Obamacare: Bad law.

Ever since I first heard of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, I've been saying that it is a very bad law. Everything about it, from its length (over 2000 pages), to the secrecy in which it was passed (nobody had been given time to actually read final version of the bill when it was passed), to the naked vote-buying that went on, to the artificial emergency-crisis atmosphere used to rush it through Congress, to the well-documented (but little-known) nature of the man who demanded it, indicated that it was a very bad law.

Nothing has happened that might suggest I was mistaken.

Indeed, many things great and small strongly suggest that I was right. At the small end is the HHS mandate. I don't mean to diminish its tyranny or its unconstitutionality, but I recognize that it doesn't really involve a whole lot of money or people (yet). On the other, we have the Energy and Commerce Committee's Obamacare Burden Tracker, which tallies up Congressional Budget Office estimates of hours spent on compliance with Obamacare. Their current estimate: 127,602,371 hours. To borrow from them:

What could be done in 127,602,371 hours?

• Mount Rushmore, which took 14 years to build, could be constructed 1,040 times.
• Halley’s comet, seen from Earth once every 76 years, could be spotted 191 times.
• The Empire State building, which took 7 million hours to build, could be constructed 18 times.

Is 100% of the new regulatory burden wasted time? It's doubtful. But it is 100% cost, and I very much doubt it was factored into the original CBO estimate of how much the ACA would cost when it was being debated in Congress.  And 100% of that cost will come out of our pockets.  There is no such thing as a free lunch.

here's somebody who knows this stuff better than I do, taking it to pieces far better than I can. Salute to the Pittsford Perennialist.

Blogrollin'

Salute to Fr. George David Byers, of Holy Souls Hermitage. I wept, and choked up with emotion. Watch it through to the end.



Additionally: Read John C. Wright's excellent time-travel story. It too delighted and moved me so, so deeply.

Justice and Prison

I have thought for some time that our prison system was unjust. It turns out that it's also unneccessary. An article in the New Yorker addresses both the injustice of our prisons, and what reduces crime.

One problem is that our justice system is misnamed. It is a criminal prosecution system. Its interest is not in justice and common law, but in statues, regulations, and procedural correctness. Prosecutors do their best to ensure that exculpatory evidence is never introduced, and work assiduously to avoid jury trials (to save time and money), and juries are never told to consider justice in convicting and giving sentencing recommendations. Is this a prudent way for a just society to order their priorities? Are time and money more important than justice?

A more just punishment would involve restitution, not incarceration. Stealing should involve not just paying back what you stole, but being forbidden the opportunities you used to steal. Embezzlers should not be allowed to go back into positions where they have authority over money.

Crime is prevented by simple things like reducing opportunities to commit them. Dr. Ruwart pointed out almost 20 years ago that if you reward police for reducing crime, instead of convicting criminals, they will act to do so -- and save us money in the process.

Another simple way to reduce crime is not punishing people for owning or using a little weed. (No, I don't use or approve of weed. I'd rather have a drink myself, even though I can readily recognize that ethanol causes a lot more adverse medical outcomes, that can easily be a lot more serious.) Relegalizing opioids and cocaine can come later.

Women In Crisis

Go read this. Do it now. There is nothing I can say that will do anything but detract from the message, other than telling you that you will be glad you did.

Plans and Suffering

God has a plan. Sometimes, His plan is to let us fail. It accounts for those who choose spiritual wilderness and even damnation, though such is not His desire. He just loves us too much to impose His will upon us without our consent.

It was a Protestant preacher I first heard this from (I paraphrase): "The tool with which God shapes us into what He wants us to be is suffering." Look at those who are most thoroughly aware of God's blessings. They have gained that awareness through suffering. I certainly wouldn't be thankful for all the wonderful things in my life if my dad hadn't thrown me out of his house.

Lois McMaster Bujold is one of my favorite writers. This wisdom she put in the mouth of one of her characters (again, I have to paraphrase): "A test is a gift. It isn't so important whether you pass or fail. But if you refuse the test, you refuse the gift."

We don't know everything. We don't know why we suffer. But we ought to know our suffering has a purpose and that God's grace, goodness, and mercy are infinite. Remember who the fools and villains are in the book of Job -- the ones who told him things like "You have brought this on yourself" and "Curse God and die."

God knows what we need for our salvation. One of the challenges of a Christian life is to trust Him when it seems so far removed from our own desires.

Merry Christmas!

Since I've yet to say it, may all the Joy that Christ can bring be yours on this, His nativity, and throughout the remainder of the Christmas season.

God's Plan

The Spirit works through Catholic Exchange. Perhaps not 100% of the time for 100% of people, but often enough for me to thank God for leading me to this community.

Today, God helped put a couple of articles on the front page. First, this one, from Thomas Wenski, Bishop of Orlando's first appearance on CE:

In the prologue to John's Gospel (John 1:1-18),read at Mass during Christmas Day, the complete fullness of God's plan of salvation is spread out before us. The One who was with God at the beginning before the whole word and who, as God, created, brought into life and enlightened everything in the world, has entered into the world - and he does so not in a grand style that would intimidate us, but in humility. He comes in the poverty of Bethlehem, born of a woman. He comes to us small and weak, so that we can draw near to him without fear, so that we can embrace him without hesitation.

On to Chuck Colson, with this article on Catholic Exchange. Here's the cool bits:

It is through the Incarnation God sets His grand plan in motion. He invades planet earth, establishing His reign through Christ's earthly ministry. And then Christ leaves behind an occupying force, His Church, which is to carry on the work of redemption until His return and the kingdom's final triumph.

It just struck me as so cool, to be part of God's occupying forces, an army waging war for salvation through love! Truly is the wisdom of God folly to the wise!

And if the Protestants ever stop using the term, "Salvation Army," I hope we pick it up.

Blogrollin'

Salute to Amy Welborn at Historical Christian for tipping me to Jogger Mom. In this post, she reflects on doctrinal infallibility and how it helped lead her to cross the Tiber. The crux of the argument she makes for infallibility is here:

Papal infallibility is the machinery that puts truth into place within the Church. Catholics believe in apostolic succession- that is, Peter was the first head of the Church, given this authority by Jesus, and his authority has been passed down to each successive head, who we call popes today. The other piece of this is that bishops, when in union with the pope, also have authority and infallibility, like modern-day apostles. This authority comes from Jesus, not any special power of their own. Jesus clearly granted Peter authority in Matt. 16:14-19...

Here Peter is singled out among the disciples - he alone is shown a truth by God the Father (that Jesus is the Christ), and is given the 'keys of the kingdom of heaven' and some pretty hefty authority.

Regarding Doctrine

It amazes me that people gripe about the arrogance of Catholics and our infallible doctrine. They often claim it's a form of intolerance. But it's a necessary teaching of Christianity; it follows inevitably from a number of other doctrines that few mainline Christian denominations will do without. Here they are:

1. God loves us all.
2. God gave us free will.
3. We are separated from God by sin.
4. God devised ONE means by which that separation could be repaired (His plan of salvation), which includes the things we must believe and how we must live.
5. God desires that all of us be saved.
6. God can do all things.

From 2 and 3, we can conclude that God expected some of us to corrupt the One plan of salvation mentioned in 4. But from 1, 5, and 6, we can conclude that God would also ensure that His plan of Salvation in 4 would be preserved from corruption, and furthermore, that it would be widely available and widely recognized. In other words, God would ensure there was an authority on earth that would preserve and promote His one plan of salvation.

Incidentally, that describes the Roman Catholic Church's teaching on doctrine regarding faith and morals, the ones that describe what we must believe and how we must live if we are to be saved: that they are protected from human error or tampering by grace, also known as the power of the Holy Spirit. The technical term for this is infallibility.

To be infalliable, doctrine must be catholic, that is, universal. Both the teaching authority and the application must be universal. Thus, the marks of infallible doctrine are any of these:

1. The Pope, as successor to Peter, teaching the whole world, provides infallible doctrine.

2. Pontifical councils likewise teach infallible doctrine.

3. When all the bishops in Apostolic Succession who are in communion with the Holy See of Rome teach a doctrine, it is infallible.

Also, infallible doctrine always is teaching about salvation, which is why it is always only teaching about faith and morals. Nothing else is important enough for this sort of intervention.

If you look around for Catholic apologetics, you'll find all sorts of Biblical justification explaining how Christ gave authority over the Church here on Earth to Peter, and by extension, his legitimate successors. But if I'm going to post that here, it's going to be later.

edit: I want to thank Shakespeare's Cobbler for his expansion and clarifications.

Obligatory "Journey" Post

Yes, yes, the obligatory conversion story. Lots of Catholic blogs have these. They inspire some of the readers. Who knows, perhaps mine will as well.

I'm a revert, pretty much. I started as a cradle Catholic, but in spite of 4 years of Catholic school and six more of CCD classes, I never really did absorb much of doctrine, and shortly after Confirmation, I was a faithless agnostic, for all practical purposes. I saw no reason to concern myself with spiritual matters, as they could not be demonstrated by scientific means. I never descended to affirming the non-existance of God or anything spiritual.

I suppose it was that, along with associations in science fiction and fantasy fandom, is what led me to dabble in the occult, particularly some neoPagan rituals and Tarot, as well as an eschatological Baha'i cult. I dropped away from those as well, stumbling instead into Amway. My sponsor in Amway opened the trunk of his car shortly after I bought my IBO kit, and told me to borrow whatever books I wanted from his collection there. I wanted a greater understanding of people, so I grabbed Personality Plus by Florence Littauer. It was loaded with Christianity, but I figured that wouldn't prevent me from learning from it. And Mrs. Littauer's explanation of Hippocrates' personality archetypes using axes of outgoing to reserved and task to people oriented made sense and ordered a lot of my thinking on how people tend to think and what they want. (Much the same information can be found at 4marks.com.)

Then, at the end, she drew a simile. She spoke of her two anencephalic children, lovely babies born without brains. She said that knowledge and life without Christ was very much like her children without brains.

I rolled over and moaned, "Oh, my God. Oh, my God." I had just been made aware of the giant God-shaped hole in my life, that I had ignored for over ten years. I wanted Him back, but I didn't want to abandon my self-identity as a thinking person to do so. Of course, the next thing that came along was More Than a Carpenter by Josh McDowell, which convinced me that I was not taking leave of all reason by accepting the historicity of the Gospels. I attended some large functions which included various Protestant evangelists as speakers, and I went to the front a couple of times. But I did not really take up the practice of Christianity.

I got on the internet and found a good friend. She convinced me that Dexter Yager had lied continuously for thirty years about the unprofitable nature of "tools" (also called Business Support Materials), particularly the tapes, and I left Amway behind. But I missed the positive reinforcement of the tapes, so I started listening to radio evangelists. Then Dr. David Jeremiah, of Turning Point broadcast his taped program on Revelations. Though it clearly made him uncomfortable, he presented Alexander Hislop's libellous interpretation of the Whore of Babylon (or possibly Ralph Woodrow's update of it). And I flat out knew he was wrong about the worship of Mary. And hadn't God told Peter not to call profane anything He had made clean? God had cleaned pagan Yule rituals, and made them Christian. And IF the Sign of the Cross had at one point honored Ishtar and Tammuz, couldn't God make it now honor Christ?

(By the way, it turns out that Woodrow repudiated "Babylon Mystery Religion" later on in his life, an act of great courage and honesty, for which he deserve our admiration. He remains an evangelical Charismatic.)

I also participated in an online community pretty much devoted to disputation and arguments about religion and politics. I usually advanced or defended the libertarian position. Somebody there posted some declarations about the Catholic Church that again, I knew were flat out wrong. This time, I did some research, and was able to refute the declarations and provide links to the opposition. From that reasearch, I learned the basis for the Church's claims of authority and infallibility, which I found convincing. I joined the Catholic Exchange community and read nearly everything posted on their portal (still do, it's good stuff). I decided that it was time to return to the Church.

I was visiting my family for Christmas that year, and it was our plan to attend the Christmas Vigil Mass at the parish of my childhood, because they were losing their priest, and they wouldn't be getting another. I knew I desperately needed a good confession to receive the Eucharist, so I spent half the afternoon of Christmas Eve frantically looking for a priest to give me Reconciliation. I was out of luck. In desperation, I called the childhood parish, got hold of the pastor, and begged him to take my confession any time up to a full hour before Mass. He told me he'd be in the confessional fifteen minutes before Mass started. I was greatly relieved.

And it was all wonderful. I hadn't been so filled with joy in years.

The process of conversion is still ongoing, and with the help and guidance of the Church and the Holy Spirit, it will remain so for the rest of my life. I still have trouble with sin, particularly sins of omission. I do not regularly open either my St. Joseph's Edition New American Bible or my Catechism of the Catholic Church, but they're within arm's reach. Still, the introduction of the CCC, which described man's purpose in life, absolutely RIVETED me. It was just THAT good, to know what life is really all about. But at least I know now where I belong, which is within the Church founded by Jesus on Peter, and the root motivation for everything I should do: to know God, and to love and serve Him, with all my heart, all my soul, all my mind, and all my strength.

And I thank God for our separated bretheren, and ask that He bless them. But for them, I very much doubt I would be here. But the most credit MUST go to God, whose grace alone allowed me to find Him.

Praying for Enemies

From Archbishop Harry J. Flynn, by way of Catholic Exchange.

I am going to share a genuine prayer of forgiveness which was the prayer of an unknown woman, found on a piece of wrapping paper in Ravensbruck concentration camp at the end of World War II:

O Lord, Remember not only the men and women of goodwill, but also those of ill will. But do not remember the suffering they inflicted upon us; remember the fruits we brought — thanks to this suffering, our comradeship, our loyalty, our humility, the courage, the generosity, the greatness of heart which has grown out of this; and when they come to judgment, let all the fruits that we have borne be their forgiveness.

I am in awe of this great love. It is not natural, but supernatural. It comes not from the human heart, but the Holy Spirit. I pray that we, too, can have such love for those who hate and torment us from the depths of evil to which they have sunk.

One of the themes you will see me revisit, time and again, is the sincere belief that great evils are only rarely defeated by force and laws. Force and laws can resist evil, and that is the proper use of them. But evils, be they terrorism, violence, abortion, pornography, drugs, or what have you, are only suppressed by force and laws. They are defeated only when evil hearts are transformed by love.