Is Suicide an Option?

I realize that many who read this blog post will have had a loved one who was so hopelessly disabled by accident or illness that they and the family have seriously considered suicide as the best outcome for the situation. But…is that an ethical, spiritually justifiable, moral, solution to such a problem? I think not, and for the following reasons:

First of all, the Commandment says, “Thou shalt not kill.” Human life is not to be ended by men; and I think that this Commandment applies equally to one’s own life as well as to the lives of others. Two notable exceptions exist: Christians and others have long considered that it is permissible to take human life in a justifiable war and for self-defense. But, otherwise, there is no defensible reason for taking human life.

Secondly, we have a scriptural instruction on this subject in the second chapter of the book of Job (v.9,10). In the height of Job’s suffering, his wife said to him, “’Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die.’ But he said to her, ‘You speak as one of the foolish women who speak. Shall we receive good from God and shall we not receive evil?’ In all this Job did not sin with his lips.” Job refused to sacrifice his own life, even though he was suffering greatly.

Thirdly, justifying suicide leads to the further degradation of the respect for human life, in general; and it guides one to endorse other forms of disrespect for human life, e.g., abortion and euthanasia—death by committee!

Several years ago, I was practicing medicine in Detroit. A 55 year old nurse came to me complaining of severe back pain; the pain was said to be so severe that she was considering suicide—she had already consulted Dr. Kevorkian about killing herself. She told me that she wanted an unlimited supply of morphine and that if I did not give it to her, she was going to kill herself.

I made sure that all indicated diagnostic tests were made to find out what was causing the back pain, e.g., X-rays, CT scan, orthopedic and psychiatric consultations. The only finding was the presence of mild arthritis of the spine, which was appropriate for her age.

Not being willing to induce opiate addiction by supplying her with unlimited amounts of morphine, I refused to prescribe what she requested. She went to another doctor who supplied her with the drugs.

Three months later, she appeared on TV with Dr. Kevorkian testifying to the necessity and advisability of elective suicide. Within a few days, Dr. Kevorkian took her to the front door of the local police station in his van and helped her kill herself.

This case illustrates how liberal and permissive attitudes toward suicide lead to gross abuse of human life.

Suicide is not the answer to human suffering. God gives life; and only he has the right to take it away.

The REAL inequality in American Society

I strongly recommend that everyone who is interested in understanding the real inequality in American society should read the New York Times editorial referred to in the link below. This news is especially appropriate for those who have children growing up, because I am sure that you want your children to be on the right side of the inequality divide. Social Inequality

Why Keynesians Keep Getting It Wrong

Those who heaped high praise in Keynesian policies have grown silent as government spending has failed to bring an economic recovery. Except for a few diehards who want still more government spending and those who make the unverifiable claim that the economy would have collapsed without it, most now recognize that more than a trillion dollars of spending by the Bush and Obama administrations has left the economy in a slump and unemployment above 9%.

Why is the economic response to increased government spending so different from the response predicted by Keynesian models? What is missing from the model that makes their forecasts so inaccurate? There are four reasons for this miscalculation on the part of our leaders:

1) Big increases in spending and government deficits raise the prospect of future tax increases. This scares off investors.
2) Government spending programs redistribute income from workers/producers to the unemployed. This precludes an effect that would increase productivity. Unemployed people are less likely to be the ones to increase productivity.
3) Keynesian methods increases governmental regulations, and that increases costs without an increase in useful production.
4) The estimated cost of new jobs in President Obama’s latest jobs bill is at least $200,000 per job based on administration estimates of the number of jobs and their cost. How can that appeal to the taxpayers who will pay for those costs? Once the subsidies end, the jobs will likely end, too.

We have spent nearly a trillion dollars and have nothing to show for it in the form of new jobs. All we have is a bunch of IOU’s. Throwing a lot more money into this fiasco (in the form of President Obama’s jobs bill) and expecting a different response seems stupid to me.

This blog post was partly redacted from the Wall Street Journal 28 October 2011, page A17.

We Don’t Need Higher Taxes—We Need Lower Taxes!

Congress’s Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction is struggling to find $1.5 trillion in cuts over the next 10 years. This is a unique opportunity to use tax reform to reduce future budget deficits while lowering individual tax rates.
The Tax Reform Act of 1986 showed how a tax reform that includes lower rates can change incentives in a way that grows the tax base and produces extra revenue for the federal government. In that law, the top tax rate in the U.S. was reduced from 50% to 28%.

After that law was enacted, there was an enormous rise in taxes paid, particularly by those who experienced the greatest reductions in tax rates. Taxpayers who faced a tax rate of 50% in 1985 were paying 50% of federal taxes. After 1986, they began paying 72% of the federal intake! That was because the decrease in taxes provided an incentive to invest and to take financial risks that grew the economy.

Our government should look at the experience of 1986. Lowering taxes will increase the federal intake of revenue monies.

This blog post was redacted from the Wall Street Journal of 24 October 2011, page A15.

Voter Fraud Perpetrated by ACORN/Project Vote in Colorado

On 4 August 2011, Judicial Watch released documents obtained from the Coloraqdo Department of State showing that ACORN and its affiliate, Project Vote, successfully pressured Colorado officials into implementing new policies for increasing the registration of public assistance recipients during the 2008 and 2010 election seasons. Following the policy changes the percentage of invalid voter registration forms from Colorado public registration agencies was four times the national average.

The attempts of ACORN/Project Vote to upset the voter registration system in Colorado was spearheaded by Amy Busefink, who at the time was under indictment on 13 voter violation charges in Nevada.

Democrat, Bernie Buesher, who served as Colorado Secretary of State from January 2009through January 2011was complicit in these efforts to jury rig the Colorado voter registration system. He took measures to satisfy the demands of Project Vote related to the registration of public assistance recipients. Buescher sought a waiver from the Obama administration that would have allowed a delay in sending out ballots in time for military personnel to vote in the last election. The Department of Defense rejected the request. Apparently Colorado’s concern for voting rights of its citizens did not extend to military personnel in the state.

This blog post was excerpted from “The Judicial Watch Verdict” of October 2011.

The Obvious Manifestation of God’s Election

I am currently reading a book that clearly describes God’s election to salvation of His people. The book is titled, “They Thought for Themselves.” This book is about ten Jews who heard God’s call and responded to it in faith. Most of them were orthodox in background and understood all of the basics and culture of Judaism very well.

The book is written in very simple, understandable, terms. These people are ordinary people. They speak in everyday language. They are not sophisticated theologians. They are simply people who have heard the words of God; they recognized Him, and they responded.

The various members of the ten faced great opposition from other Jews who believe that Jesus is a falsehood and a pretender to the goods of God. These ten people have answered the opposition of the Jews in various ways; but always with conviction and courtesy.

One argument that was occasionally used by these Jewish Christians is the passage in Jeremiah 33:14-26. “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David, and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land….” I strongly recommend that all my readers carefully read that passage in its entirety; it is quite instructive and communicative to the Jewish mind.

One of the ten received this argument from a detractor: “You say that Jesus is the Messiah, but he is well known to have said from the cross where he was crucified, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ This passage is from the 1st verse of Psalm 22. If he were truly God in the flesh, why would he have said such a thing?” The answer, of course, is that He well knew that the people standing around the cross would have clearly recognized the source of that question; and they would have understood it in the context of the rest of the Psalm, which is one of the strongest statements of faith in the Bible.

Furthermore, the Jew who had converted to the faith asked the critic a question that stopped his mouth: “Do you remember who it was who first made that statement in the 1st verse of Psalm 22? It was King David. Do you intend to tell me that David questioned his faith, too?”

In view of fierce opposition, the ten converted Jews mentioned in this book stood their ground and became repentant, faithful, followers of Jesus, the true Messiah of the Jews. This could never have happened without the elective finger of God on them.

Do NOT Cut the Defense Department Budget

The Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, staffed by 6 Congressmen and 6 Senators, half being Democrats and half being Republicans are tasked with cutting the federal budget by $1.5 trillion over 10 years. If they do not succeed in coming up with an acceptable compromise on this issue, automatic cuts will be imposed, amounting to $1.2 trillion. These mandatory cuts in the budget if this committee does not come up with other recommendations will include drastic cuts to the Defense Department.

The Defense Department has already taken severe cuts to their budget since the Obama administration came to power. If these new cuts take place, it is estimated by the DOD that the military will have to mothball over 60 ships, including 2 of our 11 carrier battle groups, ⅓ of our Army maneuver battalions and ⅓ of the Air Force fighter jets.

With the world situation as it is, we can ill afford to limit our country’s military fighting forces.

I would ask all my readers to contact each member of the Select Committee to vote to leave the funding of DOD as it is without any further budget cuts. The web page of the Committee is Deficit Reduction Committee. The members of the committee are listed below; and you can contact them by looking them up on Google.

Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), Co-Chair
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Co-Chair
Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.)
Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.)
Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.)
Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.)
Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.)
Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.)
Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio)
Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.)
Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.)
Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.)

Thanks for your attention to this important matter!