Herod was a piker

Dear Reader,

     Below is a selected chapter from my work in progress, "Screwtape's Last Campaign." The novel is appearing in my other blog, "Glubwart."

CHAPTER 73

One night at supper, Mary turned to Joe and said, "Why don't we go on a picnic?" Joe felt a sudden surge of hope. It was the first time Mary had suggested any social event since they had been living under the same roof.

    "Sure." He smiled broadly, then dimmed it a bit. "What do you want to take?"

    "I'll make some sandwiches and potato salad."

    "Fine. We'll need some iced tea and potato chips."

    Mary wrinkled her nose. "Potato salad AND potato chips?"

    "Oh yeah. Wasn't thinking."

    Mary smiled. "It'll be fun."

    "We can go Sunday," Joe said. "-- after church."

    Mary was surprised. "You want to go to cnurch?"

    "Yes."

    "Why now?"

    "I just have a feeling. Something to tell you."

    Mary had never been inside a church in her life, not counting the chapel at Brother Glubwart's home for the homeless. She felt a little intimidated and yet comforted at the same time -- comforted that Joe wanted to go. He had always gone with his family. Maybe this would lead him back to familiar foundations and them both to something more solid.

     The church was big and imposing. Granite columns seemed to reach to the sky. Mary and Joe entered. A large, red-faced man greeted them warmly. "Welcome to our place of worship," he said. "We hope you will make this your new home. We want you to consider us your friends."

    Joe and Mary entered the cavernous sanctuary. A friendly usher helped them find a place in a pew, and handed them guest cards to fill out.

    Mary marveled at the towering pipes of the organ, the brightly varnished choir loft and pulpits. To Joe, it was nothing new.

    She jumped when the organ burst into life, thundering, "A Mighty Fortress is Our God." The congregation rose to its feet and began singing. Mary looked left and right. Joe started getting to his feet, so she followed. She looked around helplessly. Joe handed her a hymnal and pointed to the page number listed in the church bulletin. Mary read and listened,

"The prince of darkness grim,

We tremble not for him.

His rage we can endure,

For lo, his doom is sure.

One little word shall fell him."

     After the hymn, a tall, broad-shouldered man with graying temples and wearing a large black robe stepped to the pulpit.

    “Mary!” he said.

    Mary jumped. He was looking straight at her. She opened her mouth, but then he looked away. “Mary had a problem. A problem not unlike that facing many young women in our day. She was pregnant, and she didn’t know who the father was. That is, she knew, but no one believed her. She had never been with a man, you see. Tell me, what would people say today, to a girl with child, who said she had never been with a man? You know what they would say. And they would probably be right. But in Mary’s case, they were not right.

    “What about Mary’s fiance? How do you think he felt? Betrayed? Embarrassed? Humiliated? What do you think his friends said to him? But God sent an angel to Joseph in a dream. The angel told Joseph, ‘Don’t be afraid. Take her home with you as your wife.’ How many men, do you think, would believe a dream like that? But Joseph did.

    “Now, what do you suppose a young couple would be advised to do today, if they found themselves in the situation that Joseph and Mary were in? ‘Get rid of it! Don’t be insane! Do it quietly. You are poor. You can’t afford a child. It’s not yours. It’s your own body. You can choose.’”

    The minister paused and raised himself even more erect. He looked into the eyes of everyone in the congregation, but Mary felt as if he were looking only at her. He stretched out his arm and pointed. “If Mary had listened to that advice, there would be no Jesus. There would be no salvation. You and I would be damned -- DAMNED for our sins, and no one to save us! How many potential saviors have we murdered in this age? How many healers, physicians, inventors -- peacemakers? How many diseases could they have cured? How many inventions to benefit mankind could they have created? How many wars might they have stopped? Lord, we need peacemakers now, more than ever!”

    The minister’s tone changed. Quietly, he said, “King Herod was smart -- terribly, horribly, wickedly smart. He didn’t want a rival to his throne. He ordered all the male children under two years of age to be murdered.” The minister sighed and hung his head for a long moment. There were audible sobs in the congregation. Then he raised his tear-stained face and shouted, “But Herod was a piker! Compared to our generation, he was merciful! He ONLY killed a few thousand innocent babies. We have murdered MILLIONS! And the slaughter goes on, relentlessly, unstoppable! More are being murdered even as I speak!" The minister lowered his voice. "‘It’s just a blob of cells,’ they say.” The minister turned his head. His lips were grim and tight, his eyes glared. “I defy anyone to look at an ultrasound of a six-week-old infant and tell me it’s not a baby. ‘It’s my own body,’ they say. ‘My choice. It’s all about ME and MY wants.’ God forgive their cynical self-centeredness. But how CAN God forgive US, as we allow the slaughter to go on and on and on?

    “Please turn your hymnals to page 463 and join me in singing, ‘Amazing Grace.’ -- Amazing grace -- that saved a wretch like ME.”

    On the way home, they were silent. Joe and Mary carried the twins between them, hugging them close. It was Joe who finally broke the silence. "He was talking about us." Mary just nodded. "We did the right thing." Mary nodded.

    They walked on for a long time. Then Joe said, "I was going to wait until the picnic. But I want to tell you now: The reason I went away -- actually I didn't go -- I was arrested." Mary gasped and looked at him. "It's true. My parents had reported me to the police. They took me back home. They were watching me every minute. To be honest -- I want to always be honest from now on -- I didn't make a serious effort to come back to you. But then, one day I was sitting on the porch when a funny little black man with a scrawny goatee strolled up. He looked me right in the eye and said, "What are you doing here? Go to her; she needs you."

    Mary was stunned. "A skinny, funny black man?"

    "Yes. Why?"

    "I saw him too. He told me to protect him."

    "Him?"

    "Yes. I don't know how he knew I was pregnant. And if he knew I was pregnant, why didn't he know there were two?"

    Joe and Mary pondered mysteries of their lives as they walked on home. Mary packed their picnic in a cooler. For once, Jerry and Joey slept soundly throughout the warm summer afternoon. 

    Joe took a bite of sandwich and watched Mary watching the twins. He felt a strange stirring; a feeling he had never felt before. He wanted to protect this family. Coming back had not been a choice, it had been a necessity. The power of the little black man's message had been impossible to ignore. But now, Joe was beginning to feel that he belonged to this family. What had been a necessity was becoming a desire. Mary caught his gaze and smiled.

    On the way home, Mary pushed her twins in a stroller. Joe put his arm around her waist. She leaned into him.

Captial Gains for Dummiecrats

Let's make this so simple even Joe Biden can understand it.

You're a hardworking waitress/bus driver/ditch digger/lawyer/doctor. You save your heavily taxed, hard-earned money, trying to get ahead. You don't spend it all on computer games, beer or rock concerts. One day, you have saved enough that you say to yourself, "I have been working hard for money all these years. It's about time my money started to work for me."

You decide to invest your hard-earned money in your brother-in-law's wind-powered solar panel factory. Unfortunately, he goes broke. There goes your money. Don't go crying to President Obama: You built that, not him.

You're still an honest, conscientious, hard-working stiff. You deny yourself weekly trips to the movies and fancy clothes. You scrape together another nest egg. You invest in your friend's solar-powered wind vane making plant. Unfortunately, it also goes bankrupt, and your savings are wiped out again. Don't go crying to President Obama; you built that, not him.

You're not the type to give up when faced with failure. Surely, the third time's the charm. Again you save your money until you have enough to invest. This time, you invest in your brother Sam's widget-making enterprise. Eureka! This time you hit it big. Widgets are just the thing, the latest craze. Sam has to hire 150 workers to produce the hot items. You're raking in money hand over fist. Time to celebrate!

Not so fast, you rich fat cat. You didn't build that. Didn't you have to drive on Uncle Obama's roads that he built just for you? Better fork over 15 percent of your ill-gotten gains or visit Uncle Obama's prisons.

That, Mr. Biden, is capital gains. The rate is not 14 or 15 percent, as you dishonestly keep harping. All that money was already taxed at the regular income rate, depending on your income level. You save it up and invest it, and anything you earn is taxed again -- double taxation; anywhere upwards of 35 percent. Short-term capital gains are taxed at the regular income tax rate. And, as we have seen, if you invest it and lose it, tough luck.

The reason capital gains earnings are taxed at a lower rate is twofold. One: It has already been taxed once, at the regular rate. And Two: the lower rate encourages risk taking, which grows the economy and provides jobs, which is good. That is capitalism the way it's supposed to work.

OK. That covers the Joe Bidens of the world. Now we can talk as adults. In the real world of investing, only a few cases resemble my illustrations. More often it is people selling a second house or rental property, or even more likely, rich people like Mitt Romney buying and selling businesses and stock portfolios. But however you slice it, capital gains income has already been taxed at the regular rate, then earnings are taxed again at the 15 percent level. And when investments succeed, the economy succeeds.

Where it gets worth having a serious debate is when an individual's income comes almost exclusively from capital gains. It is still hard-won capital, but it puts a person in a different league from someone who has two houses and wants to sell one. It might be fair to consider a "progressive" capital gains tax for people whose primary source of income comes from capital gains. But the Fair Tax would be even -- fairer.

Don't like your choices?

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Do you trust Mitt Romney's business sense to bring us back from the brink of economic disaster, but don't like his conservative views on abortion and gay rights?

Do you like Barack Obama's liberal social policies, but don't like his deliriously dangerous deficit spending?

Are you tired of seeing rabid crowds of protesters tear down and burn the American flag? Are you tired of giving foreign aid to countries where our ambassadors are murdered? Are you tired of Americans dying in Afghanistan?

Do you actually care about the U.S. Constitution?

Consider Gary Johnson, Libertarian candidate for President of the United States.

Johnson is to the right of Romney on economics, and to the left of Obama on social issues and foreign affairs.

Johnson would slash federal spending, shrink government, stop the wars, get the government out of the bedroom and the troops out of Afghanistan. He would allow military action only as provided under the Constitution. He would close some Mideast embassies and bring our officials home. He would concentrate on America's infrastructure, not nation building in foreign lands.

He would end the disastrous war on drugs (which has been as counter-productive as Prohibition in the 1920s) and push to legalize and control marijuana, just as alcohol is now controlled, crippling the drug cartels, ending the violence on the Mexican border, and diminishing illegal immigration.

Johnson is a fiscal conservative. He would abolish the IRS, the income tax, the payroll tax, the capital gains tax, the death tax, etc. etc. and replace it with the Fair Tax, which allows more freedom, because it taxes only what you spend, not what you earn. He would demand transparency from the Federal Reserve, and stop it from printing money willy-nilly, devaluing the U.S. dollar. Johnson would reassess the role of government, stop runaway spending, balance the budget now and stop government from interfering in areas where it has no business and no Constitutional authority.

He supports the Second Amendment rights of citizens to keep and bear arms.

ENERGY: Johnson would stop government subsidies to private enterprise, but encourage entrepreneurs to develop domestic energy sources under commonsense environmental regulations.

IMMIGRATION: Johnson would encourage legal immigration and a work visa for foreigners. He would support a two-year grace period for illegals to get work permits, and establish a path to citizenship for such individuals.

FOREIGN POLICY: No foreign nation building; no wars except as allowed under the Constitution. No torture; due process for detainees at Guantanamo.

HEALTH CARE: Repeal the health care reform law and allow the free market to provide health care. Reform Medicare and Medicaid. Federal assistance for those who cannot afford essential health care should be provided through simple block grants to the states, where innovation will create efficiencies and better care at less cost.

INTERNET: No federal regulation or taxation.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: Repeal the Patriot Act. Government must be neutral on personal beliefs. No restrictions on gay marriage.

ABORTION: Life is precious. A woman should have the right to make decisions up to the point of viability of the fetus.

EDUCATION: Turn education over to the local level. End the Department of Education.

If those ideas sound like something you could support, consider voting for Gary Johnson. Don't want to "waste" your vote? If enough citizens care about the Constitution, it could affect the future course of the nation, as the two major political parties will have to pay attention. Consider this quote from John Quincy Adams: "Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost."

Clinton and the Pilgrims

In President Clinton's long defense of President Obama's failure to improve the economy, he sharply distilled the truth of today's political scene in one sentence: Democrats favor the state (Marx would call it the "collective"), while Republicans favor the individual.
Bravo, Mr. President! I have rarely heard a more succinct, accurate portrayal of the political landscape. Of course, Clinton used other words, but the meaning is the same. He said something like, "Republicans think it's every man for himself, whereas Democrats say we're all in this together."
Which idea works best?
Well, when the Pilgrims first landed at Plymouth Rock, they tried the "We're all in this together" approach. The fields were owned in common, and everyone worked the fields and shared in the harvest. Result? Starvation. Realizing their mistake, the Pilgrims allotted fields to individuals who worked their own land, harvested and marketed their own crops. Result? Plenty.

Supreme fraud

The Supreme Court has aided and abetted congressional Democrats in perpetrating a massive fraud on the American public.

Obamacare, jammed down the peoples' throats with more dishonesty than any bill has ever been jammed, has been upheld by the Court using logic just as twisted as the machinations of Nancy Pelosi, who said, "You go through the gate. If the gate's closed, you go over the fence. If the fence is too high, we'll pole vault in. If that doesn't work, we'll parachute in. But we're going to get health care reform passed for the American people." In other words, the former speaker of the House didn't care about the rules of the House or legality. She would pass that bill, come hell or high water.

Sponsors of the bill, from the president on down, said it was not a tax. They sold the bill to the American people as an individual mandate with fees for those who refused to buy health insurance. For the first time ever, the federal government would force citizens to buy something, whether they wanted it or not. To anybody with half a brain, that was clearly unconstitutional.

Four Supreme Court justices thought it was! They said that everybody needs health care at one time or another, so they were "engaged in commerce." And the government has the power to regulate commerce under the Commerce Clause. But just because you may need health care does not mean you have to buy health insurance. Ever heard of paying for a doctor on your own? People do it all the time.

Well, everybody needs food at one time or another. So, using their "logic," citizens could be forced to buy any certain kind of food the government mandates.

Four other justices found that the individual mandate, and thus the entire health care reform bill, was unconstitutional. They found that the government can regulate commerce, but not force people to engage in commerce.

The remaining justice, Chief Justice John Roberts, did a song and dance. He declared the individual mandate was not justified under the Commerce Clause (whew! what a relief!). But then he did his sidestep, and declared that the bill really represented a tax, even though President Obama and all his minions promised that it wasn't.

In a truly remarkable bit of doublespeak, Roberts said the bill was not a tax for purposes of jurisdiction (taxes cannot be ruled on until they take effect), but was a tax for purposes of justification (Congress has the power to pass taxes; boy! Do they ever!). So it was not a tax, yet it is a tax, according to the Chief Justice. 

He performed a classic shell game: Now it's not a tax; look fast! Too late! Now it's a tax. Too bad, try your luck again.

Liberal pundits praised the historically conservative Roberts, saying he "salvaged the legitimacy" of the Court; he was afraid to make the Court look politically partisan.

Nope. He just made it look silly and dishonest.

Make them all play football

I recently read a liberal blog that was positively stunning in its stupidity.
Commenting on the upcoming Supreme Court ruling on President Obama's health care reform bill, the blogger wrote that, at the time the health care reform bill was being pushed through Congress, it was "conventional wisdom" that the individual mandate would easily pass constitutional muster.
Really? Maybe within the hermetically sealed liberal bubble that this blogger seems to live in, but many regular folks, myself included, immediately raised the question about the legality of the federal government ordering citizens to buy something they don't want.
The blogger went so far as to say it was "laughable" to think that the health care reform bill could be considered unconstitutional.
To quote Nancy Pelosi, "Are you serious?"
Expanding on his defense of Obamacare, the blogger genuflected at the holy shrine of the Commerce Clause, and made fun of the extreme conservative position, that there is a fundamental difference between regulating activity and inactivity in the marketplace.
The infamous Commerce Clause, which has been used and abused to justify all sorts of government intervention in our daily lives, was intended to regulate trade among the states. The intent was to head off trade wars between neighboring states. West Virginia, for example, could not place a tariff on oil imported from Pennsylvania.
The Commerce Clause was never intended to force individuals to make shopping decisions.
Mr. Blogger: You say the distinction between activity and inactivity in the marketplace is weak and fallacious? Are you serious? Are you telling me there's no difference between a referee presiding over a football game and ordering everyone in the stands to play?

It's a no-brainer

It's a no-brainer.
All you have to do is ask the question: "Does the federal government have the authority to force citizens to purchase a product they don't want?" The question answers itself: "Are you serious?"
How can anyone answer that question with "yes"?
If the government can order you to buy health insurance, where does it stop?
Sales of government-run and partially owned GM are down, plus the government wants to push a green agenda. No problem, dial up Congress. Make every family buy a Volt.
Obesity increases medical costs, affecting the wallet of every American. No problem, make everyone eat broccoli and join fitness gyms (assign police to make sure they do their exercises!). Make it a felony to possess a quarter-pounder.
And yet, there are people who, with a straight face, will tell you that the individual mandate to purchase health insurance is "clearly within Congress' authority under the commerce clause;" that it's not even a close call(!).
The commerce clause, which is being abused to approve anything big government wants, was originally designed to regulate commerce among the states (so that one state couldn't place a tariff on goods from another state), and between the USA and foreign governments and Indians. It was never intended to force commerce.
The government, speaking out of both sides of its mouth, now tries to say the law is really a tax. It's not. If Congress had tried to pass it as a tax, it never would have succeeded. Supporters of the law repeatedly said it was not a tax.
Beyond the obvious fact that the health reform act is unconstitutional, look at the way it has been implemented: thousands of waivers. What happened to equal protection under the law? How can you have a law that some citizens are required to obey, yet other citizens are not?
I will be very disappointed in the Supreme Court, if it fails to rule 9-0 that the law is unconstitutional.
Sadly, I expect to be very disappointed.