Oh by the way.....

Throughout the last couple of weeks of campaigning did anyone notice one thing missing in all of their speeches and commercials? I heard plenty of talk of overturning "Obama Care", lowering taxes, "taking back our country", but I heard nothing of ending wars. Even yesterday as victory speeches were made and political analyst tried to tell us what happened nothing was mentioned. Have we been fighting so long now that we have forgotten about our soldiers? Not once did John Boehner mention what the new congress was going to do about Iraq or Afganistan. Also something else that I'm curious about, how do we pay for 2 wars when we are cutting taxes or cutting our revenue?
Least we forget, while the people were speaking and the tea party was taking back the country, on Tuesday Spc Jonathan Curtis(24)of Belmont, Mass and Pfc Andrew Meari(21) of Plainfield, Ill lost their lives in Afganistan. Please, their families and the families we know and love deserve to know what your plans are for these 2 wars. By the way Mr. Speaker I have a question.....

Syd

1 Never Works

It's election day and unfortunately, I'm afraid the straight party people are going to win out again. These are the people who automatically hit the Big R or Big D button each and every time. In this state it usually means the Big R. I'm not sure if it's because they don't want to take the time to examine each candidate or they don't know how to examine each candidate, or they are simply doing what they were told to do by Fox News. Funny how things have changed. I remember growing up in Oconee County and my family being the only Republicans there. 36 years ago today my dad had me out holding up signs for James Edwards, to help elect the 1st republican governor since reconstruction. Imagine that, South Carolina a democratic stronghold.
Several years ago I was having a conversation with State Senator Fletcher Smith and we were discussing the change. I told him 40 years ago you could walk into any church in SC with a handful of rocks and not hit 5 republicans, now you can walk into any church in SC and not hit 5 democrats. When they find out what went wrong they may make inroads back into this state. But the sad part is that most people now will not give any other candidate a chance unless they have the R beside their name.
If we have learned anything in the last 10 years is that when 1 party is in charge the system goes to hell. During Reagan we had a republican president and a democratic congress that started the end of the cold war and economic growth. Likewise with Clinton. Democratic President and a Republican Congress gave us a Balanced Budget, Welfare Reform and a surplus. Under Bush (Republican President and Republican Congress) we had record deficit, 2 wars, wall street meltdown. Once again with a Democratic President and Democratic House we are seeing things once more going to hell.
I for one am happy to see the changing of the guard in the house. I hope history repeats itself and the prosperity of split leadership returns.

Happy Voting

Syd

Same trail different hiker

Nikki Haley has been called Mark Sanford in a skirt. For all of his good intentions the bottom line was Mark Sanford never got anything accomplished because of his refusal to work with the General Assembly. A general assembly made up of his party. With Nikki Haley I am afraid the same thing is going to happen.

She's been in the South Carolina General Assembly for six years, and hers is the party that's been in power the entire time. A woman with ideas about what needs to be done in our state, one who works hard and knows how to get things done... she's had ample time to accomplish things.

And yet she hasn't. I'm not badmouthing the woman. I'm talking about facts. She was the primary sponsor of five bills in the last two years. None of them passed.

In six years in the legislature, she's been the primary sponsor of exactly one bill that's passed. Just one. It allows people to wash hair in hair salons without having a cosmetology license.

Being governor is not like being a king in olden days. She doesn't get to do whatever she wants. She has to get laws passed by the legislature to do anything. Otherwise, nothing happens (ala Sanford and his inability to work with his own party).

She was at the Citadel this weekend talking to cadets and told them she would be giving out report cards to legislators who weren't working with her to pass legislation or weren't keeping their promises to voters.

I don't think that's going to make any lawmakers eager to work with her -- having her give them failing grades. They don't work for the governor. They work with the governor, if all parties are willing. She's already set the wrong tone.

Don't take my word for this. Look up information for yourself. Ask her. Ask her campaign. What has she accomplished in the legislature? She hasn't shown the initiative to come up with legislative proposals herself, get them through the House and Senate and signed into law. Simply has not done it. Not in 6 years.

She's campaigning on roll-call votes in the legislature, so we can hold lawmakers more accountable for their actions. Roll-call votes are part of the permanent record, so we can look back and see who voted yes and who voted no on particular issues, as opposed to passing legislation by lawmakers simply saying yeah or nay as a group.

I think that's a great idea. I support her completely on that.

But she couldn't get it passed, not with a Republican majority in the House and Senate.

Why couldn't she do this? Why couldn't she rally her party to pass something important? To pass anything?

What is she going to do differently as governor? I think a person's past actions are the best indicator of what they will do in the future. Nikki Haley simply hasn't gotten anything done.

"In God We Trust"?

I recently received another one of those annoying e-mails claiming how the Obama government wants to remove "In God We Trust" from our currency. I don't know how true these emails are but I think it should be removed. Should our trust in god really be associated with our money? Think about all the things people are willing to do to obtain money. Lie, cheat, steal, whatever it takes to obtain wealth. We now live in a society that it takes boths parents working, and the 60 hr work week is not unusual. All these things for money. I know it takes money to live but do we really need to associate our god with money? Matt. 6:24 tells us you cannot serve both God and Money. So do we need gods name on there? Think about all the evil that is caused by money. We fight wars over oil(money). We see the con's and swindles of Wall Street(money) even locally the collapse of Carolina Investors was a simple case of a few people wanting more and not worrying about who they hurt. Everyday a convenience store is being robbed, or home invasion, drug traffic, etc. All for the love of money. How true was Paul's letter to Timothy saying "for the love of money is the root of All Evil"? (Paul amazes me with his ability today to step on our toes).

Also, Do we really trust in God?

So, count me as one of those who does not want my God associated with money. Next thing you know he will expect me to give him a portion of it.

Syd

Is this who we are?

So it has come to this. The health care bill was passed and there have been threats to congressmen and vandalism to democratic hq's. Racial slurs to James Clyburn, homophobic shouts at Barney Franks, death threats to many and bemoaning by all of those who opposed the bill. Is this really who we are? Maybe we should remove "In God We Trust" from our currency. With the amount of hate that has been shown this week in our country are we really "One Nation Under God"? No I do not agree with everything in the bill. But I do agree that something had to be done. The republican response throughout has been "we need to take more time to discuss" which was BS. 14 months has been long enough. They only wanted to prolong the effort to tie things up. My question to all those who oppose this because we can not afford it is, Where were you when Bush & Cheney were financing 2 wars with borrowed money? Speaking of fiscal irresponsiblity, cutting taxes while staging 2 wars? That doesn't begin to make sense. During WWII Americans were encouraged to give more not less. How sad is it that we have an unlimited budget for killing and worry about the price of saving someones life.

Again I say, I don't agree with everything in the bill. But I do not think my healthcare should be limited to the amount of money in my checking acct. Or do I believe that someone should risk bankruptcy because they became ill. With Insurance or Without it's happening everyday. Aren't we a better Country than this?

"We are the people our parents warned us about" Jimmy Buffett

Deserving?

After reading and listening to everyone fussing about the health care bill a couple of thoughts crossed my mind. The general feeling is that people who don't deserve to be covered may be covered and it's going to cost to much. I read someone say "I might as well quit my job so I can be covered by the government". Or "these people don't pay their share of taxes so why should I pay for their health care". I'm so glad God doesn't think like this. If you think about it, Does any of us deserve God's Grace? We worry so much that someone else may receive something that they didn't earn, that I work hard for what I got and they didn't. How many times have you thought this? Or, That these welfare families have gotten to where they are by their own doing. They are getting what they deserve and I shouldn't have to pay for it. Thank you Jesus for not thinking this way.

With this line of thinking, you could say, "that person does not tithe so they should not recieve God's Grace" or 'they don't go to church so God shouldn't love them as much as he loves me", "I've Earned his grace". None of us could ever do anything to Earn such a gift. Romans says "ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God". Grace was paid for at the cross for everyone. Even the ones we may not think are deserving. Whether or not someone deserves health care is really not for us to say? When and if I meet my maker I don't want the lord to say "I was sick and you denied me healthcare for what you did not do for the least of these you did not do for me". Remember "For God So Loved THE ENTIRE WORLD he gave his only son."

Syd

Lenten Thought

As we finish the first week of lent I thought it would be a good time to continue a discussion we had this morning in our Madmen group. Reading the story of the transfiguration the question came up, how have you transfigured since becoming a christian? For those who don't remember the scripture, Jesus had taken Peter, James and John up the mountain and while there his face shown bright and his clothing turned to white. Then Moses and Elijah appeared and begin talking with him.

What a glorious sight this must have been. Especially for these 3 jews who had grown up with the stories of these two historical figures. And those words "this is my beloved son whom I am pleased, Hear Him" had to reconfirm their actions in dropping everything and following him.

The question is after you have "heard him" how have you transformed? I don't think we should expect our faces to shine bright with light but they should shine bright with a smile. Our faces should show the brightness of love and understanding, not the darkness of divisiveness and hate. If we really "hear him" we know we should love our god and love our neighbors as our selves.

As I begin the second week of lent my hope is that I will continue to hear him and not let other things interfere with the signal.

Syd

Facebook is not that new

It's been a very long time since I actually wrote anything of substance or of anything on here. Blame it on Facebook. I now know why they call it crackbook. It is very addictive because its too easy. It reminds me of the old party lines we had growing up. For those who are too young to remember, this was when people had to share phone lines. We had an aunt who loved listening in on our phone calls. You could find out all the personal information from other people by simply picking up your phone and catching them talking. Not saying it happened alot but it did happen at times. Also growing up the local papers would have different churches and communities write basically a newsletter in their papers. It would go something like this, "We had 13 visitors this week at church. Jesse Hightower's aunt from Atlanta was visiting Jesse and Louise this week and we all enjoyed a church dinner Sunday. Also Mary Jones is in the hospital and remember such and such in your prayers".

Reading the local newspaper (which came once or twice a week depending on the paper) was our facebook. We knew who was getting married, who was sick or dead, who visited who over the week-end, who needed our prayers and what the school menu was going to be. This was all we needed to know. Mr. Bill wrote on a board if our school was closed for snow. If we needed to buy or sell something we didn't need Craigslists or Ebay we had WGOG and the Pickens Flea Market. If they didn't have it, you didn't need it.

So you see all this new technology is not all that new. We had all the technology we needed. If you wanted to know more, you just picked up the phone and listened.