Sea Gulls, Self-Relaince, and the Welfare State

It is no secret that I am a conservative and as such, I believe strongly in the inspired principles upon which our great nation was founded. Principles embraced in the Declaration of Independence: liberty, independence, self-determination, self-reliance, personal responsibility, and especially limited government. Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration, stated, "A government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have. The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

Jefferson also listed the reasons why America needed to break free from King George III's rule in the Declaration. I find some of these reasons interesting: "He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance . . . For imposing taxes on us without our consent . . . for enlarging [government's] boundaries . . . altering fundamentally the forms of our governments." I only cite to these reasons to show that Jefferson and the other forefather patriots did not care for big government's excessive control over their lives, their property, their wealth, and their liberty.

Politicians in today's America are elected because they promise that government will provide free this, free that, and universal such and such. All these promises sound fantastic! However, these programs will lead to the formation of a welfare state. All of those 'free' programs will be run by the federal government. And as we all know, the federal government has always set the gold standard for efficiency and quality! In reality, these social programs are anything BUT free. For example, President Obama's new budget (ironically titled, "A New Era of Responsibility") asks for 600 billion + for only the first "down payment" on universal health care. How much will the final bill be if the first down payment is just 600 billion? These social programs cost trillions of dollars which the taxpayers will have to pay back sooner or later. This means significantly higher taxes - which means less liberty, freedom, and taxpayer independence.

But there are more serious problems which flow from the creation of a welfare state: more dependence on and addiction to government bailouts, handouts, and diminished incentives to be self-reliant and make good choices. Just look around at what is happening. It is easy to see that the government is ever-ready to step in between the choices we make as individuals and corporations and the consequences of those actions. Get in over your head on a house you knew you couldn't afford? Buy too many things with your credit card? Underwrite too many sub-prime mortgages? Mismanaged your car company? No problem!! Because you're "too big to fail," we'll just send the outrageous bill to fix everything to the future generations of taxpayers. A government that becomes a huge safety net for all of our problems greatly weakens our collective society. I definitely subscribe to something Jen said a while ago "THE FREE MARKET RULES! It just hurts a little sometimes."

Here is a good story illustrating the dangers of becoming more dependent on handouts found in this month's Ensign. The talk is called "The Celestial Nature of Self-Reliance," by Elder Marion G. Romney.

He quotes a story from the Reader's Digest: "In our friendly city of St. Augustine great flocks of sea gulls are starving amid plenty. Fishing is still good, but the gulls don't know how to fish. For generations they have depended on the shrimp fleet to toss them scraps from the nets. Now the fleet has moved. The shrimpers had created a Welfare State for the seagulls. The birds never bothered to learn how to fish for themselves and they never taught their children to fish. Instead they led their little ones to the shrimp nets. Now the sea gulls, the fine free birds that almost symbolize liberty itself, are starving to death because they gave in to the 'something for nothing' lure! They sacrificed their independence for a handout.

A lot of people are like that too. They see nothing wrong in picking delectable scraps from the tax nets of the U.S. Government's 'shrimp fleet.' But what will happen when the Government runs out of goods? What about our children of generations to come? Let's not be gullible gulls. We must preserve our talents of self-sufficiency, our genius for creating things for ourselves, our sense of thrift and our true love of independence."

Elder Romney then prophetically says, "The practice of coveting and receiving unearned benefits has now become so fixed in our society that even men of wealth, possessing the means to produce more wealth, are expecting the government to guarantee them a profit. Elections often turn on what the candidates promise to do for voters from government funds. This practice, if universally accepted and implemented in any society, will make slaves of its citizens. We cannot afford to become wards of the government, even if we have a legal right to do so. It requires too great a sacrifice of self-respect and political, temporal, and spiritual independence."

While acknowledging that there are many problems with the status quo and sincerely hoping that things get turned around, I cannot support the current aggressive shift towards a welfare state because of the consequences I have outlined. I will instead support policies which promote more self-reliance, less dependence on government, and more individual freedom and liberty. I feel that, in the end, these principles will lead us out of the current economic storm - not huge increases in borrowing, spending, taxing, and bigger government and bureaucracies . PLEASE COMMENT! I'm anxious to hear what you think. Sorry for the length of this post.

Dr. Conscientious Objector, Beware!

See Comment 3, below, before reading this post.

Pres. Obama is moving to undo a regulation put in by Bush 43 that somehow insulated healthcare professionals from punishment if they refused to perform a procedure or render a service that ran contrary to their moral or religious views. So, if you are an obstetrician who refuses to perform an abortion because it is contrary to your personal convictions, you may have reasons other than high malpractice premiums to get into another line of work.

I am not sure of the mechanics of this. But there is an evident trend.

Less than a week into office, Pres. Obama lifted the ban on federal funding of abortions instituted by his predecessor. One could write this off as the typical back-and-forth that happens in policies every time a different party takes over the executive branch. But Pres. Obama's pre-election history with the Infant Born Alive Act indicates that he is not just going along with the "pro-choice" crowd - he is the new point man.

This isn't about the constitution or Roe v. Wade, which then-Senator Obama used, like the cloak in Harry Potter, to disguise his preferences. These are policies that Roe v. Wade did not require or prohibit, that the express language of the Constitution does not require or prohibit. President Obama would deeply wound freedom of conscience with this move.

Even in time of war, we excuse everyday soldiers from the duty to kill (enemy combatants are "viable" by any reasonable definition) if they have a grounded and genuine conscientious objection. Why allow coercion on doctors and nurses who decline to participate in abortions for similar reasons? I believe the answer is, because those doctors and nurses disagree with Pres. Obama on the question of abortion.

In the long run, this move will thin the ranks of pro-life (anti-abortion) healthcare professionals. Pro-choice (pro-abortion) advocates will in later years be able to cite a growing consensus among doctors that abortion . . .fill in the blank. (Do you see similar patterns in journalism and environmental science?). If your goal is to end dissent, better to kill it than to merely gag it.

Regardless of the motivation and grand-scheme potential of this maneuver, it will inflict blunt-force trauma on the civil liberties of healthcare professionals.

Look Out Ireland, Here…We…Come…

So was just listening to Obama's Address to Congress, and naturally I'm depressed, but not for the reason you might guess. I'm disappointed because I just realized that Ireland (possibly the only remaining capitalist country on the planet) will quite possibly be completely overcrowded before I even have the chance to move there when I finally enter the private sector!

Obviously I'm exaggerating, but here's my underlying point: Obama made a certain combination of promises which will at least add to the outsourcing trend. First, he said that he's decided that no amount of debt overrides the importance of reaching certain long-term goals (i.e. his programs). I don't know his specific budget yet, but either way there will be more spending (probably a lot more). Second: he promised to repay half the current national debt within the next two years. And now for the grand finale: he promised not to tax 95% of the country (defined as those who earn over $250,000).

Now let's add up all these promises: 5% of Americans will be taxed to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars within just two years!! Now I know many people worried about class warfare, but holy cow. Why in the world would you not want to outsource to Ireland for at least the next two years if you are a business owner who makes over $250,000? In order to submit to that, you'd either have to be ridiculously generous, ridiculously wealthy, or ridiculously insane! Or am I wrong? I actually hope so, to be frank, because I still would like to be able to move to Ireland at some point after I start making my living. If not, however, I guess I'm resigned to either working hard for someone else's gain or just giving up and living on welfare...

Now on top of all that (for those who still aren't worried), we're probably going to have the baby-boomers hit retirement before we even have a chance to repay the second half of that debt plus anything else from the new "stimulus," and I honestly can't see any point in my future lifetime when my country won't be saddled with debt...well, unless of course I do make it to Ireland after all...

Senator Burris Fiasco

Wow! It looks like former Gov. Blago will continue to have a last laugh for years to come. I wonder what other new surprises are waiting in the wings. Don't you think Blago knew that the Burris appointment would turn sour once people figured out (or Burris was forced into a preemptive confession) that Burris was trying to help Blago raise funds in exchange for a crack at the Senate seat? So is Burris up next for impeachment? It seems that everyone who shakes hands with Blago comes away needing to take a sanitizing shower.

As an attorney, I am very interested to see how Illinois' former AG will "reconcile" his testimony then with his testimony now. Perhaps he will enlighten us (again) on the maining of "is." Every time an interrogator has to go down every conceivable semantic trail and fence the witness's every syllable with roadblocking questions, (i.e., "Did you offer help to Gov. Blago directly OR INDIRECTLY?" or "Did you speak with Gov. Blago OR ANYONE RELATED BY MARRIAGE, BLOOD, OR ADOPTION TO A THIRD DEGREE OF CONSAGUINITY OR LESS?") I am reminded of how cheapened the oath ("the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth") has become. The Book of Mormon decries the (lawyerly) practice of "taking advantage" of a person "because of their words" by "crossing" them. The modern practice, perhaps more deplorable (popular with lawyers) is to take advantage of your own words, leaving cutesy trap doors and land mines in your testimony that you expect people to step on or step through as they try to chase down the truth in what you say.

Stay tuned for more revelations, especially as the criminal proceedings unfold against Blago. He has a talent for taking people down, politically. Yet I wonder whether Blago will be convicted, his basic theory being that he didn't DO anything (didn't actually sell the seat). In any case, I can't see Burris surviving much longer in the Senate. A silver lining would appear if Illinois made it so the people elected a replacement, rather than leaving it to an appointment.

Stimulus Madness

Is anyone else besides me outraged at how Congress just passed the biggest spending bill in the history of the world? Apparently, Speaker Pelosi's all-important European tour is the reason why the dems broke their promise to post the 1100 page monstrosity online for 48 hours before holding the final vote to cram this thing down the American taxpayers' throats. That, plus the fear that if given the TIME to read it in its entirety, the bill would lose even more support. Not one member of the House who voted for this thing even read it. This is flat-out insanity. No wonder why Congress' approval rating is in the teens. Check this out:



What is even more embarassing (or worse, SCARY) is listening to some of the sound bytes from White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, President Obama, and Democratic Senator Chuck Shchumer. Rahm Emanuel said, "you can't let a crisis like this go to waste" to push their spend, spend, and spend some more agenda. Obama hasn't figured out how to lead. I'm sick and tired of his sky is falling, gloom-and-doom, fear-mongering rhetoric. This is hipocrisy, in my mind. Why? Because these are the exact same tactics Bush used to gain support for the rebate check and TARP debacles last year. And this is the "CHANGE" America voted for? Obama apparently is still stuck in big flowery speech, campaign mode (the one thing he has proved he is good at), traveling to Florida, Illinois, and Indiana to pitch his pork plan to who - the public? They aren't going to vote for this thing, Congress is! Scaring people isn't leadership. Bullying people into doing what you want isn't leadership. And by the way, Is anyone else sick of the Lincoln comparisons coming from the left-wing mainstream media? I just don't see it. Lincoln saved and united the country and compiled the best cabinet this country has ever seen. Obama has divided the Congress (not one Republican voted for his bill, and 7 democrats even voted NO), and his cabinet selection process is an absolute disaster. The nominees have tax problems like you wouldn't believe, his CIA pick Panetta has ZERO intelligence experience, and the deputy AG has advocated to print Playboy in braille for the Library of Congress. Are you kidding? Back to the stimulus - the Republicans offered a package that would DOUBLE the jobs for HALF the cost. Oops I forgot, they are the minority. So let's throw all common sense out the window, and spend a trillion dollars we don't have, saddling the next generation with debt. I'm not even going to get into some of the absurd pork projects that are jammed into this thing that have NOTHING to do with stimulus or job creation. But Chuck Schumer thinks that, "the American people don't care about the pork in this bill." The last poll I saw, less than 40% of the public supports this thing, so apparently Schumer is blatantly out of touch with reality. Very little of the spending in this bill is "targeted, timely, and temporary," which is what Obama originally wanted (and wasn't his original number 300 billion? That's what he said anyway). If that was the goal, then why didn't the Obama administration draft the bill and submit it to Congress in the first place? Instead, he let Pelosi and Reid and the rest of the big spenders in Congress have a massive spending orgy when drafting the bill, for which he would have to apologize and make excuses for later. That doesn't seem like leadership to me.

Look, I realize the economy could use a boost. I just don't think this is the right way to do it. I'd much rather allow more time for meaningful debate and compromise to get it right than to rush this 787 BILLION dollar bill on purpose just for the sake of "doing something." That is a lot of money to just push through in this irresponsible fashion. I'm embarassed for our elected officials, and am sad that it has taken the Republicans so long to develop a backbone to stand up for fiscal responsibility and sanity (minus Arlen Specter, Olympia Snowe, and Susan Collins). Sorry for the rant. What are your thoughts?

All in Good Fun . . .

Ideally, I'd rather be posting about Obama's awesome cabinet nominations or the embarassing pork-ulus bill going through Congress right now. Unfortunately, I lack the time to really dig in and do the proper research about those topics. So instead, I thought I'd treat everyone to this satirical video from The Onion. Enjoy!