling that she can persuade the nays before next weekend, or the game is up.

The critical question to ask is: why would a Speaker of the House gamble in this situation?.  There are lots of staid reasons, but there is one hypothesis that is not filtering into the media, who tend to rely on Congressional leaders as sources rather than “boring” rank-and-file members.  Simply put, Pelosi is facing a nascent backbencher revolt over her handling of the health care situation and the damage it is doing to their electoral prospects in the fall.

Remember this image from back in February?

After the State of the Union, these Democrats were promised they’d get to pivot to jobs, a subject their constituents actually want to talk about.  Instead, they got another bruising 2 months on health care, with no end in sight.  I believe they are forcing Pelosi into a calling a vote before she feels truly ready.  In truth, I also feel she is more likely 10-15 votes short, rather than the reported 4-7, an intuition I draw mainly from Jay Cost’s outstanding running analysis.

On a tactical level, it is also important to note what this “vote” is really for.  Evidently, the House leadership has cooked up a scheme whereby members can vote for the reconciliation package only and by doing so “deem” the Senate bill passed.  This is an attempt to make sure members can go back to their constituents and be able to say they didn’t support the Senate bill.  Yes, that begs the question of how stupid House Democrats think their constituents really are, but it also shows that Pelosi has probably been convinced that the House will never have enough votes to pass the Senate bill.

I can’t say what the odds are for ultimate passage of the bill.  I would guess somewhere between 50-50 to 60-40 against.  In the meantime, call your Representatives and tell them how you feel.  It does make a difference, or Obamacare would have passed 6 months ago.

As a final note:

“Final battle” is a bit of a misnomer.  Few things are final in politics.  Let’s suppose Obamacare does pass.  Parts of it will likely be tied up in the courts for years, and there have been suggestions out there that the so-called “Slaughter rule” described above may give every citizen standing to sue the government over Obamacare.

Most importantly, many pieces of the legislation rely on state funding, such as provisions that expand Medicaid and increase the maximum age for children who can be covered by various government plans.  That’s all part of the accounting gimmicks designed to make Obamacare deficit neutral, but just this morning I read a headline in the Chicago Tribune that our state’s budget is in such trouble that state senators are receiving eviction notices for failing to pay rent on their offices.  No, Obamacare is not paid for, and there is no money for it.

Many of the benefits don’t kick in until 2013 or later, but the taxes start right away.  With the nation’s fiscal situation being what it is, some of those benefits may never kick in it all.  It is much easier to repeal a tax than it is an entitlement.

No matter what happens this weekend, the fight over Obamacare will rage on.

Sigh. When a writer describes himself in terms such as these:

Joe is the author of more than a dozen novels, including the internationally bestselling Templar Chronicles trilogy (HERETIC, A SCREAM OF ANGELS, A TEAR IN THE SKY) , as well as the Hunt Chronicles series coming soon from Tor Books in the US and Pan Books in Germany. He has also written four installments in the internationally bestselling adventure series Rogue Angel from Harlequin/Gold Eagle.

He’s a former president of the Horror Writers Association, the world’s largest organization of professional horror writers, a two time Bram Stoker Award and International Horror Guild Award nominee, and the man behind RockYourWritingCareer.com, a membership site for writers who want to take their careers to the next level.

...he leads the reader -- this reader, at least -- to expect something more original than formulaic from him. A story that doesn't read like 90% of the horror fantasy being published today. A story that makes use of an original plot motif or two. A story whose protagonist isn't a copy of the protagonist in some recent movie.

Well, as my beloved Co-Conspirator Kate Dembinski has told me, some days your house burns up; some days your house burns down.

So: what do we have in The Heretic? The Knights Templar, reconstituted as a modern paramilitary force at the command of the Catholic Church? Okay, I'll grant that I haven't seen that one before, though Katherine Kurtz and others have made use of the Templars in recent fiction. Necromancers who attempt to employ the Spear of Longinus as a source of power? That notion appears in both WitchBlade and Keanu Reeves's movie Constantine. A paramilitary commander, who labors for the Church but whose personal losses have cost him his faith? Whose ruthlessness and penchant for going "outside the lines" cause him to be regarded with suspicion by most of those around him? Trite.

Yet, despite all that, I did read to the end, and I don't regard the time or the money as entirely wasted. Nassise tells a fast-paced and adequately action-packed story of combat between those modern Templars and their necronomic and demonic adversaries. As with many of the military adventures popular today, if the reader can overlook the stereotypes and the reuse of plot elements from others' fictions, he can spend a few diverting hours over The Heretic.

There are several points in the story where one familiar with this subcategory of horror fiction simply knows what's coming down the turnpike. Commander Cade Williams's dead wife Gabrielle simply has to make an appearance as his personal rescuer, and of course she does. There simply must be a secret Churchly organization dedicated to protecting secrets and powers the rest of us must never learn about, and of course there is. And that organization simply must have a traitor embedded within it, though such a one would have to know he'd damned his own soul by betraying the Church to its demonic enemies. Each of these elements prompts a "yeah, yeah, what now?" reaction. Fortunately, the pace carries the reader forward swiftly enough that the irritations from those telegraphed developments are soon behind him.

But please, Mr. Nassise: Why are Cade Williams's soldiers firing Earthly bullets at unEarthly creatures? Demonic entities with magical powers, whose very existence is predicated on exemption from Earthly laws, such that a slug of supersonic lead would presumably have no effect on them?

Theme: There doesn't appear to be one. This is pure escapist action-adventure. It gets a pass on that basis.
Plot: C
Characterization: C
Style: C+

Recommended for aficionadi of supernatural urban horror fantasy. ]]> 2010-03-13T13:02:00-05:00 http://www.eternityroad.info/index.php/weblog/4020/

Only government can break the cycle that are killing our economy.

FWP: Oh, no. Wine only. You get the milk.
CSO: Why?

FWP: You can't get milk at the liquor store.
CSO: So go to a gas station!

FWP: Naah. I'd have to bring a vented can with "FDA Approved" stickers, and I don't want to go through all that crap about validating my credit card. Besides, which pump would I use?
CSO: The white one. You know, the one with the grade buttons that say "Whole," "1% fat," "2% fat," and so on!

FWP: You know what's worst about that?
CSO: What?
FWP: If you want to buy heavy cream, you have to prove you're over 18.
CSO: Oh.

That conversation took place this morning, Gentle Reader. ]]> 2010-03-12T21:52:01-05:00 http://www.eternityroad.info/index.php/weblog/4017/ Somebody may ask. How can a guy like Tom Hanks, who has Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers on his resume, suddenly and inexplicably decide the fight against the Japanese was based on propaganda and racism? Surprisingly to most people, Hanks has been going on TV lately making a moral equivalency case, saying that Americans and Japanese soldiers hated each other because each was different from the other (then he tries to link it to our distaste for Muslim extremists not only who launched a sneak attack on us, but who continue to want to attack innocent civilians; who want to kill us). Well, I think it’s time somebody put Hanks in his rightful place. The truth is, Hanks I’m convinced, is a fraud. I think that, when it comes to despising the U.S. military, he’s in bed with Barack Obama. Finally, Hanks, I believe, is admitting his Hollywood hatred for America and everything it stands for because he just can’t hold it in any longer. And I guess he feels that he’s rich enough that he no longer has to.

The background.

Seems to lil’ ol’ blond haired, blue eyed Rachel that, when it comes to American-hating guys like Hanks, love of money has always come way before hatred of country. But eventually the true colors show through.

Fact is, I believe Tom, somewhat ironically, despises most everything our country and military stand for. If somebody was going to make a killing off of WW2, he’d want it to be him. I believe that Hanks believed in his pre-Saving Private Ryan days that he could make a pile of money making war movies, while embedding within them the almost subliminal notion that the GI’s were no better than the Japanese or Germans. How many of us have actually bought into that lie? Did U.S. Marines in WWII commit equivalent acts of barbarism that the Japanese soldiers specialized in? You decide.

Here’s a sample of what the Japanese busied themselves with during the war years. Or, Tommy, is it just some Rachel concocted propaganda?

How about The Rape of Nanking for starters? The Bataan Death March. The Japanese practice of lopping off heads of prisoners of war. The barbaric, inhumane medical experimentation on American soldiers in 1945 Japan. Perhaps a little more atrocity history is necessary to put this moral equivalency lie to rest. My thanks to George Dunkan for the language and information that I have a feeling Hanks won’t be making any movies about. For Hanks to say that our greatest generation was no better than the enemies they fought, enemies who wanted to enslave the world cerca 1940, is unforgivable. I believe that Eddie Slovic had a thousand times the courage and love of country as a Tom Hanks. Who’s good at pretending. He’s an actor. In real life, I believe he’s nothing but a liar. Now let’s take a look at the kind of soldiers Tom Hanks compares the United States citizen soldier to. 

This is a sample of what the Japanese were responsible for leading up to and during the second world war. “Known historically as the ‘Rape of Nanking, in 1937, (the real start of World War II) the Chinese capital had a population of just over one million, including over 100,000 refugees. On December 13, the city fell to the invading Japanese troops. For the next six weeks the soldiers indulged in an orgy of indiscriminate killing, rape and looting. They shot at everyone on sight, whether out on the streets or peeking out of windows. The streets were soon littered with corpses, on one street a survivor counted 500 bodies. Girls as young as twelve, and women of all ages were raped by gangs of 15 or 20 soldiers, crazed by alcohol, who roamed the town in search of women. At the Jingling Women’s University, students were carted away in trucks to work in Japanese army brothels. Over a thousand men were rounded up and marched to the banks of the Yangtze river where they were lined up and gunned to death to give practice in machine-gun traversing fire. Thousands of captured Chinese soldiers, many wounded, were also murdered. In the following six weeks, the Nanking Red Cross units alone, buried around 43,000 bodies. About 20,000 women and girls had been raped, most were then murdered. Department stores, shops, churches and houses were set on fire while drunken soldiers indulged in wholesale looting and bayoneting of Chinese civilians for sport. It is estimated that over 150,000 Chinese civilians and soldiers were killed in this, the most infamous atrocity committed by the Japanese army.

PHILIPPINES MASSACRE

“A full account of all massacres of Filipinos by Japanese troops would fill several books. In Manila, 800 men, women and children were machine-gunned in the grounds of St. Paul’s College. In the town of Calamba, 2,500 were shot or bayoneted. Around 100 were bayoneted and shot inside a church at Ponson and 169 villagers of Matina Pangi were rounded up and shot in cold blood. At the War Crimes Trial in Tokyo, document No 2726 consisted of 14,618 pages of sworn affidavits, each describing separate atrocities committed by the invading Japanese troops. The Tribunal listed 72 large scale massacres and 131,028 murders as a bare minimum.

THE CHEKIANG MASSACRES

“The Doolittle bombing raid on Tokyo brought a retaliation against the Chinese people that staggers the imagination. On April 18, 1942, sixteen twin-engined Mitchell B-25 bombers, each carrying one ton of bombs, and led by Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle, were launched from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet. Their mission was to bomb the Japanese capital, Tokyo, and then, unable to land back on their carrier, proceed to friendly airfields in China, 1,200 miles across the East China Sea. Some of the planes reached their destination safely but the others ran out of fuel and crashed after their crews had baled out. Sixty four airmen parachuted into the area around Chekiang. Most were given shelter by the Chinese civilians but eight of the Americans were picked up by Japanese patrols and three were shot after a mock trial for ‘crimes against humanity’. The Japanese army then conducted a massive search for the others and in the process whole towns and villages that were suspected of harboring the Americans were burned to the ground and every man, woman and child brutality murdered. When the Japanese troops moved out of the Chekiang and Kiangsu areas in mid-August, they left behind a scene of devastation and death that is beyond comprehension. Chinese estimates put the death toll at a staggering 250,000. Lt. Col. James Doolittle was later awarded the US Medal Of Honor. (The Chinese Department of Defense claims that 1,319,659 Chinese soldiers were killed between 1937 and 1945. It estimates the number of Chinese civilians killed during this period at over 30,000,000)

ATROCITY ON LUZON

“While many atrocities were committed on Luzon, this one stands out for its sheer bloody mindedness. Fourteen Filipino resistance fighters surrendered to the Nippon savages after their ammunition was expended. Tied together neck to neck and with hands tied behind their backs, they were marched three miles to their place of execution. Ordered to sit down, another group of prisoners were brought in and forced to dig fourteen holes two feet wide and four and a half feet deep. When the digging finished the fourteen Filipinos, with their neck ropes removed, were forced to jump into the holes while the other group shoveled the earth back into the hole and stamped it down hard until only the head and neck of the victims were visible above ground. Their repugnant duty finished, the grave diggers were then lined up and shot in cold blood. The attention of the Japanese was now focused on the fourteen heads awaiting decapitation. A few soldiers had gone behind some bushes to defecate and after scraping together their excreta on to banana leaves they returned to the buried victims and kneeling down offered each head a last meal. Unable to move, the helpless men could only shake their head from side to side whereupon the Japanese soldiers stuffed the revolting faeces into their mouths amidst peals of laughter from their comrades. After they had their fun, the serious business of execution commenced as an officer drew his sword and with deft strokes separated the fourteen heads from the bodies. No one was ever punished for this foul deed.

MURDER ON WAKE ISLAND (January 12, 1943)

The stubborn defense of the island by the tiny garrison of 388 US Marines and 1,200 civilians workers lasted for fourteen heroic days. On December 23, 1941, Major James P.S. Devereux of the 1st. Defense Battalion, US Marine Corps, and Commander Winfield Cunningham of the Naval Air Station, realizing that the odds were hopelessly stacked against them, called for a cease fire, raised the white flag and surrendered the island. In January, 1942, the US Marines, numbering 1,187, were herded into the cargo holds of the 17,163 ton Japanese luxury liner Nitta Maru, for transportation to Yokohama and then to Shanghai. Those left behind included the civilians and the wounded Marines. A year passed and on the night of January 12, 1943, the Japanese accused the civilians of being in secret radio communication with US naval forces. The 97 American civilians still on Wake (actually 98 but one was caught stealing food and was beheaded) were marched to the beach and there lined up with their backs to the ocean and brutally murdered by machine guns. After the war, the Japanese commander on Wake, Rear Admiral Shigematsu Sakaibara, and eleven of his officers, were sentenced to death by a US Naval Court at Kwajalein. Sakaibara was transported to Guam to await his fate. There, on 19 June 1947, he was executed by hanging. The murdered civilian POWs were later buried in Honolulu Memorial, Hawaii.

THE ‘AKIKAZE’ EXECUTIONS (March 18, 1943)

“The Mitsubishi built destroyer Akikaze (Lt. Cdr. Sabe Tsurukichi) was ordered to sail to Wewak in New Guinea to remove some German residents who were suspected of using radio transmitters to report ship movements to the Americans. Forty civilians were rounded up, most of them German clergymen, plus a few nuns with two children. About thirty more civilians were picked up when the ship stopped at Manus Island before proceeding to Rabaul. En-route, Captain Tsurukichi received a radio message from the 8th Fleet Headquarters to dispose of all neutrals on board. On the aft deck a wooden scaffold was erected and a sheet hung across the deck to shield the executions from the rest of the prisoners. One by one the victims were led from their cabins, interrogated and blindfolded and taken to the rear of the ship. There, they were hung on the scaffold by the wrists from a rope and pulley and as their feet cleared the deck they were shot by a four man rifle party. Their bodies were then thrown overboard. The two children were taken from the arms of the nuns and thrown into the water. The men were killed first then the women, the whole procedure lasting three hours.”
(George Duncan, Massacres and Atrocities of WWII)

BACK TO RACHEL

I know it’s a chore to read through all this, but just imagine what it was like trying to live through it.

Incidentally, Hank’s “Band of Brothers”, as I see it, was filled with ludicrous suggestions that there was also a moral equivalency between the German and American soldiers while anybody at Malmedy would disagree. As I remember, in virtually every Band of Brothers episode there was a gratuitous shot of an American soldier killing a white-flag-waving German soldier in cold blood. High ranking American officers were generally painted as cowardly, callous fools. Why didn’t at least the TV reviewers in the mainstream media pick up on this? Isn’t the answer so obvious? Because they agreed with it.

Hanks, last week, went on foaming at the mouth spewing, in Rachel’s opinion, contempt for American soldiers by implying the Marines in the Pacific were out to “kill them all”. Give me a break. The Japanese believed surrender would bring dishonor to themselves and their families. The Japanese respected no one who surrendered. For the most part, the Japanese hated taking prisoners and wouldn’t be taken prisoner. The United States soldier was 7 times more likely to die as a prisoner of the Japanese than of the Germans. When the Japanese weren’t engaging in bayonet practice with POW’s, you might find them playing games with Chinese babies, throwing them up in the air, and trying to impale them with their bayonets. What a way to pass the time. What a pitiful excuse for an American, in my humble opinion, Tom Hanks really is.

Quite a lot of Americans whose "compassion" organs swell and stiffen at the sight of any sort of suffering don't realize that that provision alone would constitute an irrecoverable step toward government-only single-payer medical care. But then, quite a lot of Americans don't understand the nature of insurance.

Insurance doesn't lower the cost of the exigencies it covers. Quite the contrary: it increases them, in some cases rather sharply. Consider automobile insurance as a typical case. Without insurance, insuree Smith pays repairman Davis directly for his labor and the materials he needs. With it, Acme Insurance pays the greater part of Davis's bill, while Smith pays Davis a "deductible." That certainly seems more favorable to Smith than the former situation. But to make that possible, Smith must pay insurance premiums that will cover:

• Davis's labor and materials;
• Davis's costs in dealing with the insurance company;
• A portion of the salaries of Acme Insurance's employees;
• A profit to Acme Insurance's stockholders.

No, he doesn't do that directly, nor does he do it alone. The process is an aggregated one, summed over all Acme's policyholders and extended through time. Nor is the effect uniform; some Smiths will "make out," over time, because they have a significantly higher than average number of insured accidents. Inversely, some Smiths will pay far more in premiums than their cost to Acme in payouts, because they have few or no insured accidents. But overall, Acme must take in a significant amount more than it pays out to be a viable business.

This pattern applies to all insurable human contingencies.

Now ponder the factors Acme's representatives must consider in deciding whether or not to sell a policy to Smith, and at what premium to price it:

• How old is Smith? (Accident frequency correlates inversely with age of driver.)
• What does Smith drive? (High performance cars get into more accidents per capita than standard cars.)
• What's Smith's driving record? (Past performance doesn't guarantee future performance, but it's a damned good guide.)
• How much driving per year does Smith do? (Accident frequency is roughly constant per mile driven.)
• Where does Smith do the bulk of his driving? (Some routes and some neighborhoods are "black dot" zones where accidents occur more frequently than elsewhere.)
• Does Smith have any objectively detectable conditions that might reduce his competence behind the wheel? (Epileptics, the survivors of heart attacks, and persons with multiple-personality disorder are disfavored for accident insurance.)

All these things help Acme to determine whether Smith falls within the statistical envelope on which its policies and premiums are based -- in other words, whether Smith is a "good risk."

The critical consideration in all the above is available knowledge. Acme cannot know that Smith will get into a series of expensive crashes; it must attempt to estimate the likelihood from the factors listed above. What Acme can know is the statistical pattern that applies to Smith's "cohort:" the group he occupies on the basis of age, car, driving record, miles driven per year, and so forth.

If Acme could predict, with perfect accuracy, that this coming year, Smith would get into a crash with million-dollar consequences, it would rightly refuse to insure him. Conversely, if Smith could predict with perfect accuracy that he would not be involved in an accident of any sort, he'd be a fool to buy insurance...though doubt it not, Acme would be happy to sell it to him.

Thus, the insurance industry depends both on knowledge and ignorance: knowledge of the statistics pertinent to the policies sold and the accidents covered, and ignorance of which specific insurees will fall victim to insured hazards in the foreseeable future. If either party knows too much about what's likely to befall the insuree, they won't be able to strike a deal. To improve its odds, Acme probes Smith's relevant characteristics. If it appears too likely that Smith would cost Acme more in payouts than he'd pay in premiums, it will decline to insure him.

There are clear parallels between auto insurance and medical insurance. The foremost is between Smith's driving record in the former case and Smith's medical record in the latter one. Certain preexisting medical conditions virtually guarantee large costs in the future. If Smith is afflicted with degenerative circulatory disease, or cancer, or AIDS, he's guaranteed to cost someone a bundle. Acme will rightly refuse to insure him against costs accruing from them; it simply knows too much about his probable future to bet against odds that steep. To deny Acme the right to withhold coverage for those conditions is to demand that Acme operate as a charity rather than as a profit-making business.

This is integral with the Left's demand that "health care" be deemed a "right." One cannot legally deprive another of his rights; thus, medical care providers in a health-care-is-a-right regime are compelled to labor over any sick person regardless of his ability to pay them for their products and services. If any payment is to be rendered, it must be by the State, out of its tax coffers, for no profit-making business could survive under those constraints.

A health-care-is-a-right regime both destroys the medical insurance industry and conscripts anyone foolish enough to go into medicine. Cost control proceeds first by the State's decree of a schedule of fixed prices for medical goods and services, and later, as shortages of medicines, medical devices, and medical-care providers develop, by rationing.

Medical innovation grinds to a halt. What intelligent, hardworking man would willingly labor to develop advanced medicines, prosthetics, and techniques if it would mean a life enslaved to the State? To add insult to injury, as the State has a powerful incentive to deflect criticism of its policies onto private parties, doctors, nurses, hospitals, and medical researchers are made to bear the brunt of public displeasure.

This is but one of the many irrefutable arguments against the federalization of medical care through medical insurance. The consequences sketched above aren't just likely; they're utterly guaranteed. Indeed, Americans can see them in effect in every nation on Earth that's allowed the nationalization, in any style, of its medical-care sector.

It's been said many times that Europe's flaccidity with regard to its military defense has been made possible by the benevolent American giant, which outspends all the rest of the world on military preparedness and will leap to the aid of its beleaguered friends even without being asked. The same is true of medicine. Europe has ruined its medical-care sector through nationalization. In consequence, Europe has no medical innovation activity of significance, and well-to-do Europeans flock to America for treatments unavailable or unreliable in their homelands.

If we foolishly follow Europe into medical servitude, whose innovation and dynamism will buttress the health of Americans? ]]> 2010-03-11T12:19:00-05:00