Various and Sundry Disruptions to Peace of Mind

Events now seem to be moving so fast that there is no space for orderly blogging. I had been working on a post about the Presiding Bishop and Bishop Sauls, and their recently announced plans to revamp the structure of the Church. No sooner was their video released, however, than the sites catalogued over in the column to the right as "AngliCannon to the Left" added a good deal that was also worthy of comment, and so I shall wait until their dust settles, in order to present the widest picture.

Meanwhile, Bill Whittle posted an outstanding video about why conservatives, such as yours truly, really and veritably "suck." (Turns out it has to do with speaking the truth, heedless of fortune or favor.)  I have had no time to write the essay to accompany it.  Since the unvarnished truth never needs dressing up, here is the plain, unadorned video:




Next, President Obama stepped off the deep end and foolishly (should I say hubristically?) pitted the superiority of his Obamacare against the entire leadership of the Christian Church in the western world. (Those words, of course, exclude from their embrace certain socially- and politically-correct-dominated associations like ECUSA, who preach the gospels of global warming, overpopulation, and birth control [including abortion] as superior to the Gospel of Eternal Life.)

Aside: One day soon, I promise, I shall address a separate post to ECUSA's left, and especially to the Very Rev. Katherine Ragsdale of EDS in Cambridge, as to how they possibly, given traditional views of Christianity, could conceive that the Church-sanctioned killing of foeti in this world would allow them, in the next, to evade confronting -- let alone  begging the forgiveness of -- those most innocent of all of God's creation: the unborn, whose elimination they have offered up on the altar of "personal choice".

Of course, President Obama thinks, à la Henry VIII, that he has brilliantly "accommodated" (NB: not "compromised with" -- maximum leaders never compromise; instead they graciously deign to accommodate) the desires of those Catholics who would otherwise be inclined to disagree with him. Yesterday's announcement of that "accommodation" was simply his latest dodge in the shell game he is playing with everyone's (and not just Catholics') First Amendment rights. He has just moved his shells around again -- right in front of our very eyes -- and has the effrontery to presume that we who are religious must be both stupid and hopelessly divided, and are therefore politically impotent.  He thinks we will not perceive how what he deceptively terms "free" insurance coverage for contraceptives and abortifacients simply passes the cost of that coverage on to the employers -- who are required, ultimately as he has drafted and enacted Obamacare, to pay for what he is dictating the employees must have.

How reassuring it is to discover that we have a genuine Chicago huckster making wrong decisions for us, and then telling us that, no, really, it was our decision (to oppose him, or not to do what he directed) that was wrong. But again, there is no time to blog about this issue in depth just now, either.  It will have to wait until the religious freedom vs. healthcare debate heats up big-time, as it surely will before the elections this fall.

Paralleling the Chicago-style hucksterism, we have Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid confirming that no, the Senate will not take up President Obama's -- or any other politician's -- budget, thank you, since our country has gotten along just fine the past three years without any budget being approved by the Senate, thank you very much indeed. "What did you elect us for?" he seems to be challenging us. "To pass a budget which will then immediately become so much waste paper, under our ability to adopt continuing resolutions?" In Michael Ramirez's immortalization of this hubristic stance:

A country which cannot even adopt, after three full years, a budget on which to operate is a country out of control. Indeed, a country which continues to pay its elected representatives to shirk their constitutional duty for more than three years running is a country interested only in "me first", rather than in "we first".

The resulting scenario allows disgraceful and crazy terms of "settlement" between the governing class and the special interests which support their campaigns, even though the former has no right to insulate their beloved (and beholden) banksters from the consequences of their crimes. Again, however, there is no time to blog about all the sickening details, so be sure to read the links, and to follow all their links in turn, as soon as you have time to concern yourself about what is happening right in front of your nose. (That, by the way, is not an accusation against those who might properly feel concern, but a challenge to them to do what they know has to be done.  This republic may be foundering because we who care about it do not think we have sufficient time or energy to unite against the forces that are undermining it.)

The overall picture presented by this sad chronicle of malfeasance and cronyism is not attractive. What it says is that no one is in charge of their own branch of government. The President is doing from moment to moment whatever he and his advisers calculate is needed to get him reelected, even if it means trampling on the prerogatives of Congress, the Supreme Court, or the religious freedom of the Catholic Church.

For its part, Congress is naïvely passing continuing resolutions and raising the debt ceiling to allow the President's game to continue, because they foolishly calculate that they can ride on his coattails, so long as the government spending game continues.

As for the Supreme Court, it has everything to say about the ongoing right to murder fetuses, but absolutely nothing to say about the hijacking of the government's machinery, or about the hubristic excesses committed, by the hucksters and shills who purport to be in charge. Our government of checks and balances is way out of balance, with no (political) checks to counter the unlimited checks which everyone dependent on Washington, from Congressperson to Supreme Court Justice to unemployed worker to SSI recipient and to undocumented immigrant, sees fit to grab for themselves while they can get away with it.

The members of Congress act, for all the world to see, like the simple-minded oysters who, in Lewis Carroll's "The Walrus and the Carpenter," are doomed to succumb to their own laughable view of what is going on around them.

The august and remote justices of the Supreme Court in Washington may think for the moment that they are above such a transparent stratagem, but will find, after all is said and done, that the magnificent edifice of their solemn Court has been built upon sand. Even then, their awareness of that fact is not the real problem.

For the truth is that this sandy foundation once had the protection of a solid coral reef, in the form of the Constitution, which was built to withstand the waves of time. Notwithstanding that truth, the justices, along with a spineless Congress, have managed so to erode the protective reef in recent years as to leave themselves now vulnerable to new onslaughts by those like Obama, who are determined to take charge. Amazingly, these traditionalists are incapable of seeing the threat just yet, because they are traditional in wanting to do what they and their predecessors have always done to date -- play the game. In that aspect, they are like the termites who for generations will gnaw steadily away at a great edifice, without any awareness of the collapse which their continuing and cumulative activity will bring upon them.

Every day on which the Supreme Court meets, their marshal (the "Court Crier") prays on their behalf:

"God save the United States and this honorable Court."

The collective justices, their employees, and the members and staff of both Houses of Congress should realize that "God helps those who help themselves" is not a statement of fact rooted in the Bible (Old or New Testament). It reflects rather the virtues of hard work and dedication upon which this country was founded. What is essential to grasp is that the saying does not mean that "God helps those who help themselves -- to what is in the till."

The first task of everyone in government should be to set a right path based on the needs of the whole country, and not just on their own selfish desires. To do so, they must set aside all naked ambition and plans for personal gain, because to strive for those things is to put self before God.

Were Obama to demonstrate his true belief in Christianity, by putting himself last rather than first, this country might still be transformed for the better. In the place of such humility, he gives us his ham-handed attempt to appear as Supreme Leader, and to portray all Christians opposing him as bigots and idiots.  For any rational person, his overweening arrogance on this one topic should suffice to prevent any voter from ever trusting his words on any subject ever again.