Rationing? This is Tragic !!!!!!!!!

This is Not Your Father's America-Literally!!

We have heard a lot about the various frightening aspects of the Health Care Bill. Sometimes, we are tempted to believe that it couldn't possibly be as bad as they make it out to be. Could it?

Are we headed for telling mom or dad that the doctor simply won't help them because they are "past it", no longer a productive part of our society? Never mind that they worked hard all their lives, paid their taxes, fought for their country, and expected to be cared for as much as they cared for others.

I spent a lot of time lately reading testimonies from citizens of Canada and England and other countries that are dealing with these problems, and they are frightening. A man, who needed heart surgery, but was denied, a woman who needed brain surgery but was denied.

One of the most frightening aspects has got to be rationing. Can't happen? Guess again. This is not your father's America.

The following is an excerpt from Dr. Goodman's website, listed below, giving a brief overview of the White House Medical advisor, Ezekiel Emanuel, GET THIS , recognize the name? Yep, brother of Rahm Emanuel.

What is the basis for these allegations of biased healthcare rationing? Dr. Goodman cites none other than White House healthcare policy adviser Ezekiel Emanuel. “Allocation by age is not invidious discrimination,” Emanuel wrote in the January 31 issue of the British medical journal the Lancet. “Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years.” So because everyone would get an equal chance to be favored when they are young, they would be equally discriminated against when they are old. “Treating 65-year-olds differently because of stereotypes or falsehoods would be ageist,” Emmanuel maintains, but “treating them differently because they have already had more life-years is not.”

http://www.ncpa.org/about/john-c-goodman --- John C. Goodman is NCPA president and CEO of the National Center for Policy Analysis. The Wall Street Journal and the National Journal, among other publications, have called him the "Father of Health Savings Accounts," and the Media Research Center credits him, along with former Sen. Phil Gramm and columnist Bill Kristol with playing the pivotal role in the defeat of the Clinton Administration's plan to overhaul the U.S. health care system.

Here is Emanuel's take on the Hippocratic Oath.

Savings, he writes, will require changing how doctors think about their patients: Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath too seriously, "as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of the cost or effects on others" (Journal of the American Medical Association, June 18, 2008).

A member of my family had quadruple bypass surgery many years ago, and has since had two other surgeries that saved his life. He volunteers at Church, helps out with whatever needs done, enjoys his grandchildren and children and this year went on a 4,5oo mile trip with his wife and family.

A great uncle of mine lived to be 105, and he was a wealth of information about his WWI experiences and history until the day he died.

Our medical professionals have worked hard over the last century to prolong life, preserve life, and give us the inaleinable right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. How many politicians, judges, teachers, ministers, lawyers, doctors, and just plain retired grandpas and grandmas are out there whose families feel that they are just as important as they were when they were 25 or 45?

Ah yes, we sure could save money, and it seems like we're headed in that direction, by getting rid of excess babies and excess seniors. We need to leave the world to the 25 year olds, because they don't need the experience or the advise of those who have gone before them- do they?

Shame on any person, country, party, anyone who would even consider this barbaric practice against their own people.

Disturbing Quotes of Our Time

CNSNews.com

Conyers Sees No Point in Members Reading 1,000-Page Health Care Bill--Unless They Have 2 Lawyers to Interpret It for Them
Monday, July 27, 2009
By Nicholas Ballasy, Video Reporter

(CNSNews.com) - During his speech at a National Press Club luncheon, House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.), questioned the point of lawmakers reading the health care bill.

“I love these members, they get up and say, ‘Read the bill,’” said Conyers.

“What good is reading the bill if it’s a thousand pages and you don’t have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?

So, we are told that we need to rush a bill through, that we have never had for all these 200 plus years, overnight , that no one has actually read, and, according to Conyers would not understand if they read it without the aid of lawyers.

These are dangerous and potentially lethal games that the Washingtonians are playing with our lives. Every one of these people who blindly go along with signing anything that passes under their noses needs to go at election time. Clean house!

"Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor liberty to purchase power."
Benjamin Franklin

Disturbing Quotes of Our Time

Obama speaking to a group in San Francisco

“You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

I know this is an oldie, but I think it's pertinent right now. Not just because it was the President's sentiments, but because it seems to represent the elitist attitude of the inner circle of politicians, lobbyists, and journalists that are shaping the "remake" of America.

Hello out there. Just because folks work with their hands, doesn't mean that they don't have brains. This has been a factor for years that continues to worsen to the point of nausea. Middle America, the Heartland, the place where every politician (except the Kennedys) swear their ancestors came from, is the core of this country, and probably every other country.

Scratch a politician, (at least during an election year), and you will find a father or a grandfather, or uncle that was a factory worker, a coal miner, a farmer. Why is it that they are so proud of this during an election, and the rest of the term, the working men and women are suddenly "hicks". Yes, we have guns, to hunt with. Unlike "city folk", they are mostly used for recreation, or to hunt animals, which people eat.
Yes, a whole lot of middle America is religious. When did this become a bad thing? Our reps should carry more of that into Washington.
No, we are not freaked out by people of different races and nationalities. What era are these people channeling. In every small town in the Heartland, we have a pretty mixed bag of cultures.

Anti-immigration and Anti-trade. If they mean that we don't like the idea of illegal immigrants, who sneak into the country, are funded by our tax dollars, and pose a potential securtity risk, then, yes, we have an issue with that.
If they mean that we are opposed to importing oil and other trade goods from countries who hate our guts, when we could be putting American workers to work drilling oil and mining coal and producing goods in this country, then yes, we have an issue with that.

I cannot count the number of times that political analysts and reporters have mentioned the fact that middle America somehow doesn't count, doesn't understand, needs to be lead by the hand.
Hey folks- this country started here, with people who knew how to take care of themselves, help their neighbors, and survive with common sense and hard work. Folks in the Heartland were the ones who grew their own food, and survived the Depression, when people in the cities were standing in bread lines.

If we get frustrated and angry it's because we know what's causing our problems and the nation's problems, but no one listens. We are not "explaining" our frustrations through some imaginary "witch hunt". We are not mob rule reactionaries, taking it out on whoever and whatever.
If we get frustrated and angry it's because of the mismanagement that has caused our factories to leave, the taxes that put small businesses out of business, and the rising costs that are crippling the small farmer.

Disturbing Quotes of Our Time

From the "Virtual town hall" at the White House on Thursday March 26th

Obama: "We could set up systems so that everybody in each house have their own smart meters that, uhh, will tell you when to turn off the lights, when the peak hours are, can help you sell back energy, uh, that you've generated in your home through a solar panel or through, uh, eh, other mechanisms. All this can be done, but it also creates jobs right now. Our biggest problem, we don't have enough electricians to lay all these lines out there."

So, where to begin
I'm sure that I am not the only one to have priced solar panels and wind turbines. This would be a blessing. Imagine, having your own electricity, off the grid. I love the idea. However, I discovered that there are certain drawbacks. First of all, in an average household, the cost of installing wither of these options is anywhere from $40,ooo-$75,ooo on average. For just one household! Of course, there are the do-it-yourself options, but these are expensive too, and unless you are really handy, you will probably have to hire someone to do it anyway. Also, if your state has a grant program that is willing to pitch in some money, you need to have it installed by a certified dealer. Aha! Also, not all electrical companies will allow you to directly link to your meter, let alone give you a kickback on extra electricity you produce.

"Smart meters" - I can just see that 100 plus, humid, stick to your clothes day, when your smart meter suddenly goes off, incicating that you are using too much power, and you need to turn off the central air. Let's see, do the "proper thing fot the sake of the national energy conservation, and die. Hmmmmmmmmmm. Big decision.

This leads us to the next question. I don't know how many homes are in the U.S., but I don't believe that the government is in any position right now to finance alternative energy for all of us. And, maybe that's a good thing. Assuming what we are hearing is that the government is going to run linves to our house from wind turbines or solar panels, and then monitor our homes, doesn't that mean that the intention is to take over the evergy sources themselves?

All this cannot create jobs "right now". Let's assume that we are going to build umpteen wind turbines and solar panels. First we need the funding for said businesses. Of course the private factor doesn't really have that right now. So, the government would have to fund it. With what money? Of course we could go partners with China, (they are certainly pro-environment). Oh, wait, China is having second thoughts about our borrowing now.
Anyway, it would take probably ten or fifteen years minimum to get the factories up and running, people trained, and the plan in action, which, according to some, would pose a major security risk for the nation by consolidating our system onto a major grid.

We could get this going if we only had enough electricians and enough lines? Please!!!!!!!

Disturbing Quotes of Our Time

JUSTICE GINSBURG: Yes, the ruling about that surprised me. [Harris v. McRae — in 1980 the court upheld the Hyde Amendment, which forbids the use of Medicaid for abortions.] Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion. Which some people felt would risk coercing women into having abortions when they didn’t really want them. But when the court decided McRae, the case came out the other way. And then I realized that my perception of it had been altogether wrong. (emphasis added)

What? At what point did anyone, Supreme Court Justice, or anyone else become in charge of population control? And, what exactly are the populations that we wanted to control? And, who is "we", the so called elite, the government, the intellectuals?

Are we controlling the population of poor, potentially disabled, minorities, dysfunctional? How do we know they would have been?

Many famous, influential and successful people who have impacted society in a good way have come from these "less than desirable" roots. Who decides?

I seem to remember, or at least have read a lot, about a time, when someone said that their country would be better off without Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and physically and mentally impaired people. Did this not spark some sort of reaction in the German people? We are appalled that no one stood up and said, "These are human beings. They have rights!"

Since about 1974 there have been over 50 million abortions in this country. 50 million. Not all of these were the result of rape or incest or some other tragedy. I would guess that the bulk were recreational abortions, the result of someone who gave up the pill because it caused weight gain, or got careless because it just didn't matter. There was always a way out.

50 million. Who were they, or more to the point, who might they have become?

Disturbing Quotes of Our Time

"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.”- Rahm Emmanuel

You can say that Obama's Chief of Staff was pretty much on the money with this observation, and it's amazing, and a testament to the times we live in, that not more was made of it. It is frightening and discouraging that we weren't appalled, forewarned, and alarmed at this revelation. Isn't this as much as admitting that "if there was time", and "if the people knew everything", and "if we had time to think things out", that certain measures would never in a million years become accepted?

Say I'm a used car salesman and your'e looking at a car and I tell you that this is absolutely the bottom line price, but only for today. Then I tell you that my boss told me to say that the prices would triple tomorrow, that there was a crisis in the car industry and this would be the last chance you'd have to buy. I also told you that this wasn't exactly true, but my boss thought a crisis would encourage you to commit. First of all, you would be appalled, astounded, and mad. Then you would leave, hopefully.

But, that was exactly the whole point. I may be wrong on this one, but it was someone in the cabinet that also said, "The people don't really care." That's disturbing too.

So, off they went, in a flurry of spending trillions that we don't have, in a matter of months. Striking while the iron was hot, and the bloom of new Presidency and administration was still on the political rose. Prepare the bills, finish them in the middle of the night, and insist that they be voted on in the morning. We were in a crisis that demanded overnight action, with no reflection, discussion, or consideration as to what we were spending.

I know a lot of good salespeople who employ the same strategy. You go in for some small item, and they convince you that you need a package plan that is absolutely essential, but you have to get it now, because it will cost more later on, and this is your last chance or you will be sorry forever. We needed the money overnight, immediately. We couldn't survive another day without it. Then, the over 9000 pieces of pork or ear marks or whatever became public knowledge. Too late. All done. Thousands of endowments for projects that could wait if we were in such dire circumstances, but now if it was owed to those who could benefit you the most.

Flim-flam.

I don't know all the answers and I'm in really good company these days. However, the amount of "change", and proposed actions that have crammed down our throats in the last few months is alarming in anyone's book. Most of us wouldn't decide in a matter of hours to buy a business or a home without researching all the facts, or take out an enormous loan when we hadn't a clue how we would pay it back. Yet, we have.

Get Real America

I recently watched a program on TV, “Secrets of the Founding Fathers”, or what I could stomach of it. It was obviously, for whatever reason, an infantile attempt to discredit them in the eyes of Americans. The conclusion one of the so-called experts came too was that the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution while intoxicated and smoking hemp. That they were all influenced by the devious Freemasons, and that they were secretive about their decisions, keeping them from the populous.
First of all, I do not believe they were perfect people. They were human, and never, in any stretch of the imagination, did they propose to present themselves as perfect. In fact, if you read statements from Washington, he cringed at the idea that he would be set up as a demi-god. Did they drink? Of course. It was safer to drink whiskey and beer than water. Did they propose a break with England for financial motives? Of course. The whole taxation issue was at the heart of the Revolution, not only in the eyes of the professional, wealthier class, but the everyday man.
One of the main focuses of the program was the growing of hemp. Apparently, someone stumbled upon this fact, and decided that the Founding Fathers were all potheads. Hemp was widely used in the colonies for sail making, paper making, rope making and fiber for clothing. In fact, it was one of the largest crops grown in the colonies. The argument against Washington was that in one of his letters, he lamented the fact that he wasn’t home in time to separate the male and female plants. The comment was that this proved that Washington smoked it since the female plant apparently is used for this purpose. In all actuality, according to botanists, there are two types of hemp plant, one that has both male and female characteristics and the others that are male and female. They claim that a good and experienced grower tries to separate these to increase the yield. In fact, smoking the form of hemp that they grew would, it is claimed, give anyone a massive headache that would increasingly get worse.
It is highly unlikely that, in a country that grew tobacco, they would have considered hemp as a possible smoke, but, even if they did, we need to remember that up until the middle of the last century, heroin, cocaine and opium were often used as magic miracle cures. Some were used in elixirs and even soft drinks.
In the same “documentary”, Washington was both labeled a possible homosexual and a “womanizer”, which would have been quite a feat even for him. It was hinted that he had a relationship with La Fayette. He did. If you read their letters to each other, you can see that Washington, after some qualms about this Frenchman in the New World, eventually thought of him as a son. And, La Fayette, thought so much of Washington that he named his son after him. When they used words like embrace and love in their letters, you must remember that people in the eighteenth century (men and women) often hugged one another when they met. And they used the word “embrace”, not in a sexual sense, but in a warm and loving term. It was a different era. Letters were long, mushy and gushy, because it was the manner of the time- a social must. Much like when we were in elementary school, unworldly, innocent and holding hands with your friends on the playground. No one thought anything of it.
Washington often lamented the fact that he was going to die without an heir, and he thought of La Fayette as the son he never had.
As far as his womanizing , who knows. There is no real evidence of it, but it was well known that even when Washington was a young teenager, he always had an eye for the ladies. This trait continued until his old age.
One of the other suspicions about the Founding Fathers was their creation of the Constitution behind locked doors, and, their disagreements and arguments. You get any group of men or women together to organize or create, or legislate, and there’s going to be conflict. The locked doors were an effort to get things done, with only the delegates input, and not added influences from outside. Remember, this was a time when the Revolution was recent, Tories, British sympathizers abounded, and not everyone was convinced that the country was a viable idea. Also, it was important to them that no 18th century lobbyist influenced their representatives with their own agendas. Something that we have not learned to avoid in this day and age apparently.
The Freemason factor. Yes, some of them were. Bottom line, if they brought anything to the Constitution from the factors included in Freemasonry, it was items like “checks and balances”, hardly detrimental. They drew on what they were familiar with. Don’t we want checks and balances? Or, anyway, some of us do.
Yes, it is interesting to find out everything we can about those who set the wheels in motion to bring this country into being. But, there is also a move to change historical facts and bend them to further individual causes. This accomplishes nothing but demoralizing people who, do not expect perfection in our ancestral leaders, but honor their sacrifice.
The remarkable facts about these men is not their faults, which they would readily admit too if they were here, but their courage and sacrifice. These were, for the most part, men, well established in a British colony under British law. They had the most to lose from their actions, including their lives.
There is a shameful and ridiculous trend to rewrite history, omit certain aspects of history and distort facts, even in the text books today. The frightening thing is that there are some who will believe it.
The creators of this “program” were obviously trying to discredit the Founding Fathers, the Constitution, and virtually the entire birth of our country. The same country that allows these people the opportunity to flourish, prosper, and deride anything they choose, all in the guise of intellectual freedom. These people should know that in many countries around the world their lives would be much different, but thanks to the old ladies and gentlemen of our past that they ridicule, they are free to invent their own versions of reality to their heart’s content.

Define Who You Are

Growing up, most of us were pretty sure who we were, and what we believed in. Maybe, we need to get back to basics and remind ourselves of what we really stand for. Here goes.

I am a citizen of the United States of America, as were many generations before me. A lot of them served in the service of their country, and I thank them and all the others for their sacrifice. I am descended from pilgrims, pioneers, laborers, farmers, teachers, patriots. They flew their flags proudly, fought for their homes and their rights, helped their neighbors, and worked hard for everything they had in life.

I love my country, the United States of America. There, I’ve said it. I confess. I get teary-eyed when I hear the Star Spangled Banner played, and when I see our troops marching by and when someone plays taps. I am proud of the fact that we, and we alone, were the experiment in democracy that succeeded. I know, there have been problems along the way. No one ever said there wouldn’t be. I am proud that our Constitution is based on freedom, and justice, and reference to God. Yea, you got me. I’m a patriot. I’m one of those, who in the “good old days” before what is “in”, overruled what is “right”, and “stretching and bending the law for the sake of political correctness” was acceptable would have been considered a good person.
But, that was then, and this is now. Patriots are those of us who still believe in old fashioned things like individual freedom.

The United States of America has come to the aid, financially, and militarily, more often than any other country in the world. We are the first to arrive with supplies and aid during natural, and unnatural disasters. We defend the rights of humanity when no one else wants to get involved.

Our young men and women have died for people around the world that they didn’t know. They have cried over the bodies of babies who never had a chance to know freedom, and people barely alive who survived the horrors of Dachau and Auschwitz.

I do not want anyone to apologize for my country. For all our faults, we are still the best place to live. I do not feel arrogant or politically incorrect for saying that. There are people arriving here every day from all over the world who feel the same way. They dream about coming to America, just as folks have for two hundred years, and they sometimes risk their lives to get here.

Nothing in my genetic makeup, or the cynicism that abounds today, or the constant “America bashing” we are subjected too, or the pseudo-intellectual distortion of the history of our country will change my admiration for my personal ancestors, or the millions of other patriots who have worked hard in the past to hold onto the America they loved.

As only one of the millions of Americans in this country, those whose families go back generations, and those who only recently became citizens, I am not important. What is important is that we never lose pride in this great country, or feel that we must humble ourselves in the eyes of the world.

"Thanks for the free clip-art to the Just A Touch Art Studio of Jonesboro, Georgia; www.justatouch.com"

We Are All Americans

What is so difficult to understand about the idea that if you live in this country, are a citizen, pay taxes, uphold the Constitution, and abide by the laws, you are an American? If your ancestors came over on the Mayflower and you are still living here, you are an American. If you took the oath and got your citizenship yesterday, CONGRATULATIONS!, you are an American.

My background is English, Scottish, Welsh and German. I do not call myself an English, Scottish, Welsh, German American. This isn't to say that I am against cultural festivals, where folks celebrate the food and drink and dances of their ancestors. But, give it a rest people. When it comes down to petitioning for special perks because of former ancestoral or religious or any other characteristic that you might possess, then it has gone too far.

I'd like to know what the government or some particular party is going to do for me as an English, Scottish, Welsh, German, American middle aged, middle class woman." I know- I don't have a group yet, or lobbyists, and no big organization has stepped forward to champion my cause, but still........

Should we ask, "What can be done to make life easier and better for groups like the handicapped, the elderly, and children, who can't defend themselves?" Of course! But the rest of us should concentrate on being Americans, and ask "What is best for ALL of us as Americans."