pattygreen

barbarism? Oh brother! This is where you are wrong. We do support HC reform. Just not the reform the president wants, which, ultimately in the long run, leads to government run HC for everyone or at least one more step closer to it.

Have you ever really seen a neighbor die in the street from being hungry in America? I mean, really? If your neighbor was hungry, and you knew it, you would give him some food. In this country we take care of the hungry and homeless with food and shelters. Health care is over the budget. We can't afford to pay for HC for everyone who doesn't have it. We need to set some limits on our spending. HC is NO ONES 'right'.

Why don't you go back to the article I posted and tell me what it is in there that you don't agree with? Do you feel that HC is your 'right'? Why?

"They" was one man. I could dig up just as many videos and pictures of liberals doing similar crap at rallys when Bush was President. If I did, you would just tell me that a small minority of people in your party don't speak for the majority of you. That's all I can say when you relentlessly bring about videos of conservatives protesting. There are a very small minority of jerks in every party. Why don't you try to show us here on LBT that you're not a jerk like that? Why don't you try to be more mature in your hatred for those who don't take your side? Why do you feel the incessive need to belittle those who don't agree with you? So what? Some guy was being a jerk at a protest. I bet if you looked at other videos from that day you could find a liberal at that same protest being a jerk too.

Who cares? What he said is VERY true. I couldn't have said it better myslf. I am in full agreement with his article and every word he wrote. BTW, I don't listen to R.Limbaugh, ever.

If you would read the article that was posted just above your last post, you will understand why people are against the kind of Health Care reform that Obama wants. People want reform, just not his plan for reform. His plan is not reform at all. It's bankruptcy!

I see you wasted some of your "extra time" to post.

Is Health Care a right? By Walter Williams (economics Professor at George Mason University) Most politicians, and probably most Americans, see health care as a right. Thus, whether a person has the means to pay for medical services or not, he is nonetheless entitled to them. Let's ask ourselves a few questions about this vision. Say a person, let's call him Harry, suffers from diabetes and he has no means to pay a laboratory for blood work, a doctor for treatment and a pharmacy for medication. Does Harry have a right to XYZ lab's and Dr. Jones' services and a prescription from a pharmacist? And, if those services are not provided without charge, should Harry be able to call for criminal sanctions against those persons for violating his rights to health care? You say, "Williams, that would come very close to slavery if one person had the right to force someone to serve him without pay." You're right. Suppose instead of Harry being able to force a lab, doctor and pharmacy to provide services without pay, Congress uses its taxing power to take a couple of hundred dollars out of the paycheck of some American to give to Harry so that he could pay the lab, doctor and pharmacist. Would there be any difference in principle, namely forcibly using one person to serve the purposes of another? There would be one important strategic difference, that of concealment. Most Americans, I would hope, would be offended by the notion of directly and visibly forcing one person to serve the purposes of another. Congress' use of the tax system to invisibly accomplish the same end is more palatable to the average American. True rights, such as those in our Constitution, or those considered to be natural or human rights, exist simultaneously among people. That means exercise of a right by one person does not diminish those held by another. In other words, my rights to speech or travel impose no obligations on another except those of non-interference. If we apply ideas behind rights to health care to my rights to speech or travel, my free speech rights would require government-imposed obligations on others to provide me with an auditorium, television studio or radio station. My right to travel freely would require government-imposed obligations on others to provide me with airfare and hotel accommodations. For Congress to guarantee a right to health care, or any other good or service, whether a person can afford it or not, it must diminish someone else's rights, namely their rights to their earnings. The reason is that Congress has no resources of its very own. Moreover, there is no Santa Claus, Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy giving them those resources. The fact that government has no resources of its very own forces one to recognize that in order for government to give one American citizen a dollar, it must first, through intimidation, threats and coercion, confiscate that dollar from some other American. If one person has a right to something he did not earn, of necessity it requires that another person not have a right to something that he did earn. To argue that people have a right that imposes obligations on another is an absurd concept. A better term for new-fangled rights to health care, decent housing and food is wishes. If we called them wishes, I would be in agreement with most other Americans for I, too, wish that everyone had adequate health care, decent housing and nutritious meals. However, if we called them human wishes, instead of human rights, there would be confusion and cognitive dissonance. The average American would cringe at the thought of government punishing one person because he refused to be pressed into making someone else's wish come true. None of my argument is to argue against charity. Reaching into one's own pockets to assist his fellow man in need is praiseworthy and laudable. Reaching into someone else's pockets to do so is despicable and deserves condemnation.

It's true that some Christians believe that the erath is only as old as Adam, which is about 6-7000 years old. But that is not what all Christians believe. I for one, believe the earth is very old. The first book of the bible and the first verse states that "In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth." When that beginning was, no one knows exactly. The next verse says, "and now the erath was empty and void." This tells me that something happened between verse one and two that made the earth empty and void. He also told Adam and Eve to re-plenish the earth. He said that same thing to Noah and his family when they left the ark. If there was nothing on the earth before Adam and Eve, why would God tell them to RE plenish it? I tend to believe as science teaches, that the earth is millions of years old. But I will never believe that mankind is just as old. God created humans 6-7000 yeras ago. The Earth?, well, no one knows when. Just because some Christians disagree on some things, doesn't make God any less real. It just makes mankind human. God teaches that if you search for wisdom in his words like a buried treasure, he will reveal his truths to you. Those who seek to truly know all these wonders of God will get their answers. Those who don't seek may never know. Even if they are considered the wisest men on earth by other men.

{bjean quoite}People like patty should be very afraid for Americans to embrace the idea that the U.S. is a Christian nation and that we include religious teachings in our public schools. I did say that this is a Christian Nation because it was and is , but I never said we should include religious teachings in our public schools. I feel that we should not have to remove what was there since the beginning. Christianity and its teachings are this countries heritage and roots. If you don't like our history and heritage, then you should live elsewhere. It's what this country was founded upon, and I am proud of it! I'm not saying that we should have bible study in school or anything like that. But we should not remove God from the public arena anywhere. To take Christmas out of all the textbooks is crazy. This country has been celebrating the birth of Christ since it was formed. Why should the minority who live here have their agenda catered to? When the muslim, buddhist, etc. person came to America, a Christian nation, they knew full well that we were rooted in Christianity here. They should be content to have their freedom to worship whom they choose. They should not try to remove the God that this country was founded upon, namely Jesus Christ, from the public eye.

I don't see why the problem. Noone ever had a problem with it from the time this country began up until only the past 40 -50 years.

The founding fathers did not include the First Amendment in the Constitution to disallow Christianity from influencing state-established institutions; on the contrary, America's founding fathers expected our nation to be (on the whole) Christian, and our government to reflect that bias. This appears to be a reasonable understanding of the First Amendment - far more reasonable than asserting that it erected an impenetrable wall of separation. And it becomes even more reasonable when one considers the words and actions of America's settlers, founders and leaders. The first act of the United States Congress was to authorize the printing of 20,000 Bibles for the Indians. Further, "When our first President, under the new Constitution, received the request of both Houses of Congress concerning a national declaration of a public day of Thanksgiving and Prayer, 'George Washington...issued a National Thanksgiving Proclamation' without any apparent concern that he might be mixing government and religion." The men who founded our country clearly wedded it to Christian principles. "By today's standards," as syndicated columnist Don Feder says, "the founding fathers were the religious right." Author Tim LaHaye says that... "This Christian consensus is easily verified by the fact that prior to 1789 (the year that eleven of the thirteen states ratified the Constitution), many of the states still had constitutional requirements that a man must be a Christian in order to hold public office." This Christian consensus was understood by leaders long after the American Revolution, as well. Abraham Lincoln, in 1863, called for a “National Fast Day,” citing the fact that... "We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven ...But we have forgotten God." When one examines history, one cannot avoid the conclusion that America was founded on Christian principles and the assumption that her citizenry would adhere to those same principles. Unfortunately, the modern interpretation of the First Amendment ignores historical fact. Instead, it provides a convenient vehicle for Secular Humanism to achieve control over the public square. The reason for this is simple: there is no such thing as a value-free society or institution - someone's values must prevail. Some worldview must “fill the vacuum” left by the eradication of the Christian worldview from public education, social services, courtrooms, etc. By distorting the First Amendment, the United States government has allowed Humanist values to prevail. As LaHaye points out, "The true meaning of the first amendment has been turned on its head during the past fifty years: In this decade, those who practice the religion of secular humanism are able to use the power of the federal government to impose their religion on the vast majority of the population." The danger of Secular Humanism prevailing in our society is quite simply, the oldest danger recorded in the Bible: men setting themselves up as God. The moral framework of our universe guarantees terrible consequences for the country that grants sovereignty to something other than God - because in such circumstances sovereignty ultimately becomes the property of the state. "Man is a spiritual being;" says Benjamin Hart, "when one faith is eliminated, a new god will rush in to fill the spiritual void. Through out history, there has been a man-made god called the state." When the state holds ultimate authority, government officials may commit whatever atrocities they like, because only the state may determine what is right and wrong. America must choose. Either we ignore the intentions of our founding fathers and grant sovereignty to the state (clearing the way for Hitlers and Stalins to reign once again), or we bow humbly before the one true God, and - without establishing Christianity as the mandatory religion for all citizens - obey God's principles for justice. True freedom can only exist in a land governed according to the principles set forth in Romans 13:3-4: "For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. For he is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrong-doer."

When the First Amendment was passed it only had two purposes. There would be no established, national church for the united thirteen states. To say it another way: there would be no "Church of the United States." The government is prohibited from setting up a state religion, such as Britain has, but no barriers will be erected against the practice of any religion. Thomas Jefferson's famous "wall of separation" between church and state comment was made in a letter to a group of Baptist clergymen January 1, 1802 in Danbury, Connecticut, who feared the Congregationalists Church would become the state-sponsored religion. Jefferson assured the Danbury Baptist Association that the First Amendment guaranteed that there would be no establishment of any one denomination over another. It was never intended for our governing bodies to be "separated" from Christianity and its principles. The "wall" was understood as one directional; its purpose was to protect the church from the state. The world was not to corrupt the church, yet the church was free to teach the people Biblical values. It keeps the government from running the church but makes sure that Christian principles will always stay in government. The second purpose of the First Amendment was the very opposite from what is being made of it today. It states expressly that government should not impede or interfere with the free practice of religion. The purpose of the separation of church and state in American society is not to exclude the voice of religion from public debate, but to provide a context of religious freedom where the insights of each religious tradition can be set forth and tested. As Justice Douglas wrote for the majority of the Supreme Court in the United States vs. Ballard case in 1944: The First Amendment has a dual aspect. It not only "forestalls compulsion by law of the acceptance of any creed or the practice of any form of worship" but also "safeguards the free exercise of the chosen form of religion." The First Amendment was a safe-guard so that the State can have no jurisdiction over the Church. Its purpose was to protect the Church, not to disestablish it. In the current debate over the separation of church and state, the choices sometimes lean too extreme on both sides. At one extreme are those who want to use the State as a vehicle to enforce their brand of Christian ideas on everyone. At the other extreme are those who say the Founding Fathers would have wanted a situation where one can't mention God in any publicly sponsored forum, for fear of having the State appear to support religion. Somehow, between alternating volleys of quotations from devout Founding Fathers and anti-clerical quotations from Tom Paine, we've got to find a better approach.

The Leftist social liberals supported by the Godless ACLU continue to hang on the "separation of church and state" as justification for eliminating religious issues from public view. The phrase "Separation of Church and State" has been talked about for so long that many Americans believe that it is actually in the Constitution. In fact, those three words appear nowhere in the Constitution. It was never the purpose of the Constitution to give religious content to the nation, rather, the Constitution was an instrument whereby already existing religious values of the nation could be protected and perpetuated. In response to a request that all reference to religion be removed from government, the House Judiciary Committee Report March 3, 1854 said: "Had the people, during the Revolution, had any suspicion of any attempt to war against Christianity, the Revolution would have been strangled in the cradle. At the time of the adoption of the Constitution and the Amendments, the universal sentiment was that Christianity should be encouraged, not any one sect. In this age there can be no substitute for Christianity. That was the religion of the founders of the republic, and they expected it to remain the religion of their descendants. The great vital and conservative element in our system is the doctrines and divine truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ." John Quincy Adams, sixth president of the United States, said: "The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: it connected, in one indissoluble bond, the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity." The assault on America's religious underpinnings is based on a distorted interpretation of the establishment and free-exercise clauses of the First Amendment. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ..." Only a lawyer could claim not to understand the plain meaning of those words. This had always meant that Congress was prohibited from establishing a national religious denomination, that Congress could not require that all Americans become Catholics, Anglicans, or members of any other denomination. This understanding of "separation of church and state" was applied not only during the time of the Founders, but for 170 years afterwards. James Madison (1751-1836) clearly articulated this concept of separation when explaining the First Amendment's protection of religious liberty. He said that the First Amendment to the Constitution was prompted because "The people feared one sect might obtain a preeminence, or two combine together, and establish a religion to which they would compel others to conform." The complete and radical disassociation between Christianity and the State that is sometimes advocated now is not what they had in mind. It's clear that they had seen entirely too many religious wars and religious tyrannies in Europe, and thus that they did want to make sure that no specific church or creed had authority over the State.

Thankyou. It was my dad that I was mostly worried about. He would sit by her bed for days on end and I wasn't sure if he was eating. Then I left 3 meals in the waiting room fridge for him and every time the nurses asked him to leave for a while they worked on her, he would go and eat something cause it was there. She is much better now. 8 days in ICU and then, sunday she was moved to another room on another floor. She has a way to go to get better, but she is improving and isn't critical any more. That's a blessing!

It's critical that our students understand the role of faith in shaping our nation. It's also critical that students understand that the separation of church and state is a fundamental principal of our nation's founding; it's part of what makes us unique. Rather than indoctrinating students and telling them what to think, we must teach them how to think. The liberals would love to continue to indoctrinate the American children toward their way of thinking. But there way is wrong. We can't let that happen. I think it's about time that Christians in this nation took a stand and fought for keeping Americas heritage from being forgotten. After all, the liberals and unbelievers in this country are fighting hard to keep God out of the schools and to keep children from learning about him, we need to fight also, and harder to keep them from being pulled left. If you think about it. It's almost like Satan trying to keep the kids from learning anything about God, so that their fate will be the same as his in the end.

That's a great idea! You were getting the life ins. anyway. There was a free dental clinic set up in Hartford, CT temporarily with volunteer dentists. They do this 2X a year. Anyone without ins. could go and get free care. It was first come first serve, and there was a long wait, but it was worth it for those who needed it.

Thank you all for your concern. I appreciate it. Even though she is still in the Critical care unit, I have seen an improvement today. Thankfully. She actually got up into a chair for 2 hours and they turned off the breathing tube that she has down her throat for one half hour. She breathed on her own for that time. They may remove it tomorrow. They must wean her off it. I know that we spar on and off in these threads, and I want you all to know that even though we don't agree on many issues, I genuinely care for all of you. Thanks. Patty

Hi all, I've been away for a while because my mom has been in the ICU at the hospital for the past week, and before that she was in a regular room for 4 days. She's wasn't doing well. She had a blood clot in her leg and they gave her a blood thinner which caused internal bleeding in her stomach area. Then she had surgery to block the leak and that was successful they think. Now she is having dialisis because the dye they injected in her to find the leak can cause liver damage. She is 79, and not healthy. She's overweight and has diabetes. Too many problems to list here, but I am asking for your prayers for her. Her name is Dorothy. It doesn't matter how old a person gets, we long to keep them around for a while more. Please pray for her. Thanks. Patty

All of God's teachings apply to me and I am grateful for them. The scripture you posted for me says that a man who mocks others lacks judgement. Well then, I guess we ALL lack judgement on this forum.

I don't see you holding your tongue. Or is it that only those who agree with you may speak?