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Browsing Posts tagged Partial Birth Abortion
Understanding the Epic Divide
The very obvious epic divide between right and left in our nation, along with any discussion of unification or bridging of that divide, necessitates defining and understanding the world views projected by the right and by the left, and then searching for common ground.
This article seeks not to malign or denigrate any group.
In fact, we begin here with the presupposition that good Americans on both sides truly want what is best for our country, and are passionate about pursuing that good.
The problem comes in defining what is desirable and what is good.
The key to overcoming the divide is reason and understanding.
Also, the best way to defeat your enemy is to make him your friend.
Surprising Issue Surfaces- a Possible Clue?
One of the major issues that reflect this divide is the hot-button issue of abortion, which, for the first time in this election, took center stage at the Presidential debates. Quite frankly, in this writer's opinion, the very grisly partial birth abortion may have been the straw that broke Hillary Clinton's back in the 2016 Presidential Election. Trump deftly showcased to America Hillary's cold and rigid position on the killing of a partially born human child. Although certainly not the only issue at stake, abortion is certainly a highly charged and very emotional issue on both sides.
Abortion has, after decades of being relegated to an unimportant "social" issue, bubbled up to the top of the conservative's priority list, and continues to be a big priority for both sides – not only for Progressives like Hillary, who have been vocal all along on the essential nature of abortion to their platform, but also for the future Trump Administration.
In a mind-blowing first, one of the first actions of the 115th Congress last week was to release a report on the sanctity and dignity of human life, and on the revelations of wrongdoing by Planned Parenthood, particularly in their sale of fetal body parts. To add to the surprise, the report came from a very unexpected source — from the Select Investigative Panel of the Energy and Commerce Committee – from which one would more likely expect reports on fracking or trade, NOT on the sanctity of life or on Planned Parenthood. See the remarkable commentary by John Stonestreet at Breakpoint. Clearly, the Trump administration is prioritizing the issue of abortion from a remarkably different perspective than that favored by Obama and Hillary.
Swept Under the Rug for Decades
The festering, neglected and unspoken problems of the epic divide, including the controversy over abortion, have been brewing now for decades. These issues have been skillfully skirted by politicians and have been side-stepped by American voters, in a well-intentioned effort at tolerance, an effort aimed at absorbing all views into our American melting pot of freedom and protected human rights. The most important issues, which are the moral issues, were long labeled "social" issues, and were swept under the rug, with varying success, until the 2016 Presidential debates.
And therein lies a possible clue to our big divide—reasonable people rarely go ballistic over mundane issues. However, morality, and it's definition, IS something that both sides of America can get passionate about.
Despite everyone's desire to tolerate and to include all Americans in our melting pot, problems surface as our population diversifies, as our morality shifts, and as we pass more and more new laws. The problem boils down to the fact that not all human philosophies, beliefs, or religions are compatible, and in our American melting pot these incompatibilities surface, causing inevitable conflict time and again. The definition of what is good and what is evil is not uniform in all societies, and needs to be defined by the entire nation, if evil is to be contained.
Defining Good and Evil
When regulating and protecting human interactions by law, determining what is right or wrong, or defining a person's "rights" becomes complicated. The "rights" of one person can infringe on the "rights" of another person, and as a society we are forced to choose which "rights" trump which "rights."
Abortion is one primary place where "rights" of citizens can clash. In abortion, however hard as it might be to imagine that the rights of a child and those of the mother could possibly not be aligned, progressives do insist that the well-being of a mother could be damaged by the existence of a child, and they advocate favoring "rights" for the mother over "rights" for the child.
Another example where the "rights" of citizens can clash is in the treatment of those who have broken the law. The rights of people to be protected from crime must be balanced with the rights of an incarcerated person to be treated decently. Also, the definition of decent treatment, which has to be paid for by the tax payer, is an area of potential disagreement. For example, taxpayers who cannot afford college for their own children could resent paying for college educations for prisoners.
Which brings up the question of defining "rights" altogether. Is a free college tuition a "right?" Does our nation have the budget to provide that? Does going into debt to pay for such "essentials" not steal from future citizens who will have to pay the bills we incur? If free contraception becomes a "right"under ObamaCare, why is free Tylenol not a "right?" Does free food or free housing then become a "right?"
Obviously, rights, and the definition of good and evil become very complicated.
And government gets the job of passing laws to balance those rights fairly, and to enforce the laws that were passed.
Defining Rights
Defining rights to intangible things is easier than tangible things.
We can say a person has a right life – to not being killed.
To liberty – to not being locked up.
To the pursuit of happiness – to choose their path in life.
But defining the right to tangible things is much more dangerous ground, because somebody has to actually pay for the thing that we declared everyone has a "right" to.
Finally, the amount of material things we can have varies tremendously, and depends on what is available. During a war, people ration and semi-starve, and may do it willingly. During a natural disaster, same thing. And people with an unrealistic grasp of economy cannot go around passing laws about what everyone has a "right" to have, if there is simply not enough to go around.
Pie offers a good simplistic example.
One can say that everyone deserves a slice of pie.
But if there is not enough pie, what happens then?
We have to redefine how much pie each person "deserves," or has a right to.
In this life, there is not always enough of everything to go around, and if you throw away the right of ownership of property, and allow anyone who feels deprived, or feels envy, to demand what belongs to others, you have chaos.
Let the Rich Pay!!
The left frequently advocates shaking down the rich for funds, like the recent story put out by the World Economic Forum about the 8 richest men in the world who own as much as the poorest half of the world (that would be 3.6 billion of us). A shocking statistic, for sure, but, sadly, this incompetent (or intentionally misleading) reporting would provide NO SOLUTION to the world economic situation, even if we were to repossess all their wealth, send all 8 to Siberia, and divide up all their wealth among the 3.6 billion poorest.
Why? Because, IF the claim is true and is not FAKE NEWS, then the total net worth of the 8 men, $427 billion, divided by the poorest half, 3.6 billion, equals a grand total of $119 per person. After which the billionaires would be gone, and we would have nobody to fleece next year.
And the jobs they create would be gone, too.
Not mentioned is also the fact that most of these 8 people are Progressives, so why all the hate for conservatives?!?!
AND, the fact the the median American household income, $55,775, would cover 469 poor people if we took this approach.
Nobody mentions that the number of poor in the world is so great, and the number of super-rich is so small, that the rich do not have enough to pay for what progressives want. To pay for what progressives want, the whole world would have to produce more money, and we would have to fleece not only Bill Gates, the #1 richest guy, but you and me and the Americans receiving unemployment checks as well.
Bottom line, we have to be careful about what we define as a "right," and if we do, we have to indicate who is responsible for providing that right, particularly if that right involves a material thing.
Balancing People's Rights
The simplest solution to this balancing act – to the balancing of rights of one citizen against the rights of another citizen, and declaring what is or is not a right—has been provided in the past by religion.
Religion outlined what rights a person had, what infringed on those rights, and what remedies were appropriate when those rights were violated.
The Declaration of Independence of the United States refers to God-given rights which the colonies felt were being violated by the English monarchy, and which colonialists wanted to guarantee for every future American citizen. Those God-given rights included life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
When it comes to defining good and evil, most people in this country used to acknowledge the Ten Commandments, which are actually the foundation and basis of most European and American law.
The moral beliefs of citizens, primarily those of Christian and Jewish citizens, since they were the most numerous, these moral beliefs stemming from their millennia of religious background, were incorporated into the Constitution of the United States and were voted into law via democratic process.
Religion Versus Self as the Boss
But religion has suffered decline in the United States since the 1950's.
The Ten Commandments went out the window, one after another.
Despite the fact that 90% of Americans still say they believe in God, and 80% say they pray and they feel that their prayers are answered, many Americans have shifted in their definitions of what is right and wrong. They have shifted from looking to religion for guidance on these issues, to looking inwardly to their own thoughts to define what is right and what is wrong. The word for this is relativism. What is right for you may not me right for me, and I have a "right" to decide what is right for me.
One of the problems with looking to ourselves to define what is right or wrong is that most people are not experts in logic, and are very gullible to the first argument they come across that argues a seemingly convenient particular point. They do not realize that a convincing argument can be made for ANY position and for ALL positions, and that some people spend their lives becoming experts in debate, in law, in ethics, and in morality. Yet, despite all this training, the tendency of the human mind is to choose first what we want, then to find the logical construct that justifies what we want. Very few people truly seek truth and fairness, even when that represents a loss of what they wanted for themselves. Simply stated, our minds play tricks on us, and we seek the argument that gives us what we want, fair or not.
Another problem with looking to ourselves to define what is right or wrong is that it is not wise to assume that I myself am more intelligent, capable and informed than the best minds of history, and, if one concedes that there might be a God, that I myself am more intelligent, capable and informed than God Himself. So the very progressives who respect and deify many medical, legal, engineering and scientific experts, and who would not dream of building a house, curing their symptoms, or even making important life decisions without consulting an "expert," presume to know how to evaluate the rights of all human beings, and to declare what is right and wrong, based on their own instincts and feelings, without training of any kind.
The Essence of the Divide
It makes a great deal of sense to point out that the most fundamental difference between the right and the left, the item that contributes most seriously to the epic national divide, is the disagreement on whether religion, the belief in a bigger super-power, or ourselves are boss.
And before the "Freedom From Religion – Religion is Medieval – Only Stupid Weak People Need Religion" mantra kicks in here, please consider the fact that IF the more religious half (or 80%) of America happens to be right, and there IS a God, and He HAS interacted with humanity and given us some guidelines (such as the Ten Commandments), the idea of following the guidelines of an infinitely vaster intelligence than ours, and of an infinitely kinder heart than ours, might just be a good idea.
An additional point on the Ten Commandments—even in the absence of an all-good and all-intelligent God, there is something to be said for the cumulative wisdom of ages of human beings and societies who have survived by those tried and tested rules for millennia to this day. It would take quite the ego to dismiss the cumulative wisdom of history and presume that I myself have the genius to dismiss and to better the wisdom of humanity with all its faults to date.
So Here Comes the Conservative Spin?
This is NOT an attempt to judge those who are not religious, because those who look inward for the definition of moral values might certainly be very sincere. We are trying not to judge, but to point out the shift in values in the United States that has occurred since around 1950.
And yes, this author IS conservative and religious, but is also trying to work towards communication via reason and with good will.
If nothing else, my writing will help progressives understand the thought processes that operate in the mind of one conservative, and realize that conservatives do not deserve the hateful pigeon-holing they have been subjected to following Election 2016.
People on both sides should find this analysis interesting.
There are religious people on both sides of these issues.
Some of the most ardent progressives claim to be religious – Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Al Sharpton, and others.
So read on, and consider what is being proposed.
Difference Chart
Let's document some of the differences in beliefs that have surfaced in much of our nation in recent decades:
(Please indulge the introduction of the Ten Commandments to make this point.)
I am the LORD your God: you shall not have strange Gods before me.
God is no longer the overriding value superseding all others today.
Many try to ban all mention of God from public life.
The highest value, the top "god" today, is probably MONEY (in Ten Commandments language, the golden calf).
You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.
Cursing God is now fine. In fact, much of Hollywood glorifies blasphemy, and even the expression "Jesus Christ" is often used as a curse word.
(I personally apologize to God every time I hear someone use the phrase disrespectfully, and I bow my head every time it is used appropriately.)
Remember to keep holy the LORD'S Day.
Sunday or the Sabbath is no longer holy, nor is Christmas, Easter, etc. For many, shopping has become a higher priority than attendance at Church
Honor your father and your mother.
Government has started to take over the role of father and mother, for example, with Common Core teaching values to children that are in direct conflict with most Christian religions. Government is trying to legislate how our children are to be raised. Many children have no respect for their parents, and even strike them.
You shall not kill.
Over 1 million babies are aborted (killed) in the United States each year, and we came very close to electing a woman who supports partial birth abortion, the killing of a full-term baby half-way during birth. Abortion may be a much bigger deal than you think. We are working on legalizing euthanasia, and we are routinely pardoning, tolerating, and releasing numerous violent criminals, particularly if they represent votes.
Marriage has suffered much, and many citizens no longer value chastity before marriage. Adultery, and any form of sexual transgression is considered to be fine, as long as both adults are willing. Recently, prostitution by underage children has been decriminalized in California. This cripples the efforts of law enforcement to convict pimps who manage child prostitution, because then the children cannot testify against the pimps.
Property crime is no longer prosecuted in San Francisco. Stealing is often excused and even justified. Government taxation is headed toward stealing as well – demanding larger and larger taxation "rights" on the income of citizens. The right to ownership of property is very much in question.
Some don't realize that there was a time in the United States when there was no taxation at all.
Lying is no longer considered shameful, but is celebrated by funny and popular TV shows like Seinfeld. Fake News is widespread and seriously maligns many people. Politicians are re-elected by American voters, even following the exposure of numerous lies and manipulations. Truth, which used to be highly valued and venerated, is now discarded and almost despised. See What is Truth? Does Truth Matter? for an interesting analysis of why Truth might be important, after all.
You shall not covet your neighbor's wife.
Your neighbor's wife is not off limits, provided you both agree to the liaison. Everybody tries to dress and look "hot," and there is no attempt whatsoever in fashion to avoid being sexually provocative.
10. You shall not covet your neighbor's goods.
Today, covet away!
Most people don't even know what the word "covet" means.
Hating those who have more than you and automatically labeling them as evil is common. Glorying in the idea of punishing the rich is very popular, and dismisses realities, such as the fact that the combined total assets of all the rich are not enough to impact the quality of life of the masses, and that the rich actually provide many jobs for the poor. Enjoying the idea of punishing the rich even if it does not help you is a serious form of envy.
What Do the Ten Commandments Have to Do With Anything?
Both the Ten Commandments and the Constitution of the United States, which was written by Christians, reflect a Judeo-Christian worldview. For years, the Ten Commandments have been displayed in courtrooms across the United States.
In recent decades we have been passing laws which drift away from that view, and we have been decriminalizing various activities that were previously considered illegal.
These changes have been driven by seeming compassion, and by the drifting away from religious values that has occurred in the United States. The unfortunate result of the drift is that our system of laws now represents a mass of internal contradictions, which require a highly trained lawyer to manipulate, and justice is not always served. The courts can even become a game of manipulation, deception and farce.
At this point we also have people who resent the still obvious Judeo-Christian roots of our Constitution and of our system of laws. The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a testimony to that. Yet the Freedom From Religion Foundation, despite claiming to reject religion, simply promotes religion of a different kind. Every Christmas the Freedom From Religion Foundation places a plaque at the Wisconsin State Capitol which celebrates the Winter Solstice – a pagan religious celebration. Pagan beliefs are being substituted for Christian beliefs, in the name of eliminating religion.
Some might say that religion should be done away with, but those are unaware that religion is actually a belief system or worldview, and ALL of us have belief systems, whether we have given them a name or not. Even the most progressive atheists evolve a system of beliefs that become as passionate as any religious group, including abortion rights, global warming, and other progressive doctrines that are imposed by ridicule and by force.
Alternative Value Systems
If we were to abandon Judeo-Christian principles and rewrite the Constitution, something that some progressive leaders and Justices are already advocating, it would be hard to create a value system that is internally consistent and does not contain contradictions– contradictions which lead to chaos.
Adopting other common philosophies, such as Atheism, or Islam, would inflame the sensibilities of numerous Americans who still hold fundamental Judeo-Christian beliefs. And it is not trivial to come up with a new system of beliefs with no internal contradictions and with a consistent logical message.
Atheism is not compatible with the Judeo-Christian worldview. In the Judeo-Christian world, God has placed limits on all people, including leaders and powerful people. A king cannot take the property or the wife of another. The leader is accountable to God for his/her actions, and is expected to observe the rules of justice. The Christian worldview values human life above all, and the taking of innocent human life is not permitted, even if the goals are desirable. Even kings must justify the taking of human life according to specific criteria.
Atheism, in contrast to Christianity, places no limits on the power of leaders or of individuals. Atheism frees leaders to impose their will on the nation without justification. Under atheism, the ends justify the means. If the government feels it can accomplish some good by sacrificing me and my family, it is free to do so. My Lithuanian grandparents were sent to Siberia by the atheist/communist Soviet Union, upon its occupation of Lithuania, and they had done absolutely nothing wrong. They were declared to be "capitalists" because they owned a 1-acre farm, one cow and a sewing machine, their possessions were taken away from them, and they were sent to Siberia.
Sharia Law is also incompatible with the Judeo-Christian world view, and with the Constitution of the United States. Sharia law does not acknowledge inviolable human rights for family members, and permits severe corporal punishment, including punishment to the point of death, by the heads of families.
Under Sharia law, there are no limits on the power of heads of families, religious leaders, and heads of state.
The New Morality
A new (experimental) morality has been creeping into our nation, one law at a time, and supplanting the Judeo-Christian values we used to have, without internal consistency. It has not been well planned, is not systematic, or even internally consistent on any new modern moral plane.
For example, the killing of a fetus/baby is permitted even after partial birth, but the killing of a pregnant woman counts as TWO killings by law. Can the murder of a human being, and the jail term of a killer, truly be dependent on what that woman was thinking? Was she walking home or to Planned Parenthood for an abortion? Can the number of crimes committed by a killer be determined by the thoughts that were going through the murdered woman's mind? Can a murderer go to jail for the same action for which the abortionist is extolled?
Consider another example, sex with underage children, which is, understandably, a crime. Yet teachers are required to illustrate condom use to young children in classrooms, and the very children who are taught to be "Healthy, Happy and Hot" in their classrooms, become felons when one of the young couple turns 18 and becomes guilty of statutory rape of their younger girlfriend or boyfriend. Our sexual standards impose many confusing inconsistencies on young people today.
Numerous such inconsistencies exist in our new and jumbled morality, and many conservative Americans object to the newly introduced (experimental) morality, and have concluded that the experiment has failed.
Science Takes a Back Seat to the New Experimental Morality
As the failings and drawbacks of the new experimental morality surface, those who want that new morality very badly simply ignore truth and science, they sweep the damage done to other people under the rug, and they make sure that facts and science take a back seat to their progressive agenda.
The progressive leadership of our country has misquoted and swept science under the rug habitually, as problems with the new morality surface.
Government-sponsored sex education does not educate children about the data on sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), misleads children into thinking that a condom will take care of everything, and fails to tell children that in 2011 the United States Center for Disease Control pointed out on their website that abstinence is the best form of prevention for STDs (this important fact has since even been removed from the CDC website).
Hiding the Truth
President Obama, a big sponsor of the new morality, withheld release of the results of a government-sponsored survey on abstinence, the results of which did not support Obama's progressive agenda. The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) performed a study (National Survey of Adolescents and Their Parents) which showed that 70% of parents and 60% of teens favor abstinence before marriage. The study was ready for publication on Feb 26, 2009, but the Obama administration delayed its release for 1-½ years, until August 23, 2010.
The study results were theb released very quietly, and were later buried deeper on the HHS website, in such a way that searching obvious phrases such as "abstinence" did not call up the study, and a knowledge of the study title or project number was needed to access the study. Finally, a warning is posted for those who have succeeded in tracking down the study: This is a historical document. Use for research and reference purposes only.
Yes, the government feels it must clarify that the document is historical, lest it be used to formulate current policy. By no means can we acknowledge that most of America disagrees with the progressive government's promiscuous agenda for our children.
Where can we see the National Survey of Adolescents and Their Parents?
Original 2010 HHS link, since removed: pdf
The study can be accessed now atpdf – now buried on the HHS website and labeled as a historical document.
If that link disappears, too, there's a copy of it on my website at National Survey of Adolescents and Their Parents.
Back to the Divide
The two alternatives, Judeo-Christian morality, and self-invented modern morality, are in complete contradiction.
We cannot simultaneously allow abortion and declare abortion to be murder.
We cannot encourage sexual experimentation in children, then jail them as soon as they turn 18.
We cannot pass laws that punish Christian Churches for not placing adopted children with homosexual couples, and allow Christian Churches protection of their religious freedom and beliefs at the same time. (If Christian Churches believe that a healthy life for a child necessitates both a mother and a father, it is not the role of government to force Churches to place adoptive children in homosexual homes. If government wants such placement, government should run adoptive agencies. If homosexuals want such placement, homosexuals should run adoptive agencies. But the idea of government forcing Christian Churches how to direct their charities is a violation not only of religious freedom, but also of "separation of Church and State," which goes both ways.)
We cannot give unlimited benefits to various groups of citizens, without considering whether we have the money to hand out, who is paying the bills, or whether the bills are NOT being paid.
(Most people do not have the time to do their own analysis, and media fails to do the analysis for us, but this author HAS done the analysis— spreading 100% of the wealth of the United States today would not solve our financial problems or poverty, and we would then still be faced with zero wealthy people to tax next year. Most of us are not aware of how few really wealthy people and how many poor people there are,)
We cannot brag that 98% of all published scientists support global warming, when the government makes sure that global warming opponents get no research funds, and therefore cannot publish.
We cannot cater simultaneously to all groups, when their beliefs on what is right and what is wrong are in direct conflict.
We cannot hand out more pie than there is.
Decision Making When Paths are Incompatible
We have to acknowledge that we can't always have what we want, NOBODY can always have what they want, and sometimes my getting what I want can step on the toes of somebody else not getting what they want.
Decision mechanisms when people cannot all get what they want include:
Free-for-all fight, and the most powerful win (Anarchy, King of the Mountain, or Chaos)
An Authority Dictates (Dictatorship)
Democracy (We all vote)
My preference? Democracy.
Even when my (conservative) side was losing the battle, during the last 8 years of Obama administration, I respected the system and tolerated a government which violated my world view and my view of what is right and what is wrong.
I thought sadly that if I live in a country that rejects my values, I must put up with it, or move elsewhere. Or pray that my fellow citizens see the light, begin to see things my way, and vote to restore my worldview.
I became a blogger, and have spent the last decade trying to persuade people with reason of the validity of my beliefs.
Now the tide of public opinion has turned, and the conservatives must be given a chance at government.
And yes, I have heard that many say the popular vote has NOT given conservatives a majority mandate.
Yes, We All Know that Progressives Think the Election Was Stolen
Most are familiar with the issue of the popular vote versus the electoral votes.
Hillary Clinton got more popular votes, but Donald Trump won the election because he earned more electoral votes. The electoral votes allotted to each State do not correspond directly to the number of voters in that state, so in close elections it is possible for a candidate to win the popular vote, but not the electoral vote, nor the Presidency.
An important point needs to be made about the electoral system.
The founders of this country were actually wise in choosing the electoral college instead of the popular vote as the method for selection of the President.
They did not want the choice of President always to be decided by the largest, most populous State, with little regard for the smaller ones.
The structure of the Electoral College can be traced to the Centurial Assembly system of the Roman Republic, and is similar to that used by classical institutions. The Founding Fathers were well schooled in ancient history and its lessons. See the US Election Atlas for more details on the evolution of the Electoral College plan.
The concept can be simplified by example.
If the colonies wanted more rural, less populated States to join the union (and to provide food for the nation from their farms), they had to offer those States a guarantee that their rights would not be trampled and they would not be dominated by the States which were more populous and which had larger cities.
The same principle applies today—should the population of one State be able to dictate the fate of the the entire United States?
Hillary Clinton won California by such a large margin in 2016 ( 4.6 million votes) that her entire advantage came from just that one State. Should Californian values be permitted to steer the values of the entire United States?
No, even if Hillary did get 2-3 million more popular votes, the election was NOT stolen.
The electoral college system protects all of America from being dominated by one State – in the case of 2016, California.
Reasons Why Trump May Actually HAVE WON the Popular Vote
An added point about the popular vote:
Conservatives are just as unhappy about the closeness of the election as progressives are.
While progressives point out that Hillary won the popular vote by 2-3 million votes, conservatives point out that if we corrected the popular vote totals for frequently demonstrated massive voter fraud and for illegal immigrants with illegal voting cards, Hillary would have had at least 3 million fewer votes.
According to PEW Research, 24 million (one of every eight) voter registrations in the United States are no longer valid or are significantly inaccurate, more than 1.8 million deceased individuals are listed as voters, and 2.75 million people have registrations in more than one state. That's almost 30 million votes that are very susceptible to potential fraud.
These figures, combined with the frequently documented voter fraud exercised by "community organizers" and practitioners of "Alinsky tactics" of the left, call into serious question the exact numbers of the 2016 popular vote.
Alinsky Tactics and the Left
It is well documented that Hillary Clinton was a student of Alinsky, and that Barack Obama taught Alinsky tactics in the past. And Alinskyk tactics are Satanist Saul Alinsky's 13 rules for political warfare, which are described in a book that Alinsky dedicated to Lucifer (Satan). Needless to say, Alinsky tactics violate all rules of fair Christian behavior, and they describe how a minority can fight, lie, manipulate, and finagle their way against the despised majority, which limits themselves to Judeo-Christian rules of behavior.
Hillary's recent collection of scandals– Benghazi lies, security breeches to escape accountability for email communications, the Clinton Foundation traitorous pay-for-play allegations, which are being proven just 2 months after the election, as well as the unethical tactics used against Bernie Sanders—this documented track record of "Alinsky" (in Judeo-Christian language "immoral") behavior on the part of the progressives in the Democrat Party, certainly make election fraud allegations towards the Democrat Party credible.
Although nobody claims that conservatives are free of any misdeeds, it is still more likely that people who support Judeo-Christian morality might have a lower incidence of illegal deceptive tactics than those who actively teach, advocate and employ Alinsky tactics and "community organizing." Just this week, news surfaced of progressives plotting to disrupt President-Elect Donald Trump's inauguration by deploying butyric acid at the National Press Club during what they call the "Deploraball" event scheduled for January 19th. These progressives were meeting at the Washington D.C. pizza place that was mentioned in the Hillary-Podesta emails. Today, the news holds more on shocking progressive tactics — progressives held a training camp on disrupting the inauguration and how to handle being arrested, and hundreds of the LGBT community held a dance party in the street outside Vice President-Elect Mike Pence's home. CNN has even gone so far as to point out that if Donald Trump were to be killed during the Inauguration, an Obama appointee would become President. The right has never planned and executed such interference and disruption of progressive events, discussed the killing of a progressive opponent, or targeted progressives in their homes.
Why Can't We Just Compromise?
Many of the most contentious issues today do not lend themselves to compromise.
Abortion, gay marriage, and sex education (chastity versus promiscuity) are examples of things that cannot go both ways.
A choice has to be made.
It is not possible to take both roads when you reach a fork, as Yogi Berra can attest.
We cannot aim for individual freedom and for governmental control of personal life and personal thought at the same time.
We cannot outlaw and allow abortion simultaneously.
We cannot both allow and forbid guns.
We cannot preserve traditional marriage and allow homosexual marriage at the same time.
We cannot respect religious freedom and require all doctors to perform abortions concurrently.
We cannot enforce immigration law and simultaneously have open borders.
We cannot build up military defense and reduce military defense at the same time.
We cannot base our Constitution and Bill of Rights on God-given rights, yet forbid the public mention of God and of religion.
We cannot respect Judeo-Christian values and delete Judeo-Christian values from our laws concurrently.
We cannot have a Supreme Court which decrees national law and policy without regard to the beliefs of the American population- most of the above mentioned issues have involved decrees by Supreme Court and by Executive Action which are in disagreement with the beliefs of most Americans.
We cannot have a Democratic Republic in which elected Representatives of the people do not represent the wishes of the people and in which politically appointed Supreme Court Justices overrule the will and the religious beliefs of the people.
This is why some advocate leaving these most difficult issues to the States, so that, for example, a progressive State such as California could allow progressive policies, and both liberals and conservatives could live in States which offered the policies that are most important to them.
The idea that the Federal government should not control issues that Americans struggle to agree on is one that Trump has been proposing. On these issues, local control would be local.
Think, dear progressive co-Americans—wouldn't it be great if we could make room in America for both sides of the ethical and political spectrum?
In Trump's language, that would be HUGE!
What is the Left So Afraid to Lose?
What are the main issues that the left to panic when considering a conservative or a Trump Presidency?
Abortion?
Gay Marriage?
Welfare?
The Worst Case Scenario and the Most Likely Outcome
Abortion: There is little danger of abortion becoming unavailable in the United States.
I must honestly admit that I would like it if we were forbidden by law to kill inconvenient unborn infants the same as we are not permitted by law to kill inconvenient elders or spouses or children who have already been born.
But I also realize that we live in a democracy, and so long as so many Americans support abortion, abortion is not likely to go away.
The worst case scenario for progressives is that they may have to pay for their abortion themselves, instead of making me pay for it, which is against my ethics (It's only fair– I have to pay for my own thyroid surgery and my own childbirth!).
They may have to shift to less permissive sexual behavior and more self control—something all of us should strive for constantly.
They may have to travel to a neighboring State for their abortion.
These might not be progressive first choices, but progressives must also realize that it is not the conservative first choice to pay for other people's children to be aborted, particularly when a disproportionate number of those victims are minority babies.
It is also not the conservative first choice to live in a country where our children cannot be doctors, pharmacists or lawyers, because our Federal laws demand everyone in those professions to participate in abortion-related activities which are against our moral beliefs.
Whose right is more important—the right of a woman to enjoy unlimited sex, including premarital sex and promiscuous sex, or the right of a tiny human being not to be killed by his/her mother?
The job of the government is not to give progressives ALL their wishes, but to balance the rights of all citizens against each other in an ethical way.
We can't always get what we want – progessives, OR conservatives.
And Christian doctrine always requires that the needs of the weakest be considered first – and who is smaller and weaker than an unborn child?
We appeal to progressives to realize that abortion is advocated only by people who have already been born. The unborn have no voice, other than the voice of conservatives.
Gay Marriage: There is little danger of homosexuality returning to the criminal status it previously held in this country decades ago.
The worst case scenario is that homosexual couples may be limited to civil unions, which do not threaten those of us who believe that marriage is central to the health and security of children and of our future society.
Progressives must realize that their wish for homosexual marriage has some unintended consequences on the rest of us. The moment we allowed homosexual marriage, Catholic adoption agencies had to close their doors, because the federal government requires them by law to do something their faith forbids: to place adoptive children with homosexual couples.
Whose rights are more important—gays to call their union "marriage," or orphans to get free adoption services that the Catholic Church provides?
See Gay Marriage and Homosexuality for more ways in which the redefinition of marriage hurts the rights of Christian Americans.
Progressives need to realize that their wish to have homosexual unions be called "marriage" impacts the rights of conservative citizens not to have progressive doctrine forced on their Church charitable adoption programs, on public school sex education programs, and on bakeries which prefer not to bake cakes featuring images of homosexual unions.
Welfare: There is no danger of Social Security or Medicare being cancelled by conservatives.
The ObamaCare that is being repealed is a fiasco and failure, and WILL be replaced.
The worst case scenario is that some welfare programs will be streamlined to eliminate fraud and favoritism, and that more efforts will be made to offer jobs to those who are now dependent on welfare.
Two Last Words to the Left- Anarchy and Compassion
Word One about anarchy –
Of those who want to ignore the results of the 2016 election and attempt to delegitimize President-Elect Trump, we ask – what does Anarchy accomplish?
In what ways does the use of Alinsky Tactics such as riots, property damage and butyric acid terrorism accomplish anything?
What is your desired result?
Do progressives think that the Inauguration will be cancelled?
Do they think that Hillary will be given the Presidency?
By what mechanism could that be done?
Even if that was done, is Hillary's moral history anything to pin our hopes on?
If the progressive goal is to weaken President Trump, so that he would make less progress on the progressive action items we've mentioned above, do progressives not realize that a weakened President and administration will not only be weak on abortion, but also in every other area, including our economy and our safety from terrorism? Do you really want to sink the ship you are sitting in?
Word Two about compassion –
Progessives are very admirable in their stated compassion.
But consider the opposite of compassion – heartlessness.
Do progressives not realize that some of their priorities are only compassionate towards one set of people, and only compassionate on the surface?
That some of their priorities become very heartless when the needs and rights of another group of citizens is considered?
Compassion towards a pregnant woman can also be heartless cruelty towards her partially born baby?
All Americans, progressive and conservative want to be compassionate.
We pick different issues on which our compassion focuses, depending our life experience.
We can't always get what we want, and we can't be compassionate to all at the same time.
The wishes of citizens and prisoners are opposed to each other and need to be balanced.
The wishes of Christians and Atheists are opposed to each other and need to be balanced.
The wishes of men and women are different, and need to be balanced.
The needs of parents and of children, as well as of teachers, need to be balanced.
Isn't it time to start realizing that we all intend good, we are all compassionate, and we all have different perspectives that need to have a chance to be tried and to be heard?
Isn't It Time?
The Constitution of the United States has set up a framework for this balancing exercise to take place, and has served us reasonably well for centuries.
It is time for progressives to accept a temporary correction and to allow conservatives to have a hand in the game.
Let us all root for each other, pray for each other and, above all, pray for the new President of the United State, Donald Trump.
For the anti-Trumpers, you can always pray for your enemies- prayer helps everyone concerned.
One of the best attributes of conservatives is that they do not have to resort to butyric acid, but can pray.
It's now time to give conservatives a chance.
Cultural Wars, Faith, Politics 2016 Presidential Debates, Abortion, Alinsky tactics, Church and State, Divided States of America, Electoral College, Freedom of religion, Morality, New Morality, Partial Birth Abortion, Planned Parenthood, Popular Vote, the Divide, the Epic Divide, Trump Inauguration, Truth, Unifying the US, Value Systems, You Cant Always Get What You Want
Connection: Steve Jobs, Barack Obama, and Roe v. Wade
Roe v. Wade Turns 40
Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion,
was issued on January 22, 1973.
This January 22, 2013, will commemorate
the 40th anniversary of that Supreme Court decision.
To date, 55 million infants have been aborted in the United States, and are missing from our ranks as a nation.
55 million of us were not born, were not baptized, did not graduate, did not marry, did not have children, and did not contribute to the world in all areas, including philosophy, science, art, and religion.
At least one out of 6 Americans is missing. If these children, who would now be 40, also had children, as many as one quarter of all Americans could be missing by now.
One person who escaped abortion very narrowly, yet lived to contribute mind-boggling contributions to our society's present capabilities, was Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple. What would our world be now, without Steve Jobs?
President Obama is another example of a person who might have been aborted, if Roe v. Wade had been legal at the time he was born. As the black child of a single mother, his chances of being aborted would have been extremely high. 77% of African-American pregnancies are aborted right now, a black child is 5 times as likely to be aborted as a white child.
Numerous potential Presidents may have been aborted in these past forty years.
Abortion is one of the biggest killers of history, and abortion is a much bigger deal than most people think.
A Striking Coincidence
President Barack Hussein Obama,
the most radically pro-abortion President in United States history,
will be re-inaugurated on January 21, 2013,
the eve of the 40th anniversary,
of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision.
The Significance of the number 40 for Christians
The number 40 is a very meaningful number in Judeo Christian history.
During the Old Testament great flood, rain fell for forty nights and forty days, during which all living beings on earth perished, except those on Noah's ark.
Spies explored the land of Israel for forty days (Numbers 13).
The Old Testament Exodus from Egypt lasted 40 years, with the Jewish people wandering the Sinai desert. This period of years represents the time it takes for a new generation to arise.
Moses' life is divided into 40 year segments in the Old Testament.
Eli, Saul, David, and Solomon, Jewish leaders and kings of the Old Testament, ruled for forty years.
Goliath challenged the Israelites twice a day for forty days before David defeated him.
Moses spend three consecutive periods of forty days and forty nights on Mount Sinai.
40 lashes is one of the punishments meted out by the Sanhedrin.
Christ fasted and prayed in the desert for 40 days prior to His Temptation, Ministry, Passion, Death and Resurrection.
Forty days was the period from the Resurrection of Jesus to His Ascension into Heaven.
Lent consists of the forty days preceding Easter.
Madison Will Commemorate 40 Years with Prayer
Madison will commemorate the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade on January 12, 2013, by praying the rosary on the steps of the Wisconsin State Capitol. This event is sponsored by Pro-Life Wisconsin, Vigil for Life Madison, and the Diocese of Madison.
Details can be found in the flyer pictured below and the PDF flyer here.
11AM at the State Street Steps of the Wisconsin State Capitol
Madison's Capitol Square
Put It on Your Calendar
Abortion, Cultural Wars, Politics Abortion, African-American babies, Barack Obama, Diocese of Madison, end abortion, Exodus, forty days, Madison's Capitol Square, Noah and the great flood, Old Testament kings, Partial Birth Abortion, Planned Parenthood, Pro-Life Wisconsin, Roe v. Wade, Sinai desert, State Street, Steve Jobs, U.S. Supreme Court, Vigil for Life Madison, Wisconsin State Capitol
The Debates: Getting Past the Theatrics; Going Right to the Substance
The Debates:
Getting Past the Theatrics;
Going Right to the Substance
It's Not Fixed
(Addendum below)
First, a Short Word On the Theatrics
The performances so far have been most entertaining.
Romney mopped the floor with Obama in the first presidential debate; even the liberal press agreed. Chris Matthews, not too pleased with Obama's performance, had an epic meltdown, live, on MSNBC.
During the vice presidential debate last week, Biden put on a performance that elicited speculations on dementia and drunkenness, as well as a three-minute roast by the usually very liberal Saturday Night Live.
No comedy act, however, topped the actual video of the Vice President's performance:
Poised for more mayhem in the second presidential debate last night, I was somewhat relieved to find that a certain degree of sanity was restored.
President Obama no longer looked like a deer in the headlights, and with the exception of one Drudge Report photo, he did not nervously leer, make faces at his opponent or the cameras (much), as Biden had done last week.
Well, Romney isn't looking; let me just give him a quick evil eye…
But now back to the substance!
Cuttting Through the Folly
More important than laughing or wondering at the performances, is to cut through the folly, and to analyze the substance.
And the substance consists of two major components in this election: policy and reliability.
Policy – how do the candidates and their party propose to solve our biggest problems today?
Reliability– will the candidates and their parties actually do what they say they will do, or are the candidates liars?
Policy – What Do Voters Say America Needs?
Yesterday's MSNBC leading headline read: What readers want answered at the presidential debate: Gas prices, Social Security, jobs.
Translation: Economy is the primary problem facing our nation and concerning our voters today.
Aside: Some Americans, myself included, believe that abortion is the primary problem/issue facing our nation. That economy is actually dependent upon abortion. That a nation that kills its own children cannot prosper. That no amount of economic prosperity can justify the killing of 54 million human beings. That economic prosperity will not be bestowed on a nation that defies God's fundamental commandments. But, although correct, that is not the dominating mainstream thought, and is a subject for a future blog article.
Back to Economy, the primary problem readers wanted answered at last night's presidential debate.
Obama-Biden Economic Policy
The Obama-Biden team proposes to solve economic problems by raising taxes on the rich, in contrast to Ryan and Romney's plans to solve economic problems by cutting spending, and cutting taxes, in order to create jobs, which would generate an expanding economy, resulting in increased government revenue.
Biden's statement one week before the October 11th debate outlined and clarified the Obama-Biden position on the economy:
Biden clearly stated their intention to let the trillion dollar "Bush" tax cuts expire, effectively raising $1 Trillion worth of taxes. The tax cuts would only be extended for all households earning less than $250,000 per year, so those households would have no effective tax hike. The $1 Trillion tax would be paid only by people earning $250,000 or more per year.
The Slogan is catchy:
$1 Trillion Tax Hike for Top Earners
Sounds like a great idea, doesn't it?
We get Scrooge McDuck to fork over all the extra money we want to spend.
But is that possible?
Will it produce enough money to cover Obama's spending?
How much will we be taking from the "rich guys"?
How will the "rich guys" respond to this maneuver?
Let's look at some details.
Also, look at Thou Shalt Not Kill They Neighbor's Cow
Reality Check- Simple Arithmetic
We want to take $1 Trillion from the rich, the top 1.5 %, those who earn over $250,000 per year.
Let's see how much we have to take from each one, and what that will do to them.
First of all, Biden misled us with his $1 Trillion claim, since his proposal is to raise $1 Trillion of taxes over 4 years, not over 1 year.
So we are trying to take an extra $0.25 Trillion per year from the "rich guys."
That won't dent Obama's annual $1.3 Trillion deficit much, but let's continue with the analysis, because it leads to a surprising place.
For data on how many rich guys there are, and how much money they have, we looked at the Tax Foundation's Data Tables. They don't list Obama-Biden's top 1.5%ers who earn $250,000 per year or more, but they do list the 1%ers, who earn $340,000 per year or more. Close enough for our purposes. The two sets of numbers are not likely to differ too much.
The top 1% group has a combined Adjusted Gross Income of $1.3 Trillion, of which they already pay 24%, or $0.3 Trillion in tax per year. In order to raise another 0.25 Trillion from this group as Biden proposes, they would have to be taxed an additional 19%, almost a doubling of their Federal tax bill. Their federal tax would go up from 24% to 43%.
Jaguar XF ($82,000)
So, the small businessman or doctor who now earns $340,000 per year already pays $82,000 in Federal income tax per year. Yes, that's right, each small businessman or doctor first gives the federal government the equivalent of a Jaguar XF every year. Add Social Security, Medicare, and State and Local tax deductions, and rich guy's annual take-home pay becomes about $227,000. Now he has given Uncle Sam about $113,000 per year; a Mercedes SL55AMG every year. (This car can do 155 mph.) On top of this now, the Obama-Biden proposal would raise these people's federal taxes an additional 19% and would mean an additional $65,000 in taxes for that household. This would bring down their take-home income to $162,000. The total given over to the government would be $178,000 per year; like buying the government an Aston Martin DB9 Volante every year. This household is left with 48% take-home pay of $162,000 per year, after they started with $340,000.
Aston Martin DB9 Volante ($178,000)
This also changes the proportion of taxes that the 1%ers pay. Right now, as a group, they pay 37% of all federal income taxes. Yes, the 1% pays 37% of our bills. The new Obama-Biden proposal would change this to the 1%ers paying 66% of all of America's federal taxes. WOW!
Doubling a Household's Federal Income Tax
How many Americans in any income bracket can afford to have their federal taxes doubled and to have their take-home pay reduced to 48%?
Most people earning upwards of $250,000 don't work 9-to-5 for a boss. Not too many bosses are that generous with salaries. Many of these "rich guys" own a small business and are working long hours. Evenings and weekends. Others are medical doctors, who are running an office and are paying off medical school loans. Whether they are businesses or doctors, they will have to come up with the extra $65,000 Obama and Biden want somewhere. Guess where that will be? They will hire less help at the business or office, and they will cancel any plans of expansion. Their actions will eliminate jobs, and will stifle the economy. The people working under them will lose their jobs.
Biden and Obama's proposal to hike up taxes by failing to extend expiring tax cuts is often termed Taxmageddon. This plan could push the U.S. back into a recession, and the Taxmageddon expiration date is fast approaching – January 1, 2013, in two months.
Summarizing the Obama-Biden Economic Policy:
Here's a summary of Obama-Biden's economic plans :
Obama/Biden will double taxes on the "rich guys" with Taxmageddon. The 1%ers who now already pay 37% of the nation's federal tax bill will get to pay 66% of the nation's tax bill.
Another recession? Who cares?
This maneuver will only reduce the deficit by 0.25 Trillion per year (19%)? Who cares?
The national debt, now $16 Trillion, will continue to grow at the rate of $1 Trillion per year? Who cares? Not Obama/Biden.
Small businesses, which provide 65% of the jobs in America will be punished, and will be forced to lay off people? Who cares?
Despite the ballooning deficit, Obama-Biden will continue spending.
Whenever Romney proposes spending cuts, Obama-Biden will ridicule the solution most households (or nations) in serious debt ought to use – they will ridicule spending cuts.
Obama-Biden will particularly ridicule cutting government funds to Big Bird. No matter that Big Bird is a one-percenter with an annual income of over $50 million per year, about four times higher that what Mitt Romney makes. Yet Big Bird still gets federal subsidies through PBS, and Obama-Biden don't want to see those cut. Who cares?
Biden-Obama will also ridicule Romney's plans to cut Planned Parenthood funding. Planned Parenthood continues to make money, despite its status as a nonprofit organization. Planned Parenthood is now a $1 Billion Group which makes a profit from it's primary income generator, abortion, and which still receives 46% of it's budget from tax money.
51% of Planned Parenthood's revenue comes from abortions.
Two thirds of America opposes federal funding of abortion. But who cares? Obama likes abortion, and he loves Planned Parenthood. Why not subsidize more 1%ers, as long as they are Obama's friends?
Big Bird and Planned Parenthood were 1%ers.
Solyndra and a series of over 20 green energy companies which received $4 Billion in federal grants? All 1%ers.
But they are Obama's friends, so that's O.K.
Anyone who supports Obama with donations or in the media is Obama's friend. He will help them all become 1%ers. And they don't need to worry about taxation, Obama will make sure his friends obtain or retain tax-exempt status no matter how rich they are, like Big Bird and Planned Parenthood.
Reliability and Honesty
That leads us to reliability and honesty, the second major component of importance in this election.
What good are promised policies, if they are never implemented?
What good are debates, if lies are used in the arguments?
The last two debates, Biden's and last night Obama's, were fraught with lies.
Not only Biden and Obama lied, but moderator Crowley lied and manipulated last night.
Biden's Debate Lies
Biden was called out on his VP debate lies by lots of people during the past week.
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
Breitbart.com:
Fact Check: Top Ten Worst Lies By Joe Biden in VP Debate
While Biden Smirked at VP Debate, Obama Admin was Arming Islamic Jihadists in Syria
The National Review Online accused Biden of intellectual dishonesty, and the White House Dossier called Biden a new Batman's Joker nemesis: The Liar. Apparently Joe Biden has a history of law-school and campaign-trail dishonesty.
During the Vice Presidential debate, Joe Biden lied about religious freedom, about Libya, about Medicare, lied about his own voting record for the Iraq war and the Afghanistan war, lied about the Iranian nuclear program, lied about Ryan cutting embassy security budget, lied about his previous debate with Sarah Palin, and lied about the details of the Bush tax cuts. See the above links for details.
Obama's Debate Lies (and Shocking Gaffe)
Top Ten Lies of the Second Presidential Debate –
Obama lied about tax cuts made by himself, about Romney's statements in interviews, about Romney's immigration views, about mammograms provided by Planned Parenthood, about tax breaks for shipping jobs overseas, about oil and gas production on federal lands, about women's salary discrepancies, about Romney's intentions toward auto manufacturers, and about his own misrepresentation of the Benghazi attacks as demonstrations against an anti-Islamic video.
Gaffe: Obama claimed that low gas prices cratered our economy and will crater it again if Romney is elected and gets gas prices down.
Yes, you read that right: President Obama seems to believe that low gas prices kill the economy. It's not Obama's economic policies that have damaged our economy, it's the low gas prices that he inherited from Bush that have damaged our economy. And if you elect Romney, he will lower the gas prices again, and he will thus damage the economy again.
How did that come out of the mouth of the President of the United States?
Candy Crowley's Debate Lies and Biased Manipulations
Debate moderator Candy Crowley interrupted Romney when he accused President Obama of not acknowledging that the Benghazi attacks were acts of terror the day after the Benghazi attacks. She was wrong, admitted she was wrong after the debate, and it turns out that she had been in perfect command of these facts almost 3 weeks ago, but conveniently forgot the facts when jumping to silence Romney during the debate. She saved Obama with a false fact-check:
While moderating Tuesday's debate, Crowley forgot the timeline and facts she commanded two weeks earlier, and she inexplicably took President Obama's side when Obama and Romney were arguing about whether Obama referred to the Libya attacks as acts of terror on the day after. – Breitbart.com
There has even been a sugggestion that Candy Crowley may have acted in collusion with Obama in this interchange; the probability that Candy Crowley would have the text of the President's Rose Garden speech handy and opened to the correct line on such short notice has been questioned.
Candy Crowley also interrupted Romney 28 times during the debate, contrasted with interrupting Obama 9 times, chose 2/3 of the questions to be favorable to Obama, and let Obama have the last word 8 out of 11 times. She also allowed, for the third debate in a row, the Obama/Biden ticket more debate time than the Romney/Ticket received.
Not too surprising for a biased reporter who had just called Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan the "death wish ticket."
Summarizing the Debates:
On Policy, Obama-Biden propose to continue the bulk of their present spending. The taxation of the "rich" which they propose will generate inadequate revenue to staunch the fiscal bleed, and will risk a second, larger recession.
Romney-Ryan propose the repeal of ObamaCare and tax cuts to spur the growth of business; when business grows, government tax income grows without increasing taxation.
History has shown repeatedly that reduction of tax rates generates more prosperity, so that a larger chunk of the tax burden is taken on by rich people when you lower rich people's taxes, because their businesses start to flourish. They not only transact more business, and give the government more taxes, but they also create more jobs. This phenomenon was observed three times in the 20th century, in the 1920's, and under Presidents JFK in the 1960's and Reagan in the 1980's; more tax revenue went back to the federal government each time the taxes were lowered.
The explanation for this seemingly contradictory phenomenon is that rich people reinvest more in their businesses, expand, generate more jobs, keep their businesses in the US, and thus generate a more thriving, larger economy when you lower taxes on the rich. Taking a smaller percentage from a larger number of rich guys give you more money in the end.
This is why nations do not overtax the rich. Overtax the rich, and they either go away or they close their companies and the nation loses jobs.
Here's a listing of nations, and how much they tax their wealthiest 10% (for us, that would be those households earning above $80,000 per year): from No Country Leans on Upper-Income Households as Much as the U.S., 2011
Who Taxes the Rich the Most? Share of Taxes Paid by the Richest 10%
Switzerland 21%
Sweden 27%
France 28%
Japan 29%
Germany 31%
Australia 37%
United Kingdom 39%
Italy 42%
United States 45%
Apparently, United States top earners already pay a larger share of taxes than any other industrialized nation. America's top 10% earners pay 45% of the nation's tax bill. President Obama apparently wants to hike up the amount that our top earners will pay to something on the order of 66%.
Any logical person must either challenge President Obama's grasp of fundamental economics and arithmetic, or must challenge his dedication to his sworn duty to protect this nation as President of the United States. This has been suggested by some; 2016: The Movie points out the compatibility of President Obama's actions during the past four years with an anti-colonialist philosophy that seeks to level the global playing field and to take away America's economic advantage. But either way, one cannot rationally, based on economy, vote for Obama on Novemer 6th.
So take your pick: would you prefer that your job depends on "rich" people like small businesses or doctors hiring you and paying a competitive rate for your work, or would you rather have the government take the "rich" people's money, squander much of it on creating 1%er jobs for previous campaign donors, and dole the rest out to you through meager welfare checks, which expire and no longer regard you as unemployed after 26 weeks, as Obama is doing now?
Reliance on our rich people for jobs = democracy.
Reliance on the government for jobs = communism.
Reliability and Trust
Neither Obama, nor Biden have given America any reason to believe anything they promise. Few of their 2008 campaign promises have been fulfilled, and their debates are laced with lies and fallacious attacks on Romney/Ryan, rather than a focus on a serious plan for repairing the economy.
Sorry fellas, the Taxing the Rich slogan won't work. We just disproved it with arithmetic, and Obama has disproved it in practice during the last four years. The Taxing the Rich slogan will only get you votes from those who don't know their arithmetic, and who are bitter, envious, and who want to bite the hand that feeds them.
Results Not Too Surprising
In the light of all that has been discussed, it is not surprising that as the debates progress, Romney is beginning to beat Obama in the polls.
And speaking of polls, and speaking as a person who has hung up the telephone on at least 40 pollsters during the last few months, and who as a conservative, in Clint Eastwood's words, "plays it closer to the vest," and as someone who has previously blogged about the disparity between poll results and election results, particularly in the Walker Recall Re-Election, I would not be surprised if President Obama is ousted by a landslide less than 3 weeks from now, by a much larger margin than any poll ever shows. Conservatives often refrain from participating in polls.
How sadly right Clint Eastwood was about the empty chair!
"When someone does not do their job, we have to let them go."
Confirming my suspicions, later today, two pieces of news came out:
Romney now has a 7-point lead over Obama.
Bill Clinton is beginning to acknowledge that the economy "is not fixed."
Bottom Line: It's Not Fixed
President Clinton, during a campaign event in Ohio today, acknowledged that the economy is not fixed:
Governor Romney's argument is "We're not fixed, so fire him, and put me in." It is true, we're not fixed. When President Obama looked into the eyes of that man, who said, in the debate, "I had so much hope four years ago, and I don't now," I though he was going to cry. Because he knows that it's not fixed. – Bill Clinton
The Economy: It's Not Fixed
Let's fix it:
Abortion, Politics $1 Trillion Tax Hike for Top Earners, Aston Martin DB9 Volante, Biden Dementia, Biden grinning during debate, Big Bird and Romney, Candy Crowley Lies, Chris Matthews epic meltdown, Clint Eastwood, Debate Lies, It's Not Fixed, Jaguar XF, Meda Bias, Obama and Planned Parenthood, Partial Birth Abortion, Romney mopped the floor with Obama, Taxing the Rich, The Debates


text:
CommonBond Completes $168MM Securitization, Secures 'A1' Moody's Rating
Online lender's third securitization receives 'A1' rating from Moody's and 'AA (low)' rating from DBRS
NEW YORK, N.Y. – October 20, 2016 – CommonBond, a leading online lender that uses data and technology to lower the cost of student loans, today announced it has completed a $168 million securitization of refinanced student loans, backed by $178 million in collateral.
The transaction's highest-rated senior notes received a rating of 'A1' from Moody's and 'AA (low)' from DBRS. Barclays and Goldman Sachs served as joint-lead managers and bookrunners on the transaction. Barclays also served as structuring agent, and Deutsche Bank served as co-manager on the deal. The securitization is the company's second transaction this year, and third overall. In April 2016, CommonBond completed a $150 million securitization. In June 2015, the company issued its first securitization, and, in the process, became the first inaugural issuer in marketplace lending to receive an investment-grade rating from Moody's.
"CommonBond has built a sterling reputation in the capital markets due to our meticulous, data-driven underwriting," said Morgan Edwards, Chief Financial Officer of CommonBond. "As with our previous deals, this securitization was oversubscribed among name-brand investors, and the A1/AA (low) ratings from Moody's and DBRS are a further testament to the quality of CommonBond's portfolio. We continue to be excited to see new investors participate with each transaction we bring to the market and expect to see the diversity of investors increase with subsequent deals." This securitization follows a period of strong growth for CommonBond.
In July 2016, the company announced more than $300 million in new funding across equity and lending capital, including an equity round led by Neuberger Berman Private Equity. This brought CommonBond's total funding to date across equity and lending capital to more than $1 billion. Also in July, CommonBond announced the acquisition of Gradible, a personal finance platform that provides users with unbiased, personalized recommendations on how to better manage and repay their student loans. With the Gradible acquisition, CommonBond now offers employers a full suite of student loan repayment products for their employees, including student loan assessment, student loan refinancing and direct contribution to employee's student loan payments (a "401(k) platform for student loans").
CommonBond is a leading online lender that uses data and technology to lower the cost of student loans. The company believes that student loans should be simpler, more affordable and more transparent. CommonBond funds and refinances student loans, saving its members over $14,500, on average, when they refinance. In addition to savings, CommonBond offers a simple application process and friendly customer service to deliver a superior experience. The company is the first to bring the "one-for-one" model to finance: for every loan funded on its platform, CommonBond funds the education of a child in need, through a partnership with Pencils of Promise. For more information, visit www.commonbond.co.
Contact: Radhika Duggal
press@commonbond.co

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


We are very sad to advise that SOLLOVA BAKERY at 788 Concession Street has closed their doors.
In the short time they were with us, Leila impressed us all with her baking and cooking talents. They will be very missed on Concession Street.
We are hoping to have an announcement soon of another bakery coming in to that same space. Stay tuned.


text:
Digital Editorial Fellows
PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review
Journal of the Association for Political and Legal Anthropology
<May 2015 Issue: Vol. 38(1)
Virtual Edition on the Promise and Pathos of Law>
Emergent Conversations
Being Like a State
kateon May 10, 2015 /0 comments
In 2015, PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review introduced a new feature, Emergent Conversations. Although not yet in the journal, the concerns addressed here are nonetheless shaping the discussions in the field. The third installment is Being Like a State, which is based on a panel of the same name that took place at the 2014 American Anthropological Association Meetings.
An excerpt of the conversation is below, with the full article available to download.
Being Like a State | by Joshua Clark, Miia Halme-Tuomisaari, and Tess Lea
Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
If the state was once regarded as the province of disciplines other than anthropology, those days are now firmly behind us. Much recent work demonstrates that anthropological modes of analysis and methods offer unique perspectives on how states are constituted and experienced as "real" by those who they govern. Yet it remains the case that considerably less is known about the lived experience of state-ness from the perspective of those for whom "the state" overlaps with the self. This was the starting point for the panel, "Being Like a State," organized by Joshua Clark and Miia Halme-Tuomisaari for the 2014 Annual Meetings of the American Anthropological Association (AAA).
Panelists presented ethnographic material offering insights into the cognitive and affective worlds of public functionaries. In particular, the panel sought to consider, on one hand, how and to what extent these functionaries internalize "the state," and on the other, how they infuse state structures and practice with their own subjectivities, values, and beliefs. Panelists also discussed contradictions that "being the state" may create for their ethnographic interlocutors: the tedium of tasks versus the gravity of missions; moments of identification and belonging versus rejection and disavowal; and the exercise of individual discretion and influence versus feelings of powerlessness and hierarchical oppression, to name a few. How do such contradictions affect public functionaries' understandings of themselves as "self" and "other" in relation to "the state" and its projects?
The organizers of "Being Like a State" invited Tess Lea to serve as the panel's discussant, recognizing her work – Bureaucrats and Bleeding Hearts (2008) in particular – as a notable contribution to the ethnographic investigation of many of the questions posed. The bulk of this reflection is an adaptation of Lea's comments, which she delivered in response to the five papers presented at the December 5, 2014 panel.[1] Those who are interested may also access the panelists' full abstracts, which are featured in the full version of this conversation. If readers feel that they are "coming into the middle of the conversation," we hope that this will serve as an invitation to join in, or to pursue, some of the open-ended threads and provocations captured here.
Synopsis of Being Like a State
Many common themes bound the papers that comprised "Being Like a State." Not least of these was the presenters' focus on European Union or human rights initiatives, sometimes both at once. The papers also brought a shared concern with method and the question of what a researcher must do over that elusive ethnographic whole when she is left with only fragments. But above all, the panel spoke to the complex oscillations between anonymity and subjecthood and between structure and agency, concerns with which anyone dealing with ethnographies of the state must grapple.
The session began with Elif Babül's "Dramas of Statehood: Protocol, Cynicism, and Bureaucratic Intimacy in Human Rights Training in Turkey." In this paper, Babül discussed performances of state-ness among variously positioned Turkish officials undertaking human rights training, being congratulated for completing training modules, or conversing between sessions. As the Turkish officials learn what is required for the country to be embraced by the European Union, they also learn how to enact the state.
In Miia Halme-Tuomisaari's "'The State is One': Performing 'Statehood' for UN Human Rights Monitoring Bodies," it is anonymity and loss of personhood that put official state delegates to the UN at their ceremonial best. The fantasy sustained here is that human rights monitoring can indeed be done through carefully crafted, grand representations in which material considerations – the roles of multinational corporations, other international regulatory arrangements, competing authority structures, and, Lea added, the military-industrial complex – have no role to play in the decision-making of states. These are rituals of audit and oversight that entail acceptance of the idea that the state is the body standing in the way of fulfilling humanity. Committed individualism through wordsmithing is the proffered remedy.
Joshua Clark's paper considered the contours of state "internalization" of international human rights commitments by examining Costa Rican policymakers. Clark is concerned to re-people the state, to again explore processes of self-socialization, but this time through charting how those charged with instantiating human rights obligations undertook their work, and how their tactics and rationales altered with their own altered emotional states. Lea considered this deeply important, saying that while it is a simple matter to insist that the thing we call the state is both spectral and deeply human, it is another to account for how affect and embodiment actually make a difference.
Clark's paper showed that the true believers, or the already-convinced, in Costa Rican state institutions initially see their task in quasi-evangelical terms: they must coax conviction from their less-committed colleagues. Later they come to see such emotional convictions as a weakness: they want impersonal processes to take the place of individual arduousness, arguing that otherwise the state's human rights obligations will always be personality dependent.
Greg Feldman's paper approached the relation between mundanity and spectacle, personal investment and impersonal rule, by taking panel attendees to the streets where undercover officers in an unnamed city hone in on a Europe-wide human trafficking ring. These policemen operate in the grey zone, using semi- to clearly-illegal actions to prosecute their own form of justice. Operating in the breach does not make them saints, and Feldman did not suggest that heroic actions disentangled them from a wider system of state policing that upholds the very economic inequalities that perpetuate clandestine migrations in the first place. Rather, his paper attended to the space between structure and affect with which the panel's other papers also grappled. Lea identified this as Feldman's explicit analytical problem: how do we reconcile accounts of structural inequality with phenomenology's demand that we attend to intersubjectivity, to understand the enabling conditions for joint political action? Without this reconciliation, our accounts of inequality will be stocked with automatons with no possibility for a breach.
Framed in this way, operating in the breach becomes an important ethnographic site in which to view the stitching of impersonal organizational edict and structured inequalities being combated, worked with, subverted and maintained, all at once. As Feldman argued of his case study, the curious part is how "the people whom the state endows with the power of violence are also the ones conducting ethical actions in the space of appearance."
Police partners collectivize interventions, which see them acting in their own terms and at their own risk. And, as other papers showed, the space of discretion is also the face of the state. Arguably, the state depends on such enactments and the distribution of liability that goes with them. If things go pear shaped, it is on the police officers' heads: they are acting with limited authority to maximize their authority after all. Yet case closures and the pursuit of intelligence requires that these corners be cut, that the norms be subverted. It raises the question: if working in the breach is constitutive, is it then a tacit norm? And, is the spectacular "nab" the sublime moment that justifies the dull routines of watching, waiting, and tracking down mundane details? They make up the in-between of undercover cops' long hours, similar to the work of bureaucrats preparing for the spectacle of the UN meetings.
Finally, Valerie Lambert's contribution took attendees inside an institution headquartered not far from the site of the AAA meetings: the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). More specifically, Lambert examined the workings of the BIA's Branch of Acknowledgment and Research (now the Office of Federal Acknowledgment), in which anthropologists, historians, and genealogists evaluate petitions of groups applying for federal acknowledgment as Indian tribes. The BIA is unique among federal agencies in that 90% of its employees are Indians. In their work to apply the federal criteria by which Indian tribes are recognized as such, we encounter what Lea called an "inter-structural heartland" in which localness and sovereignty are re-read through the prism of refusal.
Together, the five ethnographically rich papers that comprised the panel offer suggestive analytical and methodological lessons for deepening anthropology's engagement with the constitutive social, cognitive, ethical, and affective fabrics of state-ness. As one audience member pointed out, these lessons may in fact extend to analyses of other types of corporate entities as well. One clear example is the private corporation, which over a century ago F.W. Maitland paired with the state as two species of a shared genus (cited in Bashkow 2014:301). Recent analyses of the legal, regulatory, and political effects of transferences of beliefs, characteristics, actions, and commitments between both types of corporate "persons" and their corporeal constituents indeed seems fruitful grounds for comparative analysis (e.g., Benson and Kirsch 2014; Bose 2010; Clark 2014; Tucker 2014). What broader lessons might we learn by juxtaposing the metaphors, imagery, and practices through which each is personified and personally enacted? We hope that future research will advance these and other lines of inquiry explored by the panel "Being Like a State," and that this contribution to Emergent Conversations will be just that.
Bashkow, Ira. 2014. Afterword: What Kind of a Person is the Corporation? PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 37(2):296-307.
Benson, Peter, and Stuart Kirsch, eds. 2014. Symposium on "Imagining Corporate Personhood." PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 37(2).
Bose, Purnima. 2010. General Electric, Corporate Personhood, and the Emergence of the Professional Manager. In Cultural Critique and the Global Corporation. Purnima Bose and Laura E. Lyons, eds. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Clark, Joshua. 2014. Smoking Discouraged: Some Observations on Sociality and Measured Authority at the United Nations. Allegra Lab: Anthropology, Law, Art & World (online). Posted November 26.
Halme-Tuomisaari, Miia. 2013. Contested Representations: Exploring China's State Report. Journal of Legal Anthropology 1(3):333-359.
Jackall, Robert. 1988. Moral Mazes: The World of Corporate Managers. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lea, Tess. 2008. Bureaucrats and Bleeding Hearts: Indigenous Health in Northern Australia. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press.
Lipsky, Michael. 1980. Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Manning, Peter K., and John Van Maanen, eds. 1978. Policing: A View from the Street. Santa Monica, CA: Goodyear Publishing.
Simpson, Audra. 2014. Mohawk Interruptus: Political Life across the Borders of Settler States. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Sloterdijk, Peter. 1983. Critique of Cynical Reason. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Taussig, Michael. 1999. Defacement: Public Secrecy and the Labor of the Negative. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Tucker, Anne. 2014. A Bad Investment: Recognizing Religious Rights of Corporations. Huffington Post (online). Posted March 20.
Van Maanen, John. 1972. 'Pledging the Police': A Study of Selected Aspects of Recruit Socialization in a Large, Urban Police Department. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. University of California, Irvine.
[1] Six papers originally comprised the panel. Unfortunately, unforeseeable circumstances prevented one scheduled panelist, Niels Nagelhus Schia, from traveling to the AAA meetings.
Clark, Joshua, Miia Halme-Tuomisaari, and Tess Lea. Being Like a State. Emergent Conversation. PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review Online, 10 May 2015. https://polarjournal.org/2015/05/10/emergent-conversations-part-3/
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pplied Neuropsychology-Adult publishes clinical neuropsychological articles concerning assessment, brain functioning and neuroimaging, neuropsychological treatment, and rehabilitation in adults.Full-length articles and brief communications are included.Case studies of adult patients carefully assessing the nature, course, or treatment of clinical neuropsychological dysfunctions in the context of scientific literature, are suitable. Review manuscripts addressing critical issues are encouraged. Preference is given to papers of clinical relevance to others in the field. All submitted manuscripts are subject to initial appraisal by the Editor-in-Chief, and, if found suitable for further considerations are peer reviewed by independent, anonymous expert referees. All peer review is single-blind and submission is online via ScholarOne Manuscripts.
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A glamorous bedroom chair design is all we desire to complement our modern bedroom decor. The first choice goes to upholstered chairs like a modern grey velvet armchair or a white armchair. The top interior designer Kelly Wearstler went further. Wearstler collaborated with artist Shantell Martin and both created a collection of modern design homeware.
"My lines and words are such a part of me that wherever I am I want to surround myself with them" – Shantell Martin. This white armchair with painted upholstery is absolutly gorgeous.
The collection also has a small modern stool which we can use as a restfoot to complement the bedroom chair.
Moreover, they created a modern design marble kiss sculpture.
This Souffle chair is another modern design chair from Kelly Wearstler's upholstered chairs collection, as well as the foot stool.
Elliott chair can also be used in a modern bedroom or living area. This elegant chair sits comfortably, with plenty of width and an upholstered back that will support you through late night dinner parties. With its gathered rear legs, bold lines, and signature mix of materials, the chair design is beautiful from all angles.
"Author, blogger, outré fashion plate, branding virtuoso (from sheets to jewelry), and decorator and muse – Wearstler cuts a profile as colorful as those of her clients." – Architectural Digest.
The work of Shantell Martin is a meditation of lines; a language of characters, creatures and messages that invite her viewers to share a role in her creative process. Martin has created her own world that bridges fine art, performance art, technology and the everyday experience — conversations, objects and places. Her artwork has appeared in the Brooklyn Museum, Museum of the Contemporary African Diaspora, Bata Show Museum and a number of private galleries.


Amid the annual handwringing over the state's perennially underfunded school-aid formula, a number of lawmakers are pushing for a change in the formula that would distribute aid more fairly and help certain districts that have been overwhelmed by large increases in students.
As with most changes to the funding formula, the proposed redistribution of a category called "adjustment aid" would benefit some districts and harm others. But the politics of the plan depart from the usual opposition of urban versus suburban or wealthy versus poor districts, which could improve its chances of becoming law.
"It's across the whole state. All kinds of school districts are facing this issue," said Sen. Jennifer Beck (R-Monmouth), who is sponsoring the legislation from the Republican side.
The fate of the change may be tied in part to the jockeying ahead of next year's gubernatorial election. It is supported by one likely candidate, state Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester), and would almost certainly cut school aid to Jersey City, whose mayor, Steven Fulop, is also expected to run. It has support from Democrats and Republicans, as well as the Christie administration, despite the protests it would provoke in towns that see their school funding reduced.
Adjustment aid, sometimes called "hold harmless aid," was created by the 2008 School Funding Reform Act (SFRA) to make sure districts would not see big drops in their state aid when the new formula went into effect. It was calculated based on their aid packages in 2007-2008, and was supposed to gradually phase out as districts adapted to their lower aid allotment.
But hold harmless has continued to be distributed to the tune of $556 million a year. In addition, the formula has not been fully funded for several years, so distributed aid as a whole "no longer bears any relationship to what districts should be receiving under the SFRA," according to the Education Law Center.
Many critics argue that the entire funding formula needs to be revised. Rather than take on that monumental task, however, legislators want to change the way adjustment aid is calculated in order to bring what they describe as at least some measure of greater fairness into the process.
Beck said she and Sweeney want to introduce a bill next month that would turn adjustment aid into a tool to move districts closer to spending their adequacy figure -- the amount of money the state has calculated they should spend per student. Starting in 2017-2018, the measure would gradually reduce aid to some districts that are over adequacy and shift the money to qualifying under-adequacy districts.
Beck was not prepared yesterday to release data that might show which districts would lose money, but she said they come from the group of 111 that are over adequacy and receive a combined $175 million in adjustment aid a year. The potentially beneficiaries are 70 under-adequacy districts that together already receive $381 million annually.
One complication is that the amount a district spends is based on both local school tax collections and state aid. Beck and other officials said they want to be careful not to penalize districts that use local taxes, rather than state monies, to fund their schools at close to or higher than the state recommendation.
While in some cases residents of wealthier towns vote to increase taxes to provide more educational services, Beck warned that adequacy does not always track with affluence.
For example, among those attending the Senate hearing were teachers and residents from Freehold Borough, a working-class district in Monmouth County. It gets no adjustment aid, instead turning to property taxes to "overfund" itself by over $2 million a year, Beck said. A significant influx of students has led to severe classroom overcrowding in the district, which is seeking special permission from the Department of Education for a bond measure to build new facilities.
The districts that stand to lose money under the proposed change include those that receive adjustment aid and are over adequacy due to their state aid.
"There are plenty where the state is providing more aid than it should, and there's been enrollment loss, and it doesn't make sense," Beck said.
She said the state also needs to account for towns that do not contribute enough in local property-tax revenues to the schools, but still receive adjustment aid. The poster child for that phenomenon is Jersey City, which is "slightly" under adequacy, according to commissioner of education David Hespe. The district receives $114.5 million in adjustment aid, in addition to other education aid, but contributes $224 million less in local taxes than it should according to the state's "fair share" calculation, Beck said.
"Jersey City has had enrollment growth, but I think some of us would argue that they're locally not doing what they're supposed to do to help fund the cost of that enrollment growth -- which is counter to a lot of our other school districts, like Freehold Borough," she said.
Jersey City is not contributing enough in part because of its frequent use of municipal tax abatements, which spur development but have the effect of shifting more of the burden for school funding to the state, Beck said.
The idea of changing adjustment aid seemed to be generally welcomed by other members of the budget committee, including the chair, Sen. Paul Sarlo (D-Bergen). Hespe noted that the Department of Education had proposed a similar change a few years ago, and said it would be important to clearly explain to districts facing cuts why their past adjustment aid has been unfairly high.
Still, the suggestion that Jersey City should receive less aid prompted pushback from Sen. Sandra Cunningham (D-Hudson), who said its students had substantial needs despite the city's recent economic boom.
The annual budget analysis by the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services was released yesterday to coincide with the state Department of Education's appearance before the Senate budget committee. The analysis includes line-by-line descriptions of the proposed budget, as well as new background reports on state aid distribution to schools and public funding of charter schools.


Phases One through Four were built in the era between 1976 and 1990. These are modest, contemporary style, single-family houses on heavily wooded lots. They range in price from about $190,000 for a 2 bedroom with no garage to about $375,000 for an upgraded three bedroom model with a two car garage.
The Historic District is tricky. Some have garages and some don't. Older houses usually have wood burning fireplaces, newer ones may have gas logs. Older houses have septic systems, newer may be on the community system but there is no way to tell just by the street they are on. Many of these houses have undergone significant renovations which makes finding comps tricky.
Streets in the Historic District are: Creekwood, Trestle Leaf, Stone Ledge, Benchmark, Matchwood, Trundle Ridge, Shadowbrook, Shagbark, Meadow Run, Becket Bend, Stone Edge, Windstone, Weatherbend, Hedgerow, Tinderwood, Turtle Run, Wintersage, Beechmast (don't confuse with townhouse address), Hollyhock, Summerwood, Quail Run, Windlestraw, Cloverthach, Greystone and Fox Ridge. House numbers range from 1 to 284. There are annual FHA dues.