Freedom of Conscience

There's too much missing from today's story about Obama's order to rescind Bush Administration rules relating to permitting Doctors and Pharmacists to refuse certain treatments or prescriptions to patients on the basis of conscience. Does Obama actually in effect remove Freedom of Conscience from health professionals, or is his goal more aimed at stopping random blocking of prescription sales by an individual clerk at Wal-Mart?

My reading of available information would seem to indicate the former.

There was a reported controversy a couple years back about Pharmacists who were refusing to fill prescriptions of abortifacients. It was interesting to me at the time how the Left twisted the story in an attempt to suggest that these Pharmacists were suddenly refusing to fill all sort of prescriptions based on weird cultish religious beliefs. In reality, some Christian pharmacists were refusing to dispense the new abortion pills. There were no reports I'm aware of where any drugstore employees were randomly picking prescriptions they suddenly would stop selling to make some point or other. Nobody was refusing to fill ordinary birth control or controversial antidepressants or ADHD medications. Nonetheless, a few Pharmacists were apparently fired for refusing to sell abortifacients. And Bush's order was basically designed to protect the freedom of conscience of those Pharmacists.

Obama would appear to be removing that freedom, and stories I'm reading suggest his goal would extend beyond just denying Pharmacists any rights of conscience in dispensing abortion medications. If stories are correct, his new rules might extend even to OB/GYN's, forcing them to perform abortions on demand.

I'm not sure how that could be accomplished. None but totalitarian, fascist eugenicist governments would go so far as to confiscate a physician's license or otherwise deny his or her freedom to practice medicine because they refuse to perform the abortion procedure. Can it be possible that this is actually our new President's intent?

Don't panic just yet. We'll see how this plays out.

Thought Police

I find myself moving away from the active frustration and desire to influence people to pay attention to what's going on to just sitting back and trying to be a sort of detached observer.

I've noticed the Thought Police are alive and well and flexing their muscles. Dare to put voice to the fact that the "stimulus" bill is a disaster? Apparently you're a racist. Think it's a stupid idea to pump billions of dollars into banks that behaved badly, only to see them toss the money in their vaults and change behavior not at all? You must be an idiot who just doesn't get it. Wonder how exactly giving billions of dollars to a list of leftist interest groups helps the economy? You're a fascist. Oh yeah, and a racist.

Now I hear that Republicans don't just have a political ideology that's opposed to Democrats. Republicans are now just evil people. I'm finding out they're heartless, would happily let people starve and become homeless. They somehow oppress people with their bible-thumping religious beliefs; why, these Christians are much more dangerous than those Muslim terrorists, who are only trying to fight against evil American imperialism.

I'm rather surprised to discover I'm a mean and evil individual. I guess thinking that there are actually behaviors that are morally wrong, preferring to keep my individual freedoms without the government telling me what I can and can't do with my life, believing in God, and voting mostly Republican makes me a pariah.

When this sort of thing has happened in other places throughout history, it usually results in those people like me who don't have their minds right getting locked up. Or executed.

I wonder.

Whisper in the Wind

This blog is a metaphor for me standing on a mountaintop, whispering in the wind. Yet I persevere.

Tough times have just begun. I feel them personally and immediately, as do many others. So it was with a sort of resigned sadness I read the headlines this morning about the passing of the trillion-dollar social engineering bill falsely touted by the country's current leaders as "stimulus".

The bill is something like 1200 pages long. Perhaps nobody in Congress who voted, whether for or against, actually knows everything that's in it. There was no opportunity for them, the press, or the people to read it before it was rammed through by the Democrat leadership. Reportedly Obama will sign it without reading it either.

Republicans voted against it, except for the two ladies from Maine and the old fellow from Pennsylvania. But they've seldom shown any conservative tendencies or party loyalty. Contrary to the American Pravda media, they did not oppose it for mere political posture. Aside from those ivory tower liberal Republicans, the opposition simply presented these facts:

It's not a stimulus bill, but a government spending bill.
It was written in private by a very small cadre of Democrats who offered no opportunity for comment, suggestion, or amendment from any Republican, or apparently any rank and file Democrat. (But all but 7 Democrats voted for it anyway)
It's full of liberal social engineering mandates.
It is designed simply to enrich powerful Democrat constituents.
It ushers in brand new socialist initiatives in healthcare, energy, education, and finance.
It fails to address or even consider the impact of spending double the annual Federal budget this year without offsetting revenue.
It guarantees a transfer of power from Corporate captains to Democrat party bureaucrats.
As a whole, the bill is unconstitutional. (But congress threw away the constitution many years ago)

The famous quote that may or may not be accurate, but attributed to Ben Franklin in response to a question put to him after the Constitutional Convention was, "a Republic, if you can keep it". Today we lost it to the Socialist Party of America.

Whatever your party affiliation, as an American you must be outraged at things like a $5 Billion payout to ACORN, which has been proven to be an agency of the Democrat Party engaged in open voter fraud and corruption of the Democratic process. You must be worried that the new Health Information Czar is empowered to approve or deny any treatment that might be prescribed by your physician. You should be appalled that billions of dollars are going into the pockets of friends and supporters of powerful Democrat lawmakers.

Perhaps the wind will carry the truth somewhere it might be heard before someone from the Obama administration takes me from the mountaintop and locks me in a cell to stop my whispering.

Emerging from the Flu

This was a nasty bug that knocked me off my feet on Saturday afternoon and didn't let me back up until today. The only positive I can think of is the 7 pounds I lost in those four lost days.

The hopelessness over the political and economic situation is complete. Mass insanity now rules. I tried watching the Terry Moran interview with the Great and Powerful OB on Nightline, and even though I expected an obsequious line of questioning, it exceeded even my worst expectations. The hardest hardball flung by the bowing, scraping reporter was approximately "Why are you being so nice to those evil Republicans?". There's journalism for you.

So February has shaped up to be a better month for me, but March is looking scary. It's hard to predict what the future holds. Maybe I can find a small amount of relief in the fact I'm far from alone in feeling the drastic effects of this worldwide economic free-fall. Because if the Reid-Pelosi-Obama "Stimulus" bill actually results in a major positive turnaround, I might have to become a Democrat. I'm pretty sure I'll be saying "told you so" with little relish in 6 months.

Keeping my head up (while blowing my nose).

Friday Musings

Trying to avoid tedious paperwork, I've been daydreaming about what I'd do if a pile of money dropped out of the sky. To make the dream worthwhile, I'm thinking the pile should be around $2 Mil.

I wonder what others would do with such a windfall, but I'm pretty sure how I'd allocate it.

The first 10 percent would go to charity. Since the missus and I wouldn't agree on what charities to support, I'm thinking I'd let her give away half of the 10 percent and I'd take care of the other half. My approach would be to identify specific projects to underwrite, definitely for my home church and possibly for my family's churches. I'd invest in remodeling projects or a new organ or generally the music program. I'd help out the priests/pastors, maybe with a vehicle or vacation or something like that. Generally, I'd just look around and see what was needed, then fill the need.

I'd throw a party for family and friends. What might be fun is to book a bunch of rooms at some resort and pay for everybody to get there for a week. I'd have to limit it somewhat, because it would be easy to go overboard with too large a guest list and/or too fancy a resort. But it's a particular priority of mine that I've always hoped to pull off.

Spending on personal stuff would not start with a car. I like my Volvo, and would not be in a hurry to go trade it for something hot and fancy. I would fix the cracked bumper and get it detailed, though.

Instead I'd focus on the home. A decision would need to be made whether to remodel the current homestead or sell it and buy something I like better. I'd have to check out the market to see if there might be my dream house already out there somewhere that would be a better option than the expense of turning my own cracker box into the dream. Again it would have to fit the budget, because I can't let it eat too much of the cash.

The rest gets invested. It could be fun to make it my full time job to find the best possible investments that will earn my living from then on. I'm thinking difersification, everything from real estate to other tangible assets to business ventures, stocks, bonds, etc.

OK. Time to wake up now and get back to real life.

Thoughts on Management and Labor

Of the many pendulums (pendula?) about to swing the opposite direction is the balance of power between Management and Labor.

Many of those who voted Democrat in the most recent election did so primarily out of a belief that big corporations have become too powerful, to the point of abusing their workers in the name of free-market capitalism.

Fundamentally a conservative, I've paid close attention to this particular issue over the years. And the conclusions I've reached don't toe the party line for either side. Actually, I find myself agreeing with each side about 50 percent. If that makes me an economic moderate, maybe so.

Business executives are driven by the bottom line. They are mostly compensated on their ability to grow their companies and maximize profit. Therefore, if they can get the job done by implementing lower cost alternatives to the means of production, they will do so. Concern for individual worker welfare has no seat in today's board room.

In the 80's and 90's I was personally involved in displacing perhaps hundreds of clerical and data processing workers through installation of new systems that improved efficiency overnight. I remember one particular project I led in the 80's that replaced the old "batch" system for Accounts Payable with an efficient new interactive solution. Less than a week after the new system went "live", 80 percent of the Accounts Payable department were laid off.

I felt badly, as if I was personally responsible for each of those people losing their livelihood. But after awhile, I realized it was the price of progress. If the company failed to implement these new systems, they would fall behind the competition and eventually be forced out of business because they could no longer produce their products profitably.

The next stage happened in manufacturing, where US plants closed and relocated in third-world companies across the globe. Plants relocated to places like Mexico failed due to massive corruption that made it impossible to do business, and now the vast majority of manufactured products seem to come from the Far East. Especially Communist China.

These days the technology advances have slowed somewhat, with technological efficiencies less dramatic than in the 80's and 90's. But what we have seen in this decade is a move to replace the high-tech workers like myself with cheaper alternatives. India has become the new center for technology workers, as corporate America has dumped their high-salaried U.S. techs for Indians, saving as much as 70 or 75 percent.

The Bush Administration famously told us for the past 8 years that all this progress was good for us. Globalization and free trade ultimately lifts all boats.

I'm not sold. If China, which is an adversary of the United States politically, has succeeded in replacing the manufacturing sector of this country with their own, then what happens if we suddenly find our relations deteriorating? All of a sudden, we can't produce our own manufactured products or war materiel that might be needed to protect ourselves.

There's Free Trade and there's Fair Trade. Free Trade has meant unfettered trade, with little regard for the fact that China steals trade secrets, software, entertainment, and intellectual property from America with impunity. The Bush government cared not at all that China manipulated their currency to make sure nobody could compete with them on the price for their goods.

Many suspect that NAFTA is designed more for the benefit of Mexico and Canada than for the U.S. To the extent that may be true or not, I can't say. I do think the silliness of the hassles I get at the border when entering Canada to do my software consulting are sort of ridiculous - If I was entering Canada for a job, then absolutely I should be scrutinized. But entering for a few days to teach people how to use software developed in the US should not be at issue.

I could go on, but want to get down to the real issue of Management versus Labor.

The "Card Check" legislation being pushed in Washington on behalf of the Labor Unions is designed to tilt the balance of power away from corporate management toward labor unions in a return to the 70's. I remember those days, with the bad economy made worse by incessant union strikes. So many companies had to close simply because their Unions demanded too high a price to keep the companies solvent.

I worked in a Union shop in the 80's and was stunned at the gross inefficiencies embedded into the daily activities at the company because of union work rules. I have a funny story about getting the florescent light bulbs changed in my office (it took over a week), but will get to that later.

Don't get me wrong, I fundamentally have no issue with the idea that employees can form a union for the purpose of negotiating fair pay, benefits, and working conditions with their employer.

But I do object to the business-killing effect of unions that become so powerful that they can practically dictate those terms to the employer. And I object to the pervasive corruption inherent in the Union bosses. Want to put yourself in danger of physical violence? As a member of a union, just ask the union boss for a financial statement showing how the members' dues are spent.

Management hates unions, understandably. I've been in the room to hear executives proclaim that they will close the company before they will allow a union to get in. I've been privy to unceremonious firing of employees based on no more than a rumor that they might have been overheard discussing unionization with a co-worker in the break room.

I had a friend back in the 70's and early 80's who told me that if he could just get into a certain Union, he could land a job that would pay double his current rate and be secure for life (that turned out to be wrong). But to get into the union, he had to know the right people. Because, to get on that gravy train, you had to be brought in by a friend or relative. The union was the gatekeeper to those high-paying jobs with amazing benefits.

There's the problem. Give either side too much power, and they're probably going to abuse it. If Management and Labor were both always fair-minded, honest, and ethical, there would be no problem.

Hmm, back to that morality theme again. What was that about all our societal problems sharing the same root?