Our federal government is now officially back up and running. After a fifteen-day stalemate between Republican House and Democratic Senate leaders over federal funding of ObamaCare, with a Treasury default staring them in the face, it was unfortunately the House Republicans who caved in, throwing their principles to the wind and giving the Obama administration just what it wants--federal funding of ObamaCare, at least for the next three months.
I'm angry with my corrupt elected representatives in Congress--angry with the Democrats for trying to force on us an immoral, unjust, un-Constitutional, impractical, and unaffordable "healthcare" law against our will that only benefits them and the abortion, pharmaceutical and insurance industries. And I'm even angrier with the Republicans for abandoning their core moral principles under the onslaught of economic and fiscal crises and surrendering to the immoral and unjust dictates of a corrupt and godless president. The Republicans in Congress have fallen yet again into the Obama administration's trap, allowing their focus to be diverted from the grave moral issues our country is facing--abortion, artificial contraception, euthanasia, moral relativism, and radical secularism, which are attacks on human life, on marriage and family life, on freedom of religion, on freedom of conscience, on our freedom to act in accord with the universal moral law, on absolute truth, and on our nation's Christian identity--to lesser economic and fiscal matters, such as the debt and the budget.
Just a few weeks ago, I was cheering the House Republicans for standing on principle and refusing to fund ObamaCare, even if this meant temporarily shutting down the federal government because Senate Democrats are so stubbornly determined to rom this immoral law down Americans' throats. Although I sympathized with the tens of thousands of federal government employees who lost their jobs and their means of providing for their families, I was nonetheless filled with hope for our beloved country during the shutdown. It felt like the eagles were once again flying in American skies, that we had true leadership on which we could depend, and that ObamaCare was slowly disintegrating before our eyes. I hoped that the Republicans would hold out as long as necessary, doing everything in their power to stall and delay the implementation of ObamaCare until it can be successfully repealed in its entirety. But unfortunately, the Republicans got scared when the whites of the eyes of the Treasury default monster came staring in their faces. Suddenly, protecting innocent human life, marriage and family life, religious liberties and moral conscience rights, our freedom to act in accord with the natural moral law, and upholding absolute truth and our nation's Christian identity, all seemed remote and unimportant compared to averting a looming fiscal catastrophe. Faced with a frightening scenario, our nation's hitherto strong and principled Republican leaders cowardly wilted and dropped their wings. They tucked in their tails and slunk away to the negotiating table, opting for the easy way out of a difficult problem, surrendering their moral principles to the wind and resorting to compromise for the sake of expediency and appearance.
Does that sound familiar? Yes, it has happened many times before: Cowardly betrayal for the sake of some temporary advantage by government officials who are supposed to protect innocent human life and guarantee liberty and justice for all. Pontius Pilate condemned the innocent Son of God to death in order to prevent a riot and advance his career. Judas betrayed Christ for thirty pieces of silver. Nancy Pelosi and other so-called "Catholics" in the U.S. Senate helped ensure the passage of a "healthcare" law that requires the murder of millions of innocent babies in their mother's wombs, for their own personal enrichment and the advancement of their political careers. Now the House Republicans have given us their own act of cowardly betrayal, consenting to the funding of ObamaCare for three full months--which includes the moral outrage of federal funding for abortions--in order to avoid a Treasury default, end the partial shutdown, and get on with their political careers.
All the talk in the media since the federal government reopening has been about how we need to stop kicking the can down the road, cut spending, reduce the debt, balance the budget, get the economy going again, etc., and whether the shutdown was even necessary in the first place--with nary a mention of the grave moral issues that provoked the shutdown. This skewing of the discussion away from the moral issues, or rather its failure to remain properly anchored within the framework of the absolute moral law, represents a tactical and propaganda victory for the Obama administration, which wants to avoid having the spotlight shone on the grave immorality and injustice of its policies. But we need to grapple with these serious issues from a proper moral perspective and keep the spotlight focused intensely on them. Was it worth it to shut down parts of the federal government in order to avoid paying for a law that attacks innocent human life, marriage, family, religious freedom, freedom of conscience, freedom to obey the moral law, absolute truth, and our nation's Christian identity on such a vast scale as ObamaCare does? Yes, it was absolutely worth it. Would it have been worth it to allow the Treasury to default in order to protect all of the aforementioned sacred treasures of the American people? Yes, even that would have been worth it. Human life, marriage, and family are sacred; the Treasury is not. Yet in the minds of our elected preresentatives on both sides of the aisle, protecting the Treasury was even more important than protecting innocent human life. This clearly indicates that our elected representatives in both parties have lost their moral compass. At the end of the day, money is more important to them than protecting the values on which our nation is built and the inalienable human rights that flow from those values. They do not worship the one true God of our Founding Fathers, but the false god of the dollar.
Our Catholic bishops welcomed the end of the shutdown beause of its negative effects on the poor and the unemployed. I, for one, did NOT welcome the end of this shutdown. I am greatly disappointed that the showdown over ObamaCare ended with pro-life, pro-family and pro-marriage Republicans giving in to President Obama's regime of abortion, contraception, and sterilization. If we Americans of traditional moral values and religious beliefs don't stand strong and defend them courageously against all comers, how can we hope to win real victories for human life, marriage, family, religious freedom, moral conscience rights, the natural moral law, absolute truth, and our nation's Christian identity?
I heartily applaud those eighteen Senate Republicans who voted against the Continuing Resolution passed on October 16 that returned our federal government to "business as usual." In the midst of this terrible debacle, as their House colleagues' resistance to ObamaCare melted away, they alone--unthanked and uncelebrated by many of their constituents--demonstrated true leadership, standing strong and acting with the courage of their convictions while others all around them fell prostrate before the almighty dollar for the sake of convenience. They deserve our sincere and heartfelt thanks. We desperately need more of that kind of leadership in our country today.
The bottom line is that our current federal government is both morally and fiscally irresponsible. The two are not unrelated, as will be shown in a future blog post. But the moral issues have to come first and foremost. Otherwise, we're just spinning our wheels.
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