General

It’s been very painful to listen to the president of the United State this past week because it is now nearly universally admitted that over the past four years, Barack Obama didn’t tell the truth to the American people about the Affordable Care Act.

Some say he misspoke, misled, didn’t give us the truth–whatever term you want to use–it all really boils down to one dubious reality.

He lied.

Period. (to use his own favorite punctuation mark.)

And lying destroys the foundation of trust upon which democratic republics are built. Without faith in our leaders and institutions, laws will not be obeyed and peace and civil society cannot exist.

I’m deeply saddened about the Administration’s deception. Today, I will move in the opposite spirit and share with you the straight truth about Obamacare.

First of all, let’s remind ourselves what constitutes a lie. It is a conscious, intention to deceive. It happens when a person knows the truth, but chooses to ignore it.

Here are two examples from recent history. I’ll choose both a Republican and a Democrat to be fair.

• Richard Nixon – He authorized his political committee to illegally break into an office (at the Watergate complex) to help win an election–then lied about it. His famous falsehood was: “I am not a crook.” A few months later he resigned in disgrace because he was a crook who had lied to the American people.
• Bill Clinton – He committed adultery with a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky, in a small room just outside the Oval Office, then looked the American people in the eye and said, “I did not have sex with that woman.” Some months later, he admitted that he’d lied about conduct unbecoming  to a married president and was nearly impeached for it.

Let’s give one more example to clarify the difference between lying and simply mis-speaking.

President George W. Bush famously told the American people that we needed to invade Iraq because of the presence of weapons of mass destruction which might be distributed to Al Qaeda or other rogue terrorists.

When we got there, the WMDs were not to be found. Did Bush lie? The judgment of history is a clear nyet. Prior to the Iraqi campaign, all the respected intelligence agencies of the world believed that Sadaam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.

We also knew he had them because he had used them on his own people--killing thousands of Kurds in the 1980s. He had them, used them, and then they disappeared. When we didn’t find them, we were left with two options: 1) Either he didn’t have large quantities, or 2) They were moved to another site (Syria?) before the American invasion.

Either way, George Bush didn’t intend to deceive. He simply misspoke based on faulty information.

It’s important to note the difference because this makes or breaks the believability of a leader. When you misspeak because of wrong facts, your heart and motivations can still be trusted. But when you deliberately choose to lie about a subject, then evil has entered your heart and destroys all credibility and integrity.

To state it again: Leaders can misspeak, learn the real truth, correct those mistakes, and still maintain their integrity and following. But when leaders tell a lie, they cause lasting damage to our faith and trust.

Yes, they can sometimes be restored via humility, repentance, correction, and renewed integrity. But that takes time. Rebuilding trust often requires months, years or even decades.

Thus, when a high level leader lies, he is usually finished for life in the realm he served. Trust has been shaken, confidence has died, and people become cynical to following–which is the death knell to his or her government.

In democratic societies (ones that believe in character and integrity), lying leaders either resign, are impeached, are voted out, or their legacies are tarnished.

Sin has serious consequences.

Barack Obama now faces that reality.

But before we hurl any stones, it might be helpful to personalize the discussion. Have you ever told a lie–an intended deception? To a family member or close friend? To the government when filling out your taxes? To a policeman when being pulled over for a violation? To any other person to cover up something you did or of which you are ashamed?

I have–and I have asked forgiveness for those sins. And once I repented, I asked God to help me never do it again.

However, I never did so in a leadership position where it affected the trust of a group of people. That’s where Barack Obama is in serious trouble. At least 36 times–all perilously preserved on video–Barack Obama told the American people:

“If you like your insurance, you can keep it. Period. If you like your doctor, you can keep him. Period.”

You can watch all 36 false promises here.

Even some Democrats are owning up to the lie. Congressman Kurt Shrader D-OR now says:

“I think the president was grossly misleading to the American public  and is causing added stress and added strife as we go through a really difficult time with health care.”

He’s right. At least five million people in the nation have currently lost plans that the president said we they could keep.

And “we’ve only just begun.”

So what is the straight, honest-to God truth about the Affordable Care Act often called Obamacare? I will give it to you, to the best of my ability, in Q&A form.

Q: What were the original purposes of the ACA? A: From a liberal point of view, the main purpose was to provide health care to all the poor (uninsured) in our nation. A second purpose was to win their votes via this dramatic expansion of the welfare state. A third purpose was to super-size the Federal Government to control one-sixth of the American economy. The ACA is the largest wealth redistribution scheme in the history of the USA.

Q: Is the ACA a form of national or socialized medicine? A: Yes, it is the first step that direction which is designed, over time, to collapse the private insurance markets and create a single payer (government) system in America. Government control of health is the holy grail of progressivism. It is the beginning of the end of free and prosperous societies. Just look at Europe–and the former Soviet Union.

Q: Was the ACA wisely passed into law? A: No. Such a large, impacting, entitlement program should have waited for bi-partisan support as Social Security and Medicare did. But not one Republican voted for the bill, many Democrats were bribed into supporting it, and the Congressional rules were bent to force it upon the America people.

Q. Is ACA a good concept and well-written? A: Neither one. Governments are bad at providing services due to lack of competition and competence. They were not meant to be “providers” (done far more redemptively by the private sector), but rather “protectors” of the peace. The ACA is a two thousand page albatross. Here’s a rule of thumb: The bigger a bill, the worse it is (more regulations and bureaucracy are required). The ACA is the longest bill in American history. Get it?

Q: Will people lose their personal policies under the ACA? A: Yes, millions of them. Five million have already been dropped (including my family), and that number will rise to probably fifteen million. After the employer mandate kicks in, the number could rise as high as 130 million people.

Q: Why are people losing their policies? A: Because the ACA limits the freedoms of both insurance companies and individuals. It forces thousands of customized policies to be forced into four. The four approved by the feds require everybody to carry and pay for everything–even if you don’t need it. If you’re a man, you still have to pay for maternity care. If you’re a tee-totaler, you still need to pay for substance abuse counseling. This is the basis of the president’s lie: ACA changes the playing field so that all policies conform to the bureacrats’ wishes. Thus, scores of millions of people will lose the insurance and doctors they like.

Q: Why will people lose their doctors? A: Because ACA will completely change the landscape of American medicine. First, many doctors will leave the system because of financial dis-incentives and dreaded paperwork. There will be a huge doctor shortage. Plus, your new “forced upon you” plan may not include the group or hospital your personal doctor is associated with.

Q: Who will benefit the most from the ACA? A: Those who are currently uninsured and live below the poverty level. They will receive “free” healthcare via a vast Medicaid expansion. This includes a large sector of the elderly and probably many illegal aliens.

Q: Who will be hurt the most? A: The tax-paying middle class and younger Americans. In most cases, the tax-paying “center” of America will be forced into higher premiums and deductibles to pay for the “free” insurance for the poor. This will especially hurt younger Americans, most of whom need little or no health insurance (only catastrophic care), but no longer have that option. They will pay for everybody else.

Q: Why was the ACA roll-out so botched up? A: Because of the size of the program, the disparate computer systems that must communicate with each other, the incompetence and fraud found in most governmental programs, and a dirth of leadership. Computer glitches may someday be worked out, but the tentacles of this bureaucratic overlay on top of your health care will make going to the doctor seem like a visit to the post office.

Q: Will the Affordable Care Act save individuals and the nation money on health care? A: No. It will cost many times the first 900 billion dollar estimate–and for a majority of Americans (outside of the poor), it will cost much more than they are paying now. It will create more poor people.

Q: Will the ACA help produce jobs or bring down the federal deficit? A: No. It is the largest job destroyer in American history and will add trillions more dollars to an already unsustainable debt calamity.

Q: Are some insurance policies “sub-standard” or lousy? A: No. All people don’t need or want a Cadillac. When you’re young, you can save money through a catastrophic-only policy. If you have good health habits, you don’t need de-tox. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The more choices there are in health insurance, the better and the cheaper. At it’s root, the ACA is anti-choice.

Q: Are there any good aspects to the ACA? Yes. 1) The desire to insure all Americans (through a wrong method), 2) The portability of policies (you shouldn’t lose your insurance when you change jobs), and 3) Covering people with pre-existing conditions. But free market, cost-effective solutions can meet these needs better without a “one-size-fits-all” insurance coercion.

Q: Is health care a human right? A: No. Human rights are God-given, and they include life, liberty and property–which all human governments should uphold. Standards of living are not rights. They are outcomes of hard work, financial resources, and circumstances that are different for all people.

Q: How did this bad bill ever pass? A: Through a largely uninformed populace that is increasingly hooked on governmental entitlements rather than hard work, personal initiative, faith in God, and devotion to private charities (such as churches). We voted in bad leaders who are taking us down a road to personal and corporate ruin.

Q: So what can we do? A: We must ask God’s forgiveness for turning away from his truth and principles, rise up to cast off this tyranny, vote out the people that gave us the disastrous ACA, elect a freedom-restoring Congress in 2014 (especially in the Senate), and a liberty-loving president in 2016.

Then we need to repeal the ACA and provide our citizens a free-market based menu that will care for the needs of people and insure that the American medical experience remains the best in the world.

 

 

 

 

Two members of our extended family committed suicide, and I have been close to a number of other suicidal tragedies.

A businessman friend of mine, who was well known as a Christian layman, committed suicide a decade ago. At his funeral, his pastor told the grieving audience, “If Harry (not his real name) was here today I am sure he would ask your forgiveness for the rash emotional choice he made to end his life.”

I agreed. His death made no sense when compared to the life that he lived.

Nations and civilizations also commit suicide. They make wrong choices over time, maybe against their overall heritage, that plunge them into ruin. Why do nations commit suicide? What can be done to prevent it?

One of the hardest things for me to watch during this latter stage of my life, is the apparent suicide of  America–and really, all of Western civilization. This downward death spiral began in Europe, which has vastly moved away from God and biblical values. The USA is now boarding the same train which is heading to disaster.

It’s agonizing and heart-wrenching to watch the looming death spiral. It reminds me of one biblical figure –the prophet Jeremiah.

Jeremiah lived through a powerful season of revival in the nation of Israel during his early years. He was a contemporary of the young, godly king Josiah whom the Bible calls the greatest king in the lineage of Jesus (2 Kings 23:25). Over a ten year time period, the southern kingdom of Judah went through a significant national reformation (you can read the amazing story in 2 Chronicles 34) that impacted a generation and lasted twenty years.

But after Josiah died, the nation began to self-destruct,  and Jeremiah, in his later years, watched the horrifying fall while trying to turn the nation back to its godly heritage.

But it wasn’t to be. The people were unwilling to change their ways.

In 586 BC, God used  King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon to rightly bring justice to the backslidden nation. Jeremiah warned and warned the people, lived through the national collapse, and ended up dying as a refugee in Egypt.

Jeremiah’s life started well–he experienced a national spiritual awakening–but it ended with his beloved nation falling from grace.

I see an eerie parallel in my own life. I came into God’s kingdom during a wonderful season of American renewal called the Jesus Revolution. In the 1980s, I was privileged to be a small part of the Reagan years which, at the least, retarded the acceleration of American decline. That political period was known as “Morning in America” and brought about a moral and economic renewal that lasted for nearly three decades.

But many of those gains are now being lost. It appears that our godly nation, once the land of great revivals, faith, morality, freedom, and economic prosperity, is careening down a path that could lead to national suicide.

Are we experiencing the birth pangs of “Sunset in America” and possibly all of Western Civilization?

Something inside of me doesn’t want to believe it. But honesty and reality tell a different tale that makes me wonder whether the pattern of Jeremiah’s life may be mirrored in our own time.

The best word I can find to describe what is taking place in Europe and America today is the concept of suicide. We seem to be willingly and foolishly voting for people and living for things that will kill us as a nation.

Let’s begin with the dictionary definition of SUICIDE:

b : ruin of one’s own interests.

The definition assumes that in the past, the suicidal person lived responsibly, with sound thoughts and lifestyle actions. But at a point in time, this individual abandoned their sane and wise course and began down a pathway that led to consciously killing themselves–destroying their own interests and true happiness.

This scenario is at work in America today, in at least five different forms.

Religious Suicide

This is always the root cause of personal or corporate suicide–a collapse of faith in God. When the Creator of the universe is honored, loved, and his principles followed, this tends to bring joy, peace, justice and prosperity to human existence.

The “American experiment in liberty” was once anchored in the idea of “In God We Trust,”–that respecting Him and following his ways were the keys to earthly success. Thus, early Americans prayed around their kitchen tables, built churches in their cities and towns, started schools teaching biblical character qualities and taking dominion in God’s world, and more than any nation in history, placed God as the center of national life.

There were plenty of exceptions to this rule, and even wars that were fought over our sins. But the United States of America rose to global greatness because of its faith and dedication to Almighty God which was rekindled numerous times through national awakenings and revivals.

But not today. Atheists have doubled in numbers in recent years, biblical truths have been taken out of the schools, and secularism, (a new name for being man-centered and anti-God), has now become the up-and-coming religion in the land.

It is for this reason that the Rev. Billy Graham, at the age of 95, will preach his “final sermon” the week of November 4-9. He knows that we are committing religious suicide and wants to do his part to call us back to faith in God and Jesus Christ.

I encourage you to participate in My Hope America with Billy Graham.

Family Suicide

The breakdown of the American family has been breath-taking in the past two generations. The nuclear family, a husband and wife and their children, were once the backbone of this country. How far we have disintegrated in such a short period of time!

When I was a young boy, divorce was rare and ninety percent of households built their lives around the love, nurture and protection of the family unit. Today, divorce and broken families are as common as cars on the road. In the black community, the single parent ratio has reached an astounding 72 percent. Absent dads, working moms, and kids who’d rather be in gangs than in church have become a norm in many neighborhoods.

It happened quickly–since the 1960s. Now, counterfeit forms of marriage and family are on the horizon which will only weaken the real deal. The family is committing suicide in numerous and alarming ways.

Moral Suicide

The decline of morality has also been stunning in the past fifty years. Sex outside of marriage used to be rare; Adults preying on kids was once viewed as hideous and evil; Men having sex with men and women with women was viewed as an abomination and crooked; Babies were cherished and protected, not slaughtered in abortion mills.

Our moral suicide can be time-lined by the songs of past decades. The early Beatles reeked of innocence when they first crooned “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” The Rolling Stones descended into outright lust when they proposed “Let’s Spend the Night Together” (a very lewd and foreign idea to single Americans in Judeo-Christian America just fifty years ago).

More recently, the young generation just shrugs (or maybe twerks) when rapper Cee Lo Green parades onstage and bellows out profanities, such as the song F**K You.

It’s a long way from shyly holding hands to tossing F-bombs to minors. It’s the mark of a death spiral that has numbed and destroyed the morals of a once godly people.

Fiscal Suicide

In the past four years, Amnerica’s fiscal insanity has ballooned to the forefront. Cheating in morals usually leads to cheating with money. If you can get away with fornication, then you can certainly bend the rules of debt–to your own demise. Many Americans are lost under a mountain of personal debt, and the politicians we’ve elected have followed our lead in running up a 17 trillion dollar national time bomb.

In Washington, D.C., they don’t even do budgets anymore, and it’s not uncommon to have yearly deficits of 500 billion to one trillion dollars. In 2013, the stock market is being manipulated to phony highs by quantitative easing, we linger in a painful and debilitating recession, 151 million people are receiving government checks of one sort (100 million of them on welfare), and only 125 million people earn their own way (paychecks). Yet, we keep electing politicians who are spending the nation into a disaster.

This insanity of national fiscal suicide may be the most sudden and painful of all–when it hits.

Health Suicide

Closest to home at the moment, through the foolishness of the misnamed “Affordable Health Care Act” (commonly called Obamacare), we are driving some nails into our national coffin via the destruction of the best health care system the world has ever known.

People are losing their doctors and personal plans; Premiums and deductibles are going up for millions of Americans; There will be a doctor and health care shortage in the coming years; There will be death panels for some of the elderly.

We’ve even spent a billion dollars on this government intrusion into our personal health– and the federal website doesn’t even work! Plus, you will be penalized (taxed) for non-compliance.

America’s healthiest days are behind her if we do not cast off this governmental health monstrosity. It is unaffordable, is not about health (it’s about control), does not really care for the good of the nation, and is an act we can do without. Still, probably half of the nation doesn’t even realize that we’ve stuck a hypodermic needle filled with poison into our national body politic.

Maybe that will be the ultimate suicidal act of a civilization gone mad.

So why do nations commit suicide? There are a number of factors to remember:

First, the Bible says that “My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6). This certainly applies to the knowledge of God, right and wrong, godly perspective, and the wisdom to pursue true liberty. Nations die when they forget–lose the knowledge–of what made them great to begin with.

Second, nations commit suicide when they fail to grasp the power of human depravity–that we are fallen human beings who, if left to ourselves, will always descend into lust, greed, carnality and death. The human tendency to sin is the most tragic form of entropy (“gradual decline into disorder”).

That is why we need God to enlighten, forgive, redeem and empower us to neutralize the destructive tendencies. We CANNOT do it without Him.

And finally, both individuals and nations commit suicide when they make emotional decisions to go against their good character or history in the pursuit of personal pleasure. That’s what happened to my friend Harry. It is happening to the United States before our very eyes.

I am reminded of a scene from the sci-fi movie  Independence Day when a group of emotional, unthinking, city residents went up on the top of a tower to party and “welcome” the aliens to planet Earth.

They were incinerated in a moment.

We are not there yet, but we are getting close. We might be Jeremiah in our latter years, or we could be God’s chosen instruments of the next great spiritual awakening. Be awake to the former, but give your life for the latter.

God does not want us to commit national suicide. He wants us to live, not die.

 

 

I am currently in Northern Idaho visiting some of our workers who serve among Native Peoples.  One of the fruits of the destruction of American Indian culture–much of it ill-advised and unjust–was native populations living in isolation on various reservations.

That has not worked out well for them or the United States. This cultural isolation has increased poverty, alcoholism, and produced many other destructive forces.

I recently came across an article on Islam that took the perils of isolation–especially genetic isolation and inbreeding–to a much higher level.

The lesson is clear: When we do not follow God’s instructions for life, marriage, and social relationships, the consequences can be staggering (just as it will be for the acceptance of homosexual marriage).

Ponder below what fourteen centuries of “incest” may have have done to Muslim peoples.

1,400 YEARS OF IN-BREEDING

By Aaron Cantor, United States Air Force (ret) 

“During the pilot transition program with the KV-107 and C-130 with Lockheed, we found that most Saudi pilot trainees had very limited night vision, even on the brightest of moon-lit nights. Their training retention rate was minimal including maintenance personnel.”

“Some had dim memories and had to be constantly reminded of things that were told to them the day before. Needless to say, an American, British or any other western instructor gets burned out pretty quick. It actually took Muslim C-130 pilots years before they could fly in the dark safely and then would be reluctant to leave the lights of a city. “

“Islam is not only a religion, it’s a way of life all the way around. Here is another set of revealing facts about Muslim beliefs and traditions and ways of life.”

“1400 years of inbreeding.” 

“I found this to be interesting. Didn’t know whether to believe it or not. To research I went to Wikipedia, “Cousin Marriage”, and far down in the article “Genetics”, it seems there is a lot of truth here.”

“A huge Muslim problem: Inbreeding.”

“Nikolai Sennels is a Danish psychologist who has done extensive research into a little-known problem in the Muslim world: the disastrous results of Muslim inbreeding brought about by the marriage of first-cousins.”

“This practice, which has been prohibited in the Judeo-Christian tradition since the days of Moses, was sanctioned by Muhammad and has been going on now for 50 generations (1,400 years) in the Muslim world.”

“This practice of inbreeding will never go away in the Muslim world, since Muhammad is the ultimate example and authority on all matters, including marriage. The massive inbreeding in Muslim culture may well have done virtually irreversible damage to the Muslim gene pool, including extensive damage to its intelligence, sanity, and health.”

“According to Sennels, close to half of all Muslims in the world are inbred. In Pakistan, the numbers approach 70%. Even in England, more than half of Pakistani immigrants are married to their first cousins, and in Denmark the number of inbred Pakistani immigrants is around 40%.The numbers are equally devastating in other important Muslim countries: 67% in Saudi Arabia, 64% in Jordan, and Kuwait, 63% in Sudan, 60% in Iraq, and 54% in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.”

“According to the BBC, this Pakistani, Muslim-inspired inbreeding is thought to explain the probability that a British Pakistani family is more than 13 times as likely to have children with recessive genetic disorders. While Pakistanis are responsible for three percent of the births in the UK, they account for 33% of children with genetic birth defects.”

“The risks of what are called autosomal recessive disorders such as cystic fibrosis and spinal muscular atrophy is 18 times higher and the risk of death due to malformations is 10 times higher.”

“Other negative consequences of inbreeding include a 100 percent increase in the risk of still births and a 50% increase in the possibility that a child will die during labor.”

“Lowered intellectual capacity is another devastating consequence of Muslim marriage patterns. According to Sennels, research shows that children of consanguineous marriages lose 10-16 points off their IQ and that social abilities develop much slower in inbred babies.”

“The risk of having an IQ lower than 70, the official demarcation for being classified as ‘retarded,’ increases by an astonishing 400 percent among children of cousin marriages. (Similar effects were seen in the Pharaonic dynasties in ancient Egypt and in the British royal family, where inbreeding was the norm for a significant period of time.)”

“In Denmark, non-Western immigrants are more than 300 percent more likely to fail the intelligence test required for entrance into the Danish army.”

“Sennels says that ‘the ability to enjoy and produce knowledge and abstract thinking is simply lower in the Islamic world.’ He points out that the Arab world translates just 330 books every year, about 20% of what Greece alone does. In the last 1,200 years of Islam, just 100,000 books have been translated into Arabic, about what Spain does in a single year. Seven out of 10 Turks have never even read a book.”

“Sennels points out the difficulties this creates for Muslims seeking to succeed in the West. ‘A lower IQ, together with a religion that denounces critical thinking, surely makes it harder for many Muslims to have success in our high-tech knowledge societies.'”

“Only nine Muslims have ever won the Nobel Prize, and five of those were for the ‘Peace Prize.’ According to Nature magazine, Muslim countries produce just 10 percent of the world average when it comes to scientific research measured by articles per million inhabitants.”

“In Denmark, Sennels’ native country, Muslim children are grossly over represented among children with special needs. One-third of the budget for Danish schools is consumed by special education, and anywhere from 51% to 70% of retarded children with physical handicaps in Copenhagen have an immigrant background.”

“Learning ability is severely affected as well. Studies indicated that 64% of school children with Arabic parents are still illiterate after 10 years in the Danish school system. The immigrant drop-out rate in Danish high schools is twice that of the native-born.”

“Mental illness is also a product. The closer the blood relative, the higher the risk of schizophrenic illness. The increased risk of insanity may explain why more than 40% of patients in Denmark’s biggest ward for clinically insane criminals have an immigrant background.”

“The U.S. is not immune. According to Sennels, ‘One study based on 300,000 Americans shows that the majority of Muslims in the USA have a lower income, are less educated, and have worse jobs than the population as a whole.'”

“Sennels concludes: ‘There is no doubt that the wide spread tradition of first cousin marriages among Muslims has harmed the gene pool among Muslims. Because Muslims’ religious beliefs prohibit marrying non-Muslims and thus prevents them from adding fresh genetic material to their population, the genetic damage done to their gene pool since their prophet allowed first cousin marriages 1,400 years ago are most likely massive. This has produced overwhelming direct and indirect human and societal consequences.'”

“Bottom line: Islam is not simply a benign and morally equivalent alternative to the Judeo-Christian tradition. As Sennels points out, the first and biggest victims of Islam are Muslims. Simple Judeo-Christian compassion for Muslims and a common-sense desire to protect Western civilization from the ravages of Islam dictate a vigorous opposition to the spread of this dark and dangerous religion. These stark realities must be taken into account when we establish public polices dealing with immigration from Muslim countries and the building of mosques in the U.S.”

“Let’s hope the civilized West and the North Americans wake up before a blind naiveté about the reality of Islam destroys what remains of our Judeo-Christian culture and our domestic tranquility.”

Sobering words to ponder.

On one level, human governments of the world need to fight the unreasonable tenets of Islamo-Fascism or the jihadist movement.

But on another level, we need to compassionately help Muslim people escape the devastating errors of Mohammed and the Koran, and find life, health, and eternal hope through God’s truth.