DEATH WITH DIGNITY: WILL WE WASH OUR HANDS OF LIFE?

How shall one measure life? 

Shall it be done by our age?  Maybe we measure it by the friends that we have.  Maybe we should measure it by the number of trophies in our living room display case.  Maybe for the faint of wallet, we should measure by the $5 million Yellow Gold Calibre 89 Patek Philippe - Genève with Westminster on your wrist.  Considering the genders, the birth dates and demographic factors of mankind, technologically savvy scientist, from a cauldron mixture, prophesy to a rounded average the moments of conception and burial.  What great envy to disclose an individual's future by divining formulas and certifying probabilities.  Nothing is impossible or improbable by men that decode their entire existence by the origins of numbers.  Shall we measure by the elusive term success?  It is indeed a fluid term to design a solid argument for or against.  Legendary College Basketball Coach John Wooden defined it this way:  "Success is peace of mind, which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming."  Zappos' CEO Tony Hsieh defines it this way: "Your personal core values define who you are, and a company's core values ultimately define the company's character and brand.  For individuals, character is destiny.  For organizations, culture is destiny."  We are to know that peace of mind from best pursuits and achievements founded on legitimate core values will exploit the goodness of our character and positively impact our culture.  That's success!  If it is an acceptable measure of life then, whom we entrust our success as individuals and a nation is of the highest order.  In whom we entrust life, secures our blessings.

Many today say that we must "fundamentally transform" America because our founding fathers did not respect the lives of men.  They were "all" slave masters and frauds.  Yet, amidst the blood curdling condemnations, their is a hint of hypocrisy.  The modern protectors of life, liberty and the pursuit of scrubbed servers are the most ardent defenders of abortion and assisted suicide.  The slave trade that so many turn to as justification for the death of the Republic actually yielded the deaths of 2 to 5 million persons depending an assessment both high and low.  As Black Life Matters, this is simply an unpardonable act against God.  Yet, how are the rebels that drape themselves in such innocent condemnations against the descendents of our founding fathers so strident in measuring modern life by whom they resist entry and in whom they advance exit under the kindest phrase--Death with Dignity.  According to the World Health Organization (WHO), every year in the world there are an estimated 40-50 million total abortions and approximately 125,000 per day.  The caretakers of slavery's history turn the other cheek with the knowledge that 3,000 American women everyday abort a conceived child.  How many this year?  It's 10 million strong and growing! 

DC Councilmember Mary Cheh is presenting another instrument to secure the blessings of life: “Death with Dignity Act of 2015”.  Physician-assisted suicide (PAS), which involves a doctor knowingly and intentionally providing a person with the knowledge or means or both required to commit suicide, including counseling about lethal doses of drugs, prescribing such lethal doses or supplying the drugs.  Under this Act, a mentally competent patient suffering from a terminal illness that's "likely to result in death within six months" can request medication that would allow them to choose the time, place and circumstances of his/her death".  That's really amazing that liberals have no reverence for the life given by God that they would encourage people to check out early.  According to Cheh, the way I measure life is bound by the limitations of a Sovereign God.  “I expect that some may oppose this bill on the basis of religious beliefs or moral principle," she writes, "but there is latitude to recognize that all life is valuable while also respecting the rights and decisions of others."  It is this latitude that draws my greatest concern.  Latitude that may prevent a despondent cancer suffer from becoming a cancer survivor.  Latitude that would prevent an advanced heart disease sufferer from considering the hope of a transplant.  Latitude that would induce an AIDS sufferer from considering available treatments to endure to the end.  The Hippocratic Oath, taken by those graduating medical school, originally prohibited against euthanasia and abortion.  The Oath, originally penned between 460 and 380 B.C., has since been revised.  The medical industry has given itself great latitude.  The US Supreme Court ruled twice in 1997 that there is no constitutional precedent or right to assisted suicide.  Why not state and District politicians fight ever more so for death.  With greater latitude, there is less responsibility.  During this High Holy Days Season, we shall all wash our hands of the matter of your suffering.  While many pray for one more day, with ever-increasing latitude, you may not need one. 

Great legal minds like Cheh say that our society has arrived at a point that we should be more than willing to support the final will of a few.  A will challenged by the torment of disease and illness.  Our compassion has become passionless.   How shall this percolate up?  We must change the name from physician-assisted suicide to death with dignity.  It shows that we care.  People need to know that we care.  Finally, we shall silently promote and pass this legislation because we certainly do not want to offend the Public while we show that we care.  We don't want you to have an unknown date of demise.  We want to extend our pro-choice fervor from abortion to suicide.  But...We care!  In a day when doctors and lawyers work to protect the ever growing industries of death, we must become ever more vigilant.  If we are allowed to disconnect from Faith and morals then, does this allow all men to do that which is right in their own eyes?  Cheh says I am biased and fail to sympathize with the grief of mankind.  She can more easily empathize with the pains of sufferers.  Maybe it's because I measure life differently.  What of death with dignity?  Is that not what a great nation does to alleviate the suffering of people?  Is there even a law that could be written by those with profoundly more latitude to protect those at greatest risk?  I say, at the point where the longitude is abortion and the latitude is physician-assisted suicide, the answer is NO!

WARD 8 ELECTION IDOL: WHERE THE PEOPLE CHOOSE, BUT WHAT?

Power is a coin sided with adoration for service and upon the other, lust for rule.  Men seeking to master the governance of any infant institution yearn for the independence to prosper themselves yet, fear the influences of more dominance of others seeking personal pleasure and public gain.  Our Founding Fathers were aware of the passions that lead mean astray.  They suffered the oppressive pursuits of King George III.  In spite of Thomas Jefferson's protestations, they witnessed the avariciousness of the Southern gentry enslave multitudes as property when the Constitution recognize all as men.  It is unrighteous ambition that consumes the noble intentions of those that would rather be known as leaders, advocates and activists.  Founding Fathers James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, in Federalist Paper 51, wrote:

Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.  The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place.  It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government.  But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?  If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

How do you protect a people constituting a new government from placing their misguided affections for control in any new state?  You create a federal district--Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution.  For the sake of protecting a great nation from itself and its foreign enemies, our Founding Fathers established the capital of the United States of America--Washington, DC.   In doing so, they sought not a people that would transform the federal district into a citadel of Human Rights but one that would balance the Natural Rights of men amongst all states.  Those that would exchange the security of living in the federal city for the precious rights observed outside of it understood the sacrifice and responsibility of being a DC citizen. So what was the promise to DC citizens.  It is "a municipal legislature for local purposes, derived from their own suffrages, will of course be allowed them".  For the political right to vote, America, the District of Columbia and Ward 8 are seeking not an idol but, a representative, on Tuesday, April 28, 2015.

Let me give you some insights on my native district.  It is a land that glories in the theme "the least, the last and the lost" rather than empower its citizenry to pursue "life, liberty and happiness".  Since the inception of Ward elections, not one Republican has served in either Ward 8 or any East of the River City Council seat.  In fact, citywide, in forty years of Home Rule Elections, only 3 Republicans have ever served on the City Council and one of those switched to become an Independent.  Outside of Congress, there has been no real influence of a Liberty government.  No opposition to a Democrat only approach to taxes, appropriations, policy, policing and governance at any branch--Council, Mayoral or Justice.  For forty years, this city council has pursued the United Nations' Declarations of Human Rights rather than US Constitution.  What have the results been?

In the 2010 State of Washington, DC's Neighborhoods, we get a snippet of the demise of one party rule amongst the oppressed.  While the rest of DC grew in population, Ward 8 lost population.  Yeah, that means the more leaving exceeds the more coming.  In the fields of economics and jobs, the innovators of multiculturalism admit that the ward levels of unemployment reflect "racial segregation" of the city.  Forty years and Democrats have not solved Jim Crow.  No worries, unemployment for Blacks must be low as blacks represent the majority rule on the City Council.  No.  In Ward 8, unemployment is as high as 29%!  After forty years, median income is $22,410.  This is less than the "Living Wage" that the Democrats pushed through the City Council and certainly less than Senator Elizabeth Warren's proposed minimum wage of $22 per hour.  The highest food stamp participation: Ward 8.  The highest Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF): Ward 8.  The highest drop in home sales prices: Ward 8.  Which leads me to ask, "How is 'affordable housing' the number one issue when you have low prices for single family homes, expansive government subsidies for first time home buyers and rent controls?"  Education?  Ward 8 has highest number enrolled and lowest graduating.  Health?  Worst pre-natal numbers, highest violent deaths and least access to quality care.  Amazing, one of the Ward 8 City Council candidates worked for a hospital that fought against specialists and urgent care centers from locating in the Ward.  It seems far better to spend nearly a billion dollars to build a new hospital.

So apparently, what Ward 8 citizens want is 40 more years in the Democrat desert with the promise that a better land is merely around the corner.  You can remain reticent, immovable and unyielding because Government will have the answer.  When you look at the websites of the leading candidates, you notice that they offer no real innovative solutions for Ward 8.  Why offer ideas that will prosper people when they are made comfortable in their poverty?  The government that sought to protect the present of those that voted for it have literally, doomed their future.  So what's left?  Let's talk about who endorses who.  Let's talk about who's more physically attractive than who.  Let's talk who has more money for the streets.  Let's talk about who loved Mayor for Life Marion Barry more!  Let's talk Ward 8 Election Idol.  There's still time for people to call in. 
 
For too long, I have been told that "people" outside of Southeast "ain't got nothing to say" about what goes down.  In 1966, The Exceptional One was born in Southeast in area that would be subdivided as Ward 8.  Since then, I have either lived, worked, banked, played or worshiped in Ward 8.  I have a RIGHT to vote with my words on the future of my native land.  Whomever wins on Tuesday, April 28, 2015 has an obligation to listen to each and every one of them.  However, they won't be voting for a different platform.  They won't have a new idea or concept of personal and business success.  They will still joust at the Republican windmills that do not exist in Washington.  Ward 8, the District of Columbia and America deserve so much more.  Hopefully, a statesman or stateswoman is elected whom is willing to represent rather than lead.  Ward 8 has been led in the desert for too long. 





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DC DEMOCRAT'S $1.3 BILLION STREET CAR TO NOWHERE!

NBC News, Sept. 13: Palin has come under fire in recent days for misleadingly saying she told Congress “thanks but no thanks,” refusing an earmark for a bridge to a sparsely inhabited island in her home state. Independent groups and media fact-checkers have said Palin advocated for the federal earmark before opposing it, only ended after Congress had essentially killed it, and kept the $223 million for the appropriation after the project was killed.

Palin had cut the refrain from her speech during her three-day visit to Alaska. But she came back to it today, citing it as an example of earmark reform she and McCain would push for in the White House.

“I told Congress thanks but no thanks to that Bridge to Nowhere – that if our state wanted to build that bridge, we would build it ourselves," she said.

Remember the outrage of Mr. and Ms. Inside the Beltway Democrat when it was learned that Governor Sarah Palin's Administration had lobbied Congress to build the Gravina Island Bridge--"The Bridge to Nowhere". Even Mr and Ms. Establishment

Republican could not bear the economic injustice caused by the fact that Alaskans wanted to "provide better service to the airport and allow for development of large tracts of land on the island". After the Liberal "Mainstream" Media sent 100's of reporters to investigate the Palin Administration's desire to build a $398 million transportation system, Alaska changed plans and built a $25 million road to the island.  Yes, Mr. and Ms. Establishment Republican, there is no memorial to the "Bridge to Nowhere".  It does not exist.  Yet, Democrats and Establishment Republicans cling to this ghost in highlighting the hypocrisy of the limited government types.  The unpardonable sin.

Where is the outrage from the righteous when Democrats and Democrat Lites on the DC City Council fund the most expensive urban light rail transportation museum ever created and never to be used in Western civilization?  While radio silence has been instituted by Mayor Muriel Bowser's administration, it appears that the DC Government will cancel its $1.3 Billion light rail project having spent nearly $200 million of a slated $310 million building the "Streetcar to Nowhere".  What began as a noble gesture to eradicate poverty by sending a train from Union Station to Barry Farms ends as an expensive lesson in what happens when public intervention is sought to remedy the simplest of problems.  On March 6, 2015, the Acting Director of the District’s Department of Transportation, Leif Dormsjo, advised the esteemed City Council that the current $194 million project may never operate.  Wait, did someone just rob a bank?  No just taxpayers that believed the modern green project gurus had insight that superseded their elders.  What a very fancy inoperable museum for visitors to the Nation's Capital to observe.  If 194 million visitors over the next 20 years visited the "Streetcar to Nowhere" then, we may recoup our losses.  Knowing the Democrat held City Council, we may find a way to go into debt doing that.  By the way, after a century, why did our elders replace the streetcar system.  Cars and buses are faster, more mobile and not connected to Dr. Frankenstein's laboratory.

Let's play the Democrat game of "how could we have better spent $200 million dollars".  According to Cato, it costs over $28,000 annually per pupil for a DC public school education.  We missed educating 7,142 children.  Using Senator Elizabeth Warren's $22 per hour minimum wage, the DC government could have employed 4,371 welfare mothers to work at Walmart for a year.  We missed taking 7,475 children out of poverty.  Mayor Bowser says she wants to find $100 million for Affordable Housing.  We found it almost twice over.  At a cost of $4,318 per person, the DC Government could have provided outpatient drug treatment to 46,317 persons.  WOW!  A health plan and social justice program that would not need a Republican's vote!  DC Employees, as many as 4,000 of you could have continued receiving the DC Employee First Time Home Purchase Tax Credit for 5 years.  Yeah, 12 council members including Muriel Bowser chose streetcar funding over your tax breaks.  They knew you would not mind.  Speaking of government employees, we must always be vigilant in DC.  Anything could happen!  ISIS, Climate Change Disasters, Hillary Needing A New Server, ie. ANYTHING!  Why not prepare?  At an average cost of $37,000 per annual starting salary, DC could have hired 5,405 police, fire and emergency medical technicians.  What a loss! Government waste and abuse only matters when blaming the GOP.  It would be great if every representative that voted for this Dodo Bird project suffered a pay deduction to cover the cost.  However, they would probably pass a new tax to fill their newly emptied coffers.  Vote Them Out and Keep the Streetcar to Nowhere Museum so that our grandchildren will see what trolley folly their tax dollars afford.

NAME DROPPERS: WHY PROGRESSIVES SHOULD FOCUS ON ANDREW JACKSON BEFORE DANIEL SNYDER

As a Native American descendant, I admit that I am not in the least offended by the term "Redskin". I am certainly more related to the Native Asians that crossed the Siberian-Alaskan land bridge more than 10,000 years ago than Senator Elizabeth Warren.  However, progressives are more likely to question my lineage than hers. Redskin is more aligned with the translations of early European discoverers than it is a derogatory slang.  Yet, many would have you believe it an attempt to deride a proud and glorious people.  The gatekeepers of racial polarization and censored speech clearly do not want you to confuse legacy with hyperbole.  Nor do they seek to illuminate the masses with facts when fiction attracts a more enraged protester.  In the matter of whether the Washington franchise in the National Football League should maintain the name "Redskins", a federal agency, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, canceled their trademark on the grounds that its nomenclature is offensive to a specific group of people. Their decision is not intended to take away the name but merely, diminish the team's ability to protect its trademark and thus, unilaterally profit.  Yes, take away their right to legally defend their property.  That'll teach them to be more compassionate and choose a nickname like the "Pelicans".  

Maybe if Daniel Snyder had won at least two Super Bowls we would not be questioning the veracity of our team's name.  Let's give the benefit of the doubt.  Maybe there is more to this.  Let's find out what Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton might say on MSNBC: 

“I don’t know what Snyder is standing on, what the principle is,” Norton said.  “We understand what the principle is on the part of Native Americans. I’m not surprised that most Americans don’t see any harm in the word.  Most of us have had to be educated by Native Americans, who after all, are only less than two percent of the population.  They don’t exactly have a microphone every day.  If it were African Americans, you’d know all about it.” 

Congresswoman Holmes is right.  As a African-American, Native American, I have a microphone and do know.  The term "Redskin" pre-dates the first slave owner in the United States.  Anthony Johnson, a black man, in 1654, enslaved African John Casor.  In 1661, Virginia made the practice legal for any free white, black or Indian to own slaves.  The term  "Redskin" was first used by Europeans to describe the skin tone of Indians or as progressives would say, Natives.  It is derived from the term "red man" which was used during the 1590's.  What is really interesting is that in 1933, according to the Bill Poser of the University of Pennsylvania Language Log, "George Preston Marshall, the owner of the team, which was then located in Boston, renamed it the Boston Redskins in honor of the head coach, William "Lone Star" Dietz, an American Indian.  When the team moved to Washington in 1937, it was renamed the Washington Redskins.  George Marshall clearly did not consider the name disparaging."  If it were not offensive to William Dietz then, what is this all about?  This has more to do with the narrative that America is an unfair, racist nation whose Constitution needs to be "fundamentally changed" to overcome our segregated origins.  White America must pay the price for the Nation's "Jim Crow" and Slave past.  No matter the cost, Dan Snyder must pay.

What perplexes me more is the sincere effort by the narrative's movement to chastise Dan Snyder using federal resources rather than calling upon federal resources to remove President Andrew Jackson, the father of the Democrat Party, from the twenty dollar bill.  Jackson demanded slave loyalty and beat them to be more productive.  His negotiated treaty with the Five Civilized Tribes led to the infamous "Trail of Tears" which witnessed the deaths of up to 6,000 Cherokee.  What better way to address the legacy of the Democrat Party than to remove Jackson.  By the way, he did not support a federal reserve of the printing of money.  It would be his honor and certainly more honorable than cursing Snyder.  I would even recommend a President to replace him--Ronald Reagan.  I leave it the Progressives to build new talking points against.  Racial polarization is never true justice.  Redskins is fine with me.