Choose Life

Confession: I'm having a very hard time wrapping my brain around the Christians I know who are supporting Obama regardless of the issues he supports and stands he takes.

Facebook is a bad thing for me right now. I don't need to know where folks, especially young liberal evangelicals, are falling down politically right now. There's no debating or discussing of things, of course, because that's taboo... and just seeing little light FB comments that indicate where people are - and not being able at all to wrap my brain around how they as Christians can be where they are - is proving difficult for me.

An Obama presidency is the scariest thing I can imagine right now, as a believer who cares for unborn children, the poor, minorities, and freedom in general. There. I said it.

I know it is open for misinterpretation and offense. But the issues feel too important to me not to say, "What are you thinking?!"

No, I'm not a single-issue voter... there are dozens of reasons I am not supporting an Obama presidency... but the abortion implications alone are enough to make me want to scream, "Hello, Christian friends. Do you not understand what's at stake here?"

Is this really "social justice"?

First, let me say that politics divides folks. It is the nature of the thing. I am having a hard time processing the things that some of the folks I know, believe... are taking a stand for... are willing to vote for...

I'm sure the same is true for many of them regarding their feelings about me.

I must say that I am a Christian. I care about social justice. I care about equal rights for all. I care about caring well for the impoverished among us.

However, I do not believe that "a black president at all costs" is the answer. I do not believe that race - and the unprecedented opportunity to have a black man as President of the United States - should trump all other considerations when casting a vote in November.

And I do not believe that expanded government is the answer for the poor and oppressed in our nation. The welfare system does not serve them well now. Expanded welfare will not serve them better. It serves only to keep the poor and oppressed, poor and oppressed. It is a trap.

Consider Obama in his own words, regarding the redistribution of wealth he advocates.

Consider that the top 50% of earners are already paying 97% of all income taxes collected by the United States government.

Consider that 40% of the poor which he advocates redistributing to, already pay no federal income taxes.

Consider the difference between "tax cuts" (you can't cut what someone already doesn't pay) and "tax credits" (but you can give them some money belonging to someone else which the government has redistributed to them).

Lastly, let's consider the definitions of socialism and of communism as we listen.

I know that it has become cool, especially among young liberal evangelicals who support Obama, to refer to themselves, jokingly, as "socialists." This is supposedly a fun little way of mocking the"white pig Republican" idea that support for Obama is support for socialism.

But I ask you, if this is not on the road to socialism, which is the first leg of the road to communism, what is it?!

"Taking Slackers to Task"

An interview in Christianity Today with Alex and Brett Harris...

For a much-needed break from posts about nothing but politics!

Calling for "the Last Honest Reporter"

Orson Scott Card is the author of the book Ender's Game, an adult sci-fi novel my son asked me to preview for him several years ago - when he was quite young - to see if it was fine for him to read. It was nothing if not utterly engaging, and I highly recommend it for anyone who enjoys that particular genre.

Card is a member of the Church of the Latter Day Saints (Mormons), and as such is convinced of many things spiritually which are fundamentally contrary to the gospel of Jesus Christ. We would disagree on most things religious, I feel certain.

However, we might agree on more than I would have expected politically (Card is a Democrat), if this open letter he has written to all journalists is any indication. He is fed up with the liberal bias of the mainstream media. He is calling on reporters to report the news, not fabricate and manufacture and manipulate it for their own ends.

No matter where you fall down on the liberal-conservative spectrum, it is an interesting read.

Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?
By Orson Scott Card

Editor's note: Orson Scott Card is a Democrat and a newspaper columnist, and in this opinion piece he takes on both while lamenting the current state of journalism.

An open letter to the local daily paper — almost every local daily paper in America:

I remember reading All the President's Men and thinking: That's journalism. You do what it takes to get the truth and you lay it before the public, because the public has a right to know.

This housing crisis didn't come out of nowhere. It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration.

It was a direct result of the political decision, back in the late 1990s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would be more accessible to poor people. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were authorized to approve risky loans.

What is a risky loan? It's a loan that the recipient is likely not to be able to repay.

The goal of this rule change was to help the poor — which especially would help members of minority groups. But how does it help these people to give them a loan that they can't repay? They get into a house, yes, but when they can't make the payments, they lose the house — along with their credit rating.

They end up worse off than before.

This was completely foreseeable and in fact many people did foresee it. One political party, in Congress and in the executive branch, tried repeatedly to tighten up the rules. The other party blocked every such attempt and tried to loosen them.

Furthermore, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were making political contributions to the very members of Congress who were allowing them to make irresponsible loans. (Though why quasi-federal agencies were allowed to do so baffles me. It's as if the Pentagon were allowed to contribute to the political campaigns of Congressmen who support increasing their budget.)

Isn't there a story here? Doesn't journalism require that you who produce our daily paper tell the truth about who brought us to a position where the only way to keep confidence in our economy was a $700 billion bailout? Aren't you supposed to follow the money and see which politicians were benefiting personally from the deregulation of mortgage lending?

I have no doubt that if these facts had pointed to the Republican Party or to John McCain as the guilty parties, you would be treating it as a vast scandal. "Housing-gate," no doubt. Or "Fannie-gate."

Instead, it was Senator Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, both Democrats, who denied that there were any problems, who refused Bush administration requests to set up a regulatory agency to watch over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and who were still pushing for these agencies to go even further in promoting sub-prime mortgage loans almost up to the minute they failed.

As Thomas Sowell points out in a TownHall.com essay entitled "Do Facts Matter?" ( http://snipurl.com/457townhall_com] ): "Alan Greenspan warned them four years ago. So did the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President. So did Bush's Secretary of the Treasury."

These are facts. This financial crisis was completely preventable. The party that blocked any attempt to prevent it was ... the Democratic Party. The party that tried to prevent it was ... the Republican Party.

Yet when Nancy Pelosi accused the Bush administration and Republican deregulation of causing the crisis, you in the press did not hold her to account for her lie. Instead, you criticized Republicans who took offense at this lie and refused to vote for the bailout!

What? It's not the liar, but the victims of the lie who are to blame?

Now let's follow the money ... right to the presidential candidate who is the number-two recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae.

And after Freddie Raines, the CEO of Fannie Mae who made $90 million while running it into the ground, was fired for his incompetence, one presidential candidate's campaign actually consulted him for advice on housing.

If that presidential candidate had been John McCain, you would have called it a major scandal and we would be getting stories in your paper every day about how incompetent and corrupt he was.

But instead, that candidate was Barack Obama, and so you have buried this story, and when the McCain campaign dared to call Raines an "adviser" to the Obama campaign — because that campaign had sought his advice — you actually let Obama's people get away with accusing McCain of lying, merely because Raines wasn't listed as an official adviser to the Obama campaign.

You would never tolerate such weasely nit-picking from a Republican.

If you who produce our local daily paper actually had any principles, you would be pounding this story, because the prosperity of all Americans was put at risk by the foolish, short-sighted, politically selfish, and possibly corrupt actions of leading Democrats, including Obama.

If you who produce our local daily paper had any personal honor, you would find it unbearable to let the American people believe that somehow Republicans were to blame for this crisis.

There are precedents. Even though President Bush and his administration never said that Iraq sponsored or was linked to 9/11, you could not stand the fact that Americans had that misapprehension — so you pounded us with the fact that there was no such link. (Along the way, you created the false impression that Bush had lied to them and said that there was a connection.)

If you had any principles, then surely right now, when the American people are set to blame President Bush and John McCain for a crisis they tried to prevent, and are actually shifting to approve of Barack Obama because of a crisis he helped cause, you would be laboring at least as hard to correct that false impression.

Your job, as journalists, is to tell the truth. That's what you claim you do, when you accept people's money to buy or subscribe to your paper.

But right now, you are consenting to or actively promoting a big fat lie — that the housing crisis should somehow be blamed on Bush, McCain, and the Republicans. You have trained the American people to blame everything bad — even bad weather — on Bush, and they are responding as you have taught them to.

If you had any personal honor, each reporter and editor would be insisting on telling the truth — even if it hurts the election chances of your favorite candidate.

Because that's what honorable people do. Honest people tell the truth even when they don't like the probable consequences. That's what honesty means . That's how trust is earned.

Barack Obama is just another politician, and not a very wise one. He has revealed his ignorance and naivete time after time — and you have swept it under the rug, treated it as nothing.

Meanwhile, you have participated in the borking of Sarah Palin, reporting savage attacks on her for the pregnancy of her unmarried daughter — while you ignored the story of John Edwards's own adultery for many months.

So I ask you now: Do you have any standards at all? Do you even know what honesty means?

Is getting people to vote for Barack Obama so important that you will throw away everything that journalism is supposed to stand for?

You might want to remember the way the National Organization of Women threw away their integrity by supporting Bill Clinton despite his well-known pattern of sexual exploitation of powerless women. Who listens to NOW anymore? We know they stand for nothing; they have no principles.

That's where you are right now.

It's not too late. You know that if the situation were reversed, and the truth would damage McCain and help Obama, you would be moving heaven and earth to get the true story out there.

If you want to redeem your honor, you will swallow hard and make a list of all the stories you would print if it were McCain who had been getting money from Fannie Mae, McCain whose campaign had consulted with its discredited former CEO, McCain who had voted against tightening its lending practices.

Then you will print them, even though every one of those true stories will point the finger of blame at the reckless Democratic Party, which put our nation's prosperity at risk so they could feel good about helping the poor, and lay a fair share of the blame at Obama's door.

You will also tell the truth about John McCain: that he tried, as a Senator, to do what it took to prevent this crisis. You will tell the truth about President Bush: that his administration tried more than once to get Congress to regulate lending in a responsible way.

This was a Congress-caused crisis, beginning during the Clinton administration, with Democrats leading the way into the crisis and blocking every effort to get out of it in a timely fashion.

If you at our local daily newspaper continue to let Americans believe — and vote as if — President Bush and the Republicans caused the crisis, then you are joining in that lie.

If you do not tell the truth about the Democrats — including Barack Obama — and do so with the same energy you would use if the miscreants were Republicans — then you are not journalists by any standard.

You're just the public relations machine of the Democratic Party, and it's time you were all fired and real journalists brought in, so that we can actually have a news paper in our city.

This article first appeared in The Rhinoceros Times of Greensboro, North Carolina.

Speculating from 2012

No matter what you think of Focus on the Family, this letter which their political action committee has put together regarding a fictional future under President Obama is an interesting read.

All speculation is based in fact from past voting records; stated agendas during the campaign process; past narrowly-decided Supreme Court decisions; established agendas of certain liberal groups; precedent in states with liberal supreme court majorities in place, legislating from the bench; precedent in other nations where liberal social policies are in place; and an honest look at the policies of the UN, including subsequent conjecture of what international law as the precedent-setting basis for American law might look like.

It is worth your time to speculate for a moment about what we could be in for. The swinging of the Supreme Court to a liberal, legislating power could well be the most significant and devastating reality against the cause of freedom we have known in decades.

Give yourself a few minutes to prayerfully consider the importance of this election as you read it.
Letter from 2012 in Obama's America

Only 13%

Election time is around the corner. Statistics show that approximately only 50% of eligible adults actually register to vote. In any given election only about 50% of registered voters vote. (That is only 25% of adults!)

That means it only takes about 13% of adults to elect any given candidate. Every vote counts!

The winners of this coming election will play a big part in determining what freedoms we will keep and what freedoms we may lose. Exercising our right to vote is crucial.

I have been reading some voter guides to help me make informed decisions as I cast my vote.

Family Research Council is an organization dedicated to the promotion of marriage and family and the sanctity of human life in national policy. To find the Family Research Council's Election Guides, containing information on candidates in your district, please go here. If you're from a different state than Virginia, you can link to your state from that same page.

FRC Action is the legislative arm of the Family Research Council. Together with Focus on the Family, they have created a very useful "vote scorecard" that gives information about how candidates have voted on issues in the past.

To view FRC Action and Focus on the Family's Vote Scorecard please go here.

To find additional information about local candidates, you can go to Project Vote Smart and insert your ZIP code.

Please help spread the word about these resources for responsible citizenship! Forward a link to this post to your family and friends so they can also use this information.

"Use your power of choice wisely."

Although I don't see how anyone could actually be "undecided" at this point in this presidential election, with the issues so obvious and clear, here is Neal Boortz's treatise "To the Undecided Voter." No matter what you think of him, it is worth reading... especially by those of you who are planning to cast a vote for President Obama. As Og Mandio once said, "Use your power of choice wisely."

But first, a reminder of our ultimate hope, and of the gracious sovereignty of God, from John Piper. View the entire article here.

“Let those who deal with the world [do so] as though they had no dealings with it.”

Christians should deal with the world. This world is here to be used. Dealt with. There is no avoiding it. Not to deal with it is to deal with it that way. Not to weed your garden is to cultivate a weedy garden. Not to wear a coat in Minnesota is to freeze—to deal with the cold that way. Not to stop when the light is red is to spend your money on fines or hospital bills and deal with the world that way. We must deal with the world.

But as we deal with it, we don’t give it our fullest attention. We don’t ascribe to the world the greatest status. There are unseen things that are vastly more precious than the world. We use the world without offering it our whole soul. We may work with all our might when dealing with the world, but the full passions of our heart will be attached to something higher—Godward purposes. We use the world, but not as an end in itself. It is a means. We deal with the world in order to make much of Christ.

So it is with voting. We deal with the system. We deal with the news. We deal with the candidates. We deal with the issues. But we deal with it all as if not dealing with it. It does not have our fullest attention. It is not the great thing in our lives. Christ is. And Christ will be ruling over his people with perfect supremacy no matter who is elected and no matter what government stands or falls. So we vote as though not voting.

By all means vote. But remember: “The world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2:17).

Voting with you, as though not voting,
Pastor John

from Let Christians Vote As Though They Were Not Voting
October 22, 2008, Desiring God Ministries

To the Undecided Voter
By Neal Boortz

This is long; very long. Hey, I'm a pretty entertaining writer ... so give it a go. If you're an undecided voter in this presidential election the least you owe your country is to try to base your final choice on some substantive facts. No, I don't have all the facts here ... but I have enough of them to perhaps convince you that voting one particular way on November 4th might not be the most brilliant move you've ever made.

This election is my 10th. My 10th presidential election since I became a radio talk show host. My 10th election since I began spending more time than the average American thinking about, researching, reading about and talking about the choices voters face. Look; I mean no arrogance here. It's just that the average American doesn't spend from 15 (then) to 22.5 (now) hours a week over the period of a presidential race talking about the candidates, the issues, the non-issues and the consequences of voter choice.

Never in those ten elections can I remember choices so stark and possible outcomes so perilous. For the record, over those 10 elections I voted for the Republican candidate six times and the Libertarian four. Never have I voted for a Democrat for president. I see no need to vote for a Democrat since I have no plans or desires to become a ward of the government. Somehow I don't think 2008 is going to be the first time.

I've noted that some other "pundits" out there are starting to post, in columns and in their blogs, the reasons they are going to vote the way they are going to vote. I'll make no attempt to refute their (oh-so refutable) arguments here. Instead, I'm just going to put my thoughts and reasoning in writing just to cleanse my mind. If you can make some use of them; whether it is for laughter, talking points or intellectual consideration, have at it. Me? I'm just pulling the handle.

The Race Factor

Are many black voters going to vote for Barack Obama primarily because of race? Of course, many will. Surveys and polling have shown that the figure may reach 20%. I think it's well more than that. Is race a sound reason to cast a vote? Probably not. Is it understandable? Absolutely. I cannot fault a black American for voting for Obama. It may turn out to be a negative vote insofar as their dreams and goals are concerned. It may not work out all that well for their children, especially if they're ambitions and talented. But I don't think many of us can absolutely say that we wouldn't be casting the same vote were we in their shoes.

If you are a white American there is no way in the world you can look at this election through the same eyes as a third or fourth generation black American citizen. Several months ago a caller to my show suggested that Barack Obama's ascendency in the presidential sweepstakes was Black America's biggest accomplishment. I disagreed. Though I can't remember the exact words, I said that, in a general sense, the shining moment for Black America may have been the show of patience and restraint shown by black men when they returned from putting their lives on the line in World War II and in Korea to a country with segregated schools, colored waiting rooms, whites only water fountains, beatings, lynchings, water hoses, police dogs and systematic discrimination pretty much every where they looked. The restraint showed by black Americans during the civil rights struggles of the 50's and 60's, though not universal, was something to behold.

Now .. try, though you won't succeed, to put yourself into the mind of a black American. How can you experience or understand the legacy of segregation, violence and second-class citizenry your ancestors went through and not take pride in a black American on the verge of winning the presidency? How many black American voters do you think are uttering to themselves: "If my grandfather had only lived to see this." It takes a great deal of maturity and a clear understanding of the possible future consequences for someone to put their racial pride aside and swim against the tide on this one. So, there will be no name-calling, at least not here, for people who cast their vote on the basis of race in this election. As I said, It's understandable.

And Then There's the Race Card

This really isn't really a reason to vote for or against Barack Obama, but you do need to know what the next four years are going to be like with an Obama presidency.

During the campaign there have been some rather amazing charges of racism. Let's see if we can remember a few:

• Using the word "skinny" to refer to Obama is racist.
• "Community organizer" is a racist term.
• Any reference to a connection between Obama and Franklin Raines, the former head of Fannie Mae is racist ... that would be because Raines is black.
• All references to Jeremiah Wright are racist; that being due to Wright being black.
• Referring to Obama as "eloquent" is racist because it infers that other blacks are not eloquent.
• For goodness' sake, don't say that Obama is "clean."
• This just in from The Kansas City Star: Calling Obama a "socialist" is also racist because "socialist" is just another code word for black.

And so it goes. We've also had several pundits, columnists and opinion-makers flat-out state that if you are white and you don't vote for Barack Obama it can only be because he's black. There is simply no other legitimate reason to deny this wonderful man your vote. Vote for McCain, you're a racist. Simple as that.

Now let's consider the next four years under President Obama. He is certainly going to introduce ideas and pursue policies that are pure poison to many Americans; especially achievement-oriented self-sufficient citizens. Whenever anyone dares to utter a word in opposition to any Obama position or initiative you can be sure that there is going to be someone waiting close by to start screaming "racist!" By the end of Obama's first year in the White House virtually every white American will have been called a racist for one reason or another. So, what else is new?

The Republicans

One thing for sure ... the Republicans deserve exactly what is happening to them in this election. It's just too bad the rest of the country has to suffer the lion's share of the punishment the Republicans so richly deserve. In 1994 the voters were fed up with Clinton and the Republicans swept to control of both houses of congress, largely on the strength of Newt's Contract with America. Do you remember some of the promises? One that sticks in my mind is their promise to dismantle the Department of Education. Republicans – in 1994 – recognized that the quality of American education had been going steadily downhill since this government behemoth was formed. Well, that was then ... this is now. The size of the Education Department, as well as the cost, has doubled. Republicans did this, not Democrats.

As a matter of fact, it's not just the Department of Education; it's our entire federal government. Spending has doubled. Size has doubled. All under the Republican watch inside the beltway. Pork barrel spending is completely out of control, and Republicans are behind the wheel. Education and pork spending aside, we have the Medicare prescription benefit, McCain-Feingold, Sarbanes-Oxley, a tepid response to Kelo vs. New London ... all elements of a well-deserved Republican drubbing. The problem here is that the cure, that being Barack Obama, might well be much worse of than the disease.

The Republicans don't deserve power in Washington just as you don't deserve a boil in the center of your forehead. There are worse things, however. Complete Democrat control or, in the case of your forehead, a nice big melanoma. Pretty much the same things, actually.

It's not that the Republicans did everything wrong. They got the tax cut thing right, and they responded correctly, for the most part, to the radical Islamic attack on our country. They just did so much wrong at the same time. They got drunk with power, and the hangover affects all of us.

Obama's Friends

By "Obama's Friends" we mean the likes of Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, Tony Rezko and other assorted miscreants. I could spend a lot of time here detailing the crimes of Obama's friends --- and make no mistake, they were his friends. At this point I don't think that any votes are going to be changed one way or another by detailing the corruption of Rezko, the America-hating of Wright or the unrepentant terrorism of Ayers. Suffice it to say that Obama was close to all of these people ... and these were associations born of mutual interests and philosophies. If you think that it is fair to judge the character of a person by observing the people they surround themselves with, then the judgment of Barack Obama would be a harsh one.

Obama's varied storylines regarding his relationship with Ayers have, to say the least, been interesting. The list is incomplete, but thus far we have:

• He was just a guy who lived in my neighborhood.
• I was only eight years old when he was throwing bombs.
• I didn't know about his history when we started working together
• I thought he had been rehabilitated.

Yeah ... I guess it's OK if you form a close relationship with a bomb-throwing terrorist, as long as he threw the bombs when you were a kid. Works for me. Work for you? In a similar vein, It must be OK if your pastor rails against America, as long as you aren't in church on those particular days. Or maybe we should say as long as nobody remembers actually seeing you in church on those days.

One interesting point: If Barack Obama was applying for a security clearance as a government employee, these associations would disqualify him. We are, my friends, about to have a president who doesn't qualify for a security clearance. Pretty pathetic. If Barack Obama becomes president, he would not even qualify to be his own bodyguard.

Obama's Tax Policies

You may consider this to be horribly old fashioned, but I operate on the principle that governments have the power to tax so that governments can collect the money needed to pursue and pay for the legitimate functions of that government. By "legitimate functions" I'm referring to law enforcement, national defense, a system of courts to adjudicate interstate disputes, national infrastructure and the costs associated with running the legislative, judicial and executive branches of government.

Now we can get into quite an argument over what constitutes a "legitimate" function of government, but let's save it for later. Suffice it to say that Barack Obama has a much different picture of our government's taxing authority than many of us do.

Before we go on, let me remind you of a point that I first heard made by former Libertarian presidential candidate Harry Browne. Government has one unique power that you don't have, and neither do I. This is a power that is denied all private businesses and individuals in this country. That power .. the power unique to government .. is the power to use deadly force to accomplish its goals. If you have a business; a restaurant, for instance; you have to convince people to come to your establishment for a meal. You can advertise for customers, but they make the decision whether or not to give your restaurant a try. When the customers do come in it is up to you to deliver to them a superior product with exemplary service. This is how you get them to come back. Not through force, but through value and service.

Not so the government. You have no choice as to whether or not you are going to be a customer of government. Your patronage is compelled and your payments are extracted at the point of a gun. Supreme Court Justice John Marshall said that "the power to tax is the power to destroy." The power to tax in the wrong hands can certainly bring destruction to our economy and even to our country. I submit to you that the power to tax in the hands of Barack Obama is dangerous: Dangerous to you personally, and dangerous to the very fabric of our Republic.

Just take a look at some of the rhetoric Barack Obama uses when he talks of his plans to increase taxes on the evil, hated rich. In a television interview with (I think) Charles Gibson, Obama was asked if he understood that tax increases have often resulted in decreases in government revenue. Obama responded that he was aware of this fact. He was then asked why, then, would he be so eager to raise taxes? Obama responded that, to him, tax increases were simply a matter of "fairness." In other words, Obama didn't wish to use the police power of the state to collect taxes necessary for the legitimate functions of government; he wanted to use his taxing power to promote some vaporous "fairness" in our economy. After all, as Obama put it, the people he wants to tax have more money than they actually need and he wants to give that money to people who really do need it.

Now I ask you, does any of that sound vaguely familiar? Hmmmmm, let's see. I know I've heard something like that somewhere before. Wait! I think I have it. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." Some character named Marx made slogan quite popular around 1875 in a writing called "Critique of the Gotha Program." This phrase is one of the most well-known principals of communism. You can yell, scream, spin around on your eyebrows and spit wooden nickels all you want, but what Barack Obama is pushing here, at least insofar as his tax policies are concerned, is communism. This shouldn't come as a surprise considering Obama's self-professed affinity for communist student groups and communist professors during his undergraduate years. Oh, you didn't read that? Maybe that's because you read his second book, not the first one. But what the heck. He's eloquent, isn't he? And he has a good narrative.

As I've indicated, I've been doing talk radio for 39 years now. I was on the air when we were fighting communism in Southeast Asia. I was flapping my jaws when Soviet leaders seriously entertained dreams of world communism. Throughout all of those years I was never one to scream "communism" every time someone came up with an oddball idea on governance, and I never once found a communist under my bed. But now, at least when you consider tax policy, we have a candidate for president who seems very comfortable with some basic communist principals. Too comfortable. But none of this should really bother you ... right? A little communism or socialism never really hurt anyone that you can remember. Besides, Europe is telling us that they'll like us again if we vote for Obama. That pretty much overrules everything, doesn't it?

Does this reflect your philosophy?

Come on! Put the celebrity worship aside for a moment. Put skin color aside. Just think about Obama and his "spread the wealth around" tax policy.

Let's talk heartbeats. Sounds weird, but I'm going somewhere here. A bit of Internet research led me to the fact that the average number of heartbeats in a life time for a human being is about one billion. To make this more understandable, the average human heart beats around 70 times a minute. In one eight-hour work day your heart beats around 33,600 times. This is your heart beating .. every beat subtracted from the one billion .. every beat a part of your life gone, never to be recovered. If you are a moderately successful human being Barack Obama is going to take about 13,000 (39%) of those heartbeats away from you every working day. Put your finger on your wrist and feel your pulse. Feel every heartbeat. Just count up to 100. How much of your life went by as you counted? You can't get those beats back. They're gone, for good. Remember, you only have a finite number of those beats of your heart left ... and Obama wants 13,000 of them every working day of your life. Those heartbeats – your life – being expended creating wealth. Your heartbeats, your wealth. Obama wants them. You don't need them. Someone else does. The police power of the state.

Taxes are a nasty little reality of life. Nobody wants anarchy. Government is a necessity. Government, though, is not supposed to create winners and losers. Government is not, as Obama intends, to be used as an instrument of plunder. Almost all Americans are perfectly willing to surrender an appropriate percentage of their earned wealth to fund the legitimate functions of government. I, for one, don't want to see my wealth confiscated because some bureaucrat has determined I don't "need" it, and then have to watch as that wealth is used to buy votes from someone who is simply too lazy to generate the income they need by themselves ... or, as Obama puts it, "spread around."

What is Obama going to do? How does he determine "need?" What data does he use to determine "fairness?" Maybe he'll set up some bureaucracy staffed with like-minded leftists who will use data collected in the last census and from those pesky American Community Surveys to establish a basic "need" level for people living in different areas. Once it is determined how much of a person's wealth they really don't "need," it will be a simple matter of confiscation and redistribution to those who do need it. After all, that would be "fair," wouldn't it? Come on, it's not exactly like you worked for that money.

Listen to the rhetoric of the left. Those who are in need are called "the less fortunate." This means that their status as needy was due to nothing but bad luck. It stands to reason, then, that those with more than they need were just lucky. The fortunate and the less fortunate. The lucky and the not so lucky. And here comes Barack Obama riding over the rainbow on his Unicorn to set everything right and make it all fair. Isn't that the world you want to live in?

There's a quote that's been floating around since I began my talk radio career. This quote is most often attributed to someone named Alexander Tyler writing in 1787 about the fall of the Athenian Republic. Others have said the guy's name was Tytler. Let's not argue spelling right now ... let's just get to the quote, because the quote goes to the heart of this presidential election:

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship."

Think about this, my friends. Isn't this exactly what we're seeing right now? In fact, hasn't this pretty much been the theme of Democrat Party election politics for nearly as long as you can remember? Here we have Barack Obama promising that he's only going to raise taxes on the evil rich who make over $250,000 a year while 95% of Americans will get tax cuts. Think of this in terms of votes; higher taxes for 5% of the voters, lower taxes for the other 95%. It really doesn't take all that much brainpower to figure out how this is going to work at in an election does it? You take money away from the people whose votes you don't need, and give it to the people whose votes you do need. So very simple. The result is that people have, in fact, discovered that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. Who is promising those wonderful goodies? That would be Barack Obama. Just what percentage of voters out there do you think are going to vote for Obama simply because he is promising them someone else's money? My guess is that the number would be high enough to constitute the margin of victory for The Great Redistributionist.

Somehow I had this idea when I was growing up that if you wanted something bad enough, you would work hard until you got it. That was then. This is now. Now you vote for it. That's change you can believe in.

Those Amazing Vanishing Jobs

Barack Obama repeatedly tells the American people that he is going to cut taxes for 95% of them. Now that's a pretty nifty trick when more than 40% of Americans don't pay income taxes in the first place. Tell me please ... just how do you cut taxes for someone who doesn't pay taxes?

Here's the fancy narrative (Obama supporters just love that word) that the Obama campaign has come up with. Even if you don't pay income taxes, you still pay payroll taxes. So Obama is going to give these people who only pay Social Security and Medicare taxes an offsetting tax credit. At this point Obama's plan becomes almost impossible to explain. It's convoluted, to say the least, but that's out of necessity. When people started reminding him that about one-half of the people he's going to cut taxes for don't pay taxes he had to come up with something. The bottom line is this. Obama says that he is not going to take the cost of his tax credits from the Social Security Trust Fund. That's nice, considering the fact that this so-called Trust Fund exists only on paper anyway. But if that money isn't subtracted from the Trust Fund ... where does it come from? Obama's people explain that at first the deficit will just have to increase while these checks are written. Later they'll just go out there and get the money from those "rich people."

OK ... so there we are. It's tax the rancid rich time so that money can be transferred to the poor. But just who are these evil rich people destined to be beaten down by Obama's taxes? At first Barack Obama defined them as "people making over $250,000 a year." That definition had to change when it became known that the $250,000 a year figure was only for a married couple filing a joint tax return. In a heartbeat Obama changed his rhetoric to note that the tax increase would nail "families," not "people" earning over 250 grand. If you're single, the figure will be somewhere between $150,000 and $200,000, depending on who you're talking to. We'll try to let you know when Obama settles on a hard figure.

There's your first lie.

So, what does all of this have to do with jobs? Well the very people that Barack Obama wants to nail with these tax increases are the people who create most of the jobs in our economy; America's small business owners.

The Democrats spend no small amount of time excoriating corporations. To listen to a Democrat candidate corporations and lobbyists are the sole sources of evil in our society. Oh ... and right wing talk show hosts. Well, you can forget these evil, nasty corporations for now. Fact is 70% of all jobs in our economy come from America's small business owners. The Small Business Administration recently reported that 80% of all new jobs are being created by these small business owners. These are people who report all of their business income on their personal income tax returns. As such, they are squarely in the crosshairs for The Chosen One's tax increases.

If you are an American concerned about your job with a small business ... and if you vote for Obama ... then you very well could be cutting your own economic throat. Think about it. If the small business owner(s) who employs you has his taxes increased by Barack Obama he is going to look for a way to replace that money. So where does he go to replace his income lost to Barack's tax increases? The best way would be to cut expenses. Well guess what? You're an expense! Will it be your job that is cut to compensate for the increased taxes? Maybe you'll be lucky and just have to forego your next raise. Maybe there would just be a cut in your pay or a reduction in benefits. Cast your vote and take your chances!

In recent days the McCain campaign has finally started to warn people about the possible consequences of Obama's tax increases on America's small businesses. This has forced the Obama campaign to come up with a response. Initially Barack Obama started saying that he was going to give a break on capital gains taxes to small businesses. This worked for a while until people started figuring out that small businesses don't pay capital gains taxes. Back to the drawing board, and this time they came up with a beauty. It's a con, but it works. Barack Obama is now telling the media and anyone else who will listen that 95% of America's small businesses don't make $250,000 a year, and thus won't be affected by Obama's tax increases.

That's the second lie. A lie of omission.

Obama's statistics may be accurate .. or nearly so. But the statement leaves one very important statistic out. Initially when you hear that "95% of all small businesses" line you probably think that this 95% employ about 95% of all of the people working for small businesses. You could think that, but you would be wrong.

The trick here is that the vast majority of America's small businesses are just that ... small. I owned a title abstract business in the 80's that had one employee. My wife owned a travel agency that had two employees. Neither of these small businesses came anywhere near the $250,000 line.

When you think about it you will understand that the important statistic here is the percentage of small business employees who will be affected, not the percentage of small businesses.

The October 21st edition of The Wall Street Journal addressed this issue in an article entitled "Socking It to Small Businesses." The WSJ reports that Obama is right "that most of the 35 million small businesses in America have a net income of less than $250,000, hire only a few workers, and stay in business for less than four years." There's more to the story though: ".. the point is that it is the most successful small and medium-sized businesses that create most of the new jobs.. And they are precisely the businesses that will be slammed by Mr. Obama's tax increase." The Senate Finance Committee reports that of those who file income taxes in the highest two tax brackets; three out of four are the small business owners Obama wants to tax.

The WSJ reports that the National Federation of Independent Business says that only 10% of small businesses with one to nine employees will be hit by Obama's tax increase. However, almost 20% of the small businesses that employ from 10 to 19 people will get nailed, and 50% of small businesses with over 20 employees get punished.

Again ... it is not the percentage of businesses that will have to pay the increased taxes; it's the percentage of the total of small business employees who work for those businesses. The Obama campaign is counting on you not making that distinction; and they know the media won't make it for you; so Obama's "95% of all small businesses don't make $250,000" line will probably rule the day.

Come on folks. These are your jobs we're talking about here. It's time to take your blinders off and see through some of this Obama rhetoric. The Obama campaign has some wonderful people working for them to tell them just how to parse words to hide intent and meaning. Just because they're trying to fool you doesn't mean that you have to be so easily suckered. When Obama talks about change .. he may well mean that you are going to have to change jobs. Now that's change you can believe in, right?

Pandering to the Unions .. at Your Expense.

Now since we're talking about jobs here, you need to be up to speed on The Messiah's "Employee Free Choice Act." Let me step out on a limb here and say that applying the words "free choice" to Obama's plan to eliminate secret ballots in union elections is like applying the words "fun sex" to an act of rape. Freedom has nothing to do with Obama's plan, and fun has nothing to do with rape.

Going in you need to recognize that union membership has been falling for decades. You only see growth in union membership in government employee unions. This, of course, is troubling to union leaders. It is also troubling to Democrats. Unions, you see, almost exclusively support Democrat candidates, both with money and time. Big money and lots of time ... and it's all behind Obama's candidacy.

To know what Obama is up to here, you need to know how union organizing works under the current law. Union organizers circulate a petition among employees. Employees are asked to sign a card saying that they would like to be represented by a union in their workplace. If a majority of the workers sign the cards the employer has the option of immediately recognizing the union and allowing them to organize the workplace. More often the employer will call for an election – an election using secret ballots. Every employee will be given the opportunity to express their desire to join or not to join a union in secret. Their co-workers will not know how they voted. They can prance around the workplace touting their support of unionization all they want in order to impress or appease their fellow workers, especially those who are trying to organize the union, but then vote "no" on the secret ballot if that's how they truly feel.

How, you might ask, do Democrats feel about the secret ballot in union elections? For a clue let's go to a letter from 16 House Democrats dated August 29, 2001. The letter was written on the letterhead of California Congressman George Miller, a Democrat representing the 7th District of California. That letter reads:

[Letterhead of George Miller, Congress of the United States] Junta Local de Conciliacion y Arbitraje del Estado de Puebla Lic. Armando Poxqui Quintero 7 Norte Numero 1006 Altos Colonia Centro Puebla, Mexico C.P. 7200 Dear members of the Junta Local de Conciliacion y Arbitraje of the state of Puebla. As members of Congress of the United States who are deeply concerned with international labor standards and the role of labor rights in international trade agreements, we are writing to encourage you to use the secret ballot in all union recognition elections. We understand that the secret ballot is allowed for, but not required, by Mexican labor law. However, we feel that the secret ballot is absolutely necessary in order to ensure that workers are not intimidated into voting for a union they might not otherwise chose. We respect Mexico as an important neighbor and trading partner, and we feel that the increased use of the secret ballow in union recognition elections will help bring real democracy to the Mexican workplace. Signed: George Miller Bernard Sanders Lane Evans Marcy Kaptur William J. Coyne Bob Filner Martin Olav Sabo Joe Baca Dennis J. Kucinich Fortney Pete Stark James P. McGovern Barney Frank Zoe Lofgren Calvin M. Dooley Barbara Lee Lloyd Doggett

So there you go. These 16 Democrats are on the record as being solidly in favor of using secret ballots in union recognition elections. So far, so good ... because that, as they point out in their letter, is clearly the right stance.

That brings us to piece of legislation – a piece of Obama sponsored legislation --designated as H.R. 800, the Employee Free Choice Act. Would you care to guess just what H.R. 800 does? Well, that's simple. It will eliminate the secret ballot in union recognition elections. You got it! Obama has decided to really do something nice for the union bosses that are supporting him in this election, and he is determined to do away with secret ballots in union elections. When H.R. 800 gets passed ... and trust me, with Barack Obama in the White House, this thing will become law ... the union organizers will visit all of the workers, perhaps even visiting some of them in their homes, and "urge" them to sign the card calling for a union. I can hear it now: "Mrs. Johnson, wouldn't you and your children want your husband to be represented by our union at his job?" Now put yourself in the worker's place! Are you going to say no? This organizer is sitting in your living room looking at you and your wife and saying "You do want to be represented by our union in your workplace, don't you?" And you're going to tell him no?

Are you getting the big picture here? This is nothing less than Barack Obama and his Democrat pals legitimizing union intimidation in the workplace. If you don't see that, then there is virtually no hope for you when it comes to understanding basic politics. It's payback the unions time .. pay them back for all of that financial support and all of those volunteer hours. Besides ... the more union members there are the more union dues the union bosses have to spread to Democrats as campaign contributions.

But – we're saved, right? After all, we have those 16 Democrats who signed that letter to Mexico. What was it they said? Oh yeah: " ... we feel that the secret ballot is absolutely necessary in order to ensure that workers are not intimidated into voting for a union they might not otherwise chose." So these 16 Democrats will certainly put up a spirited defense of secret ballots in union organizing elections, right?

Well ... um ... maybe not. You see, four of these congressmen (Dooley, Sabo, Evans and Coyne) are no longer in the Congress. One of the signers, Bernie Sanders, is now a Senator. That leaves 11 of the 16 signees still in the house to defend the principal of the secret ballot.

I'm afraid we have a small problem though. It seems that every one of the 11 remaining signees is now a sponsor of H.R. 800. In fact, the so-called Employee Free Choice Act was actually introduced by none other than George Miller – the very California Democrat on whose letterhead that letter to Mexico was written. Bernie Sanders is a sponsor of the same legislation in the Senate along with Barack Obama. No surprise .

On the one hand we have these Democrats writing a letter extolling the virtues of a secret ballot in union organizing elections, and then they sponsor a bill eliminating those very secret ballots! And here's Barack Obama pledging to sign the bill as soon as it comes to his desk! So what changed between 2001 and 2007? What happened that made these 12 Democrats go from believing that a secret ballot in a union election was "absolutely necessary," to introducing a bill eliminating those "absolutely necessary" secret ballots? Control of congress; that's what changed. In 2001 the Republicans ran the show. In 2007 it was the Democrats ... and it was time to return some favors to union bosses. Do you know what you're seeing here? You're seeing just how much power unions have over Barack Obama and the Democrat party. It doesn't matter what kind of letter you wrote, or what stance you took in the past --- when we say "frog" you had better jump.

Let me tell you what is going to happen as soon as Barack Obama is elected. Employers are going to look at the so-called Employee Free Choice Act and they're going to be very afraid. They know what a union can do to their business and their profitability. Just look at our auto industry. So employers are going to immediately start working to minimize the damage. How do you do that? Well, automation is one way. Go ahead and buy that machinery you need to automate much of your workplace. That will allow you to get rid of these employees before they can unionize. You might also want to consider the possibility of moving some of those jobs overseas where union intimidation might not be such a negative factor in your business operations.

When Obama gets his unionization by intimidation thing in place – and he most certainly will – jobs are going to be lost and businesses will fail. This is the price Obama is willing to pay to pay back the unions who have supported him.

Just another reason to vote for The Chosen One, right?

The Supreme Court

This is getting to be a bit long. We're over 6,200 words here. So let's end this message to the undecided voter with a few words about the Supreme Court.

It is quite possible that Barack Obama will get to make one, maybe two Supreme Court appointments before he's through in Washington. It is also possible that he will have a filibuster-proof Senate to help him ram those choices through.

I'm a lawyer, and I've always had this strange idea that the U.S. Supreme Court should base its decisions on the supreme law of our land, our Constitution. Many people think differently these days. A recent and rather shocking survey showed that around 80% of people who support Barack Obama believe that the Supreme Court should base its decisions not on the Constitution, but on what's "fair." Egad! On the other hand, the strong majority of McCain voters believe that the Supremes should look to our Constitution as the final authority.

Let's just make this short and sweet, because I know you want to get out of here. If Barack Obama gets those two nominations, and if the Democrat Senate rubber-stamps them, then we are going to have a Supreme Court making decisions based on their liberal definition of "fairness" with some consideration to foreign court decisions tossed in. This is perhaps Obama's greatest opportunity to do permanent damage to our Republic; permanent and irreparable damage. It's one thing when Barack Obama talks about wealth seizure and redistribution in terms of "fairness." It's quite another when that talk is legitimized by a Supreme Court decision.

So, dear undecided voters ... as Og Mandino (a great American) once said: "Use wisely your power of choice." There's a lot hanging in the balance.

There. I'm done.

© 2008 Neal Boortz

If the shoe fits...

There aren't many people I have less in common with, practically or ideologically, than Howard Stern. But the audio of this interview from his show is unbelievable. Does anyone really believe that race is not only one of the issues, but is actually the deciding factor, for many who are voting for Barack Obama?

Nobody is really for baiting ignorant people into making very apparent their ignorance, except for maybe when so very much is at stake. And don't call me racist for calling these Harlem voters ignorant. If the shoe fits...

Consider the words of some of the uninformed voting public, who will be casting uninformed votes on November 4.

"If my people..."

"If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." 2 Chronicles 7:14 (KJV)

During WWII, an advisor to Winston Churchill organized a group of people who dropped what they were doing every night at a prescribed hour for one minute of collective prayer for the safety of England and its people, and for peace. There is now a group of people organizing the same thing here in America. They are asking people to stop at 9 p.m. Eastern Time and spend one minute praying for the safety of the United States, our troops, and our citizens; for peace in the world; for the upcoming election; that the Bible will remain the basis for the laws governing our land; and that Christianity would grow in the U.S.

If you know anyone who would like to participate, please pass this along. Someone said if people really understood the full extent of the power we have available through prayer, we might be speechless. Our prayers are the most powerful asset we have.

-adapted from a mailing from HEAV

"This Election and Abortion"

My friend Chris posted this on his Facebook page today. It is worth reading, so I reproduce it here.

This Election and Abortion
Saturday, October 18, 2008 at 6:09pm

I've been tempted many times over the last few months to write this note, but I've been chicken to. It just isn't fashionable to talk about abortion, and Supreme Court Justices, and this election. Anyway here goes.

I'll start by saying that I realize there are many Christian believers who think that abortion is not morally wrong. I have to admit that I cannot get inside your head and understand how you reconcile the self-sacrificing Christ with abortion, an act that is so self-serving. Whatever. I can't convince you and I'm not trying.

What is more unfathomable to me are those Christians who believe that abortion is morally evil (though they may stop short of calling it murder) but who plan to vote for Barack Obama. It is well known that Obama supports broad abortion rights, and would most likely sign into law a bill that codifies abortion rights at the federal level. Even more importantly, he almost certainly would appoint Supreme Court justices who would uphold Roe, thereby continuing the flow of abortions in this country for decades to come.

Maybe I am an idealist, but if you think abortion is morally wrong, I cannot see how you can vote for a President who will encourage them. Iraq, Afghanistan, the economy, healthcare, energy; all these pale in importance when compared to death by abortion.

I became politically aware in 1984, the year I entered college. The Cold War and overturning Roe were 2 political realities that dominated the 1980s and they dominated my political landscape. Now, more than 20 years later, there is a chance to overturn Roe. Back in the 1980s, I could never have imagined that so many Christians would vote against the man who could appoint the justice(s) to rectify this great wrong.

If you're reading this and you're planning to vote for Obama (and you're a Christian who believes that abortion is morally wrong, if not evil) please reconsider your vote. Make history in 2008, but not for the wrong reasons.

And no, I'm not a single issue voter. I'm voting against Obama for 100 reasons other than abortion.

Backgound Noise?

A friend sent me the following article regarding television and its effects on child development... only this time it isn't necessarily anything the child is watching, but just the fact that the television is on in the background that is potentially problematic.

I found it interesting to ponder, as we consider - as parents -whether the benefits ever outweigh the costs when it comes to the television programming which many have playing in the backgrounds of their lives.

You know where I tend to lean from my post back in June, but anyway, here is the article:

The Effects of Background TV on Toddler Development

Playing is essential to children's development all through childhood but especially in the first five years of life. Through play, children acquire motor skills, explore the physical characteristics of objects, learn about cause and effect relationships, and problem solve. Focused attention to play is necessary for these benefits to occur. A new study explores whether playing with television on in the background—an increasingly common phenomenon in U.S. households—can affect children's development.

At Children's Hospital in Boston, 50 1-, 2-, and 3-year-olds were observed for an hour in a playroom with a television. Half the children had the TV on for the first 30 minutes, and the other half had it on for the final 30 minutes. The program Jeopardy was selected to be on during playtime because it contains no material that is relevant to young children as well as nothing objectionable. Also, children this age could not comprehend what was going on in this show, making this a pure background factor.

Parents were present in the playroom with their children but were instructed to read or watch television. They were asked not to interact with the child nor encourage play with anything unless the child became cranky or demanded their attention.

Children were videotaped during this hour and investigators later observed and analyzed the playtime behavior. The researchers found that there was less play overall, shorter play episodes, and shorter bouts of focused attention when the television was on. Children were more likely to move from toy to toy rather than focusing on one toy, for example, when the TV was on. (Child Development, vol. 79, no. 4 [Jul/Aug 2008]: 1137-1151)

Comment, by Loraine Stern, M.D.: Children's attention spans increase as they get older. The ability to sustain attention and play uninterruptedly for as long as a child's age permits is essential for children to follow through an idea or an investigation. So this new research couldn't be more timely and relevant, given that approximately 75 percent of U.S. parents of young children report that they leave the TV on at least half the time that children are playing at home.

If TV is a significant disrupter of children's attention, does background television contribute to later attention issues as well as impairing development in this age group? This study does not answer either of those questions. We do know that chaotic and noisy households are associated with those problems, so it stands to reason that the noise and rapidly changing light that distracts young children might have a long-term effect.

Another problem with leaving the TV on is that children can be exposed to material that is inappropriate or even harmful—violent images, sexual content, etc. In my practice I ask parents about television use and persuade them to turn it off if nobody is watching. Soft music from the radio or a CD player is hugely preferable if you need some accompaniment to your daily activities.

Happy October!

Below is a "guest post" from my middle daughter, OG. She posted this on what was then the "kids' blog," which has turned into her brother PT's blog since she and her sister EV only posted a couple of things. I like the things they posted, however, so I've preserved them here...

Everyone, it's October! Spook time!

Listen to a loon; it's lovely, but spooky.

Close your eyes and listen to a loon while thinking about Busch Gardens' Howl-O-Scream!

(If you've been, you'll get the chills.)

If this doesn't work, sorry! That's how I feel!

'ding 3