Chardon

There is plenty to rant about tonight, but somehow it seems inappropriate. The tragic events in Chardon, Ohio, give one pause as to what we have become as a people. How does one make sense of such a senseless shooting? How do the families of the three dead students handle such a loss? How does the family of the shooter handle the guilt that will follow them for the rest of their lives?

We live in sad times. The moral base of our nation is deteriorating as those institutions that provide the compass of right and wrong are under attack and being torn down. The fact that this was not the lead story on some of the news channels tonight is perplexing. Is the Michigan primary really more important than this story? Has this become so common place that we shake our heads for a minute saying how bad things are, then go on with our coffee, I-pads and smart phones never missing a beat?

My minister gave a memorable sermon this past Sunday. He said we live in an age of cheap grace and meaningless sacrifice. He hit the nail on the head. We live in a phony world, where we fake concern for our neighbors, give lip service to inadequate solutions, throw a dollar into the Salvation Army kettle then pat ourselves on the back for being so virtuous. It takes more than that. One has to do the hard stuff, make the tough choices, come to unpopular conclusions.

The boy who did the shooting in Chardon is a tragic figure. He was raised by his grandparents not knowing his real mother and father. His brother is in jail. He was described by the police as being a bullied outcast. Postings on Facebook showed a deeply troubled individual who was putting it all out there for the rest of the world to see, and it was ignored. Did those in authority really not see, or did they choose not see?

The state and/or its subdivisions can’t be all things to all people. Unfortunately, the state has decided that it should be the substitute for parents and family. The state wants to decide what Mom should put in a lunch. In fact, the state has pretty much taken over all aspects of students lives. The state drives religion from the public schools. The state has taken down the Ten Commandments from the classrooms. Was the shooter ever taught Thou Shalt Not Kill, or was his moral code determined by video games and television programs and text messages?

People laugh when politicians talk about a return to family values. Why is that so funny? Raising a family, children, are the prime responsibility of those who bring those lives into this world. It is family that provides the basis for the development of a value system. It is family that is supposed to give support and guidance. It is the family that gives unconditional love. It takes hard work. It takes dedication. It takes patience and a steady hand. It is expensive grace with true sacrifice. In modern America, the family is dismissed.  It takes a village, we are told.

In modern America, lives are disposable. Whether it is gory, bloody violence on television or video games; whether it is doctors performing late term abortions looking for state sanction to kill babies born alive in the process of an abortion; whether it is the death penalty handed out for revenge rather than justice; whether it is euthanasia directed at  the sick and dying…all of this cheapens life. We can fool ourselves into believing its okay and even give platitudinal justification for it. But at the end of the day, it is cheap grace and meaningless sacrifice. 

Who is going to teach the likes of the Chardon shooter the value of life? Will you do it? How about the state? Maybe the school should do it! Maybe society needs to put aside the cheap grace and meaningless sacrifice to which it is addicted and re-examine how to build a civil society based on firm principles, teach that there is right and wrong, believe that there is evil in the world and the need to fight it, and elevate the role of family to its rightful place in our lives, preferably with a mother AND father if at all possible. Maybe then we will be able to send our children to school with some peace of mind.

Paying for Somebody Else's Sex

Obama’s attempt to promise free sex "in defense of  women’s reproductive rights” is about as brazen as it gets. This whole pastiche about contraception is a ruse for a new definition of free sex. I am quoting one Democratic operative with the expletive downgraded: “I want to screw who I want, when I want, and I want you to pay for it.”

Feminist Kathleen Sebelius, Health and Human Services Secretary and Dictator, has "mandated" that all insurance policies must provide free birth control to women as well as abortion services. The Catholic Church has said no, and has made it a religious issue. The feminazis are claiming the church is trying to destroy their reproductive rights, and the Church is saying it’s against its religion.

The only real issue here is who is going to pay for your sex? This is all about “free” birth control. Nobody is saying you can’t have access to contraception. What people ARE saying is that they don’t want to pay for YOUR contraception and sexual activity. Pay for it yourself!!!! Anybody can get birth control pills, or a diaphragm, or go to Planned Parenthood for a bargain abortion or morning after pill…and the person desiring those things should pay for it, not me or you. It is not a health issue. It is not an access issue. It is not a poor person’s issue because the debate only applies to those who are working and have health care coverage. The only issue is who is going to pay for protection during sex?  It is a disgusting discussion, and shows just how far our culture has descended…to expect somebody else to pay for your freakin’ birth control.  I vote for the people having sex to pay for whatever protection they want, and leave me alone.

It’s a simple issue, made even more simple because it doesn’t even mention the male’s responsibility in keeping the female partner, who supposedly can afford a whistle and bells cell phone but can’t afford to buy birth control pills, from getting pregnant. Here’s a secret: condoms are cheap. Buy them. Use them. Love them. Feel them. But PAY FOR THEM YOURSELF. I don’t want to pay for your sex.

I like to garden, but I don’t expect anyone else to pay for my garden hose. I like to write, but I don’t expect anyone else to pay for my computer. And I like sex…and I don’t expect anyone else to pay for my protection. And neither should you.  Now you know why we are called an entitlement society!!!

Is this gross? Are you put off by this essay? The sad thing is that this seems to be the only way you can get people to focus on the central issue of the debate. It’s not about the poor woman hauled out by left wing Dominatrix’s who claims she had a cyst that would have killed her but for her birth control pills. That isn’t an issue. If birth control pills are needed to maintain the physical health of a woman with a specific medical need…of course birth control pills would be available through insurance like any other medication. No, this is simply about women who want someone else to pay for their protection. Free love! Free sex!

The abortion provisions, you know the one’s that Obama promised he would never implement but now he has, that is another story for another day. Suffice it to say Planned Parenthood performed 370,000 abortions last year, and they didn’t need health insurance coverage to pay for termination of those babies.

In the meantime…if you can’t afford protection even though you have a job…why not try some personal restraint. It might even build character…and that is directed at both men and women.

King Obama vs. the Catholic Church

And you thought Henry VIII stuck it to the Pope? He couldn't light a candle to King Obama.

The real story about Barack Obama, the Catholic Church and contraception is being missed by the news media. In another political blunder, Barack Obama instructed Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, feminist extraordinaire, to require any health insurance policy offered to employees by a Catholic sponsored institutions to include contraceptive services including access to free birth control pills and abortion services. Any practicing Catholic knows that is a sin in the eyes of the church. This was done in direct violation of promises made to the Catholic Church by Obama during the Obamacare debate from whence this edict emanated. As in all things Obama…all together now…look at what he does, not what he says.  He is a lying snake in the grass.

This is wrong on so many levels it’s hard to know where to start. Let’s pick one. I want to understand this. Obamacare requires that contraception be offered in all employer provided health care policies for “free” in order to preserve women’s rights. Is birth control now a right? Really? Just as an aside, here is some free birth control advice that works: keep it zipped and keep your legs together. I guarantee no one will get pregnant.

But the bigger issue is that government can issue “waivers” from the requirements of Obamacare, including this one. And Obama has taken full advantage of this “waiver” privilege to allow his friends, mostly unions and companies that cater to unions, off the Obamacare hook while the rest of us dangle in the wind. Now King Obama can sit on his throne and decide who will be subjected to the horrors of Obamacare and who will not. He is omnipotent and all powerful. In this case, feminists and progressive leftists are at war with the Catholic Church over abortion, and King Obama decided to side with his leftist base and stick it up the church’s seven sacraments.

Is this kind of America you want? This socialist thug from Chicago and his Democratic cohorts pass a draconian piece of legislation in effect taking over 1/5 of the United States economy and then give themselves complete arbitrary power to decide who has to comply and who doesn't. What America do I live in? Do you really want Barack Obama to decide those kinds of issues? Because listen folks, if he can do it with this he can do it with anything! This is serious and scary stuff, and so un-American in its execution it is beyond the comprehension of most folks in the country.

Nancy Pelosi said that they had to pass Obamacare to see what was in it. Well…this is one little nugget that pits Obama against the Catholic Church. Today it is birth control. Tomorrow he will push the envelope a little further, maybe limit education in the Catholic Schools, or force the church to ordain women…any ideological concept du jour…he will try to shove down the church’s and our collective throats.

I am glad to hear that a number of states are banning together once again to challenge this in the courts. Let’s start with the equal protection clause of the Constitution then move to freedom of religion and freedom of speech…and revisit the commerce clause. Obamacare, and this President who overtly stated the Constitution is getting in the way of his grand vision, is dangerous.

Please, please, please pay attention to what this man is doing, and not what he says, and especially what the news media says he says. Freedom is precious, and we are losing it to big brother day by day.

The Mideast Boiling Over

There are three stories that have sort of made the news midst the Super Bowl hoopla of yesterday and today. The first centers around the outright verbal assault on the nature of our Constitution by Barack Obama and Justice Ginsberg. The second has to do with recent events in Indiana which will make it the fastest growing state in the Midwest. Both of these stories will be addressed in next week’s edition of Mark Knows It All. But one news story has been reported by the media, but the significance of the story has been lost in translation. I don’t understand why it’s not getting more play. It’s the rising turmoil in the Mideast. It is about to boil over, and we should be deeply, deeply concerned.

A friend of mine at lunch the other day asked if he was the only person at the lunch table concerned about Leon Panetta’s comment that Israel would probably attack Iran this spring, So what else is new I thought. But then I saw numerous other stories on the news over the weekend: the bloody civil war in Syria costing thousands of lives and an outright slaughter of innocents; the escalating sectarian violence in Iraq; the ratcheting up of the crisis in Iran; and now the rise of the Islamists in Egypt.

The so called Arab spring touted by a clueless media has turned into a democratic deep freeze. All of that money spent by the United States to assist the dissidents in Egypt has been flushed down the toilet as the Muslim Brotherhood has taken control of the Egyptian Parliament. This past weekend the Egyptian authorities, at the behest of Muslim extremists, prevented nineteen Americans from leaving Egypt, including the son of our Secretary of Transportation, and have threatened to put them on trial for inciting violence. The American ambassador has now invited the Americans to plan for their defense in the United States Embassy. Sound familiar? Egypt is among the top five recipients of American foreign aid. Now you can see what your money bought you.

The Mideast is spinning out of control. Sanctions have failed in stopping Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. American withdrawal from Iraq is resulting in renewal of car bombs and terrorist attacks. Syria is a basket case as Obama fumbles with foreign policy non-decisions. Israel may force the United State to s___ or get off the pot, so to speak.

All of the above is the result of a perceived, weak American president. Shades of Jimmy Carter, much of this could have been avoided if Carter simply would have invaded Iran and got rid of those Ayatollah bastards. Every president since Carter has tip toed around the problem, and now it has festered and is the nucleus of what is becoming the Mideast firestorm.

And what is Obama doing? He is cutting back our military to a status that mirrored America before World War II. The Joint Chiefs are dutifully following the orders of their Commander in Chief…but those who have left the military are sounding the warning.

The media has hidden the dirty underbelly of the Obama administration. It has hidden the poverty, the homelessness, the hunger and despair of an America in debt ridden economic turmoil. Now it is under-reporting the consequences of bad American Mideast foreign policy putting us all at risk.

War is coming, and it will be a humdinger. I only hope that the Egyptian hostage crisis is resolved sooner than the Iranian hostage crisis. When Iran is dropping a bomb on Tel Aviv, or Istanbul, or Paris…or even Miami if launched from Cuba or Venezuela, maybe then the media will finally wake up.

In this case, the watch pot is boiling, and anyone with any sense of history can see it. Be warned.