I too stopped donating when Obama got elected. Their sycophantic reporting and weekly sob stories about illegal immigrants and gay marriage and ‘dark history of...’ grew utterly tiresome.
I can't find your comment accusing me of either fabricating what's happening with what was promised to be an easy and quick application and approval process or being an insulting applicant. Neither are true. Nothing is gained by tormenting the only people who could help you, and they did their best within a system they said has recently experienced problems. The auto recordings refer to abnormally long waits on the phone system. And it can take hours on hold. The representatives were all polite, patient and so was I. So I am responding here.
You say it never happened, but if it did, I deserved it.
It did happen, and I have assurances from the people I've spoken to, that it's not my fault. I also thanked them for trying.
Urban, most of the progressives don't live up to their claims of being tolerant and inclusive either, but no one calls them on it.
They don't hate us because we don't follow what we preach. They hate us because of what we preach. They hate our claim that there is a natural order. They hate that universal moral standards exist. They hate any limits on their own autonomy. People who think they are God get very angry with anyone who points out they're not.
Yes a wide spectrum of every conceivable thing, as long as it is not the message of sin, repentance and regeneration, which is now loathed as worthy of death. They are openly saying the transphobes brought this on themselves. This is leading to the same place as former times in history. That arc is proving to be a circle despite all the cant about progress.
If you believe your views are inerrant it makes it very difficult to recognize, let alone call out, hypocrisy on your own side. In fact, in an ideology that states unflinchingly that it is on "the right side of history" or that "Progress is inevitable" hypocrisy cannot really even exist, provided anything one does or says can be seen as serving the ideology.
If we take into account Matthew 21:12, one may argue it is not that simple. But I totally see the point. I sometimes think that christianity is very bad as a code to be a politian and leading people in general, because it doesnt allow you to hurt anyone. Like if it really wasnt from this world :)
There is no human plan that can overcome this. Christians can scurry around and whip up all kinds of ideas and solutions but you are spitting into a hurricane. You in Christ, Christ in you will overcome.
The problem with David French and Sohrab Ahmari is that they are both wrong. Either of their ideologies requires abandoning personal responsibility in favor of government
Funny, but those two actually end up in a very similar place: everyone gets to do whatever they want to, and if you fall off a moral cliff, you just weren't responsible enough with your freedom, so it's all your fault.
We have assiduously protected the healthcare system from consequences. The only solution is that patient pays. And not through his insurance company. If he buys insurance he submits the claim to the insurer, the insurer pays his and he pays the provider. That alone will result in consequences.
I’m sorry but I don’t believe that hypocrisy is the problem; the left doesn’t give a rat’s butt about it or haven’t you noticed we are living with s as two tiered justice system? Trump may not be as moral as you wish but he’s torn the mask off the false empathy of the left and for that I will vote for him again if he’s the nominee.
Now we understand better and better every day the people in Biblical times who didn’t understand…
The predestination/elect debates have always been above my pay grade, but at some point you have to be like, wow, some people just seem supernaturally incapable of noticing, you know?
Or maybe some of us are less captivated by the flash bang rah-rah show of the news cycle and instead attuned to deeper, quieter things that will matter much, much more than than the passing ephemera of Now. I'm often thought to be some kind of starry eyed optimist here, but I'm not-- quite the opposite in fact, other than ultimately affirming that God's will shall be done, always. This century will be infamous in historical memory, but not for any of the reasons Rod and others here think.
She’s interesting, as always, and I agree with her point about waiting until the age of majority before taking any permanent steps—when I was 16, I had very clear ideas of how I expected life to play out for me and I was wrong on almost every single count.
However, her criticism of androgyny as a symptom of cultural decay is ill-informed. And I say this as someone who’s studied the period of the barbarian successors to the Roman Empire in the west extensively (my own research was on the 6th and 7th century Visigothic kingdom). Moreover, all these cultures she holds up as being in decline, the Hellenistic age, 1890s London, Weimar aren’t where ANY of these cultures actually ended. I’m sure the English would be very surprised by the news that Wilde was the end of their culture or even their empire. Hellenistic culture persisted for centuries under the Ptolomies and indeed under the Romans, far, far longer than the historical blip that is Athenian Empire or the heyday of Sparta.
So, on her historical observations, let’s just say she’s a bit confused.
Even in her confusion, Paglia was quite prescient in many ways. I love how she rattles today's woke Puritans, who can't fathom how someone who identifies as transgender -- of the Aladdin Sane type -- can totally dig the misogyny of the Rolling Stones circa 1968-72.
My sense of her is that she really enjoys being a bomb thrower and skewering whatever the modern orthodoxies are. And we need people like that to keep us honest!
Here’s the funny thing though and why I don’t get too worked up about whatever it is that the kids these days are going on about:
Your Bowie reference is extremely apt. Because to our parents’ and grandparents’ generation, Bowie and Paglia were both, in their own way, shockingly out there, smashing boundaries and offending everyone.
Well, we’re all grown up now and we are the establishment and guess what? The kids (who, to be perfectly clear, are NOT US ANYMORE) are out to shock us, to smash our boundaries, and, more than anything else, to offend us.
It’s the way of the world. Their kids and grandkids will do something even more outrageous to offend them.
Anyways, Paglia’s still doing what she’s always done, which is to throw bombs. She’s just been left behind by the culture and so it seems like she’s throwing bombs from the right rather than the left these days. Which means her evolution into a curmudgeon (albeit a witty and entertaining one) is well under way.
Great response. Thanks. But I do not think the current state of youth and our world is entirely just another round of youthful rebellion. They are cold-blooded, godless bellies of demonic appetite.
Don’t you think that people raised on Cole Porter and George and Ira Gershwin thought the same of David Bowie?
I just watched a new (to me) production of The Barber of Seville on YouTube a few nights ago and was reminded of the scene right after Rosina’s big second act aria of “The Futile Precaution” where Doctor Bartolo laments the kids these days with their crazy music and how things were much better in his day and gets properly sent up.
And from his older generation’s perspective, Rosina’s desire to marry the “penniless” Lindoro on the basis of love alone was absolutely, shockingly, inexplicably terrible. That’s not what marriage is for! What the heck are kids thinking these days anyways?
Times are bad, that is for sure, but we cannot allow our fear to destroy what is good. Because by simple warmorgering, christianity will become just a political party, an ideology and we will loose the capacity to decide between right and wrong.
Of course we are afraid, who wouldnt be afraid that their children would be castrated by some fanatics. But we cannot allow this fear to controll us, because by simply fighting transgender, we will inevitably simplify christianity into the anti-LGBT movement.
More than in the past, it is essential to put our faith in God, look for everything that is great in christianity and in the world and be clever.
And regarding someone reading this, my message is this: sometimes you cannot park your car without going backwards.
Yes. Jesus commanded his followers to pick up their cross and follow Him. Crosses are not a trip to Carmel by the sea, wine tasting and tantric massage.
It’s not complicated. Churches should simply do what the Lord told us to do: study and preach His word.
No private entity or opinion has any right to prevent this. They have no right to supplant it. But the church world has pulled up its skirt and bent over the hood of the car for anybody wanting to use her for their own gratification. The church is not to advocate violence or be militant, but if any party wants to disease a congregation with their personal issues they need their teeth kicked in and tossed out with the garbage.
"the average American has the same life expectancy of someone born in the poorest city in England." No surprise there. We have the lowest life expectancy among "peer countries", i.e., Western industrialized nations, for the simple reason that they have universal health care and we don't. We have private health insurance* AND private health care, and that's the worst of both worlds if you are not wealthy. That's why medical expenses are the 2nd biggest reason (after loss of income) for bankruptcies in America - which is something people in Canada and most of Europe don't have to worry about. Even middle class Americans have to ration their own healthcare, because they simply can't afford it. And without Medicare, most of the elderly will die very quickly.
In my more paranoid moments, I wonder if that isn't the plan behind Republican politicians' constant banging on about getting rid of the 'entitlements' (Medicare and Social Security, both of which were earned, thank you) that make seniors' lives possible. Get rid of the seniors ASAP before they cost "more than they're worth" and pass their assets on...
*Here's a classic example of how it works: when I was a year away from becoming eligible for Medicare, my private health insurance increased my monthly premium from $350 to $950 for that last year. They knew that I wouldn't be able to get coverage anywhere else in my rural state. And they knew that I didn't dare risk not having insurance at all, just in case... It was sheer greed.
This, exactly. Our health care system, top to bottom, is a travesty. We combine the worst aspects of government run health care and for profit privately run care, and pay more than double what other countries do for it. And we get worse results.
Anyone outside a major metro area deals with months-long wait times, very long drives for quality specialist care, often long drives even for basic care. There are multiple counties around the nation with exactly zero maternity hospitals -- no wonder maternal mortality is higher than other developed countries.
Meanwhile for those who have access and care, it's all based on maximizing billable items and minimizing lawsuits rather than optimizing patient health. Remember the video Rod posted where the Vanderbilt folks were talking about the revenue stream from gender transition care? It's like that for *all* types of care.
Even in large metro areas, there are long wait times for specialists and you still have to drive long distances to get care, in some cases. They try to build centers in different regions of the metro area, so they can be more local, but it can still be a hassle to use a facility much of the time. The facility with more appointments and sooner openings might not be the one closest to your location. Our medical system really needs to upgraded.
I recently bought private health insurance for my son and me here in Hungary. We could go into the state health system, but it has problems, and the private system is shockingly inexpensive (for an American). I bought the top of the line policy from Cigna, one that covers everything, and paid a fraction of what I was paying in the US. I thought something was wrong when they quoted me the price, but no, it really is that cheap compared to America. I remind you: this isn't for the state hospitals and doctors, but for private ones.
Germany has a mix of public and private... Being in the hospital in Germany reminded me of movies of US hospitals in the 1950s.
However, watching the grandmother of a friend slowly die in 2004 was one of the most intense experiences of my life. (I wasn't there for that moment, but with my friend's family for the 3 weeks she was hospitalized.) As she was an immigrant pensioner, most of the doctors were hardly kind. She was in intensive care for nearly 3 weeks and was moved to a regular ward not because she was improving, but because she was taking up space and there were only a few ICU beds. On her last night on this earth, my friend and I talked to her and held her hand while she gasped for breath... The first couple of times, I ran for the nurse - there was only one for the whole ward from 11pm until 6am - but it's not like she had much of anything she could do, because it seems like the hospital had written her off, and not even giving her some oxygen to help her breathe was an option. So every time, we'd coach her back with "Davai, davai," when it looked like she had stopped breathing, since there was little else we could do, she'd gasp so hard her whole body shook, then after a few minutes, it would seem like she'd lose the momentum to breathe again, and the whole process would repeat again and again and again.
My friend and his mother happened to be at the hospital when she did die early the following afternoon. They were there because the doctors wanted to talk to them about moving her home, because she was taking up space at the hospital...
And this was Germany! Where people go for specialized medical care from other countries! But God forbid you need a neonatal bed for a preemie with Down Syndrome, because even being military with access to all the top-of-the-line stuff, the best that could be done is fly the baby by helicopter from Regensburg to Belgium, where the nearest such bed could be found... And by the way, only one parent is allowed to fly with the child (who did not make it).
I am horrified with a lot that goes on with the US hospitals, especially as they consolidate into conglomerates and see the profits - such as the transgender "care" - as the highest priority. That being said, after seeing what I saw in Germany, I still prefer getting healthcare in the US.
The US has excellent healthcare if you can afford it. If you can't, you are dead.
Especially because a longer life, on average, is predicated upon continuous access to healthcare, not upon once-in-a-life events, which are seldom happening and which have less chances to happen if you see doctors frequently. If you have to pay $200 to see a GP, compared with about $0, it makes a difference.
It sounds like your friend's grandmother was on her deathbed and nothing was going to save her life so it's not clear what the complaint here is about. In the US, unless you make your wishes clear explicitly in advance, you might end up hooked to life support which will only delay the inevitable -- and of course produce bigger bill.
By the way on the day my father died (in Michigan, 1991) I was also talked to about the fact that they could not keep him in the hospital due to Medicare regs and he would either have to go home or to a nursing home. Though nowadays at least we have hospice to help with such cases. And dying at home with family (as Rod;s dad did) is, I think, a better choice than dying hooked to machines in a hospital.
She had a stroke. She had the "luck" to live less than a mile from the hospital, which is probably why the stroke didn't kill her right off. Once it became clear that there was almost no chance of her recovering, the hospital wasn't exactly subtle about what they saw as "wasted space" in treating her - bonus, if they could get her out the door alive, then her death isn't on their books... or hands... or whatever you would have. I mean it's pretty sad when the only people over there who seemed to have any sympathy were the janitorial staff.
Sure, there's a good chance that she would have died anyway, and I get what you are saying about "being hooked up to machines". However, giving a person oxygen to help them breathe is hardly an "extraordinary measure" and would have made the last day or so much less traumatic. Discussing this with a nurse friend of mine over here, her opinion is that what they did there would be considered abuse in the US, so take it for what you will.
There are a lot of issues with the medical system in the US, but they are different types of issues. I think, in general, US medicine has traditionally been more focused on solving problems, and in Europe, more on "managing" problems. Throw in a good dash of single payer, and you get things like - in Germany - having to wait 6 weeks to get an MRI, and then having to wait another 6 weeks to have an appointment with the doctor to discuss the results (from what I understand, the doctors only get paid once per patient per month per issue - I don't know for sure, but it was told to me by a friend with debilitating chronic pain). Another person I know, at 75 or so (and in fantastic shape - he's on track to make it to 120), blew out his knees skiing, and got them replaced in 2019. He's been in pain since - something is not right with the new knees - but it's only now, even with top-of-the-line insurance, that he's getting to go to a specialist to try to get a better resolution, but the specialist is 3+ hours away. Here in SE Wisconsin, even going to Chicago for something wouldn't take that long, but there's huge centers not just in Milwaukee but in Kenosha for just about anything you can think of.
Again, there is a lot that is wrong with the US system as well - my sister had a friend who died at 21 or 22 because of medical error, for example - but I'm much more confident, facing a potentially big health issue myself - that the doctors in the US are actually going to do more to solve the problem, and that there's much more of an attitude of "if the first thing didn't work, we'll keep trying" rather than "sorry, we gave it our best shot".
Come on Rod you gotta tell us in USD how much we're talking, for both premiums and deductible (and out of pocket max if you know it). Can either of you receive treatment in the US if you want/need it?
Even the socialized medicine regimes are collapsing due to unsupportable costs and demand. It's being rationed in Canada, the second most expensive medicine in the world. It's also being broken by the enormous demand for transgender medications and surgeries, with the lifelong medical costs that ensue. It doesn't help that most people are now so overweight, either.
Is that because urban communities are shooting galleries for drug gangsters? And fentanyl is killing hundreds of thousands?
The Republicans are not trying to cancel Medicare or Social Security. They are trying to make them fiscally solvent. This means that benefits will come later, or the entire system collapses. Democrats want the system to,collapse and become like China. No benefits. Just mandated death of seniors who no longer work. Just watch the massive depopulation of China over the next thirty years.
Where in the world has any Democrat said they want Medicare/Social Security to collapse and become like China? These types of comments are so irresponsible.
In Canada, assisted suicide for any reason just became public policy. It's a way of cutting costs. Veterans calling a government health care line have had assisted suicide offered. Socialized medicine, or not, once worked. They won't survive woke.
You’re right, it is the worst of both worlds and it was by design. The Democrats want to turn us into a socialized medical system, and destroying our current system is the best chance of accomplishing that. However, we are now watching the socialized medical systems around the world become completely overwhelmed. There is not enough money to cover basic healthcare for all of the people in each country. In the UK, even for emergency care wait times are long and ambulances are scarce. It can take up to 12 hours to get transported to the hospital. If you get cancer, God help you - it may take six months to see a specialist just to initialize treatment.
What we need is an overhaul of our current system to get rid of the Obamacare requirements that overloaded the system and require us to pay huge premiums.
Not all of them. I don't think the German, French, Italian, or Taiwanese systems have any major problems. I'm not saying any one system is perfect, but some have major problems and others have minor, solvable ones.
We, on the other hand, have no market discipline in the form of competition -- we have hospital system monopolies, insurance monopolies, doctors locked into particular hospital networks, and totally opaque pricing. Even after the Trump administration mandated that hospitals release their price lists, what they have are massive spreadsheets on their website where the price of every bandage and Tylenol pill is listed separately, making it impossible to figure out how much a procedure will actually cost. It's the apotheosis of malicious compliance. Try it with your local hospital's website, and prepare to weep.
Meanwhile we have too few resident spots and too few medical schools. Others here have already addressed the issues with Medicare. Medicaid is a mess too. Much as veterans complain about the VA, in many ways it works better than what the rest of us have to deal with!
And as a matter of fact, taxes or insurance premiums aren't health care. My friend is a doctor at a regional hospital, who told me I probably won't be able to find a doctor who takes Medicare patients.
If you think Europe's in great shape, wow, are you under informed about the financial crises going on there. It's France cutting services and pensions, and Germany and Italy's people are in revolt due to our war to regime change Russia wrecking their economies. The priority there is reducing expenditures for social programs, while ramping war expenditures massively. Meanwhile revenues are down, inflation is far higher than here, and cuts are being made so more people can be killed... over politics and moneymaking.
I lived in Germany for 4 1/2 years, I've been back and forth now since 1996... The German system is better than most in Western Europe but it is terrible. See my comment above for some details.
If it's so bad why do the Germans prefer it? No doubt here are movements ti fix this or that facet of the system, but none at all to junk and move to something else.
Meanwhile, here in America, people are holding bake sales and Go Fund Me pages to pay for their children's cancer treatments.
And if you live in rural America, there may not even be an ambulance. From Mississippi Today:
"From Mississippi Today:
The neighbor had already tried to get her son admitted at the local hospital, Sharkey Issaquena Community Hospital – the only hospital in the county. But it was full, and later lost power and had to transfer its patients to other hospitals. The rural hospital has been struggling to stay afloat and was, as of September, seeking a buyer. It has continued to lose money over the years, even after pooling its resources with other small hospitals to buy supplies at a discounted rate. EMTs said they’d return for Jay after taking someone already in the ambulance to Greenville, but the neighbor, a certified nurse assistant, knew the boy couldn’t wait. When Myles heard her son couldn’t get emergency medical help, she was dumbfounded...
As they rolled into Greenville at 10 p.m., Myles blew past five red stop lights. Her coworker hung his head out of the window, yelling at bystanders to get out of the way. When Myles spotted the Delta Regional Medical Center, all she could think was, “Thank God we made it.” Twenty minutes later, Myles discovered that Jay had four fractured ribs, and one of his lungs was punctured. "
Oh, and there is enough money to pay for basic healthcare for everyone. Like everything else, it's just that there has to be the will and the decision to actually do it. It would be good to have a legitimate debate about health care (NOT health insurance, which is what the talking points are all about) in this country, but it all turns into talking points to quickly.
>>I wonder if that isn't the plan behind Republican politicians' constant banging on about getting rid of the 'entitlements' (Medicare and Social Security, both of which were earned, thank you) that make seniors' lives possible.
Republicans are every bit the enemy of the good, true and decent as are the Democrats.
First, that republicans want to get rid of healthcare for the old is more of our despicable disinformation censors' talking points - AKA lies.
Second, we had to choose between rent, food and so-called health insurance the past 15 years. We haven't been to doctors even though we are in our seventies since 2004 when I last had employer health insurance. Now one day we will die but that is not because we make expensive visits and pay huge amounts we cannot afford in any case. Did you know the leading cause of death is medical mistakes? Surely medicine does save lives but it takes them, too. And over medicalization is a huge problem. Adding in all the free gender mutilations and pharmaceuticals for profit (even in socialized medicine) is not just a huge burden, but causes untold harm. I admit we are vegetarians, which eliminated some emerging issues I had 25 years ago. Seniors aren't dying from not having Medicare. I did apply for social security but it seems they are badly backlogged and there is no action. Our Wokester congressional critter's office tells me they can't help but let them know what happens...
You do not need any "congressional critter's" office.
Mitch McConnell, Ron Johnson, Rick Scott, Lindsey Graham, Mike Lee (who said at a campaign stop “It will be my objective to phase out Social Security, to pull it up by the roots and get rid of it,”), Marco Rubio are among those who are on record as having called to either sunset Social Security and Medicare or just outright put them on the chopping block.
I dismiss what you say because in fact it's not true. I applied online months ago and it has been "stalled" for months when I check the site, long after the supposed 2-4 weeks.
You are so wrong because you assume mainstream propaganda is true when actual experience reveals otherwise. I only contacted the useless Woke Congress person's office, because I cannot get any answers. As for office visits, they are scheduled for appointments more than two months in the future. I even made one.
All I can say is that when I applied and got Social Security, I called the number, got an appointment, went down, signed up, and was done and signed up within 4 weeks. I'm sorry that the people in your area aren't as competent. Try calling their phone number. What do you have to lose?
I have called the national phone number and after multiple hangups, call drops and an eventual hours long wait on hold, they had no answers. I was told the recent changeover to login.gov and various glitches associated with multiple security software additions had produced problems linking to SSA.gov. After hours on the phone I did get an application through, even though she said she wasn't really supposed to. It seems many millions of SSA accounts got hacked. I also got a phone appointment two months in the future. I was told not to cancel that even though the site said I should, in case something else goes wrong. I have to say she was polite, sympathetic and as helpful as she could be. But I was told the system is in turmoil. The congressional office said that the social security administration has been getting a tsunami of complaints, but there is nothing they can do but please keep them informed. She said they are still not up to speed to help constituents since the election. I was exceedingly polite and thankful, never mentionimg politics, but the priority of this Democrat as she appears on local TV is in various Woke causes, especially transgenderism, since she is an LGBTQ activist herself.
"Second, we had to choose between rent, food and so-called health insurance the past 15 years"
I'm not trying to be argumentative here, but what's stopped you from working all these years? If you're struggling to get by then there's no shame in going to work. Walmart is easy to get into and has excellent benefits .
I'm still engaged in labor at 70, but it's not enough to pay for what has high deductibles so you can't use it anyway. Rent has doubled over the past several years. It seems that Wal Mart doesn't hire people with the wrong opinions on the internet.
Wow. Up here, Wal Mart will hire anyone who breathes, and they certainly don't check social media. (Now, if you were applying at a prison, they probably would...) Again, I'm sorry to hear that, and you're very unique in your experience.
So you say. They have more applicants than "associate" positions. The folks I know at Wal Mart tell me they are also on SSI and food stamps. They also said that as a former director at a Fortune 500 company in IT I am not a good fit for their applicant profile, and the doxxing site puts me beyond the pale as soon as the internet archive shows up in their search. Everyone is extensively vetted. Now Rod said this would happen to Christians. You don't believe? And don't tell me to learn to code, I did over 40 years ago. Too bad H1Bs are the preference.
Eve, I'm a foot-stomping proponent of universal healthcare, but the main reasons we have a lower life expectancy than other nations has nothing to do with our health care system and everything to do with A) our homicide rate and B) our obesity rate. The former is a major source of deaths among the younger half of the population and the latter cuts into our longevity at the far end of life.
Does anyone know the drug abuse rates in other countries? I'm not where I can easily google that right now. but I can't believe that is something unique to the US.
The United States consumes more illicit drugs than any other country. When compared to other countries, the USA has a very high rate of illegal drug use. It is estimated that approximately six percent of people in the United States use illegal drugs.
One problem I have with the site's article: it does not make clear whether it's talking about absolute numbers or relative to population numbers. The US is the third most populous country, so in absolute numbers you would expect us to be very near the top of the drug abuse stats.
Also it doesn't really work alcoholism stats into the mix as far as I can tell.
As you might recall, Trump was for a single payer system. A lot of business types outside the symbiotic medical, insurance and legal industries prefer not having to deal with employee insurance companies and regulations. It is a distraction and makes employees expensive, and distorts who is desirable to be hired, and becomes a source of conflict.
Uh... he was for it in 2000, in his (ghost-written) book, "The America We Deserve." And then he campaigned and became President, and he was against it, repeatedly slamming it, in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020... You can look it up.
That is entirely, tragically explicable by the fact that insurance companies are allowed to deny coverage for pre-natal, maternity and infant care, so that poor women don't get access to the care they need.
Regarding NPR, just read the article, "U.S. Capitol rioter the 'QAnon Shaman' is released early from federal prison" in which the author made no mention of the video that McCarthy released showing Jacob Chansley being peacefully escorted around by Capitol police. But bringing up that pesky fact wouldn't support the Leftist narrative.
To be fair, Mr. Carlson only showed the last 4 minutes of Mr. Chansley's visit; he showed none of the previous footage of Mr. Chansley's 50+ minutes in the Capitol building. Most people look peaceful... later...
I thought Rod wanted a forum for all points of views? I am sure he approves of his readers insulting each other for expressing their opinions. If not mistaken Eve complimented you on your health and gave you excellent instructions on how to get your earned Social Security benefits.
Was she sincere? A little like saying at a small business, nice restaurant, be a shame if anything happened to it. And I bet she's anticipating the pleasure of schedenfreude.
As for her sage advice on applying, you must think I'm stupid to think I hadn't done that already. It's that vaunted big government efficiency we all praise, as their real priority is not competence, but intersectional victim pokemon points as the basis for equity employment.
I spent 26 years as a financial advisor and never had a single client unable to receive their Social Security when applied for through either their online system or in person at their office. I am now retired and have had excellent experience dealing with both social security and Medicare. I am sorry you are having such problems. Best of luck.
How do you apply at the office? You can't just walk-in, you have to get an appointment in the future, which is .backlogged. Then you have travel there and show up faraway on time. More delays after that of unknown length. So phone appointments to apply were two months in the future. The online process to create a login.gov is fraught with security glitches. Do you have a security dongle or do you want a list of 12 long onetime crypto passwords?
So someone finally removed obstacles and I applied and it's stuck. Months waiting. Nobody can find out anything. Exactly like the legal immigration dept.
So were your successes pre covid, or pre Biden? I was told that the priority is developing the mandatory equity program across all agencies.
I just refuse to watch Fox News. Or MSNBC. Or CNN. Or Newsmax. Or OANN. Or any 24/7 cable news network. I read my news, and from multiple, multi-national sources. And then I go and look at the footage.
You periodically bring up Alinsky but now you're following his guidance here. When lacking a coherent response to a reasonable but alternate point of view, offer a personal attack. It is woke strategy to call somebody woke instead of debating their ideas, literally a performative contradiction, extraordinary to behold. I believe you have admonished me about this before, and you were right, back then. Now, you've fallen into the same trap.
There's nothing woke about Eve giving an opinion. Here's mine: the shaman was a disgraceful fool that day and I believe he admitted that much later on. I agree with some of the convictions, you are not allowed to forcefully storm into the Capitol, but I also understand there is punitive overkill happening. None of that overreaction negates the wrongs of that day, the crimes that happened alongside the foolishness, alongside the patriotism, alongside the "visits."
Nobody was there to "visit" the Capitol that day. They were there to protest the election results, and try to prevent Biden's eventual inauguration. Portraying them as tourists is laughable, I don't care how politely some of the "visitors" were escorted by cops. Tucker Carlson isn't right about everything, neither is Rod, neither are you. January 6th was a mass protest by design, obviously called together by Trump, which turned unlawful quickly. Everyone involved has soul-searching to do, at the very minimum.
I say this as someone who defended them as basically patriotic when it was all happening live. I also minimized the Proud Boys and their ideology. Furthermore, I don't believe anyone involved with that day should still be in prison after all this time. Probation, yes.
Anyway, that's my opinion. If you don't care to debate, if you want to act like some teenage liberal throwing a hissy fit, who calls the opposition "racist" and then turns away, offended and self-satisfied, fine.
I'm not going to get into a book long refutation of what really do fall within the sphere of ideology of Woke. I think we all know what Woke means and it does align with Alinsky, who said telling lies is acceptable in pursuit of ends, because there is no objective morality or truth. In fact, the end entirely resembles the means. There isn't even any actual end, as at any particular point in time, you only ever have those actions and their consequences.
There was also a video of him posted on twitter by Scott Adams where he is outside the building still, telling a large group of people milling about that "Trump tweeted we should all go home and not be violent". So we've got scenes at the start and end showing him being basically quite calm / not violent.
Yes, but the Jan 6th committee and various branches of law enforcement have long had all the footage of Chansley at the Capitol building. If they have something that contradicts what Tucker Carlson showed, they can display it at anytime. You're point doesn't hold up.
When you're right, you're correct! They are attempting Total Information Control as the next step after Total Information Awareness. From TIA to TIC to t**ts up for the country we knew!
We got here so fast. Here I was worrying about my kids not having enough social credit to get good jobs or get a place in line for life saving medical care, but we just went straight to “If they’re murdered we will celebrate the murderer.” Bleak, bleak stuff.
My kids’ classical Christian high school here in Philly is closing at the end of this year after only three years. They just couldn’t get the enrollment numbers, despite being quite affordable and providing an extremely rigorous, robustly Christian education. Where are all the parents who say they want options like this? It’s so frustrating. (We’re applying to Martin Saints, and I’m grateful for the opportunity, but it’s farther away and more expensive.)
Sometimes I fret and chomp at the bit to get out of a place with so little community, but I suspect it’s getting more like this everywhere. It may be that this is just what living as faithful Christians in America is going to look like for the next few generations, and this is the “sink or swim” period where we learn how to do it.
Homeschool is best. Anyone can do it. There are excellent homeschool groups like Classical Connections to teach you how to do it. Teacher’s certification is bunk and actually damaging to education. We homeschooled our children thirty years ago and our grandchildren will never see the inside of any public school.. public schools ar harmful and dangerous to the mental and spiritual health of all children.
Homeschool children go much faster in studies and much deeper and broader. They waste no time changing classes or teaching propaganda. One child is an Electrical engineer. Another child has a PhD in molecular microbiology. So don’t tell me they were damaged by home school. They social with other activities.
Oh, I agree! We homeschooled our teens through 9th and 8th grades and are still homeschooling the younger four. We’ve found that classical Christian high schools provide a breadth and depth I just don’t have bandwidth for along with teaching all the younger kids, though. It’s also allowed to us to connect with another like minded family, which is a premium benefit with BenOp community so thin on the ground.
No, not everyone can home school. Some people must work to keep a roof over the head and food on the table. Others lack the skills. I support homeschooling, but we also have to recognize it will never be more than a minority option-- we people for whom it is not a viable option should not be guilt-tripped about it.
Unable to trust instructors at a private Christian classical school. They’ve had a serious run on abuse issues. Moreover the more people like Rod, who take pretty extremist positions, associate themselves loudly with this kind of school, the more professional classicists are unwilling to be involved and parents are loathe to enroll students in them.
I want to run to the hills. I agree that darkness is creeping into daily life at an alarming speed. Truth is I still am a cog in the machine. I can’t run to the hills. I’m learning to cut back and do more without certain comforts and preferences. I’m surrounded by people who are blind to where we are and we’re headed. Lord Jesus have mercy! I’m am thankful for your writing and truth telling. Anyone have successes or strategies they can offer?
Dumpster diving, recycling can collection, waste vegetable oil as diesel fuel, food pantry delivery, sell unneeded possessions on Craigslist, get free internet and cell service with an Obama phone, switch only to free broadcast TV not cable, give up meat and become vegan. Never eat out, save what you can even though savings shrink from inflation every month. Never buy new, go to yard and rummage sales. Fix your own vehicle. Only get auto liability insurance. Turn down the thermostat to 45F. Don't succumb to weird appetites. Get an RV for when rent becomes unaffordable. Yes, we do all these things. Life goes on, even when shoved off into the precariat. And God provides to the end - that's a big deal my friend.
Well, here we go again, full circle back 2000 years ago, a return to pagan society, full stop. We are almost living in Ephesus again. Ephesus was a potent Roman outpost for trade and power in Asia Minor. Common people worshipped the Roman Gods of petty squabbles, violence, and revenge.
In Rome and all over the Empire, the elite men practiced Pederasty where young boys were stolen and made sexual slaves to rich men. They were raped repeatedly and then thrown in the garbage when they reached puberty. The Emperor Nero bootstomped and murdered his Empress wife and then stole a beautiful teenage boy Sporus, then had him castrated. Nero then married Sporus then declared him Empress of the Roman Empire. After much rape of the boy Sporus, the boy committed suicide at age 20. Doesn’t this sound exactly like what the Transexual psychopaths are trying to do today in 2023? It took hundreds of years for Christians to purge Pederasty out of society and out of the law as legal. The US is almost there in returning it by force of law.
Nero’s favorite hobby was killing Christians. He fed them to the lions. He had them impaled on stakes, painted with pitch, and set on fire to light up the Appian Way as human torches. Nero then went on to burn Rome with fire and blame Christians for his crimes. Of course, Nero “fiddled” while Rome burned. All the evils of the Roman Empire have returned, but not yet with full force. Most Americans are not yet slaves again. But that day is coming soon. The progressives want to erase the US Constitution and replace it with a totalitarian, brutal, state just like the Roman Empire.
So, what to do? Political solutions will not fix it. Too late for that. Violence will not solve it. “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, I will repay.” The Holy Scriptura repeats this many times. The only thing that can fix this is a return to rock solid Christianity based on truth. What is true? The Holy Scriptura, the literal Word of God Almighty. Who is the Word? Jesus Christ, King of Kings, and Lord of Lords. Yahweh is separating the wheat from the chaff now. That’s all good. Anyone going forward will be attacked for calling themselves Christian. They are already targeting us with legal persecution. Soon, it will become outright murder of Christians. Will the Us Government protect us? Sadly, no. Our own government is the primary malignant force driving the hate and violence against Christians.
Don’t despair, we know the end. The Arc of history bends irrevocably towards the end of time and the great finale…. The Return of the King. King Jesus, King of Kings, and Lord of Lords. Hold fast to truth and never listen to the culture. Love God, and love your neighbor, form small communities of Christians committed to the truth. Love much. We will see Jesus, face to face. Corum Deo.
Wow, sounds like "retribution"! Those misled or repenting should be forgiven, and lose their authority, but there are some who have led others into crime and deserve whatever fate God allows to happen to them, outside His mercy. I won't be doing it, but this is how the unregenerated settle irreconcilable differences.
I wish we were a pagan society. That's actually closer to Christianity than a religiously indifferent society is. The (sincere) pagans at least believe in something beyond their own creature comforts.
Only if you're using "pagan" as a synonym for "non-Christian", taking in everything from Islam to Wicca to atheism and agnosticism. That's really not what the word indicates.
I don't think Ron DeSantis is having the success we hope. This yesterday from a teacher aide in Miami Florida public schools (and Miami has a whole lot of Republican Cubans in charge).
..Did you know Biden proclaimed a new holiday for yesterday, Transgender Visibility Day? Everyone was urged to go out and present in public as their trans selves. We had no idea this was happening. But J said when she was out she saw a lot of men with breasts yesterday on the buses and in the street and stores. So many obviously on estrogen!
I see many 12 and 13 years old teen every day at school and they are they not faking it at all they are super sweet and nice I support them!!
Counselors support them too and even teachers.
They aren't faking because the hormones do change the appearance of the body. And the idea can seize you like a possession and a compulsion especially if counselors, teachers and doctors tell you.
Terrific commentary as per usual Rod but as I’ve said, and as you know, in totalitarian regimes, elections don’t matter. Dissidents are silenced lest they be locked up. And your shilling for DeSantis is a head-scratcher still. Trump won’t be allowed to win. DeSantis might be. But if anything Trump is the needed hand grenade to throw into Washington. But he knows he won’t be allowed to win so I don’t know why he’s bothering. He still hasn’t returned to Twitter. Pastors of all denominations are all scared of saying boo. I don’t know the solution. Do you?
I too stopped donating when Obama got elected. Their sycophantic reporting and weekly sob stories about illegal immigrants and gay marriage and ‘dark history of...’ grew utterly tiresome.
I can't find your comment accusing me of either fabricating what's happening with what was promised to be an easy and quick application and approval process or being an insulting applicant. Neither are true. Nothing is gained by tormenting the only people who could help you, and they did their best within a system they said has recently experienced problems. The auto recordings refer to abnormally long waits on the phone system. And it can take hours on hold. The representatives were all polite, patient and so was I. So I am responding here.
You say it never happened, but if it did, I deserved it.
It did happen, and I have assurances from the people I've spoken to, that it's not my fault. I also thanked them for trying.
Urban, most of the progressives don't live up to their claims of being tolerant and inclusive either, but no one calls them on it.
They don't hate us because we don't follow what we preach. They hate us because of what we preach. They hate our claim that there is a natural order. They hate that universal moral standards exist. They hate any limits on their own autonomy. People who think they are God get very angry with anyone who points out they're not.
Yes a wide spectrum of every conceivable thing, as long as it is not the message of sin, repentance and regeneration, which is now loathed as worthy of death. They are openly saying the transphobes brought this on themselves. This is leading to the same place as former times in history. That arc is proving to be a circle despite all the cant about progress.
Brian’s experience is also mine. What you are experiencing is largely a veneer.
If you believe your views are inerrant it makes it very difficult to recognize, let alone call out, hypocrisy on your own side. In fact, in an ideology that states unflinchingly that it is on "the right side of history" or that "Progress is inevitable" hypocrisy cannot really even exist, provided anything one does or says can be seen as serving the ideology.
If we take into account Matthew 21:12, one may argue it is not that simple. But I totally see the point. I sometimes think that christianity is very bad as a code to be a politian and leading people in general, because it doesnt allow you to hurt anyone. Like if it really wasnt from this world :)
There is no human plan that can overcome this. Christians can scurry around and whip up all kinds of ideas and solutions but you are spitting into a hurricane. You in Christ, Christ in you will overcome.
The problem with David French and Sohrab Ahmari is that they are both wrong. Either of their ideologies requires abandoning personal responsibility in favor of government
The Left: Maximal personal autonomy.
The Right: Maximal personal responsibility.
Funny, but those two actually end up in a very similar place: everyone gets to do whatever they want to, and if you fall off a moral cliff, you just weren't responsible enough with your freedom, so it's all your fault.
Disagree. Maximal personal responsibility means consequences. Consequences result in corrections.
Nope. If that were true our healthcare system (among other long festering problems) would have decently reformed a long time ago.
We have assiduously protected the healthcare system from consequences. The only solution is that patient pays. And not through his insurance company. If he buys insurance he submits the claim to the insurer, the insurer pays his and he pays the provider. That alone will result in consequences.
Pays him
I’m sorry but I don’t believe that hypocrisy is the problem; the left doesn’t give a rat’s butt about it or haven’t you noticed we are living with s as two tiered justice system? Trump may not be as moral as you wish but he’s torn the mask off the false empathy of the left and for that I will vote for him again if he’s the nominee.
Im not sure if you are speaking to me.
Was trying to reply to urban hermit...I lose my comments occasionally.
Now we understand better and better every day the people in Biblical times who didn’t understand…
The predestination/elect debates have always been above my pay grade, but at some point you have to be like, wow, some people just seem supernaturally incapable of noticing, you know?
Bless you for all you do to wake up the dead!
Or maybe some of us are less captivated by the flash bang rah-rah show of the news cycle and instead attuned to deeper, quieter things that will matter much, much more than than the passing ephemera of Now. I'm often thought to be some kind of starry eyed optimist here, but I'm not-- quite the opposite in fact, other than ultimately affirming that God's will shall be done, always. This century will be infamous in historical memory, but not for any of the reasons Rod and others here think.
Camille Paglia has been publicly saying for 30+ years that transgenderism is the nail in the coffin for a civilization
Indeed. Thank you for sharing.
Yep.
Please watch this. She lays it all quite clearly:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8BRdwgPChQ
She’s interesting, as always, and I agree with her point about waiting until the age of majority before taking any permanent steps—when I was 16, I had very clear ideas of how I expected life to play out for me and I was wrong on almost every single count.
However, her criticism of androgyny as a symptom of cultural decay is ill-informed. And I say this as someone who’s studied the period of the barbarian successors to the Roman Empire in the west extensively (my own research was on the 6th and 7th century Visigothic kingdom). Moreover, all these cultures she holds up as being in decline, the Hellenistic age, 1890s London, Weimar aren’t where ANY of these cultures actually ended. I’m sure the English would be very surprised by the news that Wilde was the end of their culture or even their empire. Hellenistic culture persisted for centuries under the Ptolomies and indeed under the Romans, far, far longer than the historical blip that is Athenian Empire or the heyday of Sparta.
So, on her historical observations, let’s just say she’s a bit confused.
Interesting input. Thanks. Have you read Sexual Personae? That was her graduate thesis i believe, full of academic references and footnotes.
I have, but it was back in the 90s when it first came out so I don’t remember too much of it off hand.
Even in her confusion, Paglia was quite prescient in many ways. I love how she rattles today's woke Puritans, who can't fathom how someone who identifies as transgender -- of the Aladdin Sane type -- can totally dig the misogyny of the Rolling Stones circa 1968-72.
Right on. Well-said, Sir!
Yeah she is old school punk. My peeps. 👍
And I find her speedy intellectualism to be quite intoxicating and funny.
My sense of her is that she really enjoys being a bomb thrower and skewering whatever the modern orthodoxies are. And we need people like that to keep us honest!
Here’s the funny thing though and why I don’t get too worked up about whatever it is that the kids these days are going on about:
Your Bowie reference is extremely apt. Because to our parents’ and grandparents’ generation, Bowie and Paglia were both, in their own way, shockingly out there, smashing boundaries and offending everyone.
Well, we’re all grown up now and we are the establishment and guess what? The kids (who, to be perfectly clear, are NOT US ANYMORE) are out to shock us, to smash our boundaries, and, more than anything else, to offend us.
It’s the way of the world. Their kids and grandkids will do something even more outrageous to offend them.
Anyways, Paglia’s still doing what she’s always done, which is to throw bombs. She’s just been left behind by the culture and so it seems like she’s throwing bombs from the right rather than the left these days. Which means her evolution into a curmudgeon (albeit a witty and entertaining one) is well under way.
(Note: her ‘70s style is a dead giveaway)
Great response. Thanks. But I do not think the current state of youth and our world is entirely just another round of youthful rebellion. They are cold-blooded, godless bellies of demonic appetite.
Don’t you think that people raised on Cole Porter and George and Ira Gershwin thought the same of David Bowie?
I just watched a new (to me) production of The Barber of Seville on YouTube a few nights ago and was reminded of the scene right after Rosina’s big second act aria of “The Futile Precaution” where Doctor Bartolo laments the kids these days with their crazy music and how things were much better in his day and gets properly sent up.
And from his older generation’s perspective, Rosina’s desire to marry the “penniless” Lindoro on the basis of love alone was absolutely, shockingly, inexplicably terrible. That’s not what marriage is for! What the heck are kids thinking these days anyways?
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose….
Soft totalitarianism will become hard totalitarianism very quickly
Yes. They are dolling out satanic viagra by the truck load.
Times are bad, that is for sure, but we cannot allow our fear to destroy what is good. Because by simple warmorgering, christianity will become just a political party, an ideology and we will loose the capacity to decide between right and wrong.
Of course we are afraid, who wouldnt be afraid that their children would be castrated by some fanatics. But we cannot allow this fear to controll us, because by simply fighting transgender, we will inevitably simplify christianity into the anti-LGBT movement.
More than in the past, it is essential to put our faith in God, look for everything that is great in christianity and in the world and be clever.
And regarding someone reading this, my message is this: sometimes you cannot park your car without going backwards.
Persecution, hard, is coming.
What else were Christians ever promised? By Jesus Christ, by Paul, by Peter, by James, by John?
Eternal life, free from the mortal coil of death.
That, too. Also the peace that passeth all understanding. But also persecutions and crosses.
Yes. Jesus commanded his followers to pick up their cross and follow Him. Crosses are not a trip to Carmel by the sea, wine tasting and tantric massage.
Absolutely correct. God picks our crosses for us, and while they're usually not the ones we want, they're always the ones we need.
It’s not complicated. Churches should simply do what the Lord told us to do: study and preach His word.
No private entity or opinion has any right to prevent this. They have no right to supplant it. But the church world has pulled up its skirt and bent over the hood of the car for anybody wanting to use her for their own gratification. The church is not to advocate violence or be militant, but if any party wants to disease a congregation with their personal issues they need their teeth kicked in and tossed out with the garbage.
"the average American has the same life expectancy of someone born in the poorest city in England." No surprise there. We have the lowest life expectancy among "peer countries", i.e., Western industrialized nations, for the simple reason that they have universal health care and we don't. We have private health insurance* AND private health care, and that's the worst of both worlds if you are not wealthy. That's why medical expenses are the 2nd biggest reason (after loss of income) for bankruptcies in America - which is something people in Canada and most of Europe don't have to worry about. Even middle class Americans have to ration their own healthcare, because they simply can't afford it. And without Medicare, most of the elderly will die very quickly.
In my more paranoid moments, I wonder if that isn't the plan behind Republican politicians' constant banging on about getting rid of the 'entitlements' (Medicare and Social Security, both of which were earned, thank you) that make seniors' lives possible. Get rid of the seniors ASAP before they cost "more than they're worth" and pass their assets on...
*Here's a classic example of how it works: when I was a year away from becoming eligible for Medicare, my private health insurance increased my monthly premium from $350 to $950 for that last year. They knew that I wouldn't be able to get coverage anywhere else in my rural state. And they knew that I didn't dare risk not having insurance at all, just in case... It was sheer greed.
This, exactly. Our health care system, top to bottom, is a travesty. We combine the worst aspects of government run health care and for profit privately run care, and pay more than double what other countries do for it. And we get worse results.
Anyone outside a major metro area deals with months-long wait times, very long drives for quality specialist care, often long drives even for basic care. There are multiple counties around the nation with exactly zero maternity hospitals -- no wonder maternal mortality is higher than other developed countries.
Meanwhile for those who have access and care, it's all based on maximizing billable items and minimizing lawsuits rather than optimizing patient health. Remember the video Rod posted where the Vanderbilt folks were talking about the revenue stream from gender transition care? It's like that for *all* types of care.
Even in large metro areas, there are long wait times for specialists and you still have to drive long distances to get care, in some cases. They try to build centers in different regions of the metro area, so they can be more local, but it can still be a hassle to use a facility much of the time. The facility with more appointments and sooner openings might not be the one closest to your location. Our medical system really needs to upgraded.
I recently bought private health insurance for my son and me here in Hungary. We could go into the state health system, but it has problems, and the private system is shockingly inexpensive (for an American). I bought the top of the line policy from Cigna, one that covers everything, and paid a fraction of what I was paying in the US. I thought something was wrong when they quoted me the price, but no, it really is that cheap compared to America. I remind you: this isn't for the state hospitals and doctors, but for private ones.
Germany has a mix of public and private... Being in the hospital in Germany reminded me of movies of US hospitals in the 1950s.
However, watching the grandmother of a friend slowly die in 2004 was one of the most intense experiences of my life. (I wasn't there for that moment, but with my friend's family for the 3 weeks she was hospitalized.) As she was an immigrant pensioner, most of the doctors were hardly kind. She was in intensive care for nearly 3 weeks and was moved to a regular ward not because she was improving, but because she was taking up space and there were only a few ICU beds. On her last night on this earth, my friend and I talked to her and held her hand while she gasped for breath... The first couple of times, I ran for the nurse - there was only one for the whole ward from 11pm until 6am - but it's not like she had much of anything she could do, because it seems like the hospital had written her off, and not even giving her some oxygen to help her breathe was an option. So every time, we'd coach her back with "Davai, davai," when it looked like she had stopped breathing, since there was little else we could do, she'd gasp so hard her whole body shook, then after a few minutes, it would seem like she'd lose the momentum to breathe again, and the whole process would repeat again and again and again.
My friend and his mother happened to be at the hospital when she did die early the following afternoon. They were there because the doctors wanted to talk to them about moving her home, because she was taking up space at the hospital...
And this was Germany! Where people go for specialized medical care from other countries! But God forbid you need a neonatal bed for a preemie with Down Syndrome, because even being military with access to all the top-of-the-line stuff, the best that could be done is fly the baby by helicopter from Regensburg to Belgium, where the nearest such bed could be found... And by the way, only one parent is allowed to fly with the child (who did not make it).
I am horrified with a lot that goes on with the US hospitals, especially as they consolidate into conglomerates and see the profits - such as the transgender "care" - as the highest priority. That being said, after seeing what I saw in Germany, I still prefer getting healthcare in the US.
The US has excellent healthcare if you can afford it. If you can't, you are dead.
Especially because a longer life, on average, is predicated upon continuous access to healthcare, not upon once-in-a-life events, which are seldom happening and which have less chances to happen if you see doctors frequently. If you have to pay $200 to see a GP, compared with about $0, it makes a difference.
It sounds like your friend's grandmother was on her deathbed and nothing was going to save her life so it's not clear what the complaint here is about. In the US, unless you make your wishes clear explicitly in advance, you might end up hooked to life support which will only delay the inevitable -- and of course produce bigger bill.
By the way on the day my father died (in Michigan, 1991) I was also talked to about the fact that they could not keep him in the hospital due to Medicare regs and he would either have to go home or to a nursing home. Though nowadays at least we have hospice to help with such cases. And dying at home with family (as Rod;s dad did) is, I think, a better choice than dying hooked to machines in a hospital.
She had a stroke. She had the "luck" to live less than a mile from the hospital, which is probably why the stroke didn't kill her right off. Once it became clear that there was almost no chance of her recovering, the hospital wasn't exactly subtle about what they saw as "wasted space" in treating her - bonus, if they could get her out the door alive, then her death isn't on their books... or hands... or whatever you would have. I mean it's pretty sad when the only people over there who seemed to have any sympathy were the janitorial staff.
Sure, there's a good chance that she would have died anyway, and I get what you are saying about "being hooked up to machines". However, giving a person oxygen to help them breathe is hardly an "extraordinary measure" and would have made the last day or so much less traumatic. Discussing this with a nurse friend of mine over here, her opinion is that what they did there would be considered abuse in the US, so take it for what you will.
There are a lot of issues with the medical system in the US, but they are different types of issues. I think, in general, US medicine has traditionally been more focused on solving problems, and in Europe, more on "managing" problems. Throw in a good dash of single payer, and you get things like - in Germany - having to wait 6 weeks to get an MRI, and then having to wait another 6 weeks to have an appointment with the doctor to discuss the results (from what I understand, the doctors only get paid once per patient per month per issue - I don't know for sure, but it was told to me by a friend with debilitating chronic pain). Another person I know, at 75 or so (and in fantastic shape - he's on track to make it to 120), blew out his knees skiing, and got them replaced in 2019. He's been in pain since - something is not right with the new knees - but it's only now, even with top-of-the-line insurance, that he's getting to go to a specialist to try to get a better resolution, but the specialist is 3+ hours away. Here in SE Wisconsin, even going to Chicago for something wouldn't take that long, but there's huge centers not just in Milwaukee but in Kenosha for just about anything you can think of.
Again, there is a lot that is wrong with the US system as well - my sister had a friend who died at 21 or 22 because of medical error, for example - but I'm much more confident, facing a potentially big health issue myself - that the doctors in the US are actually going to do more to solve the problem, and that there's much more of an attitude of "if the first thing didn't work, we'll keep trying" rather than "sorry, we gave it our best shot".
Come on Rod you gotta tell us in USD how much we're talking, for both premiums and deductible (and out of pocket max if you know it). Can either of you receive treatment in the US if you want/need it?
Even the socialized medicine regimes are collapsing due to unsupportable costs and demand. It's being rationed in Canada, the second most expensive medicine in the world. It's also being broken by the enormous demand for transgender medications and surgeries, with the lifelong medical costs that ensue. It doesn't help that most people are now so overweight, either.
Actually most of the burden is ageing population
Healthcare will be rationed under any system. Triage is a reality even in the richest, best-provisioned systems. We really can't have it all.
Which will only get worse because we haven’t encouraged our society to birth the next generations.
Is that because urban communities are shooting galleries for drug gangsters? And fentanyl is killing hundreds of thousands?
The Republicans are not trying to cancel Medicare or Social Security. They are trying to make them fiscally solvent. This means that benefits will come later, or the entire system collapses. Democrats want the system to,collapse and become like China. No benefits. Just mandated death of seniors who no longer work. Just watch the massive depopulation of China over the next thirty years.
Where in the world has any Democrat said they want Medicare/Social Security to collapse and become like China? These types of comments are so irresponsible.
They don’t have to say it; like they haven’t said they want open borders but here we are...
In Canada, assisted suicide for any reason just became public policy. It's a way of cutting costs. Veterans calling a government health care line have had assisted suicide offered. Socialized medicine, or not, once worked. They won't survive woke.
We need to help the Canadian government kill themselves.
You’re right, it is the worst of both worlds and it was by design. The Democrats want to turn us into a socialized medical system, and destroying our current system is the best chance of accomplishing that. However, we are now watching the socialized medical systems around the world become completely overwhelmed. There is not enough money to cover basic healthcare for all of the people in each country. In the UK, even for emergency care wait times are long and ambulances are scarce. It can take up to 12 hours to get transported to the hospital. If you get cancer, God help you - it may take six months to see a specialist just to initialize treatment.
What we need is an overhaul of our current system to get rid of the Obamacare requirements that overloaded the system and require us to pay huge premiums.
It's every transman and transwoman for themselves! Sauve Qui Peut! But seriously, I agree. Lots of destroy the village to save the village BS in play.
Capture the village and turn it into Disneyland.
Not all of them. I don't think the German, French, Italian, or Taiwanese systems have any major problems. I'm not saying any one system is perfect, but some have major problems and others have minor, solvable ones.
We, on the other hand, have no market discipline in the form of competition -- we have hospital system monopolies, insurance monopolies, doctors locked into particular hospital networks, and totally opaque pricing. Even after the Trump administration mandated that hospitals release their price lists, what they have are massive spreadsheets on their website where the price of every bandage and Tylenol pill is listed separately, making it impossible to figure out how much a procedure will actually cost. It's the apotheosis of malicious compliance. Try it with your local hospital's website, and prepare to weep.
Meanwhile we have too few resident spots and too few medical schools. Others here have already addressed the issues with Medicare. Medicaid is a mess too. Much as veterans complain about the VA, in many ways it works better than what the rest of us have to deal with!
Exactly. And it doesn't help that none of the discussions are about actual health care, they're put in the form of political talking points.
And as a matter of fact, taxes or insurance premiums aren't health care. My friend is a doctor at a regional hospital, who told me I probably won't be able to find a doctor who takes Medicare patients.
My husband has been on Medicare for 12 years now, and we've never had a problem finding a doctor who takes Medicare patients in South Dakota.
I'm sorry I got snotty with you the other day, Eve.
If you think Europe's in great shape, wow, are you under informed about the financial crises going on there. It's France cutting services and pensions, and Germany and Italy's people are in revolt due to our war to regime change Russia wrecking their economies. The priority there is reducing expenditures for social programs, while ramping war expenditures massively. Meanwhile revenues are down, inflation is far higher than here, and cuts are being made so more people can be killed... over politics and moneymaking.
I lived in Germany for 4 1/2 years, I've been back and forth now since 1996... The German system is better than most in Western Europe but it is terrible. See my comment above for some details.
If it's so bad why do the Germans prefer it? No doubt here are movements ti fix this or that facet of the system, but none at all to junk and move to something else.
1) It's better than a lot of the rest of Europe.
2) The Germans are incapable of admitting that anything of theirs is inferior to anyone else's.
Meanwhile, here in America, people are holding bake sales and Go Fund Me pages to pay for their children's cancer treatments.
And if you live in rural America, there may not even be an ambulance. From Mississippi Today:
"From Mississippi Today:
The neighbor had already tried to get her son admitted at the local hospital, Sharkey Issaquena Community Hospital – the only hospital in the county. But it was full, and later lost power and had to transfer its patients to other hospitals. The rural hospital has been struggling to stay afloat and was, as of September, seeking a buyer. It has continued to lose money over the years, even after pooling its resources with other small hospitals to buy supplies at a discounted rate. EMTs said they’d return for Jay after taking someone already in the ambulance to Greenville, but the neighbor, a certified nurse assistant, knew the boy couldn’t wait. When Myles heard her son couldn’t get emergency medical help, she was dumbfounded...
As they rolled into Greenville at 10 p.m., Myles blew past five red stop lights. Her coworker hung his head out of the window, yelling at bystanders to get out of the way. When Myles spotted the Delta Regional Medical Center, all she could think was, “Thank God we made it.” Twenty minutes later, Myles discovered that Jay had four fractured ribs, and one of his lungs was punctured. "
Oh, and there is enough money to pay for basic healthcare for everyone. Like everything else, it's just that there has to be the will and the decision to actually do it. It would be good to have a legitimate debate about health care (NOT health insurance, which is what the talking points are all about) in this country, but it all turns into talking points to quickly.
But hey, your Woke War in Ukraine...
>>I wonder if that isn't the plan behind Republican politicians' constant banging on about getting rid of the 'entitlements' (Medicare and Social Security, both of which were earned, thank you) that make seniors' lives possible.
Republicans are every bit the enemy of the good, true and decent as are the Democrats.
First, that republicans want to get rid of healthcare for the old is more of our despicable disinformation censors' talking points - AKA lies.
Second, we had to choose between rent, food and so-called health insurance the past 15 years. We haven't been to doctors even though we are in our seventies since 2004 when I last had employer health insurance. Now one day we will die but that is not because we make expensive visits and pay huge amounts we cannot afford in any case. Did you know the leading cause of death is medical mistakes? Surely medicine does save lives but it takes them, too. And over medicalization is a huge problem. Adding in all the free gender mutilations and pharmaceuticals for profit (even in socialized medicine) is not just a huge burden, but causes untold harm. I admit we are vegetarians, which eliminated some emerging issues I had 25 years ago. Seniors aren't dying from not having Medicare. I did apply for social security but it seems they are badly backlogged and there is no action. Our Wokester congressional critter's office tells me they can't help but let them know what happens...
We are those our parents warned us about!
Congratulations on your excellent health. May it long continue.
All you have to do to get Social Security is to go on-line or call the national toll-free service at 1-800-772-1213 (TTY 1-800-325-0778) or visit your local Social Security office. Call ahead to make an appointment. https://www.ssa.gov/forms/ssa-1.html#:~:text=You%20can%20apply%3A,ahead%20to%20make%20an%20appointment.
You do not need any "congressional critter's" office.
Mitch McConnell, Ron Johnson, Rick Scott, Lindsey Graham, Mike Lee (who said at a campaign stop “It will be my objective to phase out Social Security, to pull it up by the roots and get rid of it,”), Marco Rubio are among those who are on record as having called to either sunset Social Security and Medicare or just outright put them on the chopping block.
https://www.newsweek.com/list-republicans-suggested-cutting-medicare-social-security-1779917
Most of these have now backed off and "changed their minds" once it dawned on them that most voters (85%) want (and often need) both programs.
I dismiss what you say because in fact it's not true. I applied online months ago and it has been "stalled" for months when I check the site, long after the supposed 2-4 weeks.
You are so wrong because you assume mainstream propaganda is true when actual experience reveals otherwise. I only contacted the useless Woke Congress person's office, because I cannot get any answers. As for office visits, they are scheduled for appointments more than two months in the future. I even made one.
All I can say is that when I applied and got Social Security, I called the number, got an appointment, went down, signed up, and was done and signed up within 4 weeks. I'm sorry that the people in your area aren't as competent. Try calling their phone number. What do you have to lose?
I have called the national phone number and after multiple hangups, call drops and an eventual hours long wait on hold, they had no answers. I was told the recent changeover to login.gov and various glitches associated with multiple security software additions had produced problems linking to SSA.gov. After hours on the phone I did get an application through, even though she said she wasn't really supposed to. It seems many millions of SSA accounts got hacked. I also got a phone appointment two months in the future. I was told not to cancel that even though the site said I should, in case something else goes wrong. I have to say she was polite, sympathetic and as helpful as she could be. But I was told the system is in turmoil. The congressional office said that the social security administration has been getting a tsunami of complaints, but there is nothing they can do but please keep them informed. She said they are still not up to speed to help constituents since the election. I was exceedingly polite and thankful, never mentionimg politics, but the priority of this Democrat as she appears on local TV is in various Woke causes, especially transgenderism, since she is an LGBTQ activist herself.
Fran, see a lawyer who specializes in Social Security law. You won't be charged a fee for the person to listen to your case.
Yeah just a cut of whatever they manage to collect, like those Camp Lejeune TV ads and the like!
"Second, we had to choose between rent, food and so-called health insurance the past 15 years"
I'm not trying to be argumentative here, but what's stopped you from working all these years? If you're struggling to get by then there's no shame in going to work. Walmart is easy to get into and has excellent benefits .
I'm still engaged in labor at 70, but it's not enough to pay for what has high deductibles so you can't use it anyway. Rent has doubled over the past several years. It seems that Wal Mart doesn't hire people with the wrong opinions on the internet.
Wow. Up here, Wal Mart will hire anyone who breathes, and they certainly don't check social media. (Now, if you were applying at a prison, they probably would...) Again, I'm sorry to hear that, and you're very unique in your experience.
So you say. They have more applicants than "associate" positions. The folks I know at Wal Mart tell me they are also on SSI and food stamps. They also said that as a former director at a Fortune 500 company in IT I am not a good fit for their applicant profile, and the doxxing site puts me beyond the pale as soon as the internet archive shows up in their search. Everyone is extensively vetted. Now Rod said this would happen to Christians. You don't believe? And don't tell me to learn to code, I did over 40 years ago. Too bad H1Bs are the preference.
Exactly.
Eve, I'm a foot-stomping proponent of universal healthcare, but the main reasons we have a lower life expectancy than other nations has nothing to do with our health care system and everything to do with A) our homicide rate and B) our obesity rate. The former is a major source of deaths among the younger half of the population and the latter cuts into our longevity at the far end of life.
And C) our opioid abuse rate.
And meth. Meth won't kill a person quite as quickly as fentanyl or opioids, but it will get them eventually.
Does anyone know the drug abuse rates in other countries? I'm not where I can easily google that right now. but I can't believe that is something unique to the US.
The United States consumes more illicit drugs than any other country. When compared to other countries, the USA has a very high rate of illegal drug use. It is estimated that approximately six percent of people in the United States use illegal drugs.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/drug-use-by-country
One problem I have with the site's article: it does not make clear whether it's talking about absolute numbers or relative to population numbers. The US is the third most populous country, so in absolute numbers you would expect us to be very near the top of the drug abuse stats.
Also it doesn't really work alcoholism stats into the mix as far as I can tell.
Add to that our (mainly automotive) accident rate. Last I knew accidental death is the leading cause of death for people under age 35.
As you might recall, Trump was for a single payer system. A lot of business types outside the symbiotic medical, insurance and legal industries prefer not having to deal with employee insurance companies and regulations. It is a distraction and makes employees expensive, and distorts who is desirable to be hired, and becomes a source of conflict.
Uh... he was for it in 2000, in his (ghost-written) book, "The America We Deserve." And then he campaigned and became President, and he was against it, repeatedly slamming it, in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020... You can look it up.
Just like Rod Dreher used to be, and me too. Don't get fooled again... But most are.
I doubt those explain the higher maternal and infant mortality rate here, relative to other developed countries.
That is entirely, tragically explicable by the fact that insurance companies are allowed to deny coverage for pre-natal, maternity and infant care, so that poor women don't get access to the care they need.
And the absence of prenatal and obstetric care from so many parts of the country. And the poor quality of care for so many.
Regarding NPR, just read the article, "U.S. Capitol rioter the 'QAnon Shaman' is released early from federal prison" in which the author made no mention of the video that McCarthy released showing Jacob Chansley being peacefully escorted around by Capitol police. But bringing up that pesky fact wouldn't support the Leftist narrative.
To be fair, Mr. Carlson only showed the last 4 minutes of Mr. Chansley's visit; he showed none of the previous footage of Mr. Chansley's 50+ minutes in the Capitol building. Most people look peaceful... later...
I guess you are the token Woke foil here...
I thought Rod wanted a forum for all points of views? I am sure he approves of his readers insulting each other for expressing their opinions. If not mistaken Eve complimented you on your health and gave you excellent instructions on how to get your earned Social Security benefits.
Was she sincere? A little like saying at a small business, nice restaurant, be a shame if anything happened to it. And I bet she's anticipating the pleasure of schedenfreude.
As for her sage advice on applying, you must think I'm stupid to think I hadn't done that already. It's that vaunted big government efficiency we all praise, as their real priority is not competence, but intersectional victim pokemon points as the basis for equity employment.
I spent 26 years as a financial advisor and never had a single client unable to receive their Social Security when applied for through either their online system or in person at their office. I am now retired and have had excellent experience dealing with both social security and Medicare. I am sorry you are having such problems. Best of luck.
How do you apply at the office? You can't just walk-in, you have to get an appointment in the future, which is .backlogged. Then you have travel there and show up faraway on time. More delays after that of unknown length. So phone appointments to apply were two months in the future. The online process to create a login.gov is fraught with security glitches. Do you have a security dongle or do you want a list of 12 long onetime crypto passwords?
So someone finally removed obstacles and I applied and it's stuck. Months waiting. Nobody can find out anything. Exactly like the legal immigration dept.
So were your successes pre covid, or pre Biden? I was told that the priority is developing the mandatory equity program across all agencies.
Fran is chronically waspish.
I just refuse to watch Fox News. Or MSNBC. Or CNN. Or Newsmax. Or OANN. Or any 24/7 cable news network. I read my news, and from multiple, multi-national sources. And then I go and look at the footage.
Our host is partial to the Grey Lady.
You periodically bring up Alinsky but now you're following his guidance here. When lacking a coherent response to a reasonable but alternate point of view, offer a personal attack. It is woke strategy to call somebody woke instead of debating their ideas, literally a performative contradiction, extraordinary to behold. I believe you have admonished me about this before, and you were right, back then. Now, you've fallen into the same trap.
There's nothing woke about Eve giving an opinion. Here's mine: the shaman was a disgraceful fool that day and I believe he admitted that much later on. I agree with some of the convictions, you are not allowed to forcefully storm into the Capitol, but I also understand there is punitive overkill happening. None of that overreaction negates the wrongs of that day, the crimes that happened alongside the foolishness, alongside the patriotism, alongside the "visits."
Nobody was there to "visit" the Capitol that day. They were there to protest the election results, and try to prevent Biden's eventual inauguration. Portraying them as tourists is laughable, I don't care how politely some of the "visitors" were escorted by cops. Tucker Carlson isn't right about everything, neither is Rod, neither are you. January 6th was a mass protest by design, obviously called together by Trump, which turned unlawful quickly. Everyone involved has soul-searching to do, at the very minimum.
I say this as someone who defended them as basically patriotic when it was all happening live. I also minimized the Proud Boys and their ideology. Furthermore, I don't believe anyone involved with that day should still be in prison after all this time. Probation, yes.
Anyway, that's my opinion. If you don't care to debate, if you want to act like some teenage liberal throwing a hissy fit, who calls the opposition "racist" and then turns away, offended and self-satisfied, fine.
I'm not going to get into a book long refutation of what really do fall within the sphere of ideology of Woke. I think we all know what Woke means and it does align with Alinsky, who said telling lies is acceptable in pursuit of ends, because there is no objective morality or truth. In fact, the end entirely resembles the means. There isn't even any actual end, as at any particular point in time, you only ever have those actions and their consequences.
There was also a video of him posted on twitter by Scott Adams where he is outside the building still, telling a large group of people milling about that "Trump tweeted we should all go home and not be violent". So we've got scenes at the start and end showing him being basically quite calm / not violent.
Edit: here is a link
https://twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/1634329367521406976?lang=en
Yes, but the Jan 6th committee and various branches of law enforcement have long had all the footage of Chansley at the Capitol building. If they have something that contradicts what Tucker Carlson showed, they can display it at anytime. You're point doesn't hold up.
When you're right, you're correct! They are attempting Total Information Control as the next step after Total Information Awareness. From TIA to TIC to t**ts up for the country we knew!
I hope NPR goes down in flames.
We got here so fast. Here I was worrying about my kids not having enough social credit to get good jobs or get a place in line for life saving medical care, but we just went straight to “If they’re murdered we will celebrate the murderer.” Bleak, bleak stuff.
My kids’ classical Christian high school here in Philly is closing at the end of this year after only three years. They just couldn’t get the enrollment numbers, despite being quite affordable and providing an extremely rigorous, robustly Christian education. Where are all the parents who say they want options like this? It’s so frustrating. (We’re applying to Martin Saints, and I’m grateful for the opportunity, but it’s farther away and more expensive.)
Sometimes I fret and chomp at the bit to get out of a place with so little community, but I suspect it’s getting more like this everywhere. It may be that this is just what living as faithful Christians in America is going to look like for the next few generations, and this is the “sink or swim” period where we learn how to do it.
Homeschool is best. Anyone can do it. There are excellent homeschool groups like Classical Connections to teach you how to do it. Teacher’s certification is bunk and actually damaging to education. We homeschooled our children thirty years ago and our grandchildren will never see the inside of any public school.. public schools ar harmful and dangerous to the mental and spiritual health of all children.
Homeschool children go much faster in studies and much deeper and broader. They waste no time changing classes or teaching propaganda. One child is an Electrical engineer. Another child has a PhD in molecular microbiology. So don’t tell me they were damaged by home school. They social with other activities.
Oh, I agree! We homeschooled our teens through 9th and 8th grades and are still homeschooling the younger four. We’ve found that classical Christian high schools provide a breadth and depth I just don’t have bandwidth for along with teaching all the younger kids, though. It’s also allowed to us to connect with another like minded family, which is a premium benefit with BenOp community so thin on the ground.
There will be more Christian school attacks.
Likely. But I’m not yet ready to go cowering to the ground. We will be asking hard questions about security, though.
No, not everyone can home school. Some people must work to keep a roof over the head and food on the table. Others lack the skills. I support homeschooling, but we also have to recognize it will never be more than a minority option-- we people for whom it is not a viable option should not be guilt-tripped about it.
They will still have to live in a country that will be ruled by a majority of public schooled people. Much better to run for school board
“Where are all the parents?”
Unable to trust instructors at a private Christian classical school. They’ve had a serious run on abuse issues. Moreover the more people like Rod, who take pretty extremist positions, associate themselves loudly with this kind of school, the more professional classicists are unwilling to be involved and parents are loathe to enroll students in them.
“the more people like Rod, who take pretty extremist positions”
Have you noticed that he is addressing the extreme state of our society and world?
You want extreme?
Stay tuned.
We’ve got entire regions at risk of losing all ObGYN care. You’re right, we ain’t seen nothing yet. And this ain’t helping.
So what is your solution?
Live near the Great Lakes, get close with all your neighbors, avoid Twitter, learn how to brew.
Water wars will be such a concern in ten years that this will all be fairly irrelevant.
Sounds sane to me.
I have no twitter or social media presence. This is the only account of this type i have ever had.
Woke, woke, we're bloody well woke, you know you got no right to say...
Death culture abortionist.
She probably wouldn’t recognize it as such. We are a country of 330+ mil people and there are plenty who share this view.
We need a Not Like or Disagree choice!
That’s just bureaucracy. I don’t even care about “like” buttons. Very robotic and juvenile part of web-think.
How about simply writing out your response? Novel idea, no?
You’re welcome.
It may have to get so bad that a network is created towards certain safe neighborhoods and states that people will relocate to.
I want to run to the hills. I agree that darkness is creeping into daily life at an alarming speed. Truth is I still am a cog in the machine. I can’t run to the hills. I’m learning to cut back and do more without certain comforts and preferences. I’m surrounded by people who are blind to where we are and we’re headed. Lord Jesus have mercy! I’m am thankful for your writing and truth telling. Anyone have successes or strategies they can offer?
“Anyone have successes or strategies they can offer?”
Faith in the one who has overcome this world and the father of lies who is manifesting within the rising tide of evil.
Find a church that isn’t a social club or intellectual exercise, a church that simply
opens the scriptures and asks, “Lord, please lead us.”
Dumpster diving, recycling can collection, waste vegetable oil as diesel fuel, food pantry delivery, sell unneeded possessions on Craigslist, get free internet and cell service with an Obama phone, switch only to free broadcast TV not cable, give up meat and become vegan. Never eat out, save what you can even though savings shrink from inflation every month. Never buy new, go to yard and rummage sales. Fix your own vehicle. Only get auto liability insurance. Turn down the thermostat to 45F. Don't succumb to weird appetites. Get an RV for when rent becomes unaffordable. Yes, we do all these things. Life goes on, even when shoved off into the precariat. And God provides to the end - that's a big deal my friend.
We are thinking along the same lines, Rod. The woke and globalist allies really do hate us.
https://markmarshall.substack.com/p/we-must-open-our-eyes
Siegel's article is probably the most important piece of writing of the last decade. Share it with everyone.
Well, here we go again, full circle back 2000 years ago, a return to pagan society, full stop. We are almost living in Ephesus again. Ephesus was a potent Roman outpost for trade and power in Asia Minor. Common people worshipped the Roman Gods of petty squabbles, violence, and revenge.
In Rome and all over the Empire, the elite men practiced Pederasty where young boys were stolen and made sexual slaves to rich men. They were raped repeatedly and then thrown in the garbage when they reached puberty. The Emperor Nero bootstomped and murdered his Empress wife and then stole a beautiful teenage boy Sporus, then had him castrated. Nero then married Sporus then declared him Empress of the Roman Empire. After much rape of the boy Sporus, the boy committed suicide at age 20. Doesn’t this sound exactly like what the Transexual psychopaths are trying to do today in 2023? It took hundreds of years for Christians to purge Pederasty out of society and out of the law as legal. The US is almost there in returning it by force of law.
Nero’s favorite hobby was killing Christians. He fed them to the lions. He had them impaled on stakes, painted with pitch, and set on fire to light up the Appian Way as human torches. Nero then went on to burn Rome with fire and blame Christians for his crimes. Of course, Nero “fiddled” while Rome burned. All the evils of the Roman Empire have returned, but not yet with full force. Most Americans are not yet slaves again. But that day is coming soon. The progressives want to erase the US Constitution and replace it with a totalitarian, brutal, state just like the Roman Empire.
So, what to do? Political solutions will not fix it. Too late for that. Violence will not solve it. “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, I will repay.” The Holy Scriptura repeats this many times. The only thing that can fix this is a return to rock solid Christianity based on truth. What is true? The Holy Scriptura, the literal Word of God Almighty. Who is the Word? Jesus Christ, King of Kings, and Lord of Lords. Yahweh is separating the wheat from the chaff now. That’s all good. Anyone going forward will be attacked for calling themselves Christian. They are already targeting us with legal persecution. Soon, it will become outright murder of Christians. Will the Us Government protect us? Sadly, no. Our own government is the primary malignant force driving the hate and violence against Christians.
Don’t despair, we know the end. The Arc of history bends irrevocably towards the end of time and the great finale…. The Return of the King. King Jesus, King of Kings, and Lord of Lords. Hold fast to truth and never listen to the culture. Love God, and love your neighbor, form small communities of Christians committed to the truth. Love much. We will see Jesus, face to face. Corum Deo.
As I said, we need the Esther Option, to be allowed to defend our families, just as in that important Biblical book.
Where you send your daughter to seduce murderous foreign leaders and ask them for the guns? Interesting choice.
I stand by the Bible account. Esther used her position to save the Jewish people from a real genocide. There's a reason that God has that lesson.
I cant wait to hang Haman on his own gallows.
Wow, sounds like "retribution"! Those misled or repenting should be forgiven, and lose their authority, but there are some who have led others into crime and deserve whatever fate God allows to happen to them, outside His mercy. I won't be doing it, but this is how the unregenerated settle irreconcilable differences.
Esther 7:10
“So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then the wrath of the king abated.”
I guess this makes God unregenerate?
Hu?
“Most Americans are not yet slaves again.”
I beg to differ. How do you think we got here? You cannot serve two masters.
I wish we were a pagan society. That's actually closer to Christianity than a religiously indifferent society is. The (sincere) pagans at least believe in something beyond their own creature comforts.
You may be getting your wish as many people still can't resist alternatives.
It's true paganism enabled Paul to preach effectively to pagans who worshipped many gods and even had a statue dedicated to the unknown god.
We are a pagan society.
Only if you're using "pagan" as a synonym for "non-Christian", taking in everything from Islam to Wicca to atheism and agnosticism. That's really not what the word indicates.
Ok
I don't think Ron DeSantis is having the success we hope. This yesterday from a teacher aide in Miami Florida public schools (and Miami has a whole lot of Republican Cubans in charge).
..Did you know Biden proclaimed a new holiday for yesterday, Transgender Visibility Day? Everyone was urged to go out and present in public as their trans selves. We had no idea this was happening. But J said when she was out she saw a lot of men with breasts yesterday on the buses and in the street and stores. So many obviously on estrogen!
I see many 12 and 13 years old teen every day at school and they are they not faking it at all they are super sweet and nice I support them!!
Counselors support them too and even teachers.
They aren't faking because the hormones do change the appearance of the body. And the idea can seize you like a possession and a compulsion especially if counselors, teachers and doctors tell you.
Terrific commentary as per usual Rod but as I’ve said, and as you know, in totalitarian regimes, elections don’t matter. Dissidents are silenced lest they be locked up. And your shilling for DeSantis is a head-scratcher still. Trump won’t be allowed to win. DeSantis might be. But if anything Trump is the needed hand grenade to throw into Washington. But he knows he won’t be allowed to win so I don’t know why he’s bothering. He still hasn’t returned to Twitter. Pastors of all denominations are all scared of saying boo. I don’t know the solution. Do you?