Judge Sotomayor And The Law

Sonia Sotomayor

From: The Pen of Gary Bauer

If Judge Sotomayor thinks the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance violate the Constitution, the public needs to know that. If she believes unborn children do not deserve constitutional recognition, that ought to be made clear. If the nominee has an affinity for quoting foreign law in justifying decisions that are supposed to be based on the U.S. Constitution, Americans should know. And if Judge Sotomayor believes in a hitherto undiscovered right for same-sex couples to marry, even though the voters of 30 states have considered the question and soundly voted it down, that view ought to be exposed.

Mr. Obama has told us what kind of judges he is seeking: judges who feel unconstrained by the plain language of the law or the text of the Constitution, judges who instead will act on their “empathy,” on their own sense of right and wrong. He wants judges who will legislate from the bench. That is the very definition of judicial activism.

It’s unsurprising then that Mr. Obama has nominated Judge Sotomayor, who has said our courts are “where policy is made.” In a 2002 speech at Berkeley, she suggested that justice might be better determined by some races than others, saying, “I would hope that a wise Latino woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

Empathy is a virtue, but it should not be a guiding judicial principle. Most Americans agree.

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“Me-Church” – Where It’s All About You!

Seventy-Five Percent Of National Health Care Patients Wait Four Or More Weeks To Be Admitted Into The Hospital

443,849 British patients of the National Healthcare Service (NHS) waited four or more weeks for inpatient admittance into a hospital in May of 2009 (more than 75% of all patients).

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Top Five Obama Health Care Lies

From: The Pen of Shikha Dalmia

Lie One: No one will be compelled to buy coverage.

Lie Two: No new taxes on employer benefits.

Lie Three: Government can control rising health care costs better than the private sector.

Lie Four: A public plan won’t be a Trojan horse for a single-payer monopoly.

Lie Five: Patients don’t have to fear rationing.

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The Purpose Of A Public Education

Quoting William Samuel Johnson in an address to graduates:

“You this day. . . . have, by the favor of Providence and the attention of friends, received a public education, the purpose whereof hath been to qualify you the better to serve your Creator and your country. You have this day invited this audience to witness the progress you have made. . . . Thus you assume the character of scholars, of men, and of citizens. . . . Go, then, . . . and exercise them with diligence, fidelity, and zeal. . . . Your first great duties, you are sensible, are those you owe to Heaven, to your Creator and Redeemer. Let these be ever present to your minds, and exemplified in your lives and conduct. Imprint deep upon your minds the principles of piety towards God, and a reverence and fear of His holy name. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom and its [practice] is everlasting [happiness] . . . . Reflect deeply and often upon [your] relations [with God]. Remember that it is in God you live and move and have your being, – that, in the language of David, He is about your bed and about your path and spieth out all your ways – that there is not a thought in your hearts, nor a word upon your tongues, but lo! He knoweth them altogether, and that He will one day call you to a strict account for all your conduct in this mortal life. Remember, too, that you are the redeemed of the Lord, that you are bought with a price, even the inestimable price of the precious blood of the Son of God. Adore Jehovah, therefore, as your God and your Judge. Love, fear, and serve Him as your Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. Acquaint yourselves with Him in His word and holy ordinances. . . . [G]o forth into the world firmly resolved neither to be allured by its vanities nor contaminated by its vices, but to run with patience and perseverance, with firmness and [cheerfulness], the glorious career of religion, honor, and virtue. . . . Finally, . . . in the elegant and expressive language are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things” – and do them, and the God of peace shall be with you, to whose most gracious protection I now commend you, humbly imploring Almighty Goodness that He will be your guardian and your guide, your protector and the rock of your defense, your Savior and your God.” (Member of Continental Congress, Signer of Constitution, Framer of Bill of Rights)

National Healthcare Patients Wait A Year For Treatment

14 percentage of all patients in Britain wait more than one (1) year to receive treatment after a referral by a general practitioner. Half of all National Health Care patients in Britain wait between 18 and 52 weeks for treatment.

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The Self-Centered Secular Church

The expression “secular church” may be a contradiction in terms, but it is what many sociologists say is emerging on the American religious scene.

The secularization process that has transformed Western civilization over the past two centuries has taken different paths in Europe and in America. In Europe, secularization has meant large-scale defection from religion and the appearance of many empty church buildings and cathedrals. In America, churches have survived, however, by adapting to secularization and by commending themselves in terms that are attractive to “secular man.”

This strategy has insured short-term success, but it also has meant that the church has undergone many fundamental changes. In its organization, for example, the church tends to take on the characteristics and values of contemporary secular organizations and institutions; it comes to resemble surrounding technological and bureaucratic organizations. Too frequently such churches are beehives of committee meetings, questionnaires, self-studies, memos and related paraphernalia that primarily serve to maintain institutional momentum.

Further, the secular church alters traditional ministries and multiplies a host of new ministries through which it seeks to “meet needs.” Committed to meeting consumer demands, the accommodating church must check constantly the latest shifts and fads which announce the appearance of a new “need.” In all of this the secular church almost comes to resemble a delicatessen offering samples to attract customers. Its members are exhorted to be involved, to share, and occasionally, to serve. Far less frequently are they called to serious Bible study and discipleship.

Traditional tasks of the minister are increasingly unimportant, both to society and within the secular church. In order to survive within the organizational framework of the emerging church, many ministers find themselves forced to pay close attention to style and technique. They must learn how to meet the demands of an increasingly secular clientele whose expectations frequently are shaped more by TV personalities than by Christian belief. Ministers succeeding within the secular church thus may come to know more about managerial techniques, executive decision making, group dynamics and popular psychology than they know about the Bible.

The importance of the church also changes its meaning in the life of the average member of the secular church. While for older members the church may retain something of its traditional importance, for many younger and newer members it no longer offers a clear body of beliefs and values vital for life. Rather, the outlook of the average member of the emerging church tends to be an unexamined and unstable hodgepodge of bits and pieces taken from folk wisdom, Dear Abby, horoscopes and the latest version of psychotherapy.

Not surprisingly, the church tends to play the same marginal role in the life of the average member as it does in the secular society. While the church may be a beehive of activity, church life is leisure time pursuit. The secular church becomes a “Christ Club,” providing social contacts, entertainment and recreation (and just possibly minimal religious obligation to salve consciences).

Clearly, in spite of its many apparent successes, the secular church pays a terribly high price for its survival. For example, it may be just a matter of time until many members, having their appetites for “need gratification” whetted by the church, turn to such alternatives as health spas and dinner clubs.

Behind the many problems of the secular church, however, lies a fundamental problem: there is little place for the God of the Bible in the secular church. In a secular world that must quantify, manage, program and manipulate, the unfathomable mystery and majesty of the biblical God simply does not fit. The so-called transcendence of the secular church is a false transcendence which merely uses the Creator in a thinly veiled adoration of and infatuation with the creature.

Worship, for example, in the secular church tends to become a quasi-entertaining media event that must “meet my needs” by providing an emotional outlet and offering an occasion for conviviality. Worship is fundamentally not an occasion marked by reverence, awe and an awareness of the mysterious otherness of the God of Abraham and Isaac, Jesus and Paul. Salvation likewise comes to be loosely linked with the gratification of personal needs and the pursuit of “self-realization.”

While all of this largely goes unnoticed in easy times (and one suspects that the secular church is only possible in comfortable times), leaders of the secular church find hard going when it becomes necessary to call for humility, patience, or self-sacrifice. There can be very little place for the cross in the easy and self-centered life of the “Christ Club.”

Recovering the way is always a difficult task. For the secular church, recovery will depend upon a painfully honest recognition of the problem. It will demand nothing short of a recovery of transcendence, an openness to the biblical record of God’s shattering and unpredictable incursions into human history. This, in turn, will rekindle near-forgotten memories that “His ways are not our ways.” It will remind us that God is worshipped not because he is useful but because he is God. Only such a turn to the God above our countless false gods can free us from our self-imprisonment within a web of illusions and fantasies.

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