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Subsidiarity

The California health care system is slipping just like the educational system.  Immigrants are not to blame because they provide much of the tax revenue.  The problem is not that there is not enough revenue.   The problem is how the money is being spent.

Voters elected Arnold Swartzennegger governor on what was essentially a beauty contest in 2003.  In 2004 he supported a three billion dollar bond initiative to fund stem cell research.  The results have been negligible.  Not one cure and the destruction of many live human embryos.  Who needs someone in government who has such disrespect for human life?  Today the fetus, tomorrow your grandmother.

California also has a school lottery raising billions of dollars each year.  Yet the people are still taxed heavily and there is pressure to roll back Proposition 13, a major reason for the recall of Governor Davis.  The children are still receiving a poor education in the public schools and there is very little discipline.  Welcome to the nanny state.

I have a 50 year old brother suffering from schizophrenia.  To get his neccessary medication, he must be given a laboratory blood test periodically.  After I take him in for the tests, the laboratory in Ventura County run by Quest Diagnostics usually does not fax or send the test results to the pharmacy on time necessitating additional time spent in requesting them to do so.  They are reimbursed for the tests by Medicare and perhaps also by state funds.  There is no accountability because the labs are now unregulated.  This is probably the result of budget cutbacks yet it causes a great deal of inconvenience, as also when my brother was taken to his last doctor's appointment which had been cancelled without there being any advance notice due to a scheduling error.

Voters must demand our elected officials return to the principle of subsidiarity in health care, education, and all other government services.  This means family first, then local government assistance when needed.  Only when local government cannot adequately do the job should the state intervene.  There are values that transcend the marketplace.  The state must regulate private health care providers and related facilities to insure adequate standards. 

When Ronald Reagan was governor, he began the process of closing the state mental hospitals.  This saved tax dollars but also left a lot of mentally ill people homeless.  Today, the only alternative to county and local mental health services for most people in Ventura County would be the Norwalk state hospital in Los Angeles which has a history of patient abuse and neglect.  So we make do with the health care closer to home in the county.  There are problems, but overall it works.
 
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Does Religion Matter?

The relativists in our society, usually among the academic and media intelligentsia, want to make the public believe that religion should not be a determining factor in a presidential election.  In reality, everyone is involved in a spiritual growing process.  God already has advance knowledge of what the results of any election will be.  If He allows it to happen, it is because He wants us human persons to be free and make our own decisions.  Christ said to Pilate before being condemned to death that Pilate would not have any power if it were not given to him from above.

There are many who claim to be Christians who do not act in accordance with the truths and values taught by Christ.  There are others who may belong to a church outside of the Christian mainstream and who have a bean-counter mentality when it comes to running government.  Christians must be wary of voting for candidates who, for what ever reason, do not accept the full Gospel message, or who adhere to a watered down version of Christ's teaching.  They may indeed be sincere in their beliefs.  They may be on the road to accepting salvation.  But there is only one truth.  This necessarily excludes other belief systems that are of solely human origin.

As to the Christians whose actions go against Christ's teachings either in how they conduct their personal lives or in their political positions or decisions harmful to the sanctity of life and of morality, Christians must beware of the consequences to our country of choosing weaklings to represent us in government. 
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Winners and Losers

In the final analysis, it's not about what kind of car you drive, how much money you have, or what your zip code is when you die.  It is about heaven or hell.  Highly paid television personalities always amuse me because of their narcissism and their inconsistency.  They claim to represent common people whom they arrogantly despise as being morons.  They claim to be in favor of capitalism and free markets while endlessly complaining when one of their colleagues gets canned by a network because the commercial sponsors stop the flow of funds.  Like the worthless politicians whom they support, these phonies are only for free markets so long as their own pockets and coffers and those of their friends in the media are filling up.
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Profanity and Greed

The recent radio comments of Don Imus for which he received a two week suspension are far less offensive than visual images, song lyrics and verbal epithets routinely delivered on cable and network TV as a way to make money.  Examples too numerous to mention include the common disrespectful words uttered against women with particular hatred toward the Blessed Virgin, and the recent disrespectful portrayal of Christ in an animated cartoon mocking Bill Donohue.  Don Imus did the right thing in making an apology.  His words were ill-considered as were those of Rush Limbaugh pertaining to black athletes.  The slang expression "ho" is apparently a ghetto colloquialism pertaining to a female prostitute and is therefore disrespectful to women with obvious sexual overtones.  I take it that "nappy-headed" means something like frivolous or dull.  Some call this racism.  In reality, "ho" is often used in rap music recordings to sell CDs and increase corporate profits.  It is no less disrespectful in this context than it is in an off-color remark regarding female basketball players.
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Politics by Deception

Like the family in Tacoma, Washinigton whose property was vandalized after some crook posted a phony internet ad on a website just before Easter, the American populace is slowly being victimized by con artists parading as politicians.  They seem to be following the line of Joseph Goebbel's that the bigger the lie, the more people will believe it.  How can anyone seriously claim to run for political office and at the same time support a decision of court judges that denies the right to life of people before birth, basing their decision on the supposed privacy rights of expectant mothers?  Obviously, if there wasn't another person involved, namely the unborn child, no one would be concerned about privacy.  Few people care what a woman does with her own body in private so long as she is not injuring herself or anyone besides herself.

Look closely and you will see what is really happening.   Money interests are using government and politicians to aggrandize power at the expense of nations.  They build up weak presidential candidates to become viable front-runners in primary elections so that whoever wins in the general election will be easily manipulable.  This kind of stupidity has become the price of freedom in America.


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Explosive Situation

What would be the implications if government agents having advance intelligence of a probable terrorist air attack on highrise office buildings in a metropolitan area surreptitiously intentionally plant explosives in buildings and then blow up the buildings once the attacks actually take place?  Are the agents in any way culpable for the murder of civilians killed in the explosions?

This situation may seem somewhat analogous to Churchill's withholding of information from the British populace during WWII concerning air attacks on Coventry which were uncovered in advance through Allied interception of enemy communications unknown to the Germans using Enigma.  The rationale for Churchill's decision was to protect more civilian lives by not alerting the Germans that the Brits were intercepting their communications.

In the case of the city buildings, the morality of the acts would depend on whether the person making the decision to blow them up did so to protect the lives of civilians which may have been in danger from falling debris if the buildings were to tumble from the force of the anticipated airplane crashes and fires caused thereby.  The moral dilemma is that it is never morally justifiable to intentionally kill someone to bring about a greater good.  This is the fallacy of consequentialism.
 
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When Men Stop Being Manly

Today I was reminded of a sad reality.  Just over two years ago we, that is all in American society, murdered Terri Schiavo.  The pundits and media bozos mostly chimed in, saying that it would be too costly to keep her alive.  Forget about the fact of so many here without citizenship.  They do so much work that Americans supposedly refuse, yet apparently no one could persuade any of them to take care of a healthy but fragile person who happened to be one of our citizens.  I watched it happening live via satellite technology.  Ironic that we consider our society so advanced technologically that those entrusted with taking care of the weak, in reality a responsibility of any man including this woman's husband, were instead doing the opposite, everything to cause her to die through dehydration.  Sickening but true.  I was three thousand miles from the event yet it felt like being next door.  I witnessed a few there keeping vigil, with whom I had been acquainted years before in defending life.  If  those in government can't be responsible enough to protect the weakest members of society, who needs them?  Who needed Hitler?  They who have refused to act have forfeited their right to govern, from the highest offices on down.  A few in Congress did the right thing.  But this was an emergency situation requiring our state and federal authorities to act immediately and they failed to do so, after the collapse of justice in our court system.  Such cowards.  Now we, that is all Americans, have apparently become incapable of even undertaking a simple criminal investigation into two more suspicious deaths because of our self-serving judges' refusal as a matter of habit to use the power entrusted in them to protect the weak.  No, the great superpower must wait for justice from our neighbors offshore.  No one in our government apparently is capable of acting like a man anymore.
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Don't Miss this Opportunity

The coming year presents a great opportunity for the resurgence of authentic Christian values in American society.  The Democrats are almost certainly about to nominate one of two candidates either of whom are the weakest choices of any major presidential candidates in American history.  There are several strong conservatives who have expressed interest in running in the Republican primary including Chuck Hagel, Tommy Thompson, Fred Thompson, Sam Brownback, and Duncan Hunter.  Any one of these could easily put to rest either of the Democrat front-runners.  Ronald Reagan's campaigns proved that a conservative with real convictions can beat an elitist Nietzschean liberal.  However, for this to happen in this election, the Republican candidates will have to come clean on Iraq admitting that we made a grave mistake and offering the best salvage operation to extricate ourselves from this capitalistic overreaching endeavor.

The winning candidate will also have to commit to a return to an independent foreign policy based on what is best for the American people, and not on some utopian scheme cooked up by multinational capitalistic apologists.

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Global Warming for Dummies

It really surprises me that some people actually believe that global warming is a problem that anyone is capable of solving.  How can anyone be so stupid?  Global warming may actually exist somewhere, but not in my backyard.  God, not man, runs the universe.  The universe as a whole and all life within the universe is totally dependent upon God.  Scientists have discovered many specificities without which life could not exist.  Any small changes or alterations in our earthly environment like higher or lower temperature levels and life could not exist.  Life has existed for billions of years.  Yet there are some who say that the universe exists all by itself.

The thing for everybody to do is to live our own lives the way God intended.  For all we know, God could be using climate change to get some people to stop doing bad things.  We do of course have a responsibility to do our own part to protect our environment from harm.  Those who believe that God created us to do anything we want with air, land, water, etc. are probably misinterpreting the Book of Genesis where God says to Adam and Eve, "Be fruitful and multiply."  God is a loving father.  He does expect us to act with responsibility. 
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Picks for Attorney General

If Gonzales resigns, conservatives must look closely at who his replacement will be.  Several of the suggested names include Michael Chertoff and a deputy secretary for Homeland Security who both rose in the ranks of the prior administration.  The best pick would be former deputy AG and now GC of Pepsico Larry Thompson who was appointed deputy Attorney General by George W. Bush and also as U.S. attorney for the northern district of Georgia by Ronald Reagan.

See link below:

http://www.law.com/jsp/dc/PubArticleDC.jsp?id=1173776608166&hub=TopStories
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Are Sampson, Gonzales PC Victims?

Back in 2001 after George W. Bush took office as I recall, Michael Bradbury our highly popular and well qualified DA in Ventura County, California who had not run for re-election was seeking to be appointed U.S. Attorney in Los Angeles.  Instead he was passed over, ostensibly because of Hispanic disaffection, and Carol Lam was appointed in 2002.  Last month she was fired by the Bush administration as one of the "ineffectual managers and prosecutors who chafed against Administration initiatives"  in the words of Justice Department Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson.  Apparently she was advised by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to focus on more than one issue.  She had been focusing too heavily on public corruption cases and not enough on immigration cases and gun crimes.
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The 300

The motion picture "300" is a good reminder of why our service men and women are in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The reason we are there is to safeguard freedom and justice.  Freedom is always better than tyranny.  Aristotle writing about Sparta says that the Lacedaemonian military society was based on heterosexual relationship unlike other Greek societies of the time, which is one of the major themes of the film.  This may account for the Spartan heroism against the Persian army, and their subsequent victories in the Peloponnesian wars against other Greek city-states including Athens.  Their eventual demise could be a result of their hubris in terms of homosexual relations with the enslaved male Helots many of whom became catamites according to Victor Davis Hanson in a recent TV documentary.

Today we live by a higher standard than peoples of ancient cultures, having the fullness of divine revelation in the person of Jesus Christ.  There will always be those who will reject the Gospel message at their own peril, believing instead that human law based upon pragmatic decisions can function as a substitute for objective morality in a secularized world.  There are many of these hypocrites in the mass media on both sides of the political spectrum.  To whom more is given, more will be expected.
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O'Reilly's Whitewash

Today O'Reilly tried to cover up his position on allowing homosexual acts in the military and the comments on this subject by General Pace.  In response to a viewer's email, O'Reilly stated that General Pace's later clarification proves that O'Reilly was right in his denouncement of the first set of comments in which the General said that homosexual acts are immoral according to what he learned in his upbringing, and that immorality should not be allowed in the military, whether it be in the form of homosexual acts or in the form of adultery with another serviceperson's husband or wife.  O'Reilly's untenable and riduculous position is that those in command of the military have no business basing their policy decisions on morality, and that it is wrong for them to advocate for or against policy decisions in the military based on morality.  This is sheer nonsense and O'Reilly knows it.  The reason why homosexual acts and adultery are harmful and detrimental to persons in the military is because all immoral acts are harmful and detrimental to someone somewhere, and in the military context, immorality if condoned by those in command has a devastating effect on morale.  It is better to prohibit certain types of behavior in the military simply on the basis that these forms of activity are immoral rather than on some other basis which is always open to interpretation.  We have all seen the gradual process of erroding our military's fighting capability by those who want to see America weak for their own perverse reasons, usually because they want to increase their own status through their disloyality.  O'Reilly actually wants a weak America so that he can look more important.  He claims to be opposed to secularism but his actions speak otherwise.
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O'Reilly, Hannity Part of Problem, not Solution

O'Reilly took General Pace to task today for expressing his views on the immorality of homosexual acts.  Without making it clear why homosexual acts are wrong and why they should not be tolerated in the military, the secularists win.  It is not just a question of military discipline.  They got women in combat through a gradual process, by allowing them to enlist in the first place.  We need more leaders like Peter Pace to take a moral stand.  It is not so important whether or not homosexuality is openly allowed in the military as that a moral stand is taken before it is allowed.  Good will eventually triumph over evil.  It may take us getting beat by a third rate power like Iran for us to learn that lesson.  But when that lesson is finally learned, all God-fearing Americans will remember that a stand was taken and by whom, and who it was that tried to whitewash something evil, and who it was that actively promoted something evil to the detriment of America.  The same applies to Hannity's hypocritical and condescending attitude with regard to contraceptive practices.  He should either change his position on contraception, stop calling himself a Catholic, or (preferably) start doing something more constructive instead of talking all the time.  In other words?
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Continuity

Regardless of who wins the Republican nomination in 2008, the Democrats don't stand a chance with either of the two front-runners Hillary or Obama, and one of these two is almost certain to win the nomination as the Democratic candidate given their weighted delegate process.

In 2000 Bush was handpicked beforehand because of his Evangelical connections and the money he could raise.  Today the money interests are apparently trying to set up either Giuliani or McCain.  Between the two, I would support McCain.  I hope that both Hagel and Thompson enter the race.  Those of us who believed before that the Iraq invasion was a mistake had no real choice in 2000 because Bush had it locked up way in advance.  It surprises me today that Gore came so close in 2000 with a plurality of the vote. 

Leadership always follows a pattern.  There is a closer bonding to a male because of the genetic reality that Y-chromosomes are transmitted from father to son.  The dominant male is the one who most represents the genetic patterns of most males in any society together with other factors such as political experience.  This is true throughout the animal kingdom.  Naomi Wolf had it right in advising Gore to become the Alpha male.  That is why Gore came so close to winning.  The problem for Gore was that Bush was in reality the most representative of the Amerian male genetically and collectively.





 
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