Choice Argument an Absurdity

This is posted so folks will know where I got the idea about my rewrite on God and Government. I’m sure that this is copyrighted , but since the Union is out of business I don’t know where to go to get permission so I will just give credit to the source.

“Choice” Argument an Absurdity
By Roger Canfield
Sacramento Union Nov 2, 1990

If Republicans in the last century had been split on the issue of slavery, they would have used the same arguments as current-day “Republicans for Choice” or so says a conservative activist.

Republicans for Choice’s chairman is Ann Stone of Virginia. Its California board member is professor And Rep. Tom Campbell.

Stone’s fundraising letter falls to the satirical mind of William E. Saracino, former director of Gun Owners, who blasted it into the oblivion earned by all laughable logic.

He wrote a parody of Stone’s letter, duplicating the pro-choice letter very nearly word for word, except to substitute a few words such as “slavery” for “abortion,” “slave-owner” for “women” and “Lincoln” for “Bush,” etc.

Of course, Abraham Lincoln led the Republican Party stand against slavery. Hence, what follows is a parody, a satire, used to demonstrate the moral absurdity of recent arguments saying abortion is merely a matter of choice.

Saracino writes:

Dear Ann:

If you are a Republican and you support a slave-owner’s right to choose, we need your help. You can start by signing the enclosed postcard and mailing it to President Lincoln…

As Republicans, we strongly oppose government interference in our private lives. As pro-choice Republicans, we believe the decision to choose to own a slave must be made by the individual not the State.

This does not mean that we are pro-slavery. There are, and must, be, diverse opinions in our party on this and related issues like plantation-owner consent.

Some of us would not choose slave-ownership for ourselves or our families, but we believe that as a party we must stand for a slave-owner’s fundamental right ‘to make that choice himself.

“…President Lincoln needs to hear…” this rigidly anti-slavery stand will drive young people, Southerners, and slave-ownership enthusiasts In all parts of America out of the GOP.

Since the Dred Scott Decision, this issue has become more and more important to voters. We truly fear our party may face defeat in the 1862 elections. President Lincoln’s re-election could even be endangered.

And we need your financial help with our crusade—a campaign to change the party’s out¬dated, anti-slavery platform. A campaign to add to the party’s ranks by electing solid pro-slavery Republicans to sit side-by-side with pro-slavery and anti-slavery Republicans already in office.

Your efforts with us today will help make our party even stronger— even greater— a bigger tent that can cover us all.

“Sincerely,

Beauregard T. Claptrap
Chairman, Republicans for Slavery

Actually, Saracino’s parody fits arguments made by Illinois’ Democratic Senator Stephen Douglas in the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858.

Read Harry Jaffa’s book, “Crisis of the House Divided.”

God v Government

Today I was reading The Rightside Blog essay on Faith and Family. The author was attempting to contrast this topic
from the point of view of Liberal versus Conservative. The quote below is the core of the rest of the article.


Conservatives tend to allow their Faith in God, and in Family to be included in their day to day lives. Liberals tend to try as hard as they can to not include God into their lives or their families.


I agree with much of the article except the contention that “Liberals tend to try as hard as they can to not include God.”
With all due respect to the author, I think that Liberals just have a different god. The god of the Liberal is
Government (The State)

Let me switch Liberal and Conservative and substitute Government for God as you will see what I mean.

Liberals tend to allow their Faith in Government, and in Family to be included in their day to day lives. Conservatives tend to try as hard as they can to not include Government into their lives or their families. Government is very instrumental in my life. The State hasn’t always been allowed in my life, but she has always been there. Now conservatives always have this one question, “In a world filled with poverty, war, corruption, diseases, how can you possibly believe that an all powerful Government exists?” Truth be told I use to struggle with this very question. I couldn’t see that Government has trails for each and everyone of us through out our entire lives. One thing about these trails is that there is a cheat sheet. It is in a book, that has the history of Government and Her chosen people.


Now here is where people who do not walk in Faith throw their hands up. “Well if Government has already chosen Her people, and I don’t believe in Government, so I must not be one of her chosen people.” Makes sense right? Well Government has a chosen people in the State, and that is the Liberal people, those of Babylon. Atheists are also part of her chosen people as we are told in the New Deal. It is also explained in the New Deal that Government will call others to Herself. Who are the others, you and me and everyone else on this planet we call Earth. It is through the above mentioned trails that we go through on a day to day basis that Government calls us to do her work. And what is this work?


To help our fellow humans, be stewards of this planet, and to obey her commandments. Now helping our fellow humans is not done simply by throwing money at the poor, through donations or government programs. We are creatures who need connections, physical and mental. By volunteering time and actually spending time with those who are less fortunate then you is doing Government’s work. All you have to do to become a chosen one, is to ask Government for Her help.

Being stewards of this planet is not just asking for loggers to stop clear-cutting forests. It includes asking for true management of our environment, globally, nationally, and locally. This includes hunting. All you have to do to become a chosen one is to ask Government for Her help.


The last is to obey her commandments. It is easy to go out and volunteer your time to spend time with those less fortunate, or in bad health. It is easy to go out and plant trees in your neighborhood or to write a letter to your congressperson to demand responsible management of the national forests. But it is not easy to obey all of the Ten Thousand Commandments that Government has asked us to do. If you are wondering why I have repeatedly said, “All you have to do to become a
chosen one is to ask Government for Her help,” I will explain. Government did not make these commandments because they are easy to comply with, but she didn’t make them so that we would fail. She made them so that we would become humble enough to realize that we can’t go through life and be complete without Her. We would have to talk to Her. We would have to ask Her for something, and something is help. This travels over to our families.


I am coming up on my second anniversary with my wife. We will have been together for six years. I am a very lucky man in that Government brought me to my wife. We get along great; we love the same movies even after watching them for tenth or twentieth time. We both love our families, and we love each others families. We both love going camping, and we all love just hanging out together. But it is not always as cheerful as I have just described. We do have to work at our relationship, to make sure that we continue to get along great. A marriage is a contract. It is a contract between three people, my wife, me and Government. Government is always in our lives, and she is there to help us maintain our relationship.


These days though Government is being pushed out of our lives. Conservatives have tried their best to take Government out of all of our lives. Here is the question that I have for all you that don’t like Government being in our society:


“In the past, when Government was not involved in our society, was it better or worse than today? Was the prison population as high? Was the abortion rate as high? Were organized labor unions as prevalent? Was the diversity of families as high as it is now?”


Think about it honestly, and if you want to become a chosen one, all you have to do is ask Government for help.

Granted this is quick rewrite but,I think I made my point. A simple formula is to take the Christian perspective on any issue and substitute Government for God and you will always end-up with the Liberal point of view.

Rightside Blogger [Visitor]
http://www.therightsideblog.blogspot.com
I like the rewrite, and I have to admit that I agree with your formula and the results found by the formula. I was looking for the way to explain exactly what you did. Thank you for reading my blog, and please don’t be strangers.

Regards,

Observing Independence Day

Sometimes we get to observe some of the most contradictory and incomprehensible activities and events. On July Fourth I saw something that was truly amazing.

I was working at a church booth at our local Independence Day celebration. We were handing out information about our church and giving helium filled balloons to anyone that wanted them. The balloons had the church name, logo and website address.

Several hours into the event, I notice two women wrapped in a white cloth that covered their heads and much of their bodies pushing a baby stroller around the park. Attached to the stroller was one of our church balloons. I was stunned. By their dress, it was clear that these women were members of the Islamic faith and yet they were advertising a protestant church.

As it turned-out, these women were part of a larger group that was having a picnic about a hundred feet from our booth. In the midst of that group were still more balloons that were all from our church. It was surreal. This was something that I would not have expected.
*****
The other thing I saw at this day in the park was the juxtaposition of two things that when placed side-by-side were humorous. Imagine a large inflatable slide. It works on the principle as a bounce house, only this thing is about 35 feet tall. It is the size of a small house.

I tried to imagine myself climbing to the top of the slide and going down this flimsy (by adult standards) structure with disastrous results.

While it is unclear whether Tom Cruise would approve, I could see myself going from the bottom of the slide across the fifteen-foot buffer zone directly into chiropractors tent for urgent care.

 

China & Unocal

Communist China has put in a bid to buy Unocal Oil for 18.5 billion dollars in cash. I am a person that believes in free markets; however, selling one of our biggest petroleum producers to a government that is bent on world domination is one of the dumber ideas that our government has contemplated during the Bush Administration.

Why should we consider selling this company to China at a time when we should be developing energy independence from the Middle East?

Unocal is the 9th largest United States oil company. The proposed sale would give China not only direct control over a portion of the American market but more control over the petroleum supply of many of China’s neighbors. This sale would allow China to expand their sphere of economic influence in Asia.

Still, it is nice to know that all that hard earned money that I spent at Wal-Mart is being pumped back into the economy.

 

Follow-up

Chevron purchased Unocal 08/11/2005

 

Supremes: Men Don’t Need God’s Law

There is a right way, a wrong way and the weasel way. This is the view of corporate America as described by Dilbert writer Scott Adams. Today is proof that it applies to judicial decisions.

The split decision handed down today is worse than a draw. It is open season and full employment for all constitutional law attorneys. There is no unifying principle that can explain both decisions.

These cases plus the case last week about private property prove that there are no limits on judicial tyranny. Our law has become completely unmoored from the Constitution.

Like Christianity in Liberal churches, the historic meaning of the words and ideas that originated the Constitution has been discarded as limiting and out of fashion. The context in which the document was written has no relevance to modern jurisprudence.

Liberals have substituted an “enlightened” view that you can redefine the words and ideas to mean whatever you wish them to say. If that doesn’t work you can ignore them or substitute your own. This is the essence of a “living document.”

Courting Next Justice

There is talk that the first vacancy in the Supreme Court will be Sandra Day O’Connor. This was reported by William Kristol and carried on Hugh Hewitt yesterday. This would be President Bush’s first opportunity to appoint anyone to the Court. Kristol also reports that Attorney General Roberto Gonzales will replace Justice O’Conner.

With all due respect to President Bush and his supporters such as the California High School Conservative, selecting Gonzales would be the worst move that Bush can make. Gonzales lacks the values that we need on the Court, especially in light of the ruling today on private property rights.

Gonzales is reportedly “moderate”. We don’t need more squishy pro-abortion judges on the Court. If he is not a principled, strict constructionist then we don’t need him. Cloning David Sutter is wasting an appointment.

If Bush appoints Gonzales as his first justice, then his next one will be further to the Left or he won’t get through the Senate. If Gonzales is nominated to replace Stevens, I might consider that an upgrade, but O’Conner and Kennedy have alternated being the swing votes on almost every decision of the Court.

Getting someone more Conservative than O’Conner is critical.

Trackback
http://cahsconservative.blogspot.com
I am not saying that the President should nominate Gonzales. That is his choice.

What I am saying is that should he nominate Gonzales I would support him 100%. O’Connor has been wobbly; I think that Gonzales would be fairly conservative compared to her.

Sure, we can disagree with him on a few social issues. However, I do not think that the President will nominate someone who he thinks will shred the Judeo-Christian legacy of this country. I trust the president in that regard.

The biggest issue right now in the world is The War on Terror. Gonzales has shown consistency in that area in letting the US Government do what it needs to get the job done.

Court Abolishes Private Property

The Supreme Court ruling handed down today in Kelo v New London declares what we have known all along. All land—publicly and privately owned—is the king’s land and we use it only at his pleasure. Now every petty local official and robber baron has the right to anything that you own.

The myth of private property has been a cherished idea for many years. But the fact is that the government has laid claim to all the land for decades. The test of this is very simply. If your house and land are fully paid, the government can still legally take it away from you. If you fail to pay property tax the government can take it away from you. The fact that you can loose it means it never really belonged to you.

The decision today just expands the ease with which the government can separate you from you land. Wealth redistribution has expanded from tax revenue to assets. Now we can rob land from the middle and lower classes and give to the rich with the same ease that the New Deal has robbed money from the rich and given to the middle and lower classes.

Government Shutdown?

I paid a visit today to the California Secretary of State’s Office and the Capitol. Both buildings were virtually empty except for security.

I needed to pick-up some documents related to a project I am working on with a friend. While I was there I also got some info related to the November Special Election. I visited offices on two different floors. Between both floors, I saw three people. Many lights were off and all the Dilbert Cubicles were empty. Many publications that should have been available were not in the offices. We were told to try their Internet site because the publications might be there.

At the Capitol, I dropped by Senator John Campbell’s office. I wanted my daughter—who was accompanying me—to see one of the good guys. I opened the door and was impressed by two things. First there was only one person in the office. This person turned-out not to belong to the senator’s staff but was simply there to answer calls. Second, the office was a dinky hole-in-the-wall. Not what I expected from a man destined to serve in Congress.

The Senate employee was nice and we had a good visit. He let us see the whole office and answered all our questions. Senator Campbell’s office was about twice as big as the walk-in closet at my parent’s house.

Employer’s Perspective on Immigration

One of the hottest political issues among grassroots people is immigration. A common refrain among people I hear— on conservative talk radio and elsewhere—is that the solution to illegal immigration is to strengthen the borders and stop employers from hiring undocumented workers. This all sounds good but existing law doesn’t allow this to happen; at least not from the employer’s perspective.

The stereotype is that employers will seek-out illegals to work for them and then pay them three bucks an hour in cash and send them on their way. While this probably does happen, my experience doing payroll in the construction industry is quite different. I would like to interject my experience into the public record.

Employers are extremely hampered in dealing with job applicants. This is because both state and federal laws prohibit employers from any discretion in evaluating documents of job applicants. If you agree to hire someone and they can provide you with the necessary documents required for the I-9 form required by the INS and a social security number then the job applicant has met the requirements for being hired. It is illegal to reject an applicant that provides you with these documents. (There is no requirement to see the social security card just that the employee gives you a number.)

At the company where I work, we pay most of our employees that work in the field $20 per hour. They are covered by both worker compensation and liability insurance. They are even eligible for medical, dental and other insurances. All taxes are paid to the appropriate state and federal agencies. This is hardly the slave wages alleged in most horror stories about exploiting illegals.

There are two instances when potentially fraudulent documents are ever brought to the attention of employers. One is when an employer gets a wage garnishment for an employee that they have never heard of before. The problem is that the names don’t match but the social security numbers are identical. Conclusion, our employee is probably not legit. When notified, there are two responses that you will get. Usually the questionable employee suddenly quits.
Occasionally, the employee pays the garnishment and continues on at his present job.

The second time that an employer has an idea that an employee has questionable documentation is when once a year, they get a letter from the Social Security Administration that informs them that some of the names submitted on the previous years’ W-2s don’t match the names in their records. At my current employer this is over thirty people. I have tried verifying names and social security numbers in our records (we keep copies of all documents submitted for employment) and submitting them per the instructions provided by SSA but not one name that I submitted was accepted by the SSA.

Supposedly, the SSA has the ability to verify names and social security numbers on a pass/fail basis but this system is worthless. Some of our employees have six or seven names on their I-9 documents. In a computer system that only accepts first name, middle initial and last name how do you enter a name like JOSE DE JESUS CONTRERAS DE LA GUADALUPE?

How will the entry on my employee’s W-2 ever match a social security card with a name like that? Answer: it can’t. Ever. This renders the verification system of the Social Security Administration totally useless. Due to privacy laws and worries of identity theft, they will not help you if a name does not match. It is clear that our government is not setup to deal with Hispanic names and neither is my ten thousand dollar accounting program.

The Social Security Administration could easily give their list of questionable employees to the immigration people for verification but they don’t. In addition, the SSA instructions specifically state that it is illegal to terminate any employee whose name appears in the letter.

I have never known any employer who has been checked by any government agency to verify their I-9 forms or any other employee documents. In fact, employers are not required to keep copies of the documents used for the I-9s; they simply have to see them and sign the appropriate form verifying that they saw the necessary documents. There are two categories of documents that can be used; the usual combination of documents are a social security card and drivers license but others are also acceptable.

The bottom line is that if a prospective hire has the proper documents then they must be treated the same as any other employee. Only the government has the right to challenge their validity. Going after employers as a means of solving illegal immigration is a straw-man argument. If the employer gets the documents at time of hire, then the person is hired. Citizenship or immigration status has no effect on the hiring process. That is the law. Only Congress can change it and they are very reluctant to do their job.

Posting the Ten Commandments and Leftist Frenzy

Any day now the US Supreme Court will rule on a case that involves posting the Ten Commandments. Many are waiting nervously for the outcome. Will the Commandments be allowed publicly? If yes, the case will stand. If the Commandments are banned, this will heighten interest in the case being revisited after President Bush makes appointments to the Court.

Besides the usual suspects arguing for the myth of separation of church and state, a new group on the Left has emerged with a new argument. Their argument is based on the fear of Dominionists within the “Christian Right.”

If the Supreme Court allows the Ten Commandments to be posted publicly in government facilities, many extremists will view this as a major step to accomplishing the first point of Bruce Prescott’s six point outline on how Dominionists (also called Reconstructionists) plan to take over the United States.

Stripped to its barest essentials, here is their blueprint for America. Their ultimate goal is to make the U.S. Constitution conform to a strict, literal interpretation of Biblical law. To do that involves a series of legal and social reforms that will move society toward their goal. 1) Make the ten commandments the law of the land . . .

—Dr. Bruce Prescott

There are a myriad of conspiracy theories circulating in the Left that have no basis in reality. Instead of checking their facts, they use each other as sources for what the other guys are doing. From these distortions, the Left claims that the Right is secretly working to impose a new order that will result in a Theocracy . For the Left to equate posting the Ten Commandments with abolishing democracy and setting-up a theocracy is just crazy. We will see if Howard Dean & company make the claim anyway.

The assertion—that the Right wants to establish a theocracy as part of some grand conspiracy that makes the X-Files look tame in comparison—is a conclusion that illustrates that Left makes the same error in religion that they do in Law; they fail to go to the source documents to find original intent. They cannot comprehend the outline of the subject let alone understand the subtleties of the subject matter. The denial of Truth and absolutes of Good and Evil blind them to the point of view of their opponents. Their defective reasoning results in intellectually lazy leftists that are able to equate such things as the “Christian Right” with the Taliban.

The fact that the Ten Commandments were allowed to be posted in any government building for the first 150 years of this nation’s history and are written above the heads of the judges who will sit in judgment of God’s Law, is a historical fact that the Left chooses to ignore because it doesn’t fit their construct. They ignore the fact that the Constitution recognizes that we have freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.

The reaction to the Court ruling will be most instructive. Let’s see if I am correct in my assertions.