THYME Magazine: A Culture of Life Matters

Citizen Journalism with a Better Flavor


Volume VII, Issue XIV

A Culture of Life, Why it Matters

Often touted as an example of a government run healthcare system that works, the VA system does indeed have some good people in it, and they do perform their mission to care for our elderly and wounded warriors in a professional manner. But it is likely that cost-saving directives and management level decisions have kept many from getting the care they need. This is simply unacceptable! These are men and women who swore an oath and put themselves in harm's way for their country. They deserve to be cared for. The news that up to forty people may have died waiting for necessary procedures in Arizona VA hospitals is a dark chapter in our history. Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki is understandably on the carpet right now, and though the President claims he didn't know, that excuse is wearing pretty thin. Reports show that he WAS briefed about this problem long ago. Denied care, stories of secret "wait lists" and a general sense of betrayal weigh heavily right now. I think we need quite a few questions answered.

The issue is not one that can be simplified. Between 2000 and 2012 the total number of veterans decreased 16.5% while resources to care for them have risen steadily over the past decade. Some Veterans benefit spending is 'mandiatory,' or set by a statuatory formula. This includes the GI Bill, vocational rehabilitation, disability payments, pensions and survivor benefits. VA Health system spending, however, is considered 'discretionary' spending and is under the purview of Congress. Congress has NOT "slashed" funding for the system. Actual figures show that the VA budget has risen from $47.8 Billion in 2009 to $63.4 Billion in 2014. That is a 30% increase in the last three years. The situation is complicated by ageing VA facilities and other factors, but claims that the VA has been denied resources are simply not accurate. The problem is very likely to be blameable on administrative decisions. Politicians tend to ask for inflated budget requests, knowing full well they will have to settle for smaller increases, then they tend to blame insufficient funding anyway when their costs exceed planned expenditures. When it comes to assigning blame, administrators are indeed a pass-through entity!

But if administrators are redirecting discretianary funds and denying care, that begs a larger discussion. It involves the value of human life, and the danger in arbitrarily deciding who is worthy to live and who isn't. While Liberal commentators often present their arguments in the context of "doing what is best for you," they gravitate toward providing more benefits for young healthy people and rationing care to the elderly and overlooking the unborn. That is why you will see a push to provide free contaceptives while encouraging easy access to abortion and measures such as the "death panels" in the so-called "Affordable" Care Act. Benefits tend to concentrate for those who are likely to keep voting for those who provide them. Unborn babies cannot vote at all and older people are more likely to strive for self-sufficiency, making them less likely to vote for Liberal benefactors. The media, however, continues to drone on about the relative "compassion" of Liberal policies. One is hard pressed to make the argument for free and vital markets, which not only provide more and better services to more people, but often are the fertile ground for new and better methods to be created in. Markets just aren't "fair."

You may complain that new procedures are not universally available, but the fact that they exist at all is due to innovation. Given time these new innovations may become more readily available and come down in cost. A healthy marketplace often corrects its own discrepancies as doctors and hospitals provide care on a sliding fee scale or write off some care for indigents. This requires an efficient system that brings profits to those who administer it. Profit is what provides money that may be used more creatively or is the source for tax revenues that may be used to provide coverage for those who cannot afford it. While this illustration is indeed simplified, it does make the case for tort reform, insurance portability and a host of reforms that might allow more and better healthcare to be delivered more efficiently. These issues can be addressed as stand-alone reforms and do not require 2000 page "outline" legislation. But there IS an overriding source of guidance that is sadly missing, and that would be the valuation of all individuals seen in the concept of IMAGO DEI.

If a person's value is indeed a product of Divine investment, his or her rights are indeed INALIENABLE! You cannot arbitrarily decide "viability" or who is "too old" if you have no basis for it. A higher court has affirmed the dignity of men and women. You cannot make some arbitrary relativistic judgement. Indeed it is worth remembering that when governments decide who is worthy and who is not, you get forced sterilization in institutions like Virginia's Western State Hospital during the first half of the Twentieth Century and you get a whole slate of "undesireables" in regimes such as that of the National Socialists in 1930's Germany where Jews, Gypsies, Jehovas Witnesses, Homosexuals and Italians were all sorted and identified with a system of colored triangles. Almost seven million people were eliminated because the government decided to. When anything is permissible, ANYTHING is permissible. Yet most historians would agree that the holocaust was EVIL. How can anything be evil if anything is permissable? Indeed it seems to some easier to rewrite history and say the holocaust didn't happen than to wrap one's mind around its evil. Yet holocaust is verified history, as is the extermination of ten million Ukranians by Stalin and the killing of untold millions in Mao's China.

In the end one must come to terms with the unique value of every man, woman and child on the planet... even if we stand on the opposite sides of an armed conflict! We all are moved by those stories of cease-fire, like the time English and German soldiers sang "Silent Night" together on Christmas in 1914, or during our Civil War, when troops of the opposing armies sometimes exchanged coffee and sugar for tobacco. In fact, in the Winter of 1862, opposing troops near Fredericksburg, Virginia floated little, sailboats back and forth across the Rappahannock River with items they wanted to trade. Today Israeli Defense Force medical teams care for the wounded they receive without regard for their status or nationality. These moments in history need to serve as a benchmark. Those who champion the rights of the unborn, or the rights of forgotten elderly veterans also enlarge the vision of IMAGO DEI. Just as William Wilberforce extended compassion to the slaves of England, so these modern men and women who follow in his footsteps elevate the entire human condition.

For many of us, the mistreatment of our veterans is a travesty we cannot allow in its own right, but it begs to be resolved in terms of the high principles laid down by Locke and Jefferson which are ultimately founded in Divine Revelation!

Nurturing a True Passion for Living

Some Thoughts on Living from Ralph Waldo Emerson

 
Ralph Waldo Emerson.

"If our young men miscarry in their first enterprises, they lose all heart. If the young merchant fails, men say he is ruined. If the finest genius studies at one of our colleges, and is not installed in an office within one year afterwards in the cities or suburbs of Boston or New York, it seems to his friends and to himself that he is right in being disheartened, and in complaining the rest of ......his life. A sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Vermont, who in turn tries all the professions, who teams it, farms it, peddles, keeps a school, preaches, edits a newspaper, goes to Congress, buys a township and so forth, in successive years, and always, like a cat, falls on his feet (by way of determination) is worth a hundred of these city dolls. He walks abreast with his days, and feels no shame in not 'studying a profession,' for he does not postpone his life, but lives already." -Ralph Waldo Emerson ht/Carmen

The Window from which We Look

Sometimes what we see Depends on our own Window



"A young couple moves into a new neighborhood.
The next morning while they are eating breakfast,
The young woman sees her neighbor hanging the wash outside.
"That laundry is not very clean", she said.
"She doesn't know how to wash correctly.
Perhaps she needs better laundry soap."

Her husband looked on, but remained silent.
Every time her neighbor would hang her wash to dry,
The young woman would make the same comments.

About one month later, the woman was surprised to see a
Nice clean wash on the line and said to her husband:

"Look, she has learned how to wash correctly.
I wonder who taught her this."

The husband said, "I got up early this morning and
Cleaned our windows."

And so it is with life. What we see when watching others
Depends on the purity of the window through which we look ." ht/Joy

"Life Will Get Better" Hang in There

We Need to Remember How Tough Youth Can Be



Fort Worth City Councilman Joel Burns and I probably might not see eye to eye on a lot of issues, but last night at a City Council meeting, Mr. Burns shared his personal experience as a gay teenager dealing with bullying. He shared in response to a recent group of teen suicides and his twofold plea needs to be heard.

First of all, he pleaded for the kids who feel excluded and persecuted to hang in there: "Life will get better." Offering his own life as proof, Burns encouraged youths to look beyond the painful present. Then he asked for the adults around these kids to be sensitive and encouraging to them.

One of the cruel facts of adolescence is that some kids seem to shoot into adulthood while others take a bit longer. Some thirteen year olds are shaving and singing bass while kids the same age are still waiting for that growth spurt. Dr. James Dobson talks about the terror of communal showers after middle and high school gym class. In some of his earlier writings he pleaded with schools to provide private showers to avoid the problem. Kids can be cruel. I know. I went to an all boys high school in the mid sixties. The bullying could be merciless. I saw it from both ends. Usually the tough guys who were bigger would harass the ones they percieved as weaker. 'Lord of the Flies' was more than an academic excercise for us.

I got bullied by some guys early in my high school career. One guy was at me constantly, a tough cowboy type who finally pushed me too far in the lunch line one day. I rared back and punched him for all I was worth. He threw me over a table. [I wish I had a video of it]. We became good friends in the week of detention that followed. My senior year found me high enough in the food chain to actually enjoy high school for a change. That's how our Dads wanted things to work out.

Back then adults pretty much took a hands-off approach to bullying and things usually worked themselves out as everybody matured -- or it seemed like they did. Gradually we learned to appreciate each other as unique individuals. Some of the tough guys even got me to draw pictures for them. We learned to like things about each other.

But somehow that metamorphosis isn't happening for a lot of kids today. Bullying has gone viral in cyberspace and some kids never get past their peers' judgement. Teen suicide is epidemic.

If you believe in the concept of imago dei, that each individual is made in the image of G-d, this is simply not acceptable. Also, if you study how Jesus related to the Samarian woman at the well it becomes clear that he might not have approved of everything she did, but he valued her as a person.

That is the challenge before us. We must create a culture of respect that extends beyond those we normally associate with. Common courtesy should be prerequisite to the discussions of differences which we should be able to have. As adults who work with adolescents, we need to first model it and then demand it. If we believe Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness are G-d given rights, we can do no less.

Real Irony Department...

...The 'Homeless' American Girls Doll, Only $95.00

Meet Gwen. She's the latest in the series of American Girls Dolls and she lives in her car! Celia Rivenbark Has the Details [click to read]. When my daughter was younger she saved her money to buy "Samantha," the Victorian American Girl Doll who's accompanying book gave you a slice of history. At $60.00 we thought the dolls were a bit pricey then but the creator of the company went to Wells College like my Mother-in Law so we were a pretty easy sell in the end.

Our daughter did all sorts of extra chores to earn Samantha and then there was the victorian wardrobe... and the furniture! That was made better than most everything in our house! Still it was a wonderful education.

Once a month we took our children to serve the Sunday meal at the Charlottesville Salvation Army. After a while we had 'proved' ourselves faithful with some of the regular guests and our kids got to interact with some people who lived day-to-day for most of their lives. They learned the joy of quiet service and expanded their world.

Ms Rivenbark sums it up nicely: "American Girl defenders believe that homeless doll Gwen provides a way to introduce your precious Oilily-clad cherub to the notion that Poor People Aren't Bad People. True that. But wouldn't it be even more effective to, say, donate that $95 to a food pantry or let your kids ladle soup at the homeless shelter a couple of times a month?"

Walk for Life Tomorrow

Remembering the Most Vulnerable Among Us


Spring Dogwood.

Walk for Life Information [click to read]. Comfort Care cares for the needs of both Mother and unborn child. Please consider supporting this important organization.

Affirming Unborn Life

Ms. Napolitano, it is a Matter of Conscience


New dogwood blossoms.

For many years we have supported the work of Comfort Care Women's Health, a ministry that cares for women and their unborn children. If you believe that unborn human beings deserve basic protection and peacefully work to provide care for both mother and baby it is a reasonable response to the dictates of your conscience.

If you are pro-life, this is basic. If you are pro-choice, this is an essential part of the choice. That is why I invite everyone who cares about this issue to Support this Ministry [click to read]. I will be walking in the Walk for Life and would be honored if you would consider supporting this cause with me.

Affirming Life

Today is the Day to Mail Red Envelopes


Each envelope is empty to represent a life lost to abortion.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." -- American Declaration of Independence

Today many of us will mail red empty envelopes to the president with a prayer that he will reconsider his sacred duty to protect even the most vulnerable of us. Here's the address:

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington D. C. 20500

Four years ago today Terri Schindler Shiavo died after she was denied nourishment and water. Our prayers are with her brother as he continues to speak for those who cannot.

The Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation [click to read] continues to work for the basic rights of the disabled.

Dennis Prager's Column Today [click to read] is right on.

Update:

The White House Confirmed it Received More Than 2 Million Red Envelopes [click to read]

Affirming the Pursuit of Security

It is a New Era, But the Battle is Not New

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." -- American Declaration of Independence

John Locke is credited with the original thought: "no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions" In the first article of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, George Mason explains it better: "That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety."

This document is considered to be a model for the Declaration of Independence. Today the financial corruption of large entities, both government and corporate, are a real threat to this fundamental yearning. Here is one of the greatest challenges we face.


The Enron Complex


Franklin Raines

Perhaps a good beginning is to Acknowledge Corruption in the bodies one would invoke to oversee us.


Hydrogen cars offer the promise of
cleaner air and a healthy economy.

Then A Policy of Public and Private Entities in Partnership for Energy Independence would go a long way to secure this right. Nuclear Energy, Hydrogen cars, and a general push to go beyond the era of fossel fuel would also give us better environmental stewardship and national security. Hydrogen Cars are Here Now and we must have the resolve to build the clean technology of the future. If we can put a man on the Moon, we can build this new method of propelling our prosperity.

The economic benefits would be many. No doubt we would maintain a position of leadership in the production of this technology. Reduced oil consumption would help our balance of trade. Economic stability would benefit us far into the future.

New Ways of Looking at Healthcare, Education and Retirement will also be necessary.

Here is a Thought Provoking Piece by Theodore Dalrymple in City Journal that underscores the importance of protecting this basic human right.

Update:

Build Big, Mr. President by Howard Husock in City Journal proposes: "Obama should look past mere improvements and plan transformative infrastructure projects."

Required Reading:



Great Myths of the Great Depression [Click to Read]
by Lawrence W. Reed

"The genesis of the Great Depression lay in the irresponsible monetary and fiscal policies of the U.S. government in the late 1920s and early 1930s. These policies included a litany of political missteps: central bank mismanagement, tradecrushing tariffs, incentive-sapping taxes, mind-numbing controls on production and competition, senseless destruction of crops and cattle, and coercive labor laws, to recount just a few. It was not the free market which produced 12 years of agony; rather, it was political bungling on a grand scale."

Now Check Out the 4o Year Wish List as seen in The Wall Street Journal
Also: Is America's Diplomacy of Freedom Officially Over

Affirming Liberty

It is a New Era, But the Battle is Not New
Hat tip to Valley Family Forum

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." -- American Declaration of Independence

We have just inaugurated a new president, and Congress is back in session. So how will that affect our lives and our liberties? Here are some challenges we are likely to face in the days ahead. Congress is likely to:

Pass a Freedom of Choice Act that would reverse nearly every law that states have passed to limit abortion on demand – including partial-birth abortions. New evidence on fetal pain makes this a very inhumane thing to do.

Overturn the Federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) that defines marriage as between one man and one woman, and replace it with laws that would grant same-sex “unions” the same benefits that are now accorded only to married couples. Think of the campground in New Jersey that lost its tax-exempt status for not allowing a same-sex ceremony. Churches could be pressured to violate their conscience or lose their non-profit status. Don't think of this as a civil rights issue so much as a vehicle for imposing a certain set of values on society.

Enact an Employee Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) that could force all employers – including religious and non-profit groups – to accept openly homosexual behavior even when it violates their conscience or could put their clients, including children, in danger. Think of the danger you would face if you operated a preschool or a day care center.

Overturn Conscience Protection for healthcare workers, Physicians and Pharmacists. Our country has a great tradition of respecting conscience. When the military draft was in effect there were clear provisions for those who's conscience would not allow them to take up arms. Health Care Professionals deserve to be protected from pressure to violate their beliefs.

Enact laws like the Matthew Shepard Act that would empower government officials to punish anyone who – in their view – expresses "hate speech" or commits "hate crimes." This could include pastors who present a biblical view of homosexual behavior. Matthew Shepard, it turns out, was killed for money. All murder is a hateful crime. We don't need to apply affirmative action to something that is so vile by its very nature.

Enact the so-called "Fairness Doctrine" which could, for all practical purposes, eliminate Christian and conservative free speech on the nation's airwaves. Now is the Time to Speak Out before our First Amendment Rights are forever amended.

If Congress does attempt to pass these harmful bills, what can we do to stop them? We need to let our elected representatives know our thoughts on these important issues!

Affirming Life

It Is a New Era, But this Battle is Not New

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." -- American Declaration of Independence

This Article in World Magazine really caught my attention. We tend to think of abortion as a problem that is relatively new but Marvin Olasky points out the sad fact that it has been around far longer than Roe vs Wade. Indeed it became a very real problem towards the end of the Nineteenth Century.

The great upheaval of Westward expansion and increased mobility was followed by an increase in abortion that was shocking even by today's standards. Then as Now Christian Groups Rose to the Challenge of meeting the needs of women and their babies.

Olasky's Article shows how concerned Christians effectively affirmed life then and in so doing gives us a real strategy for doing so now.

Given today's political realities, our best victories are likely to be won in similar fashion, one heart at a time.

Update:

U.S. Bishops Ask President Obama Not to Reverse Bush's Pro-Life Policies
Cardinal Francis George's letter urges the new president not to abandon our nation's pro-life policies.

Update:

The Strategic Role of Operation Ultrasound
Medical Imaging lets the unborn speak for themselves. Upgrading your local Pregnancy Resource Center to include ultrasound may be one of the most effective ways to affirm life.