A loss for the good guys on the ordinance

I promised that I would update my readers on our local politics. Being a pessimist, I was not terribly surprised that the homosexual and transgender special rights ordinance passed in my town, though that had not stopped me from working steadily against it. This story is particularly timely in this connection. I just saw it yesterday and plan to blog more about it soon. The skies are darkening, and as Scott W. says, you can try remaining silent, like Thomas More, but it may not work forever.

A small victory against the bullies on the other side yesterday is owing to Pastor __________ of a local Christian Reformed Church. (This does not identify him, as it is nearly impossible to throw a rock in my town without hitting a Christian Reformed Church.) His church is a polling place, and yesterday the homosexual activists planted a "Vote Yes" sign right next to the church driveway. This despite the fact that most of the church members were definitely "Vote No" people, though the church had no signs up. The activists had carefully measured, and the sign was outside the 100 foot zone from the door of the church, but that of course doesn't change the fact that outside that zone was private property, and by sticking the sign in the ground on church property, they were making it look like the church endorsed the ordinance. I became aware of the situation and phoned Pastor __________. (He is not my pastor, and I'd never spoken with him, but I know quite a number of the people in his church as local friends and neighbors.) I had to leave a message, and I came away saying, discouraged, "They're gonna tell him he has to allow them to have the sign on his property because it's a polling place, as long as it's outside the 100 foot zone, and that's going to be the end of it."

But I had reckoned without Pastor _________'s principle and persistence. I got the whole story later. Of course, the activists did try exactly that line. Indeed, when he told them, "This is private property," they said, "Not today. Today it's a polling place." Why that should require the permission of partisan electioneering on the property remains a mystery to this hour! The ACLU was firmly on the side of the activist bullies, and every time the pastor came back (sometimes from conversations with the City Attorney, who was apparently just trying to interpret and apply the law correctly) and told them they had to take out the sign, the head activist would say, "That's not what my lawyer says." The lawyers went back and forth and eventually called the state election officials in Lansing. The upshot was that the activists were required to take the sign out of the ground so that it was not associated with the church but were permitted to carry it as an expression of their own views.

I still don't fully understand why they had to be allowed to do this in the church parking lot and couldn't at least be required to move to the public sidewalk, but they had attempted to brazen the matter out and associate the church willy-nilly with their own position by planting a sign on church property, and they did not win that little battle. Pastor ________ also now knows the scoop if something like this comes up again. He spent several hours of his day making phone calls, dealing with unpleasant people, and not giving in to the bluffing tactics of the activists coached by the ACLU, and I apologize to him for having assumed he would give up.

I drove past the church after dark last evening but before the polls were closed. In the parking lot was one person holding up a Vote Yes sign. And next to the driveway was an elderly man holding up a Vote No sign. Bless him. I should have stopped and said something encouraging to him. Wish I had.

For us there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.

Blessed All Saints

Having forgotten to change the clocks last night, I found myself with an extra hour this morning--riches! I used part of it for practicing "For All the Saints" for our church service. I'm the organist--sort of. For some reason, I have never adjusted to my "new" glasses (during the past year) and have to play without them, so piano and organ playing are a challenge and require a little extra practice. It's a wonderful, wonderful song.

I looked around for a good Youtube video of it to embed and shall post that below. One of the Youtubes for "For All the Saints" had the song over a pretty long video clip from some movie or other of Christians being fed to lions. I only got as far as the point where the lions and leopards were pacing around in their cages and then opted out of the rest of the clip. The Christians had little kids with them whom I didn't want to see get eaten. But though I didn't find anything that was the Platonic ideal of "For All the Saints," there was quite a good one, and I'll put that up.

Please see my past All Saints posts here and here, and feel free to comment on them either in their original threads or here.

For church this morning I will be playing "The Church's One Foundation" for the prelude. I love the words to that as well. Here are two of my favorite verses:

Though with a scornful wonder
Men see her sore oppressed,
By schisms rent asunder,
By heresies distressed:
Yet saints their watch are keeping,
Their cry goes up, “How long?”
And soon the night of weeping
Shall be the morn of song!

Yet she on earth hath union
With God the Three in One,
And mystic sweet communion
With those whose rest is won,
O happy ones and holy,
Lord, give us grace that we
Like them the meek and lowly
On high may dwell with thee.

There is, by the way, a long history of "The Church's One Foundation" having to do with a fight against heresy in the 19th century. Or at least, so I recall hearing. My husband and brother-in-law know a lot more about it than I do. Samuel J. Stone, who wrote the words, was an Anglican clergyman and was considered "high" for his time but was not evidently a really dyed-in-the-wool Newmanite, either. A via media guy with some high-ish leanings, I gather. Anyway, I pray that God will give us grace so to follow his good example, etc., as the Cranmerian remembrance of the dead says in the Prayer Book.

In one of those earlier posts, I said that I especially thought of Helen Berhane, a Christian singer in Eritrea who was imprisoned by the Communist government in a shipping container in Africa for her faith. (At the time that I wrote the post, I was unsure about the government of Eritrea but have since researched it--Communist.) That was with regard to the line "Thou in the darkness drear their one true light" in "For All the Saints." Naturally, this year, I am especially thinking of our sister in Christ Rifqa Bary, in a much gentler but also real imprisonment here in the United States. Though to her it must seem that she is cut off from the Body of Christ, yet it is not so, for we are all one Body united by the same Spirit under one Head who is the Lord Jesus Christ. In him we are one, and if that bond gives us communion even with those who have died in the Lord, how much more does it unite us to those who are still alive at this time, though separated from us by persecution? May the Lord Christ be Rifqa's light in the darkness and her Captain in the well-fought fight.

I post here again Cranmer's wonderful collect for the day as well as the Proper Preface with the Sanctus, and I am struck as always by the way that the Protestant Cranmer (and I mean that as a compliment) captures the concept of the communion of the Saints without in any way compromising his Protestantism. Truly, God blessed the Church by giving her Thomas Cranmer and especially Thomas Cranmer's liturgy.

The collect for All Saints:

O Almighty God, who has knit together thine elect in one communion and fellowship, in the mystical body of thy Son Christ our Lord; Grant us grace so to follow thy blessed Saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those unspeakable joys which thou has prepared for those who unfeignedly love thee; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The proper preface, with the Sanctus:

Who, in the multitude of thy Saints, hast compassed us about with so great a cloud of witnesses, that we, rejoicing in their fellowship, may run with patience the race that is set before us, and, together with them, may receive the crown of glory that fadeth not away.

Therefore with Angels and Archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify thy glorious Name; evermore praising thee, and saying,

HOLY, HOLY, HOLY, Lord God of hosts, Heaven and earth are full of thy glory: Glory be to thee, O Lord Most High.

Local politics

The vote on a new ordinance here in my town is coming up on Tuesday. This ordinance would add "sexual orientation and gender identity" to the town's non-discrimination statutes. Translation: Inter alia, you have to hire a guy who insists on wearing a dress and being called "Diane," even if your business is selling ice cream to little kids and your customers will understandably be disgusted and go to your lucky competitor who hasn't had a cross dresser apply.

There's a lot more to it, of course. It's interesting to see how even though this ordinance is partly about punishing people (businesses, in particular) who refuse to get on-board with the homosexual agenda, in reality the homosexual activist agenda is "so last year." Transgender rights are the latest thing.

And by the way, I would like here to say, "Shame on you" to our local Family Christian Stores store, which has shown not the slightest support for the Vote No campaign. Worse: Back in the summer, we were collecting signatures to send this to the ballot rather than having it rammed through merely on the vote of our very liberal city commission. The protest signatures put a temporary stay on the ordinance and gave us the chance to fight another day, with the voters as a whole. I went to the local Family Christian Store to ask if I could simply find out if their employees live in the city limits and get their signatures if they wanted to sign. It would have taken a big five minutes. You should have seen the smirk on the manageress's face as she told me I would have to "call corporate" in Grand Rapids for permission to make this simple canvassing of the employees. Corporate could not even be bothered to call me back. It was not good. I think frankly that it's a sign of the extent to which leftism is infiltrating evangelicalism in America, especially of the Christian Reformed variety most common in my part of the world.

Please pray for the defeat of the ordinance. I have a few more GOTV calls to make this afternoon. I'll let you know how it ends.

Links and sample letters on Rifqa

There follow a few useful links concerning Rifqa Bary at Atlas Shrugged. I apologize for the format, etc., at Atlas. I find that the page takes a long time to load, and Pamela Geller is not always, shall we say, sensitive in her use of pictures. She also doesn't seem to know how to use the "click here for more" function for posts, and she tends to run too much information together in one post, which makes it hard to sort out visually and makes it look hysterical and less credible than it actually is. But she is in actuality the go-to source on Rifqa's case, the one person who is following the case scrupulously and collecting information all the way along, often doing on-the-ground interviewing and original, exclusive, investigation (such as finding Rifqa's father's immigration documents), and if Rifqa's lawyer and guardian ad litem in Florida had paid attention to Pamela's information and advice more, Rifqa might still be safe(er) in Florida. They really dropped the ball.

So, first, here is an early report of Rifqa's being cut off from phone and Internet. Here is an explanation from Rifqa's friend Jamal Jivanjee of the phony deal Rifqa's parents cut. He also discusses the draconian limits on her communication. How he knows about the deal, I don't know and don't ask, but it at least explains some things. And here is a post containing interesting letters from a family law lawyer from Oregon to the Executive Director of FCCS. Unfortunately, the lawyer is capital-letter-challenged, but he writes good letters other than that--has the legalese down well and knows how similar systems work. (I have some comments in the thread on this 0ne you might want to search for on the page using my name as a search term.)

The e-mail address for Eric Fenner, Executive Director of FCCS, is

edfenner@fccs.co.franklin.oh.us

There is also some sort of civil rights ombudsman who is supposed to have special charge over the rights of "clients"--in other words, the minors in the care of the FCCS. Here is his contact info:

Kenneth Cohen
Client Rights Officer
Franklin Co. Children Services
855 Mound St.
Columbus, Ohio 43223
Phone No. 614-275-2621
E-mail address: cro@fccs.co.franklin.oh.us

Direct e-mail:

kcohen@fccs.co.franklin.oh.us

Here is the letter I wrote to Mr. Fenner (the first guy):

Dear Mr. Fenner:

I am writing to you concerning Rifqa Bary, who is presently in the custody of Franklin County Children’s Services. A news report from the Columbus Dispatch states that you have said you see no reason to believe that Rifqa would not be safe with her parents. This seems an extraordinarily hasty statement and does not seem to reflect an intention to do due diligence on the facts of the case but rather to prejudge it before an investigation has been fully carried out. Your casual comments to the press about this case are consistent with the extraordinarily fast setting of a date for trial on the merits, when Rifqa’s lawyers have just been assigned and are new to the case, and when the case is admittedly complex and difficult. It does not seem that Franklin County is giving this case the careful consideration and prudence that it deserves.

I am writing to urge that Rifqa not be returned to the custody of her parents. In repeated interviews, including interviews with Florida Law Enforcement, Rifqa has described physical and psychological abuse at the hands of her father dating back to her middle school days. She also indicates that her father threatened her in connection with her conversion to Christianity, leading to her decision to run away out of fear of him and the surrounding Muslim community who, she says, were urging him to "deal with" her conversion. She is very frightened of being returned to her parents’ custody, and it is clearly not in her best interests for her to be returned.

A serious problem in connection with Rifqa’s case is the danger that her parents will take her, as a minor, and leave the United States for their native Sri Lanka if she is returned to them. In Sri Lanka, she would not, even when she turns eighteen in nine months, have the rights and freedoms that she would have here in the United States. According to her testimony, her parents expressly threatened to take her back to Sri Lanka to be "dealt with" concerning her apostasy from Islam with methods possibly including institutionalization. This must not be allowed to happen. However, it appears that her parents (and hence Rifqa herself) are now in the United States illegally. This makes it all the more plausible that they would return to Sri Lanka, taking her against her will, if she were returned to them.

Rifqa’s father has stated in an interview with Florida Law Enforcement that he would require her to practice Islam until she turned eighteen. If Rifqa is returned to her father’s custody, she will be under religious coercion as well as being in danger.

Of particular concern is the fact that Ohio Juvenile Magistrate Mary Goodrich, at the request of Atty. Jim Zorn, has restricted Rifqa’s ability to communicate via telephone and Internet, thus causing her to be held incommunicado. This decision seems especially dangerous and outrageous. This is a child in need of protection, and it is impossible to see how her best interests can be served and her safety insured if she is unable to communicate with the outside world. In the United States, one of the ways in which we protect the vulnerable is by making sure that they are not cared for in secret, without the ability to communicate what is happening to them. Moreover, this restriction on Rifqa’s communication has more than a whiff of religious discrimination about it, as it appears that she is particularly being restricted so that she cannot obtain support in her Christian beliefs by being in touch with her Christian friends. I urge that Rifqa’s ability to communicate with others outside her foster situation be restored immediately.

Please be aware that the eyes of the world are watching Rifqa’s treatment at the hands of the Franklin County Children’s Services. It is precisely at your level--at the level of juvenile court magistrates and children’s services workers--that prudence, due diligence, and concern for the best interests of the child enter the equation, so that children are not treated in some mechanical way according to laws insensitive to the specifics of the case. Your department and the judges with whom you work have the authority and hence the responsibility to protect Rifqa, and you will be held responsible for doing so. If she is returned to her parents and deprived of religious freedom, physically harmed, psychologically terrorized, or dragged back to Sri Lanka against her will, the responsibility will belong to the local authorities of Franklin County. Please consider well what you do, and above all, err on the side of protecting this minor child from harm.

Yours sincerely,

*************************************************************************

Here is the only partially overlapping letter I wrote to Mr. Cohen:

Dear Mr. Cohen,

I am writing to you with regard to the case of Rifqa Bary, a 17-year-old minor now in the custody of Franklin County Children’s Services. Although my greatest concern is that Rifqa not be returned to her parents’ custody, given her plausible allegations of past abuse and threats from her parents and the danger of her being taken out of the United States to Sri Lanka against her will, I have already written to Mr. Eric Fenner about the case more generally and intend here to focus on some matters relating directly to civil rights, as I understand that you are the Client Rights Officer in the civil rights area for FCCS.

One issue of great concern is the fact that Juvenile Magistrate Mary Goodrich, at the request of Atty. Jim Zorn, has restricted Rifqa’s ability to communicate via telephone and Internet. The express intent of this restriction, articulated by Atty. Zorn, is to cut Rifqa off from “other people” in the situation--by which he expressly means friends that Rifqa was communicating with via Facebook and via telephone. I ask you to consider the undeniable disparate impact this will have in the area of religion. Rifqa alleges that her parents threatened her because of her conversion to Christianity, and the friends she wishes to communicate outside her foster care situation will undoubtedly be disproportionately Christian friends, offering her spiritual encouragement and comfort. Her parents desired what Atty. Zorn has asked for, because they believe Christians have been a bad influence on Rifqa. By cooperating in the attempt to isolate Rifqa from friends of a particular religion, the State of Ohio raises the possibility that it is engaging in religious discrimination and depriving Rifqa of her rights to free exercise of religion.

It is, moreover, a serious problem to isolate a child in this fashion, particularly a vulnerable child. In the United States, we generally consider that part of the protection for the vulnerable is that they are able to communicate with others and to tell others if they are being mistreated. Parents who isolated their child, particularly a young woman of seventeen, this thoroughly for an indefinite period of time, would be suspected of having something to hide, and worries would be understandably raised that the child might be mistreated and be unable to obtain help. The outside world will find it very difficult to find out if Rifqa is being pressured or treated in any inappropriate way while in foster care if she is held thus virtually incommunicado. This is not in her best interests, and all the less so as she has now been apparently deprived of the right she enjoyed in Florida to select her own lawyer.

I strongly urge that Rifqa’s ability to communicate with friends, including Christian friends, outside her foster care situation be restored immediately in the name of her civil rights.

Next, I want to ask whether Rifqa is being permitted to see regularly a religious adviser of her choice. Even convicted criminals in jail are permitted visits with their clergymen, who are given prison visitation rights. Rifqa--an honors student who has been convicted of no crime and is in a highly stressful situation-- should have at least the minimal religious exercise rights accorded to a convict.

Also in relation to rights of religious free exercise, I wish to point out that Mr. Bary, Rifqa's father, while denying various statements she has made as to past abuse, actually stated to Florida's Department of Law Enforcement that "because she is still under age and living in his home he believed she should continue to study and practice Islam." This makes it clear that if Rifqa is returned to her parents she will be compelled to practice Islam even while here in the United States, unless she should turn eighteen while still here in the United States. She will not turn eighteen for another nine months.

I also want to raise some due process issues. Mr. Eric Fenner has most inappropriately already commented to the Columbus Dispatch that he cannot see any reason why it would not be safe for Rifqa to be returned to her parents. He should not be prejudging this case in this way, when Rifqa has only just now been transferred into FCCS custody. He should do due diligence first, having in mind always the best interests of the child.

Due process is particularly a matter of concern given what I understand to be the quasi-criminal nature of the proceedings, since Rifqa’s parents are attempting to have her declared an “incorrigible child.” A trial on the merits of the case has been scheduled very rapidly, for Nov. 16, despite the fact that Rifqa has just been assigned new lawyers. It seems that her due process rights may well be violated if her lawyers do not have more time to research and prepare their case in this very complicated matter, involving multiple lines of evidence in multiple areas.

I urge you to do everything in your power for the best interests and safety of Rifqa Bary. If, through negligence and failure of due diligence and due process on the part of FCCS and the Ohio courts, she is returned to her parents and dragged out of the country to Sri Lanka, where she will have no civil rights at all, FCCS and the judge(s) involved will be responsible. It is at the level of Children’s Services that the particulars of the case need to be examined and taken carefully into account. I urge you, like everyone involved at FCCS, to err on the side of caution in safeguarding this young woman.

Best wishes,

***************************************************************************

If any of my readers would like supporting information on any of the points in the letters or these two posts--more supporting links, for example--feel free to ask.

If you should feel moved to write your own letter to either of these guys, go for it, and feel free to use the info. I've given here.

Above all, pray for her and especially for the trial on November 16.

Please pray for Rifqa

Dear friends,

I've often put up updates about Rifqa Bary at W4, usually with closed comments, because I refuse to deal with Muslim commentators on this issue. This time, W4 seems to be rolling along fine, and I've decided to update here, because I'm reluctant to cover up a new post by a fellow contributor with a comments-closed post of my own. I may yet change my mind on that, though.

Rifqa is in a very serious situation. She has been returned to Ohio, and the Ohio judge has already indicated a tendency to side with her Muslim parents. The judge has summarily ordered, without any investigation of the case (immediately upon Rifqa's return) that she is to be held in foster care without any Internet or cell phone use. This apparently means she is cut off from (literal, physical) contact with the Body of Christ, unless her foster family is Christian, which we have no reason to believe. Her Christian lawyer, whom she chose herself, has evidently been removed from the case, and new lawyers unfamiliar with the case selected arbitrarily for her by the state of Ohio. I have been unable to find out if she is being allowed any visits by a Christian pastor or being allowed to go to church. I would guess not. Even convicted murderers are allowed clergy visits in prison and some degree of free exercise of religion, but this girl has been convicted of nothing and has done nothing but run away from her parents in fear.

Her trial--yes, it is her trial, because the proceedings are quasi-criminal, her parents having filed a case to have her declared an "incorrigible child" and returned to them--has been scheduled quite soon, for Nov. 16, which is scarcely time for her new lawyers to get up to speed, even supposing that they truly want to represent her best interests.

There is great danger that she will be summarily returned to her parents and that they will immediately take her out of the country. In Sri Lanka, they can do what they want to her to pressure her to return to Islam, and turning eighteen next summer will help her not one whit. The Florida judge allowed all this to happen, dropping a requirement he had previously stated that her parents produce their immigration documents. They stonewalled him. Word from a friend of Rifqa has it that her Florida guardian ad litem (who at least really did care for her) was bamboozled along with the judge by a phony "deal" whereby the immigration issue would be dropped and Rifqa returned to Ohio if her parents would promise to leave her alone in foster care in Ohio until she turns eighteen in nine months and is no longer under their control. This deal, however, was completely unenforceable and depended on the parents' good faith, which of course is nonexistent. They reneged on it immediately when the Florida judge (who seemed in general rather sensible and concerned for Rifqa's well-being) surrendered his jurisdiction and ordered her returned to Ohio.

This is all quite terrible. There is something horrible about watching the slow squeeze of legal proceedings against an innocent girl happening before one's very eyes, telling oneself, "This can't happen in America," and then finding that perhaps it can. Of course, I cannot help being reminded of the murder of Terri Schiavo.

Right now, I do not have time to post links here to back up all my points. I will try to do so later so that you can get information in case you want to write to Franklin County Children's Services in support of Rifqa. I may also post the text of the letters I have written thus far.

Meanwhile, please pray for Rifqa.

Grace acronyms

Courtesy of an e-mail from Keith Pavlischek, and courtesy of First Things's Evangel blogger, we have a bunch of exceedingly clever acronyms for the word GRACE. In fairness to First Things blog, I won't just copy the whole thing here. You should go read the whole list over there. But if you're familiar with God's Riches at Christ's Expense, this is a set for every kind of Christian (and/or groups claiming to be Christian, including Barthians and Emergentists) you can imagine. A sense of humor is required to appreciate these, and some knowledge of various Christian denominations and sub-denominations, too. Here are a few of my favorites:

For Open Theists:

God Reconsiders, And Cooperates Exquisitely

For evidentialist apologists:

General Revelation And Convincing Explanations

For presuppositional apologists:

Gospel Repentance Accomplished, Circularity Ensues

For theonomists:

Gospel Requires Absolutely Crushing Enemies

For the emergents:

Generational Resentment Against Conservative Evangelicals

It's hard to choose one best one, but given my present church membership, I shouldn't leave this one unmentioned:

For Anglo-Catholics:

Getting Ritualistic After Cranmer’s Execution

Heh.

To clamor never waken

This morning our post-Communion hymn had words from the ancient Syriac liturgy of Malabar (translated, of course). Here are the first two verses:

Strengthen for service, Lord, the hands
That holy things have taken;
Let ears that now have heard thy songs
To clamor never waken.

Lord, may the tongues which ‘Holy’ sang
Keep free from all deceiving;
The eyes which saw Thy love be bright
Thy blessèd hope perceiving.

Unfortunately, the tune for this is just dull as dull can be, which is why I don't provide a link. Any readers familiar with the Anglican hymnal will know what I'm talking about. I wish that someone would re-translate the words and set them to better music.

I was especially struck by the idea here that there is something lost when those who have once been committed to Christ wander away from Him. In contemporary terms, we can think of this in connection with children raised by Christian parents who go off the rails. If you know a child who loves Jesus Christ right now, there is something inside you that cries out, "Oh, Lord, keep them by your side! Don't let those little eyes be defiled, those hands, that body, those ears."

This song applies this idea to all of us. If we have been in the Lord's house and have praised Him, if our hands have taken holy things in Communion, we should pray that God would keep us ever near him and not let us do anything contrary, as the Prayer Book says, to our profession.

The mention of "clamor" particularly struck me, because it can be so hard to find peace and quiet when one leaves one's house nowadays. I admit to leading a sheltered life, and I'm grateful for it. I was in a waiting room this last week for quite a while. Walked in to be confronted in my face by a large TV up high on the wall with flickering images of an ostensibly naked man and woman rolling about in bed together. I never found out what that was all about (not that I wanted to know), because the image switched quickly to some sort of commercial involving someone's breaking an egg. Such is the world of television. I asked at the desk if we had to have the TV on. They said we could turn it off if no one in the room minded. As all the other people were reading (sensible folk) and said they didn't mind, we turned it off.

Fifty minutes of peace ensued. Then one of the girls behind the desk said, "It is too quiet in here!" and turned it back on. By this time, the only people in the waiting room other than me were an older couple, and the woman was apparently trying to doze with her head on her husband's shoulder. So I spoke up: "What's wrong with quiet?" I said in piercing tones. "Quiet is good!" The older woman seconded me, and we got the receptionist to turn off the sound. She justified herself in an ad hoc fashion by saying, "We have to have it on in case someone comes in who wants it." Really? Then why didn't they have it off before I walked in, in case someone came in who didn't want it? But of course, the default position is that it must be on. You vill vatch television, if we have to cram it down your throat. I take a lot of satisfaction out of having at least gotten the clamor silenced by speaking up.

That, I suppose, is a digression from the Syriac liturgy of Malabar. I pray for my readers this week that they would have some peace and some silence, and for all of us that the lips that sang "holy" will be kept free from all that would grieve Our Lord.

Have a good week.

Violent criminals for gun control

Okay, this is a great video.



Heh.

Actually, I'm told that in the book Will, by G. Gordon Liddy (which I have not read and don't particularly want to read), there is a conversation with a career criminal in which he says several of these very things.

HT Rich Gelina

New post at W4 on organ procurement

Here is the post at W4 that I have been working on. It highlights one problem apiece with each of the only two methods for procuring usable vital organs. In each case there are very real concerns as to whether the dead-donor rule is being followed or indeed whether it can be followed.

There is a danger in pointing this out: Because almost no one is ready to conclude that organ transplant should be abandoned, and because most non-Christian ethicists and scientists hold implicitly or explicitly to some sort of personhood theory that makes them dislike the dead-donor rule anyway, this may be used as an excuse for ditching the dead-donor rule and harvesting anyone who is severely cognitively disabled rather than ditching organ transplant. In fact, that's exactly what's happening, as I pointed out here.

But the truth will out anyway. Actually, it's the very ghouls who are pushing for ditching the dead-donor rule who are in some cases telling us these unpleasant facts, so there's no point in our hiding them from ourselves and from the public lest worse befall. Better for pro-lifers to know all the facts and guide their own actions and ideas accordingly.

Change in posting protocols

Dear friends,

I'm trying a change to registered user only comments. I think that this does not require you to have a blogger ID. It says "including OpenID." What I am attempting to cut out is anonymous commentators. If you are a friend, a regular reader, or indeed anyone but a troll, feel free to make contact with me (you will know how to find my e-mail address or will already have it) if you have trouble commenting under the registration protocol, and we will work something out. I'm making this change because of the anonymous troll--whom I believe I have identified--who stopped by on the previous thread.

Just don't send your kids to public school, okay?

You've probably heard about this already, but here are links to no less than three songs (the first link contains two songs) that public school children were taught earlier this year praising Dear Leader. The first two songs were at the same school in New Jersey. I haven't found out in what school the other one was made. Here's a story about the two New Jersey songs. Here is more about the school's unabashedly partisan politics.

The lyrics are pretty incredible, especially the part that says, "He said red, yellow, black or white/All are equal in his sight." That was supposed to be, er, Jesus. The line is borrowed from "Jesus Loves the Little Children"--"Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight." But hey, God, god, Obama. All the same, right?

It's funny how liberals always talk about context when it can fuzzify an issue but never want to talk about it when it is clarifying. Conservatives thought there was maybe something a little creepy about Obama's speech to school children being as it was followed by a "study guide" including questions like, "How can you help the President?" Liberals said, "What? What? Reagan gave a speech to school children." And conservatives tried to point out that there wasn't this kind of brain washing personality cult about Reagan among the controllers of children's education. But nobody was listening.

Now you know why we think there's something creepy about Obama's connection to school children. Because of context.

Great prayer

Wow, here's a great prayer that I just ran across on this Catholic blog, which was in turn linked by Jeff Culbreath.

Here's the prayer:

Lord, Thou knowest better than I know myself that I am growing older and will some day be old. Keep me from the fatal habit of thinking I must say something on every subject and on every occasion. Release me from craving to straighten out everybody's affairs. Make me thoughtful but not moody; helpful but not bossy. With my vast store of wisdom, it seems a pity not to use it all, but Thou knowest, Lord, that I want a few friends at the end.

Keep my mind free from the recital of endless details; give me wings to get to the point. Seal my lips on my aches and pains. They are increasing, and love of rehearsing them is becoming sweeter as the years go by. I dare not ask for grace enough to enjoy the tales of others' pains, but help me to endure them with patience.

I dare not ask for improved memory, but for a growing humility and a lessening cock-sureness when my memory seems to clash with the memories of others. Teach me the glorious lesson that occasionally I may be mistaken. Keep me reasonably sweet; I do not want to be a Saint - some of them are so hard to live with - but a sour old person is one of the crowning works of the devil. Give me the ability to see good things in unexpected places, and talents in unexpected people.
And, give me, O Lord, the grace to tell them so.
Amen.

Silence forbidden--TV abuse permitted in nursing homes

We have some neighbors we like very much. J. and his wife B. are in their eighties. A few years ago, Eldest Daughter did a wonderful series of recorded interviews with J. about his service in WWII. Truly the great generation.

Up until now, except for one short temporary stay on the part of J., J. and B. have remained independent in their own home with the help of their children and grandchildren who live locally. But now B. has developed such problems walking and getting up and down that she is--Lord willing, temporarily--having to stay in a nursing home, at least until she can get enough strength through physical therapy to get around at home once more. Her husband just doesn't have the physical strength to help her in and out of bed, to the bathroom, in and out of a wheelchair, etc.

Turns out she is being driven crazy by a roommate who leaves the TV on from 8 a.m. until past 11 p.m. Roommate won't communicate, or can't, and the nurses refuse to turn the TV off until later than 11. Apparently there is no rule about this, though the management has admitted there probably should be.

To me, this is nearly the equivalent of torture, at least for a totally innocent person like B. (Note: I'm not saying it would be wrong to play a TV from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. if it would get KSM to talk about terror plots.) But seriously, I'm horrified. I need quiet in my own life, and I could stand a lot, perhaps even the exile of a nursing home, if I were at least allowed to concentrate on a book or on prayer and reflection. But that all day, every day, no silence, no peace, and no one willing and able to help...it's awful to think of.

And I've heard that it could be worse. A church friend says her mother-in-law's roommate at a nursing home leaves the TV on all night. So no respite at all. That home has a rule, but it's not enforced. The nurses refuse to do anything.

I know there are much worse and more important things to be thinking about concerning the care of the elderly and nursing homes, but this really bugs me. Isn't there anyone sensible and humane in charge who would at least pair residents up according to their TV preferences? Perhaps designate a few rooms for people who prefer quiet? Surely with even a small amount of creativity and good will, people like B. and the mother-in-law could be spared this. If nothing else, getting good sleep at night is important for health, strength, and recovery from illness.

Meanwhile, I wish there were something more practical I could do than putting up a horrified blog post. Maybe there is. I've heard about this product called TV-B-Gone. I wonder if B. would use it if I managed to smuggle one in...

Michael Card--"Walking on the Water"

Via Eldest Daughter, here is a fun bluegrass-style song from Michael Card. It's about the Apostle Peter and is called "Walking on the Water." (I haven't figured out how to embed from this site yet. It isn't as simple as Imeem.) If you like country music, bluegrass, etc., you'll like it. I'm also told, by ED herself, that the banjo in this number is played by none other than Bela Fleck, and if that doesn't get you over to listen to it, you don't like banjo.

Well, whaddaya know: Thanks to Bill Luse, who helped me do the embed.

Great condensation of the President's speech on health care

I ought to write something profound about 9/11, but I cannot think of anything profound to say all by my lonesome. At W4 it has been done much better.

I also ought to, and plan to, put up a post about the murder of a pro-life sign-holder here in Michigan. I plan to do that at W4, most likely tomorrow.

In the meanwhile, via VFR, here is an absolutely hilarious condensation of the President's speech on health care. Read it for fun. Here are a few favorite bits:

If you have insurance, you’ll be able to keep it. If you don’t, that’s bad, because people who have insurance have to pay for you. That’s not fair to the people who pay insurance. Really, it’s kind of socialistic. So, I’ll make you buy insurance, unless you can’t, in which case I’ll make other people buy it for you.

There’s waste, fraud and abuse in health care, which is why it needs to be taken over by the government.

People who say bad things about my health care plan are liars and dreadful human beings. There needs to be more civility in this discussion. Bush caused 9-11. People who say bad things about my health care plan are trying to scare people, and everybody’s going to die if we don’t get this thing passed now.

Songs to Die for--"Go the Distance"

Indulge me. I'd never heard this song before until my friend Rich posted a clip here of a short version of it by a capella group Return 2 Zero. (Well worth listening to if you like a capella male ensembles at all.)

So, yes, I know (because Eldest Daughter told me) that it came from the Disney movie Hercules, which I'm not at all interested in seeing. And I know it's a bit sentimental. But I like it a lot. For one thing, it appeals to my love of an 80's sound, even though it wasn't written in the 80's. (Very fun electric guitar solo in the middle, and wonderful synthesizer trumpets at the beginning.) Looked all around to find a complete version of it. So here it is: "Go the Distance," sung by Michael Bolton. Try not to be too distracted by the missing apostrophes in the lyrics. It's useful to have the lyrics running in front of you as you listen. Discussion follows.



Note to Bill Luse: You did that great video of "You Raise Me Up" for Easter this year. New assignment--a similarly moving video to go with this one. I suggest images of military homecomings and perhaps a picture or two of Mr. Schindler, who recently went Home to his hero's welcome and was much on my mind while listening to this.

The lyrics are really awfully good. They have an interesting dual quality--an interplay between what E.D. Hirsch calls "meaning" and "significance." It's pretty clear to me that the authors didn't intend a Christian meaning. Probably something more like general inspiration with a hint of a love song. But Christian, and even Greco-Christian tropes (the marathon race) are simply part of Western consciousness, and they couldn't get away from them. The song resembles "You Raise Me Up" in that it can be thought of either as secular or as Christian, and it resembles it as well in expressing some deep human longings that are most satisfied by a Christian world view and by what Christianity promises.

Begin at the beginning:

I have often dreamed of a far-off place
Where a hero's welcome would be waiting for me.
And the crowd will cheer when it sees my face,
And a voice keeps saying, "This is where I ought to be."

Here is C.S. Lewis in "The Weight of Glory," on heaven:

In speaking of this desire for our own far-off country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness....I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you--the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence;...We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience....The sense that in this universe we are treated as strangers, the longing to be acknowledged; to meet with some response, to bridge some chasm that yawns between us and reality, is part of our inconsolable secret. And surely, from this point of view, the promise of glory...becomes highly relevant to our deep desire. For glory means good report with God, acceptance by God, response, acknowledgement, and welcome into the heart of things. The door on which we have been knocking all our lives will open at last.

Lewis would have said that the song writer was speaking far more truly and of something far more important than he could possibly understand.

The song also tells us, "I won't look back" and "I know every mile will be worth my while," and it evokes throughout the metaphor of life as a race with an on-looking crowd.

Here is the Epistle to the Hebrews:

Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let ue lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith...

And here is the Apostle Paul in the Epistle to the Philippians:

Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended; but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

...and to the Corinthians:

Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible.

...and to the Romans:

For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

There is, however, one respect in which the song will not bear a Christian interpretation: It treats one's attainment of the goal--coming to that place where you belong--as entirely a matter of one's own effort. And the Apostle Paul also reminds us,

I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.

Ultimately, it is not within our power, unaided, to "stay on track" and to go the distance. We will fail, every one of us, alone. That is why we need the Author and Finisher of our faith, the One who is able to keep us from falling. Let us look unto Him and go the distance for the crown of life with His help.

A reader's excellent point on pro-growth and pro-life

A reader wrote via e-mail with the following, to my mind excellent, comment apropos of the long threads at W4 about growth, property, "suburban sprawl," etc.

The fact is we went from having less than 200 million people in 1930 to having 300 million in 1990. More now. Where are we supposed to put all these people?

In addition...the total number of households is WAY above 1/3 more than in 1930. Where are we supposed to put all these houses?

The flip side of a pro-life mentality is a pro-growth development policy. Or (just to cover the logical options), a proportionate decrease in living standards.

I just thought that was excellently put. I have zero patience with the to my mind arrogant idea that everyone in the world has a moral obligation, which perhaps can even be pushed or enforced by the government, to live either in crowded cities or on "authentic" subsistence farms. Let the crunchies do that if it pleases them, but the suburbs have been a great boon to a great many people. People have to live somewhere. The idea of crunching (pun intended) them into the cities or spreading them out on preserved small-farm land without the in-between option of the suburbs is inhumane and manifests an inhuman green attitude. At some point, these semi-green conservatives are going to have to make a choice--either they can keep accepting hysterical environmentalist claims that the existence of the suburbs is destroying the oceans (yep), or they can start asking some pointed questions. Either they can maintain their sentimental hatred of Wal-Mart and "sprawl," or they can start thinking in terms of what is actually best for all the human beings who live in this country.

Meanwhile, I think we're very blessed to have options.

Robert Schindler, RIP

Wesley J. Smith tells us of Robert Schindler's death. This is the moment when one really wants to be able to pray something or other for the dead. I have a lot of affection for the way the Prayer Book does it:

And we also bless thy holy Name for all thy servants departed this life in thy faith and fear; beseeching thee to grant them continual growth in thy love and service, and to give us grace so to follow their good examples, that with them we may be partakers of thy heavenly kingdom. Grant this, O Father, for Jesus Christ's sake, our only Mediator and Advocate. Amen.

For Mr. Schindler, Bill Luse says it best: Now he can hold his daughter again. Amen.

Oh, THAT rule of law

I don't suggest that you go and read this whole editorial in the Orlando Sentinel. It's pretty slimy. (Sample--he refers to Terri Schiavo's parents as "wanting to maintain her mindless body." Nice guy.) Pamela Geller eviscerates it here, and while I can't entirely approve of her language (though it could be worse) and wish she'd ease off on the boldface and caps, I approve of her passion. It's about the Rifqa Bary case. The author, Mike Thomas, is a toady for the Muslim lobby. The ending is pretty striking though. As in, horrifying. I kid you not, this is how it ends, word for word, cut and pasted from the editorial:

Fortunately, we have a rule of law to protect individuals from the political passions and religious doctrine of others. It is what separates us from Iran and Saudi Arabia.

The rule of law blocked Gov. Jeb Bush from imposing his personal beliefs in the Terri Schiavo case.

The rule of law sent Elián González back to his father.

And ultimately, the rule of law will send Rifqa back to Ohio.

Oh, that rule of law. Gotcha.

Obamacare and abortion

Per Bill Luse's suggestion here, I have posted here a piece on Obamacare and abortion. The short version is, yeah, it looks like it will pay for abortions, but with an accounting fig leaf thrown in to make it look like it doesn't. And the Commissioner (remember him?) gets to decide how much of the premiums is going for abortion coverage. And in an even stranger twist (see the update), poor people who get the "public option" may even be required to pay a bit extra so that the plan can contain full abortion coverage while claiming that federal money isn't paying for it.

Addendum to that post: Michael Gerson puts the point pretty well here:

[T]his is a cover, if not a con. By the nature of health insurance, premiums are not devoted to specific procedures; they support insurance plans. It matters nothing in practice if a premium dollar comes from government or the individual -- both enable the same coverage. If the federal government directly funds an insurance plan that includes elective abortion, it cannot claim it is not paying for elective abortions.

And as NRLC points out here, the government will be collecting and funneling even the "private" premiums to the "private" insurance plans. This fits with my impression of the bill here, according to which it would be the federal government who made the contracts with "health care exchange" insurance plans. So the money is passing through the government's hands anyway, making the distinction between "premiums" and "subsidies" even more artificial.

I've also just updated the W4 post to include some additional information about the "public option" and abortion coverage. Update is at the end of the post.

HT Keith Pavlischek for link to Gerson article

Since when is more bad stuff an improvement?

If there's one thing I get tired of...okay, there are lots of things I get tired of. I can't pick one. But one of the things I get tired of in listening to liberals and pseudo-conservatives talk about health care is the exceedingly stupid argument, "We already have that." For example, "Your HMO already sets reasonable and customary costs, so we already have rationing." So how does it make it better to have one committee making all such decisions for the whole country? This is beyond me. At least now, if an employer gets fed up with the HMO he has for his employees, he can, you know...change! Or if, like some friends of mine, you are self-employed, you can buy catastrophic-only insurance. Or even, shocking thought, live for a while without health insurance and try to stay healthy. People have options. Nationalized Obamacare means way fewer options. Saying that we already have some micromanaging bureaucrats messing with our health care on an HMO-by-HMO basis is hardly an argument for going much, much farther in the same direction and putting everybody under a single health care Kommissar.

Or how about this one? "If your employer's insurance company pays for abortion and you have to pay part of your premiums, you are already paying towards other people's abortions in some sense, so why shouldn't federal government money cover abortions?" Um, because there is now at least the possibility for some people to get out of this. If you own your own business, for example, or have a say in the health care plan you choose or that your employer chooses, you can maybe get one without abortion coverage. Federal coverage means no options. It's that simple.

Here is a good, properly alarmist column giving a possible future scenario in which a person pleads for his life before a death panel. Now, I'm going to go one better on the liberals. I'm going to anticipate them. Here we go: We already have death panels before which people plead for their loved ones. They are called hospital ethics boards. Yep, that's right, and you've probably heard horror stories like I have about ethics boards trying to cut off life support for loved ones. So far the stories I've heard have been of ventilators and of difficulties getting PEG surgery in the first place. (I remember one case where a baby was kept on an NG tube, pretty apparently because the hospital was hoping she would die before they needed to put in a PEG tube. She did die, as I recall, but at least she had food in her tummy.) But worse things are no doubt coming.

But does that mean it would be better to have one committee for everyone? By no means. We can still hope that some hospitals and hospices are better than others. It isn't all handed down from On High.

This "argument from present system junkiness" is itself a piece of junk and should be scrapped.

Australian quad given the "right" to be dehydrated to death

Story here. Unclear whether he'll actually do it. How evil is that? You insist that the courts declare you have this "right" when you aren't even sure you want it. On the principle of the thing. Presumably, so other people can be dehydrated to death. That's what they call progress, I guess. It's unclear from the story whether the facility has the right to refuse to be involved, but in any event, the facility appears to be willing in principle provided they can't be held liable. In the U.S., of course, nursing homes get court-ordered to withdraw nutrition and hydration. And dig the judge: Part of the argument for this is that he is not dying? I'm trying to wrap my mind around the pseudo-logic of that. I suppose the judge intends to emphasize that Rossiter is of sound mind. The Kevorkian from Down Under, Philip Nitschke, was on hand to say how terrible it is that Rossiter can't be killed more swiftly. All the usual suspects, in fact.

God have mercy on us.

HT Bill Luse, via e-mail

You'll be able to keep your insurance? Probably not.

We all know by now that Obama's line is that if you like your insurance, you'll be able to keep it. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along. The only things that will change are the things that need to change. It's just a matter of helping people not presently covered.

This assumption makes it intensely frustrating to discuss this issue with liberals and even with some "conservatives." Which is why I'm posting about it here. When conservatives point out the provisions in the health care bill for a committee and a powerful Commissioner (always capitalized in the bill) to set benefits, payments, etc., and express worries about rationing, liberals shrug it off. On their view, this is simply a limitation on something that is going to exist on top of what we already have, so how can it be giving us less than we already have? On their view, it's a win-win situation. People who don't have coverage now can hardly be worse off by getting coverage they don't have, and if it isn't all they could wish for or desire, well, they are still better off than they are now. And people already covered by insurance should have no worries, because giving coverage to other people can't possibly harm them. What are we, envious of the good fortune of the presently unfortunate?

There are enormous problems with this line of reasoning, starting with the fact that there is more reason to believe that under the new bill even the people presently using Medicare would have their benefits restricted more, and restricted by invidious criteria such as whether or not they have dementia or their quality of life. Here is just one example of restrictions on benefits: As this analysis--with quotations from the law--shows (read point #1), readmissions for particular conditions will not be paid for until and unless a hospital has discharged a certain number of other patients within a certain period of time for that same condition! This is apparently not a regulation presently in place, and this is therefore new rationing of the most blatant kind. So the "win-win" implication is highly dubious right from the get-go. Update: (8/13/09) On this particular point and on further study of the bill, I have decided to correct the details of John David Lewis's analysis here. It appears that the way the rationing would work, rather, would be that the government would have an abstract and complex ratio worked out for how many readmissions for that condition the hospital had in excess of the "expected" readmissions. The hospital would then be penalized for that excess by having its payments cut for the year as a whole by a particular sum of money worked out, again, in an abstruse fashion by the bureaucrats. This is a slightly different mechanism from the "discharging a certain number of other patients" mechanism Lewis implies, but it still is, obviously, direct rationing of readmissions. It motivates hospitals by punishment not to readmit patients.

Moreover, as the same analysis shows (point #3), catastrophic-only policies, such as some prudent and non-wealthy Americans presently have (I know some myself), appear to be outlawed altogether. So if that's your plan, you will certainly have to drop it. And (see point #4) employers will be pushed toward dropping employer coverage and pushing people into the "public option," because the tax the employer has to pay if it does not cover its employees for health insurance will often be less than paying for the present health insurance benefits.

But the problems with the liberal win-win assumption, which is just a variation on the perennial problem in which liberals make false "all else being equal" assumptions, seem to me to go even farther than that.

To see why, let's start with something that Investors Business Daily brought up--the question of enrolling new people in an insurance plan after the new law goes into effect. As reported here, IBD noticed that the bill outlaws, somehow, enrolling new members in health insurance plans after the bill goes into effect. This point was to some degree corrected and finessed by the Heritage Foundation, here, by pointing out that what is actually outlawed is enrolling new members in plans other than "health care exchange" plans. So insurance companies can enroll new members after the law goes into effect, but they can only enroll them in plans that conform to heavy new federal regulations.

The Heritage Foundation rightly points out the heavy costs and economic problems with these regulations. What they don't expressly mention is this: The benefits packages of insurance programs in the health care exchange are set by the same committee that sets the benefits package for the "public option" (the federal health care for people without any insurance), and they appear to be set in such a way as to be identical to the parallel public option plans (with names like "basic," "premium," and "premium plus"). What this means, as far as I can see, is that once the legislation is in effect, all private insurance companies will be able to enroll new people only in plans that are exactly the same as the similarly-named government plans in terms of benefits--clones, in fact, of the government plans, with benefits decisions being made by the very same people that decide the benefits levels, etc., for government plans. In other words, "private" insurance will be indistinguishable from "public option," by regulation.

Now, one could argue that the insurance plans can cover people at higher levels if those people happened to be enrolled in the plan before the new legislation goes into effect. But that is enormously unlikely. And it is also enormously unlikely that employers would cover old employees differently from new employees. The union negotiators would not allow it, if nothing else. I cannot imagine that Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan (my insurance company) will continue ad infinitum to maintain a separate plan with better benefits operating on "old" rules--which, however, are dying out in the nature of the case because they can't enroll any new customers--for people like me who happened to be enrolled before Year One of Obamacare while setting up an entirely different, heavily regulated plan for all new enrollees. Obviously, they will just accept Health Care Exchange status for their present plans and conform them to the new regulations.

The only real question is this: Are the benefits settings for health care exchange plans minimum requirements or maximum? Liberals seem to assume they are minimum requirements. Even Obama's stumbling analogy to the Post Office and Federal Express seems to imply the same--that the private sector will still be allowed to offer better plans than anything the government is offering, and pay doctors accordingly, if they can get people to buy them. But I have my serious doubts. Let's look at some of the language of section 203 of the bill. To see the full language of the bill at this point, you will need to go to section 203. Under the "public option," the bill already has three levels of coverage, called "basic, enhanced, and premium." The benefits for these plans under the "public option" are set by the Commission, as stated already in section 123 of the bill. That these are maximum benefits under the "public option" is not in question--the whole point of having the commission set these benefit levels under the public option is to define what people are entitled to and to place some limitation on this entitlement. The new plan is going to break the bank as it is.

Now, when it comes to the exchange participating plans (that is, the only private plans that will be allowed to enroll new members after the law goes into effect), here is some of the language:

(A) IN GENERAL- A basic plan shall offer the essential benefits package required under title I for a qualified health benefits plan.

(3) ENHANCED PLAN- A enhanced plan shall offer, in addition to the level of benefits under the basic plan, a lower level of cost-sharing as provided under title I consistent with section 123(b)(5)(A).

(4) PREMIUM PLAN- A premium plan shall offer, in addition to the level of benefits under the basic plan, a lower level of cost-sharing as provided under title I consistent with section 123(b)(5)(B).

The appearance here is very much that these plans are being set up as clones of the public option plans. But there is more evidence to that effect when it comes to the supposedly gold-plated "premium plus" plans:

(5) PREMIUM-PLUS PLAN- A premium-plus plan is a premium plan that also provides additional benefits, such as adult oral health and vision care, approved by the Commissioner. The portion of the premium that is attributable to such additional benefits shall be separately specified. [Emphasis added]

Do you see that? The only mention of the possibility that private plans might offer additional benefits not included in the government plan specifies that such additional benefits have to be approved by the Commissioner. I cannot see any way to interpret this except that the benefits levels otherwise are maximum benefits levels and that any way in which the benefits in the private sector are better than those in the public sector must be pre-approved by the government bureaucrat in charge of the system as a whole. And the examples given, vision and dental care, are pretty minimal thus far. The idea that the entire high quality of the health care system (not rationing re-admissions, not limiting physician payments, and so forth) might be carried by such extra benefits and might be allowed by the Commissioner, is highly, highly dubious. And in any event, when the extra benefits of ostensibly private plans require the permission of a government bureaucrat before they can even be offered, this is hardly a continuation of business as usual beyond some government-guaranteed minimum!

But there's more evidence that the government will set a ceiling as well as a floor to private packages. In section 203b it is specified that the exchange-participating entities may not offer more than one plan of each kind in a defined "service area." This certainly looks like a limitation on competition. It appears that the Commissioner will be able to guarantee that there are only a limited number of "private" plans (the scare quotes are becoming increasingly appropriate) available for any given area, which certainly calls into question the idea that people will simply be able to keep receiving insurance of the kind they already have without any benefit limits set by the government.

But there is still more evidence. At the end of section 203, there is a paragraph on state-mandated benefits which may go beyond federally mandated benefits. One might think this section irrelevant to the question at issue, but it isn't.

(d) Treatment of State Benefit Mandates- Insofar as a State requires a health insurance issuer offering health insurance coverage to include benefits beyond the essential benefits package, such requirement shall continue to apply to an Exchange-participating health benefits plan, if the State has entered into an arrangement satisfactory to the Commissioner to reimburse the Commissioner for the amount of any net increase in affordability premium credits under subtitle C as a result of an increase in premium in basic plans as a result of application of such requirement.

Why is this evidence that the government will be setting ceilings on coverage under private plans? Because when a state mandates coverage of benefits the federal government hasn't approved, the state has to pay the federal government the difference in premiums brought about by the additional required coverage. Think about that. This is supposedly talking about private plans. Why is the state having to pay the federal government the extra money rather than just paying the higher premiums to the private plans? After all, that's what the liberals are telling us it would be like for us individuals: If you can pay the higher premium, you can get a better plan, as good as you like. But this section makes it evident that exchange participating plans (the only ones allowed to enroll new members after the law goes into effect) have their premiums effectively capped by the federal government. The federal government enters into a contract which the Commissioner negotiates with the insurer to provide the coverage (this is spelled out in detail in section 204), and no provision is made for private people simply to pay more for whatever better coverage they can find. If additional coverage is required by the state, the state must pay the additional premium that coverage requires to the federal government, who presumably pays it to the insurance company with which it has entered into a contract. No similar provision is even made for private individuals, and in any event, the existence of the federal government as a middleman makes it absolutely evident that this is by no means business as usual. Think about it: Does the federal government contract with UPS and Fedex? In order to get a service from Fedex, do you have to pay the additional cost to the federal government who then passes it on to UPS, with whom it has a contract for offering mail services to the public? Of course not. This is nothing even remotely like private free enterprise, even in the supposedly private plans.

And since the federal government is negotiating the contracts, and since the exchange plans operate only under federal contract and by federal permission, the federal government will have every motive and full power for capping premiums and hence capping benefits.

It seems to me that the case is very strong: So-called private plans that can enroll new members under Obamacare will not be permitted to compete simply by offering better benefits than the government plan offers, with such benefits paid for by willing individual customers or even employers.

So I don't think you'll be able to keep your insurance, or your health care system, for that matter, even if you like it.

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on the Internet. This is entirely my own analysis, except for the portions expressly noted as coming from other people. It makes me a tad nervous that no one else has said already what I am saying here, and I am open to correction. But the more I look at the bill itself, the more convinced I am that I am right.

Obamacare post

I don't know how many of these I will do. The whole thing is very discouraging.

First, here are links to some of my comments and one post about the end-of-life counseling provision in Obamacare. No, it's not technically mandatory. Yes, it is very disturbing, especially given that the doctors initiate it and that there is no doubt at all that doctors will be pressured to keep costs down. Here I want to link again, as I do in one of the comments, to a post Wesley Smith did on a "model" advance directive. It is as objectionable as can be. The default language has the patient refusing artificial nutrition and hydration and even consenting to be experimented on. The patient must cross out anything he doesn't want; otherwise when he signs it becomes ostensibly "his wish." This is beyond all doubt the kind of thing that would be used in these doctor-initiated counseling sessions. Much too complicated for people to be left to get together with a family lawyer and write their own, you know!

In my comments here I note that Charles Lane of The Washington Post, while doing us a service in pointing out the non-benignity of the end-of-life counseling, has probably even underestimated the danger, since he shows no understanding of what it means to refuse nutrition and hydration.

In my comments here I talk about David Blumenthal and Ezekiel Emmanuel, already very important advisers to the Obama admin on healthcare, and their panting and drooling desire to ration care and to get physicians to stop worrying about that pesky and costly Hippocratic oath. This is especially important, because Section 123 of the Obamacare Bill (yes, I just read the section myself, in case you are wondering) sets up a committee that will have the power to decide on what benefits will be covered by the government health care plans and also by "private" plans that are brought under government control through the "Health Care Exchange" (sections 201-203). Anyone who cannot see that a) such a committee, including its commissioner, will be staffed by the likes of Blumenthal and Emmanuel and that b) this committee will have enormous power over health care in America once this bill passes is just simply a fool.

More later. I hope this is informative and helpful as far as it goes. Sorry for all the links.

Update

Dear friends,

As most of you learned from the comments below, it turned out that I had a much more serious problem with my ankle and foot than the original reaction to the insect sting. Apparently some nasty germs (either strep or staph) got into that tiny little wound, perhaps with the initial sting, and I've been in and out of the ER and doctor's offices over the course of the week getting large doses of antibiotics for a subcutaneous infection. I've learned a lot of medical stuff I never knew before. I'm beginning to think that a certain amount of medical knowledge is necessary for any layman these days.

I thank you all for the prayers I've been assured of. It appears that we are on the upward trail, now, but it's a rather slow and even somewhat unnerving trail. Wearing a shoe, and especially walking with a shoe on, is still a challenge, and the question of the County Fair, to which we always go on the second Monday in August, is looming rather large in the mind of Youngest Daughter, who wants to go see the horses, pigs, sheep, goats, etc., etc.

I've been working on that "offering up" thing. It turns out that it doesn't seem to make a whole lot of psychological difference, or at least not a bad one, if one prays in the tentative way I suggest in the comments in the previous post rather than expressly designating a recipient for one's "offering up" and telling God how to do it. Also, being up in the night unable to sleep does allow one to pray for other people. I'm very grateful for getting good sleep the last few nights, though.

I will probably be putting up a few posts about Obamacare on this blog. It wearies me to discuss it with the many liberals, not to mention socialist-sympathizing conservatives, on a larger blog, and there have been a number of items I've wanted to put up on the subject. So stay tuned.

Offering up?

So it turns out I'm quite allergic to bee and/or wasp stings. Got stung a week ago today for the first time in my life, as far as I can recall, and the local allergic reaction (on the foot) is a good deal worse today than ever before, though all the web sites say that the itching and rash is supposed to go away by a week. But someone I spoke to yesterday (my riding teacher, to cancel the riding lesson because of the foot) says she knows someone who reacts for two to three weeks before it "gets out of his system." How many hours a day can one sit with ice held on one's foot? Perhaps there's a world's record or something I could aim for.

I'm a wimp, and this kind of thing really bugs me, especially the trouble sleeping at night part. "Stoical" is just not the word that springs to mind when friends think of me.

Now, into the midst of this comes this quasi-mystical thought from the books of Elizabeth Goudge, whom I've discussed here. Goudge was really into this idea that one could "offer up" the annoyances of life, including the minor ones, even offer them up for other people. It's apparently a form of Catholic piety that was popular in the mid-twentieth century. Dawn Eden has discussed it a bit. Goudge was Anglican, but about as high as she could be without crossing the Tiber.

I'm about as low as I can be, so I shouldn't be sympathetic to any of this stuff at all, but it is an attractive idea. It's attractive, because everyone hates the feeling that suffering, even minor suffering, is meaningless. I think Christians especially are attracted to the idea that one can give meaning to the things one goes through that are unpleasant.

Well, that's Biblical enough. We have ample biblical evidence that God is "working all things together for good" and that things we don't like can be purifying if accepted as from the hand of God.

But Goudge is taking it a step farther and implying that we can help someone else by this "offering up" mental act. That I'm much less sure about. For one thing, it smacks a bit of making a deal with God: "If I take this well and try to adopt an accepting spirit about it, Lord, you will help out so-and-so. Deal?" And that's obviously not right.

But I'm not ready entirely to throw out the idea that the mental attitude of accepting what God allows and offering that acceptance back to Him is what Paul calls a "good and acceptable" form of service. Whether it helps anyone else...Well, perhaps at least those around are helped by our taking a better attitude than snarling. Lord willing.

P.S. If this post is too personal and uninteresting, look down one for something related to current events and ideas.

Be careful what you pray for

I've been watching on Facebook recently as some friends (who almost certainly don't read this blog, and who are unknown to anyone who does read this blog) advocate Obamacare. I've kept my mouth shut. I'm not overwhelmingly surprised to see them do so, for various reasons, just a bit inclined to sigh. One of them said, "If Obama thinks he can do better, why not let him have a shot at it? It can't be worse than it is." How is one to respond to such a comment? Obama--like a kid with matches and gasoline. But hey, if he thinks by lighting the gas in the middle of the living room he can improve the decor, why not let him have a shot at it? It can't be worse than it is.

Sigh.

They should be careful what they wish for. They might get it. So, for the "can't be worse than it is" file, here is a story of the experience one family had with the wonders of socialized medicine up north in Canada. Short version--their daughter had to wait for hours with a horribly broken arm while stony-eyed receptionists made them stick to their place in line behind the sore throats. Then she was put on morphine for hours. Then she was sent immediately into surgery, where the combination of morphine for hours followed immediately by general anesthesia nearly killed her. She survived and is fine now, but none of it should have happened.

I do really wish that people who want to go in with an axe, or let our Reckless Reformer-in-Chief go in with an axe, and "try to make things better" would stop a little and count their blessings first.

HT VFR

There is no "them"

Those of you who have ever been involved in a project involving a small group, or perhaps in a small church, may be familiar with the phenomenon: You start out doing things, and you do some work and help, and then the time comes when you say to yourself, "Okay, that's enough. I've done enough for them. I'm sure they have other people who can do the rest. They can't expect too much from me."

The moment when you grow up in your interaction with that group is the moment when you admit the obvious. There is no them. Or, to put it alternatively, you are them. There is just that group of people. It may be ten, it may be two dozen. But what gets done is what that group of people, including you, does. There isn't some gigantic organization that exists apart from you, to which your contribution is just a drop in the bucket, which will continue getting just as much done without you. This is a small church, a small organization, a volunteer group. If you don't do it, it doesn't get done.

The fiction of "them" is very comforting. And unfortunately, it is fostered by our present societal arrangements in which so many things seem to be done by big groups--be they corporations, charities, churches, or government. Everything is big. And so being a mere fellow traveler and doing only, and only temporarily, the amount that seems reasonable (read "easy") is all too easy. Because after all, they can't expect too much, and they were doing just fine before you came along, and they will do just fine if you leave, or drop your involvement, or whatever. It doesn't really matter.

Now, the truth is, even in big organizations or agencies, everything that gets done for good gets done by human beings. But certainly in for-profit arrangements, or even arrangements where some people are paid, the "them" idea is easy to maintain. What do you mean by "them"? Why, the employees of the corporation, of the charity, or of the government agency. They are official. They get paid to do this stuff. Anything you add is lagniappe, gravy, extra.

But in the pure volunteer organization, this is just false. There is no distinction. In a very small church, there is at most a very small paid staff--perhaps only the priest or pastor. That's it. And it's hard to keep up the lie to oneself that one pastor can do everything that needs to be done. In some groups, there isn't even that. There are just a few people who have stepped forward and been willing to be on the board (for free) or even, in a totally informal fashion, to do most of the work. And that's it. They're happy for your help, but no one should be under any illusions that his work is extraneous. There are so few of us that all of our work is important. If we don't do it, it doesn't get done.

This has all been borne in on me as I have been involved in a signature-gathering campaign in my local area. And it's rather a nuisance to have to come to that grown-up conclusion and to abandon the fiction of "them." But salutary, nonetheless.

On a similar theme, there are some passages in Annie Dillard's rather diffuse but at points very good Holy the Firm:

God...leaves his creation's dealings with him in the hands of purblind and clumsy amateurs. This is all we are and all we ever were; God kann nicht anders. This process in time is history; in space, at such shocking random, it is mystery....Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place? There is no one but us. There is no one to send, nor a clean hand, nor a pure heart on the face of the earth, nor in the earth, but only us, a generation comforting ourselves with the notion that we have come at an awkward time, that our innocent fathers are all dead...But there is no one but us. There never has been. There have been generation which remembered, and generations which forgot; there has never been a generation of whole men and women who lived well for even one day....Who shall ascent into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place? "Whom shall I send," heard the first Isaiah, "and who will go for us?" And poor Isaiah, who happened to be standing there--and there was no one else--burst out, "Here am I; send me."

Cross posted at What's Wrong with the World

Bibi Tells 'Em

I remember during the Olmert administration in Israel there were all these questions as to whether Olmert had agreed (shamefully, with the Bush administration) to halt Jewish building in East Jerusalem. For Israel to agree that Jews should not be building in its own capital is disgraceful. Well, Bibi is not leaving us in any doubt about where he stands on this, when Obama tries to force him to agree to a move in the direction of the ultimate goal of dividing Jerusalem and making the east portion once more Judenrein:

Jerusalem is the "unified capital of Israel and the capital of the Jewish people, and sovereignty over it is indisputable," Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Sunday, responding to an American demand to put an end to a housing project to be built in east Jerusalem.

"Hundreds of apartments in the west of the city were purchased by Arabs and we didn't get involved. There is no prohibition against Arab residents buying apartments in the west of the city and there is no prohibition barring the city's Jewish residents from buying or building in the east of the city," Netanyahu added at the weekly cabinet meeting. "That is the policy of an open city that is not divided.

"We cannot accept the notion that Jews will not have the right to buy apartments specifically in Jerusalem. I can only imagine what would happen if they were forbidden from purchasing apartments in New York or London; there would be an international outcry. This has always been Israel's policy and this is the policy of the current government," the prime minister added. [Emphasis added]

That's telling 'em. I couldn't have put it better.

Comments on this post are closed, with some regret. I find that whenever I put up a post about Israel even here on my obscure little personal blog I get someone or other trying to tell me about "Israeli atrocities" and the like, however undeniable the content of my post itself, and sometimes giving me links to lefty Palestinian advocacy groups as credible sources. Frankly, I'm not interested in putting up with that today. My dear friends and readers all have my personal e-mail and are always welcome to write me there.

HT Israel Matzav

Walking

I just had a lovely evening walk. Listened to the doves. Doves are funny birds--slow-moving and seemingly slow-witted. But perhaps for that very reason, they make the most peaceful sound. The whole evening was golden and, mercy of mercies at this time of year, not hot. Some people manage apparently by magic to have lawns so green, even at this dry time of year, that it almost makes your eyes hurt, especially in the sunset.

This was an especially peaceful walk, because I left my petition at home. I'm involved in a petition drive now opposing a local transgender and homosexual rights ordinance. Collecting petition signatures is a painful process for me. I don't mind it too much when I know ahead of time that the people are supportive. Then it's a good chance to talk to the likeminded, tell them what's up with the ordinance in some detail (since I've been following it for six months), and feel encouraged. But asking people whose views I don't know--that's hard. It's especially hard, because I have a lot of good will in my neighborhood. I love my neighborhood, and I daresay that I'm a fairly familiar figure here. I walk the same route nearly every day, though not always at the same time. The people on that route are often out in their yards or gardens; they smile; we wave. A few years ago when I did a brief stint as Republican precinct delegate, I remember that several people who, as far as I knew, didn't even know my name, saw me on my walks and said, "I voted for you! I saw your name on the ballot." (You understand: There was no actual competition for the pair of Republican precinct delegates from this precinct. My husband and I were elected by acclaim by the few voting Republicans.)

What I'm trying to say is that I have exactly the easy, undemanding, apolitical relationship with my neighbors that seems to me ideal. We occasionally exchange mild gossip, gardening tips, local news, and small talk. If, as is the case right now, there is a panhandler known to be doing the rounds of the neighborhood, we warn each other about him. It's friendly, and yet I don't even know most of these people's names. Except for those who live immediately next door and across the street, I know most of them by definite description: The guy who lives catty-corner and is into photography. The lady in the small white house with the finch feeder. The older man with the two little terriers.

In this context, asking these neighbors to sign a petition on an unpleasant and controversial issue on which I don't know their opinions almost seems rude. It certainly risks making them shy away from me for the next few months rather than stopping to chat or smiling and waving. I've been turned down already by a couple of the few neighbors whose names I do know and have tried, I think successfully, to make sure that the exchange ends with no hard feelings. It's all most awkward.

So tonight I took a break and went out with no petition and pen stuffed into my pocket. Just an ordinary walk. As it happened, I did stop to talk to a man ("the guy in the gray house with the kids in Christian school and the pool set up in the back yard") whom I suspected would be supportive and have been hoping to see, and he did indeed say that I can come back later this week and get his and his wife's signatures. But it somehow made it easier that I couldn't collect them right then. We were still just talking.

It is one of the great sadnesses of our age that so many things are politicized. Yet it comes upon us. We do not choose it. It is forced upon us by those who would force our world to give way to theirs, who would force unreality upon us as reality. We did not choose this culture war. As the Lady Eowyn says, it takes but one foe to breed a war. And now that it is upon us, we must fight it as best we can. But please God, neighbors can still be neighbors, and there will still be evenings off with the doves, the sunset, and the cool green grass.

Evidences and Christianity

I encourage my readers to read my latest post at W4. I give a few suggestions of historical evidence ammunition for Christians. This is an apologetic approach to Christianity with which some people are very familiar but which is quite alien to others. But everyone should know that our faith is founded on facts and need not hide behind arationality or irrationality.

In God We Trust

O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: 'In God is our trust.'
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!




And here is my July 4 post at W4. If I have any European readers, I want to make it clear that we American conservatives are proud not only of our country but of our country's Christian heritage. I understand this sort of God and country connection is considered bad manners in Europe. Too, too bad.

May God bless America and keep America free, and may America always acknowledge Him, the source of all her blessings.