Sheeple

It's been a good couple of days for this old accusation. Let me take a moment and repeat verbatim what I was told on my journal recently:

The sheer fact that you take Rush Limbaugh seriously tells me that I shouldn't pay attention to anything you have to say at all. Thanks for being such a sheeple, and for not actually thinking through what Rush says.

I was thinking about this when I heard that the House had passed a healthcare bill even larger and more dangerous than the one we successfully shot down in town hall meetings earlier this year. It seems that the Stupak Amendment, which prohibits federal funding of abortion in government-run health care, was added to the bill and several blue-dog Democrats decided to vote in favor.

This happened over the weekend, and Rush Limbaugh was not there to tell us poor sheeple what to think. We got the next best thing, however, when the American Family Association (Dr. Dobson's "empire") released a statement on Facebook giving praise that the amendment had been added to the bill. There, we sheeple were told what to think. Right? People like the poster quoted above, would probably think so.

That's not what happened.

The majority of comments were not in agreement with AFA. Within ten minutes, over thirty people had weighed in to explain that the amendment was not a victory, as without it the bill probably would not have passed. These people having been given the cues to cheer, refused. Each one spoke with different wording, and many approached the issue from different angles, making it very unlikely that they were parroting from the same source.

Now, the first Rush Limbaugh show since the vote is running. The transcripts have, of course, not yet been released, but the gist of it is that Rush was talking about the terrorist attack until a caller brought up the healthcare bill. What did the caller say? He said that he wasn't happy about the Stupak amendment merely because it made the healthcare bill a pleasant enough pill for the blue dog Democrats to get on board and pass it.

Think about that for a moment. We sheeple, who are supposed to take our cues from our masters, openly defied one and told another what we thought of the issue before he even brought it up. Isn't that kind of odd behavior for people who can't form an opinion on their own?

Wealth

It's that time of year again. I watched the enormous truck back into the driveway. My son watched in fascination as a man with a thick, greying beard connected the pipe. Within minutes, our oil tank downstairs displayed its little floater at the top of the gauge, and I was writing out a check. We fill our oil tank twice a year, once around November and once around March. Of course, living in the northern hemisphere in a cold-winter area, we use significantly more oil in the winter months. But that's hardly my point today.

I always get a thrill from filling the oil tank. It's the same thrill I get after a good grocery shopping session, in which there have been a lot of good sales and I have filled my cart. It's the thrill I get when the church giveaway room has several outfits out for the taking, all the right sizes for my children. I simply love having Plenty.

This isn't just an odd quirk of mine, mind you. It's a pretty common human condition. In Western Society, we have the curious desire for sparser homes and thinner women. Throughout history, the cultures have trended in the exact opposite direction, probably because wealth was not nearly as common as it is in the present day. Consider the example of the needy taking pictures of soup kitchens on their cell phones. We hardly understand what poverty really is anymore. I can't claim to truly understand it either. Even when we haven't known if we could fill that oil tank again, we've still had a weathertight house and the expectation that nobody is likely to destroy it in war or for spite anytime soon.

I like to focus on and enjoy the simplest and truest types of wealth. Recently, my family and I sang for a Salvation Army coffeehouse. One of the workers there found out that I have a baby girl and offered me some free diapers. I hesitated, automatically saying what I usually say in similar situations. We'd love the help, and I'll definitely use anything we're given, but I'm sure there are others in more need than us and they should probably be aided first. My mother told me on the drive home that we are in fact 'salt of the earth humble' and probably not much less in need than the other families in that area.

This surprised me, to be sure. In my reckoning, we're doing pretty well. Sure, you can look at us as a family who can't yet afford to replace the carpet as it wears thin, we're basically one major car repair away from disaster, and it would be nice to have enough money in the bank to replace a major appliance should it suddenly die. However, I tend to look at the plenty. I look at the pantry piled high with consumables, the lovely big yard, the clothing so plentiful that we can afford to toss pilly t-shirts and holed socks...

...and the filled oil tank, ready to give us heat and hot water all winter long.

Last year, it was only the sudden dip in oil prices that allowed us to fill that tank at all. We're in better shape this year, thanks to the mortgage refinancing done before Obama's plans made the process nearly impossible for anyone who hasn't missed a payment. My baby's hospital bills are all paid off, and we're starting to put money back into savings.

Still, I'm never going to take a filled oil tank for granted again.

So simple, even a housewife can understand

This feels strange. These days, I read the news, and I immediately spot the flaws in the Democrats' plans. I do not own a business. I have had no formal education in business. My bachelor's degree is in Computer Science, for heaven's sake. Yet still, I can read these proposals, and the flaws show as clear as day for me. Is there something unusual about me, or about them?

Today's beauty comes from a Reuters article that I picked up from Newsmax:

Democrats are looking at the possibility of a windfall profits tax on insurance companies as part of healthcare reform, House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday.

Pelosi said she had asked House Ways and Means Committee chairman Charles Rangel to examine the possibility and report back to her.

"This is very preliminary," she told reporters.

But she added that insurance companies would get some 50 million new consumers, many subsidized by taxpayers, under reforms Democrats are planning and "we think they can put more on the table."

Okay, it doesn't take a genius to put this plan together. We're talking about switching out the public option (at least in part) for taxpayer-subsidized private options, kind of like what Congress has... but not quite as posh. It seems they want to keep from raising taxes on the middle class by doing it to the insurance companies instead.

This sets up a neat bit of circular logic.

Only a fool would consider it a victory to let someone else take his profits and use them to buy his product.

Remember that profit is what's left after you have paid for your supplies and paid your workers. It's the part that you get to keep for yourself. It's a percentage, sometimes a small percentage, of what your actual product costs. In this plan, you are only going to recover a small percentage of what was taken away.

Now we've had some discussions about profit. Where does it actually go? It pays the salary of the business owner. So technically, if you earn $25,000 per year as a business owner, you have a profit margin of $25,000. In this society, however, it is also paid out in percentages to stockholders. Who owns stock in the company? Why, anybody can own stock, including the workers, who often are given stock as part of their pay.

If your salary is being decreased by the government and you need more money, the only way to do it is to lower your costs or raise the price of your product.

So where will this "windfall tax" money be coming from? Part of it will come from the CEO's salary, and I am sure that's what the Democratic Party is claiming as the source of the entire tax. In truth, only part, probably a small part, will come from there. The rest of the money will come from the middle and lower class in the form of raised premiums, lower stock returns, and fewer workers employed.

Yet again, the Democrat plan basically involves taking from us to spend on us... retaining a percentage for their own purposes, of course. It's a scam, and as scams go it may look good on the surface, but it is fundamentally flawed.

I'm just bewildered that it seems so obvious to me. After all, I am not one of the elite ruling class that the Democrats deem capable of making my own financial decisions. How can I be clever enough to understand the problems with the way they want to spend my money?

Short thought on labor unions and feminism

As the modern woman tries to "have it all" and ends up with nothing, people are beginning to realize more and more the importance of "mother-friendly" work. The truth is, no matter how much feminists try to push women into high-profile careers, the majority of women continue to want their own children.

The feminists use the phrase "barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen," though it has greatly outlived its usefulness. The woman shrieking it in fury still thinks that it refers to a woman who is unable to go anywhere, using up her life in making her husband pleased while toiling endlessly over a hot stove. The average woman in touch with the real world pictures an idyllic moment of relaxation, connecting with the unborn dancing within while feasting upon a much-craved bowl of fresh-picked strawberries and cream, as opposed to trying to force her attention on company business as her pregnant body's feet swell uncomfortably inside rigid formal shoes and the only strawberries in sight are either freeze-dried or cost $5 for a small bowlful in the cafeteria.

The truth is that though women want children and are told that they should desire a career, the majority of actual work available for them is not child-friendly. The boss worries over how this little nuisance will impact the department's performance, while the woman looks forward to using a mechanical pump in the bathroom with a picture of her baby, who is in the care of some other woman being paid half of the mother's earnings. Working mothers have it tough. I should know... I was one out of necessity for a while, and as working mothers go, I had it easy.

How can we deal with this situation? Currently, a variety of possible solutions involve more and more regulation... rules that you can't fire a pregnant woman for being pregnant, rules that she must be given a certain amount of time in which her job is held open but empty, rules that she must be able to use "flex time" to be there when her children get off the bus, even if it means that she spends a cold and lonely Saturday making up her time.

I have a different suggestion.

Remove a few layers of regulation instead of adding more.

Why do so many women work full-time when so many want to work part-time? Part-time is getting harder and harder for employers to manage. A few years ago, I worked as a "casual employee" as a computer programmer. I was paid a set amount per hour, and that was it. No benefits. No holidays. No sick time. No vacation time. No health insurance. No retirement fund. Nothing but a simple wage for hours worked.

That situation is very, very difficult to find nowadays, thanks to a mixture of labor unions and employment law. Generally, hiring someone involves paying a salary plus significantly more for all the associated benefits. Places that seek to minimize their costs by hiring multiple part-timers without benefits are vilified, and they are becoming rare.

However, this is the perfect situation for the working mother. In most cases, her husband is working full-time and providing the family with everything from retirement coverage to medical insurance coverage. She doesn't need paid holidays. She doesn't need stock in the company. She just needs to put in a few hours when she can, to help fill in the gaps in the family budget.

I can see the justification of benefits in full-time jobs, which are usually worked by a wage-earner looking to provide for his family. Nowadays, a hefty percentage of the workforce are 'supplementary earners', and they should not be treated the same way.

The President circumvents parental authority?

On September 8th, President Obama is planning to address schools across our nation.

Now we don't know what he's going to say yet, and having the President talk to kids is not necessarily an evil thing. It's good to teach children about our country and its political process. When I was young, I wrote a letter to President Reagan. I got a lovely little courtesy book with full-color pictures of the White House most famous rooms. I have it to this day.

However, we do not know what this community organizer plans to say to our children. There is no copy circulating of the speech that I can find. The one document I was able to find, a teaching guide for the event, did not inspire confidence that this would be a simple, friendly hello. The guide can be found here.

For those of you who don't want to read it, these are the parts that trouble me:

Before the speech, third point: Why is it important that we listen to the President and other elected officials, like the mayor, senators, members of congress, or the governor? Why is what they say important?

Indeed, why is what they say important? In this country, the government is created for the people and by the people. Of course it's important to listen to what they have to say. But why is that? Do you think that the teachers will encourage students to answer that they should become involved in the political process so that they can do their best to intelligently evaluate the truthfulness of their President's speeches and speak out against them if he is wrong?

During the speech, second point: Students can record important parts of the speech where the President is asking them to do something. Students might think about: What specific job is he asking me to do? Is he asking anything of anyone else? Teachers? Principals? Parents? The American people?

This troubles me, because it is basically evidence that, when our President speaks to our children outside of our presence, he will be asking them to do something. What sort of thing will he ask them to do? What was the last thing he asked people to do? The last thing he asked people to do was to go to town hall meetings specifically to shut up the people who disagreed with his nationalized health care plan.

Some people might say, "What's the big deal? So the kids have to sit through this speech. They'll probably be bored. They'll have forgotten it by tomorrow. Just let it happen and let it fade away." Unfortunately, the teacher's guide includes a followup:

Extension of the speech, second point: Write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president. These would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals.

Everyone should find this troubling. The President is encouraging children to work for him directly, and encouraging teachers to put a system into place by which children are made accountable for their goals. I would like to point out that in our system of government, children are traditionally considered too young to enter into contracts and have them enforced. There is a reason why, for instance, there are minimum ages on marriage and on entering the Armed Forces. Further points on the same section encourage teachers to set up school-wide incentive programs for students who reach their goals and graph student progress toward these goals.

This is no longer about a student sitting through a speech and then going home. It's about peer pressure and adult pressure for a student to do what the President has asked them to do. This is serious business, whether you approve of Mr. President or not. We do not live in an authoritarian society, and our elected leaders of the country should not be directly interfering with our children's lives in this fashion.

Quite simply, this is wrong.

I personally have no worries about this event for my family. My son is homeschooled and my daughter is too young to understand speeches. Still, I would like to encourage parents of public school students to keep their children home on September 8th. If enough people do so, perhaps we can send a message.

Now let me put in my "usual disclaimer". Suppose the President merely wants to ask the students to be more charitable? To help others? Isn't this a good thing? Don't we want our children to help others? Yes, we do! We definitely do, and I entirely agree with the goal in mind. What I disagree with strongly is its implementation. Children should be charitable because their parents and community teaches them to be. Charting progress toward charity goals should be done at home, or perhaps in Sunday School. Children should not learn the lesson that they must do whatever their President requests of them. That is the road, not to genuine charity, but to tyranny and despotism.

How dare you question my wisdom?

It looks as if town hall meetings are no longer meant to give us a forum in which to express our concerns and hear lawmakers try to support their decisions. It is now a forum in which the lawmakers tell us what we are going to roll over and allow them to do. It is no longer a place of persuasion and debate, but a place of demands and coercion. What happened?

Well, apparently Obama got tired of hearing people object to his plan, and so he rustled up his union buddies to go attend these town hall meetings. The result: Thursday night featured the first bouts of actual violence in the entire government-run healthcare debate.

A note about the protestors and town hall participants: They raised their voices. They held signs. They chanted sometimes. That's it. They are not violent people. They are not terrorists. They're people like you and me. The initial town hall meetings reminded me a bit of heavy metal fans. Now that probably sounds like an odd correlation to make. Let me explain it.

My sister and I attended a heavy metal concert with a couple of other friends. We found ourselves, country mice on a long journey, in the part of Poughkeepsie where the cops don't go, in line with a bunch of people (mostly men) wearing black leather, chains, spikes, ponytails, and various piercings. To hear the major news media reporting on town hall protests, you'd think these people had attended them. You might not be off the mark.

Why? Because they turned out to be the friendliest, gentlest, most respectable and respectful people you could hope to share an auditorium with. Imagine this: at a standing-room-only concert, I tried to step forward to get a better look at the band. The people in the audience readily parted for me, giving me an excellent view close to the stage. You could get bumped into in a crowd like that, but not without an exchange of "I'm sorry" and "Excuse me" and "That's alright". There were a couple of bouncers on hand, who were not needed. There was no violence, no trampling, no accidental injury, and the fans even left the place clean as it was when they arrived.

From what I have seen and heard of the town meetings, the people were very much like that. They would rail and shout, but nobody was getting trampled, nobody was getting separated from their group, and nobody was getting frightened... except for the Democrats up on stage, who are not used to having their wisdom questioned and did not know how to deal with well-reasoned opposition from the people who are supposed to follow like sheep.

Then Obama spoke up. He sent out emails to his supporters asking them to show up at the town hall meetings to shout down the protesters. This act made apparent that he was not looking for actual discussion. At the absolute best, he was hoping for a photo-op of people not disagreeing with his plan. Oh, he got a photo-op alright. The pictures and video taken of the violence has hit Youtube and, as the phrase goes, "gone viral". (This despite having not hit the major news media in any way except a vague sort of "there was violence between opposing groups" without revealing who was actually throwing people against walls.)

Now I've heard people raise various possibilities of why Thursday night's violence happened. The kindest opinion, however, is just as bad as the least kind. The least kind opinion is pretty obvious. Many people believe that Barry Obama, Chicago politician, purposely rounded up the union people in order to intimidate and attack the town hall attendees. They account the violence, which resulted in torn shirts, bruising, and one man beaten into the hospital, directly to his fault. They view him as a modern-day crime boss telling his minions to go out there and break a few knees.

The kindest opinion is that Obama is so blindingly inept at the only job he has any real experience in, community organizing, that he simply did not know what happens when you ask union officials to get their guys to show up and provide a counter to a protest. Despite my adventures to places like heavy metal concerts, I have grown up in a fairly sheltered community, among Christians and homeschoolers, in a rural neighborhood. Even I knew exactly what was going to happen once union thugs got involved in this wasn't-yet-a-mess. If even a rural Connecticut housewife knows how they behave, how could an urban community organizer and Chicago politician have no clue whatsoever?

Of course, this raises serious questions about our president. Is he utterly inept and astonishingly naive? Or is he purposely intimidating ordinary citizens with the only means of force that will target innocent people? Note that these first clashes were not against police (who were already monitoring the protests long before Thursday) or military (who have not been called in), but union people proudly wearing their union shirts.

In either case, it seems that the one thing the Democrats do not want us to do is to object to their plans. They are not interested in compromise; they are not even interested in our opinion. Now we find out whether they can strong-arm the American People into backing down and giving them their own way. If this issue is decided by force, our way of life just might be over.

We value your input

"There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov."

This simple statement has set off a firestorm across the country, among just about everybody who opposes the Democrat-proposed government-run health care plan, which is a majority, and even among some who support the plan. Some have argued that the White House plans to make an 'enemies list' by identifying people who disagree with them. Others have scoffed at the notion, noting that we have not currently lost the right to free speech. One person said, "Has it ever occurred to you knuckle-dragging sheep that he just wants your input?"

I immediately answered, "No."

I find myself once more in the "middle of the right". I do not believe that the original intent of this post was to mark conservatives for destruction. I don't think we'll be wearing little yellow stars on our coats anytime soon. After all, we outnumber him, and the military is majority-conservative. Even the liberal members would not fire on their own, and yes, I have heard that many of them are already considering what they would do if they were asked. The atmosphere is that volatile. Still, as I said, I don't take the worst possible interpretation of the White House request.

Even so, the nicest possible interpretation is not good. I answered "No" because Obama has not shown any interest whatsoever in changing his bill to meet our concerns. He has merely claimed that he wants to hear them so that he can refute them, so that he can explain them away, so that we will 'see the light' and stop opposing his plan. I also noted that the original forum poster listed a fact and a group of people were heartily agreeing with it, while Obama was trying to force something down our throats that we don't want "for our own good". Who was treating us like "knuckle-dragging sheep"? As you might have guessed, I was a little riled.

I have good reason to be. Under ordinary circumstances it would be nothing more than a poor choice of wording. However, with this administration, we have to look at it with the 'abusive-boyfriend principle' I noted in my previous post. "Joe the Plumber" opposed Obama's plans within Obama's earshot and look what happened to him. Then we got the Homeland Security memo that labeled those who peaceably assemble to protest liberal policies as "terrorist-lite". Now Obama wants to know what YOU think of his plan. Of course, his request has a nasty little Orwellian twist to it.

The White House blog could have said: "We understand that you have some concerns about the plan. Please feel free to send those concerns to this address so that we can address them." We're not fools, and we'd still know that he was interested more in denying our concerns than incorporating language into the bill to put our minds at ease. It still would have been an improvement over what was said, which basically amounts to this:

"We want you to send us logs of private conversations you've had with people who oppose this bill."

The same person who called me a knuckle-dragging sheep claimed that Obama was only looking for our opinion. I replied, "If you want our opinion, ask us to send in OUR opinion! Don't ask people to send in their NEIGHBOR's opinions!" That wording alone, even without the example of "Joe the Plumber", is enough to rattle a generation who grew up learning how Things Were Done in the Soviet Union. If a secretly-recorded conversation is submitted in a court case, the judge must rule whether it is admissible as evidence. Shouldn't there be some sort of consideration taken before asking people to basically submit private conversations to the Federal Government?

This nation, God love 'em, is still full of the same types of personalities who stood up to the British long ago. It is still full of people who emigrated here to escape totalitarian regimes. I have heard from a number of people who have chosen to send their own concerns about the White House request for other people's private conversations straight to that email. I am going to join them and send this post...

...but I'll use my spam-catcher email address.

The Government Relationship

This thought has been percolating in my head all day. I don't know if I have enough of it to put out a long, nicely-reasoned post, but I would like to get it out there for you anyways. It's been a long day with a tired baby, so if I get short and incomprehensible, please leave me a comment and I'll fix it!

Conservatives are starting to bring up things that Obama and other Democrats have said in the past regarding taxpayer-funded, single-payer healthcare. Most of it has gone along the lines of "We won't be able to do it to them right away because they'd never accept it, but be sure that we're starting a process if we regain Congress and the White House!" Meanwhile, liberals are complaining mightily that it doesn't conclusively prove anything. That last part, about conclusively proving, is the point.

See, the Scientific Method and the criminal court system are very good and useful in their place. However, they can be overused and often are in modern society. You have to prove your religious beliefs by the Scientific Method or they're invalid. You have to prove your political stance by the Innocent-Until-Proven-Guilty method... only when you're going up against the liberal Democrats, of course. However, you shouldn't need to go that far to oppose new legislation. After all, our government was built in such a way as to make it difficult to pass a new law.

As a woman, I have a certain frame of reference that I use when considering liberal Democrat promises about the health care plan. (This is, by the way, a government-run health care plan meant to fix a private medical insurance issue, not a "public health care option" or a medical insurance fix to a medical insurance issue. Anyways.) My frame of reference is that of a woman seeking to avoid becoming a victim of domestic abuse.

You learn quickly, or you end up learning by experience. You can't try too hard to prove conclusively and without a shadow of a doubt that the guy is going to hit you. You can't analyze him through the scientific method or put him on trial to deliver a guilty verdict only if you are convinced beyond all reasonable doubt. You have to be on your guard, and you have to keep your eyes open.

See, if you confront him directly, you bet he'll say, "Oh no, baby, I would never hurt you." But if he's been rough and physical, pushed you around a little, if he's told his friends he'd smack around any woman of his who didn't get his dinner on time, if he's been known to hit previous girlfriends... you had better start making tracks now. Don't move in with him. For heaven's sake don't have sex with him.

When I view the evidence presented that the liberals are taking us on a trip towards a truly socialist system, that this is just the first step and groundwork is being laid for more, I can't take for granted their claims that it just isn't so. I can't assume that they won't use a power that their bill is giving them just because they said they won't use it. After all, Obama said that he didn't want to run auto companies, and see where that's taken us.

I don't need the proof of the scientific method, or the guilty verdict in a criminal case, to hesitate at handing over the power of my health and life to the government. All I need is about the same level of suspicion that would prompt me to back away from a potentially abusive boyfriend.

Schooling Decision #2 - Homeschool

Yes, folks, it's that time of year again. Students are gearing up for their next year of school. My son finished his Kindergarten through the CLASS plan last year, and they mailed back an S for Satisfactory. The only grade you get in Kindergarten from CLASS is an S or a U. Guess what U stands for.

So what's up for this year? Well, my son is still doing a good job learning how to socialize. He isn't doing quite as well in keeping his room clean, but compared to other kids his age, it's not that bad. We're working on some defiance issues, and that's utterly normal. Basically, I've got a kid I can take out to dinner, and that's pretty cool. We had him professionally evaluated earlier this summer, and he was declared to be right on the line between ADHD and not ADHD. That didn't surprise me. He's flighty in the mind, but he's a solidly good worker. Easily distracted, but very intelligent.

It probably will come to no surprise to my regular readers that we have decided to continue homeschooling. The method, though, is slightly different. This year, we ordered the CLASS First Grade Family Plan. What's the difference? With the CLASS Plan, we send the work in and they give us his grade. With the Family Plan, we give him the grades ourselves. We send nothing back. Basically, they send us a full curriculum and a lovely Year Planner for homeschoolers (containing weekly planning sheets and myriads of forms from field trips to doctor's office visits) and we're on our own.

I noticed last year that my son has a bit of difficulty getting a real handle on history as something that actually happened long ago. We happen to live in lovely New England, and there are several historical sites for him to visit and actually experience history. I plan to incorporate history-based field trips heavily into his curriculum this year.

CLASS allows you to make some course substitutions for each year. I took the A Beka option for reading and science. I like the old classic readers A Beka offers, and the science book has an extra section on toys that I know will please my mechanically-minded boy. This is really what homeschooling is all about. Each child can have a curriculum that, while it covers the basics in full, will also play to his strengths and interests while shoring up his weaknesses. He'll also have all the drills and memorization that makes up a classic education, and arrive in highschool able to do his multiplication problems without a calculator.

This week I am going to be concentrating on planning out the school year. Each book needs to be divided into chapters and decisions have to be made as to how many days per week, how much per day will be done. The primary homeschooling parent, usually the mother, makes this choice. She must balance each day so that daily subjects and weekly subjects will all be completed without burning out her kid. Again, each child has a custom-tailored education key to his strengths and weaknesses. My son tires quickly when doing phonics, and there are a lot of pages in his book. I decided to start him on his new book in June, so that he can do one page every day and finish on time. He tires much less quickly with math, but there is a lot of work to do between his workbook, drill sheets, and tests, so I have started him on that subject already. "Summer school? What a bummer!" Seriously, one phonics page and two math pages is not a terrible fate. When he's in a good mood, he can complete all his summer schoolwork for the day in one hour.

Of course, we have a complication this year in the form of a baby. Lil Tricia is fussier than most. She likes to be held, and she has a tendency to soak up a lot of time. This can be dealt with. Most homeschooling mothers have breastfed and administered lessons at the same time. Homeschooling with multiple children becomes a balancing act, when you must not only work out each child's schedule, but correlate them so that one has busywork while you teach another. If you have many children close in age, this job is actually easier than you might think. History and science rarely take on significant differences between grades until highschool, and homeschooled children are often above their peers in reading comprehension. A second grader, third grader, and fifth grader can all learn from the same sixth-grade science or history book at the same time.

Of course, this doesn't quite apply to me yet. I will be sitting the baby up while listening to a lesson read aloud, playing with the baby while my son is doing his busywork, and discussing lessons with my son while the baby either plays with her toes or sleeps. It's going to be an adventure, but I wouldn't give it up for the world.

First grade subjects are theology, phonics, reading, spelling, handwriting, mathematics, science, history, art, music, and gym. I've got a handle on just about each item on the list. His history book is short and will only cover about half the year. Last year, I just started him late in the year, so that his amount of daily schoolwork slowly ramped up as he got used to this new system in his life. This year, I found a third grade History of United States book that I am going to read to him for the second half of the year. It might be a little over his head at times, but it'll be good for him.

I'm not worried about art. I used to teach it to my younger sister when I was a homeschooled student, and I've used it to keep kids happy while watching them for years. Music shouldn't be much of a problem. My mother agreed to start teaching him piano lessons. (I could do it myself, if I needed to, but I think it's good for him to have other teachers.) That will involve learning how to read music. Last year I taught him how to identify strings, brass, winds, and percussion by ear. (Not the individual instruments.) I also exposed him to the audio-only Peter and the Wolf. I know I ought to put him through an actual music appreciation course in time and teach him the names of the greats and so on. For now, though, the piano lessons should suffice.

It's gym that I am still trying to plan. I'm not much of a sports person. He gets plenty of exercise, but not much in the way of traditional active games. My mother loves taking him on bicycle rides, and he and I take plenty of walks, but I'm not the right person to teach him how to hit a ball or make a basket, and he needs to learn how to play in a team. He gets some of that in his weekly kids' group, but not like he'd get it from a gym class. What does a kid really need in the area of gym class? What will help him be a well-rounded kid? How can I be sure that I meet that need? I was easy. I was so anti-athletic that my mother could meet my need easily just by keeping me in shape. My son is so full of energy and good hand-eye coordination that he is going to need more than I personally can give him.

I'll talk to other homeschool parents in the area, including my mother, and we'll work something out. For the sake of those who like to learn more about homeschooling, when we've figured it out, I'll tell you what we've planned.

Clunkers for Cash: Subsidy for the Rich

I'd like to take a moment and complain heartily about the Clunkers for Cash program. In case you haven't heard, it allows you to get something like up to $4,500 from the government if your old car is sufficiently fuel-inefficient and it is replaced with a tidy little econobox... brand new, of course. And that is where my problem lies.

Just to clarify my wider stance, I disagree with the program itself on the simple basis that I do not believe the government should be using my taxpayer dollars to pay people for the cars that they drive. This is not a matter of national defense or the simple running of the government. It is not a matter of ensuring the uncoerced determination of value that runs a good free market economy. However, even were I to agree with the program and with the government's administering of it, I can still find a problem with what it does and for whom.

If you are going to buy a new car, you need one of two things: a bank account containing the money for a new car, or enough room in your budget for a monthly payment. My family has neither. I continue to wonder how we would be classified economically. My husband works a middle-class job, technically. Since I do not work full-time (I purposely took a job with lower earning power than I actually have, because it is family-friendly), our household income is less than half of what you might expect from a family with college-educated parents. Anyways, the relevancy to this topic is that we have neither sufficient savings to buy a new car nor the room in our monthly budget to make payments on a new car.

Therefore, Cars for Clunkers automatically does absolutely nothing for us.

Recently, my husband's car permanently died. It was a '90 Cutlass Ciera that we bought six years ago for $500, and though it technically still runs, its problems include brake line failure, a rusty gas tank beginning to leak, a transmission that downshifts as if it's going to drop out of the vehicle, and a myriad of mysterious oil leaks. It garnered, on average, 15-20mpg.

We took all of our savings and purchased an '01 Honda Civic. Despite having higher mileage than the car we are replacing, it looks as if it has at least five more years of life in it. My husband reports fuel economy in the neighborhood of 50mpg, but that is only an estimate, since he has not had to fill the gas tank yet.

My car is an '89 Chevy Cavalier station wagon. As of right now, it has no mechanical problems, just a few cosmetic 'quirks'. The body is finally rusting, and I hope it can hold together until we can afford its replacement. If it doesn't keep running for another three or four years at least, we may be stuck with one car, which is tougher than it sounds when you live at least 3 miles away from any non-residential building.

If the Honda Civic was a new vehicle, we would surely qualify for Cash for Clunkers. Unfortunately, we don't have the money to buy a new vehicle. Even the least expensive new vehicle, after the government rebate, would be at least twice what we paid for the Honda. If the program worked for used cars, we could have just about paid for the Honda with the rebate and still had our little nest egg to use when my car gives up its ghost.

But I've learned a long time ago that the government, when run by Liberals, doesn't care about people like us.

The kicker is this: Since we are not too poor to pay taxes, the government will be taking money that we could have used to save for our car fund and using it to pay people who earn more than we do so that they can buy their brand-new cars for less.

Liberals often wonder how anybody below the upper-middle-class could possibly disagree with their social programs. I'm here to explain that this is just one of many examples that formed my anti-socialist bent.

If the government trying to help troubled Americans save the economy results in lower-class Americans paying for upper-class Americans to drive brand new cars, what will the government trying to help troubled Americans afford health care do to us?

Let's show them how we do things in cyberspace!

http://www.rollcall.com/issues/55_12/news/37125-1.html?type=printer_friendly

Congressional rules for franked mail bar Members from using taxpayer-funded mail for newsletters that use “partisan, politicized or personalized” comments to criticize legislation or policy.

The dispute over Brady’s chart is being reviewed by the franking commission, which must approve any mail before it can be sent. No decision had been made on the matter by press time.

Brady adamantly denied that the chart was misleading and said Democrats are simply threatened by the content of the graphic.

“I think their review was laughable,” Brady said. “It’s ... downright false in most of the cases. The chart depicts their health care plan as their committees developed it.”

“The chart reveals how their health care bureaucracy works, and people are frightened by it,” he added. “So this is their effort to try and discredit” the chart.

Republican Members have made 20 requests to mail a version of the chart to their constituents and have been told that the requests are being delayed while the commission reviews allegations that the chart is misleading.

...
The dispute centers on a chart (view PDF) created by Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) and Republican staff of the Joint Economic Committee to illustrate the organization of the Democratic health care plan.

At first glance, Brady’s chart resembles a board game: a colorful collection of shapes and images with a web of lines connecting them.

But a closer look at the image reveals a complicated menagerie of government offices and programs that Republicans say will be created if the leading Democratic health care plan becomes law.

UPDATE: Congressman Carter's Twitter confirms this report in the blogosphere: The Democrats are blocking free speech in the House. We can not use the words "Democrats" or "Government Run Healthcare" in official mail.

**************************************************
I say let's show this "government of transparency" what happens when they try to block Republicans from showing us what's really going on. Please feel free to post/spread this on your own blog and/or email, complete with link to the PDF file. After the fiasco surrounding the DVD encryption key, the Democrats should know that you can't just hide things from the citizenry anymore.

If Cars Were People

I was honestly on my way to write this idea when a fellow blogger wrote this far better than I ever could. So without further ado, here is friday's description of health insurance... for cars...

My fellow Americans, we have a crisis in our nation. We have people driving around across this bountiful land with their engine light on, their oil light on, and no muffler. We have people who have to choose between going another 1,000 miles between oil changes or buying dinner. There have been stories told of people watering down their anti-freeze, disconnecting their O2 sensor, and some never changing their air filter because our auto repair industry is corrupt, overpriced, and needs reform.

These are the facts: Most employers do not provide their employees with adequate auto insurance. Most auto insurance is unaffordable and only covers accidents. Some auto insurance only pays for the other person's car in the case of an accident.

The fact is, lack of comprehensive auto insurance, including insurance for minor repairs and routine maintenance, is the leading cause of death in this country*. Most repair jobs are drastic and overpriced because Americans could not afford routine maintenance. Many people are forced to take public transportation, or walk to work which costs them their jobs or results in them dying of exposure. If we provided comprehensive auto insurance and repairs to every American, we could actually save money by preventing the need for drastic repairs.

Now, I know the opposition thinks we should keep the status quo. They say we should do nothing, let the chips fall where they may. Well, I tell you that we are a generous nation and auto care is a right, not just something for the privileged few rich people in our country. It makes no sense, in our rich country, for Americans to be going without proper brake fluid levels.

It is time to introduce a public option for auto insurance and repairs. It is time to make sure that every American is able to live and work and drive without having to worry where their next fillup will come from or if they will be able to survive if their alternator dies.

Now, I don't want to run the auto insurance or repair industry. That should be up to the private sector. That is why I am proposing a government funded public auto insurance and repair program that anyone can subscribe to and it will be subsidized and free for many. Some people say that this is socialist. That's ridiculous. I don't have time to run the auto repair industry. A public option won't undercut or replace private insurers, it will just compete with them at a far lower subsidized price.

To pay for it, we will cut funding to public transportation. This will save us billions of dollars. We will also tax gasoline additives, racing tires, tinted windows and performance products that cause people to take unnecessary risks and add unnecessary wear and tear on their vehicles. We will put together a computer database of every driver with their tickets, average mileage, and other factors to determine the best treatment of their vehicles. If they drive too fast, we won't pay for certain repairs. Also, to cut costs in the repair industry we won't allow for repairs on vehicles over 15 years old or 200,000 miles. Every year you will have to provide proof or auto insurance or you and your employer will each be taxed an additional 8% of your salary. These measures will make universal auto insurance and repairs deficit neutral.

To ensure high quality of repairs, anyone who works on a car in the public or private arena must have a federal license and at least 6 years of college education in automotive studies. Now, I don't want to choose your mechanic for you, so as long as you pick the most local, experienced mechanic matched to you by our database, you can have any mechanic you want.

Right now our automotive repair industry is worse than most third world countries**! This is America. I hope we can change this. I know we can do better and end the status quo. Please submit your ideas and questions via youtube.com, and we will give a prize of $2,500 to the individual who submits the question that best illustrates why we need universal auto care.

We must pass this quickly. America is relying on us and every day more cars die and more people die because of it. We can't afford not to reform our auto insurance and repair industry.

*Taking into account deaths caused by faulty auto repairs, automobile accidents, possible exposure caused by walking, suicides potentially related to not having a car, suicides with a car, deaths in subway systems and public transportation apparatus and global warming deaths.

**Taking into account total number of repairs, average cost for repairs, and how long individuals keep their cars before selling them.

Demystifying the "Messiah"

Folks, the Republican Party made a crucial mistake when Obama appeared on the scene as Democratic candidate for President. I would have warned of this earlier, had I fully realized the import of the mistake. Now it's done, and he's in office, and there is not much we can do beyond letting the Democrats own their own errors in policy and gearing up for a conservative sweep in 2010.

(The irony is that a Democratic president with a Republican congress may be the best balance for our country. He keeps them in line by vetoing compromises because they don't go far enough, and the media finds themselves railing against a nebulous group of a couple hundred people instead of focusing a laser-eye on one man.)

This is the error: The Democrats have done their best to make him seem different somehow, special, unusual and new. The Republicans have only helped.

The first black president! Barack Obama! The unspoken 'Hussein' vibrates through the crowd. Is he Muslim? Is he Kenyan? Is he American? What about his birth certificate? What about his policies? Whatever he is, he's new. He's different. He isn't the same ol'. He just might get us out of this mess.

Even the Republican's attempts to cast doubt on him has only strengthened his position as a mystical figure. McCain's attempts to be 'gentlemanly' and avoid the infamous middle name left it as the proverbial (and ironic) elephant in the room, the silent reminder each time he avoided it that it was indeed waiting there. The grassroots concern about Obama's Muslim heritage draws our minds to the Middle East, to strange beliefs and unusual laws. None of this is what President Obama truly is, but it has only helped to cement his image as not quite the ordinary politician.

Before the election, people kept asking me if I thought Obama was Muslim. I took an honest look at his policies and as much of his home life as we were able to see and said no. I thought (and still think) he is merely a Unitarian Universalist, just like the church he attended for 20 years. The Unitarian Universalist church, though members may vary widely in their beliefs, is not like the Catholic church or the Baptist church. Their belief system is more like a buffet table than a simple dinner or a seven-course meal. They pick and choose as they please from various religious beliefs, including Christianity. In this way, though some members are likely fully Christian, the denomination is only Christian by the same "one drop" logic that makes Obama black instead of "mixed race".

See, a Muslim, even a secret one, in office would not be governing the way Obama is governing. "But he may be a moderate! Just because his wife doesn't wear the garment and he doesn't pray to Mecca... he's in hiding!" I'm sorry, but my evidence isn't anywhere near that obvious. Everyone, whether they hide their religion or not, is influenced by its worldview. Muslims are so careful about debt management that stock/bond packages featuring Muslim-approved companies are actually popular in the U.S. because these packages are among the few who are not rapidly losing value in this crisis caused by irresponsible financing. A Muslim Obama would not have sought to deal with debt by creating tons more. A Muslim Obama would not be supporting abortion under every circumstance at any time. A Muslim Obama may not require his wife to wear a hijab, but he sure as heck wouldn't want her to go walking about with bare arms. (She's drawn criticism for that, so let me be clear: I do not share that criticism. I think it's fine if she wants to go sleeveless. I have zero problem with it. But it's far, far outside of Muslim decency mores even for a moderate.)

Now, I knew that Obama was the senator from Illinois. Still, it never sunk into my mind, because the Democrats kept emphasizing that he was from Hawaii and the Republicans kept emphasizing that he was from Kenya. Hawaii is exotic and Kenya more so. Whether you are excited or alarmed by either setting, it still adds to the mystique. A Chicago Politician doesn't carry nearly the same level of interest, yet that is what he is.

This is important. When you take Barack (Hussein) Obama, born in Hawaii and possibly secretly Muslim, you have a mysterious character. Add his policy decisions, which don't seem to fall into any pattern, and you have a very confusing man. Even his detractors don't seem to know what to do with him. However, when you take Barry Obama, the Chicago politician, everything he's done makes perfect sense. And we know what to do with Chicago politicians.

So unlike some conservative bloggers, I do not encourage you to refer to this man as Barack Hussein Obama in order to reveal the truth and dispel the mystique. Instead, I encourage you, as Dumbledore referred to "The Dark Lord", not even as "Voldemort", but simply as "Tom Riddle", to call our new president "Barry Obama". President Barry Obama, the liberal Chicago politician and Universalist Unitarian. Say this before reading any of his policies or stances, and everything else will fall right into place.

Loving our healthcare system

So I called the hospital in trepidation to discuss payment options for what my private insurance didn't cover in my daughter's birth. I gave the woman the account numbers, and she quoted me a very reasonable monthly payment and told me that if I needed it lower, they had another company they could outsource me to. I asked her if I could start next month, as everything beyond food/electricity/etc. for this month had gone to a car repair, and she said I could. I told her I could make these payments and thanked her for her help.

My hospital stay was excellent. Due to complications during the birth, the staff had to act quickly, professionally, and competently. They did. As a result, in a situation where babies have died or been brain-damaged, mine came out perfectly healthy. (They accelerated delivery under the correct suspicion that the cord was around her neck. She came out blue, but did not need resuscitation and shows no sign of oxygen deprivation.)

Thanks to our current healthcare system, and I admit it could use some work, I was able to afford the best of care. That's right, this working-class/lower-middle-class (how do I figure out which one I'm in?) was given access to the best medical care. There was no tier system, like they have in Holland, in which lower-wage workers have lesser levels of coverage. There was no government decision on whether my baby was viable enough to deserve care, as there is in England. There was no lack of diagnostic machinery, as there is in Canada.

Why on earth would I be interested in Obama patterning our healthcare after any of these countries? The way things are now, the lower class (as long as they aren't unfortunate enough to fall under the government care that liberals want to expand for all of us) can afford and receive medical care. The trick is that you have to be willing to do as I have done, to call, to explain what you can pay, and to set up a plan. You have to be willing to talk to them and let them know of your situation. The help is readily there, if you care to... 'Look' may be too strong a word. If you care to even speak.

I said before that it could use some help. I can think of two models that would be an improvement over the current setup.

Auto insurance is mandatory (in my state), but you can choose whichever company you like. Since it isn't linked to your employer, you aren't placed in the position where employer-subsidized coverage is the only type you can afford. You can also choose the extent of insurance once you've gone above the state minimum. There are factors in your lifestyle that can lower your payments, because they lower your risk. As a result, our auto insurance payment is one-fifth of our health insurance payment, and that's after the company has paid its part.

Though pet health insurance is available, it isn't mandatory or common. Veterinary medicine simply cost what it cost, and you pay at time of service. You can choose your veterinarian. As a result, most families that own a pet are capable of affording that pet. Veterinarians do not charge $100 for a band-aid. They know that the families involved will be paying the entire bill, and if their care is too expensive, their customers will go elsewhere. What about people who really can't pay for their pet's care? Organizations abound to help them. I had my cats spayed when I was a college student with a part-time job, and I had it done at a mobile unit for less than half the price of an office visit. The care was just as good.

You may notice that neither of my examples involve increased government regulation, intervention, or spending.

Obama's motivation?

Many of my posts here are influenced by various forum discussions on political happenings. Most of them are ideas that I have fleshed out while taking my morning shower. This morning, though, I sat down and wrote an entire post, first draft, straight from my head, while giving my baby her breakfast after a record eight hour stretch of sleep! Upon re-reading it, I thought it was worth simply posting in its entirety.

The discussion started with the new credit card rules and soon moved to things that the administration has been doing that have raised or will raise prices on the average person, thanks to taxes, inflation, and/or changed business practices. One person doubted my take on the situation and basically suggested that I believed everything was Obama's fault because he and the "Demon-crats" had an agenda to bring the American traveler (the last subject was a Democrat-floated proposal to use tax to keep the gas price at $4) to his knees, because that "makes SO much sense *eyeroll smiley*". This was my response:

No, it doesn't, because that's not his plan. It's hard to say exactly what his plan is, but I think I've got the gist of it...it springs from a genuine desire to 'set things right' for the people he believes have been disenfranchised by capitalism.

I don't know if he personally endorses the $4/gallon plan. It springs, however, from a belief that Americans use "too much oil", thereby ruining the environment, and the only way to keep them from doing it is to raise the price until they start cutting back of their own accord. The idea itself follows logically... it just doesn't start with reality. The reality is that though a swatch of middle-class Americans may be able to slim out a small percentage of their driving, the working poor have already gotten it as far down as they can and now have to cut down on food and medical care, and the rich have enough money to continue paying for the increased prices and won't be affected much.

His actual ideas, as well, follow logically from their premise. The only problem is that the premise is not grounded in reality. The car fiasco springs from a belief that hybrids are utterly affordable and easily makeable and the only reason why they aren't all over the place is because the auto companies want bigger profits and the oil companies have it in for us. The truth is that hybrids are losses. They're significantly more expensive as new cars. you can't find them as used cars, and they STILL present a loss between manufacturing costs and selling price.

Obama and most of the Democratic majority are not businessmen, and they're not working poor families, and they're not farmers. They don't understand how you can make more without taking it away from someone else, something any six-year-old with a (supervised) vegetable garden learns by August. They don't realize that you can't make something happen just by saying it'll happen, because they've been steeped in the notion of "positive thinking" (which has its uses, but ordering the sun to shine isn't one of them). They've all gone to these huge famous colleges where the ivory tower notion of the way the world works is passed around and around and around like a cow chewing its cud, and then they have lived lives of privilege (compared to most of the rest of us) surrounded by people who have merely reinforced their beliefs.

This, by the way, is why the percentage of people who approve of Obama as a person, the much-quoted 55-60% depending on which day it is, is much higher (twice as high, last I heard) than the percentage of people who approve of his policies. Lots of people like his charisma, but polls keep showing that Americans don't want the government running banks and companies and such and Obama and his crowd just keep doing it, because they believe they can do a better job. And they can't, because their beliefs are based on a perceived notion of justice and injustice and equality and discrimination, instead of the kind of understanding about profit and loss that any business major already has.

But they won't hear it from businessmen, because they believe that businessmen are all collective Scrooges strip-mining the populace because they like to see people suffer as long as it makes them money money money hahahahaha, like any Saturday Morning villain from the '80's and '90's... at least, the ones whose goals weren't destroying the environment Just Because.

Giving back to whom?

President Obama said something in his speech at Notre Dame that caught my attention. Actually, he said many things that caught my attention, but there is one that I want to focus on here. I knew that there was something wrong with his statement, but I did not realize what it was until I started reading today's transcript from the talk show host Rush Limbaugh. I'll be using quotes from both Obama and Limbaugh before taking the discussion in a slightly different direction. Obama was trying to speak as a Christian. Limbaugh was trying to speak as a Conservative. I will be considering this from the perspective of a Christian Conservative. Let's start with Obama.

Too many of us view life only through the lens of immediate self-interest and crass materialism; in which the world is necessarily a zero-sum game. The strong too often dominate the weak, and too many of those with wealth and with power find all manner of justification for their own privilege in the face of poverty and injustice.

Of course, Obama has a fix for this. He spoke of it during another speech, this one at Arizona State:

With a degree from this university, you have everything you need to get started. Did you study business? Why not help our struggling non-profits find better, more effective ways to serve folks in need. Nursing? Understaffed clinics and hospitals across this country are desperate for your help. Education? Teach in a high-need school; give a chance to kids we can't afford to give up on - prepare them to compete for any job anywhere in the world. Engineering? Help us lead a green revolution, developing new sources of clean energy that will power our economy and preserve our planet....one thing I know about a body of work is that it's never finished. It's cumulative; it deepens and expands with each day that you give your best, and give back, and contribute to the life of this nation.

Part of this is not news... he's been mistaking personal charity for nationalism for a while now. Nowadays what's important isn't helping people, it's contributing to the nation. This is, of course, the point at which patriotism becomes fascism.
Now Rush Limbaugh responded to the phrase on his radio program today, and brought up a very interesting point:

And then he was telling them, "Give back, give back," all these college graduates. Give back what? They've got nothing to give back. They haven't acquired anything yet! The things they do have, have been given to them, everything -- by their overindulgent Baby Boomer mommies and daddies. Now when they can go out and earn money so they can repay what they've been given, Obama is trying to tell 'em, "Don't do that! Don't give back. Go back and 'give back' by working at a nonprofit or some such thing." It's convoluted.

I hate this whole concept of "giving back" anyway, that somehow it is the duty of the successful to "give back." Walter Williams, an occasional guest host on this program, has it exactly right on this whole notion of "giving back." The only people need to give anything back are the thieves among us: the thieves and the criminals, the people who have taken things which are not theirs. They're the ones that need to give back... But this notion of giving back is so convoluted because Obama is talking to a bunch of college graduates who don't have anything yet and telling them to give back.

This whole notion of giving something back is rooted in the belief whatever you have is somehow ill-gotten. That you've cheated, lied, or stolen to get it or that you're somehow not entitled to it, and so you need to give back.

Now for a different perspective.

Obama is not telling people to do something wrong. It isn't a terrible thing to work for a non-profit. It's true that the country could benefit from more people being engaged in charitable work. Also, Rush is not off-base. To give, you need to have something to give. Some people choose to acquire and give money. Some give their time. Those who give their money support those who give their time. When's the last time you heard a missionary speak at your church? What's the first thing a new missionary needs if he's ever going to make it to the field? Funding. However, this is getting off my intended subject, so let me actually begin to make my point.

The problem with Obama's bent is that he is motivating by guilt. He would have you believe that being well-off is intrinsically evil, and trying to work at a well-paying position is nothing but rank selfishness. He also would have you believe that the rich only become rich at the expense of the poor, and there is no other way to do it except to not be rich. I've spoken on this before.

But the Bible does not motivate charitable giving by guilt. The story of Ananias and Sapphira proves that, when they are told that while they still owned the land, it was their own, and when they sold it, the money was under their control. In the Gospels, we learn that God loves a cheerful giver. Obama is trying to produce the fearful giver.

God wants us to give because we have charitable feelings towards our fellow man, because we care about others, and out of gladness for what God has provided for us. Obama is telling us to give because we owe our fellow man for the simple fact that we succeeded and they did not. (Of course, the definition of success is rapidly shrinking. At first it was $250K/year, then $200K/year, then $120K/year, and now it seems that merely having a college degree puts you in the crosshairs, even if you are not yet employed.) Obama is not approaching this from a Christian viewpoint, no matter what he claims. He is approaching this from a very authoritarian socialist viewpoint.

In the authoritarian socialist government, the State craves control. It cannot bear to rely on people's goodwill, which is why it seeks to control us through fear and coercion. The tax increases Obama is planning is the coercion, and his speeches to these colleges is the fear. He, like most or all liberal Democrats, do not believe that enough people will give to others unless they are giving back... unless they are paying a debt that they know will be collected upon one way or the other. Remember the death threats made against the AIG executives.

I actually have a way to describe the State craving for control. With my first baby, I had to bottle-feed. I got used to it pretty quickly and had him on a schedule. At x time, he got x ounces of milk. Now, for my second, I am able to successfully breastfeed. Breastfeeding is not like bottle feeding. It is a co-operation between the mother and the infant, a matter of supply and demand. It does not run on a schedule. She lets me know when she is hungry, which could be anywhere from one to five hours since her last feeding. There is no gauge, no ounce markers, and I have no way of knowing how much she has had when she refuses the breast and decides that she is done. The only way I can measure my success is when she is weighed at the doctor's office. Then I find out that, despite my fears that she isn't getting half what I would have given her on a bottle, she is actually gaining so well that the doctor is surprised that she is only on breastmilk. Now if I gave into my fear and switched to bottle-feeding, she would be deprived of a wide variety of benefits so well known by now that they no longer need to be proven, and that for no good reason, because breastfeeding is working perfectly well.

The authoritarian socialist government has the same sort of fear. It wants to know how much money is going into charity, and where it is going. It wants to be sure that everyone is "doing their fair share". It is not content with trusting a people who are so generous that, though our government's charitable contributions put us near the bottom of the list of contributors, the private outpouring put us clearly at the top. Obama will not be content with "measuring success by weight gained", in this case merely checking to see if there are fewer poor and/or they are better off than before. No, he must have full control over the very process, even if it is not the best and healthiest way for society to operate.

The Christian Conservative does not scoff at charity, nor does he believe that people can only be poor because they do not deserve help. He sees helping the poor as his blessed duty, blessed because he is capable of doing so, a duty because God's love motivates him to help. However, he must watch out for the liberal rhetoric, and understand that charity should not be coerced; nor must it be motivated by fear and coercion.

Personal News: Update

For those of you who only read this blog and have been wondering, I had my baby on April 2nd. She had the cord around her neck, probably as a result of the version, but the capable doctor and midwife untangled her right away and she started breathing on her own.

She's perfectly healthy, 8lbs 13oz at birth, and already sleeping a 5-6hr stretch during the night. I'm still technically in post-partum recovery and doing alright. Of course I think she's the prettiest baby ever!

So in the midst of diapers, nursing, and juggling the schedules of homemaker, mother-of-infant, and homeschooling mother... I return to my blog.

Shattered Dreams

Have you ever hung out with friends or coworkers and started talking about what you would do if you were rich? Usually the conversation starts the same way. "Man, if I won the lottery, I would..."

Stop. Full stop.

If you win the lottery, your winnings are taxed. If you win big, you will be taxed big. Obama is planning on putting a heavy tax on earnings over $250K. Of course, that $250K will be taxed too, at varying rates from the first dollar to the last, so you won't even net $250K. But he's decided that's as much as any reasonable person should ever make in a year, even though you'd hoped that lottery winning meant that you'd never have to work again.

You'd be better off to not buy a lottery ticket at all. The worst that could happen is that you could win, and why are you bothering to spend the ticket money? If you get lucky, it will all be taken away.

Ever been a kid in the basement with a dinky cheap guitar hoping to become the next big hit? Got your friends together, the level-headed bassman, the over-excited lead singer, the wacky drummer? You might want to rethink your plans. You're a musician, not a business. If you make it big, you'll make lots of money. If you make lots of money, Obama will take it away from you. You'd be better off just getting some midrange job and not trying to 'make it big' at all.

Same thing goes if you're a budding inventor, composer, actor... want to make it big? Watch out. You might make it big enough to attract the government's attention. All the risk you took, sleeping in your car, failure after mind-numbing failure, all the years you spent honing your art, all the college debt you accrued trying to stick out from the rest, all gone. Obama and the Democrats have decided that anyone who puts in the work and risk to make it big is destined to hand their money over to people who took neither the work nor the risk simply to make it at all.

What about small businesses? My brother, a tax accountant, clued me into this one. The common designation for a small business is an "S corporation", due to its risks and advantages. Unfortunately, "S corporations" require you to report your business earnings as income, and you do so before you start paying your employees or rent. So if you make a business income of $300K and have expenses of $250K, guess what? You're going under.

From reading what proponents of socialism have to say, I can only guess that they believe that if you take away the incentive to excel, to 'make it big', to win, that people will continue to try. They seem to believe that people will still reach for the prize, even when there is no prize to reach. Capitalism and the free market believe that they are wrong. History is on the side of capitalism and the free market in this case.

What will happen to this country when nobody bothers to risk becoming The Next Big? When inventors no longer fiddle in their garages, and teenagers no longer form impromptu bands in their basements? When nobody buys lottery tickets for fear they might win? When doctors and surgeons do as some are already planning and quit working halfway through the year to avoid making 'too much money', reducing their numbers and making it very hard to get an appointment in October?

What will become of us then?

Personal news!

I don't usually post news about myself on this blog. I usually reserve it for my political and religious rants. Still, I thought I might give my few readers an idea of what's going on with me, as well as a good reason why I haven't said much here lately.

As some of you might know, I am pregnant and due April 4th, though the baby might come earlier or later, as babies generally do. I have the feeling it'll be by the end of March, as she's been dropping a little over the past few days. Yes, the baby is a girl.

At my 35 week appointment she turned out to still be breech. The doctor had some concern, but not a great deal, as she still had room to turn around. When she was still breech at 36 weeks, though, he gave me my options. I could wait and see if she was going to turn. If she turned, all would be normal, but if she remained breech, I would have to have an emergency Cesarean. I could, if I chose, simply schedule a Cesarean right then and there. His third option, though, perked my interest. He proposed we simply turn the baby.

The ECV, or External Cephalic Version, used to be a common way of trying to deal with breech babies, especially before c-sections became safer than a breech delivery for the baby. Recently, as the U.S. and Britain have tried to cut down on their prominent (many other civilized countries say 'excessive') use of the c-section, the procedure has been coming back into vogue. My doctor tends to be on the leading edge of any and all technologies that reduce or eliminate the need of heavy medical intervention.

So I agreed to the procedure, and it was done last week. At the hospital, under careful monitoring, he rhythmically pressed and rubbed on my belly to coax the baby (without forcing her) to do a 180. It's done at a hospital because there is a 1% chance that the procedure will break your water and force you into labor. Luckily, my doctor is very good at his work. When she didn't turn, he had my bed tipped backwards with my feet in the air and tried again. This time she went for it. He told me that the way I was shaped and the way she was lying, she probably didn't have the room to turn her own self, which was good news. It meant she probably couldn't turn back.

Today I went for a fetal monitoring appointment. Now that this ECV has been done, they want to monitor her weekly just to make sure everything's alright. There is always the possibility that turning the baby has bent or crimped the umbilical cord or damaged the placenta somehow, and that would show up as distress in the baby's heartbeat. She has been verified as of today's appointment to be entirely healthy, and a short ultrasound confirmed that she not only has not turned back to breech, but is dropping into head-down position and can't go back now.

So some time in the next few days, weeks, or possibly up to one month (but not beyond), I am going to go into labor, go to the hospital, and have this baby. Thanks to my doctor's wisdom (and my own willingness to go along with something that hurt nearly as much as labor), it should be a regular, low-risk birth. Needless to say, that will result in another long period in which I will not be writing on political or religious matters. Until then, you might still hear from me! But if you don't, I have the feeling you will no longer be wondering why.

Hope and Change!

Alright, it's been a couple of months and we've got a fuller and richer idea of what Obama means by 'hope' and 'change'. Let's take a look at what's being said, what's been said, and what is being planned for the future.

President Obama, being eternally optimistic and having run on a platform that claimed sunshine and bluebirds every day should he be elected, has been speaking doom and gloom on the economy so often that even Bill Clinton has reprimanded him on the topic. The stock market has dropped further since his election than it did in all the time W. Bush was in office, and every time he makes a speech, it takes a fall of a couple hundred points. His message is simple; the only way for this country to survive is to give him every power, and to oppose any of his decisions is to want this country to fail. As well, to want lower taxes and greater freedom is now unpatriotic.

Our 'stimulus package' was put together under the watchful eye of Nancy Pelosi, who encourages government funding of contraception and abortion services under the unapologetic (her words!) claim that we can cut government spending on education and healthcare for children by reducing the number of children. I would never have thought of that solution. My natural preference is to reduce or eliminate government spending by cutting taxpayer programs for children of rich families, but the expansion to SCHIP either has been or will be passed soon.

The changes in the package made to medical spending were put into place by Tom Daschle, who has praised Europeans above Americans for being willing to accept a 'hopeless diagnosis' for a treatable condition on the grounds that it would cost the government too much money to help you.

Robert Reich, another lawmaker who worked on the package, caused a minor stir when he pronounced that guidelines should be created for the infrastructure upgrades to ensure that construction jobs created by the work do not go to skilled construction workers or white men. We must ensure that "women and minorities" who are not construction workers or skilled professionals are the ones who ensure that our bridges are safe to cross.

But don't despair! You'll be getting tax relief, if you don't make what the government deems to be too much money, which is about $75K/year. Yeah, I know Obama said his threshhold was $250K, but then Biden, I think it was, said $150K, and someone else said $120K, so are you really surprised? Anyways, if you are not rich, i.e. making $75K/year, you'll be getting about $25/month back in your paycheck starting in April. Don't you feel lucky? It's a tax credit, not a cut, but it's evenly distributed so that it looks like a cut. Oh yes, and you will get this money even if you don't pay any taxes at all, so it isn't really a 'tax' adjustment so much as a welfare check. Basically, the government is using the IRS to send welfare checks to people who are already working, whether they want it or not, and anyone making over $75K/year, in other words, the rich, will be paying for it.

This is the Democrat definition of hope, you see. The government will be handling the redistribution of wealth. If they decide that you make 'too much' money, you will be forced to pay for the lifestyles of all the people who don't. However, even if this level of financial burden bankrupts you, it will still not be enough. Therefore, all the 'little people' who don't make 'too much' money have to learn to be content with what the government provides. Instead of negotiating your own prices with an HMO in order to obtain the medical care that you need, you must expect that if you are too expensive for the government, you will not be allowed to obtain care. You must learn to accept that which has been rationed out to you instead of seeking your own fortune.

The government will care for all your needs, and if your needs are too many, the government will see to it that the population of the needy is reduced through abortion and lack of care for the ill and elderly until the finances work. In other words, prevent hunger by killing the hungry and prevent poverty by killing the poor. The survivors will revere you for saving them from want.

Ah, let me take a moment and address the jobs situation. The rise in unemployment is actually less of an all-over set of layoffs and more targeted to a couple of specific industries, primarily construction. But don't despair, you who are losing your construction jobs! The benevolent Obama has foreseen your needs! He and the Democrats in Congress are setting up a large spending spree on upgrading roads, bridges, and highways.

Unfortunately, Reich and others advocate restrictions on this spending to ensure that the money does not go to actual construction workers and/or 'skilled professionals', especially if they are white men. That's right, despite the fact that 'whites' make up about two-thirds of this nation's population, we must make sure that they are not getting any government funding, even if that means that we cannot hire the people who actually lost their jobs in this recent rise in unemployment. Don't despair, however. Plenty of money in the stimulus package will go towards hiring biologists to study field mice and climatologists to study 'global warming', even though there is no indication of a high unemployment level among biologists or climatologists.

How will Obama pay for all these non-white non-construction workers, biologists, and climatologists? Well, next up on the agenda is supposedly a 25% cut in defense spending. That's right, since the housing market collapse has caused many lost jobs among various construction workers and associated professionals, we must pay for non-professionals and people who are not construction workers by taking money away from the people who employ carpenters, painters, plumbers, electricians, and welders. With the government refusing to buy military equipment built by blue-collar workers and then refusing to hire those same blue-collar workers with the money they've taken away, I'm afraid we're in for a lot more government-subsidized people lining up for their rationed food and rationed healthcare.

Is this hope? Well, it certainly is change.

Fixing the economy is too expensive, but socialism never has too great a price?

Charles Schumer is an idiot.

You won't often hear me calling people idiots. I tend to not like doing that. I don't call people idiots just for disagreeing with me. You have to have come out with "a real doozy" for that word to apply.

The Democrats killed (by vote) the Republican alternative to Obama's economic plan. They claimed that the package of mostly tax cuts, including cutting the bottom personal tax brackets, was just too expensive. This comes from the same people whose only hesitation on the collection of pork termed a "stimulus package" is that they 'fear' it may not spend enough money.

The real beauty, however, comes from Schumer's objection to the Republican plan to encourage banks to offer fixed-rate mortgage loans at 4-4.5% with 'jumbo loans' being exempt. This would help an awful lot of people, by the way, especially the minorities that the Democrats claim to favor. Think about it... the Democrats encourage minority home ownership by letting banks offer a $300,000 loan at variable interest rates, for a house that was worth less than $200K just a few years ago. The Republicans encourage minority home ownership by floating a suggestion to encourage banks to lend to them at a 4-4.5% fixed rate. But anyways, back to Schumer's objection.

The plan would provide a windfall to banks charging fees to refinance mortgages.

That's right, that's his objection. Those naughty banks might actually make some profit off the mortgage refinancing fee. We're talking roughly in the neighborhood of $3,000 for the privilege of refinancing a loan. What will that do to the poor consumer? Well, I recently refinanced at a lower interest rate and rolled the cost into the loan, and still saved over $300/month in bill payments. But that's besides the point, really.

Banks might make money by refinancing mortgages. That's the objection.

Remember TARP? It was meant to hand banks some capital in hopes of restoring liquidity. Basically, the government handed them money in hopes that they would start lending again. Guess what the banks didn't do with the money. That's right. This plan got through a Democrat-controlled Congress with ease.

So basically, it's A-Ok for the government to give the banks 'free' money in hopes that they'll start lending again, but it's unacceptable for the government to prod banks into earning some money by starting to lend again.

This isn't about the economy! This is about government control of the private sector! The Democrats aren't after an end to the recession. They want to turn this country to socialism. They're just using the recession as an excuse!

Who will save you more money?

Alright, folks, here's the deal. Obama wants to give working singles $500, whether they pay that much in taxes or not. He wants to give working couples $1,000, whether they pay that much in taxes or not.

The Republicans want to cut the 10% tax bracket (first $8,350 for singles, first $16,700 for couples) to 5% and the 15% tax bracket (to $33,950 for singles or $67,900 for couples) to 10%.

What does this mean for your family?

Well, let's take a family of four making $50K/year. In the state of Connecticut, that's low enough to qualify for several government programs, including fuel assistance and state-funded healthcare. Doing the calculations for taxes in the first and second bracket, I come up with a savings of $2500 under the Republican plan and.. $1000 under the Obama plan.

So let's try someone else. A single person working full-time at federal minimum wage. That's roughly $13,624/year. Apply the tax brackets and he saves about $681 under the Republican plan. Under Obama's plan, he gets handed a check for $500.

Now I know taxes are a wee bit more complicated than that... things like healthcare expenditures, mortgage interest, and such can change the amount of money that you actually pay taxes on. Still, a little math can tell you the truth... you have to be making pretty darn near nothing to benefit from Obama's plan over the Republicans' plan!

So which plan do the actual workers of this country want?
Feel free to pass this on!

Lack of Hatred

I can't believe it took me this long to realize this. I must be going senile. Perhaps I can blame this 'failing' on my pregnancy. Then again, as I haven't specifically seen anyone else writing about it, perhaps we have all simply fallen into a certain level of taking things for granted.

This morning I was getting ready for the day while talking to my husband, who was also getting ready for his day, and it occurred to me to wonder about the community response to President Obama rescinding the Mexico City Policy. This policy, for those of you either hiding under a rock or not involved in the abortion debate, prevented the U.S. from funding abortions overseas. This is a definite blow for those on the pro-life side, and so controversial among many Christian and/or conservative groups that he even signed it secretly and off-camera.

So I sat down to chat with a friend of mine. "Hey, you hear more from the mainstream media than I do," I typed. "Over this past week, have there been an upswing of stories about pro-life violence against pro-choice groups/people/abortion clinics/abortion doctors? White powder sent to clinics, people trying to enter a clinic being knocked down and beaten, things like that?"

"Not that I've heard of," he answered.

I told him that it was interesting, but also what I'd expected to hear. He wanted to know why, and I pointed out that the Mexico City Policy had been rescinded a few days ago. "So?" he responded.

"That's the second interesting thing I noticed," I typed.

See, when the gay activists don't get their way, they go on a rampage. They threaten, they cause violence, and they not only boycott places, but they prevent other patrons from entering. Interestingly, nobody's surprised when they react this way, and I have heard more than once the phrase "I can understand their anger." However, when pro-lifers don't get their way, nobody goes on a rampage, and nobody is surprised.

The same thing happens when Christians are marginalized in the media. When Muslims are marginalized, the protests invariably start. Places are set on fire, people are injured or killed, guns fired, knives used... it's not a pretty picture. Parts of Europe refuse to even criticize Islam anymore for fear of seeing death and destruction. However, people are allowed to speak downright blasphemously about Christianity without fear, because Christians do not respond with violence, and nobody wonders why.

In many cases, groups that used to claim their way as the peaceful solution are bullying their way into society merely by making people afraid of the violence that they'll visit upon us if they are not given their way. Meanwhile, the groups marginalized in society as mean and violent and evil are simply remaining civil... and what's more, nobody's surprised by it!

Obama wants us to be Boxer

Obama's inauguration speech was very interesting. At first, it appeared to travel in two different directions, conservative and liberal. It took me several hours and the memory of a quite memorable animated version of Orwell's Animal Farm to realize that he was, in fact, driving in the same direction the entire time.

Conservatives value and wish to reward hard work and responsibility. On the surface, Obama appears to agree with them. Watch for the reasons he gives to work hard, however, and who he hopes will benefit! That is where you will find the difference between the conservative and Boxer.

Who is Boxer? Boxer is the Animal Farm version of the working class, a draft horse who puts his all into his duties, doing everything he can. Uncomplaining, he does not take advantage of the perks of socialism, like the pigs do. His loyalty never wavers, and he trusts his new leaders even when their planned retirement for him is not a good rest, but the knacker's wagon. (In other words, for those of you who don't read British books regularly, the butcher.)

Let's take a look at Obama's speech. We already know the parts in which he mentions the importance of hard work, responsibility, and tough choices. Let us now examine for what or whom we are to sacrifice:

But those values upon which our success depends — hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism — these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility — a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

And earlier:

To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect.

When speaking of the military, what does he praise?

We honor them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service; a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves.

Yes, after years of trying to feed us falsehood-by-simplification, claiming that the extremism of liberalism is socialism and the extremism of conservatism is fascism, we now have someone telling us that the reason why we must work hard and be responsible is to benefit the Nation first and the entire world second. He is now able to spout fascism, and it is likely that few people will take this for what it is, because we've had repeated to us over and over that only Right-Wingers can be fascists.

That isn't to say that socialism was not a theme in his speech, however. Consider his goal for government:

We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age.

And again, you notice government's role in the everyday lives of its citizens:

The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified.

Lest you continue to question whether or not he is truly speaking of conservative responsibility or a new era of socialism, I point you towards his own websites detailing his own plans for America. Would you hear it only in his speech, and nowhere else? Try this piece:

Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control — and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart — not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.

Though many will try to tell you that his speech is a mixture of conservativism and liberalism, in actual fact his speech is a mixture of facism and socialism. We are to be hard-working and responsible to support the government, and the government is to provide for us. But how can he believe that this will work? It failed on Plymouth Rock. It failed in Russia. It failed in Italy. It is failing in China. Everywhere this has been tried, it has failed. He actually anticipates that question and answers it, also in his speech:

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them — that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply.

That's right, he is speaking fascism and socialism, and he knows it. He cannot deny it, only attempt to cloak it and confuse the issue. But in the end, he is doing two things: he is asking us all to be Boxer, and he is claiming that This Time It Will Work.