Law vs. Regulation

There is something that is just not right in the world that gives me an unsettled feeling. Kind of like when there is background noise from a fan running. It isn’t obvious, but makes you edgy. It comes from a couple things that I have held to be true my whole life that are now being ignored.

Currently, illegal immigration is a big issue. The federal government is standing in the way of Arizona enforcing federal law. It isn’t that alone that gives me an unsettled feeling. It is the apparent reason that the federal government is doing it. Opposing the Arizona law is being called the largest voter registration event in history. That is where my brain can’t compute. I have this belief ingrained in me from my school days that a benefit of citizenship is the right to vote. So if the right to vote is only granted to citizens, resident aliens, legal or illegal, still don’t have the right to vote. This is a law without any regulation, apparently. ID is not required in most polling places. There are lots of regulations, not even laws, that have many more inconvenient rules that you dare not break. When did regulations begin to carry more weight than laws? Let me clarify, laws are made by our representatives whom we have elected for that purpose. Regulations are rules made up by government bureaucracies to carry out their mission which could be environmental protection, education, food production and distribution, drug oversight, etc. Laws should be regulated, and regulations should not carry more weight than laws.

Another belief I hold, learned from my public school education, is that a president has to be a natural born citizen. I am not saying our president is or isn’t a natural born citizen. I am just saying that he hasn’t proved that he is. I don’t understand why the law is that you have to be a natural born citizen is not regulated. Why don’t you have to give proof that you are a natural born citizen when you file the papers to run for president? That documentation is required to get a driver’s license or a passport. Had that been a rule and the president followed it there wouldn’t be any question as to his citizenship status.

I think our country would not be in the trouble it is in today if we understood the difference between laws and regulations. Laws need more regulation, and regulations should not carry the same weight as laws.

Am I the only one who noticed?

It is hard to believe that in these days of 24/ 7 news and an abundance of commentary on three full time news stations on tv and countless radio shows that there is something that has been missed in a big news story. There are two recent news stories that the pundits seem to have missed out on. The first one is the episode with Al Gore and the massage therapist. I have heard VP Gore’s bizarre behavior blamed on everything from drugs to Bush Derangement Syndrome. There is a very logical explanation that I haven’t heard anyone suggest. “Massage” has long been a euphemism or front for prostitution. In recent years with legitimate massage maybe we have forgotten that. I think that when Al Gore told his assistant that he needed a massage a legitimate massage therapist was hired, when what Al Gore was expecting was an old fashioned massage, aka a prostitute. I’m not sure if that will help his public relations, but it makes his actions understandable.

On a completely unrelated topic, did anybody notice how President Obama introduced Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court. In his first line of introduction President Obama said, “I have selected a nominee who I believe embodies that same excellence, independence, integrity, and passion for the law -- and who can ultimately provide that same kind of leadership on the Court: our Solicitor General, and my friend, Elena Kagan. “ (emphasis added) In fact, Obama and Kagan first met years ago at the University of Chicago Law School where they both taught. It just doesn’t seem like the American way to place your friends in positions, especially the highest positions of influence in the country. I’m not saying you can’t have a history with a nominee, or not like who you nominate. I just believe that when you choose people for very important jobs that you cast your net farther than your circle of friends and you look for people who are the best qualified for the job. Noting Kagan’s thin resume it makes you wonder what indicates she will be a good judge. Naming friends to high places always seemed like what they do in other, not American countries. The kinds with dictators. Maybe he was just calling her friend to be friendly, but I don’t think so.

Live until you die

There is a popular song that tells us to “live like we’re dying”. Yesterday we spent the day with my sister-in-law, Julie, who is doing the opposite. She has been miraculously battling cancer for the past two-and-a-half years. She is at the point of hospice coming in once a week. We don’t know how long we get to have her here on earth with us, but her grace is making these days precious in a way. She is “dying like she’s living” so nobly. Yesterday we visited her at home, arriving about 3:30 and left around 8:30. Also there were six of her children with their families. She had been resting until we got there but was up the whole time. When I say up, I mean on her feet, in the kitchen which is where I will always picture her. We had a wonderful time together; children playing, big kids playing volleyball, others just sitting together visiting or making guacamole in the kitchen. It is always so nice to be at the Charlesworths. So normal.
The past few days Julie hasn’t been able to eat or even drink without vomiting. That’s the reality. But she continues to put others first. She is very open about what is going on, and when her kids ask her how she’s doing she’ll tell them but as she and Allan are experiencing they just don’t really know. There isn’t anything to tell them what to expect. She is writing her own ending the way she wants it to go. Later in the evening she disappeared for a little bit. Allan mentioned that they were expecting a call. I guessed it would be the doctor returning their call. It turns out that she had started vomiting up blood. As with everything else they don’t really know what that means. It is a change and can’t be too good but they really don’t know what it means. I guess I said that.
I am getting to the age where I think about my own death. I hope that I can live until the day I die. I am glad that Julie is able to live until she dies, at least so far. I also hope that I can live like Julie lives. She has taught me so much about loving and taking care of others. She is a wonderful wife, mother, grandmother, mother-in-law, daughter, sister, and sister-in-law. All of her family knows it and appreciates it.

There is a God

The argument is over…there is a God whose name is Jehovah. He is the God who created the heavens and the earth, and chose Israel as His own. From Israel came the savior of the world, Jesus Christ.

How, you ask, can I say that with such certainty? I have been listening to the reports of recent conflicts between Israel and the Palestinians. Following that the unabashedly anti-Semitic comments from Helen Thomas. (By the way, why has she kept a lid on her true feelings for so long? Could it be that anti-Semitism is gaining favor in Washington and she didn’t fear reprisals?) That any reasonable person could take the side of the “peace activists” who brutally beat the Israelis who boarded the ship is beyond me. When the UN Council on Human Rights ignores gross violations of human rights by followers of Mohammed and routinely cites Israel with human rights violations it seems that the world is upside down. When Israel is blamed for stopping the peace process in the Middle East I ask “what peace process”? Peace in the Middle East has been fought out for my whole life, and I am not that young any more. Consider this, if Palestinians would stop throwing bombs there would be peace in the Middle East. The promises of peace for land have not been kept.

In my naive little world I don’t understand anti-Semitism. Why do people hate the Jews so much? I personally don’t know a Jewish person that I can think of. The only reason that I have heard why people don’t like Jews because they are bankers. Whaaaat? Are bankers evil? Are gentile bankers hated? If you hate a whole race because some are bankers, you must hate all races to be fair. If you don’t like bankers you don’t have to have much contact with them. I know a few bankers, and they are not evil. I wonder if most anti-Semitic people could give a good reason to hate Jews. I met an anti-Semite once. He was an 80-year-old Czechoslovakian man in 1984 and he blamed WWII on the Jews. Funny, I always pictured them as the victims of WWII.

Anti-Semites can’t give a logical reason for hating Jews. That’s when I realized that anti-Semitism is a spiritual thing. It must be true that Israel is God’s chosen people and is opposed by the enemy of God who is Satan. People hate Israel because Satan hates Israel. The enemy of our souls uses people to display his wrath on the Jewish people. Somehow this realization gives me peace. Not peace that the treatment of Israel and Jewish people today is okay; just peace that now the world makes sense again. Now I understand why we are instructed in the Bible to pray for the peace of Israel “…for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty for the tearing down of strongholds…” If Israel ever needed prayers for peace it is now.

2 Corinthians 10:4

On Torture

September 1, 2009
On Torture

How do they do it? People on the left are continuing to decry torture tactics used by the CIA to get information necessary to keep our country safe from attacks being planned by our enemies, who would like to destroy us. Let’s see, the CIA is accused of atrocities like pointing an electric drill at a prisoner, pretending they executed a prisoner in a different room, blowing cigar smoke in their face, threatening to hurt their family, and water boarding (which we also do to our own troops). Despite threatened harm, not a hair on their heads are touched. Prisoners are not physically hurt. Yet the left makes it sound like these prisoners are traumatized so much that they are permanently damaged.

I guess I could believe people on the left sincerely hold beliefs against torture and that their opposition is not a tool to use in their quest to delegitimize conservative leaders’ success in keeping our nation safe. The problem is when these same torture decriers also approve of Fidel Castro. “You can think whatever you want to about Fidel Castro, but he was one of the brightest leaders I have ever met.“ declared US Rep Diane Watson (Dem, CA). Other liberals who support Castro are Sean Penn, Danny Glover, Kevin Costner and Steven Spielberg.

I don’t know what Congresswoman Watson et al believe about torture but Fidel Castro has admitted that torture is necessary to “annihilate the enemy”. Unlike CIA torture, Fidel’s torture is physical, and leaves permanent damage to bodies and minds. Armando Valladeres somehow survived 22 years as a political prisoner in Cuba. His crime? Speaking out publicly against the communist revolution. His sentence? Years and years of prison where he and others were forced to live in the greatest heat and the dampest cold without clothes. They were regularly beaten, shot at and sometimes killed; they were thrown into punishment cells, including the dreaded ''drawer cells,'' specially constructed units that make South Vietnam's infamous tiger cages seem like homey quarters. Guards armed with thick twisted electric cables and truncheons beat him as he lay on the floor. The beating felt as if they were branding him with a red-hot branding iron. Then he experienced the most intense, unbearable, and brutal pain of his life. One of the guards had jumped with all his weight on his broken, throbbing leg.'' That treatment was typical. In the punishment cells, prisoners were kept in total darkness. Guards dumped buckets of urine and feces over the prisoners who warded off rats and roaches as they tried to sleep. Fungus grew on Mr. Valladares because he was not allowed to wash off the filth. Sleep was impossible. Guards constantly awoke the men with long poles to insure they got no rest. Illness and disease were a constant. Even at the end, when the authorities were approving his release, Mr. Valladares was held in solitary confinement in a barren room with fluorescent lights turned on 24 hours a day. By then he was partially paralyzed through malnutrition intensified by the lack of medical attention.

Armando Valladares is not alone. Thousands of political opponents to the Castro regime have been killed or imprisoned in extremely poor conditions without trial. If those imprisoned and killed had he not been opponents of Fidel Castro, the international left would have rushed vociferously to his support. Unfortunately for the tortured in Cuba, people on the left who loudly and proudly stand up against “torture” by the US are silent about real torture taking place with the consent of Castro. They even loudly and proudly count Fidel as their friend, someone to teach us how to live and make America a “people’s paradise”. Anti-torture advocates are just as silent when torture takes place against Christians around the world.

Friends on the left, please look at some of the inconsistencies of the positions your side takes. Hypocrisy is not found only in churches.

(Bibliography: “Surviving Castro’s Tortures” Ronald Radosh, New York Times, June 8, 1986; rottentomatoes.com; Capitalism Magazine, July 30, 2000; Cuba Verdad)

Sotomayor yes or no

Today I am watching the third day of the confirmation hearings for Judge Sonia Sotomayor. She used a famous quotation by Sandra Day O’Connor and said that it couldn’t possibly be true or what she meant to say, just like a statement that she had made several times wasn’t what she meant to say. What if Judge Sandra Day O’Connor meant what she said? Here’s the quote, “I believe that a wise old woman and a wise old man would reach the same conclusion.” Judge Sotomayor said that couldn’t be true because if a wise old man and a wise old woman reached different conclusions you would be calling one unwise. Why couldn’t one have made a wise decision and one made an unwise decision. She apparently believes that there are more than just one wise judgment.

I believe that wisdom is one, as in singular. Proverbs 1:20 even puts wisdom in one body when it says, “Wisdom calls aloud in the street, she raises her voice in the public squares; at the head of the noisy streets she cries out, in the gateways of the city she makes her speech” . Her reasoning really points out why I don’t believe she would make a good judge. She doesn’t believe that there is one wisdom that judges should try to reach. She believes that the supreme court has wise people who, shaped by their race, gender, and life experiences will reach different opinions, and that one “wisdom” will win. True wisdom may or may not be found, depending on the make up of the supreme court. This creates a situation where someone could come all the way to the supreme court and not receive justice.

I also have a problem with Judge Sotomayor’s schizophrenia. I do not think that she is mentally ill. I am talking about her saying several times that “a wise latina woman would reach a better conclusion than white men.” In the hearings she has said that her clear statement was misunderstood or that she said it poorly, backing away from what she said. The statements she made then and the statements she’s making now are not compatible, except in her head. I don’t think shifting positions or beliefs are a good characteristic for a judge.

Oh for people with wisdom to make our laws and interpret them. Proverbs 1 goes on to warn of the calamity that comes from not listening to wisdom. “Since they hated knowledge and did not choose to fear the Lord, …they will eat the fruit of their ways and be filled with the fruit of their schemes.” (v. 29,31). It is so important to vote for leaders that seek wisdom.

Sotomayor yes or no

Today I am watching the third day of the confirmation hearings for Judge Sonia Sotomayor. She used a famous quotation by Sandra Day O’Connor and said that it couldn’t possibly be true or what she meant to say, just like a statement that she had made several times wasn’t what she meant to say. What if Judge Sandra Day O’Connor meant what she said? Here’s the quote, “I believe that a wise old woman and a wise old man would reach the same conclusion.” Judge Sotomayor said that couldn’t be true because if a wise old man and a wise old woman reached different conclusions you would be calling one unwise. Why couldn’t one have made a wise decision and one made an unwise decision. She apparently believes that there are more than just one wise judgment.

I believe that wisdom is one, as in singular. Proverbs 1:20 even puts wisdom in one body when it says, “Wisdom calls aloud in the street, she raises her voice in the public squares; at the head of the noisy streets she cries out, in the gateways of the city she makes her speech” . Her reasoning really points out why I don’t believe she would make a good judge. She doesn’t believe that there is one wisdom that judges should try to reach. She believes that the supreme court has wise people who, shaped by their race, gender, and life experiences will reach different opinions, and that one “wisdom” will win. True wisdom may or may not be found, depending on the make up of the supreme court. This creates a situation where someone could come all the way to the supreme court and not receive justice.

I also have a problem with Judge Sotomayor’s schizophrenia. I do not think that she is mentally ill. I am talking about her saying several times that “a wise Latina woman would reach a better conclusion than white men.” In the hearings she has said that her clear statement was misunderstood or that she said it poorly, backing away from what she said. The statements she made then and the statements she’s making now are not compatible, except in her head. I don’t think shifting positions or beliefs are a good characteristic for a judge.

Oh for people with wisdom to make our laws and interpret them. Proverbs 1 goes on to warn of the calamity that comes from not listening to wisdom. “Since they hated knowledge and did not choose to fear the Lord, …they will eat the fruit of their ways and be filled with the fruit of their schemes.” (v. 29,31). It is so important to vote for leaders that seek wisdom.