In light of the court decision in California upholding marriage between one man and one woman, I am posting again Marriage is the Domain of the Church and God because it points to the Establishment Clause as the better way for gay marriage proponents to go. It is also found at Australia.TO with links.
Marriage is the Domain of the Church and God -
Market Risk is the Domain of Individuals and Business -
Neither is the Domain of the Federal Government.
This morning I heard Glenn Beck talking briefly about gay marriage, civil unions and the possibility that triad couples (between more than 2 people) could soon start demanding the same rights. After I finished rolling my eyes, I began thinking about the issue and quickly came to the same opinion that I hold concerning gay marriages and marriage in general. Marriage is an issue for the church, consenting adults, and God. If there are some churches that recognize gay marriages, fine (as long they are between freely consenting adults). If there are some churches that recognize marriage between more than two people or communal families, fine (as long as they are between freely consenting adults). I’m not in the religion or morality business as long as actions don’t hurt others or infringe upon their rights.
Why in the world is the government, any government, state or federal, in the business of sanctifying or recognizing any marriage? It has always been clear to me that when government makes it possible for people who are “married” to have benefits and rights (social security or medical decision making) different from “non-married” people, it is a violation of both the equal protection clause (14th Amendment to the Constitution) and the prohibition respecting the establishment of religion (1st Amendment to the Constitution).
Social Security benefits accruing to surviving spouses are probably the main reason people are upset about the federal government not recognizing gay marriage in general. I agree completely that gay and single couples both have a legitimate right to be upset. Where does the idea and definition of marriage come from? It comes from the church. (Particularly churches of the Judea/Christian tradition.)
In this country, the Christian church’s biblical interpretation that marriage is only between one man and one woman is engrained in literature and history as the rule. However today, there are churches that recognize and perform marriages between couples of the same sex, transgender persons, and even between a man and a woman. So, when official government process bestows benefits to those individuals who are in “traditional marriages”, the definition of which was establish by the Judea/Christian beliefs, there is clearly a preference being made for one religion’s or church’s definition of marriage over those found in other religions or churches.
When government goes down the “we benefit you, but not you” path; it sure seems like government is either involved in establishing a particular religion or government is not providing equal protection and opportunity for “single” individuals who wish to consolidate and share their resources as “partners” or “significant others” the same as “traditionally married” people. Government should either benefit people equally or don’t benefit anyone.
If Joe and Mary, or Joe and Sam, or Joe, Mary, & Jane said to the government that we want to pool our social security contributions from this date forward, then every participant’s individual social security contributions would be pooled and the sum would be divided by the number of people involved and that amount would be credited to each person’s individual social security earnings account.
This would allow the stay-at-home mom or dad to make contributions to their individual social security account as if they were “working” (half of the family’s income would be credited to each person in the relationship). It would work the same way for gay couples or communal families. Each person in such an arrangement would have some measure of protection vis-à-vis social security. There would be no surviving spouse benefit because they would have their own social security. Primary income earners or those with a bigger income could direct part of their social security contributions to another’s account because they are committed to the other person (or people) and/or recognize the value of another person(s) non-monetary contributions such as raising children, gardening or taking care of the house.
I would think that most people would not have a problem with such a restructuring of Social Security because the government would be recognizing the limits of its power by saying we are not going to involve ourselves with the definition of the term marriage. Marriage is within the domain of the church, the consenting individual(s), and their God.
It amazes me that the government doesn’t try harder to stay out of the business of limiting the rights of individuals more. It seems like politicians want division so they can play each side off the other and maintain their grip on power. Every time the government and politicians get involved in anything they create fear and uncertainty; and then use that uncertainty to their own advantage. One only needs to look at the current financial mess that the economy is in.
Obama likes to say that he inherited the mess and he is only doing what has to be done. However, the truth is that he and many Democrats in Congress share a great deal of the blame for the economic mess and Obama is using this crisis to get his political objectives accomplished. The entire mess can be traced back to when government (mostly Democrats, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd) decided it wanted to get into the business of setting up regulations that created opportunities for groups like ACORN to pressure banks into lending to people who were not able to afford mortgages. This led to many of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s problems; which coupled with packaging these sub-prime assets into financial bundles and selling them round the world; it caused the global house of cards to collapse.
The government was trying to manipulate business RISK principles and it backfired. Banks wound up being in the position of making risky loans that could be sold to the government (or guaranteed) and the bank’s RISK of losing its own money was greatly diminished. It’s a lot easier to play fast and loose with other people’s money.
Market Risk is the Domain of Individuals and Business.
Now, people are getting excited that the stock market appears to be signaling the end of the crisis. Think again. The news of the past few days paints a much bleaker picture. Consider the following:
With passage of Obama’s budget, the government will have to borrow almost 50 cents for every dollar it spends this year.
The Federal deficit will be greater than 1.8 trillion dollars this year.
Social Security and Medicare financial projections have been revised to reflect that they are going broke sooner than expected. Medicare is already losing money by the truckloads and Social Security will be sending out payments faster than money coming in by 2016. That’s only 7 years away! Congress is not only spending money like drunken sailors but they are also so afraid of risking the votes of senior citizens that they are unwilling to effectively address the Social Security/Medicare problem. (That’s the problem with creating dependency for voter loyalty, the bill always comes due. Then it comes down to who can be blamed. With the American media’s proclivity for supporting Democrats, blame usually finds it way to Republicans regardless of facts to the contrary.)
Last week, the Treasury auction went poorly and Treasury yields soared. This means that the government has to pay much more interest on the amounts they are borrowing.
This week, the government was buying their own securities to bring the yields back down some. Where are the funds coming from to for the Fed to do all this buying? They have the printing presses running overtime. This will, in the not too distant future, damage severely the value of the dollar and cause a substantial rise in inflation. The price of everything will go up and foreign countries will be reluctant to purchase our debt to keep the charade going.
China, who holds a great deal of our debt, will be looking for treasuries paying higher interest in order to entice them to purchase more debt.
The more the government prints money out of thin air, the more the dollar’s value will be affected. There will more money available to buy the same number of goods – causing inflationary pressure. Demand will likely take a downturn once consumers figure out they need to be protecting bank balances. However, with a decline in dollar’s value, it means that many goods will cost more to produce because the materials required for production will cost more. Therefore producers will either need to raise prices, lower profit margins, lower labor costs (lower wages and/or cut jobs), and/or relocate to areas where the costs of production (taxes etc.) are lower. However, even with these actions, consumers may not buy at higher prices (or even current prices) and businesses will go under.
So why are stock going up? I believe that many people are being led to think the crisis is ending by Obama and the media and they want to be in on the bull market. I also believe that many people are moving out of U.S. Securities because the yields are relatively low right now, some stocks price/earnings ratios look attractive comparatively and some investors are starting to believe that Treasuries are too risky and could collapse in the future. I think people are buying stocks because they feel like they are buying something tangible like buildings, machinery, etc. I bet buyers are looking at companies that don’t have high debt to equity ratios. Stocks just look better than most of the other choices right now. Now is the operative word because once interest rates on government securities are forced to rise to 6 or 7%, a lot of investors will shift back trying to stay ahead of the calamity that’s nearly certain to come. This amount of debt and planned taxation is not sustainable.
This crisis can only be overcome by returning to sound economic principles now. Congress and Obama must stop trying to spend and tax our way out of this. The media needs to be telling the story of how to work toward healthy long term economic fundamentals and not just promoting Obama’s plan. Obama’s massive stimulus is a short-term feel good illusion; but like social security, the bill will come due.
The media should encouraging Tea Parties instead of attacking them. The media needs to tell the truth about Obama and his real objectives. The media needs to investigate & report factually about Obama’s eligibility issue, Rezko, Ayers, Larry Sinclair’s allegations, Obama’s associations with ACORN, and the numerous other issues and scandals from Obama’s past. Before America can come together, these questions must be addressed fully. The media generated Obama “fairy tale” must stop because America’s future is at stake. The media needs to tell the truth and report the news.
We need to support companies like Ford who are not feeding off tax payers and taking direction from self-serving politicians. Boycott companies like GM, Chrysler, Citigroup and others who undermine ingenuity and lead America to mediocrity.
Neither marriage nor market risk should be within the domain of the Federal Government.
John Hemeway, Esq. has written an important letter to Rupert Murdoch requesting his support.
May 26, 2009
Exclusive: A Letter to Rupert Murdoch on the Obama Birth Certificate Question
John D. Hemenway, Esq.
Editor’s note: The following is a letter written by John D. Hemenway, Esq. that was sent to NewsCorp CEO Rupert Murdoch via certified mail.
May 14, 2009
Dear Rupert,
You will likely not have retained a clear memory of me from Worcester College in the early fifties. Much time has elapsed from when we both read “P.P.E.” under Asa Briggs and the others. I had looked forward to cementing our friendship when the death of your father caused you simply to “disappear” from those at Worcester.
Much later, during several visits to my Washington, D.C. home, my moral tutor, David Mitchell, filled me in on the magnificent assistance you provided the College. Perhaps you also had something to do with the “Mitchell Building” erected just off Walton Street.
Everyone who shares your views is pleased at the nearly unprecedented success story you have made of your life. I was very pleased when you became an American, even if some persons attributed your motivation as calculated to expand your economic interests. Pure jealousy! You and your accomplishments have been good for us all.
From time to time, I try to keep up with interesting details concerning your news empire. From that reading, I am certain you and I have many opinions in common. I subscribe to the N.Y. Post, which one can acknowledge is “tabloidish,” but describes real N.Y. City life and the Post’s editorial staff certainly offers solid opinions pertaining to U.S. governmental problems. “Fox News” also makes an outstanding contribution to public awareness of the issues confronting the country.
You may recall the vital contribution Worcester’s Provost John Masterman made to the winning of WWII; he was a key figure, as I remember, in organizing the counter-espionage effort against the Nazis. I write you now concerning a problem nearly of that magnitude.
Rupert Murdoch, Chairman, N.Y. Post
1211 Avenue of the America
New York, N.Y. 10036
That problem is this: the man now occupying the White House is likely Constitutionally unqualified to hold the office. As an adopted American, you will have studied the U.S. Constitution better than many Americans, and from P.P.E. studies know that the Constitution has flexible clauses and hard, literal clauses. One of the latter is the requirement of Article II, Section 1, which states: “No person except a natural-born citizen…shall be eligible to the Office of the President.”
There are indications that Obama cannot meet that requirement. As an attorney, I facilitated a lawsuit (Hollister vs. Soetoro et al.) in the United States District Court (D.C. Circuit) demanding that Obama produce his birth certificate or satisfactory substitute evidence. There are about 20 similar lawsuits across the nation. In my case, U.S. District Court Judge Robertson (a Clinton appointee), who summarily dismissed the case, and is rumored to be seeking an Obama appointment, wrote that Obama’s eligibility had been “blogged, texted, twittered, and otherwise massaged by America’s vigilant citizenry.” In other words, he accepted internet “blogs” in lieu of actual evidence.
He ordered me to “show cause” why I should not be sanctioned for promotion of a “frivolous” lawsuit. (It is significant that, although dismissed, none of the twenty odd similar legal actions have been designated by the responsible judge as “frivolous.”)
Other lawsuits have usually been dismissed for “lack of standing” including a lawsuit brought by Presidential candidate, Ambassador Alan Keyes. If anyone has standing, it is an actual Presidential contender. I provided Judge Robertson 37 pages of explanation as to “why I should not be held in contempt” and he decided to “reprimand” me instead of his threatened sanctions. That case is now under appeal.
Any rational person with even partial knowledge of the facts must know that Obama-cum-Soetoro is desperate to conceal something he does not want known. I believe he is hiding the fact that he and his campaign conspired to assert eligibility for the Presidential office to which he well may not be entitled. In other parts of the world, this would be known as a coup d’etat....Continue Reading
From The Steady Drip we have a good rebuttal to the argument that Obama's birth certificate has been vetted.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Please get this straight: AKA Obama birth not vetted
Please get this straight:
Hawaiian officials have not validated AKA OBAMA’s place of birth. What they have said is that they “have the original document” on file. They haven’t offered a clue as to what information is in that document nor have they said what kind of birth certificate is on file; a conventional birth certificate issued by a hospital with a doctor’s signature or the kind of birth certificate issued by Hawaii on the basis of an affidavit? The Hawaiian officials are not part of a cover-up. They can not legally validate what is on that document without a court order or permission from “our” Chicago con-man.
Laws of the Territory of Hawaii ACT 96 To Provide For The Issuance Of Certificates Of Hawaiian Birth was in effect from 1911 until 1972 and allowed someone who was born outside the Hawaiian Islands to be registered as though he were born in Hawaii. Under that law, someone simply would have presented herself to the Hawaiian authorities and declared that the child was born in Hawaii. The person could have sworn under oath and presented witnesses and other evidence. If the authorities accepted it, that was the end of it. All a person had to do was file a false statement and Hawaii took them at their word.
One could not just say "My kid was born in Des Moines but I want him to have a Hawaiian birth record". But if you lied no investigation was conducted to validate your claim and the Hawaiian birth record was issued no questions asked.
Knowledge of this practice was wide spread and there are probably thousands of people who obtained Hawaiian birth records between 1911 and 1972 through the process of affidavits and witnesses rather than hospitals and delivery doctors.
One high profile example of the Hawaiian birth certificate policy is the former Emperor of China. Sun Yat-sen was born on 12 November 1866 to a peasant family in the village of Cuiheng, China, but by 1904 he had a Hawaiian birth certificate and was officially a citizen of the United States. The wording on Sun Yat-sen’s Hawaiian birth certificate reveals that at age 18 he “made application for a Certificate of Birth. And that it appears from his affidavit and the evidence submitted by witnesses that he was born in the Hawaiian Islands.” Appears? It also appears that AKA Obama was born in Hawaii. Does the AKA Obama birth certificate on file with the State of Hawaii have language similar to the birth certificate of SunYat-sen?
The only way to know where AKA OBAMA was actually born is to view AKA OBAMA's original birth certificate on file in Hawaii to see what kind of birth certificate it is, and to examine what corroborating evidence supports what it says about AKA OBAMA's alleged place of birth. If the birth was in a hospital, as AKA OBAMA has maintained, such evidence would be the name of the hospital and the name and signature of the doctor who delivered him....Continue Reading
Larry Sinclair, the man who alleges that he and Obama used cocaine and engaged in consensual sex in 1999, gives a brief update on the lack of progress on the murder of Donald Young.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
CHICAGO POLICE DEPARTMENT DETECTIVE DIVISION AREA 2: No Arrest Has Been Made To Date.
I decided to check with the Chicago Police Departments Detective Division handling the Donald Young murder case to see if they had made any arrest to date. According to the Detective Division for Area 2 no arrest has been made in the December 23, 2007 murder of (Trinity United Christian Church Choir Director and admitted gay lover of Barack Obama) Donald Young.
In addition a call to the office of Chicago Mayor was met with a rude no comment on questions concerning the Mayor's possible involvement in interfering with the Donald Young murder investigation.
Will update you as soon as an arrest is made if ever at this point.
