Lions and Eagles

I realize I may be doing a bit of troll-feeding here, but I saw this image on a friend's Facebook page, and just couldn't resist the challenge. This is a sign from an anti-Tea Party rally. I believe that I can prove every point on this sign to be wrong, for both Jesus and Obama. As a disclaimer, I am not an official member of any Tea Party organization, but I have attended several Tea Party events, and I do consider myself to be a supporter of Tea Party values. Just for fun, I'll go in reverse order: Free Healthcare? Healthcare is provided by doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals, who diagnose your illness, and  take care of you while you get better, or until you die, whichever comes first. Depending on how sick you are, this can be very expensive. Jesus never offered healthcare. He offers healing. Jesus's healing is this: "The blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and ...

Heard on the radio this morning: Police officers unhappy with their pay and benefits may go on "ticket strike" by cutting down on number of traffic tickets issued, cutting into municipal revenue. When your employer is strapped for revenue, and can't pay what you want as a result, how does it make sense to protest using an action that will leave them even more strapped for revenue? As a government, how does it make any sense to pass a law, then build your budget on the expectation that people will break that law, giving you income from fines? How does that fit with the idea that we are supposed to be a free society? I'm just saying....

Georgia passes an illegal immigration bill, and of course, some celebrity comes along to raise a fuss, and call it racist. Frankly, Santana doesn't know what he's talking about. The bill says that if an illegal immigrant gets nabbed while committing some other crime , they get sent back home. Big whoop. Oh, and employers have to take some reasonable effort to make sure their employees aren't committing identity theft. Which is, again, a crime, in case you didn't remember. You know who really gets left out of the immigration debate? The folks who are already trudging on a path to citizenship. The law-abiding immigrants who are here under their own names, who have spent decades and often tens of thousands of dollars filling out forms and making sure they abide by all the rules, waiting to get through "the system". These are the people who really deserve the benefit of immigration reform. But they can't vote, and most of the folks I know on this road aren...

President George W. Bush: Attacked Iraq after obtaining Congressional approval, UN resolutions, and an international coalition. President Barak Obama: Attacked Libya with no Congressional approval, no UN resolutions, no international coalition. President Bush was roasted in the media for "unilaterally" starting an "illegal" war by attacking a country that "didn't attack us first". Now we've got a president who really has done the very thing he accused his predecessor of doing. Will Obama face half the criticism Bush did? Now, I'm not altogether certain what the right move in Libya would be. Certainly doing nothing isn't the right move: When France of all countries is doing more to stand up to a dictator than we are, something's wrong. Maybe attacking their military facilities is the right thing in this case. But after this, maybe Obama supporters should think twice before talking about Bush's "illegal" war.

I've had another thought on the union situation in Wisconsin and many other states. I'd like to frame a situation, and pose a question to many of my more Left-minded friends, if you all will be kind enough to consider what I say. Let's start with a situation where workers have decided to organize into a union. When the workers organize, they gain the ability to strike. Even if the strike is illegal or unofficial, it may happen in the form of workers suddenly all taking a "sick day" at the same time. (Teachers: What kind of example is that to set for your students, to fake a note from the doctor to get out of class?) Now, let's stack the deck. We give the union the power to tell employer that they have no ability to deal with anyone not in the union. This means that anyone going to work joins the union automatically, whether they wanted to or not. This also means that the employer can't replace people who are employed but don't want to work, with pe...

So again, I'm looking at the Wisconsin mess. As one blogger I follow has noted, " Cairo and Athens come to Madison. " The argument I hear from one of the protest participants is that collective bargaining is an important right. Now, I have never worked in a "collective bargaining" job. I did once work in a grocery store which gave employees an option of joining the union, but I was a minor at the time, and therefore not eligible for union benefits. (Now, the union wanted to sign me up and take a cut of my paycheck anyway, without telling me I wouldn't get any benefits, but thankfully I declined.) But let's say you've been in the world of collective bargaining, and it looks like that is going to be taken away. Your union managers tell you that you absolutely need collective bargaining, that it's vital to your well-being. You can expect this. It's not your job on the line, it's theirs. Just as I can expect the car salesman to tell me...

One of the big items on the discussion table for Federal budget cuts is NPR. Those in favor of NPR are talking about it as "de-funding Sesame Street". Well, let's look at Sesame Street a moment. I think that if there's a single NPR production that could survive without tax money to help, it would be the show with the Big Bird. Sesame Street is a huge international franchise, and the money made on Elmo toys alone must be worth a sizable fortune. Here's my devil's advocate question: Do they really need the money they get from our taxes? Or can they get along without it? We get upset when Wall Street gets tax money, especially when it goes to people who can clearly do without. Why don't we hold Sesame Street up to the same standard? Is it because it's "for the children"? Or is it the cute and cuddly monsters? I'm not saying that Sesame Street isn't a good cause. They do their job very well, educating and entertaining. But does ev...