IF YOU CAN FIND A BETTER DEAL, TAKE IT!

One of the 'exceptional' aspects of being an American is freedom of speech. History teaches us the horrors of countries under dictatorship, and yet Americans enjoy the privilege of speaking its mind - that is until "Political Correctness" came along. We were able to speak our minds, whether it was about politics, history, people, and our faith.

For over 80% of America, faith plays an important and critical part of our lives. It grounds us, gives us hope, makes us aware of our surroundings and its needs, and most of all, gives us peace of mind. It is also the foundation of our country and its principles. This country was founded explicitly on the belief in God.

Now, the smothering of political correctness, and the ACLU, has made being American un-American. After twenty-some years of this, America is getting fed up. There is only so much you can take away from a free people before they wake up and say -- STOP!

Brit Hume, of Fox News, spoke recently from the heart, and has been excoriated by the left wing loons. Brit Hume, a soft spoken, gentle man, reached out to another man in need of help. How dare he! I respect and adore this man, pray for him, and look forward to many more of his pearls of wisdom. Ann Coulter writes a brilliant piece:


If You Can Find a Better Deal, Take It!
by Ann Coulter, January 6, 2010

Someone mentioned Christianity on television recently and liberals reacted with their usual howls of rage and blinking incomprehension.

On a Fox News panel discussing Tiger Woods, Brit Hume said, perfectly accurately:

"The extent to which he can recover, it seems to me, depends on his faith. He is said to be a Buddhist. I don't think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So, my message to Tiger would be, 'Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world."

Hume's words, being 100 percent factually correct, sent liberals into a tizzy of sputtering rage, once again illustrating liberals' copious ignorance of Christianity. (Also illustrating the words of the Bible: "How is it you do not understand me when I speak? It is because you cannot bear to listen to my words." John 8:43.)

In The Washington Post, Tom Shales demanded that Hume apologize, saying he had "dissed about half a billion Buddhists on the planet."

Is Buddhism about forgiveness? Because, if so, Buddhists had better start demanding corrections from every book, magazine article and blog posting ever written on the subject, which claims Buddhists don't believe in God, but try to become their own gods.

I can't imagine that anyone thinks Tiger's problem was that he didn't sufficiently think of himself as a god, especially after that final putt in the Arnold Palmer Invitational last year.

In light of Shales' warning Hume about "what people are saying" about him, I hope Hume's a Christian, but that's not apparent from his inarguable description of Christianity. Of course, given the reaction to his remarks, apparently one has to be a regular New Testament scholar to have so much as a passing familiarity with the basic concept of Christianity.

On MSNBC, David Shuster invoked the "separation of church and television" (a phrase that also doesn't appear in the Constitution), bitterly complaining that Hume had brought up Christianity "out-of-the-blue" on "a political talk show."

Why on earth would Hume mention religion while discussing a public figure who had fallen from grace and was in need of redemption and forgiveness? Boy, talk about coming out of left field!

What religion -- what topic -- induces this sort of babbling idiocy? (If liberals really want to keep people from hearing about God, they should give Him his own show on MSNBC.)

Most perplexing was columnist Dan Savage's indignant accusation that Hume was claiming that Christianity "offers the best deal -- it gives you the get-out-of-adultery-free card that other religions just can't."

In fact, that's exactly what Christianity does. It's the best deal in the universe. (I know it seems strange that a self-described atheist and "radical sex advice columnist f*****" like Savage would miss the central point of Christianity, but there it is.)

God sent his only son to get the crap beaten out of him, die for our sins and rise from the dead. If you believe that, you're in. Your sins are washed away from you -- sins even worse than adultery! -- because of the cross.

"He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross." Colossians 2:14.

Surely you remember the cross, liberals -- the symbol banned by ACLU lawsuits from public property throughout the land?

Christianity is simultaneously the easiest religion in the world and the hardest religion in the world.

In the no-frills, economy-class version, you don't need a church, a teacher, candles, incense, special food or clothing; you don't need to pass a test or prove yourself in any way. All you'll need is a Bible (in order to grasp the amazing deal you're getting) and probably a water baptism, though even that's disputed.

You can be washing the dishes or walking your dog or just sitting there minding your business hating Susan Sarandon and accept that God sent his only son to die for your sins and rise from the dead ... and you're in!

"Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." Romans 10:9.

If you do that, every rotten, sinful thing you've ever done is gone from you. You're every bit as much a Christian as the pope or Billy Graham.

No fine print, no "your mileage may vary," no blackout dates. God ought to do a TV spot: "I'm God Almighty, and if you can find a better deal than the one I'm offering, take it."

The Gospel makes this point approximately 1,000 times. Here are a few examples at random:

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." John 3:16.

"For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God." Ephesians 2:8.

"For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 6:23.

In a boiling rage, liberals constantly accuse Christians of being "judgmental." No, we're relieved.

Christianity is also the hardest religion in the world because, if you believe Christ died for your sins and rose from the dead, you have no choice but to give your life entirely over to Him. No more sexual promiscuity, no lying, no cheating, no stealing, no killing inconvenient old people or unborn babies -- no doing what all the other kids do.

And no more caring what the world thinks of you -- because, as Jesus warned in a prophecy constantly fulfilled by liberals: The world will hate you.

With Christianity, your sins are forgiven, the slate is wiped clean and your eternal life is guaranteed through nothing you did yourself, even though you don't deserve it. It's the best deal in the universe.


Ann Coulter is Legal Affairs Correspondent for HUMAN EVENTS and author of "High Crimes and Misdemeanors," "Slander," ""How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must)," "Godless," "If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans" and most recently, "Guilty: Liberal Victims and their Assault on America" (now in paperback).

OBAMA'S TWISTED FAITH

To coin a phrase from Charles Krauthammer, "Does the Narcissism of this man know no bounds?" , and he keeps out doing himself. Obama has stooped to a new low, though, using religious groups to peddle his government run health care, not to mention lying to the clergy.

A brilliant piece ffrom PajamasMedia:


OBAMA'S TWISTED FAITH
By Sammy Benoit, August 21, 2009

On Wednesday, the president’s schedule included calls with two different clergy groups, intended to enlist them to sell ObamaCare to their “flocks.” The first call was with 1,000 rabbis from across the country:

In a morning conference call with about 1000 rabbis from across the nation, Obama asked for aid: “I am going to need your help in accomplishing necessary reform,” the president told the group, according to Rabbi Jack Moline, who tweeted his way through the phoner.

“We are God’s partners in matters of life and death,” Obama went on to say, according to Moline’s real-time stream. The president concluded by wishing the rabbis a “Shanah Tovah (Happy Jewish New Year).”

The 15-minute morning briefing was sponsored by the Religion Action Center of Reform Judaism, and included rabbis of all persuasions. Although the RAC hosts the call each year, participants had never before heard from a sitting president.

Rabbi Moline must have caught heat from his Twitter comments because later in the day Moline deleted the feed, saying that it was a “huge mistake.”

The second call was to 140,000 clergy of all faiths:

“I know there’s been a lot of misinformation in this debate and there are some folks out there who are frankly bearing false witness,” he said.

Obama called the notion that his proposed changes to the health care system would lead to so-called death panels “just an extraordinary lie,” said the idea that they would require federal funding for abortions or provide insurance for illegal aliens was not true and told callers the plan would not amount to a government takeover of health care or to cutting Medicare benefits for the elderly.

The president framed the debate as a battle between hope and fear, a not-so-subtle attempt to convince the clergy that he was leading the forces of good against his evil opponents.

“These are all fabrications that have been put out there in order to discourage people from meeting what I consider to be a core ethical and moral obligation and that is that we look out for one another,” he said. “That I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper and in the wealthiest nation on Earth right now, we are neglecting to live up to that call.”

The president called on religious leaders to “knock on doors” and “speak the truth” to help him spread the good word about health care reform.

At the end, Obama did not take any questions, and, with a simple “bye bye,” ended the call.

Gary Bauer, chairman of the Campaign for Working Families, was not happy about the president’s use of God to sell his program:

But now, as his scheme to take over health care unravels by the day, President Obama is attempting to exploit Jesus to justify more big government. As I recall, government was not very kind to Jesus. And Jesus never suggested that government should be a substitute for individual Christian charity. Helping our neighbors and the disadvantaged is an individual charge — not a call for more bureaucracy.

Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), disputed the president’s claim that the bill did not fund abortions. Johnson charged that Obama:

“brazenly misrepresented the abortion-related component of the health care legislation that his congressional allies and staff have crafted.”

The NRLC explained that “as amended by the House Energy and Commerce Committee on July 30 (the Capps-Waxman Amendment), the bill backed by the White House (H.R. 3200) explicitly authorizes the government plan to cover all elective abortions.”


“Obama apparently seeks to hide behind a technical distinction between tax funds and government-collected premiums. But these are merely two types of public funds, collected and spent by government agencies,” Johnson explained.

“The Obama-backed legislation makes it explicitly clear that no citizen would be allowed to enroll in the government plan unless he or she is willing to give the federal agency an extra amount calculated to cover the cost of all elective abortions — this would not be optional. The abortionists would bill the federal government and would be paid by the federal government.

These are public funds, and this is government funding of abortion,” Johnson said.

The president’s basic religious arguments were a bit disingenuous. He was correct that revising the health care system in America is a moral issue, but the argument is not, as he claims, a disagreement over whether we should reform health care, but how. His opponents simply don’t like Obama’s plan — they certainly are not “evil,” as he implies.

Sarah Palin’s comments about “death panels” were hyperbolic, but they were not “bearing false witness.” While there is nothing in the ObamaCare bills about “death panels,” make no mistake about it, this plan will lead to rationing — it is simple economics.

The president is correct when he says the government would not force a change, but of course economics will encourage your company to force a change. If the government plan doesn’t have to make a profit, and if all other costs are the same, it can charge less. Which way do you think companies will go? If you have a group of competitors, but one has virtually unlimited resources and does not have to make a profit, how long before the competition has no customers?

Eventually you will end up with one insurance company — its name is Uncle Sam. And when your good Uncle Sam wants to save some money, he will start making bureaucratic decisions, rather than medical decisions, about your health. Mom won’t get that treatment to save her life because it is expensive and she has already lived 90 good years. Uncle Sam will tell the pharmaceutical company that they won’t cover their better heart pill — the one in use now is good enough, and heck, it already cures 70 percent of the cases.


How am I so sure? Because there has never been a government-run health plan, anywhere in the world, that did not ration care.

If the president wanted to talk about “bearing false witness,” maybe he should have talked about the false attacks he has made during this the health care debate regarding Fox News, the Republican Party, and of course — the villain du jour – the insurance industry.

Leviticus 19:14 talks about a commandment the Jews call Lifnei iver (before the blind). The verse says:

You shall not curse the deaf nor place a stumbling block before the blind; you shall fear your God — I am your Lord.

The Torah is not really talking about blind and deaf people — the verse has been interpreted by the rabbis as a prohibition against misleading people. The recipient of bad advice would be blind in regards to its accuracy, and they would stumble if the advice was damaging or otherwise bad.

The half-truths President Obama told clergy about his health care plan and its opponents are a perfect example of Lifnei iver, putting a stumbling block before the blind.