Insult to Injury

Not only was I not ready to hit 50, admittedly for reasons of overt vanity, but I also had the prospect of the inevitable first AARP mailing looming on the horizon. Oh sure, I joked about my angst in that regard and laughingly brushed aside the vindictive taunts of those my senior, but I had more than the spectre of my own mortality to account for the dread I experienced. I knew the thing was coming and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

Once I came to terms with conceit and learned that resistance to life "over the hill" was an exercise in abject and senseless futility, I reasoned that my first "invitation" packet from AARP would arrive shortly after my 50th birthday, at which point I resolved to immediately toss it in the trash. That was because I had earlier learned that AARP did not share my personal convictions and values and that they were yet another liberal organization formed to make a profit off of their members, which is fine, but also to lure those with opposing virtues into the same trap.

Then they reminded me of both my limited longevity and my disdain for being manipulated, while simultaneously adding insult to injury by sending my packet a full two months early. When it arrived, it dawned on me that perhaps they were attempting a fundraising drive for the Presidential elections of that year. Still, it took a full two years for me to make the decision to write a post eerily similar to a commercial endorsement, something I had long ago vowed never to do, regardless of the risk of remaining in relative obscurity.

Today, however, while perusing the site of a fellow blogger and someone who has become a friend, I learned of the existence of competitors to AARP. Some may wonder why I never actively sought out an alternative, and I can only attribute that negligence to my stubbornness in the belief that I was still "young" enough not to worry.

I was looking over The Edisto Joe Outlook and noticed an advertisement for AMAC (Association of Mature American Citizens). Conceived in 2006 and launched the following year, AMAC has a website that explains the groups' mission statement and what they have to offer to seniors who don't subscribe to the liberal agenda run amok in this country. It could very well be that many of those who came before me know this site already, so I appeal to my contemporaries who may be as new to the market as me.

Odds are that if you're reading this, you are Conservative and, as such, will relish the prospect of enjoying the same benefits as your liberal counterparts without having to contribute to the same agenda. While I must say that commercial endorsements were never the intent of this site, I also have to point out that when I can aid in the benefit of my compatriots, I have no reservations in doing so.

I am not suggesting any purchases here, but only the endeavor of the reader to research on your own the information I have provided. Thanks to Edisto Joe for making me aware.

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Lucifer Crashing The Pearly Gates

Try to imagine the euphoria of your long-awaited introduction to Saint Peter shattered by demons clawing at your back.

My apologies for the opening melodrama, but I have it on good advice that such an attention grabber works wonders. It seems that miracles and wonders are in great demand these days as many Americans have lost their zeal and their appreciation for the bounties that have been bestowed upon them. Sometimes a reminder from someone not born into such splendor is required.

On a less grandiose scale than any reference to the Kingdom Of God, try to imagine suffering through the gray-scale misery of Soviet Russia for much of your life. While that may not compare to Hell in my American world - I have no reference point other than the imaginary, for I have been spoiled by the splendor of my blessings - listening to people who can personally make such a comparison paints a picture of relative similarity.

There are people who fled the oppression of the old Soviet Union, people who witnessed the horrors of consolidated power at the hands of the government. Some were born into the bondage, but others are old enough to remember its advance.

Still others fall in between, but know well the history from parents and grandparents and are old enough to have spent the sum of too many years in such squalor. These people who finally made their way to America were both stunned and elated at the freedoms we enjoyed. They were also grateful to God for their good fortune at finally living a life of relative bliss in their new land.

For decades some had found that the memories of their former lives had faded like an old Polaroid, something that still could be seen, but only if one squinted and tilted the photograph a certain way. Now, just as we have developed rejuvenating technology that makes the old new, those immigrants are seeing the bad reveries coming back to life courtesy of a government seemingly intent on recreating that which they fled.

One such immigrant is Regina Barker-Barzel, a Russian woman in her seventies, who married an American man and came to this country with the utmost gratitude. Here's what she has to say about our current course:
Just as many of us have become complacent and have taken for granted the blessings of our birth, we have also convinced ourselves that such a scenario could never happen here. We need more convincing apparently, but try to imagine Regina's horror at having the spectre of deja-vu rear its ugly head.

Please people, think. Not only can it happen here; it already is.

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Health Bill Set To Become Supreme Battle

Whether they welcome it or not, the Supreme Court is likely to be hearing arguments very soon on the question of the Constitutionality of ObamaCare.

What a tangled web this health care reform has become. The road to this
place has been bumpy, and we have seen many new things along the way. We have seen an unprecedented audacity in the way Congress behaves, witnessed blatant and brazen bribery and exceptional extortion, and a complete contempt for the demands of the American people who - last time I checked - are still "the boss".

We have been lied to and we know it, as do the people who did the lying. Adding insult to injury, a complicit press has aided in that deception and tried to pretend that they didn't, opting instead to portray their consumers as either idiots or liars. And they wonder why circulation is down at print outlets and viewership is abysmal for the electronic venues.

Congress and the President have manipulated fiscal calculations and massaged projections in a clear attempt to dupe not only members of their own party in both houses, but also the media and their constituents. Many bought the story, and we now have the history of the 44th President of the United States signing this rubbish in the textbooks of days beyond.

One would have thought that with the overwhelming majority the Democrats have enjoyed that this would have been a smooth process, but that wasn't the case. The main reason was because an almost equal majority of Congress' employers were opposed, and were not timid in making that sentiment known. Rather than respect that opposition, politicians elected instead to portray those plaintiffs as dangerous and mistaken or worse, evil racists. (Love that one).

Now we face the reality that the president has signed the legislation into law, and all that remains is the tedium of dotting "I"'s and crossing "T"'s, right? Well, it may not be that simple. It seems that "We the Opposition" may well yet be victorious. Despite claims that the bill was not being "rushed through" the process by Democrats - who claimed that exhaustive work and diligent attention to detail was exercised - we learn that they have sold, and the President has signed, a work unfinished.

Still, that is not their downfall, and not even close to an error worthy of scrutiny by the Supreme Court. That body, being the third and co-equal branch of our government - as erected by this countries Founders - deals solely with issues of the founding document, The U.S. Constitution. Both hailed and vilified at different times in our history, that body is also the final barrier protecting our guaranteed liberties.

So it is that 14 State Attorneys General have determined that the requirement of the new health care legislation that every citizen of the U.S. purchase a product sold by the federal government is a direct violation of the Constitution. They are also filing suit that, as a result, the entire bill is null and void. If this doesn't perk the ears of the nine justices, nothing will.

Democrats claim validity through the Commerce Clause, but as the latest Attorney General to join the coalition - Washington State AG Rob McKenna - says,

"First of all, we are talking about forcing people to enter the stream of commerce, not about those already in, and need to be regulated. This will force people to go into the private market and buy a product on penalty of fine or going to jail. That is unprecedented, and there is no principal distinction between forcing Americans to go out into the private sector and buy a private product and forcing them to buy anything else that Congress gets in its mind to do."

Not content to violate the intent of "some old guys who wrote the Constitution", Democrats added the twisting of the rule written by one of their own, Robert Byrd. They negated the significance of the election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts through the Reconciliation process by claiming that the Health Care bill would reduce the deficit, but they did so by citing incomplete budget projections by the Congressional Budget Office, which were based on a series of assumptions. Add to that simple fact the disclosure of coverage gaps in the original bill and the additional, uncalculated costs, and the minute deficit reduction touted by the Democrats is in serious jeopardy. That didn't stop the steamroller.

As we move forward, and as the details of this travesty sour the public mood even further, we can expect the legal challenges to snowball. We can also expect to see a Supreme Court recently stung by the president at the State of the Union address as receptive to the prospect of some form of retribution. While I don't expect the honorables to engage in the same chicanery as our Congresspeople, and believe that they will exercise stringent scrutiny of the cases presented, I must also believe that they are hopeful of an ironclad case being brought before them.

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