Change We Can Believe In

As you know, the Obama administration and its media allies are heavily into Change. And they've really topped themselves in the wake of the (alleged) hit on Osama bin Laden, serving up a dizzying variety of stories about how it happened that shift more actively the Arabian sands. Here's a sampling of the "facts" that I've heard put forward in the last few days, most from government officials and spokespersons, others from various media outlets and supposed witnesses. It was fun, in a perverse sort of way, putting this list together:

• Osama lived in the house for two years. Five years. Six years.
• The residence was an air-conditioned, fortified mansion. It was a seedy, un-airconditioned blockhouse.
• The house had no Internet service. The house had Internet service.
• Osama was actively directing Al-Qaeda. He was not actively directing Al-Qaeda.
• The mission was to kill him. The mission was to take him alive.
• The Pakistanis helped in the raid. They knew about it but didn't help. They didn't know.
• There was a big firefight. There was a little firefight. There was no firefight.
• Osama resisted. He didn't resist.
• He fired back. He was unarmed.
• His associates in the house fired back. One of them was armed but didn't shoot. None of them were armed.
• Osama's wife called to him by name. She didn't call to him. Somebody else called to him. Nobody called to him.
• He hid behind his wife. He didn't hide behind his wife. She was somebody else's wife. Sister. Daughter. Niece. Servant.
  
• She was killed. Wounded. Unharmed.
• There was no woman near him.
• Osama was shot and then captured. He was captured and then shot.
• He was shot in the forehead. In the temple. In the chest. Some of the above. All of the above.
• He died Sunday afternoon (EST). Sunday evening. Last week.
• The DNA identification took several days. Several hours. Several minutes.
• The President saw the whole thing on live video. He didn't see the whole thing. He didn't see anything.
• We'll release a photo of his corpse. We won't release a photo of his corpse.
• Sen. Brown saw the real photos, which prove that Osama is dead.
• Sen. Brown saw fake photos--but we don't need the real ones to know that Osama is dead.
• Al-Qaeda is still strong. Al-Qaeda is dead.
• The war on terror isn't over. The war on terror is virtually over.

Here's another manifestation of this phenomenon--Rep. Nancy Pelosi, in a press conference on September 7, 2006:

[E]ven if [Osama bin Laden] is caught tomorrow, it is five years too late. He has done more damage the longer he has been out there. But, in fact, the damage that he has done . . . is done. And even to capture him now I don’t think makes us any safer.

Nancy Pelosi May 2, 2011:

The death of Osama bin Laden marks the most significant development in our fight against al-Qaida. . . . I salute President Obama, his national security team, Director Panetta, our men and women in the intelligence community and military, and other nations who supported this effort for their leadership in achieving this major accomplishment. . . . [T]he death of Osama bin Laden is historic. . . .

If you, too are heavily into Change, you've gotta be loving this. Or spinning your head around like Linda Blair.

A New Royal FAMILY!

I know that guys aren't supposed to pay any attention to such stuff, but I was enthralled by last week's "Royal Wedding" uniting Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Catherine ("Kate") Middleton, now Duchess of Cambridge. I was only able to see Kate's arrival at Westminster Abbey and her walk down the aisle to the altar, and the singing of Guide Me O Thou Great Redeemer (one of my favorite hymns) before I had to leave home for work. But I was later able to see the entire spectacle, including the wedding ceremony itself, on YouTube.

Many Americans dismissed the wedding as silly and irrelevant, but not me. Being a history enthusiast and a romantic, I'm naturally absorbed by any event that features an ancient land and culture, breathtaking architecture (Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace), stirring music, colorful military regalia, a dashing young nobleman, a beautiful young lady, an Archbishop (of Canterbury), dukes and earls, several Princes, a Queen, and so on. Great Britain is America's mother country and the ultimate source of our language, literature, and legal institutions, so what happens there is, or should be, of great interest to us. And who can forget the heroic, solitary struggle of the British against the Axis in the early years of World War Two, under the leadership of the redoubtable Winston S. Churchill?

Even more compelling to me was the hope, perhaps even the promise, of a new Royal FAMILY (emphasis on the latter word) to model love, nurturing, and self-sacrifice for Britain and the whole world. Can you imagine these things actually becoming fashionable? Few indeed are the couples who can uplift a whole people, and promote family-building, society-strengthening values, just by being good spouses and parents. William and Kate (I'll dispense with their royal titles) have a chance to do so, and I just get the feeling that they might pull it off. The United Kingdom (UK) and the whole Western world desperately need a shining example of family strength. British royals of the recent and more distant past haven't done a very good job of this--Queen Victoria and Prince Albert being a notable exception, at least for a while--but something about Kate and William makes me more hopeful.

Maybe it's the aura of graceful self-confidence that Kate projects; she impresses me as a mature woman in command of herself and her life (in contrast to the fragile vulnerability of William's mother Diana at the time of her marriage), yet generous and sensitive to others, not self-absorbed or vain. She comes from a middle class family with roots (on her mother's side) in England's coal-mining country; what wealth her parents have was earned in their own start-up business, not inherited. She and her siblings and parents seem to have a harmonious relationship. Kate even showed a bit of maternal instinct when she bent down to console one of her toddler bridesmaids who became upset during "The Kiss" on the Buckingham Palace balcony, as Royal Air Force planes flew over and the crowd became deafening. And she positively beams in the "official" wedding pictures with all those children around her and William. At the same time, she's shown some iron in dealing with the paparazzi, and I believe would fight to maintain a normal family life and keep William "on the reservation," much more effectively than Diana could with Prince Charles.

Another positive aspect of the couple's relationship is its endurance over nearly a decade; they even "broke up" at least once, but reconciled some months later. They know each other well and didn't give up on each other, despite their differences, so should be unusually well-prepared for the realities of marriage. They had years to reflect and weigh what they would give up and what they would gain by marrying, what burdens they would have to shoulder and and what joys they would have. Despite all they've already been through, in public they still seem entirely familiar, natural, and affectionate with each other, and so already exhibit many characteristics of a happily married couple.

I'm not completely naive; I'm aware of the widespread speculation that William and Kate have "known" each other in the, ahem, "Biblical" sense, for some time. Assuming such rumors are true, however, I likewise don't dismiss out of hand the possibility that they came to recognize this as a dead-end street, and that there was a much richer life awaiting them as husband and wife. If the demands of their station and the corrosive effects of modern culture don't overwhelm them, I like to think that they'll embrace the life they've chosen and continue to grow in maturity and wisdom.

I also like to think that the promise of this new family was well expressed in the sermon delivered at the wedding ceremony by Richard Chartres, the Bishop of London:

In a sense every wedding is a royal wedding with the bride and the groom as king and queen of creation, making a new life together so that life can flow through them into the future.

William and Catherine, you have chosen to be married in the sight of a generous God who so loved the world that he gave himself to us in the person of Jesus Christ.

And in the Spirit of this generous God, husband and wife are to give themselves to each another.

* * * *

I pray that God will bless you in the way of life that you have chosen, that way which is expressed in the prayer that you have composed together in preparation for this day:

God our Father, we thank you for our families; for the love that we share and for the joy of our marriage.
In the busyness of each day keep our eyes fixed on what is real and important in life and help us to be generous with our time and love and energy. Strengthened by our union help us to serve and comfort those who suffer. We ask this in the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Amen.

So, please forgive me if I choose to believe in this particular Fairy Tale. If we never believed in fairy tales, none would ever have a chance of coming true. It would be so inspiring, and so good for the UK and the West, if this one did.

One more thing, ladies:

Raining On Your Parade

Forgive me if I'm not delirious with joy over Osama bin Laden's violent death. I'm satisfied, to be sure, but it just doesn't seem Christian to gleefully celebrate the slaughter of one more human being, even one guilty of slaughter himself. I'm not saying that dispatching bin Laden was wrong; homicide is justifiable in a just war, as is ours against terrorism. But all the flag-waving exultation seems a bit unseemly to me. I find no happiness in dancing on someone's grave, or washing my hands in his blood. I'd rather observe this occasion by praying for bin Laden's many victims and their families, and begging God that the hate and murder stop, here and now.

I'd be happier if I thought killing bin Laden would bring that about, but I doubt that it will (unless God so wills it). His chief mentor, adviser, and right-hand man Ayman al-Zawahiri -- allegedly the "real brains" of al-Qaeda and the closest thing it's had to an operational director since 9/11 -- is still at large. Certainly bin Laden, an astute businessman, made sure long ago that his untold wealth was secured and distributed in such a way that it would be available to his minions whenever and however he met his end on this earth. Worse, he's cloned himself tens of thousands of times over across the globe, and has left legions of jihadis eager to avenge his death at our hands. He's even established hosts of schools and camps to train up new ones still in their youth and yet to be born. Far from ending radical Islam's war on the West, the killing of bin Laden may usher in a new and even more murderous phase of it. We may soon find ourselves praying for many more thousands of victims, even in this country.

We must remember that bin Laden and his followers are steeped in a culture of death. They seem to love dying as much as they love killing, and find greater zeal with every new drop of blood shed, whose ever it is. Bin Laden spent many years sowing dragon's teeth around the world, and we may soon have to battle, even on our own soil, the armies of crazed warriors sprung from them. Are we ready for that war, spiritually and materially? I wonder. The prospect fills me with dread and sadness.

And I fear that the immediate consequence of bin Laden's killing may be shameless political manipulation for the benefit of certain "leaders" in Washington and elsewhere, who celebrate today even as they work tirelessly to bankrupt this nation morally and financially, and so rob us of the strength we need to survive our enemies' onslaught. Will we succumb to well-wishing and complacency, and maintain these sappers in power--just because one criminal, out of thousands or millions, was brought down on their watch?

Again, I don't condemn what was done, and I don't feel "bad" about it--certainly not for Osama bin Laden. I salute the brave, capable men of our armed forces and intelligence apparatus who carried it out. I just don't share the euphoria. Go ahead and celebrate an early Fourth of July, everybody. I'll be on my knees praying for a real national deliverance.

Were You There?

Holy Week deserves a host of posts with moving sacred music, scripture passages, and reflection on our relationship with God. But Melany and I have been out of town most of this week, so until this afternoon I haven't been able to sit down, collect my thoughts, and gather resources for a post. So, this one will be brief--but I hope, will help the reader discern what the profound events commemorated this week mean.

Easter, of course, is the glorious Day of Victory, when Christ's Resurrection spelled the doom of evil and death forever, and threw open the gates of Heaven to all who would sincerely confess their sins and embrace the Lord as Savior. But that victory, and the forgiveness of our sins, was won at the most terrible price--the inexpressible suffering and death of the One who was most perfectly innocent of all sin, who knew and loved us, and sacrificed His own life for every one of us, while we were yet sinners and knew Him not. As the prophet Isaiah wrote hundreds of years before Jesus was even born into this world:

[H]e hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. ~ Isaiah 53:2-6

As I was listening to my favorite Serenity Radio station on Pandora the other day (scroll down the list under Pandora in the right sidebar and click the link to listen to it yourself!), I heard a most beautiful rendition of the African-American spiritual Were You There? by the late, great Kate Smith. The clarity and power of her voice made me attend to this familiar hymn like I never had before, and reflect carefully on its compelling words:

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Oh!
Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?
Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?
Oh!
Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?

Were you there when they pierced him in the side?
Were you there when they pierced him in the side?
Oh!
Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they pierced him in the side?

Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?
Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?
Oh!
Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?

As I listened, I knew deep in my heart what the answer to the hymn's question was: yes, I was there. My sins were the reason for His suffering; He was nailed to the tree and pierced in His side for my wrongdoing; and He bore death, freely and lovingly, so I wouldn't have to. He carried all my failures into His tomb. But Glory and Hosanna, He left them there on the glorious morning of His Resurrection!

Alas, I couldn't find a video version of Kate Smith's rendition. But I did find two other very different, yet both very moving, versions. The first is a solo performance by Deborah Liv Johnson featuring a beautiful collection of family pictures that remind that we were all "there."



The second version is quite unique, performed by what's billed as "The Largest Ever Male Voice Choir In Wales," filling an entire arena!



May I remember in humble contrition, every day, that I WAS there when "they"--with my help--crucified my Lord. And may I humbly and firmly resolve, every day, to be thankful for His forgiveness and to so live that He wouldn't have to endure it again.

Born Yesterday?

Born Yesterday is a comedy written and first staged on Broadway in the 1940s (and successfully put to film a couple of times since then), about ignorance and corruption in our nation's capital--what a timely (if not so funny) subject! Apparently, "born yesterday" is also what our current representatives in Washington think we common citizens were.

This past weekend I posted about the supposedly "historic"--yet utterly ridiculous--deal between Congressional Republican and Democrat leaders, which averted a federal government shutdown by cutting $38.5 billion from the budget for the remainder of fiscal 2011. A fact not widely noted when the deal was struck was that that amounted to all of about 1 percent of total federal expenditures for the year (as one commentator noted, "If the government were a family living on $60,000 a year, that's equal to a $600 cut."), and left travesties like ObamaCare and abortion factory Planned Parenthood fully funded with our tax money. Final details of the agreement had yet to be put to paper and voted on by the end of this week.

Those details finally emerged yesterday, and show that the budget deal was not only weak and a disappointment, but an almost complete sham and a brazen insult to the intelligence of the American people. According to a story from the Associated Press, "[t]he historic $38 billion in budget cuts resulting from at-times hostile bargaining between Congress and the Obama White House were accomplished in large part by pruning money left over from previous years, using accounting sleight of hand and going after programs President Barack Obama had targeted anyway."

The details of the agreement reached late Friday night just ahead of a deadline for a partial government shutdown reveal a lot of one-time savings and cuts that officially "score" as cuts to pay for spending elsewhere, but often have little to no actual impact on the deficit. As a result of the legerdemain, Obama was able to reverse many of the cuts passed by House Republicans in February when the chamber approved a bill slashing this year's budget by more than $60 billion.
. . .

[T]he cuts that actually will make it into law are far tamer, including cuts to earmarks, unspent census money, leftover federal construction funding, and $2.5 billion from the most recent renewal of highway programs that can't be spent because of restrictions set by other legislation. Another $3.5 billion comes from unused spending authority from a program providing health care to children of lower-income families.

About $10 billion of the cuts comes from targeting appropriations accounts previously used by lawmakers for so-called earmarks . . . Republicans had already engineered a ban on earmarks when taking back the House this year.

Republicans also claimed $5 billion in savings by capping payments from a fund awarding compensation to crime victims. Under an arcane bookkeeping rule - used for years by appropriators - placing a cap on spending from the Justice Department crime victims fund allows lawmakers to claim the entire contents of the fund as budget savings. The savings are awarded year after year.

The story notes that in exchange for these illusory "cuts," the White House foiled GOP attempts to block global warming rules by the EPA, new rules governing the Internet, federal funding of Planned Parenthood, and financing for the enforcement new health care regulations.

Another AP story points out that "the budget cuts come after two years of generous increases awarded to domestic accounts when Democrats controlled both Congress and the White House," and that:

M]any of the cuts officially unveiled on Tuesday are illusory. Almost $18 billion - just less than half - involve simply mopping up pools of unused money spread across the budget. While still counting as cuts, the money from those pools can be used to shore up day-to-day agency budgets and other programs like health research. Admittedly, those cuts don't reduce the deficit.

In light of the budget deal's transparent emptiness and the tricks out of which it's made, conservatives' criticism of the compromise is growing, and a number of influential members of Congress, including Reps. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky), plan to vote against it. Thank the Lord there are a few sensible, honest, and courageous people in Congress. One only wonders about the so-called "leaders" who crafted and supported the deal, especially Speaker of the House John Boehner--what were they thinking? Are they that stupid or that gullible, or are they actually in bed with the Democrats and the Obama administration? How stupid and gullible to they think we common people are? Did they assume we wouldn't notice, or not care?

What's just as disheartening is that so many freshman representatives, elected in November 2010 on a platform of fiscal restraint, have fallen into lockstep with the Republican establishment leadership to support this sham compromise. If your representative is one of them, you should call or email his/her office as soon as possible and loudly voice your displeasure--and keep a weather eye on his/her positions and future voting records in Congress. If they don't do the job you sent them to Washington to do, they should be sent packing in the next election and replaced with someone who, as best you can tell, will. We need representatives who will not just talk the talk of responsible government, but walk the walk--no matter how "radical," "extreme," or even "uncivil" the liberal establishment and media portray them.

We have to make it clear to those in Washington that, no matter what they may think, we weren't Born Yesterday.

A Modest Proposal

As long as we're on the subject of federal funding for Planned Parenthood, let's consider this: instead of "defunding" them, allow the organization all of the taxpayer dollars it gets now, on one condition: they don't perform abortions, and they don't give any money to anyone for the purpose of getting or performing an abortion. The federal government has long conditioned educational, highway, and other types of funding for state and local operations on the recipient's adherence to the government's demands, limitations, and regulations. Why not treat Planned Parenthood in the same way? Think of it: they could dispense all the mammograms, cancer screenings, and condoms they wanted to, as long as they didn't provide or facilitate abortions. No Republican war on women's health! No conspiracy to encourage the spread of STDs among minorities and the inner city poor! And since abortions constitute only 3 percent of Planned Parenthood's total health care services, according to its own figures, they should hardly miss the work, right? And (regrettably) there are other abortion providers out there, right?

Somehow I doubt they'd go for this deal either. But would it hurt for some courageous, enterprising Congressperson to submit the bill?

Just sayin'.

Midnight Train to Bankruptcy

By now you've heard about Friday night's Congressional vote on a stopgap measure to continue funding the federal government for another two weeks until an actual budget for the next fiscal year can be crafted and voted on. The measure was purportedly necessary to forestall a "shutdown" of the federal government by midnight--the expiration of the last continuing resolution funding federal government operations--but the vote approving the measure actually passed a few minutes after midnight (the brief interregnum had no appreciable impact).

Among other features, the budget measure "cuts" $38.5 billion from federal expenditures over the remainder of the current fiscal year; prohibits the use of federal or local government funds to pay for abortions in the District of Columbia; and omits or sets aside for separate Senate vote provisions to defund Planned Parenthood and portions of Obamacare, and to block EPA global warming rules. The agreement voted on was negotiated by President Obama, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev). Reid declared the deal "historic."

Only in the annals of meaningless accomplishments. Although Fox News is pitching the deal as a big win for Rep. Boehner and House Republicans, it dissolves into an empty gesture when examined in light of surrounding circumstances. For example, Republicans had included language to deny federal money to put in place Obama's year-old health care law; the deal only requires such a proposal to be voted on by the Democratic-controlled Senate, where it is certain to fall short of the necessary 60 votes. More significantly, MSNBC reports that "Republicans were forced to accept billions of dollars in phantom savings, cutting money that probably wouldn't have been spent anyway."

Some $18 billion of the spending cuts involve cuts to so-called mandatory programs whose budgets run largely on autopilot. To the dismay of budget purists, these cuts often involve phantom savings allowed under the decidedly arcane rules of congressional budgeting. They include mopping up $2.5 billion in unused money from federal highway programs and $5 billion in fudged savings from capping payments from a Justice Department trust fund for crime victims.

Both ideas officially "score" as savings that could be used to pay for spending elsewhere in the day-to-day budgets of domestic agencies. But they have little impact, if any, on the deficit.

Still more telling is the simple, yet devastating, analysis by Andrew Riley of All-American Blogger, who notes a few important facts:

Federal Budget: $3,820,000,000,000.
Income: $2,170,000,000,000.
New Debt: $1,650,000,000,000.
Amount Cut: $38,500,000,000 – about 1% of the total budget.

It helps me to think about these numbers in terms that I can relate to. Let’s remove nine zeroes from those numbers and pretend this is a monthly household budget for the fictitious Jones family.

Total income for the Jones family this month: $2,170

Amount of money the Jones family spent this month: $3,820

Amount of new debt added to the credit card this month: $1,650

Outstanding balance on the credit card: $14,271 (This represents our national debt)

So last night, the Jones’ sat down at the kitchen table and agreed to cut $38 from their monthly budget. A historic amount.

A $38.5 billion reduction in budgeted federal spending might be the most ever in one fiscal year, in terms of number of dollars, and might have meant something back--not so many years ago--when the budget was several orders of magnitude lower than it is now. But after the successive binges of the Bush and Obama years, it's barely a teaspoon in the Pacific Ocean. That it took such a protracted and bitter political fight to yield such a paltry "savings" suggests that federal spending and total debt may now be impossible to arrest and beyond anyone's effective control, a raging cancer that will eat away at an ever-larger proportion of our nation's current and future wealth until there is none left for it to consume (for a breathtaking graphical depiction of the numbers involved and their explosive growth, see the U.S. National Debt Clock). Is America about to become an impoverished third-world country?

The budget deal's real significance, or lack of it, was summed up by two courageous Congresspersons who voted against it:

Michele Bachmann: “The deal is a disappointment for me and for millions of Americans who expected $100 billion in cuts. ... Instead, we’ve been asked to settle for $39 billion in cuts, even as we continue to fund Planned Parenthood and the implementation of ObamaCare. Sadly, we’re missing the mandate given us by voters last November."

Rand Paul: The CR "does not set us on a path to fixing the spending and debt problems our country is facing. There is not much of a difference between a $1.5 trillion deficit and a $1.6 trillion deficit—both will lead us to a debt crisis that we may not recover from."

The other colossal failure of this measure, as Rep. Bachmann noted, was removal of the rider that would have cut off federal funding for Planned Parenthood (PP), the nation's largest single provider of abortion services and which, notes CNSNEWS' Terence P. Jeffrey, performed "332,278 abortions in 2009. That equals an average of 910 abortions per day—or about 38 per hour, or one every 95 seconds." The budget deal does provide for a symbolic vote in the Senate on a stand-alone bill that would specifically prohibit federal funding of Planned Parenthood, but shortly after the deal was sealed, both the New York Times and the Associated Press reported that this stand-alone defunding measure was certain to lose in the Democrat-dominated Senate. As Mr. Jeffrey points out:

Among the things the House Republican leadership gave up last night on the Planned Parenthood funding question is the leverage they might have had over opponents of the provision had they forced them to choose whether or not they were willing to shut down other government programs just to insure that the nation’s largest abortion provider continued to be funded by U.S. taxpayers.

It looks like they were prepared to do just that, and risk the ensuing political fallout. According to an AP story, "Democrats said they saw a radical agenda against women's health, especially poor and low-income women, and wouldn't allow it, even if it meant shutting down the government." Why weren't their feet held to that fire? It's clear where lie the priorities of Planned Parenthood's defenders--better to deny pay and funding for our troops and federal law enforcement personnel than to force the abortion industry and its supporters to pay their own way. The empty mantra that PP doesn't use federal tax money for abortions because it's against the law doesn't stand the most superficial examination: according to the AP story, PP "receives $363 million in federal funds, [and] . . . the organization's annual budget is $1.1 billion." So, about one-third of its budget is covered by federal tax money, yours and mine, even as it terminates over 300,000 pregnancies a year. It doesn't take a PhD from Barack Obama's alma mater to recognize that, directly or indirectly, federal funding keeps PP in the abortion business. Without it, that organization would have to rely on client fees and private donations. So why don't we make them do just that? I have absolutely no doubt that if he really wanted to, George Soros alone could fund every abortion performed by Planned Parenthood out of his own pocket, with plenty of cash left over to continue manipulating the world economy. Why don't we challenge him and his left-wing billionaire chums to do so? What moral law or political or financial necessity dictates that ordinary working men and women pay for the killing?

This country is clearly on a midnight train to moral and financial bankruptcy, and we needed much more than just the 2010 elections to find enough representatives with courage and common sense to derail it. Every citizen must work hard to identify and support, with time and money, political candidates who will make the hard choices in Washington. We must discuss the issues with our neighbors and encourage them to do the right thing--and be willing to so ourselves, even when it means risk and personal sacrifice. Ultimately, the battle won't be won or lost in Washington at all, but in our homes, workplaces, churches, and our own hearts and minds. If enough individuals work hard and long enough at it, we might be able to derail that train yet.