A rainy day for judicial activism May 31, 2007
Posted by reformedville in : culture, Government, Media , add a commentToday was a very good day! I woke up this morning to read my “google news bites” and tabbed four articles to read, one by Susan Estrich. I like Susan Estrich, because though we normally see things completely different, it gives me another facet of the gem to view and many times cuts to the core of the issue, instead of loading in fluff. I appreciate that, because agree or not you get to deal with the issue and her posit on it. This is no different, but I could not disagree with her more, and in fact, this is a day that gives me a gleam of hope that all may not be lost in our court system.
Susan in her hit piece on the supreme court posits that Sandra Day O’ Connor is no longer ‘her hero’ because she retired to take care of her husband, when she was needed in Washington to carry the banner of womens rights and if in fact she had been there in Washington that this case would have been decided the other way.
The amount of assumptions here is staggering, but what is not, is the fact Susan posits if O’Connor was on still on the court, this case would have been rendered as a heart position, or a cause position, despite the facts of the case. Her vote for women could have been counted on. The case of Lilly Ledbetter at first glimpse may look like one of discrimination ‘as Susan frames it’, but onced one reads the opinion, the lament is not the decision, but that the justices are deciding cases on the law as written by Congress.
Based on current law and case law this was a shot in the dark for a retired employee at the end of a lackluster career in management who laments that after countless poor performance reviews and near lay-offs, that she was discriminated against for being a woman.
Susan reduces her piece to the seniority Ledbetter had and that over a nineteen year period a fellow manager was making 15,000 a year more than her, as well as some new hires making more than her. Anyone in management knows rates of pay for job titles increase, especially over a period of two decades. Many times I have seen new hires compensated very close to someone who has been loyal to the company store for decades because of these increases. You will see more of this with the new minimum wage rate hikes that seniority will lose major value in the terms of compensation.
How can an manager go back after two decades and cry about their compensation? This looks very much like a case that nearing retirement a manager who was content with their compensation sees a way to take an early retirement being spurned on by an attorney in what many ways closely resembles a test case.
Do we know if this manager was initially hired to fill a quota of women managers for the company? We do know that there were plenty of uncontested poor performance reviews that denied her any raise. Where is it written that if you have a group of managers that a man must be the lowest paid among them so not to be accused of discrimination? Is Susan positing that it is unfair for a company to give increases based on performance of their job title?Susan is positing a rote style compense package for managers where all variables, including a managers expectation to bargain for compensation if they are unpleased with their package, at which time a decision would be made if the managers value to the company and case for the raise is justified. I can tell you many managers who are unsure of their value to the company in terms of compensation would never risk their employ by laying it all on the line to get the adjustment or else, where others do it frequently. In her case she remains mute for all these years about her dissatisfaction of not getting raises ,then yells discrimination ex post facto. Susan is a law professor and really has misrepresented this to the readers.
Furhter, Susan denigrates marriage and peoples commitment to one another (those silly vows) in this piece. While she fights for a womens loyalty to the company store on one hand, she knocks Sandra’s priorities of her commitments in life , honoring her vows and placing it as a higher place of import than her employment.
Ironically, Susan also unwittingly reduces Justice O’Connor to nothing more than a mindless rubber stamp who will come through for the cause despite the facts in the case, which Susan noteably only provides very few details on, and to which I respond. If Justice O ‘Connor was as shallow (support the cause, the facts are irrelevant) as Susan posits her choice, for the sake of the law her choice to retire was none to soon. However, Justice O’Connor was many times deemed flippant as being a swing vote, which denotes she in fact thought through the cases she heard, and I believe that Susan owes her an apology for denigrating her to a mere rubber stamp.
For those of you who felt I had nothing good to say about the President the last couple posts, take heart ! In reviewing the past two presidential elections , there is one often forgotten dynamic that may have well been responsible for putting George Bush in the oval office, the appointment of Supreme Court Justices and his promise to appoint men that would be strict constitutionalists. He did nominate Judges to the bench who believe in interpeting the law and not legislating from the bench. If we disagree with a law we are to change the law through the legislative process, not wait until the case is in court and then expose another to liablilty/damages by legislating from the bench. The law is complex and voluminous enough today, at a minimum it must be a fixed standard if we are to maintain a society that has any sense of normative rule of law, otherwise we have chaos and disorder.
Do you believe Susan was disingenuous with her recounting of the case in light of the facts of the case and the well reasoned opinion?
Do you support changing the law in the court if you feel it is wrong? If so, should someone be exposed to financial liabilty/damages if the court finds the law is unfair?
In reading this case do you feel that managers who performed well and to company standards deserve a larger increase than someone who does not? If all are compensated the same despite performance what is the motivation to do a good job or the penalty for not?
Do you feel Ledbetter was discriminated against?
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Ledbetter, Lilly v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. Docket: 05-1074 Term: 06-07 Appealed From: 11th Circuit Court of Appeals (Aug. 23, 2005) Oral Argument: 11-27-06 Opinion Issued: 5-4 for Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. (Alito-May 29, 2007) Subjects: Title VII, sex discrimination, disparate pay, statute of limitations Question presented: Whether a plaintiff asserting a disparate pay claim under Title VII against an employer that periodically reviewed and re-established her pay under a facially neutral compensation system may challenge pay decisions prior to the last decision immediately preceding the start of the statutory limitations period? Related Links:Supreme Court opinion (May 29, 2007) 11th Circuit opinion (Aug. 23, 2005) Feature - The Court and 77 cents on the dollar Brief in opposition of certiorari - Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. 2002 Supreme Court opinion in National Railroad Passenger Corp. v. Morgan |
“I do solemnly swear that I will ……. ” May 24, 2007
Posted by reformedville in : culture, Immigration, Government , 1 comment so far|
These are not words to be taken lightly by a man, , especially when that man is the President of the United States of America, the Chief Executive and Commander in Chief of our armed forces. When I was growing up, at home I taught the biblical principle of James 5:12″ But above all, my brothers, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath, but let your “yes” be yes and your “no” be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation. In school, this principal was reinforced, many times by the urbane saying, “word is bond” or ”let a man’s word be his bond” ; it’s origin from the days of the financial markets that you didn’t have to put it into writing, or put bond money down, you were going to do what you promised you would do, many times sealed by a handshake. The full oath taken by the President is contained in Article II, Section 1: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of the President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” The Constitution succinctly defines presidential functions, powers, and responsibilities. The president’s chief constitutional duty is to make sure that the laws are faithfully executed by virtue of his oath to do so. However, this morning I wake up to read in the news that once again the executive branch has “thumbed their nose” at the Constitution. Uphold the laws? Protect the borders? No, “Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Wednesday that Republican conservatives (are) working to block an immigration bill risk endorsing a “silent amnesty” by insisting on deportations that are “not going to happen.” according to USA Today
In addition, the president is expected to stump for the bill next week and a “rapid response” team is countering critics, not only in the conventional media but, for the first time, on Internet blogs, said White House communications director Kevin Sullivan. The president’s press secretary, Tony Snow, already has debated talk radio host Rush Limbaugh and TV commentator Lou Dobbs, both critics of the bill. Chertoff acknowledged that there is “a fundamental unfairness” in a bill allowing illegal immigrants to stay. But trying to force them to leave would be impossible, Chertoff said, “We are bowing to reality.” He dismissed the argument of Republican conservatives, such as Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Calif., who argue that illegal immigrants will leave if strict enforcement of U.S. laws makes it impossible for them to find a job. Bilbray said his idea hasn’t worked because “there’s been a conscious strategy of not enforcing the law.”Bilbray could not have put in more succinctly, because we have failed to protect our borders and turned our heads as American employers have thumbed their noses at the immigration law, aided and abetted by the Bush’s administration failure to enforce it. In light of the attacks of September 11, 2001, this is inexcusable. The article goes on to directly address a position I have written on before: “Chertoff acknowledged that there is “a fundamental unfairness” in a bill allowing illegal immigrants to stay. But trying to force them to leave (enforcing the law)would be impossible, Chertoff said, “We are bowing to reality.” He dismissed the argument of Republican conservatives, such as Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Calif., who argue that illegal immigrants will leave if strict enforcement of U.S. laws makes it impossible for them to find a job. This argument is answered by “You’re not going to replace 12 million people who are doing the work they’re currently doing,” Chertoff said.Now follow this line of argument. The administration turns a blind eye to illegal immigration over the past decade. The employers hire these illegal immigrants, receive notices from social security administration on bad social security numbers, do not follow I-9 hiring procedures, and face few if any ramifications for it. I know this to be true because I worked for a national contractor who did this, and in inspecting the personnel files found the majority of our employees to be illegal, no I-9 forms, incomplete personnel files and the lowest rates of pay of any of our units. The same argument. But it is fouled logic, I was able to quickly replace them with legal citizens.The “key” came out later, these workers do not demand raises or benefits and are just happy for a job. In other words screw our citizens and the immigrants who came legally and went through the process to get here properly, they actually want a fair rate of pay and benefits, these people will work for less and who cares about all this legal garbage? The cure is to start placing the onus of responsibility not on the immigrant, not on building new fences, but on the employer. If the employer is cuffed and has criminal charges filed for intentionally breaking federal law, the well runs dry on jobs, which in turn will cause the illegal to return home or come back legally. See not only do they not hire the citizen (their neighbors), they place an extra burden on the them, in the form of food assistance, medical assistance, educational expenses for their children and increased law enforcement costs. And does this bother the employer? No. He is thumbing his nose at the community and the taxpayers of that community as well, laying extra burden on them and not providing relief in the form of jobs. Now why do you think the government has a hands-off policy on this? I mean, we have legislators like Tancredo and Bilbray who clearly state the problem and solution? No, politicians don’t want to cut the campaign funds of major contributors off to their campaigns ! But instead of enforcement we are told, “People all around the country will be seeing teary-eyed children whose parents are going to be deported.”
“The reality is, we don’t have enough people,” said Gutierrez. Hold the phone. Haven’t we been told that our jobs are all going overseas by the democrats? Which is it? Both can’t be true. The spin cycle is so heavy and is planned to play on your emotion and reasoning and avoid the tough facts; as allow the true guilty parties to be held harmless.A few examples, (all of these are linked) I.N.S. Looks the Other Way on Illegal Immigrant Labor , Execs indicted, Tyson Foods, Con Agra, Cargill and Mohawk, There is an old maxim, the risk is worth the fine, so if we fine employers who we arrest, the company pays the fine, the stockholders take a bite, or perhaps a price increase comes to reflect the cost. But the company officers does not go to prison to violating the law. You look at this and it reminds you of the RICO act, except it is the government involved in systemically breaking the law, and then claiming we have to live with the ramifications because these companies who broke the laws won’t have employees. Too bad, is it our problem? Are we supposed to be told by the government that our cost of subsidizing the illegals low wages and the added cost on the infrastructure is ours to keep so Tyson Foods can hire illegal immigrants? Incidentally, In the 2004 election cycle, Cargill and Tyson donated over $300,000 to Bush’s reelection bid. Section 3 of Article II of the Constitution states in his duties (not options) “he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed”. The President and his administration has systematically failed to uphold our immigration laws or protect our border from invasion by noncitizen. Not only has he failed to do so, now he also admits the inability to do so. Further he has made plans and is instituting a plan to silence those who demand that the law be enforced. If that is not enough, he has a new plan, (should we call him the man with the plan?) A powerful think tank chaired by former Sen. Sam Nunn and guided by trustees including Richard Armitage, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Harold Brown, William Cohen and Henry Kissinger, is in the final stages of preparing a report to the White House and U.S. Congress on the benefits of integrating the U.S., Mexico and Canada into one political, economic and security bloc. The final report, published in English, Spanish and French, is scheduled for submission to all three governments by Sept. 30, according to the Center for Strategic & International Studies. CSIS boasts of playing a large role in the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994 – a treaty that set in motion a political movement many believe resembles the early stages of the European Community on its way to becoming the European Union. So lets not enforce the law, lets change the borders so its not a crime, forget this sovereign nation nonsense! President Bush, without so much as issuing a press statement, on May 9, 2007 signed a directive that granted near dictatorial powers to the office of the president in the event of a national emergency declared by the president. The “National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive,” with the dual designation of NSPD-51, as a National Security Presidential Directive, and HSPD-20, as a Homeland Security Presidential Directive, establishes under the office of president a new National Continuity Coordinator. That job, as the document describes, is to make plans for “National Essential Functions” of all federal, state, local, territorial, and tribal governments, as well as private sector organizations to continue functioning under the president’s directives in the event of a national emergency. The directive loosely defines “catastrophic emergency” as “any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions.” Now here is where the rubber meets the road, I clearly remember impeachment proceedings of President Clinton for his lying under oath. Republicans were frothing to get Clinton out of office over Monicagate and this crime of untruthful testimony under oath, and wanted to hold him to account. Now we have a republican president who has lied under oath, as he has failed to faithfully execute the office by failing to enforce the laws of the United States, and further, refuses to. He also refuses to hold law breaking employers to account for their actions and says there is nothing we can do. One of the jagging points on President Clinton with me was his profession of faith and then his actions after such profession by trying to justify his actions. But here I see a blatant refusal to uphold our law by a professing Christian who claims God wanted him to be the POTUS! And a planned spin campaign to change the issue Now some questions: Should the interests of employers outweigh the law of the United States? If not, should employers of known illegal immigrants be arrested? In your view is the problem the immigrants or is the problem the employers who lure the immigrants? Is the oath of office a binding oath in your opinion? If so, what should be the ramifications for violating that oath? If not, should it be removed by amendment to the Constitution? Is refusal to enforce the law, the major job description of the President , a cause for removal from office? If not, why ? Should the President have the power to unilaterally ignore the Legislative Branch and pick and choose which laws he will enforce ignoring our sovereign borders? If you are a Christian, can you justify supporting a President who has violated the biblical principal of let your “yes” be yes and your “no” be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation? What should be the consequences of his actions, if any? |
When the truth becomes a liability May 24, 2007
Posted by reformedville in : culture, Government, Theology , add a commentWith the death of Jerry Falwell last week, a man who like or dislike him, you must recognize his undisputed legacy was to get the Christian out of the pew, out of the church and back into the public square. He broke the silence of Christians in the political arena. Today you have others that will have a mixed review but whose legacy will be getting Christians to be members of the community again, rather than cloistered in the church.
For Christians though, many have bandied to the republican party, and relied on the republicans to be conservative and to represent their values. However last week we certainly had a apex where people are going to have to make a choice. The truth became a liability in South Carolina and very clear that it is not welcomed in the republican party.
Rather than rehash work, and links already done, Vic (link) and Andy(link) have two excellent pieces and articles on the subject. Just as the climate for spiritual abuse is set by biblical illiteracy; so is the climate in every other arena. Failing to hold our political leaders to account and first to be truthful, rather than parrot a line, then to assault truth and call it unwelcome, or term it unpatriotic is inexcusable.
The truth is an unsettling matter and tough to deal with. A song comes to mind from years back from Fleetwood Mac: Tell Me Lies. We should be very careful of who we lend our support to publicly when we don the title Christian and associate it with ourselves. Don’t be used as a stooge and parrot lines, it reflects on the body of Christ.
Do you feel like the republican party has been honest with the American public? Do you in any way equate someones political affiliations with their Christianity? Are you comfortable with political messages from the pulpit? Do Christians really have a public voice that represents them or are they just thrown a bone now and then to keep them in line and quiet?
We hold these truths ….or we used to? May 21, 2007
Posted by reformedville in : culture, Government, Uncategorized , add a commentBeen a really busy week , plus I am getting used to these new glasses, so I am catching up on some much missed reading of books once again ! Anyway, I had started to do some reading in the minimal spare time I have had this past week researching the genesis (and conflicting articles) of the first sentence of the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, which I hope to get a post out on this week.
But quite honestly, I have been distracted, no unsettled to the core frankly, after reading it again. To be honest, I have avoided reading it for quite a while because it makes me angry. Coming from a founding family of Pennsylvania/United States, settling areas of the eastern parts of the state in which there was bloodshed, as well as family signing the Pennsylvania ratification(which amounted to treason against the crown), these documents have meaning as my family participated, as Huguenots who truly immigrated from Europe for religious freedom from a state religion.
“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government…”
” But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security”
I wish I could sit down over a cup of coffee with my forefathers and compare notes to see if the oppression from the crown was any worse than the oppression of the United States government.In reading their history, these men would be banging thesis on our church doors and be writing a new declaration today. I have been unsettled, because reading the clauses again reminds me that our forefathers were men of principle who wanted to live free and paid the ultimate price to do so, for us. Read those words, really read them. I do not know how a man today could read them an remain settled in their spirit.
Economic illiteracy and its implications May 18, 2007
Posted by reformedville in : culture, Government, Media , add a commentI recently ran a post on Biblical illiteracy and its implication, a subject a group I belong to has been studying for this months meeting. Basically biblical illiteracy sets the stage for both spiritual abuse and disorder and chaos to come into the church due to total reliance for information to come from the leaders of the group. People have just become lazy and dependant, therefore, are mutually culpable.
After posting the article, I was listening to the news, a rare event, because it normally just upsets me how far from the truth it is, and how it is spun to veer peoples attention to one point while we are being fleeced during the distraction. It reminds me of when this group started a ruckus at the mall and the police converged on it and there were robberies on the other end of town while they were distracted. Diversion works well to a ignorant and unsuspecting populace.
The short clip was focusing on the raise in gas price from last year on the same date being 2.89 a gallon and this year being 3.09 a gallon and the impact it was going to have as they project it will possibly go higher. I get my calculator out and it is roughly a 6.9% increase in cost over last year, yet they were mum about the fact for most of the winter the price was 2.59 a gallon, (sometimes lower), which was over 10% less than last mays pricing. They also leave out the fact the number of different fuel mixtures that come into play each spring for different states. Last time I researched this it was 16 different mixtures required by different states, making fuel more expensive to make in the summer months than the winter ones due to government interference in the market.
We are all affected by this increase and we see it singularly because we normally pull up to the pump to make a single purchase fuel. And it is one direct area we do see inflation, and no one likes to pay more money. But yet the news clip says congress is going to investigate what is causing the problem. Talk about smoke and mirrors! Investigate what? How government regulations affects the price of a commodity? How supply and demand affect the market?
If you remember over the past thirty years we have done much to prop up the economies of third world and major population centers under the premise of creating new markets for our businesses so we could prosper. Two such countries were the largest population centers in the world, China and India. Now these are both nuclear states (with missile technology made available from us so they can now deliver warheads here) who are competing with us and in fact creating new markets, albeit protected markets, proven by our ever expanding trade imbalances. But the by product of this creating new markets is that we created new demands on natural resources which did not previously exist, namely in the context of this article, oil. And of course, they are not requiring the same standards on pollutant restrictions that we have imposed on our country, so to deliver final product is also cheaper in the final production stage. In effect, the government is going to investigate why, after they propped up a market and created a demand to compete for middle eastern, russian and venezuela oil , why did the supply/demand factor change reflected in a higher price for the commodity? If this is why they are investigating the price increase, they need to get out of Washington and back into economics 101.
But yet the sheeple, prodded by the media, jump on the bandwagon and want to demonize standard economic forces of what creates a pricing/valuation, rather than question the information being fed to them. Bumbling idiots are put on the airwaves nightly to claim the impact this is having on them. I am so glad I have gone to a very basic basic cable so I can’t be tempted to watch Faux News, CNN, MSNBC and the other disinformation sources!
Has anyone questioned this methanol solution that the government has been subsidizing? Where is this solution coming into play in reducing fuel prices? Has it increased or decreased fuel economy, (which affects the overall inflationary impact in has on fuel) ? What ripple effects has it caused? Well this is an area where we all have been affected, the ripple effect of the change of usage of corn! The price of vegetables is higher than ever. Ranchers are now faced with the question of whether to use the corn for feed or to sell it for methanol use. Beef has increased in price and most likely after the summer we will see it increase even more. Milk has begun to rise in price. (And it is not as if the agrarian family farmer is the major benefactor in this, the corporate farm is the major benefactor. It would pay you to investigate just who these corporate farmers are so they can’t pull the “farmer is benefiting” routnine over you. One bad year is enough to put most family farmers in dire straights, two to three enough to bankrupt them.)
Now as a percentage of our household budget, what affect does this raise in price of fuel, if permanent, have on the average household. They spouted a fact (which I will just repeat for arguments sake) that Americans 300 million, consume a daily average of 377 million gallons of fuel each day, or roughly 1.25 gallons per day per person. If the average tank size is 16 gallons this rise in price is 3.20 per tank of fuel. If the average household is 4 persons, that is a consumption of 5 gallons of fuel a day per household with the economic impact of 1.00 a day on average. I am looking at my grocery bills during the same time, without increasing the amount we buy, and I have seen about an 80.00 increase per month since the same time last year and being more conscious about what I buy. That is roughly a 2.67 increase per day. During the same time frame our fuel expenditure has remained almost constant, being more conscious of getting what we need when we are out and not making wasted trips to the store.
Even if the rise in food prices doesn’t ruffle your feathers, the real smoke and mirrors to distract you has come in on another level, and instead of speaking about it with caution it is being praised! Last year this time in Pennsylvania our minimum wage was 5.15 an hour. In January it was increase to 6.15 an hour and in July it will be increased to 7.15 an hour. Not only is this government interference in the market place that will be both inflationary and hurt the ones it is claimed to be helping, it is being lauded as some great accomplishment by government. In effect, we have changed the wage scale 38.8% over a one year period for the least skilled workers in our society. But to the skilled what does this do,? It decreases their buying power and the value of their salary.
Now you would think people would be up in arms about this , especially those who are skilled. Why the silence? Well most people do not realize the caveat in most union contracts is a clause that predicates that their wage is tied to minimum wage. Now obviously, they will not receive a 38.8% increase in their wages, I don’t want to even hint at that. But, if the minimum wage is raised , their contract is adjusted to reflect the actual difference in rates, so it is not only the minimum wage that is increased, many union workers also received an increase.
Why don’t we know about this? Well, many of these union employees happen to be teachers themselves. Again, please don’t misunderstand the premise of this to be all union employees or all union teachers got a increase, they did not. But the premise is that government is not only concerned about a feigned interest in the conditions for the poor, they are concerned with votes and the best way to get the support of people is to positively affect their pocketbooks.
So while we are focused on the increased gas price, that may or may not stay at 3.09 a gallon, while all are on the ruckus at the pumps, the gang is on the other side of towns fleecing us, and many of us do not even realize it.
In the same manner which people through ignorance open themselves up to abuse and being misled by leaders in a church, people in the secular society also expose themselves to abuse and smoke and mirrors in the secular world. The difference comes that in a church, you do have the option of leaving and going to another church. However, in a secular society, this option is not as viable. In both cases though, we find that abuse is made possible due to ignornance, and in both cases, the information is readily available to those being abused/taken advantage of. While this in no way exonerates the leaders from their culpability, it also does not excuse the person who is the subject of the abuse, as they have no excuse. Laziness, lethargy and apathy are inexcusable.
One must wonder, do we as a nation have the intestinal fortitude to take corrective measures to counter the state to which we have devolved? Will we ever hold the government to account for their actions by voting Congress out when they betray us? I don’t see it, do you? How long to the Point of No Return?
Biblical illiteracy and its implications May 18, 2007
Posted by reformedville in : culture, Government, Media , add a commentThis month our reformation groups topic was biblical illiteracy and it’s implications and ramifications on the church. Our groups leader is friends with Dr. Kroll (Back to the Bible) and was sharing information Dr. Kroll had compiled over the years on the biblical literacy of Christians and their reasons for not reading the Bible.
In our roundtable discussions, I was positing that this lack of literacy is a main factor in spiritual abuse today, and also that we have come full circle back to the time of the reformation generally in ‘the broad church’ today, relying on what the preacher says and teaches. Very similar to the times of the reformation when the congregant didn’t have the Bible.
In many situations, I truly believe that this lack of literacy plays to the advantage of many pastors today, as they are able to create such a divide between their knowledge they retain and the congregants lethargy and lack of passion, it creates a safe situation of being above challenge. I am not sure if it is intentionally abusive as much as a self defense mechanism, but in the end it plays out to the detriment of the congregation and opens the door for abuse among the trusting.
Interesting enough when I came home and was reading some more on this subject, I found some good comparisons as it relates to Catholics today.I found this article that should be a further eyeopener, if not an embarrassment to protestant overseers.
The Catholic Church does not persecute those who read the Bible anymore; on the contrary, they want people to read it. The two most recent Popes have made declarations that, if Martin Luther were alive and were to hear them, he would die of a heart attack.Last year, in an encounter in Rome to celebrate the 40 years of the Dei Verbum, Pope Benedict XVI dedicated most of his message to promoting the reading of the Bible. He said:
“The assiduous reading of the Holy Scriptures, accompanied by prayer, allows an intimate dialog that, through reading, one can hear God speaking and, through prayer, we may respond with a confident openness of heart. If this practice is promoted with efficacy, I am convinced that a new spiritual spring would be produced within the Church. We can never forget that the Word of God is a lamp for our steps and a light for our ways. Only he who listens to the Word can become an annoucer of it.”
In spite of the growth of the Bible’s distribution, there still remains a weak religious culture. This was revealed through a recent investigation that took place during three years in France, Spain, and Italy. Professor Diotallevi, a sociologist and director of the investigation, explained that in the 40 years following the Vatican II Counsel, the Bible “entered massively in the families of many Christians, in houses where it did not use to be. It is a shame that in many cases in remains shut, more like a sacred object than a Sacred Book.”
The investigation concluded that, among these groups:
- 55% of people in France read the Bible
- 52% of people in Spain read the Bible
- 42% of people in Italy read the Bible
Among the people interviewed, the homily appears to be the main tool to make the Bible known.
The knowledge of Biblical facts continues to be very partial, the study said. There were some trick questions in the interviews, among which was: Which of the saints had authored a gospel?
- 32% responded Peter
- 49% responded Paul, bringing to light a confusion between evangelist, apostle, and author of an epistle
The low index of reading now worries the Catholic Church. The president of the Catholic Bible Federation, Monsignor Vincenzo Paglia, remarked that only 3% of faithful Catholics read the Bible daily.
In the United States, the level of ignorance and lack of Bible reading is also troubling. According to a survey from Barna Research:
- 90% of households have a Bible
- 80% of those who have a Bible use it very little
- 66% “rarely/never” read the Bible
- 39% read the Bible to nourish their faith
- Less than 20% of those who have a Bible would read the whole book
- 23% of Catholics in the USA read the Bible during the week
- 65% believe that the Bible has answers for most of their problems
- 4% believe that the Scriptures can make their families stronger
- 76% believe that the Bible helps them feel closer to God
The Catholic Church is, as the Pope said, “entering into a new spring with the Bible”. However, in many Protestant Churches the study of the Bible occupies a secondary role. Celebration and worship (also important elements in ecclesiological life) sometimes take more time from the life of the Church than the exhaustive study of the Word of God.
When theological nonsenses occur among the evangelical people (something very common in our times) one realizes that this is the result of a Biblical illiteracy. Although we have defeated the illiteracy that impeded us from reading the Bible, we now confront a Biblical illiteracy that is an obstacle for correctly studying it and living it out.
Do you see biblical illiteracy affecting any part of your churches life and what corrective actions, if any, do you think we should be taking to remedy this today?
Gonzales v. Carhart May 17, 2007
Posted by reformedville in : culture, Government, Uncategorized , add a commentComing home to roost:
I belong to The Rutherford Institute, a not so quiet organization that stands up to the government on an array of issues. I believe we can directly link Christian’s passivity and confusion about how a Christian is to act all the way from spiritual abuse in our churches to the barbaric treatment of our most vulnerable, the unborn and the elderly. We have confused being holy and respectable citizens with being quiet and mum and not creating any waves. Forbid we challenge someone on their actions as being unbiblical and be deemed a trouble maker. People just have become so biblically illiterate and Christianity has become so effeminate, we don’t even understand what a Christian man looks like anymore.
The Rutherford institute posted this article on the hollow victory of Gonzales v Carhart. If you have a weak stomach, especially if you are a man, read it. I hope you vomit yourself into a state of consciousness and wake yourselves out of a moral slumber. Wives, it is time to start to challenge your husbands to be a biblical head of the house and leader in the community and the church. Until we all start putting a boot into each others rear end to end this passive behavior and feminization of men, things will only get worse. When is enough enough for you? As Christians remain mum, the most vulnerable suffer. There are consequences to our inactions, and I firmly believe the judgment of God is on this nation because of the inactions , as well as the actions, of His people.
On April 18, 2007, the United States Supreme Court issued its opinion in what is sure to be considered the most important decision regarding abortion since the infamous Roe v. Wade. In Gonzales v. Carhart, the Supreme Court upheld Congress’ ban of the procedure widely known as “partial-birth abortion.” While the decision is surely a considerable step in the right direction, the very existence of so much legal wrangling over the gruesome and barbaric procedure is disheartening, and the opinion is sure to leave Americans who believe abortion to be morally wrong with a feeling of overwhelming frustration.
[Warning: A review of this case requires some detailed discussion of the type of abortion procedure banned by Congress. The procedure, and thus the following analysis, is indelicate and deeply disturbing.]
Congress passed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 (the “Act”) to outlaw just one particular type of late-stage abortion, known in the medical community as “intact dilation and extraction” or “intact D&E.” Intact D&E is a variation of the more standard D&E, whereby the doctor, after dilating the woman’s cervix, uses forceps to grip parts of the fetus and tear the tiny body apart, removing it from the mother in multiple pieces. With intact D&E, the doctor extracts the fetus from the womb by delivering his or her entire body outside the mother until the fetus’ head lodges in the cervix. At this point, the doctor forces the scissors into the base of the baby’s skull, enlarges the opening, and introduces a catheter to suck out the contents of the skull. The baby’s collapsed head is then delivered outside of the mother’s body, completing the abortion procedure.
The Supreme Court’s opinion in the case includes the following excerpt, the testimony of a nurse who described intact D&E before the Senate Judiciary Committee:
Dr. Haskell went in with forceps and grabbed the baby’s legs and pulled them down into the birth canal. Then he delivered the baby’s body and the arms-everything but the head. The doctor kept the head right inside the uterus…
The baby’s little fingers were clasping and unclasping, and his little feet were kicking. Then the doctor stuck the scissors in the back of his head, and the baby’s arms jerked out, like a startle reaction, like a flinch, like a baby does when he thinks he is going to fall.
The doctor opened up the scissors, stuck a high-powered suction tube into the opening, and sucked the baby’s brains out. Now the baby went completely limp…
He cut the umbilical cord and delivered the placenta. He threw the baby in a pan, along with the placenta and the instruments he had just used.1
In order to avoid the fate of the State of Nebraska’s partial-birth abortion ban statute, which was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2000, Congress recorded factual findings to document its reasons for passing the Act. One of these findings was that “[a] moral, medical, and ethical consensus exists that the practice of performing a partial-birth abortion . . . is a gruesome and inhumane procedure that is never medically necessary and should be prohibited.”2 Congress further stated: “Implicitly approving such a brutal and inhumane procedure by choosing not to prohibit it will further coarsen society to the humanity of not only newborns, but all vulnerable and innocent human life, making it increasingly difficult to protect such life.”3
In addition to producing a record replete with factual findings, Congress was careful to cure a legal defect that the Supreme Court had found in the wording of the Nebraska statute. While the Nebraska law imposed liability upon physicians who delivered “a substantial portion” of a living unborn child for the purpose of killing him or her, the federal statute specified that only doctors who deliver the baby past certain anatomical landmarks4 are subject to criminal penalties.
The parties who challenged the federal Act raised three major arguments. First, they claimed that the law was unconstitutionally vague because a doctor may not know whether or not criminal liability would result when he or she performed a late-term abortion. Second, challengers argued that the law placed an undue burden on a woman’s right to choose an abortion during the second trimester by restricting too many types of abortion. Finally, challengers claimed that the Act was unconstitutional and inconsistent with the Supreme Court’s precedents because it failed to provide an exception to protect the health of the mother.
Writing for the majority of the Court, Justice Kennedy rejected all of these arguments and upheld the federal law. Before addressing each of the challengers’ contentions, Justice Kennedy was careful to pay homage to the Court’s precedents, which set forth the legal framework for the decision. According to the principles set forth in the relevant precedents, a State may not prohibit a woman from having an abortion before viability.5 An undue burden upon the woman’s right to an abortion will be found if a regulation’s “purpose or effect is to place a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion before the fetus attains viability.”6 However, regulations that merely “express profound respect for the life of the unborn” are permitted.7
The Court found that the statute was not unconstitutionally vague because its use of specific anatomical landmarks to define the banned procedure provided adequate notice to physicians of the precise type of abortion that was proscribed.8 Moreover, the law’s employment of a scienter requirement mitigated any potential concerns about vagueness.9 Only a doctor who intentionally delivers the baby to a specified anatomical landmark for the purpose of performing an abortion will be liable under the statute.
Citing the fact that many other types of abortions remain available to women, the Court rejected the challengers’ claim that the Act placed an undue burden on a woman’s right to abort her baby prior to viability.10 Specifically, Justice Kennedy pointed out that the standard D&E abortion, which “requires the removal of fetal parts that are ripped from the fetus as they are pulled through the cervix,” remains legal under the Act.11
In what is sure to be the most hotly debated portion of the opinion, the Supreme Court rejected the challengers’ argument that the law constituted an undue burden on a woman’s right to an abortion because it does not contain an exception to allow the banned procedure where the doctor believes said procedure is necessary to preserve the mother’s health. While the Court affirmed the principle that an abortion regulation is unconstitutional where it subjects women to “significant health risks,” the majority of the Court ultimately found that it was proper to defer to congressional findings where there exists documented medical disagreement as to whether or not the prohibition would ever impose significant health risks upon women.12 The opinion reaffirms both the wide discretion of the legislative branch to legislate in areas of scientific and medical uncertainty and the importance of the State’s interest in “promoting respect for human life at all stages in the pregnancy.”13
Two other Justices issued opinions in this case. Justice Thomas wrote a concurring opinion, with which Justice Scalia joined. Justice Thomas stated simply that while the majority opinion represents an accurate application of current abortion jurisprudence, said jurisprudence, including Roe v. Wade, has no basis in the Constitution.14
Justice Ginsburg authored a scathing dissent, which was joined by Justices Stevens, Souter and Breyer. The heart of their dissent is their objection to any abortion regulation that does not include a health exception. The dissent points out that in striking down the Nebraska partial-birth abortion ban, the Court had expressly held that a statute banning intact D&E was unconstitutional in part because it lacked a health exception.15
Underlying this specific concern about the lack of a health exception, it is apparent that these four Justices share a more systemic objection to the majority’s opinion. The Court’s holding understandably evokes a concern among Roe v. Wade proponents that the foundation of abortion rights is beginning to crack and will ultimately crumble as pro-lifers gain a substantial foothold.
But the real foothold here is not the narrow holding that the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act is constitutional. Rather, the real prize is the seeming shift in the balance of interests involved in abortion cases. Again and again, the majority reiterates the importance of the State’s interest in “promoting respect for human life.” A reading of the majority opinion conveys, perhaps for the first time in the Supreme Court’s abortion jurisprudence, the impression that this interest in the life of the unborn (however nebulously described) is somewhere on the same playing field as the woman’s “right” to have an abortion. In Justice Ginsburg’s words, the Act “surely would not survive under the close scrutiny that previously attended state-decreed limitations on a woman’s reproductive choices.”16
Evidence of this ideological shift is also found in the wording of the opinion, as Justice Ginsburg points out in her dissent.
The Court’s hostility to the right Roe and Casey secured is not concealed. Throughout, the opinion refers to obstetrician-gynecologists and surgeons who perform abortions not by the titles of their medical specialties, but by the pejorative label “abortion doctor.” A fetus is described as an “unborn child,” and as a “baby;” second-trimester, previability abortions are referred to as “late-term;” and the reasoned medical judgments of highly trained doctors are dismissed as “preferences” motivated by “mere convenience.” Instead of the heightened scrutiny we have previously applied, the Court determines that a “rational” ground is enough to uphold the Act. And, most troubling, Casey’s principles, confirming the continuing vitality of “the essential holding of Roe,” are merely “assumed” for the moment, rather than “retained” or “reaffirmed.”17
The monumental decision in Gonzales v. Carhart is surely a victory for pro-lifers. And yet, those who mourn the destruction of human life in the womb have little cause for celebration.
As both the majority opinion and the dissent recognize, the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban is only able to withstand constitutional scrutiny because it leaves available equally murderous and horrific abortion procedures, including the “standard” D&E. As Justice Ginsburg explains in her dissent, “The law saves not a single fetus from destruction, for it targets only a method of performing abortion.”18
How can it be that the Constitution of our great nation sanctions the dismemberment of a tiny baby while it is inside the mother’s body but not the suctioning of its brain matter once most of its body is outside the mother? The difference between the two procedures is mere inches of distance and a few layers of flesh. Let’s face it: the difference is whether others in the room can see the victim as the murder occurs.
The battle for the unborn exemplifies the tragedy that can result from the principle of stare decisis when the Supreme Court just gets it wrong. The hypocrisy of banning only the intact D&E is the inevitable result of the mounds of “constitutional requirements” heaped upon lawmakers by the Supreme Court’s extra-constitutional abortion jurisprudence. As Justices Thomas and Scalia continue to insist, the Constitution simply does not contain a right to have an abortion. Thus, the judicial branch, having created this right from whole cloth, is left to expound and interpret it. And if the Court creates a constitutional right of its own accord, how can such a right, once breathed into existence, be attacked? Opponents are left to argue that other interests outweigh this “right” to which the Court assigns whatever measure of value it sees fit.
Roe v. Wade and its progeny have left lawmakers to take up the dirty job of ensuring that women are left with plenty of options for destroying their unborn children, even as these legislators are careful to document plenty of findings regarding their respect for the value of all human life. They cannot be blamed for this hypocrisy. The Court has forced their hands.
And so our society has successfully strained out a gnat, only to swallow a camel. The battle for the unborn must continue, using the promising aspects of the majority opinion in Gonzales v. Carhart as new ammunition to fire at the shameful pile of artificial “rights” and legal balancing tests that serve as the sole epitaphs for a generation of children.
Rita Dunaway is an affiliate attorney with The Rutherford Institute.
1 H. R. Rep. No. 108-58 p. 3 (2003).
2 Id.
3 Congressional Findings (14)(N), in notes following 18 U. S. C. § 1531 (2000 ed., Supp. IV), p. 769.
4 The Act’s definition of partial-birth abortion requires the fetus to be delivered “until, in the case of a head-first presentation, the entire fetal head is outside the body of the mother, or, in the case of breech presentation, any part of the fetal trunk past the navel is outside the body of the mother.” 18 U. S. C. § 1531 (2000 ed., Supp. IV).
5 Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833, 879 (1992) (plurality opinion).
6 Id. at 878.
7 Id. at 877.
8 Gonzales, 2007 U.S. LEXIS 4338, *44-46 (2007).
9 Id. at *45-46.
10 Id. at *47-48.
11 Id. at *51.
12 Id. at *67-70.
13 Id. at *69.
14 Id. at *79 (Thomas, concurring).
15 Id. at *88 (Ginsburg, dissenting) (citing Stenberg v. Carhart, 530 U.S. at 930, 937).
16 Id. at *83 (Ginsburg, dissenting).
17 Id. at *109 (Ginsburg, dissenting).
18 Id. at *100 (Ginsburg, dissenting).
A note of thanks and Testosterone, Personalities, Individualism and Subject Matter May 16, 2007
Posted by reformedville in : Ethnicity , add a commentFirst, I would like to thank reformedblogs.com for the forum in which to catalogue various posts of mine from different blogs throughout this past year. I have intentionally been a tad slow about it, since the posting “counter” on the index page could lead to the false impression this is some kind of a race or competition to have the most posts.
Edited acknowledgement to reference by former Little Geneva
In concert with the consolidation of my blogs, one of those blogs was heavily involved in a dispute with some kinists early this year. In reality it was more of a dispute among individuals that ’devolved ‘. It happens. You get people who are passionate about their feelings and causes, theology, etc. and raw emotion can overflow. Enough said. The unfortunate side effect is that you never really discuss the original issues, and it just becomes a dispute among individuals talking past one another.
I noticed that the former Little Geneva blog has posted a link to Reformedville and had noted that I had taken a sociological interest in studying the underlying concepts behind Kinism (as well as other forms of ethnic segregation). While I did not agree with their observation on all points, I felt the treatment was fair and “prodding enough” to open discourse in the future. I appreciated the lack of harsh rhetoric, and the straight disagreement noted on points, as to what they ”perceive my position to be”.
Most of the references in their post, I believe, was to The Irony of Kinism.
This reply is not intended to exhaustive or complete in any way; but I did wish to acknowledge what I considered to be ” a fair enough” reference to this blog by R. Jamison on the linked post. I have noticed that they provide no way in which to contact them or respond to their blog, so I guess you just email a known Kinist to respond. I believe that is a weakness of their new forum if they are truly looking for discourse.
It has been my theory in blogging that it is not necessary for you to agree with me, nor I with you, but that we honestly examine the positions and their ramifications. If we can at a minimal get others to consider the issues instead of just going through life with preconceived notions, our blogging is worth the effort. John Balliet
DNA and Ethics May 16, 2007
Posted by reformedville in : Criminal Justice, culture, Ethnicity, Government , add a commentOne way ethics as a force is working at this time is through a discovery of science: DNA as a means of legal evidence. As DNA samples make it clear that the courts in this nation have been convicting many innocent people of capital crimes and sentencing them to death, Americans find themselves impelled to think about people more deeply. A substance that is sheer biology and chemistry, DNA, is a spur to ethical thought. It is reality as ethical force. It has made for more questioning of the death penalty. But it has also made for more objection to the profit system. As Americans find out that innocent people have been in prison and awaiting execution because they were unable to afford a good lawyer, there is a greater sense of the murderous ugliness of profit economics - of a system which has some persons amass wealth through keeping others poor. The US Constitution guarantees everyone “due process of law.” But, Americans are seeing, it is essentially impossible to get this due process, to get a just trial, if you are poor. Not only, as Mr. Siegel pointed out, is there nothing about the profit system in the Constitution - the profit system makes this Constitutional guarantee (as well as others) a mockery for many, many people. There is really no such thing as democracy where there is poverty. Americans are feeling this fact in relation to the courts - not, certainly, with the full awareness that should be, but with more than there ever was. They are seeing too that the justice system so often is horrifically unjust to people who are not white. Courts can be racist because they are composed of human beings, and racism is one of the results of the human desire, so ordinary and so terrible, for contempt. I say simply, and with tremendous feeling: the only thing that will end racism in America is the national study of Aesthetic Realism; because it is Aesthetic Realism which explains contempt and enables people to criticize it in ourselves. In the preface to Self and World, Mr. Siegel writes:
People generally feel they are in a world they dislike, that is “uncaring” and confusing. There is a big desire to deal with such a world by annulling, wiping out what we see as against us. This wiping out has thousands of forms, but they are all contempt. They are all in opposition to that respect for the world, in its sweetness and bitterness, which is the desire to know, the desire to have thought that is exact and continuous. A common form of the desire to do away triumphantly with a disliked world takes place in beds every night: people feel, whether they put it this way or not, At last I can get rid of everybody, everything; I close my eyes and make them no longer exist! There are other forms. You curse at someone: through a few expletives you have the triumph of summing him up, of annulling his complexity and your need to understand it, of making him into nothing and yourself right. The cry of the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland, “Off with their heads!,” stands for something. It stands for that complete lessening which is our revenge on an “uncaring world.” What it stands for has made the death penalty popular. We are not sure about our own ethics, are not sure how good we are. We do not like being unsure; and we do not like the idea that we have to work to be sure, and have to keep thinking. So if there is someone we can see as very evil and we can have him dealt with utterly, done away with, we can feel we have dealt with the question of good and evil firmly, tidily. This person was bad; we are good; we kill him; no loose ends; that’s that. People have used the death penalty to get to a fake sureness about themselves - a sureness which makes them more unsure, because it is fake. We should ask why, in history, public executions were popular. Doing so is a means of understanding the appeal of capital punishment. There was undoubtedly a pleasure people got in seeing someone executed - it was a spectacle. It was the pleasure of utter contempt: the being able to do away with a person is the being able to look down utterly and feel you are virtuous in the process. Of course, public executions are not what we have now; there is a difference. But there is also a relation: the death penalty makes for a satisfaction. I quote, therefore, the poet Byron telling about an execution he saw in 1817. These are a few sentences from his account, in a letter to his publisher and friend, John Murray. And one can see through the writing that Byron was there, not to have contempt, but to know:
So we have even Byron, a person with true feeling for people, saying he did not have enough feeling. We have Byron saying there was in him that contempt of choosing deeply to feel less, to be “indifferent”; and he is ashamed of it. |
Communion Litmus Test May 15, 2007
Posted by reformedville in : Theology , add a commentWe at Curt Jester Laboratories have made a startling development. Always wanting to remain on the cutting edge of Communion technologies our top research team have made a breakthrough. The preponderance of news articles on abortion as a litmus test for Communion has sparked the imaginations of our research team. After pouring through the Old Testament we found many cases where physical things such as holy garments, vessels, and ground were considered holy. Old testament theology also pointed out “whatever touches them will become holy” Exodus 30:29 and unclean things could remove these properties of holiness. This got us thinking about physical manifestations of holiness and the New Testament shift to personal holiness. We have now detected pheromones connected with holiness. The Pheromones of Holiness (PH) balance detected is directly proportional to the acting on an informed conscience. Our test groups included new priests, those who attend Eucharistic adoration, and the staff of the National Catholic Reporter. The NCR staff had a very low PH balance and the other groups tested much better.
Now introducing for immediate availability is the Communion Litmus Test.
The extraordinary minister of litmus testing places a strip in front of the communicants mouth where they then blow on it. The active chemicals in the strip then react to the amount of PH exhaled. The strip will change color or present an iconic reference.
Marian Blue - This is a “Let it be done according to thy will” indication and displays that the test is passed. This indication specifies that the subject adheres to Church teaching, but does not mean that the subject does not still have to increase in holiness. Perseverance to the end is required for continual passes of this test. All other indications reflect a failed test.
Fork Icon - Cafeteria Catholic.
Rainbow coloring - Subject supports homosexual activity and/or same-sex marriage.
No Fetus Icon - Subject is pro-abortion
Women Priest Icon - Subject supports womens ordination.
The graphic shown above is is only a representative sample. Other possible indicators are:
Turns one color than another and than keeps changing - Flip-Flop indicator, subject is most likely John Kerry.
Fuzzy Indication - Subject more than likely went to Catholic schools and is uncatechized.
You are confused by just what the indication means - Subject is a member of the Catholic Theological Society of America (CTSA).
Luther or Calvin Icon - Protestant.
Pure White - Person is their own Pope.
Communion Litmus Test strips can be used in conjunction with the Facial Recognition Paten 2000
JUST LIKE MARLBORO MORE GEAR!
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