Can America be saved?

During the Obama Administration, a frequent rallying cry among conservatives has been the need to “take our country back.” The Obama era has brought the fundamental change that the future president promised in 2008, but has left many Americans feeling that the country is on the wrong track.

Much of the focus on restoring America is centered on restoring Republicans –constitutional conservatives in particular – to the White House. Winning the election of 2016, however, will prove much easier than reversing American decline. Many of the problems faced by the United States are in reality merely symptoms of deeper problems that may well prove impossible to fix, even with committed conservative Republicans in control of both houses of Congress and the presidency.

The national debt

The most obvious of long term problems is the mounting federal debt. The debt, which has been increasing for years under both Republicans and Democrats, almost doubled under President Obama and now stands at more than $18 trillion. If this were not bad enough, the figure is incomplete because it does not include unfunded liabilities for items such as entitlement programs and federal pensions. The true debt is more than $100 trillion according to Forbes, an amount that the government will almost certainly never be able to repay.

Republicans under John Boehner deserve credit for attacking this problem, but their efforts have been woefully inadequate, due in no small part to President Obama. The sequester led to the first real cuts in the federal budget since the 1950s. At this point, federal spending has declined for three consecutive years for the first time since the 1920s, but while the deficit has been reduced, it has not been eliminated. The federal debt continues to increase, albeit at a slower rate.

Federal borrowing has also been aided by historically low interest rates over the past decade, but this cannot be expected to continue indefinitely. Currently, interest payments make up seven percent of the federal budget according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. As the debt continues to grow and interest rates rise, payments on interest will crowd out other budget items. At some point, Americans will have to choose between national defense and entitlements.

The destruction of the family

Hidden behind many symptoms of American decline is the decline of the family. Statistics show that half a century ago, almost all children were born to intact families. Divorce was uncommon and most kids grew up with two parents. Today, almost half of first babies are born to unmarried mothers. Two things caused the change: birth control and the welfare programs of the Great Society.

Birth control eliminated the big reason that women had for abstaining from sex until marriage. The increased availability of sex outside of marriage eliminated a big reason for men to get married. Accordingly, marriage rates have dropped since birth control became widely available.

Complementary to birth control was the fact that, if a woman did get pregnant outside of marriage, the government would now subsidize the costs of raising children for single parents. Men need no longer feel the pressure to marry a woman that they had “knocked up.” Dad wasn’t needed because Uncle Sam would fill the void.

The problem is that a government check is not as effective a parent as an actual, flesh and blood father. Studies have shown that children of single-parent households are more at risk for juvenile delinquency and drug abuse than their peers and are more likely to live in poverty. They also tend to have more children outside of marriage, requiring more government financial assistance, in a vicious cycle that perpetuates itself and that will be harder and harder to break.

Executive usurpation of Congress

A less obvious threat to the future of the United States is the damage that President Obama has done to the balance of power between the presidency and Congress. After the 2010 elections, President Obama learned that he could bypass Congress to enact difficult-to-pass items of legislation through the administrative rulemaking process of executive agencies. Net neutrality and new carbon regulations by the Environmental Protection Agency are two examples of this.

When the Republicans took control of the House and then the Senate, Obama increasingly relied on Executive Orders and administrative rulemaking to advance his agenda. A well-known example is the president’s 2012 directive on immigration. Two more recent examples are the agreement with Iran, which Obama refuses to call a treaty because that would require ratification by the Senate, and this week’s revelation, reported by Maggie Gallagher in The Pulse, that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission unilaterally criminalized workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The law, as written, does not include sexual orientation as a protected class.

Republicans have made attempts to rein in the president, but, all too often, these attempts fall victim to Democratic filibusters or the president’s veto pen. The Constitution is inadequate to deal with a president who has no respect for the rule of law. This was noted by framer John Adams who said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

It is unlikely that future presidents will not remember President Obama’s success at circumventing Congress with executive actions. It will be very tempting for Obama’s successors to adopt the same strategy of legislation by “a pen and a phone.”

The failure of the courts

Closely related to President Obama’s usurpation of congressional authority is the failure of the courts to adequately provide a check to unconstitutional laws and executive regulations. The appointment of liberal judicial activists for decades has eviscerated the judicial branch as a check to Congress and the president. The problem is not limited to the Supreme Court, but includes federal and state courts around the country, as evidenced by the plethora of state judicial decisions striking down definition of marriage of laws.

Likewise, the problem is not new. There have been many bad Supreme Court decisions throughout our history, notably the Dred Scott decision of 1857, but the idea of justices creating law rather than interpreting it stems back at least 80 years to the New Deal. In Wickard v. Filburn (1942), the Court ruled that the interstate commerce clause could be interpreted to mean that Congress could regulate commerce within a state, the opposite of what the Constitution says. Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) created the heretofore unknown “right to privacy” that led to other bad decisions such as Roe v. Wade (1973).

These earlier bad decisions are the direct lineage of more recent bad decisions like King v. Burwell (2015), in which a majority ruled that an “Exchange established by the State” can also mean “exchange set up by the federal government,” NFIB v. Sebelius (2012), where the Court ruled that Congress can tax people for not doing things it wants them to do, and Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), where a majority found that the dignity of homosexuals required the justices take defining marriage out of the hands of the states and place it into their own hands, the will of the people and the Constitution be damned. As Justice Scalia lamented in his King v. Burwell dissent, a judicial philosophy that allows judges to make “interpretive distortions… ignores the American people’s decision to give Congress ‘all legislative Powers’ enumerated in the Constitution.”

A constitutional republic requires the rule of law to exist. When judges rewrite laws based on their own desires, the rule of law is in peril. Judicial activism is a problem, but judicial restraint in the face of unconstitutional laws is just as threatening.

America’s core problems are deeply rooted in decades of progressive policies and social tinkering as well as a changing culture. The left has been very successful at shifting culture away from the liberty-focused, hardworking culture of our forefathers to an attitude of dependence on government. Top down policy changes cannot correct cultural issues. Conservatives must focus on changing the culture of America from the grass roots as well.

No one can say for sure how long America will continue to struggle along under the weight of these four possibly insurmountable obstacles. It might take decades for them to take their toll on the country. We might follow in the footsteps of Europe’s social democracies with a generation or more of stagnation and decline.

Or, just the opposite, our core problems might never run their full course. Outside influences – from ISIS to Iran to China – might hasten our decline since weakness is an invitation to adversaries. As Lenin said, “Probe with a bayonet: if you meet steel, stop. If you meet mush, then push.”

Read the full article on Examiner.com

IRS manager in problem office got bonuses, now leads Obamacare unit

Sarah Hall Ingram was the IRS official in charge of the Internal Revenue Service Tax Exempt Division from 2009 through 2012. Her division has recently made headlines as part of the IRS that singled conservative groups who were seeking tax exemptions.

One might expect that Sarah Hall Ingram would have been dismissed from the IRS after President Obama announced his displeasure over the IRS scandal. Obama requested the resignation of acting IRS commissioner Steven Miller after the scandal broke.

In reality, the IRS confirmed Friday to ABC News that Ingram, rather than being fired or demoted, now heads up the IRS Affordable Care Office. The Affordable Care Act dramatically expands the size and power of the IRS by putting the IRS in charge of enforcing the individual and employer mandates. The IRS also controls and regulates the Affordable Care Act’s federal subsidies for health insurance.

Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the Republican candidate for vice president in 2012, called the IRS connection to Obamacare “rotten to the core.” Speaking today on Fox News Sunday, he said, “The IRS is now going to be granted huge amounts of unprecedented power over our health care in the implementation of Obamacare. And so this is just rotten to the core. This is arrogance. This is big government cronyism. And this is not what hard-working taxpayers deserve.”

Other conservatives wondered whether the IRS might limit the availability of health care, health insurance or federal subsidies in cases where patients were critical of the Obama Administration or the federal government. In answer, Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) has introduced the Keep the IRS Off Your Health Care Act of 2013. The law would prohibit the IRS from implementing or enforcing the Affordable Care Act’s provisions.

Acting Commissioner Miller’s firing has also been greatly exaggerated. ABC News also reported that Miller’s 210 day term would have expired on June 8. In the meantime, Miller is still on the job. No final date for his departure has been announced. A copy of his resignation letter to IRS employees in the Washington Post referred to Miller’s focus “on an orderly transition,” which seems to imply that his departure will not be immediate.

The brunt of the blame seems to be falling on Joseph Grant, who became deputy commissioner of the tax exempt division in 2007, serving under Ms. Ingram. Grant was promoted to Ms. Ingram’s old position only two days before the IRS announcement that sparked the scandal. USA Today reports that Grant will retire on June 3.

The Washington Examiner also reported this week that Sarah Hall Ingram received more than $100,000 in bonuses during her tenure as the head of the tax exempt office. During the years from 2010 through 2012 when IRS persecution of conservative groups was at its highest levels, Ingram received between $26,000 and $35,000 in annual bonus money. Ingram also received a bonus of $47,900 in 2004. During the four years in question, the average bonus paid to IRS employees was $5,500.

The Examiner points out that Office of Personnel Management guidelines state, “If the recommended award is over $25,000, the Director of OPM reviews the nomination and forwards his/her recommendation to the President for approval.” The guidelines also note that managers should ensure that “the proposed award recipient has not been involved in any action or activity that could cause the President embarrassment.…”

Originally posted on Examiner:

http://www.examiner.com/article/manager-of-irs-scandal-office-now-heads-obamacare-unit

IRS scandal is worse than Benghazi for Obama

Over the past week, the Obama Administration has been repeatedly rocked by scandals. Beginning with last week’s hearings on the pre-election attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi that resulted in the death of ambassador Chris Stevens, President Obama has endured a steady stream of bad news.

Although the Benghazi hearing has raised the ire of conservatives, the real danger to the Obama Administration comes from the domestic scandals. In particular Obama’s problems with the Internal Revenue Service can fire the imaginations and anger of the American people.

As reported by Examiner last October, the fundamentals of the Benghazi fiasco were known within weeks after the attack. The recent hearings have confirmed that President Obama lied about the nature of the attack to avoid having his foreign policy questioned just before the election. Benghazi never captured the public’s imagination, however. Even though a U.S. ambassador, a consulate employee, and two former Navy Seals were killed by al Qaeda-linked militants, the media mostly ignored the story of the cover-up. The American public, weary of war after more than a decade of fighting, seemed unwilling to get angry over the attack, even if it was the result of Obama’s foreign policy or Secretary of State Clinton’s refusal to reinforce the consulate’s security forces. This week’s revelations of IRS bullying and Justice Department subpoenas of Associated Press phone records seem likelier to hit home, each for different reasons.

In the best of times, the IRS is probably the most reviled federal agency. Nobody likes taxes. Tax collectors have been unpopular with taxpayers since long before the days when Matthew and Zacchaeus repented of abuse of power in their chosen profession. More recently, the IRS scandal began with an apology from Lois Lerner, director of the Exempt Organizations Division, for what she termed as the targeting of conservative groups for additional scrutiny on their applications for tax exempt status. The problem, she said, lay with low level workers in Cincinnati who acted independently. It quickly became apparent that the IRS confession barely scratched the surface.

· In 2009, the IRS tried to force board members of a pro-life group to sign a statement promising “under perjury of the law, they do not picket/protest or organize groups to picket or protest outside of Planned Parenthood” in order to gain tax exemption according to the Thomas More Law Center.

· In 2010, Z Street, a pro-Israel group, sued the IRS after being told that its application would take longer because it was “connected to Israel” according to the Jewish Press.

· In September 2010, the Weekly Standard reported that Austan Goolsbee, the head of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors, criticized Koch Industries, citing confidential tax information that was not publicly available.

· Anne Henderschott, a Catholic professor and blogger, was targeted by the IRS for audits after she wrote several articles challenging liberal Catholic groups who supported Obamacare. According to the Blaze, many of the questions in the audit were political.

· In April 2011, Secure America Now, an organization critical of Obama’s foreign policy toward North Korea, Iran, Israel and Libya had its tax exemption held up twice by the IRS according to the WSJ. The investigation intensified after the group produced a popular video about the Benghazi attack.

· In May 2011, Bloomberg reported that the IRS had attempted to retroactively tax gifts made to tax exempt groups “supporting Republican causes.”

· In March 2012, the Puffington Host published private information about donors to the National Organization for Marriage that it admitted had been obtained from the IRS.

· In June 2012, Idaho businessman Frank Vandersloot was subjected to a series of audits after being mentioned in an Obama campaign as one of several “wealthy individuals with less-than-reputable records” who donated to Romney. VanderSloot passed the audits with flying colors.

· From December 2012 to January 2013, the IRS gave the left-leaning group Pro Publica confidential tax information about conservative groups.

· In April 2013, just a few weeks before the scandal broke, CNET reported that internal IRS communications state that Americans have “generally no privacy” in electronic communications such as email and Facebook chats. The IRS position is that no warrant is required to access email. This in spite of judicial rulings to the contrary.

As new victims of IRS abuse come forward, it is evident that the IRS harassed only conservatives. It is also apparent that the problem went beyond merely denying tax exempt status to conservative groups. The IRS sought membership lists from conservative groups, targeted Obama opponents with audits and slow-tracking of approvals, and leaked confidential tax information to liberal groups. The IRS also apparently tried to influence and limit the political speech of individuals and groups opposed to President Obama.

Contrary to the official IRS explanation, at least two IRS offices were involved. According to the Washington Post, letters to conservative groups seeking information about donors also came from the Washington, D.C. and California offices. At least one group was told that their application was under review in Washington.

While such heavy-handed tactics were once the province of many Democratic presidents from FDR to JFK according to historian James Bovard, Congress has since enacted legislation to restrict political contacts between the IRS and the White House. To put President Obama’s current predicament into perspective, the second article of impeachment against Richard Nixon involved using tax information for illegal purposes and auditing political opponents.

The matter of the Justice Department’s AP investigation is less pressing to most Americans, but has the potential to turn members of the media against the Obama Administration. The New Yorker called the AP investigation “aggressive.” The Wall Street Journal notes that the AP subpoenas were “broad, violating normal Justice practice of narrowly tailoring requests that concern the media.” The Justice Department overreach may entice a press corps that mostly sympathizes with Obama to take a more adversarial tack.

President Obama immediately tried to distance himself from the scandals. On May 13, he called the IRS an “independent agency,” an assessment that Factcheck.org disputes. The IRS is actually a branch of the Treasury Department. The president appoints the heads of both the IRS and the Treasury Department, a fact subtly acknowledged by President Obama when he fired Acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller on Thursday. Miller would have left the post in June anyway.

President Obama’s problems may not be solved that easily. Abuse of power in federal agencies seems to be increasing under President Obama. According to the Wall St. Journal, the Environmental Protection Agency has favored groups that share its political agenda, charging conservative groups for Freedom of Information Act requests while waiving fees for liberal groups. Earlier this year, a court ruled the president’s appointments to the National Labor Relations Board unconstitutional, but the board keeps issuing rulings. In Obama’s first term, several courts decided that the EPA acted outside its legal authority as Examiner reported last year. Obama’s Interior Department was held in contempt in 2010 for refusing to issue new drilling permits after Obama’s unilateral drilling moratorium was ruled unconstitutional.

Whether President Obama personally ordered the IRS to investigate and bully conservative groups or not, there can be little doubt that he set the tone that encouraged the harassment. Kimberly Strassel points out that many of Obama’s speeches that deride conservative groups as “less than reputable” and made thinly veiled calls for their investigation. Senate Democrats went even further notes Karl Rove. On two separate occasions, in 2010 and 2012, Democratic senators sent letters to the IRS demanding investigation of political groups.

Voters are angry about the IRS scandal. A Rasmussen poll released Wednesday indicated that a majority of Americans feel that the IRS agents responsible should be punished. Forty-one percent believe they should be fired while 29 percent support a formal reprimand. Sixteen percent believe that jail time is warranted. Fifty-seven percent believe that the investigations were politically motivated and 55 percent believe that President Obama and his top aides were aware of what the IRS was doing.

While impeachment hearings will not be held any time soon, it is also unlikely that the IRS abuse of power scandal will disappear any time soon. Americans will likely think of their own tax troubles when they hear the tales of politically motivated audits. The problem may be even worse for Obama if voters realize that the IRS will be responsible for much of the implementation of the new health care rules under Obamacare.

Originally published on Examiner:

http://www.examiner.com/article/domestic-scandals-more-dangerous-to-obama-than-benghazi

Overcoming sexual abuse: The Wounded Heart by Dan Allender

Most prostitutes are victims of sexual abuse.

If you know more than a few people, odds are that you know someone who has been sexually abused. One study indicated that as many as 38% of women had been sexually abused by age 18 (Allender, rear flap). Sexual abuse victims are male as well as female, but girls are at a higher risk than boys.

Most abuse is committed by a family member or someone known by the victim. National statistics show that 29% of abuse is committed by family members and 60% is by acquaintances (Allender, p.92). Stop It Now! Georgia reports that in Georgia 82% of cases involve members of the immediate or extended family of the victim. Often the abuser was a birth parent (37% of cases) or a sibling (22%). Abusers can be men or women, but more often the abuser is male (95% in cases of girls and 80% in cases of boys) (p. 272).

If you are being abused, you can get help through stopitnowga.org or by calling 1-800-CHILDREN. The telephone call is free in Georgia and is confidential.

The effects of sexual abuse can be overcome. Dr. Dan Allender, himself a victim of sexual abuse, has written a fascinating book on the subject of overcoming sexual abuse. The Wounded Heart: Hope for Victims of Childhood Sexual Abuse provides guidance and hope for victims of abuse as well as those who love them. Recent studies have shown that there is hope for abusers as well. They often respond to treatment and can rejoin society.

Allender begins with a discussion of the long term psychological effects of abuse. Often the victim feels dead inside, as if they are a zombie (Allender, p. 44). Often the victims feel shame for what happened to them. They fear both being exposed before the world (p. 66) and possible rejection as a consequence (p. 71). As a coping mechanism, they often place their trust in what Allender calls “false gods” (p. 74), which can include people, objects, or beliefs.

Abuse victims also frequently experience self-contempt. Self-contempt may range from physically destructive actions such as suicide or binging on food or alcohol or sex. The majority (66%) of prostitutes were sexually abused as children. The majority of these (again 66%) were abused by their father or a father figure such as foster father or stepfather. At the other extreme, self-contempt may take the form of something seemingly innocuous, such as not being able to accept a compliment (p. 80-82). Contempt serves to deaden both shame and longing for the victim, and makes them feel that they are in control. In effect, Allender calls contempt the “Great Masquerade” (p. 88) because it takes the place of sorrow and conviction over sin, replacing it with self-directed anger. Often anger masks the victim’s own pain and shame.

Allender also points out the stages of abuse. In some cases, such as a rape by a stranger, abuse is a single incident. In most cases, however, it is part of a pattern (p. 97-102). The abuser first gains the trust of the victim and draws them into secrecy. Next, physical contact is established in a manner that is not inappropriate. The abuser then takes the final step into full scale sexual abuse. In many cases, there are long periods of time between each step. Finally, in cases of ongoing abuse, the abuser may threaten or use special privileges to keep the abuse secret.

After the abuse, there are several common reactions that victims experience. First is a feeling of powerlessness. Not only was the victim powerless to stop the abuse, they were often threatened to maintain secrecy. Many victims respond by becoming numb or dead to escape the pain (p.117-122). This can translate into a dislike of their body, lying and deceit, or poor judgment in relationships.

Second is a sense of betrayal. This is especially prevalent if the abuser was a family member or if other family members were complicit in the abuse (p. 133-138). The fear of betrayal leads the victim to hyper vigilance, suspiciousness, and lack of objectivity. The victim focuses on each detail and overanalyzes them. This is because the victim questions the motives of people who extend kindness and warmth.

The third major symptom of sexual abuse is ambivalence. This is caused by the conflicting emotions due to stimulation of the senses in the abuse that is normally pleasurable and the shame of the abuse itself. This leads to more shame and possibly a fear of pleasure (p. 149-151). Many abuse victims view themselves as a whore, whether they live that sort of lifestyle or keep the image private in their fantasies (p. 155-156).

There are other symptoms as well. It is common for abuse victims to struggle with depression (p. 161), lack of self-esteem, and problems relating with others (p. 168-69). Sexual dysfunctions from lack of interest to addiction to perversions are also common in abuse victims (p. 164). A long list of dysfunctions such as “exhibitionism, voyeurism, pedophilia, homosexuality, transvestitism, and fetishism” is “often highly correlated to abuse” (p. 164). Abuse victims may suffer from a variety of compulsive disorders, such as bulimia, or the stress may manifest itself as a physical illness (p. 166-167).

Dr. Allender goes on to describe three basic types of personalities for abuse victims. Speaking female terms, the first is the Good Girl (p. 175). The Good Girl keeps her self-contempt hidden and often struggles with sexual fantasies. She limits and controls her emotions and is often viewed as unfeeling. She is a hard worker, often sacrificially, but does not ask for help. She doesn’t want conflict.

The Tough Girl (p. 178) is a hard woman who is suspicious and critical of others and often becomes angry at her perception of others. She views emotion and longing as a sign of weakness. People tend to keep their distance from a Tough Girl to avoid rousing her anger. The Tough Girl erects walls and thrives on conflict.

The Party Girl (p. 181) can be “intense or mellow.” Her moods are constantly changing. The Party Girl personality is a response to fear and ambivalence. She avoids commitment and flits from one relationship to another. The Party Girl has been described as “an emotional tapeworm” (p. 184) who is never satisfied.

The same victim can exhibit characteristics of each style of relating, depending on the situation. The common thread is that all are based on aspects of self-contempt. Each is also a coping mechanism that causes its own problems.

Mark 9:37

Thankfully, Allender does not merely dwell on the symptoms of abuse, but also prescribes a course of healing. Allender’s plan is a three-step process that is based on Biblical principles. The first step is for the victim to be honest with herself. Allender lists eight truths that abuse victims must be willing to acknowledge in order to move forward (p. 200). These truths include admitting to oneself that abuse has occurred, it has damaged her soul, and that healing requires change from the artificial coping mechanisms. Honesty may also require that the victim stop attempting to suppress memories that are being repressed.

Second is repentance. The victim does not need to repent of being abused, but for choosing to be dead, choosing to mistrust, and choosing to despise passion (p. 223). Allender notes the difference between repentance, admitting helplessness, and penance, which “presumes the ability to make amends on one’s own” (p. 221). Repentance softens the heart, while penance hardens it.

The final step towards recovery is forgiveness and bold love. Being able to love and forgive the abuser frees the victim from hatred and anger. In this context, love refers to the “commitment to do whatever it takes (apart from sin) to bring health (salvation) to the abuser” (p. 241). To heal herself, the victim should work to forgive the abuser. The victim should not seek revenge (but this does not preclude seeking justice) (p. 243-44).

These steps can (and should) be applied not only to the sexual abuser, but surrogates that often bear the brunt of the victim’s anger and even those who merely get on our nerves in a normal day-to-day manner. In many cases, the victim’s spouse becomes a surrogate for the abuser.

Whether the victim is you or someone you love, The Wounded Heart is valuable resource to help understand the emotions and actions involved. The one weakness is the book is the lack of an index. This article provides only a brief overview of the material presented. If you are or if you know a victim who struggles with the personality disorders that this book describes, I urge you to read the whole book, which actually comes with a money-back guarantee from the publisher. You have nothing to lose but your pain.

Source:
Allender, Dr. Dan B., The Wounded Heart: Hope for Victims of Childhood Sexual Abuse. Navpress, PO Box 35001, Colorado Springs, CO, 1995.

Photo credits:
Prostitute by Tomas Castelazo
Scared toddler by NeonZero