UPDATE!! BARACK OBAMA IS GOING TO USE GOD TO SELL OBAMACARE:

Mr. Obama is going to be using a new tactic to sell his Obamacare. Today, he meets with liberal religious leaders...

I have no idea what is in Obama's soul...I have no idea how deep his relationship is with his God...but I am wildly perplexed how the Left-Wing in this country, who spit on people of Faith, and belittle religion at every turn, now think they have some moral standing on which to preach to us about our own spirituality.

I am not going to judge those spiritual leaders and their congregations for whatever role they play in helping Obama use God to sell Obamacare. That's between them and God. I have a partial list of folks below.

Rather, I am going to use the words of Sarah Palin, who just the other day begged an answer from Obama regarding one of the moral aspects of Obamacare. Here are her words from Facebook:

"...nationalized health care inevitably leads to rationing. There is simply no way to cover everyone and hold down the costs at the same time. The rationing system proposed by one of President Obama’s key health care advisors is particularly disturbing. I’m speaking of the “Complete Lives System” advocated by Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of the president’s chief of staff. President Obama has not yet stated any opposition to the “Complete Lives System,” a system which, if enacted, would refuse to allocate medical resources to the elderly, the infirm, and the disabled who have less economic potential. [1] Why the silence from the president on this aspect of his nationalization of health care? Does he agree with the “Complete Lives System”? If not, then why is Dr. Emanuel his policy advisor? What is he advising the president on? I just learned that Dr. Emanuel is now distancing himself from his own work and claiming that his “thinking has evolved” on the question of rationing care to benefit the strong and deny the weak."

Sarah Palin asked you a very clear question, Mr. Obama. Does your Christ following heart agree with Emanuel? Would the God you worship agree with your other health adviser, Peter Singer, that its okay to end the lives of disabled children who are under the age of two?

Answer those questions Obama. Answer those questions before you preach to us about morality and human dignity.

The president will address more than 1,000 leaders of different faiths in two conference calls, hoping they will pass on his ideas about the overhaul to their parishioners.

President Obama has barnstormed the country to sell his healthcare overhaul directly to sometimes-skeptical Americans. Today he will bring his message to a friendlier audience -- faith leaders who see reform as an ethical and religious imperative.

Obama is scheduled to address more than 1,000 religious figures in two conference calls, allowing him to extend his message to legions of faithful in the pews.

First up is a "High Holy Day" call this morning with rabbis from Judaism's Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist movements. Organizers hope the call will provide fodder for synagogue sermons when the Jewish holidays arrive next month.

The center is a co-sponsor of the second conference call later in the day -- pegged as "40 Minutes for Health Reform" -- with scores of lay leaders and clergy from evangelical, Protestant, Catholic and Jewish traditions.

"My hope and prayer is that President Obama is going to hold firm to his principle of making sure everyone is covered," said the Rev. Jim Wallis, head of the progressive evangelical group Sojourners and a member of Obama's faith-based advisory council. "Holding presidents to promises they have made is a good vocation for the faith community."

Obama's conversations with faith leaders come as major religious groups -- including Faith in Public Life and Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, ramp up a national campaign to influence the fall debate over healthcare.

The effort, known as "40 Days for Health Reform," features a national television ad, prayer rallies, meetings in congressional districts where lawmakers are waffling and a nationwide "sermon weekend" at the end of August.

Today's conference call with Obama, which will be webcast at faithforhealth.org, is designed to propel the myriad initiatives.

One figure scheduled on the call, the Rev. Joel Hunter of the 10,000-member Northland Church near Orlando, Fla., said Obama needs to go through religious leaders to sell his message "because that's who has access to the vast majority of people in this country."

Hunter also serves on Obama's faith-based council. "We want to find a solution, not find a fau

Can government do the work of God (Charity)?

What I have read and understood from the Bible is that God and Jesus wants us to help each other by using our own time, treasure and talent and to give from our hearts ("Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver." - 2 Corinthians 9:7). Nowhere have I found anything along the lines of "Go out and institute huge bureaucracies that will take money from some people at the point of a sword and give that money to other people as a politician sees fit."

Our Founding Fathers were Christian and very pious men. They founded this country under strong Judeo-Christian tenets and reflected on their religious beliefs on all their decisions. They wrote nothing into the Constitution of any type of government "aid" to help the poor, children or anyone else on purpose. They wanted a very limited government for good reason. Limited government is the best way to ensure that freedom will be preserved. The Scottish philosopher Alexander Tytler, who lived during the time of the American Revolution and writing of the US Constitution, summed these views:

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure.

From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years.

These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage."

There are many interesting questions if citizens rely on government to do "God's Work."

If a government takes a portion of a man's wages and does good with it, has the man also done good? If a government takes away a portion of a woman's property and does evil with it, has the woman also done evil? When a rich man pays more in taxes than a poor person, is he more Godly? If the government then does evil, is he more to blame? A woman works for the government and uses other people's tax money and does "God Work" with it, is this government woman now a good/Godly woman? If I legally try to avoid paying taxes, does that not make me an "Ungodly" man?

Today, the US government (federal, state and local) takes nearly 50% of a middle-class person's paycheck after all taxes are factored in (income taxes, Social Security, sales tax, real estate taxes, gas tax, death taxes, phone taxes, highway tolls, sad etc.). Uncle Sam will spend more money in just this year (2004) than it spent combined between 1787 and 1900 - even after adjusting for inflation. I cringe at those numbers.

The Founding Fathers wanted nothing like the tax-consuming monster that we have as a government today. I also think of all the good work that could have be done if people were allowed to keep more of their own money and give it to organizations/people that they believe in their heart are doing God's work. Maybe it comes down to trust. Will people do the right thing with their own money or must a government take a huge chunk of it to do the "right things?"

Except government rarely does anything right except for those tasks that were explicitly outlined in the Constitution as the Founding Father intended. I could cite many examples (such as where would you rather put $10,000 in retirement money - in Social Security or in your own 401k plan?) but the plight of black America illustrates this failure beyond comparison.

In 1965, the US government was going to wipe out poverty by the "Great Society" programs, in which to date over 3.5 trillion dollars has been spent. These federal programs were designed to "help families and children" or "buy votes" depending on your political viewpoint.

At the beginning of the 1960's, the black out of wedlock birth rate was 22%. In the late 1975 it reached 49% and shot up to 65% in 1989. In some of the largest urban centers of the nation the rate of illegitimacy among blacks today exceeds 80% and averages 69% nationwide. As late as the 1970's there was still a social stigma attached to a woman who was pregnant outside marriage. Now, government programs have substituted for the father and for black moral leadership. The black family and culture has collapsed (and white families are not that far behind).

Illegitimacy leads directly to poverty, crime and social problems. Out of wedlock children are four times more likely to be poor. They are much more likely to live in high crime areas with no hope of escape. In turn, they are forced to attend dangerous and poor-performing government schools, which directly leads to another generation of poverty.

Traditional black areas of Harlem, Englewood and West Philadelphia in the 1950s were safe working class neighborhoods (even though "poor" by material measures). Women were unafraid to walk at night and children played unmolested in the streets and parks. Today, these are some of the worst crime plagued areas of our nation. Work that was once dignified is now shunned. Welfare does not require recipients to do anything in exchange for their benefits. Many rules actually discourage work or provide benefits that reduce the incentive to find work.

The black abortion rate today is nearly 40%. Pregnancies among black women are twice as likely to end in abortion as pregnancies among white and Hispanic women.

The "Great Society" programs all had good intentions. Unfortunately, their real world results are that they have replaced the traditional/Christian models of family/work with that of what a government bureaucrat thinks it should be.

I could make an excellent argument that if the US government had hired former grand wizards of the KKK to run the "Great Society" programs, and if they had worked every day from 1965 to today without rest, they could have hardly have done better in destroying black America than the "Works of God" that the government has done or is trying to do.

I have visited many countries in which the government "guarantees" that everyone has a job, a place to live, education, health care and cradle to grave "government help" for all children and families. It all sounds great except that the people in these countries are/were miserable. They wanted to escape but were forced by their governments, at the end of a gun, to stay. The "worker's paradises" of socialist and communist counties are chilling reminders of letting governments do "God's Work."

The Bible clearly states that we are to help those in need. The question is "Who should help those in need?" I firmly believe that scripture and the historical evidence strongly support that individuals, private organizations and churches should be the ones doing the heavy lifting. Government help should be the last resort. "Charity," enforced by the government, is not charity, it is extortion. "Charity," delivered by the government, is not charity, it is a bribe which corrupts both the giver and the receiver.

Very Sincerely,

2banana

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