Good morning.

1. In the President’s words … apparently backtracking is a theme.
2. That’s what we need in a recession.
3. Tanning beds and the new bill.
4. 10 books meme noticed … at Volokh.
5. Ice.
6. Power napping.
7. Faith … and the stage.
8. Fixie at Wal-Mart?
9. A very cool biking video, dreams of the ordinary man or something like that.
10. Handouts continue … deficits are no concern I guess.
11. Those Healthcare lawsuits.
12. Kiss your (retirement) money good bye.
13. Talking race.
14. On the phase in … and avoiding the obvious point that the really onerous parts of the bill needed to be postponed until after certain election cycles were past.

Good … afternoon.

1. Independence day.
2. On being a foreigner.
3. A Gitmo grad.
4. From our Government motors.
5. Considering Sophocles.
6. While I too think I “know what you mean“, I think what you don’t mean is what is true, i.e., safety is not possible.
7. Salvadore Dali-bike.
8. How to shut up a professional ethicist … sort of.
9. The “GOP” is “deeply unserious” about addressing … hmm, I’d say that’s an unnecessary qualification. Politicians are unserious about most matters, healthcare being just one of them.
10. The “tea leaves” are not hard to understand. The missing piece is that cricket races (polls) are almost universally meaningless.
11. On the defence of detainee lawyers.
12. We need more of this.
13. But what we will get is this sort of thing … in healthcare … in spades, which has already happened in that Congress has exempted itself and their aides from the healthcare legislation.
14. 64 “teams” … who will win?
15. Just say no? For those who claim this HC bill will not affect healthcare innovation … how will a “medical device tax” spur innovation and improvements?

A blog I used to write was just a collection of quotes I liked.  Early one was this one:

"Smokers don’t impose health care costs on society; governments that insist on paying for smokers’ health care impose health care costs on society." — Sasha Volokh, from The Volokh Conspiracy blog

(This was done while the Volokh Conspiracy was still using Blogspot.  They’ve moved to their own domain and the old one has a completely different kind of blog on it, so sorry, no link to the original post.)

It is, of course, a more wordy version of "Guns don’t kill; people kill" saying, retasked to a new subject.  Sasha’s version was written in 2003.  Seven years later, it takes on a new meaning.

I was reminded of this quote when I read this post from Bruce McQuain.  He talks about the easy slide from Nanny State to Bully State, and how the opposition go the health care bill is and always was based on freedom, and what happens when government is given a bigger and bigger share of the freedom in this country, for whatever the good intention.  He quotes a report from the Institute for Public Affairs that lists a series of assumptions governments make when they take over health decisions.

Most of the health care burden is driven by disease that results from lifestyle decisions.

Most of the health care burden is therefore, in theory, preventable.

The cost of most lifestyle-related disease is not recovered from the individuals with such diseases or from the industries whose products contribute to these diseases.

Individual autonomy cannot be the paramount value in health care.

Individual choice as a basis for health is ‘too simplistic’.

Individual freedoms may have to give way to the coercive power of the State.

Interventions, including coercive actions, to change behaviour may proceed in the absence of evidence of their effectiveness.

Individuals have a clear responsibility to refrain from lifestyle decisions that lead to disease and, consequently, treatment can be denied to those who refuse to change their behaviour.

With the passage of the health care reform bill, we’ve already slipped about halfway down this particular slope.  Never mind smokers, Sasha, the official nationalization of this sector now means that all sorts of bad habits are guaranteed to affect everyone in the country because the government insists on it.

And this is different from insurance companies charging more for smokers or young drivers or people who sky dive.  Insurance companies can’t make these choices illegal; they can only charge you more for the higher risk you are asking them to take on.  The government, however, has far, far more power at hand.

It’s about freedom, and it’s being eroded away.

That interesting turn of the phrase goes to Andrew Breibart as he documents how desperate the Left has become in trying to paint the Tea Partiers with the broad, and very overused, brush of racism charges.  The latest example; as the Congressional Black Caucus paraded to the Capitol for the health care reform vote, they claim racial epithets were yelled at them.  However, with as many cameras, smart phones and video recorders as there were on the scene, not a single second of proof has emerged.  Click the link for the videos and other examples of this desperation.

Breibart says, regarding this political theater:

There is no reason in 21st century America on an issue that is not a black or white or a civil rights issue to have a bloc of black people walk slowly through a mostly white crowd to make a racial point. The walk in and of itself — with two of the participants holding their handheld cameras above their heads hoping to document “proof” — was an act of racism meant to create a contrast between the tea party crowd and themselves.

And it failed. 

[I am working on a project that may become a book on the most influential evangelicals leaders of our generation, since 1976, and the impact they’ve had on the church and their times. I will introduce them briefly on this blog from time to time. Who should be on this list?]

Ron Sider. b. 1939

Since Ron Sider published Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger in 1977, he has provided direction and support for evangelicals focusing on poverty, social justice, pacifism, and the environment. Sider, both personally and through the small and lightly funded organizations he founded, has represented the northstar of the small group of evangelical liberals that from time to time prod the right-leaning community with a necessary nudge to include the last, least, and lost in the outreach of the church. One thing Sider has never done is deviate from both the core doctrines and the central cultural issues of the movement; he demonstrated this by signing the Manhattan Declaration in 2009. This was consistent with his lifelong pro-life stance. In fact, Sider’s Completely Pro-Life, published in the mid-1980s, calls on Christians to take a consistent stand opposing abortion, capital punishment, nuclear weapons, hunger, and other conditions that Sider sees as anti-life.

As Tim Stafford wrote in Christianity Today:

Ron Sider doesn’t seem the type to upset people. A short, balding seminary professor with a quick smile and thick glasses, he talks in a relaxed, low-voltage way. Professionally he is a hybrid, a historian who teaches theology and talks and writes about politics and economics. His academic credentials are exemplary: a Ph.D. in Reformation history Yale; articles published in prestigious journals. Theologically he is a heartland evangelical, deeply committed to an inspired Bible, to a passionate communication of the gospel and to a transforming personal faith. Politically he is mainstream Democratic party except for conservative stances on homosexuality and abortion. In short, Sider is no flaming radical. Yet it would be hard to think of another evangelical who has been more ardently criticized for being “radical.” In reality, Sider takes flak from both the Left and the Right, particularly when he upholds evangelical positions at ecumenical meetings. “I’ve been picketed twice,” he says, “by theonomists [who believe in applying Old Testament law today] in Australia, and in Minnesota by gay-rights [advocates].”

Sider has published over 22 books and has written over 100 articles in both religious and secular magazines on a variety of topics including the importance of caring for creation as part of biblical discipleship. Sider’s Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger was published In 1977. Hailed by Christianity Today as one of the one hundred most influential books in religion in the twentieth century, it went on to sell 350,000 copies. He is often identified by others with the Christian left, though he personally disclaims any political inclination. He is the founder of Evangelicals for Social Action, a think-tank which seeks to develop biblical solutions to social and economic problems.. He is also the Professor of Theology, Holistic Ministry and Public Policy at Palmer Theological Seminary in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania.

Good morning.

1. I think you might need to be a subscriber to read this … but it is quite good.
2. Following my predilection for sidestepping the main point of a piece … the phrase “deeply patronizing” jumped out at me. I think the adjective “deeply” here is meaningless and inaccurate. Besides that, the attitude is more than likely “shallowly” patronizing at best, i.e., just based on surface assumptions and casual expectations.
3. Huh? So … who is the guy on the left? Lenin? Freud?
4. Inflation and a debate, a missing piece possibly in this list.
5. This is not unrelated to the above.
6. Remarks on the CBO estimates of the healthcare bill. 
7. Economics and legislation.
8. New? A “New” nuclear option? Huh!? This is what nuclear proponents (mostly oddly enough on the right) have been advocating for two decades.
9. Speaking of healthcare.
10. From pro-choice to pro-life in a pro-choice community.
11. Bill of attainder?
12. Obama keeping his word … not.
13. It will be interesting to see if those who support the stimulus object to this … which is due to the stimulus bill.
14. A motor.

Good morning.

1. Pessimism (here and here) and Optimism (here) in the wake of the healthcare passing.
2. Loneliness and humility.
3. Climate or weather news.
4. Testable predictions … what are your predictions (testable).
5. One here.
6. On planet liberal … apparently selling crap to the government is free markets. Geesh.
7. This would be a story to dig into … in my copious free time.
8. Shame, a quality entirely lacking in the beltway set.
9. On abortion and the healthcare bill.
10. An abhorrent trend.
11. And the big lie in the healthcare mix.
12. Why the legislative victory will likely be Pyrrhic.

Career.

• Thirty Years that Shook Physics: The Story of Quantum Theory … decided my major.
• Personal Knowledge … more recently set the stage for my thinking on philosophy of science.

Religion

• Chuang Tzu: Basic Writings locked in my falling away from the church.
• Chesterton’s Orthodoxy brought me back.
• Lossky’s The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, Evagrius Ad Monachos, St. John Cassian’s Conferences, and Metropolitian John Zizioulas’ Communion and Otherness sent me packing smartly across the Bosphorus.

Politics

• Solzhenitsyn’s addresses (The Solzhenitsyn Reader) and Jouvenel’s political trilogy (On Power, Sovereignty, and Pure theory of Politics) form the basis of and anchor my political thinking.
• Huxley’s Brave New World and Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom describe the modern world.
• Chantal Delsol’s The Unlearned Lessons Of the Twentieth Century: An Essay On Late Modernity is very very good as well.

(Fake photo credit:  Chris Jamison)

So the health care "reform" bill passed last night, complete with payoffs, abortion funding and fake projections of "savings" required to try to pass it via reconciliation.  And in an entirely "unipartisan" manner.  (Even the New Deal had bipartisan support.)

So what does this mean for American politics?  Glad you asked.

• There is now a precedent for requiring Americans to buy something simply because they live here.  Automobile insurance is required in most states if you own a car.  Health insurance, however, is required, period.  Nice work if you can get it. 
• The phrase "pro-life Democrat", at least (but not limited to) as it described Washington politicians, is now known to be an oxymoron.  The executive order Obama promised the Stupak group isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.  (See here, here and here, please.)  An EO only applies to the executive branch, can be rescinded on a whim, and legislation always trumps it.  And in spite of whatever pro-life record they may have had in the past, the entire Stupak group sold its collective souls, principles and the lives of future generations for something they must know is less a fig leaf and more tissue paper.  (More on this from Betsy Newmark.  This is just unfathomable.)
• Democrats can no longer legitimately complain about polarization or the lack of bipartisanship in Washington.  No doubt they will, mind you, but they’ve completely lost the moral authority on the issue.
• Gaming the CBO system for political gain, though I’m sure it’s been done before, has, by virtue of this massive bill, been raised to a new level of legitimacy.  A former CBO head wrote on Saturday that the numbers were so manipulated that what is claimed will be a reduction in the deficit of $138 billion is really more like an increase in the neighborhood of $562 billion.  The foundation for using the reconciliation process to pass this bill was that it reduced the deficit.  So the method used to pass the bill was based on a lie.  And this is not even including a $371 billion dollar Medicare bill that’s coming down the pike. 

Everything about this legislation — above and beyond the usual sausage-making that is the political process — is absolutely awful, regardless of its actual contents.  And its actual contents, once we have it, no matter how awful it turns out to be, is now with us for good.  (Barring a repeal, which is very hard to get the political will to do in Washington.)  If it’s an abject failure, or even it if just keeps the status quo at the cost of billions every year to run in place, it will not go away.  We’re stuck with this ball and chain.

And a parting "shot", if you will, from Michael Ramirez.  (Click for a larger version.)

Good morning.

1. Civility and trade.
2. Friday’s prediction. “worst aspects of market and socialism” Words … we will apparently now be living by.
3. Adultery.
4. Clinton in Russia regarding Iran.
5. The coming healthcare battles … will only get worse.
6. On hell.
7. Of milk and meat and Christian education.
8. Considering the Prayer of St. Ephrem.
9. A forest and a highway.
10. Yet another scientific study noted which discovers the obvious.
11. Sarcasm in the wake of the healthcare passage. Or is it irony, I can never figure out what the difference between those two.
12. Maybe that healthcare bill will lose its teeth.
13. And it has to stand up in court as well.
14. Imagine that, dishonesty from the President. 
15. Darwin and teleology.

Word is the House is not going for the “Deem and Pass” option in spite of saying they would. My guess is that it didn’t pass the PR test.

At least we’ll get an honest vote out of this. Too bad the Democrats didn’t choose the honorable way first.

[I am working on a project that may become a book on the most influential evangelical leaders of our generation, since 1976, and the impact they’ve had on the church and their times. I will introduce them briefly on this blog from time to time. Who should be on this list?]

Frank Wolf. Gentle Congressman b.1939

When the topic of Christian politicians comes up in conversation, almost no one mentions Representative Frank Wolf of northern Virginia. That is not because his actions or words run contrary to Christian principles. It may be for just the opposite reason: Wolf is a humble 15-term Congressman who has worked unflaggingly but quietly on some of the most difficult issues for people of faith around the world. Wolf is a restrained and effective Christian statesman.

An unassuming champion of international human rights and religious liberty, Wolf won the first William Wilberforce Award in 1992, presented to Christians in public service by Chuck Colson and Prison Fellowship. Wilberforce is the driving force behind a group of congressmen from both sides of the aisle, including Wolf, who meet periodically to make their faith part of their politics. The most recent recipient of the award is former Democratic congressman Tony Hall of Ohio.

Wolf said: “There are only 435 members of the House of Representatives and only 100 members of the Senate. If we can get the word out about Wilberforce’s life and legacy, we can change this country.”

Wolf is not much at glad-handing, he shies away from the limelight, and he’s a bland public speaker. For his serene optimism, critics have labeled him naive. His travels are not the typical junkets to posh resorts or embassy parties but risky excursions to outposts ravaged by war and famine—especially to places where fellow Christians are persecuted for their faith.

On one journey took him to Tibet, where he posed as a tourist, eluded the tour guide by pretending to be ill, and then sneaked out to talk to Tibetans on the street for the real story of Chinese repression. Another expedition took him to Sudan, a nation that was waging a self-described religious war against its own citizens who are Christians or other non-Muslims through a campaign of torture, starvation, and murder. Sudanese soldiers were literally snatching children from their mothers’ arms and selling them into slavery for the price of a few head of cattle. Girls were sold as concubines.

He has dodged bombs in Nagorno Karabakh. He has investigated conditions in El Salvador, Bosnia, and Ethiopia. Instead of enjoying the plush accommodations he could command as a government official, Wolf toughs it out with ordinary people for a first-hand sense of their plight.

Before the fall of the Iron Curtain, Wolf tramped throughout Eastern Europe championing for freedom. He was the first American official to bulldog his way into the notorious Perm Camp 35 in the Siberian gulag, where leading dissidents were imprisoned. Upon returning, he publicized the religious and political abuses they reported and arranged for me to join a second group visiting the camp. Due to Wolf’s tenacity, the Soviets released many prisoners even before the USSR collapsed.

After the trial of the leadership of the Bahá’í community of Iran was announced in February 2009, Wolf was deeply disturbed over the “systematic persecution” of the Bahá’ís. He offered a resolution on the subject of the trial of the Iranian Bahá’í leadership co-sponsored by seven others–“Condemning the Government of Iran for its state-sponsored persecution of its Baha’i minority and its continued violation of the International Covenants on Human Rights.”

For his indefatigable efforts, Wolf has won respect even from people on the opposite side of his conservative politics. Former Washington Post columnist Mary McGrory called him “a watchman on the rampart of world freedom.” Former Democratic congressman Lionel Van Deerlin described Wolf as one of “a special breed,” who “seem attracted to public office to fulfill more than personal or political ends.” Men like Wolf, he added, “sustain a flicker of hope in the elective process.”

When Chuck Colson presented the first Wilberforce Award to Wolf, we prepared large red, white and blue vertical banners with Wilberforce’s picture to decorate the outdoor proceedings. Wolf asked if he could have one of the banners and we complied. The next time I visited Wolf’s congressional office, he had it hanging on the inside of the door to his personal office. The banner took up the entire door; a Wilberforce-like legacy seems to have consumed his entire life.

The CBO numbers for the final final health care reform bill may look good (depending on your definition of "good"), but, as I’ve noted before, the numbers are gamed.  And now, here’s more sleight of hand going on.

Democrats are planning to introduce legislation later this spring that would permanently repeal annual Medicare cuts to doctors, but are warning lawmakers not to talk about it for fear that it will complicate their push to pass comprehensive health reform. The plans undercut the party’s message that reform lowers the deficit, according to a memo obtained by POLITICO.

Democrats removed the so-called doc fix from the reform legislation last year because its $371-billion price tag would have made it impossible for Democrats to claim that their bill reduces the deficit. Republicans have argued for months that by stripping the doc fix from the bill, Democrats were playing a shell game.

Remember, the CBO estimate is, for all intents and purposes, a minimum price.  As with all other big government programs, it will increase dramatically.

Good morning.

1. That FOIA thing, with some numbers.
2. Change … or not.
3. St. Cyril on the Lord’s prayer.
4. Climate.
5. Flight.
6. Art.
7. Healthcare and the Jedi younglings.
8. Budget and the latest version of the bill … and a big lie.
9. Abandoned churches in Russia, a photo-montage. (HT: Paul Gregory Alms)
10. Campaign finance.
11. Attitudes in academia? Counter-intuitive?
12. An Aussie judge strikes out.

Good morning.

1. Career choices in the UK.
2. Genocides.
3. No. Charity does not imply a power hierarchy.
4. Enforced charity however, does incur disgruntlement.
5. Three more for St. Patrick’s day, here (a defence) and here (some history) and here (Irish jokes).
6. Eucharist and confession.
7. Some economic indicators … including “attractive wait staff.”
8. When you start off by misreading … going from there means straw men are afoot.
9. HUD for the rest of us.
10. Russian elections.
11. Hitler and Pakistan.a
12. Gooder English.
13. Fer the kiddies … or not.
14. Next comes Evagrius, then Cassian … then swim in the Bosphorus? 😉