Two criteria come to mind: Their Associations and their Integrity. With regard to the first, some similtudes come to mind. “Birds of a feather, flock together.” and “A man is known by the company he keeps.”   Does the juvenile delinquent join the school’s Bible club for friendships? Does the valle dictorian go to the school dropout for advice and counsel? 

For those who attempted to act on Dr. King’s Dream - that we evaluate every man based upon his character - there were warning signs before November 4, 2008 that pointed to the character of our new President. The Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wrights, Saul Aulinkskys and  Van Jonses in his life had several things in common. 1) They had a disdain for the America that has stood as a beacon of hope to the world for 250 years that people can, in fact, live together in freedom – regardless of beliefs, and economic and ethnic backgrounds.   2) They believed in and advocated a system of government contrary to the US Constitution, which form of government has successfully withstood the test of time. 3) They had associations and dealings with many individuals and orgaizations known for their unethical and at times illegal activities.

Regarding Integrity, this trait can be observed in those who speak and do in public the same as they speak and do in private. In other words, there is no (or scarce) hypocrisy about them. Their “word is gold” as the saying goes. So when a candidate or President tells us that he will establish a transparent Administration and era in Congress, one does not expect to hear him refuse Congressional questioning of his closest advisors (known as czars) to determine if their proposed policies and advice are consistent with our Constitution. Or when Senators of the majority party are literally changing the locks on committee rooms to keep members of the Minority party out of discussions. These kinds of actions are the antithesis of transparnecy.

When a person (candidate or President or citizen) proclaims that they will usher in an end to partisan wrangling and establish an atmosphere where all ideas will be welcome to the table, what can we determine about the integrity of those claims when any and all who would oppose proposed policies are vilifyied, maligned, slandered and targeted for economic and character assissination in the public square? When citizens are asked to snitch on any of their fellow countrymen who might hold sincerely held views that differ from the President or his representatives, does this foster an atmosphere “where all ideas are welcome to the table?” 

I personally know hundreds of African-Americans who would have never voted for the man currently in the White House, had his skin color been white….and rightly so. But they laid aside their long-held beliefs to vote in the “first black American President.” We let Dr. King, Jr. and the Dream down by looking to the color of a man’s skin instead of his character, and set him in the highest office of the world’s greatest free nation. We ignored Dr. King, Jr.’s real Dream…which was that all men, black or white, would be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin. An even sadder anctidote is that all future black Americans who may aspire to the Presidency will be judged against the standard of character set by the first African-American President. And although unfair as it is (I’ve been priveleged to hear and read the thoughts of many black Americans on public policy that stand 180 degrees from current poposed policies), it is human nature to do so.

The now famous speech of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “I Have A Dream” has been touted as being fulfilled by the election of our Nation’s first black American President. For weeks after the election of President Obama, the news stations played continuous coverage of footage from Dr. King’s message and compared it to this unprecidented election.

At first, even I was caught up in the historical significance of the election. It clearly demonstrated just how successful Americans had been in maturing in their acceptance and respect for all persons of this Country.

However, as we are fast approaching the end of the first year of this President’s term in office, I question that Dr. King would have viewed this election as a “victory.” First, the fact that race was and is still a focual point of evaluatioln of Mr. Obama’s administration of his duties shows that we missed the mark on Dr. King’s dream….that “a man would not be judged by the color of his skin” - and yet, isn’t that what the main stream media and Congressional leaders continue to hold up as the “standard” against which all dissenters are held? 

Have you noticed a repeating pattern that is emerging with this Administration and Congress? Create the sense of a nation-wide crises with alarmist and misleading information, silence any dissenting voices (the media has been very cooperative on this front), and whaa-laa….you have created out of thin air “justification” for the government to take over another aspect of private, free-market industry.

For the purposes of this article, let’s address the misinformation being reported about a “national crisis” in health care with an estimated 48 million uninsured. This is grossly falsifying the actual statistics, with intent to mislead the people of this country to accept this program. This figure stems from the U S Census Bureau report in 2007. What this figure does NOT represent are American citizens who are in need of health care or health insurance.

·         10-12 million are illegal aliens. These people should not be in this country in the first place, and certainly should not be afforded the benefits of those who are citizens of the United States.

·         10-12 million have households with income of more than $75,000 and are able to purchase health insurance, but choose not to.

·         14 million are eligible for Medicaid or State Children’s Health Program, but have not yet enrolled.

·         Also note that 45% of the “uninsured” will be insured again within 4 months, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

·         This leaves us with perhaps 4% of the country who would have legitimate need of health care. However, there are other solutions that could be offered, using the private sector.

There is no health insurance/care crisis in this country as the President is attempting to claim. By trying to frame this government take-over of the health care industry as a National crisis, as he did with the mortgage, banking and auto industries, he and Congress are using fabricated rhetoric to create a crisis in the minds of the American people.

Don’t be deceived - government health insurance/care is neither free nor fiscally prudent. A look at European models tells the story. France’s “free” health care is paid for by 13.55% payroll tax, 5.25% income tax plus other taxes on tobacco, alcohol and drug company revenues, yet is still running a $15.6 billion deficit. The CATO Institute reports that the United Kingdom’s NHS costs the average family of four $1,155 American per month. One can obtain good private health insurance for much less than this. It is a well known fact that where socialized medicine has been implemented, the quality and availability of health care has diminished greatly. 

Projections for a government health system (or “public option” as it is now being called) are running at $1 Trillion+ over the next 10 years. If we look at past and current history, this too will prove to be grossly underestimated.  

Taking the Medicaid Special Hospital Subsidy example above, actual costs ballooned to $11 billion in only 5 years. According to their projections, it should have taken 100+ years to reach that number!

The President claims that those who do not want to enroll in this new government system don’t have to. However, this statement is deceptive, at best. President Obama publicly stated (on tape) in 2003 that he favors a single-payer, universal health care system. Kathleen Sebelius, Health & Human Services Secretary stated in May of 2009 that “public insurance was needed and healthy to compete with private industry.” Representative Jan Schakowsky stated in April of this year, before a cheering crowd of her peers, “The public option will put private industry out of business and lead to single-payer. The man was right.” The “public plan” is designed to back-door the single-payer system, being introduced incrementally so as not to “frighten” the American people about the safety of their current health care system. 

With every encroachment of government into the public life, freedoms, liberties and even “rights” are already eroding. Did you ever think you’d see a President of the United States firing the CEO of a private company? If  you revere and treasure the liberties and free market system that a Republic such as ours fosters, I hope you will act upon your civic duty and do all you can to persuade your representatives to come to their senses and bring us back to the foundational principles that has made this country great.

Thomas Jefferson’s words seem like timely admonishions for all of us: “All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”

Unlike the real God, President Obama lacks the qualities of the True God….i.e. omnicience and omnipotence. Alas, he is just one more earthly god (also known as “idols”) who is unable to deliver on .what man is looking for. Amidst all of the promised “change,”  “hope” is woefully elusive.

How do you determine whether someone has a “preference” regarding a matter, or a “conviction?” For those of us who do actually hold convictions about matters of life, it’s basically a do-or-die decision. Nothing will deter you from your belief, and your belief results in corresponding actions – always.

Our newly elected President has spoken frequently on “going green,” being ecologically prudent and has asked all of us to conserve energy at every turn. In his recent Earth Day speech to Iowans, he promoted his environmental plans to adopt policies that would spur energy efficiency and wider use of non-fossil energy such as wind, solar and biofuels. Obama has even gone so far during his campaign to advocate raising energy taxes so high that it would force the producers and consumers to turn to alternative energy sources.    Sounds like he really believes in this eco stuff!

But wait, wouldn’t someone who REALLY believed in conserving energy, driving “smart cars,” windmills, etc. make choices to conserve energy themselves? Yet President Obama chose to CONSUME 9,000 GALLONS OF FUEL for Air Force One to transport him to Iowa to give his speech, when he could have easily presented a stirring lecture to the greenies from the Oval Office (or better yet, the Rose Garden)! To put this fuel consumption extravagance into perspective: I commute 60 miles to work round trip each day, averaging 20 miles per gallon. President Obama just consumed 11.5 YEARS OF FUEL SUPPLY for my car so he could have a photo op with the farmers in Iowa.

I don’think he really means it when he tells us to conserve energy, which is good news to me. Who wants to have the landscape of America spoiled with a gazillion windmills spinning around?

According to a Wikipedia site, an endangered species is “a population of an organism which is at risk of becoming extinct because it is either few in numbers, or threatened by changing environmental or predation parameters.”   No, you won’t find this one on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s list. Substitute “organism” with “rights or freedoms,” and you can see that this new list is just being developed.

For the purposes of this article, I will just speak to one: private property. Private property is protected under our U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, with the Fifth Amendment stating:  nor shall [any person] …be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. And the Fourteenth Amendment offering protection as follows: “nor shall any State deprive any person [citizen of the United States and of the State wherein they reside] of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”

Charles Montesquieu, one of the three most-influential political philosophers impacting the formation of American Law, held private property in the highest priority: “Let us therefore lay down a certain maxim: that whenever the public good happens to be the matter in question, it is not for the advantage of the public to deprive an individual of his property – or even to retrench the least part of it by a law or a political regulation.” [1]

John Adams went further to declare the outcome of a society where private property is not protected by law, when stating that “The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the law of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence…” [2]

OK….I think most Americans understand that no one, including the government, can just come in and arbitrarily take your home away from you (at least, not yet). We tend to view property in terms of land, structures, something purchased that we own.   But our newly elected President is out to deprive you of your “most sacred” property….your conscience and religious beliefs.  

In December 2008, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) finalized a regulation to enforce 3 civil rights laws passed by Congress that declared American tax dollars would not fund programs in which healthcare professionals are fired, penalized or otherwise subjected to discrimination because of their ethical stance related to abortion and other morally controversial issues. In other words, doctors and other healthcare professionals would not longer be forced to violate their conscience and/or religious beliefs by having to perform abortions or other controversial procedures (such as euthanasia).

President Obama officially declared in March 2009 his plans to rescind (remove) this conscience protecting regulation.   And to what end? Is this the betterment of a free society to force its citizens to perform acts that violate their conscience or religious beliefs?

James Madison, known as as the “father of our constitution” had much to tell us about the broad spectrum of private property protected under our Founding Document.   Madison (and the framers of our Constitution concurred) viewed the term “property” to mean “That dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other individual…. a man’s land, or merchandise, or money…” However, Madison also held a larger and juster meaning to the term “property” to “embrace everything to which a man may attach a value and have a right, and which leaves to everyone else the like advantage. …a man has property in his opinions and the free communication of them. He has a property of particular value in his religious opinions, and in the profession and practice dictated by them.” [3]

In his June 8, 1789 speech introducing the Bill of Rights at the First Federal Congress, Madison stated “civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner or on any pretext infringed.” He also added “This right is in its nature an unalienable right.” Unalienable means absolute rights of individuals that are natural and inherent. [4]

Biographer Irving Brant noted that “Madison made freedom of conscience – meaning belief or conviction about religious matters – the centerpiece of all civil liberties. …By placing freedom of conscience prior to and superior to all other rights, Madison gave it the strongtest politcal foundation possible.” [5]   There is specific meaning and intent connected to every word used in the US Constitution. Who better to define that meaning and intent than the men who wrote it.

President Obama took an oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." And yet within 2 short months of making this oath, he has sought to violate it by decreeing that doctors, nurses and healthcare workers no longer have the right to exercise their right of conscience and religious beliefs [private property] when asked to perform an abortion. 

Perhaps the citizenry needs to respectfully remind our newly elected President and Congressional representatives, that they serve the people. And one of the ways they are to serve the people is to protect their private property as upheld in the Constitutional. 

And as James Madision once said: “Conscience is the most sacred of all property.” [6]

[1] and [2] below from www.wallbuilders.com article Resolution Acknowleding the Inalienable Rights of Private Property

[1] Baron Charles Secondat de Montesquieu, The Spirit of Laws (London): J. Nourse and P. Vaillant, 1752), p. 210

[2] John Adams, A Defence of the Constitution of Government of the United Ssates of America (Philadelphia: William Young, 1797), Vol. III, p. 216, “The Right Constitution of a Commonwealth Examined.”

[3] “Property,” March 27, 1792 (Madison, 1865, IV, page 478)

[4] Source: http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/madison/objects.html

[5] Source: http://www.heritage.org/Research/:PoliticalPhilosophy/EM729.cfm Article Date/Title/Author/Source: March 16, 2001 James Madison and Religious Liberty by Joseh Loconte, Executive Memorandum #729

[6] Source: http://www.heritage.org/Research/:PoliticalPhilosophy/EM729.cfm