Free Republic

Socialized medicine at its best, this one from the UK.

That child is receiving treatment in the UK.

She and her family are covered in Commonwealth and EU countries. (What this means is that when they are visiting these countries they will receive the same health care as any citizen of the country where they are staying.) The NHS does not cover UK citizens when they are in the US because there is no reciprocal agreement between the US and the UK.

At least this child gets the care she needs, and the treatment doesn't bankrupt her family.

I'm an American who could have bought insurance for the kids and me, for several thousand dollars a month, with huge copays and deductables if we had stayed in the US. Of course, every policy excluded treatment for my toddler daughter's Perthes Disease. Instead, I followed my late husband's wishes and moved our family to his home in Scotland where we receive excellent care from the NHS.

Despite their high costs the American policies I looked at didn't cover travel either.

First off, I did not mean this as a slam against bivocational ministers. You guys certainly are pulling more than your fair share of the load here on earth.

My point is that you or your contemporaries are often not available during the day when emergencies pop up. For example, when my father lay dying my pastor was able to spend two full weekdays with us at his bedside.

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You are missing one important point. In most denominations full-time clergy are expected to attend all kinds of meetings, functions, commissions, conferences... whatever. You can never assume that your minister will be available when you need him. He may be away in some city, like Atlanta, Washington, or New York, when you are in rural Minnesota.

Emergencies. If you are fortunate, when your minister is not available the supply will send a retired minister, and it will be an old darling you have known for years and love as much as if he were a member of your own family. If not, you might get a decent, spiritual and committed Christian with no talent for making an immediate connection to strangers. That isn’t much comfort when someone is dying and you need that connection.

Many years ago one of my closest friends, an elderly member of the congregation, called to tell me that her husband was dying. (He had been sick for a long time.) Their daughter, a woman a few years older than I, one of sophisticated Manhattan gels was also my friend. I could hear her in the background, hysterical. Not good.

My husband had just flown off to one of these conferences and would not be back for several days. The family didn’t want a stranger, so they asked me to come. I was a young engineer, with no pastoral training whatsoever. I was married to the minister, a much older man and an experienced clergyman, and that was the extent of my experience.

This was before the days of cell phones, so I couldn’t reach my husband to get some pointers. I was able to leave work and go directly to their house, where they dying man was resting in reasonable comfort.

I stayed with the family until my husband was able to get back, which took about a day. To my surprise, the family wanted me there. My infant son was in the living room sleeping on blankets on the floor. Nobody seemed to mind.

Thinking back, my utter incompetence at ministering must have provided some comic relief.

I prayed with them, but anybody could have done that. Pastoring, giving them the assurances they wanted was what was difficult. I could only tell the old man, who had been a thoroughly decent individual, but bad-tempered, curmudgeonly, and a thorough pain in the a** for as long as anyone could remember, that he hadn’t exactly been a sweet peach, but then neither had I, that I was pretty sure that wherever God was sending him, I was certain that I would be going to the same place. The old man smiled at that and my idiotic (but not untrue as far as personalities are concerned) comment put him at his ease. He died before my husband’s plane landed.

God was in control. He always is. I could only show up and do my best.

I will say a prayer for your father.

If you listen carefully, you can hear a chorus of voices shouting, muttering, snarling a right proper: “Oh, f*ck off” from the British side of the pond.

As a practical matter, it probably would be easier for all involved to rely on bumper stickers.

I suspect that is the case. I can see lawsuits resulting from this one, which will eat any profit the state makes.

Except of course for politicians, who can score easy political points from their support for specialty plates.

You got that right.

I find this very difficult to believe. I divide my time between Glasgow, London (and the Home Counties), France, and New York. I have yet to meet even one European who has any enthusiasm for Obama.

Londoners run the gamut between being liberal and conservative. The Home Counties are deeply conservative. The part of France where I go is rather conservative. The Glaswegians I know are strongly socialist -- real leftists -- as is much of Scotland. And yet, whether rural or urban, whether leftist or on the right, the people I meet are suspicious of Obama. Oddly enough, no matter their political beliefs, they all say the same things.

They want to know what he stands for, specifically. That "Change We Can Believe In" sounds like BS to them. Quite a few people are troubled by the Rev Wright business. Everyone has pointed to his lack of experience.

I know this won't go over well here, but most favoured Hillary, including the conservatives. (There are a number of complex reasons why European conservatives don't like the Republican candidates.)

The young may be more enthusiastic over Obama. I can't say, as the people I meet are over thirty.

Well, that can be a problem. You certainly won’t see me advocating that tactic. “Hard sell” almost never works and usually does more damage so I’m pretty strongly opposed to it.

From the tone of your responses, I believe you.

BTW, I’ve had a lot of bad experiences with Christians too, over the years. Everbody’s still human.

We all have had a few.

According to the article any group in South Carolina can design their own plate, as long as they put up the money for it.

As far as I can tell it sounds like a pretty fair program. The state is simply giving individuals and groups a unique medium for expressing their beliefs.

I read that, and it seems fair enough. However, I can imagine some messages being deemed inappropriate, and some actually being inappropriate. Who will judge, and who will draw the line? In that regard, I would think that it is in the state's best interest to chuck the idea and let people address these issues with bumper stickers and magnets.

My pleasure. From experience, I can say that incidental “evangelism” is much more successful than going door-to-door, which I don’t think works too well (I’m sure many who got their doors knocked on would agree).

Earlier this week I flew from Glasgow (Scotland) -- not Kentucky :) -- to Newark seated next to a little old lady from the deep South. She didn't shut up for the entire flight, so focused she was on converting me to her particular flavour of Christianity. Every time I would put on my noise-cancelling headphones, she would tap on my arm. And it isn't the first time this has happened, though those instances were cab drivers in Atlanta and Houston. When I changed my seat, she changed hers to the one next to mine.

Someday I will laugh about it, but I am still hacked off at the intrusion as well as the agony of her endless chatter.

Not that this has anything to do with license plates....

Christians absolutely are commanded to share their Faith with others. Matthew 28:19 is very specific and Matthew 22:1-10 gives the parable of evangelism.

That doesn't imply that there aren't some limitations on your activities.

As a Christian I find a lot of non-Christians always asking “why must ____?”

Do you think it is just non-Christians who ask that?

To me, it comes off, and most often is, when you dig beneath the surface, a way to squash and suppress the Gospel.

Nonsense. Now this may come as a shock to you, but some of us simply want to get on with things without being stopped on the public streets and bothered by people trying to push their beliefs down our throats.

There are many who would try to corral it to just inside four walls of a building. That’s not going to happen.

Evangelists have the right to use the television, radio, and the Internet to get their message out. They can rent open land and even a stadium and gather there. Like anyone else with something to say, they can speak in the parks that have dedicated 'speakers' corners', providing the rest of us can sit or play peacefully without being approached.

I don't want to be accosted while I'm riding on public transportation, or stopped on the street, or approached when I take the kids to the park. We citizens should have the right to use the public facilities we pay for without those facilities being turned into venues where we are fair game for anyone who has decided to spent a few hours proselytising.

Whether or not someone is a Christian is none of anyone else's business, unless that person chooses to divulge that information. Whether some evangelical approves of the denomination individuals choose to follow doesn't interest most people. People have a right to be left alone with their thoughts.

I have no problem with the idea of the plates because I would avoid anyone who would choose to have them. If people want to call attention to themselves to emphasise their holiness, they look like phonies to a lot of people.

However, unless other denominations/religions get the right to choose vanity plates that hype their faith, the state is practising favoritism. How do' Follow Baha'i' and 'Believe in Buddha' look to you?

Remote part of Scotland... eh. The wee midgies will eat them alive.

No joke. There is a reason that large parts of rural Scotland remain unpopulated.

And Promises to Turn Them Over To Their New Islamic Masters When They Take Over Just Like France Turned In The Jews In 1940

You are, of course, referring to the Vichy government, that group of traitors who collaborated with the Nazi occupiers.

Though some French civilians probably were in a position to have done more to save at least some Jewish lives and, for whatever reason, chose not to become involved, others clearly did so since France comes in third in the number of Righteous Gentiles, after Poland, which is first, and the Netherlands, which is second.

“Just a typical South Jersy Gal?”

If they all look like that in South Jersy, I’m selling my house and moving east.

Ohmigawd did I just have some fun with this!

The girl in the photo is indeed a typical Jersey Girl, that pretty Jewish, Italian, Greek, and maybe something else ethnic mix.

There is a Jersey Girl in the next room. Vanessa, my son's girlfriend, half-Armenian and half-Italian, Jersey born and bred, and our JG is far prettier than the one in the pic, and with a better figure. Huge hazel eyes....

And so I began. Adopting a local NY/NJ accent, I shreiked: 'Yo, Vanessa.... I got a job heah that will pay ya five grand an hour.' :) The poor, unsuspecting girl came trotting in to see what I had in mind....

And these girls can cook. (So can the boys for that matter.)

Just a typical South Jersy Gal?

That was my thought exactly when I saw her. The attraction wasn't primarily about her having any great beauty, but the sex acts she was willing to perform. This girl looks like any one of thousands of pretty secretaries getting off the PATH every morning.

Spitzer Won't Resign.....

He resigned this morning.

When you put a non-frazzled picture of her side by side with one of Dina, I think Silda has the edge.

Silda Wall Spitzer, the mother of three teenage daughters, is fifty years old, and a Harvard Law School graduate.

She was formerly a corporate lawyer, first at the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, and then in-house counsel for Chase Manhattan Bank.

Maybe, just maybe, what other people do is their business, and nobody else's.

I bought something that is made in the US. It is a Taylor guitar.

Oddly enough, I took it to England.

Lovely thing.

I hope, with all my heart, that you are right.

If you have the time, take a look at what the British media are saying, and then go down to the readers' comments. The media are universally against, and the readers are strongly opposed.

The archbishop should have understood that there is a difference between civil society - tribunals that seek to arbitrate or to mediate - and the civil law under which all citizens work.

Under English law, individuals may devise their own ways to settle a dispute in front of an agreed third party as long as both sides agree to the process. Looking at it this way, one might say that Muslim Sharia courts, along with Orthodox Jewish courts, both of which already exist in the UK, come into this category. As it stands now, these courts constitute a form of arbitration external to the civil courts of the country. From what I can figure out, having listened to the interview, the ABC seems to be allowing that these religious courts might have a place as part of the civil court system. It would seem that his goal is to blur the line between private agreements and civil law, inserting religious custom and tradition into the law itself.

Shaista Gohir, a government advisor on Muslim women, made the point that the majority of British Muslims did not want Sharia courts.

The BBC quotes the president of one mosque on Leeds Road in Bradford, Dr Bary Malik, who is also a magistrate, as saying: 'If we introduce some sort of Sharia Law in this country and if it clashes with the British legal system, how do we resolve that issue? The British legal system, for me, already addresses most of the things that are in Sharia.'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7235615.stm

The BBC article continues: 'Rihana Basharat, a mosque welfare secretary, said: "To me Islam, as we've been taught, is equal in divorce for women and men. Bringing it into this legal system is going to be totally confusing for everyone."

Her friend Maria Ahmad told me: "We are striving for integration but I'm worrying that something like this will breed division rather than integration."'

These British Muslims pretty much represent the attitudes I have encountered across the country.

The biggest civil problem is the media and government banging on about extremes of alienation and inventing super-sensitivity where nothing significant exists. Machinations like that frighten and divide people. Native Brits think that mainstream Muslims are demanding a change of law when they aren't, and law-abiding Muslim citizens who are generally happy with their lives feel hated, marginalised, and misunderstood.

I hope that BBC link works. I have never posted a link here before.

Dhimmitude is in the UK’s future if this stuff continues.

Not a chance. The country is united against him. Nobody wants this, including most British Muslims.

If they’re so darn few of your population, then why , pray tell, is your government bending over forward to accommodate them? Since they are doing so, why does the other 95+% put up with that crap and keep voting in Labor?

You ask a good question, and I have no really good answer. Maybe it makes them feel important.

The British Muslims I know aren't in the least offended by someone wearing a cross, or Christmas celebrations and lights, or Easter sweets. Most of them don't want special accommodation. They don't need it any more than British or American Orthodox Jews require special accommodation.

Liberals and conservatives both hate it whenever these daft officials come up with over-the-top ideas based on their notions of perceived sensibilities as felt by minority communities. It isn't as much a Labour 'thing' as it is the invention of Tony Blair and his sycophants, invented to demonstrate their ultra-sensitivity.

Of course, there are those people I call 'the mouthpieces', the loudmouth radicals, Muslims who are the British equivalent of your Al Sharpton (back when he was ranting, before he went mainstream). That lot get the attention of the media far beyond their influence in the community, though they do have their followers. In truth, the radical POV has nothing to do with the moderate beliefs of the Muslim community in general, like the bloke who owns the local chippie, or the chemist, or the radiologist. Those people have lives to live, and only want to get on with things.