Free Republic

I sent the following letter to each of 100 Senators this week. Thank you for reading this open letter to the Senate. Dear [Ohio] Senator [Sherrod] Brown, I am uninsured by choice and will not be insured by any individual, not by any employer, not by government, federal or otherwise. This is a personal decision and is no one’s prerogative to interfere therewith. I do not recognize the authority of the United States government to legislate personal attitudes or personal consumer purchases. My reasons for reaching this conclusion are my own and not subject to review or judgment by any...

Do purely evil individuals exist who can hide their true nature from the rest of the world? And are these individuals drawn into politics as a conduit for dominating an unsuspecting and acquiescent populace? There is a theory that evil is a pathological disorder. The observation that psychopaths, including sociopaths and narcissists, all exhibit chronically evil behavior is a persuasive argument toward that theory. In Andrew M. Lobaczewski's book, Political Ponerology: A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes, the case is made for equating evil and psychosis in the political arena:

What do John Lennon, Glenn Beck, and Alexander Solzhenitsyn all have in common? The answer (and question) appears to be something no major political party in America appears able to grasp. While the GOP is looking for the leak in the roof, selling out conservative values to include more in the “big tent”, the big tent (the new and improved fiscal responsible one of course, sans “social values”), is swiftly being washed downstream, heading for the perilous cliff. Splash, crash, there goes another one! 9-9-09 SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - A Republican state lawmaker from Southern California was ousted Wednesday from...

Francisco Caamano, Spain's Minister of Justice Madrid, Spain, Aug 14, 2009 / 04:13 pm (CNA).- The Collegial Medical Organization and various pro-life groups in Spain have strongly rejected statements by the country’s Minister of Justice, Francisco Caamano, who said Thursday that “there is no room for conscientious objection” when it comes to abortion.   The president of the Collegial Medical Organization, Dr. Juan Jose Rodriguez Sendin, said, “The right doctors have in Spain to conscientious objection is going to be respected, whether they like it or not, and it is better this is accepted on good rather than on bad...

Modern liberals have a habit of denying the inevitable consequences of their policies. They refuse to concede that a healthcare bureaucracy created and run by persons who embrace utilitarian views of human life might unsettle Americans concerned that government would, as Senator Chuck Grassley put it this week, “pull the plug on Grandma.” And they seem baffled by those who find President Obama’s professed desire to “reduce the number of abortions” difficult to reconcile with his efforts to subsidize and expand access to them. Worst of all is the left’s position on conscience protections for those with religious or moral...

Our teenagers are more sexually active than any generation of youth before them. They also are consuming more pornography and compromising basic moral standards more often. It seems that many of them have lost not only their innocence, but their conscience, too. The plethora of negative and immoral behaviors glorified by a media world that's gone stark raving mad -- combined with graphic, non-judgmental sex education and a highly sexualized culture in general -- causes many of them to lose understanding of what is wrong and what is right. When a young child's sensibilities are constantly violated, and he begins...

If there is one part of the spiritual life that St. Ignatius stressed, it was the daily--and even twice daily--examination of conscience. As we read the Spiritual Exercises, we may be overwhelmed by the minute detail of St. Ignatius' treatment of what he calls the particular examination of conscience. At the same time, he is careful to provide, "Some Notes on Scruples." It is very important, therefore, that we form a clear and correct conscience. This means that we cultivate a sensitive judgment which is alert to the least offense against the Divine will and, at the same time,...

New York City, N.Y., Jul 28, 2009 / 05:12 am (CNA).- "It felt like a horror film unfolding," said Catherina Cenzon-DeCarlo, the Brooklyn nurse who says she was forced to aid an abortion against her will. Now Cenzon-DeCarlo is speaking out, describing the terror she felt as she was asked to sacrifice her religious convictions for the sake of her job.Catherina Cenzon-DeCarlo, a devout Catholic, says she has been having nightmares and difficulty sleeping ever since the incident took place on May 24, reports the New York Post."I couldn't believe that this could happen," Cenzon-DeCarlo told the Post, describing how...

Conscience or Career? By Alan Burkhart More and more often we encounter news of an employee forced to choose between his or her job and performing an act which that person finds morally reprehensible. This occurs most frequently in the medical and pharmaceutical professions. Consider the case of Catherina Cenzon-DeCarlo, a nurse at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. According to a recent article in the New York Post: A Brooklyn nurse [Cenzon-DeCarlo] claims she was forced to choose between her religious convictions and her job when Mount Sinai Hospital ordered her to assist in a late-term abortion against...

Gov. Bobby Jindal Baton Rouge, La., Jul 12, 2009 / 05:48 am (CNA).- Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has signed a law expanding conscience protections for health care workers beyond abortion.House Bill 517, sponsored by Democratic State Rep. Bernard LeBas, allows any person to refuse to provide abortions, distribute “abortifacient drugs,” work on human embryonic stem cell research or cloning, or participate in euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide.The drug provision is intended to include the “morning-after pill” but would not extend to regular birth control, the Times-Picayune reports.The Jindal administration said the measure is necessary to uphold the individual rights of...

The most overturned appellate court has teed up another case for the Supreme Court to consider — and likely soon. The 9th Circuit overturned an injunction in a district court case, allowing the state of Washington to force a pharmacy to stock and dispense morning-after pills, which causes the abortion of an embryo in the early days of a pregnancy. The pharmacy owners had objected, claiming that the law violated their religious practice:

We reported earlier on the president’s meeting with the Catholic press and his promise regarding conscience-clause protection. For his exact words on the subject, read on. “I think that the only reason that my position may appear unclear is because it came in the wake of a last-minute, 11th-hour change in conscience clause provisions that were pushed forward by the previous administration that we chose to reverse,” said President Obama. “But my underlying position has always been consistent, which is I’m a believer in conscience clauses. I was a supporter of a robust conscience clause in Illinois for Catholic hospitals...

It seems one man’s religious freedom is another man’s “ridiculous prejudice.” One government official fumed that Catholic doctors were refusing to perform abortions-abortions that were perfectly legal. He wrote in a memo: “After all, these scruples are in most cases nothing but ridiculous prejudices . . . One is tempted to ask: where does state authority come in these cases, or else, is the state, perhaps, not anxious to assert its authority in this particular instance?” Well, Nazi Germany was seldom hesitant to assert its authority, even over religion and individual conscience. As described in the June/July issue of First...

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The president of the U.S. bishops' conference and two members of Congress have called on President Barack Obama to make good on something he said in his May 17 speech to University of Notre Dame graduates, namely that he wished to "honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion." In a May 22 statement, Cardinal Francis E. George of Chicago said he was grateful for Obama's promise to support conscience clauses. At a May 19 press conference in Washington and in a letter sent that day to the president, Reps. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., and Chris Smith,...

Friday May 22, 2009 Request by Louisiana Hospital for Summary Judgment against Pro-Life Nurse "Denied": State Supreme Court By Hilary WhiteCOVINGTON, Louisiana, (LifeSiteNews.com) - The case of a pro-life nurse in Louisiana will go to trial after four years of legal dispute. Nurse Toni Lemly contests being demoted in 2005 from her job at a Covington hospital for refusing to dispense the abortifacient 'morning after' abortion pill, Plan B. With a single-word refusal, "Denied," the Louisiana State Supreme Court refused to grant a request by the hospital to give a summary judgment against Lemly. In 2005, attorneys with the...

Wednesday May 20, 2009 Congressmen Challenge Obama to Follow Through on Notre Dame Statement, Stop Efforts to Repeal Conscience Regulation By Kathleen GilbertWASHINGTON, D.C., May 20, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - During his commencement address at Notre Dame on Sunday, President Obama said he was in favor of what he termed a "sensible conscience clause" as well as a reduction in abortions. In response two U.S. congressmen yesterday held a press conference and sent a letter to President Obama calling on him to publicly forgo his efforts to rescind the Bush era conscience protection regulation.The Obama administration in February began the process...

The topic of torture is in the headlines again, resuscitated by the Democrats, an assembly most grievously afflicted with the bane of idleness. The reasons, of course, are manifold, leading among which is the fact that the Obama experiment is desperately in need of a compelling distraction from the dreadful economic results it has thus far yielded. There are also the latent vestiges of unresolved animus toward the previous administration from a boisterous fringe that refuses to be pacified. But one reason for having a renewed interest in this issue which liberal democrats can never be accused of is that...

The renewed debate over enhanced interrogation techniques is just another episode in the hopelessly naive search for the ultimate oxymoron -- humane war. "Shocks the conscience" is a key phrase in the CIA documents that the Obama administration released. Obama's motive for releasing the memos is fertile ground for speculation. (If it's part of his strategy to be a uniter, it isn't working.) It's difficult not to assume it had something to do with politics beyond the stated motive of promoting transparency in government. The Federal Government is as inherently transparent as lead, except in cases of dramatic waste and...

Doctors from across the country have come to Washington to try to save a federal regulation that gives added protection to medical workers who choose not to perform certain procedures, like abortion, that they morally object to. "It is open season on healthcare professionals of conscience," said David Stevens, CEO of the Christian Medical Association. "Discriminate at will." Though a number of "provider protection" laws have been on the books for decades, some doctors complained they weren't being enforced. So just before he left office, President Bush enacted a federal regulation calling for better enforcement and mandating that some medical...

Physicians oppose Obama's plan to gut 'conscience' rule Pro-life physicians, nurses and other health care providers are urging Americans to contact the White House by the end of tomorrow to urge tolerance for those who do not want to provide medical services that violate their religious beliefs.