Obamacare, America is just not that into you.

The United States is into week three after the official launch of the Obamacare exchanges website and.....things are not looking so good for Pres. Obama's namesake health care plan.  Not only does the website fail to work properly in the majority of cases, the numbers of people who are ultimately choosing to buy their health insurance from the government is pathetically low.  Let's just face it.  Obamacare, we're just not that into you.  

The literal bottom line is that the Unaffordable Lack-of-Care and Patient Victimization Act needs you more than you need it. And why buy insurance, when you can have Medicaid for free?

CBS This Morning reports that Medicaid enrollment has been high, while Obamacare--well, you know that story. And thus actuates what conservatives have been saying about statist large-scale schemes to fund things do not work over the long haul. In health control's case, unlike Social Security, we will be seeing its failure a lot sooner than later.  In addition, the cost of that failure will be enough to rupture the average American's pants if not the entire US economy.

"Die! Die! Die!"

Yes, I enjoyed that wholesome family sit com Home Improvement.  It was one of the few contemporary family sit coms that still acknowledged common sense in everyday living instead of rationalizing ostentatious behavior as normative.  But I digress...in one episode the Taylor family goes to open mic poetry night at a local restaurant(?), and the first poem read is by a woman in Goth regalia.

"Die!"
"Die!"
"Die!" she poeticizes into the microphone.  Everyone looks around as it is apparent that that is all there is to this poem.

"You first," mutters Randy.  And that response is about as common sense as it gets.

Just two states over from where I live, a chilling high school banner reads:  "ZERO POPULATION GROWTH; IT'S UP TO YOU - NO MORE THAN TWO."  Wow.  So few words; so lengthy a message.  Apparently, zero is a good thing, and "you" must limit yourself to having two children (that's the unstated indirect object) in your lifetime.  Pretty heavy for high school, don't you think?

The one wrong thing to do about this poster is to give credit for any of the words on it.  First, zero population growth is not "zero population growth."  It is population stagnation, and if that is the goal, it would be similar to sloganing "Zero Economic Growth; It's Up To You - No More Than [insert arbitrary income level here]."  What the slogan does not recognize is that there is such a thing as an already declining birth rate, and that there is such a thing as a death rate.  As it stands, every major developed country is experiencing non-replacement birth rates.  I attended a conference last weekend, and the esteemed speaker, Dr. Craig Mitchell, had related to the audience that Japan in 2012 was the first year that purchases for adult diapers exceeded the purchases of baby diapers.  The irony of zero population growth is that it is not a controllable data point.  Populations cannot be controlled; they either rise or they fall destructively due to artificial stresses on society.  A birth rate equal to that of the death rate is unattainable through effort, because there are too many variables.

But that isn't the real goal, is it?  If you've been around the pro-life block several times like I have, you know that zero population growth isn't about balance.  It is not even about the environment as often touted.  No, environmental concerns are a smokescreen for gaining greater control by the powerful over the less powerful.  It is about instituting mass manipulation as fulfillment of a marginalized ideology that would never gain popularity if not for a generous bit of sophistry and fascism.  Every tyrant and dictator to have come into power since the 20th century has launched a campaign to reduce their local population to a "manageable" size.  The killing fields of Tuol Sleng, the failed agriculture scheme of Mao, the mass executions of Stalin--all done in the effort to stamp out dissent and the distasteful ideas that people should be free to earn and reproduce as they see fit, not as a central planner sees fit.

So "IT'S UP TO YOU," is not a word of encouragement.  It's a demand.  And given that there is absolutely zero context given to this poster, we can assume that all methods of meeting this goal may be implemented:  carcinogenic contraception, abortion, sterilization, gendercide.  Of course, these things done voluntarily is preferred, I'm sure.  Involuntary methods, however, are just one refusal away.

Sure, we'll get to the point where there are more elderly people to care for than there are caretakers.  Oh, but don't worry, the anti-humanitarian laws being introduced today will make executing them easier tomorrow by labeling it a "GOOD DEATH; IT'S UP TO YOU - ONE AND DONE."

You first.

Addendum: I find it ironic that those who advocate population reduction and control never include themselves in that population that must be reduced or controlled. Of course, they justify that kind of elitism with implying that no one would spread their message if they would volunteer to leave the land of the living first. But I would remind everyone that the ideology that has spawned their protests has come from people long dead now, and they should fear not for the immortality of their worldview. After all, in the words of Margaret Sanger, "there is nothing they do that hasn't been done before," so to be consistent, these population bombers should lead by example and be the first to improve the state of the earth by throwing themselves into the ovens. With popular support of euthanasia among them, why delay?

Abortion, The End of Science

The nerd in me finds this stuff fascinating.  Towards the end, scientist Drew Barry says that scientific discovery is just part of the goal of eradicating disease and poverty.  Now, please think about that:  science is useful for discovering ways to cure disease (and by "poverty," I assume he means physical disabilities that prevent people from being able to work to provide for themselves).  Who thinks that is a bad thing?  No one, right(?)...we think...except that the idea of using science to cure disease and to make people well runs directly counter to the prevailing indoctrination that abortion is used to cure disease and eliminate poverty.  Why pursue scientific discovery for the purpose of advancing medicine when the most efficient method of eradicating disease and poverty is abortion?

Not only that, abortion is touted as a right and classified as a right by the Supreme Court of the United States.  Notice what has happened here--scientific medical treatment is not a right.  Therefore, no one has a right to demand a cure or treatment for disease.  As much as liberal politicians talk about health care being a "right," the truth is that has not been established by a court decision.  But abortion has.

Now we come to a certain dilemma.  If abortion is a right, then there is nothing about it that can be criticized.  In fact, being a right means it is a state-sanctioned, superior practice to all others, including medical science.  Abortion removes a major impetus for medical scientific discovery, because it is doing a much better job at eradicating disease and poverty by eliminating those that are diseased and/or poor (supposedly).  Has medical science cured 90% of all Down Syndrome children from ever walking on the earth?  I submit it has not.  Has it successfully removed from the American population 57 million individuals who would have come into the world diseased, poor, unwanted, or otherwise useless to society?  No to that too. Abortion has had numerically more success at its advertised aims than medicine, I believe (and not just in the U.S. but globally).  If we took seriously all the reasons in favor of abortion, we should come to realize that abortion alone is the solution to all afflictions (be they medical or social) that can be detected early enough.

At this point, many will want to argue with me saying that medical scientific discovery cannot be compared to abortion.  They will, hopefully, arrive at the conclusion that medical science seeks to cure the individual of disease, while abortion seeks to kill the individual with a disease.  This is a very important distinction that dismantles the notion that aborting babies who are diseased or might be born into a life with few material resources is a necessity and a right for the sake of the ones who are not being aborted.  If we want to respect the field of medical research and discovery properly, we cannot continue to accept the view of abortion as the solution to disease and poverty.  Abortion for reason of disease or poverty is a logical farce.

Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely "Shut Down"

Pro-Life Fridays Radio Monologue - October 4, 2013

Obamacare and the Shut Down.  One of my media friends calls it a "#Shutnado," but really it has been more like the government passing gas this week.  At best not impressive.  At worst, offensive, and it stinks up a room.  All nonessential federal services were supposed to be shut down until the House Republicans agree to fully funding The Unaffordable Lack-of-Care and Patient Victimization Act as part of the Continuing Resolution to raise the government debt ceiling.  Where--what part of any of this sounds right to you?  I mean, if this is not a kind of political Greek Hell, I don't even know.  Even Russia's President, Vladimir Putin, is being considered for a Nobel Peace Prize for talking down our Nobel Peace Prize President from his warmongering stance against Syria!  I'm starting to think that those fluoridated water conspiracy theorists have something--that decades of drinking fluoridated water has lowered our IQs enough so that we think this craziness is just normal life, but we're really living in Greek Hell.  Maybe.  Just maybe.

But never fear, essential services are still being provided.  And by "essential," I mean--the Obama Administration means--essential, like guards and barricades at national parks and open-air memorials, White House executive chefs, Michelle Obama's remaining personal assistants (plural), and HHS programs meant for sterilizing American Indians who are part of the Navajo Nation. Yes, that's right.  CNS news reports that the Department of Health and Human Services has grants totalling $450,000 to "provide birth control--including "long acting" contraceptives and "sterilization"--in the Navajo Nation’s tribal lands."

Article:  "HHS Promoting 'Long-Acting Contraception, Sterilization, in Dwindling Navajo Nation"

$450,000--big deal, you say.  Well, if you aren't bothered by even $1 of your money being spent on the continuing and slow demise of not just one but several ethnic groups, maybe you'll appreciate that the shut down is shutting down NIH funding for cancer research and clinical drug trials, but the Shut Down is giving $455 million (yes, that's a thousand times more than for sterilizing Navajo Americans) to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.  If you think those on the Left are at all tearful and would work to mitigate this, just ask Harry Reid.  Oh right, someone did ask leading him to blurt out his famous "Why would I want to do that?" line.  I swear, that is the most honest thing ever to come out of Harry Reid's mouth.  Yes, population control and narrative control--all very necessary and essential under the Obortion Administration.  So sorry for children suffering from cancer.  Ladies and gentlemen, if you haven't realized it by now, this is the Emperor's fully armed and operational battle station.

This is not a shut down; it's a form of extortion.  But we've been here before.  Last time.  When the President threatened that seniors would not get their Social Security checks if Congress didn't approve of the last debt ceiling hike (erhm and Sequestration)!  This President has used people--used them as human shields--as a way of extorting our politicians into getting what he wants "100%," and he's still doing it.  I hear people, conservative Americans even, dismiss pro-life issues such as we talk about on this show as being irrelevant to the economics and policies that are really important to America.

Please, I'm begging you to wake up and realize that we are swimming in those issues everyday when we talk about economics and policy.  There is no separating what has been intertwined in public policy.  Pres. Obama was willing to use our senior citizens on Social Security as pawns in his political schemes then.  Now, his administration is halting research for cancer patients in favor of funding government media mouthpieces and moving  forward with funding for birth control and sterilization for already diminishing peoples.  And for what--to bankroll a health care system that is designed NOT to make sure everyone can get Congressional-style coverage (that claim was a joke from the beginning), but to be able to select out who the elites think is worthy of receiving care, just like they do in Canada and Europe.  In Belgium, they limit access to certain kinds of life-saving drugs and medical treatments but fully fund assisted suicide--don't think Obamacare won't do the same.  Instead of funding life-saving measures, Obamacare instead will fund abortion.  Isn't it nice to know that Grandma, who might not be able to get an operation to save her life, can get subsidized $9/month birth control pills and all the abortions she wants?  Fabulous.

And I'm going to keep saying it until it sinks in.  If what is considered "just a social issue" is not worth the time to seriously discuss, then why did a liberal like Democrat Wendy Davis spend 11 hours filibustering on the Texas Senate floor?  Why did she wear a freaking catheter--those things are painful as childbirth, I tell you.  So talking about it makes you uncomfortable--does it make you want to insert a catheter into your urinary tract to avoid it?...because Wendy Davis wore one for 11 hours so that she could shut down a bill about limiting abortion.  Don't tell me this is a sideline issue, because it sure isn't one for the Left. Obamacare proves it--the Shut Down proves it.  All conservatives need to come to grips with this fact.  It would be a relief to talk about abortion as a social issue one day--the day we stop making it legal, so then I can say "At least it's not legal."  But that day hasn't come.

"Shut Down" Like a Woman Scorned

Pro-Life Fridays Radio Monologue - October 11, 2013

Aaand the Selective Shut Down continues. If you're like me, you're almost at the point of sick of hearing about it, except that something new happens everyday that is supposedly shutdown-related.  Truth be told, the Shut Down is a little farce--I don't mean the Shut Down itself is a farce, but a lot of what is being done in the name of shutting down the government is a farce.

Example:  you know the joke that was floating around about the government covering Mt. Rushmore with a giant sheet?  Yes, we all knew it is a joke the moment we heard it--apparently, though, Snopes.com thought it was such a thing that they published one of their debunks on it.  Ha!  Well, it is almost literally true.  Twitchy reports that police in the vicinity of Mt. Rushmore have put up cones on the road at points where Mt. Rushmore can be seen while driving.  The cones are placed there so that people cannot pull over and look at the monument.  Seriously!  The government is shut down, so as much money as it takes to shut down what normally requires little to no money whatsoever to experience is being spent to keep people from even seeing what is visible to everyone.  A mountain, for crying out loud.

But that's not all.  Yesterday, a story came out all over the place that an international tourist group was detained by armed park rangers at Yellowstone National Park, who--who--let me just read the story.

Article:  "Gestapo Tactics Meet Senior Citizens at Yellowstone"

Honestly, by the end of reading this story, I thought this was a hoax--that is how absurd this story sounds.  "No recreating!"?!?  Don't take photos of passing wildlife or go to the bathroom?  And they have guns on them to make sure you do what they say?  As absurd as it is, it is also very disconcerting.

But I've got one more.  In the name of "Shut Down," a jogger was fined $100 for jogging at Valley Forge National Historical Park.  Since when does "Shut Down" mean you can't go jogging in a public place?  Oh, and one more, one more:  private businesses that happen to be situated on federal property have been ordered inaccessible, and people living in their private homes that happen to be located on federal property have been kicked to the curb until further notice.

Folks, a government shutdown does not mean that federally public properties are to be made inaccessible...at the point of a gun.  We are in a shutdown, which means federal employees aren't working their jobs (certain federal employees), and buildings are closed, offices are closed, NOT open air parks blockaded like a passage out of North Korea and people's lives and businesses taken down by armed personnel. That is not a shutdown.  Meanwhile, the government is funding the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, opening the Washington Mall to a rally for illegal immigration, and purchasing mechanical bulls.  What shutdown?

For the last few days, I've been searching for the right word to describe this 'so not a shut down' brouhaha.  People have been saying that this is a temper tantrum from President Obama--yes, I think that's partly the case. People have said it is petty, spiteful...yes, I'll agree, but that still doesn't hit the nail on the head for me.  And then I got it.  Late at night, when all strokes of genius take place.  What is the word?  "Catty."  I know you're underwhelmed, but bear with me please.  This is the kind of thing many wives do (and all wives want to do) when they discover their husbands cheating on them.   This is about punishment and emotional retribution.  It is a catty reaction to not getting your way, and there is no shadow of doubt in my mind that how this "Shut Down" has been conducted was conceived in the mind of a woman. So as much as President Obama has to take the responsibility for screwing the American public like this, holding tourists hostage was not his idea -- at least not his alone.

On our doorstep--sex selective abortion is creeping into greater prominence in the Western world, and people are going to see the rubber meet the road.  In Australia, a doctor by the name of Mark Hobart is coming under fire from the Medical Board of Victoria for refusing to refer a couple to an abortionist when they expressed that they wanted to abort their baby girl.  According to the Australian Herald Sun News,

Under Victorian law, he was obliged to refer the patient to a doctor he knew would terminate the pregnancy.
But Dr Hobart doesn't know any doctor who would agree to abort a healthy baby for sex selection reasons.
"The general response from my colleagues is disbelief and revulsion," he said.
In any case, a referral is not necessary for an abortion. Hobart's patient independently procured the abortion a few days later. Neither she nor her husband made any complaint.

So the Medical Board is making an issue out of something that, legally, is not an issue.  I don't know how any government can compel doctors to refer people to others who will do something completely unethical. I mean, what if, in the name of being oneself, a doctor...here, I have a real example--a man wanted a dentist to remove all his teeth for no medically necessary purpose.  Now imagine if the law orders this doctor to refer this man to someone who would do that.  That's not only unethical, it's ridiculous.  The man can find some other dentist who would do it--you can find anyone to do anything under the right circumstances.  I mean, he could even find someone to do a "back alley teeth extraction" for him, if you know what I mean.

Safer If They Called the AFA "Jihadis"

There's a rebuttal out there to the accusation of being paranoid, and that it is not paranoia if somebody's really out to get you.  Effective as a "Strike two!" call in a baseball game is the newest reveal that the US Army is naming the American Family Association a domestic hate group akin to the KKK and the Westboro Baptist Church.  And to make sure Army personnel didn't misunderstand, the briefing at which this became an issue included a presentation slide putting Fred Phelps' photo (complete with him holding up a poster that says "No Special Law for F***") on a slide labeled American Family Association.  The rationale?  The AFA is strongly pro-traditional marriage and opposed to the recognition of same-sex unions as marriage.

Apparently, that position is all it takes to be labeled by the Army.

Ahem. When did the US Army get First Amendment rights?  I know for certain that individuals in the military have limited free speech rights on the condition of their service, so I would think that logically, our entire military has to curb its freedom to express an opinion that opposition to same-sex marriage is hate.  Speaking of free speech, it is an opinion that exceeds the purview of the military, because marriage is, as many conservative groups have argued, is just a social issue.  Hate is a social issue.  Violence and the threat to harm is not, and clearly the AFA is not an organization that engages or endorses any type of violence whatsoever.

This is a "Strike two!" occasion because, as Todd Starnes pointed out, this briefing by the Army is itself a dangerous hate move not unlike how the Family Research Council was also labeled by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a potential target for a truly hateful fascist to attack, which then happened.  In fact, Army officers have come to see themselves as idealogues and the mechanism of the Army as a force for activism.

One officer said the two Christian ministries did not “share our Army Values.”
“When we see behaviors that are inconsistent with Army Values – don’t just walk by – do the right thing and address the concern before it becomes a problem,” the officer wrote in an email to his subordinates.

The US Army has values?  And it is incumbent upon the American public to conform to those "Army Values?"  Call me hog-tied to the text (or paranoid!), but I'm certain that whatever Army Values exist are supposed to be reflective of the US Constitution which in no way acknowledges that one must campaign to "address concerns" of average American citizens that are "inconsistent with (so-called) Army Values."

So if the Army is going to fling open that door, then I'm not paranoid, and it's safe again to trod out Hitler references to things I find smack of fascism.  I ask that our government root out the Nazi dictator who compiled this briefing and jack him/her up for conspiracy to deprive the people of the AFA of their First Amendment rights and for putting them in potential physical harm.

Warning:  unlike baseball, there is no limit to the number of strikes anyone can make against Christian groups.