laws | Ain't Complicated

Health Care Reform

Some questions and comments reflecting on health care reform -- #hcr --

Some comments and some questions, none of them intended to be political even though they reflect on and about a political issue:

If I take health care and turn it into real he chat, I have reformed it. Too bad I didn’t improve it. Or deliver on its promise and purpose.
Most of the time I forgot to pray.
I am amazed to witness a political majority going against the will of the citizen majority. Now to see on what else they defy and withstand the will of the people.
The bill barely got enough votes to pass. Four fewer and it would have failed. For such sweeping, generational changes…oh, never mind.
I am still kinda stunned that anyone would vote for and thus put their name to legislation without at least reading it first. I’m guessing the majority of those who voted for it will eventually be surprised at something they supported.
Why does it take so long to kick in? Because it really isn’t about health care. It’s about kidnapping the health issue to expand control…and test the limits of the tolerant populace.
Will any court have the integrity and spine to rule against it?
More alarming to me than actual passage of the bill was that they seriously and publicly considered not voting for it directly. Such a disposition bodes no good for the country nor for the rule of law. We are in greater peril than I realized heretofore.
Do they know better than the people? Quite possibly.
Who gets exempted from having to abide by it? And what’s the significance of that?
How does it treat the most vulnerable?
It’s been six days since passage of the bill and about four since President Obama signed it. As a result of this bill, who has health care now that didn’t then?
What are the unintended consequences?
And perhaps more importantly, what are the hidden intended consequences?
And what’s with the provisions in it that have nothing to do with health care?
Maybe it would have been better to take all that non-existent money and plowed it into Social Security before it finishes collapsing. Too late. Oh well.
Christians, a message for you: God is the Sovereign One. That hasn’t changed. And never will. Keep your trust in Him and fear not. Set your affection on things above. Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness. And pray.

Census 2010

It came today.

I haven’t opened it yet.

Maybe I shouldn’t. It doesn’t have my name on it. Instead it has TO RESIDENT AT. 😯

How lame is that?!

Tain’t my name.

Never has been.

Maybe I should mark the envelope “Return to Sender” and give it back to the Postal Service.

🙄

(Some folks think Christians shouldn’t fill out the census. I disagree.)

Here’s a story I’ve been sitting on since December 22. I wonder what Christmas was like for the Johansson’s…and what’s happening with Dominic by now. I just did several Google searches and turned up nothing new.

An appeals-level court in Sweden has affirmed the “kidnapping” of a 7-year-old boy who was snatched by police from a jetliner as it prepared to take his family to their new home in India.

The days-old decision from the Administrative Court of Stockholm affirms the state custody of Dominic Johansson, who was taken by uniformed police officers on the orders of social workers even though there was no allegation of any crime on the part of the family, nor was there any warrant, according to the Home School Legal Defense Association.

The group, the premiere homeschool advocacy association in the world today, has been alarmed by the case that developed apparently because school and social services officials in Sweden objected to the homeschool program for the child.

[…]

“HSLDA is gravely concerned about this case as it represents what can happen to other families who might wish to homeschool their children,” Donnelly said. “Furthermore, in response to inquiries from HSLDA, Swedish authorities have cited the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child to explain and defend their actions.

[…]

In a posting at the Swedish newspaper Varlen Idag, Mats Tunehag, president of the Swedish Evangelical Alliance, worried about the injury being inflicted on the family.

“Annie is from a Christian family in India, and they had planned for some time to move there to live, work and to homeschool Dominic. Due to the harassment from Swedish authorities the trip was delayed. But finally in June this year they were on their way, sitting on the plane bound for India. Then the police came rushing into the plane – as if they were to apprehend dangerous terrorists – and snatched Dominic, saying he is to be taken into care. Can anyone imagine?” Tunehag wrote.

So…what happens here in the United States if the USA becomes a signatory of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child?

Source: Court endorses ‘kidnapping’ of 7-year-old

Loopy Virginia

This isn’t just loopy. It’s sick. Evil, actually.

A loophole in state law is preventing Campbell County investigators from charging a woman they say killed her newborn baby.

Deputies were called to a home in the 1200 block of Lone Jack Road in Rustburg around 11:00a.m. Friday. The caller said a woman in her early 20s was in labor. When deputies arrived, they discovered the baby had actually been born around 1:00a.m., about ten hours earlier. Investigators say the baby was already dead when deputies got there.

Investigators tell WSLS the baby’s airway was still blocked. They say the baby was under bedding and had been suffocated by her mother. Investigators say because the mother and baby were still connected by the umbilical cord and placenta, state law does not consider the baby to be a separate life. Therefore, the mother cannot be charged.

“In the state of Virginia as long as the umbilical cord is attached and the placenta is still in the mother, if the baby comes out alive the mother can do whatever she wants to with that baby to kill it,” says Investigator Tracy Emerson. “She could shoot the baby, stab the baby. As long as it’s still attached to her in some form by umbilical cord or something it’s no crime in the state of Virginia.”

The Campbell County Sheriff’s Office and Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office worked unsuccessfully to get the law changed after another baby died in the county in a similar case. Emerson says they asked two delegates and one state senator to take the issue up in the General Assembly. He says the three lawmakers refused because they felt the issue was too close to the abortion issue.

Can’t touch infanticide because it’s too close to abortion. 😯

So what are they lacking? A spine? A heart? A conscience?

Maybe it’s a moral compass.

And compassionate morality.

Truly we live in depraved, perilous times.

The full article might interest you: Mother won’t be charged with baby’s death because of law loophole

Year-Old Food

It’s been almost a year ago since I reported about the Stowers family in Ohio. Back then I wondered, “What’s the rest of the story, I wonder.” I still do.

Anyway, yesterday I came across this two-month-old update:A Family Finally Gets Their Food Back.

A family in northeast Ohio is rejoicing today after a judge has ordered the government to return their food to their home. It was almost a year ago, in December of 2008, that the Ohio Department of Agriculture and the Lorain County General Health District raided the Stowers home in Lagrange, Ohio. Officers, dressed in S.W.A.T gear, swarmed their small family farm searching for food they believed was being sold unlawfully.

I have been reporting and following this story since April of this year. Today is a small victory for the Stowers family and for Ohioans individual rights to eat food they feel is healthy and all-natural. The Stowers family operates a private food co-op supplying food to their neighbors that is near impossible to find at local grocers.

Did you now about the Food Modernization Act?

LA Times and Civil Disobedience

When is civil disobedience right, especially for us Christians?

Recently someone at the LA Times had this to say:

Christian leaders’ stance on civil disobedience is dangerous

Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox leaders are going too far when they declare they will break laws on abortion and same-sex marriage.

Philosophers have argued for centuries over whether it is ever justifiable to break the law in the service of a higher cause. The question acquired a new complexity with the advent of societies such as the United States, in which laws were enacted by elected representatives and not decreed by a monarch or dictator.

Few today would criticize civil rights activists, including the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., for participating in or condoning the violation of laws that perpetuated white supremacy — with the understanding that they would face punishment for their actions. But such civil disobedience is rightly regarded as the exception that proves that the proper redress for unjust laws lies in legislation or in court rulings based on the Constitution.

That cautious approach has been thrown to the wind by Christian religious leadersRead it all

Congress Tries to Cover Gays Better

Congress acts to extend hate crimes to cover gays

The House voted Thursday to make it a federal crime to assault people because of their sexual orientation, significantly expanding the hate crimes law enacted in the days after Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in 1968.

With expected passage by the Senate, federal prosecutors will for the first time be able to intervene in cases of violence perpetrated against gays.

Civil rights groups and their Democratic allies have been trying for more than a decade to broaden the reach of hate crimes law. This time it appears they will succeed. The measure is attached to a must-pass $680 billion defense policy bill and President Barack Obama – unlike President George W. Bush – is a strong supporter. The House passed the defense bill 281-146, with 15 Democrats and 131 Republicans in opposition.

[…]

Many Republicans, normally stalwart supporters of defense bills, voted against it because of the addition of what they referred to as “thought crimes” legislation.

“This is radical social policy that is being put on the defense authorization bill, on the backs of our soldiers, because they probably can’t pass it on its own,” House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said.

GOP opponents were not assuaged by late changes in the bill to strengthen protections for religious speech and association – critics argued that pastors expressing beliefs about homosexuality could be prosecuted if their sermons were connected to later acts of violence against gays.

[…]

Some 45 states have hate crimes statutes, and the bill would not change the current situation where investigations and prosecutions are carried out by state and local officials.

[…]

Tom McClusky, vice president of the conservative Family Research Council’s legislative arm said the next step likely would be contesting the legislation in court. “The religious protections are pretty flimsy,” he said. He contended that Democrats were trying to move their “homosexual agenda” this year because it would prove unpopular with voters next year.