Right to Life

Wednesday, May 27, 2009 Comments

Found this at Gabi's World, it's from her speech from her speech at a Right to Life banquet in Evansville, Indiana on April 16th, 2009.

Read full post >>

Questions around Chrysler dealer closings

Comments

First, here is a letter to the editor written by George Joseph, one of the dealers who has been told he is being shut down. Well, not just shut down, they are taking his business away, without compensation, and giving it (for free) to another dealer.

What am I missing here? This is outright theft and I just don't see how it can be legal or constitutional. Even in eminent domain the government must compensate you for property they take. I just can't believe this is happening in America, and what makes it particularly troubling is the way the government is so intertwined with these proceedings. The government has no place interfering in free market enterprise.

~~~~~~~~~~

Letter to the editor

My name is George C. Joseph. I am the sole owner of Sunshine Dodge-Isuzu, a family owned and operated business in Melbourne, Florida. My family bought and paid for this automobile franchise 35 years ago in 1974. I am the second generation to manage this business.

We currently employ 50+ people and before the economic slowdown we employed over 70 local people. We are active in the community and the local chamber of commerce. We deal with several dozen local vendors on a day to day basis and many more during a month. All depend on our business for part of their livelihood. We are financially strong with great respect in the market place and community. We have strong local presence and stability.

I work every day the store is open, nine to ten hours a day. I know most of our customers and all our employees. Sunshine Dodge is my life.

On Thursday, May 14, 2009 I was notified that my Dodge franchise, that we purchased, will be taken away from my family on June 9, 2009 without compensation and given to another dealer at no cost to them. My new vehicle inventory consists of 125 vehicles with a financed balance of 3 million dollars. This inventory becomes impossible to sell with no factory incentives beyond June 9, 2009. Without the Dodge franchise we can no longer sell a new Dodge as "new," nor will we be able to do any warranty service work. Additionally, my Dodge parts inventory, (approximately $300,000.) is virtually worthless without the ability to perform warranty service. There is no offer from Chrysler to buy back the vehicles or parts inventory.

Our facility was recently totally renovated at Chrysler's insistence, incurring a multi-million dollar debt in the form of a mortgage at Sun Trust Bank.

HOW IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CAN THIS HAPPEN?

THIS IS A PRIVATE BUSINESS NOT A GOVERNMENT ENTITY

This is beyond imagination! My business is being stolen from me through NO FAULT OF OUR OWN. We did NOTHING wrong.

This atrocity will most likely force my family into bankruptcy. This will also cause our 50+ employees to be unemployed. How will they provide for their families? This is a total economic disaster.

HOW CAN THIS HAPPEN IN A FREE MARKET ECONOMY IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA?

I beseech your help, and look forward to your reply. Thank you.

Sincerely,

George C. Joseph
President & Owner
Sunshine Dodge-Isuzu


~~~~~~~~~~

More here from another dealer (H/T Atlas Shrugs). Why are profitable dealers on the list to be shut down? Why is it that Chrysler can offer no logical rhyme or reason for how the dealers to be cut were selected?

Read full post >>

Prolonged preventative detention?

Comments

I can't tell you how many times in the last few days and weeks I have read an article and thought to myself incredulously, what the heck is happening to this country?! Sounds a little melodramatic but this stuff is just insanity on so many levels. Here is just one example, more to come:




Almost as shocking as the content is the fact that this actually aired on MSNBC.

Obama is framing this up in terms of terrorist threats from foreign nations, specifically it kind of sounds like some sort of "insurance policy" to allow him to hold Gitmo detainees who cannot be successfully prosecuted through the legal system, since he insists on going that route in the first place.

However, what he's proposing here is a broad scope of power (dare I use the now overly worn-out word, "unprecedented"?) with what checks and balances? Once established, how easy would it be for such power to be abused - if not by this administration, then by the next one, or the one after them?

Remember that Dept of Homeland Security report warning of the risks of "right-wing extremism"? It was loosely defined to target those who favor states' rights, value the sanctity of life, support the 2nd amendment, or are U.S. veterans, just to name a few (and lacked supporting evidence).

If they're starting from scratch on setting the rules, and doing so outside the existing legal system, isn't it possible that these purposely vague descriptions could be used to target individuals for nothing more than exercising free speech? Or not even that, but just on the suspicion of possibly holding opinions that might conceivably (however remote the possibility) be deemed to be a "threat"? Or do I just have an overactive imagination? (I sincerely hope it's the latter).

Listen to what he's saying in the speech though - the justification for holding people is not what they've done, but what the government suspects they might do in the future. Being held - indefinitely, and without charges or trial - for a crime not yet committed (and possibly not ever intended to be committed). Imprisonment based not on actions or even intent, but on mere suspicion. Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?

Read full post >>

Memorial Day

Saturday, May 23, 2009 Comments

On Monday, we honor the American service men and women who have given their lives in defense of freedom and liberty, here and abroad.

"Today, the United States stands as a beacon of liberty and democratic strength before the community of nations. We are resolved to stand firm against those who would destroy the freedoms we cherish. We are determined to achieve an enduring peace -- a peace with liberty and with honor. This determination, this resolve, is the highest tribute we can pay to the many who have fallen in the service of our Nation."

~~ President Ronald Reagan, Memorial Day 1981




"Only 2 defining forces have ever offered to die for you…. Jesus Christ and the American Soldier. One died for your soul, the other for your freedom."

~~ Lt. Col. Grant L. Rosensteel, Jr., USAF


To our fallen heroes, I offer my heartfelt thanks.

Read full post >>

A profound comparison

Comments

H/T: Jill Stanek

As Jill Stanek put it, the comparison found on Voices Carry is indeed "profound:"

It occurred to me to juxtapose these two pictures from earlier today at Notre Shame University.



While the millstone of Notre Dame is placed around President Obortion's neck and 12k at Notre Dame stand giving a thunderous ovation, all heaven stood to honor an 80-year-old priest as he received heaven's high honor for peacefully taking a stand for life and the plight of the unborn...

That little jail tag around the neck of this bound man of God is a high honor in the kingdom of God. If you are wondering about my phrase - "the millstone of Notre Dame" - I'd remind you that Jesus spoke of placing something around the neck of those who keep children from LIFE.


I am not Catholic but I am a Christian and have a great respect for people who devote their lives to doing God's work, whatever their particular faith. I am deeply saddened to see this priest treated like a common criminal. I believe the official charge was "trespassing." How can a priest be "trespassing" on the campus of a Catholic university? Isn't that a place he should expect to be welcomed? It is sad to see a university that I have long respected as a religious institution treat one of their own this way and turn their backs on God's innocent children in honoring a man who holds those children in such contempt.

Obama said during the campaign that he wouldn't want his daughters "punished with a baby" if they made a "mistake." Since when are babies considered "punishment"? And why would he be so quick to "punish" his own grandchildren with a death sentence for the "mistake" of their mother (and father)?

All babies are children of God, and all are innocent no matter the circumstances of their conception.

Read full post >>

No, Mr. President

Comments

My dad sent this to me and I wanted to share it here. The speaker is theologian John Piper. More about this at HotAir.



Excerpt:

"No, Mr. President. Killing our children is killing our children no matter how many times you say it is a private family matter. You may say it is a private family matter over and over and over and still, they are dead."


So true. Can you imagine someone saying that child abuse is a private family matter? That there should be no laws protecting children from abuse? I often hear people say things like, "Well, of course I believe abortion is wrong and I would never have one, but who am I to tell someone else who doesn't believe that that they can't have an abortion?"

Again, insert "child abuse" and you will see just how absurd such a position is.

"Of course I believe child abuse is wrong and I would never hurt my child, but who am I to tell someone else who doesn't believe that that they can't abuse their children?"

Utterly absurd, no? And yet isn't killing one's own child the most extreme form of child abuse?

Read full post >>

On empathy, science, and life

Saturday, May 9, 2009 Comments

Recently Obama spoke yet again about empathy. He speaks often regarding the importance of science.

While I have to disagree with him on the role of empathy in the U.S. Supreme Court, clearly empathy for our fellow human beings is important. So too, is scientific inquiry, which coupled with faith and spirituality is a part of the search for truth and understanding of God's creation.

Why then, do liberals (including Obama) disregard science and show not even the slightest empathy when it comes to unborn children?

While faith has told us for centuries that life begins at conception, science now confirms that truth. Science has given us the ability to look inside the womb and witness the miracle of life in its early stages. We can see the heart beating as early as 22 days after conception. We can see a baby responding to its environment and behaving in the womb much like he or she will after birth. There is no disputing this when we have the ability to see it with our own eyes. Birth is simply a change in location, from inside to outside, nothing more.

Dr. Fritz Baumgartner eloquently described the beginning of life from a scientific perspective,

There is no more pivotal moment in the subsequent growth and development of a human being than when 23 chromosomes of the father join with 23 chromosomes of the mother to form a unique, 46-chromosomed individual, with a gender, who had previously simply not existed.

Here is a glimpse of what science has shown us:





How can anyone seeing this, however skeptical they may have been, deny the innate humanity of unborn children?

How can anyone who dares to speak of empathy, who has no problem empathizing with murderers, tyrants, and terrorists, show zero empathy with regard to innocent children?

I came across this article "A Question of Empathy: How science is rehsaping the abortion debate" recently, which included some interesting analogies:
What struck him was that so few could identify with the condition of slaves they had never met – and who were so different in so many ways – until the first accounts of what they endured were published, and the first line-drawings of slave ships began to circulate. And all of a sudden there was a wave of empathy which over time eroded the notion that Africans were not like us and therefore not entitled to human treatment.

Similarly,
no dog has yet articulated the subjective emotional response of being bashed on the nose by a wooden spoon; no dog has yet described, in an interview, what it is like to have an injection at the vet’s. But it’s rather nice to think we live in a society where most people give the dog a cuddle when it’s whimpering, rather than simply kick it on the grounds that no one has verified that the whimpers indicate a "subjective emotional response."
I certainly hope that the inside look at pregnancy afforded by science will spur those inclined to dismiss unborn children as "not persons" to look more closely at their assumptions, to look at the unborn child with eyes of empathy rather than disdain.

Our president is an extremist on this issue, having actively fought against protections for infants born alive after a botched abortion, a bill that even NARAL did not oppose. Last time I checked, even the pro-abortion crowd at least considers a baby "alive" after birth. Letting a helpless child die from neglect is no different than physically murdering that child, and yet that is exactly where our president stands.

He and many others lecture us about torture, extending the meaning to essentially anything that could possibly be construed as making someone uncomfortable. No caterpillars, no loud music, nothing but juice and cookies (unless of course, terrorists find juice and cookies offensive in which case those would be considered "torture" as well).

Dr. Conaty gives us a disturbing view of real torture. Torture that as he puts it, Obama believes in. The events required to perform an abortion, and especially a late term partial-birth abortion, can be described no other way. There is no mercy, no acknowledgement that an unborn baby is just as capable of feeling pain as one who is born (as early as 8 weeks, as documented scientifically). In fact science shows that premature babies experience pain, even more acutely than their full-term counterparts as their nervous systems have not yet developed the ability to dampen pain sensations (as a mother of two preemies, I can attest to this). There is nothing even approaching empathy from Obama and those who agree with him on this issue.

One cannot claim the moral "high ground" of being empathatic to your fellow human beings while condoning the brutal killing of the most vulnerable human beings. One cannot claim to respect science while conveniently ignoring the results of scientific study when they don't agree with one's preconceptions.

~~~~~~~~
Reagan once said, "I've noticed that everyone that is pro-abortion has already been born." Indeed.

"All those who supported slavery were free, and all those who support abortion were born... that's the way oppression works." ~Unknown

Read full post >>

Montana gun law challenges federal gov't

Tuesday, May 5, 2009 Comments



H/T Real Texas Blog

Apparently, Montana has passed a new law, the "Montana Firearms Freedom Act," challenging federal gun control laws. Essentially, it says that any firearms that are made and kept within the state of Montana are exempt from federal oversight because they do not cross state lines (ie. they are not "interstate commerce") and are therefore out of the federal government's jurisdiction. This means exemption from federal background checks, licensing, and registration.

This new law is not only a protection of the state's gun rights, but also an assertion of states' rights. As Texas governor Rick Perry stated recently, the federal government has been impeding on states' rights for a long time now.

I hope that more states will opt to follow Montana's example. I know I'll be writing to my state legislators to try to get something similar started here.

Read full post >>