iPandora

Kay Mueller writing in the Indiana Daily Student supporting government-run single-payer socialized medicine claims:

“(For-profit) insurers add so much overhead to health care that we could never afford to cover everyone as long as the system is based on them.”

There are many examples of government-run, single-payer health care systems around the world: Canada, UK, most European nations. Which of these nations has a lower overhead in their health costs than for-profit insurers?

Look at any government program run by our own government and compare the overhead with that of a similar program run in the private sector.

The government won’t have any more “compassion” in dispensing health care than the for-profit insurers.

Another issue is basic economics: Health services are a finite resource (there is not an unlimited amount of health care available). Currently, the balance of insurance and medical cost work together to control who has access to what service in a fair and just manner (eg. non-necessary services such as cosmetic surgery are relatively more expensive, limiting access more than necessary surgery).

A single-payer (socialized medicine) system removes finances from the picture. Cost cannot be used to limit access to the finite resource. And so they must ration the service itself, deciding arbitrarily who has access to what service. An arbitrary decision system is less fair and, worse, more prone to corruption. You think money controls access now: in a corrupt single-payer system, those who know WHO to pay will get access and all else will be out of luck.

Yes, our current system is flawed. Yes, it needs to be fixed.

But a government-run single-payer system is a disaster and has been a disaster in each and every case where it has been tried.

It’s not a matter of it not having been done right, it’s case after case of abject failure, hurting (and dead) people, and even more limited access to a limited resource: necessary healthcare.

Getting down to brass tacks: the ubiquity of insurance is part of the current problem as much as it used to be part of the solution.

Guaranteed payment of higher prices for medical services have allowed medicine in the US to blossom into a progressive, pioneering, technological wonder. We have medication for diseases our parents shivered in fear at the mere mention of. We can pinpoint problems down to a minutiae of detail and reach in and adjust, tweak, modify, and fix problems in out-patient procedures where it used to take days of hospital stay, hours of surgery, and interminable periods of impatient waiting for a prognosis.

Guaranteed payment of higher prices for medical services have also allowed medicine to become a for-profit service. There is nothing wrong with making profit. Doctors and nurses need to eat, and organizations need a good reason to keep providing quality medical services. But we’ve come a long way from the country doctor working for love and recieving payment in chickens, potatoes, and warm cookies.

I don’t want to go all the way back. We’ve come too far and any argument forbidding access to the myriad benefits of advanced medical ability is morally bankrupt.

But a step towards the government is a leap away from sense and any who claim otherwise are either corrupt or ignorant.

Kay, your school is either failing you, doing you a disservice, or both. Your failure of logic and your unsupported arguments are harming people.

Words mean things, and ideas have consequences.

I, [print your name here] (heretofore referred to as “The Lady”), being of sound mind, have entered into a relationship with [print guy’s name here] (heretofore referred to as “The Man”). By signing below, I hereby agree to abide by all the rules as set out within this contract in perpetuity.

Clause 1: Dates
A. The Lady will eat more than a side salad.

B. The Man will not be expected to plan every date. He will be chivalrous, but he will not be the cruise director of the relationship.

C. If The Lady would like to attend an event that she knows The Man will despise, she is advised to do so with other people (See Clause 4: Extra-Curricular Activities). However, should she deem a night at the ballet, opera, or foreign movie house to be a necessity within the scope of the relationship, she should make plans (transportation, tickets, etc.) for this evening herself.

Rule C-1 By accepting this Lady-partisan date, The Man will be guaranteed one (1) date on which both parties participate in an activity of his choice—including, but not limited to: Attending an athletic event, watching a martial-arts movie, or going out for a large BBQ dinner.

Clause 2: Dialogue

A. The Lady will never discuss an ex-boyfriend.

Rule A-1 The above may be broken if The Lady mentions a deep and abiding flaw in the ex-boyfriend, while also discussing ways in which The Man betters said ex.

B. If The Lady wants something or wants to know something, she will ask. There will be no hints or guessing games.

C. Any cute nicknames that The Lady has devised for The Man will never be spoken in public. See Clause 5, Section a, Subsection 3 for explanation.

Rule C-1 Furthermore, The Lady may not devise any nickname that includes a diminutive or that is spoken in baby-voice (e.g., “Little John” or “Snuggle Bear”).

Clause 3: Family

A. The Lady will not ask The Man to meet her family until at least one month of dating has been completed.

B. Upon meeting The Man’s mother, The Lady will try to learn as many of Mother Man’s recipes as possible. And yes, learning my mother’s mashed potatoes recipe IS very important for the future of this relationship.

Clause 4: Extracurricular Activities

A. The Man will be guaranteed at least one Guys’ Night per week, chosen at his discretion. He will also retain at least two extra “floating” Guys’ Nights per month in case of an important sporting event or should an impromptu post-work visit to a LAN Party.

B. The Lady can never be angry with a man for attending Guys’ Night.

C. The Lady will not call The Man more than once per Guys’ Night.

D. The Lady is encouraged to go out with her own friends as a means for keeping her independence and sense of self. However, there are ground rules for these engagements:

Rule D-1 She will not ask The Man to attend any event on the day of a televised athletic match, any event that involves the phrase “pot luck,” or any event that celebrates the birth of a child, impending or otherwise.

Rule D-2 She will not expect The Man to attend a gathering solely because the boyfriend/husband of The Lady’s Friend will also be in attendance. Misery does not make good company.

Rule D-3 No. Ex-Boyfriends. Ever.

Clause 5: Love

A. Should the two parties remain together long enough to reach Relationship Level: Serious, The Man understands that he will, at some point, be called upon to vocally express his appreciation of The Lady in the strongest method possible. When the time comes, the following rules shall govern the use of Those Three Words Which Shall Not Yet Be Spoken.

Rule A-1 The Lady will be the first party to speak the phrase. She will do so clearly and while making eye contact so that The Man knows it is he who is being spoken to. The Lady will allow the man at least five (5) minutes to respond in kind. This reprieve does not mean he doesn’t feel the same way, only that he is apt to be flustered, frightened, and suddenly stricken with cotton-mouth.

Rule A-2 After the first time the Man arranges the words “I,” “you,” and “love” into a sentence, he will not be required to do so in response every time The Lady speaks the phrase. The Lady will also accept “Me, too,” “Ditto,” or a high-five in return.

Rule A-3 The Lady will never speak the three-worded phrase when The Man is in the presence of either friends or co-workers. This is done out of respect for the mockery that is sure to result should he be forced to reciprocate while with said company.

By signing below, you agree to all rules as laid out in this contract, effectively guaranteeing that you will make The Man a truly happy person for the rest of his life, or until you realize that he is a loser who requires his girlfriends to sign legally binding documents.

______________________________
Print your name

______________________________
Signature

______________________________
Date

Going through Piper’s “Don’t Waste Your Life” series in Sunday School, yesterday we discussed his admonition that we ought to “gladly make others glad”.

First, our gladness equates to the fullness of our joy, our satisfaction with our life in Christ.

The others gladness can only occur when they recognize their sin, accept Christs forgiveness and redemptive work on the Cross, and begin and work out their own relationship with God.

One of the cardinal points of this teaching is that we, despite our responsibility to make others glad, are wholly and completely unable to make others glad. We are tools, we are the conduit used by God to bring about gladness in others.

But don’t think ours is a passive place, as our work for God is not passive in the slightest sense but active and our will and energy aligned with God’s work is necessary. As I love working for those I love, I ought to give all to the God who ransomed me.

And so, with our energy, and with our responsibility, and with our inability, we confront the admonition: “…always ready to give an answer for the hope that lies within us.”

And we ask, practically speaking: If I were to go to the door of a stranger across town with two people from Church, and (just thinking averages and chances) told them about Christs work on the cross. Would it matter? Would it make a difference in their life?

It may, it may not.

If however, you were “in the world but not of it” in the sense that you made relationships with unsaved people and allowed them to see into your life as you saw into theirs, and then told God: I’m ready for whatever trials You bring my way, only help me be strong and consistant in my love and trust in You, and let my patience and heartiness borne of Your strength in my life radiate and illuminate even in the depths of the trials You’ve allowed and shine such that my friends and neighbors who do not yet know the amazing power of Your might be unable to understand the peace within me. And give me the answer then as they see Your hope in me.

We are not saving people to heaven necessarily, but to a relationship with God.

To get someone to embrace heaven for any reason (to see loved ones, to escape hell, to live forever in bliss) besides the wonderful relationship we Christians experience with the Father of all, is to create a weak and cheap faith.

It’s like marrying for sex: sure it’s a cool thing that’s really fun, but the real reason to marry is because you can’t live without this best of friends who is so different from you and yet completes you in so many ways. Marrying for sex is one thing, but marrying for love and enjoying sex with that person you love is so far and above the former that it does not even bear comparing.

It causes me to think that the Ray Comfort method of evangelism, while it has it’s place in our sound-bite culture, isn’t the most effective method and may be more likely to create weak faith and charlatans of Christianity who at the first or second onset of adversity promised, will fall away and show “they were not of us”.

Yea, I’m one of “them”. Those notorious bugbears, haters of universalism and globalism and all the peril found therein.

You get enough people arguing what ought to be stood for or against, and you accomplish nothing but to create an august body which is easily steered by it’s nose like a bull by the ring in it’s nose in whichever direction despots and dictators please.

With the Tea Parties pulling together nearly a million people on a work day, CNN and it’s sycophants quick to say all those involved were part of the evil Fox empire and in it for perverse sexual acts.

Well, perhaps the tables ought to be turned and those fingering their ears and shouting “LA LA LA” ought to be set straight for the repressed, frustrated losers they are.

I would posit that in a Freudian sense, those say “teabag” the loudest are green with jealousy over the great sex traditionalists and conservatives have.

While the the CNN anchors, HuffPosers and Kosians have to spend big money at the bar to find some faked up, overly made-up lady or well dressed noncommittal man to spend at best a few hours of awkward, unromantic, uncommitted and totally unworthwhile sweat making between some foreign sheets. Those normal Americans got back from their day at the tea parties, and made passionate, loving, committed, and wonderful love with their spouse who will stay with them their whole lives.

While the true teabaggers are stuck starting from square one with each new partner, we’re piercing the outer reaches of the cosmos of passionate possibility with our spouse for life.

Beat that!

Want to know how to kill a butterfly?

Help it.

Yes, it’s that easy.

You see this newly metamorphosized creature, brimming with potential beauty and wondrous mystery, struggling weakly against the tough confines of it’s chrysalis shell. Moved with pity you gently tear the chrysalis further, freeing it’s hostage, the beautiful young butterfly.

And yet, what is this?

The fair creature is still weak. It’s body not energized with the pangs of struggle, and it’s abdomen still engorged with liquid it must now pump into it’s wings. Without the necessary and draining struggle for freedom from it’s chrysalis, the butterflies strength is stunted and it will not have the strength to pump it’s wings full.

It will fall to the ground and become easy prey to the other creatures waiting for food or it will simply die.

It is good to minimize suffering whenever we can. It is our moral responsibility to strive to help and assist others however we are able.

However, all assistance and relief must be provided with an awareness of the necessity of the situation.

Does a parent do their child good by covering for them when they cheat or break the law? Often, it is a parent’s failure to provide the necessary discipline at home that allows the child to grow up to break the law, and the best thing they can do is to allow that authority willing to provide the necessary correction the freedom to mete out the necessary punishment.

Does a parent do their child good by demanding the opening of the school basketball court to where they are skipping classes and failing everywhere except for their “mad skillz” on the court? Wouldn’t it help the child by standing firm beside others who care and require higher standards from children who obviously have drive and intelligence?

The easy solution is often fraught with foreseeable future failure.

An often maligned conservative standard is to expect more from people. It is completely true that this perspective tends to hurt more than the soft tyranny of low expectations held by many of a liberal bent. However, the people who grow through adversity are stronger people, more independent and more positively beneficial to the independently interdependent system our Founding Fathers devised for us.

It has been said the most difficult part of raising children is consistency, and also the most rewarding. Consistantly providing instruction, correction, support, guidance, and parental leadership will take life from me and cause hurt and pain. But it will reap rewards far beyond any mushy permissiveness or laissez-faire Spockian parental philosophy.

Our dear child is to be a butterfly, and I shall not do more nor less than hold his hand as he struggles through the various chrysalis’ life passes him through. I not ease his way only in giving him the tools he needs to accomplish his own way.

I will not kill my butterfly.

I want to ask you a very serious question . . . think about it.

Why are you here? To marry, get a job, enjoy life, make money?

I am sorry, but too often in my conversations, it seems like these are priorities of life, but guys . . . what is the value of these? NOTHING! unless . . . well, I will get back to that

Here is another question.

Do you care about your neighbors (Jesus’ definition) soul?

Think a moment about where they will go if they die. Guess what, while you are worshiping God, they will be in Hell . . . no other place. unless .  . . well, I will get back to that

What are you really doing to reach them?

Are you giving money? Is that really the answer (no). Are you spending time teaching Sunday School (a part of the answer . . . but there are more needy people out there)? Are you “showing others through your actions”? Does that really tell them who you are(no). but there is one was to reach them . . . well, I will get back to that

What are their souls worth to you?

Have you read “In His Steps” recently and are you willing to take the same challenge? Are you willing to quit your job and move to tell them about Jesus? Are they worth that much? Are you willing to pay for a hotel room for one? Are they worth that to you? Because they were worth a sovereign soul to God.

You see, until you invest in them so much that you bleed, you do not know them. You do not cars for them. Well, actually you do love them and care for them . . . but there is no way you can identify with them or make a true impact on or in them. In working with the worst of the worst, the ministry I work with has just recently begun to reach this point. After thousands of dollars worth of sacrifice, hundreds of hours worth or care, concern, and love, we are finally getting a glimpse.

What is the glimpse we got? Well, one of the girls we are working with has been doing great in church, but her mother is pressuring her to get pregnant. “She will never be good for marriage, but she can get pregnant and I need help paying the bills (she has 23 siblings).” Sure, we can condemn them and blame them for abusing the system, but does that meet their needs, get them closer to Christ, or solve their problem? Let Rush blast them for being money drains (which they should be blasted for), but our call, as called ones, it to reach beyond that and find the really issue. The issue of Christ.

So, Whose life are you touching . . . and how are you willing to touch it?

“All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends.”

Oh we poor unfortunate “goodlings.” We who obey the laws. We who don’t make (too many) ripples. Where is the joy over us? Where is the excitement over where we have not been?

What am I talking about? Let me start at the beginning.

Have you even known a rebel who repented? Have you ever had a sibling who was going off the deep end and changed? We have all known people who were headed for ruin and made the change and righted their ways. We have all seen the joy that surrounds the returning of the lost one. However, why isn’t there that same joy for those who remained, for those who never ran?

For many of the recovered people that we know, recovery was the hardest thing for them. They were required to deny what had defined them and turn to what they knew to be right. They had to make what was really the “ultimate” sacrifice for them. Now they need acceptance and love. Is this why we react so favorably to them? We have seen, and been inspired by their struggle and now want them to know that they are home. We want them to know that no matter what happens again, we will be there.

However, what about those who have always remained? What do we give them? What do we do for them? Common responses might include, “They know we love them,” “They have always been here and don’t care if they are a big deal or not.” However, is that the truth. I see the result of the “They know we love them” on a daily basis when I see children who have never heard their parents say “I love you”. A simple “I Love You” from me brings them to tears. Somehow, I think that they want to be special too.

Taking this to the Bible seems to show that the prodigals got the same treatment. In fact, in the parable of the prodigal son, the older son asks his father, “why can’t you make a big deal about me?” The father responds by saying, “everything I have is yours, but your brother is back.” Sure dad, everything you have is mine, but I want you to make a big deal about me too.

So what am I saying? If we look at our lives, who are we neglecting because they are always “good kids”. As we celebrate with the angels in heaven over the return of a lost brother, are we also celebrating with the angels over the continued perseverance of the Christian brother to our side who has never done anything (that we know of) to tip the boat?

President Obama bowing to the Saudis

His handlers ought to be shot, and he ought to go back to Junior High. Seriously, do the people he’s chosen to help him lead the greatest nation on God’s green earth have THIS little sense?

An iPod for Queenie

Same thing. Whoever allowed such an imbecilic,  puerile gift to even make it on Air Force 1 ought to have their head checked. Against a wall. By a good hockey player. Repeatedly.

Taxes

The amount the US is paying is skyrocketing and I’m going to be paying less. This doesn’t add up.

Having a son

Wow.

Projects I’m working on

The CEF Chicago website: www.cefchicago.org

And a new website for my old church: (not done enough to show)

Something I’m frustrated about

That the Chicago Tea Party is being co-opted by (kinda conservative) radio station WLS for the political benefit of their own Dan Proft, a beneficiary of no-bid contracts in Cicero, a recovering corrupt town, with aspirations of being governor of Illinois.

This is turing from grassroots to gasroots.

I’ve been playing around with technical stuff on the site lately.

IntenseDebate was good as far as comment management goes, but there were some comments that seemed to slip through the cracks, and the RSS feed started showing REALLY old comments.

A few people had mentioned Disqus, so I switched yesterday.

It has been a pain. Poorly done, a lot of tedious cut and paste and copy and edit stuff I didn’t have to do in IntenseDebate, And their help is hard to find. so I’ll be switching back shortly.

And then Windows Live Writer.

I’m writing this post on Windows Live Writer.

First impressions: it’s ambitious. Very ambitions.

A familiar but simplified interface that allows easy posting to a blog of multiple forms of content.

And they even try making the edit window look like your blog live, which is a cool feature. Except it didn’t work.

I need to piece through my blog theme code to see why, but the white background which takes a little longer than the rest of the page to load only shows up as a white bar across the top of the Writer window, and I’m stuck writing all this content on a dark grey background.

Not an optimal situation, to be sure.

But, if I had a white background or otherwise more compatible theme, it would be a pretty cool setup.

Now to see how well it posts this to the actual site…

UPDATE: It worked pretty well. I must say. Impressive Microsoft. Now if only you could make a web browser that’s actually worthwhile…

UPDATE: Sorry Ben, Arne, and KOR, your comments were lost in the inability of Disqus to manage an export and a 500 error or two caused by my hosts limitations (hear that 1and1?). Feel free to add the comments again…

UPDATE: Found your comments. Everything should be up to date, and I found the latest comment widget and it works better than the RSS.