The Regime Offers a No Compromise Compromise

The President, after indicating he would not back down the other day, yesterday offered what he called a "compromise" to the Catholic Church and other Christians. His so-called "compromise" took this form, as reported at Fox News:

"Under the rule, women will still have access to free preventive care that includes contraceptive services, no matter where they work -- that core principle remains," Obama said. But he added, "Religious organizations won't have to pay for these services, and no religious institution will have to provide these services directly."


The change would allow religious organizations to refuse to cover contraceptive care. It would also require insurers to offer a plan that does not include contraceptive care in their contracts with nonprofit religious groups. But the insurers would be required to make contraception available free of charge to women anyway.

So, Obama violates Christians' right to freely practice religion as acknowledge in the First Amendment, then he offers a so-called "compromise" that leaves Catholics paying for contraceptives and abortificients anyway. Of course, he has no legal authority to do that either. By doing so, the President is asserting a right, totally foreign to American political thought, but familiar to Europe not only to tell private companies which services to offer, but also how much they will charge for those services. This is Fascism at its purest.  Fellow Christians, do not be fooled by this man. Glenn Beck has called this a "Niemoller moment," referring to German pastor Martin Niemoller, who after World War II penned the famous poem "First they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Jew."  The poem describes the way that the regime steals your liberties by dividing and intimidating you.  We must stand together.

Let us learn from history.  We must speak out, and we must resist. If you wanted to know where my line in the sand is, I draw it here. Here is where I turn and fight. "Here I stand.  I can do no otherwise." (Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms.)  In Jesus name, I pray oh Lord, that I will have the strength. I know that I have not been a good man, or a good Christian, but I pray for the strength to carry the fight to your enemies, and to defeat them, Amen.

Still contemplating the above, I found Fay Voshell had an interesting think piece over at the American Thinker yesterday entitled The Church, the Military, and the Descent into Tyranny. I recommend you read it all. A couple of quotes to whet your appetite:

In a republic committed to freedom, the church and the military, two of the country's most powerful organizations, must be allowed to construct and to follow the ethical guidelines, codes of conduct, internal rules, and hallowed rituals they themselves create without interference from the federal and state governments.

In other words, the military --with self-limiting exceptions its specific duties and focus may require -- and the Church must have the freedom to define themselves, and must have the rights guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights without qualification to all Americans.

I am most familiar with Navy, and the Marine Corp, as an outside observer looking into these institutions. The Marine "culture," if you will, was not developed and promulgated by politicians, but grew organically out of the practical need to turn callow boys into hardened young men with the courage to take the fight to the enemies of this country, many times facing overwhelming odds. Every Marine from the Commandant on down carries a rifle. The Marines never leave a man behind. The uniform, the symbol, The Eagle, Anchor and Globe the motto, "Semper Fidelis, the Marine Corp Hymn, all work to that end. The goal is to make of these people, not killers, but warriors, a distinction that Hollywood and the media often do not get.

One of the things that used to be taught to Marine recruits was the distinction between a legal order, which of course he was obligated to obey, and an illegal order, which he was equally duty bound not to execute. Each man is understood to have a conscience of his own, and must consult that conscience at every point in his life. Saying "I was just following orders" is no defense when the order is illegal. Ms. Voshell again:

The mentors of the spiritual ethos of the individual soldier are its commanding officers and, perhaps more especially, its chaplains. Chaplains in particular are the spiritual guides of the soldier's individual conscience. They are the ones who share the soldier's hardships, providing spiritual strength and comfort in times of duress, whether it is on the beaches of Normandy, in the jungles of Vietnam, in the deserts of Iraq, or in the mountainous terrain of Afghanistan. Chaplains are with America's warriors in life and in death...

But the conscience of people of faith, including military chaplains and members of our military, is increasingly threatened by the anti-religious sentiment of our current administration, which is seeking effectively to silence chaplains who are speaking out about the overreach of the government's health care mandates concerning birth control and sterilization.

I have been calling this administration a Fascist one for three years. Let us recall that Fascism is a secular religion in which the people worship the State and its Leader. Like most religions, Fascism makes a claim of exclusivity on its adherents. "You shall have no other god before me." That is what this naked attack on the Roman Catholic Church in particular, and on the small 'c' catholic church is all about.  Our Fascist regime thinks it is a jealous god, and must bend people of faith to its will.  Think I am being alarmist here?  Read on, as Voshell explains:

The attack on Catholic chaplains, and by implication on every other chaplain who dares resist government directives against conscience, is especially ominous when viewed in combination with the recent National Defense Authorization Act. As Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi points out, the law allows "seditious" Americans to be detained indefinitely if they fit the fungible and vague definition of "terrorist" as outlined by that law.

No American can walk free when "terrorism" and "sedition" are so broadly defined that to call a measure "unjust" is viewed as seditious and as an incitement to insurrection. No citizen dare speak out against the current administration, including matters of faith and religious practice, without fear of repercussions that include condemnation without trial and incarceration without an end.

The noose is tightening around the necks of Americans. Our liberties are being stolen by a thousand cuts. Now you begin to see what the loss of even just one of your liberties entails. Accept it no more. Speak out, and resist.

I am convinced that the regime can find me any time it wants to, but I'll make it easy for them,

Wade Jensen
Raleigh, NC
aka "PolyKahr"

Molon Labe

Update: Mercer Tyson has a piece in the Sunday edition of the American Thinker that parallels what I said Saturday. The article, entitled The Contraception Commandment and the Progressive Religion is written by a self admitted agnostic and social liberal. None the less, he sees the same issues, namely that the State is trying to make of itself a secular religion, and thus able to countermand the commandments of other religions.  His solution?  Force Progressives to register as a religion, putting them legally on the same footing as ever other religion.  Interesting.