Obama's Support for Faith Based Initiatives

Why?

It's difficult for me to see it as much more than pandering in Appalachian Ohio. And generally unwise.

As I've noted here before, I tend to oppose faith-based initiatives along the lines of those put forward by Bush because a) they are still spending federal dollars on social programs, and b) they undermine the altruism that should guide and distinguish charitable causes from government action.

Obama's embrace disguised as critique of - and apparent desire to expand - Bush's faith-based initiatives is disconcerting. It simultaneously demonstrates to me that Bush was no fiscal conservative (which needed no confirmation at this late date) and that Obama is a fiscal liberal pushing for some twist on a Nixonian grand coalition at any cost on the campaign trail.

It brings to mind a friend's appropriately religous-themed facebook quote:

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul, can always count on the support of Paul.
– George Bernard Shaw

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Unacceptable

The Pentagon, inspections and hearings reveal, cannot account for nearly 15 billion dollars in payments for goods and services in Iraq.

Heads should roll after such a thing.

And here I thought the ridiculous amount of subsidy spending in the recent Farm Bill was shameful.

*Here's a bit on the interesting constitutional gripe raised by some Republicans when it was discovered 34 pages of the bill had not been included in the version vetoed by President Bush.

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"Death and Taxes"

A great visual representation of where your tax dollars go.

HT/Wolf

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I don't get universal healthcare.

Really, I don't. It's not because I enjoy seeing people deprived of their full health, or I'm cheap, or I'm full of hate (especially for the poor), etc. It's simply morally wrong.

A few days ago, I saw a tv ad featuring children urging viewers to tell Congress to override the President's veto of SCHIP. I've also heard jokes about how anyone against the program hates children, blah blah blah. Think of the children! I'm glad it was vetoed and I hope it stays that way.

If enough people want to get children free healthcare, then their donations should be enough to set up and maintain non-profit children's hospitals.

Otherwise, people simply don't have a right to universal healthcare, because someone else has to actively provide it to them. As long as 'medicine' is more than 'plants from the woods,' someone has to labor making or doing something that has been discovered or invented by someone else to that person.

There are two ways to go about this: either mandate the doctors, pharmaceuticals, and engineers supply as much healthcare as needed for free and let them figure it out, or force everyone to pay everyone else's aggregated bill. The first is slavery and the second is theft, both of which are wrong.

Just because some people need medical goods and services, the fact that they are private property doesn't change. If someone hadn't invented it in the first place, there wouldn't be anything to demand, anyway.

Of the two ways, preliminary plans for American universal heathcare take the more 'thefty' path of the government paying for everyone's healthcare with our tax money.

I can't come into your house and take some of your money for part of my medical bills because you'd call the police for robbery, which it is, and worse, if I have a gun. What's different if every American, via the federal government, shows up on your lawn and demands you contribute towards their medical bills? And it is still a robbery if you got some benefit from said national healthcare.

For that matter, it would still be robbery if you were forced to donate money to a charity. It would still be robbery if it were only for your benefit, say, if I forced you to buy yourself a gift at gunpoint. (Our student segregated fees would be under this category.)

As long as the exchange/donation isn't voluntary, it's robbery.

I once read something along the lines of "there's no such thing as the general good, there's only a coincidence of private interests."

As I see it, some people who want their medical costs to go down are trying to do so by strong-arming everyone else into paying their bills. It's stealing and still wrong if 99% of people fall into the first group. The ends, no matter how pleasant the rainbows and rivers of chocolate are in a country with universal healthcare, do not justify the means of extracting involuntary payments from everyone.

It's widely acknowledged that populist hero Robin Hood "stole from the rich and gave to the poor." A majority didn't mind since they were on the poor end, but it was still stealing, nonetheless.

What say you? Are universal healthcare and a lot of other government programs theft? (Yes, I suppose it's a bit hypocritical of me to be attending a public university.)

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Faith Based Funding Challenge Fails

On standing:

The Supreme Court on Monday said ordinary taxpayers don't have the legal standing to challenge a White House initiative helping religious charities get a share of federal money.

The 5-4 decision dealt with a suit by a group of atheists and agnostics against Bush administration officials including the head of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

It'll be a tough day for the folks over on the corner of West Washington and Henry.

While, as I said before, I wasn't enamored with Flast as precedent, as it would've been intriguing to see how the court fell on the heart of the matter - state funding of religious organizations.

Politically speaking, generally, I would like to see less spending by the federal government across the board. And what do religious charities gain from federal funds in the long run? It seems to me they would merely allow government strings to be attached, thereby endangering their independence as religious organizations and the truly charitable nature of their services.

Judicially speaking, it all turns on First Amendment considerations and readings of precedent.

And...this just in (this is turning into a simul-blog)...

In other Supreme Court News, Free Speech went for a wild ride today, as "Bong Hits for Jesus" kid got shot down.

The Court, however, also loosened Federal Election Rules for political speech prior to elections.

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Obama: Government is the Answer

Unfortunately, I believe Barack Obama is wrong:

“It's a strategy that we've seen this administration pursue over the last six years, that basically says government has no role to play in making sure that America is prosperous for all people and not just some,” Obama said to applause during an appearance before the Communications Workers of America.

I wish the Bush administration had restrained itself and said that government's only role in making America prosperous for all people is to maintain a basic legal framework of liberty and opportunity - and let citizens do the rest. Instead, federal spending during this adminstration has ballooned to the magnitude of LBJ and the Great Society. The federal government has grown, not shrunk.

Government is not the answer. If Obama thinks government was underinvolved in various pushes for prosperity by way of social programs during the Bush era, I'm wary of what his own presidency would mean for the country and individual reliance on government.

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