Super-Committee Snatches Defeat From What Should Have Been Victory

A bipartisan deficit-cutting super-committee invested with powerful tools to accomplish its goals is ready to concede defeat according to a report by Reuters.

For the past three months, Democratic and Republican members of the committee have been working to reach an agreement on how to tame the United States’ massive financial problems. The problem faced by the committee was no small one -- cutting the deficit by $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years -- yet hopes were high that lawmakers could strike an accord that would put the country back on more stable economic footing. The committee had the power to quickly push legislation through Congress, yet failed to capitalize on that opportunity.

With the failure of the super committee, taxpayers are left with several major concerns. First, with the 2012 election cycle heading into full swing, the country will likely have to wait until 2013 or even 2014 to address the problem further. Secondly, the partisan bickering that kept committee members from reaching an agreement is unlikely to be any less acrimonious after the 2012 elections. Also, with the United States’ credit worthiness already in question by some ratings agencies, will this be the straw that breaks the proverbial camel’s back and sends the country into further economic decline? Unfortunately, those are just some of the concerns.

But ask yourself this -- did you really expect the super-committee to succeed in the first place? Like the alcoholic or drug addict that must reach rock bottom before getting help, our Congress appears unable to shake its addiction to bloated government and partisanship while there is still further to fall. With this failure, our elected leaders have taken us one step closer to the bottom.

Pacifists are hard to pacify

Pacifism is defined as: “opposition to war or violence as a resort in the settlement of disputes,” according to the dictionary. On the other hand, the word pacify is defined: “to bring or restore to a state of peace or tranquility; quiet; calm.” While seeking to reconcile the two different definitions, it seems that one is opposed to war or violence and the other requires qualities that can restore peace and tranquility to a situation or person. Observing the recent upheaval taking place in the countries of the Middle East with the riots that have broken out and the bloodshed that has been occurring as a result of the riots, there seems to be little evidence that pacifism is at work in these locations. Our nation allows for peaceful demonstrations and gatherings of citizens to express their opinions on various issues. Recently, the media has been following the development of the group known as Occupy Wall Street. It has been somewhat difficult to determine exactly what those who have joined together are really wanting. There seems to be an element of non violent protest about culture and cultural issues. There seems to be no real clearly defined answers as to why these groups have sprung up. Some of the people in these groups are there with clearly defined motives and with agendas about change they want to see brought about in our culture. Other members of these groups seem to have just joined in because it looked like a party they would like to be in on, and with not so clear ideas as to why they are there or what it will take to pacify their desire. It is the uncertainty that has caught my attention.

Being an advocate with passionate opinions, I have been with various groups with which I agree and with others that have opposing viewpoints, yet just as passionate in their belief system. Opposing points of view have never bothered me. That might come as a surprise to many who read this column, but I have been around controversial ideas long enough to know that we do not always agree on every point in culture. Freedom of speech and press is enjoyed in our country. For that truth I am thankful. The one area that does bring great concern for me is when one side tries to one-up the other by using tactics that are designed to silence the other side. There should be no fear when we express our opinions knowing the only response will be to belittle or make fun of those with differing viewpoints. Rather than engaging in mature conversation when some people hold to a different opinion, the tendency is to lapse into the wrestle mania mode and try to scratch the eyes out of the person with another viewpoint. It is most likely too much to ask, but it seems we should be able to approach differing viewpoints with an allowance for each side to express their opinions without fear that they are going to be held up to a fancy public humiliation tactic by one side or the other.

With the onslaught of the blogosphere which allows for name calling, and opinions expressed by fake named contributors, there is now the belief that anything goes when trying to make the side with which one disagrees to look as foolish as possible. The unfortunate aspect of this new media is that it retrofits to a day in journalism known as “Yellow Journalism.” A time when anyone could say anything they wanted about a public or private citizen and have it printed in the newspaper with no proof of the charges. The attitude behind “Yellow Journalism” reveals the wrong motives of those who use it.

Opinions and preferences are now stated as cold hard facts, rather than opinions and preferences. From what I have seen, many within the groups that are currently occupying public places are doing so with little or no real understanding of the freedoms they enjoy and the advantages they have being citizens of this great nation. We need only look at the other nations of the world to see how quickly these peaceful demonstrations have turned violent with physical harm as the outcome which has brought no solution to their issues. This has yet to happen in our country, thankfully. It seems no matter how much tolerance is exercised toward these pacifists groups, they refuse to be pacified.

Ray Newman

Treat life with respect and dignity

There are two issues I feel passionate about that touch our culture every day. The first one is the right-to-life that all of us have. I am an activist and an advocate for life issues. Life begins at conception and is to continue until the giver of life determines the natural end. In 1987, a small pro-life ministry based 45 miles north of Sacramento, California, held the first Life Chain observance as they built America’s first chain through the towns of Yuba City and Marysville, California, according to their website. Last Sunday, across the country there were people who stood for one hour in silent prayer standing up for the unborn in communities throughout North America. Life is valuable and vital, and should be treated with dignity and respect.

Being an advocate for life also causes me to share another passion of my belief system. October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Over these many years in my profession, having sat on my side of the desk and listened to stories of spouse and child abuse, my heart has softened for those who are abused and has hardened my heart toward the abusers. One of the things I have learned as an advocate for raising awareness of domestic violence is that there is not one level of society left out when it comes to violence being used against other human beings. Often, the most kept secret about violence is that it covers every level of educational, economic, political, social and even spiritual layers of our culture. There is no place where domestic violence can ever be accepted by me.

Often those who are the victims of violence are so intimidated they suffer alone. Too many times the person who preys upon others does so as a master-bully. We have been seeing stories recently in the media about bullies at schools or neighborhoods, but we also know that the person, who preys upon another, wherever the act occurs, is a coward and a bully. Domestic violence can be inflicted in several ways. There is not always the striking of another person, but the intimidation that occurs as a means of control when a person expresses episodes of rage against someone else. The person, who is the prey of another, soon learns the best way to give in and give up is to keep the predator from going into a fit of rage. That is abusive behavior. There is more than just the need for anger management when a person is controlling another by the use of anger or rage. Over these many years of observing the behavior of the controlling person, it almost always escalates to hitting. The early moments of abuse could be the use of words expressed in anger, but soon, it changes to hitting or even restraining another person until the abuser can force their way on the person being abused. In recent months the media has been filled with stories of murder and mayhem that has been rooted in domestic violence victims. There seems to be more stories, recently, of couples who once stood before a preacher or judge and each pledged their love for the other, but grew apart to the point of violence erupting into the taking of a life.


The majority of the time when the domestic violence spills over into murder or assault, the coward, that is the predator, has to build up strength to commit such a heinous crime with the use of alcohol or some other drug. A person out of control of a situation is persuaded they are superhuman once they have ingested some drug. These domestic cowards must think that once they have inflicted enough pain on the one being abused that they will prove a point. The point they prove is they are cowards and bullies and deserve swift punishment for the abuse and harm they have inflicted on someone else. We know that many times the coward inflicting the harm to someone else is much stronger and bigger than the person they are abusing. The shame of our culture is that we have to force the abused person to jump through too many legal hoops to receive help and many times it is too late when they have been killed by the abusing bully. There can be help available by calling the National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1.800.787.3224. Life is vital and valuable, and must be treated with respect and dignity.

Ray Newman: Copyright October, 2011

Modern know-it-alls fear conservative Christians

The dictionary defines terrorism as, “the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes.” Often we see the use of terrorism or terroristic threats used against a group of people by other groups of people. We have become familiar with wars taking place around the world where people are persecuted and brutalized. We know of forced famines, where people are starved to death because they are of a different culture, race, or ethnic group. The headlines have told of the plots of organizations like, al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Taliban, drug cartels and organized criminal elements. We know of gang warfare, and the news is filled with the rampage of the mobs in England. We tremble to think what the world would be like with no rule of law or defense allowed against terrorism as it is permitted to unleash an attack upon innocent people. We mourn with those who are victims of domestic violence. We have laws to protect the innocent and those who are unable to take care of themselves. We have law enforcement agencies to assist when homes are invaded or assaults are carried out against people or property. As we move closer to the tenth anniversary of the heinous attack upon our nation when the planes flew into the twin towers of the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11, 2001, many are calling to memory where they were on that early fall morning. We recoil to think what it must be like to be kept in a cage and forced into sexual servitude at the hands of a sex trafficker. We see the ways people have devised to take advantage of the poor and the acts of injustice that are carried out against the poor and disadvantaged in our nation and throughout the world. We know stories of people who have been forced into drug addiction to be used as property rather than being recognized with dignity as a fellow human being. We try to fathom the mindset that seeks to harm others just for ones personal perverted pleasure. We see the innocent faces of children who have been killed by their parents. We read stories of family members who turn with uncontrolled violence upon other family members. In all of the unthinkable acts of rage and violence that are replayed in the media, we can’t help but wonder if we have become hardened to the reality of what it is like to be terrorized by someone or something else. Have we become such a calloused culture that we no longer are disturbed by the injustice and violence that interrupts our lives? Someone has suggested that we have developed a culture of raunchiness where we are no longer shocked by whatever might cross our path.

With the raucous lifestyles of some groups and the lack of concern for each other in our culture, it is easy to turn upon those who seek to stand upon principle. The elite-academic-class yuk it up when they hear someone stand upon principle for freedom, family, and faith values. The high minded group of editorial writers in the liberal media enjoys tagging groups of people who stand upon conservative values and principles of life. There was a time when the word “cancer” was a feared and hated word. In today’s calloused world, “conservative” and “Christian” are the two words that invoke the most negative response from people who believe they have advanced beyond those two outdated concepts. The New York Times immediately jumped to label the mass murderer in Norway as a “Christian Extremist,” when there is not one shred of evidence to link him to any church or group that could be labeled Christian.

These modern know-it-alls have developed a calloused attitude against any person or group who expresses different values than those on the left. It has become an easy thing for the liberal left to hurl charges of terrorist against even the gentlest patriots among us. Many have spoken as if they are horrified that a person who is serving in elective office would ever admit to praying to God for guidance and wisdom while making decisions. From where I stand to imply with a condescending attitude that because someone speaks up for freedom, faith, and family that they are a terrorist or worse that they might be a conservative Christian is an affront to all the patriots who have died to make this country free.

Ray Newman

There is a way out of this quagmire

The headline came across the news sources late last Friday night that an American helicopter had been shot down in Afghanistan. It would be Saturday morning when I would learn that the most deadly event in the ten year war in Afghanistan had claimed the lives of thirty-one United States troops. The majority of those who died were Navy SEALS. The Taliban claimed credit for the deadly rocket attack upon our troops. It was further reported that many of the special operations SEALS were those who had carried out the strike against Osama bin Laden. While we are hearing about scaling back the troop numbers and cutting defense spending in Iraq and Afghanistan in order to satisfy those who are insisting that we end the war by withdrawing without being victorious, the price we are going to pay is the loss of lives of our youngest, brightest and best in the military.

The news of the tragic deaths of the troops in this event added to our hopelessness following the fact that for the first time in our nation’s history our nation’s credit rating had been downgraded from AAA to AA+ by Standard and Poor’s. In a statement regarding the downgrading of our country’s credit standing, a spokesperson for S&P said that the long ballyhooed agreement reached between the three branches of our government in Washington could be described by saying that the “…plan falls short of what would be necessary to stabilize the government’s medium-term debt dynamics.” The reaction of the Treasury Secretary, Timothy Franz Geithner, was to say that the economist at Standard and Poor’s had made a math mistake. The Obama administration likes to remind us of all the terrible things they inherited from the Bush administration. One thing he was given by the Bush administration was a credit rating of AAA. Now, for the first time in our nation’s history, our credit rating has been downgraded and the only explanation the Treasury Secretary can come up with is bad math!

The only person left from the original group of financial advisors in the Obama Administration is Geithner. He has often been quoted in the media as having the answers to our financial crisis, none of which have worked. He made a promise several months ago that the credit standing of our country would not be downgraded. Yet, now it has been. We were promised employment would be on the upswing, yet unemployment is higher. We have been told that this administration is working on jobs and putting Americans back to work. That has not happened. The point is being made that the White House cannot create jobs. That is true. They can, however, get out of the way by letting up on regulations that will instill confidence once again, allowing for more people to be offered the opportunity to go back to work. Two words can be used to define what we have seen from the current administration from the first day they took office until now: overreaching and over regulation. We have watched daily as our nation has been pushed into a direction that we do not want to go by those who promised they would change the direction of our country.

It is not hard to know the next claim that will be presented to the American people to fix the economy. Higher taxes will be presented as the answer, and those who have stood against raising taxes will be called out as the ones that should shoulder the blame for the downgrading of our credit standing. That charge could not be more wrong.

The very obvious ideological concept of bigger government and nanny-state government as opposed to less government and personal responsibility is being seen at the highest level of our land. The overreaching and over regulation by this administration has thrust this nation into a deep hole out of which will take years and several generations to fill. The last thing we need to add to this sick economy is higher taxes with more government entitlements. We continue to punish the producers in our country. That is a failed system that has never worked and will not work now.

Now is the time to allow our military to fight the war they are trained to fight and win, and get government regulations off the backs of businesses and citizens. The end result would be to propel us out of this quagmire into renewed vigorous growth.

Ray Newman

The spending crisis is out of control

People my age will remember the television program that captured the attention of our nation years ago. The program was called the $64,000.00 question. The format consisted of a host asking questions of contestants and as questions were answered correctly there would be a higher level to attain and more money to be won. The show was exposed as a fraud and taken off the air. The American public seems to have always been enthralled with the winning of money and watching others hit the jackpot. The game shows in the height of network television gave prizes, products, or money to the contestants. With the expansion of cable and satellite programs available for viewing by the nation we have seen the introduction of “Reality Shows.” These programs, we are led to believe; show the real life, as-they-happen events in the lives of certain people or groups of people. The list is growing ever larger all the time with more people trying to get in on the money-making genre that feeds on the people’s voyeuristic habits. A few of the programs build on the aggressive spirit of people; Storage Wars and Parking Wars being two such programs where the viewers are treated to the aggressive struggles and rage of people as they bid for the contents of a storage unit or the special parking space in a large metropolitan area. We are allowed to look into the private lives of housewives, swamp people, and rock stars, with some of the shows that are currently claiming the attention of vast numbers of people every week. Some people have been overwhelmed by the brawling of the hit program of last season called Mob Wives. With all of the brawls, shouting, and pushing, we are allowed to see into the dysfunctional personalities of each of the characters in these shows. It remains to be seen where all of this interest in fake reality is going to finally take us.

There is a real life show playing out on the American stage, currently, that some in the media have called “Debt Wars.” The increase in the debt ceiling of our country has taken all of the oxygen from the news that should be surrounding the announced candidates for the upcoming presidential primaries. The American people have been used as pawns in this fight taking place in Washington that ultimately touches all of us in the pocket book. More than a debt war, we are seeing the ideological exchange of those who believe in bigger government with increased spending to bring us to a nanny state utopia that will control all aspects of the lives of the citizens as opposed to smaller government that allows for personal achievement and upward mobility. The personal ideological views of the players in this war have been clearly seen in the last several weeks. The credit rating of our nation is in the balance. The concept of smaller or bigger government is a choice being laid before our nation’s leaders. The reality that is coming into full view is that we have those in leadership who have staked out their position and refuse to see any other way to approach the subject of government spending. With all of the finger pointing and blame casting that has been in the media, the reality is that we are at a time when decisions must be made as to the future of our country. Those who argue for increased government spending and the enlargement of government would say that we have no other choice but to continue on the road on which we have been travelling. While that is being put forward as a position, there are those who believe the time has come to put a stop to the spending spree that has brought us to the brink of financial chaos. When we are currently borrowing forty cents of every dollar we spend, we must know there is a time when the money being borrowed will have to be repaid. Other people tell us that this path was determined many years ago and there is nothing we can do to stop this spending train from continuing down the track to financial ruin. The American Stock Exchange has reacted since the increase in the debt ceiling by tanking. The reality is that our country does not have a debt crisis, but a spending crisis that must be brought under control.

Ray Newman

The slavery of addiction

It is with sadness I write this column expressing my opinion about events that continue in the culture of today. It was on Twitter that I learned of the sudden death of a 27 year old entertainer. Word was cautious at first about the death of Amy Jade Winehouse, but soon, celebrities and many other people began to express their opinions about the life and struggles of the young singer. Later in the day, Judy Farah, known on Twitter as “newsbabe1530” left the following tweet, “The 27 Club, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Brian Jones, Kurt Cobain, now Amy Winehouse, all dead at 27.” As the tweets continued, I thought of the young age of those listed; Morrison, Hendrix, Joplin, Jones, Cobain and Winehouse never lived to see their 28th birthday. The use of the names of the entertainers listed above is not to suggest that it is only in the music or entertainment field where people die young as a result of drug abuse. A similar list could be made in almost every vocation and career field. As the music and entertainment industry struggles to find answers to the inner issues that each of those listed have dealt with, I was reminded of a quote from Voltaire, when he said, “What a heavy burden is a name that has become famous too soon.” The question arises then; can we blame the struggles these entertainers had on their fame? Benjamin Franklin said, “Life’s tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late.” Other questions can then be asked concerning these untimely deaths. “Are these struggles of addiction a mark of immaturity and only made by the young?” Another question is relevant to our discussion, “Why doesn’t someone wiser or older step in to stop this self-destructive behavior?” For every question asked in recent days there are many answers. There are those who would defend with great passion the position that tells us the addiction to self-destructive behavior is not the fault of the person addicted. Other people could step forward to lay the blame upon society and the stresses under which we are required to live today.

Help is available for any who find they are struggling with addictions. With the development of the Internet, we are discovering an addiction to pornography that is ruining lives in every career field. Society has known for many years the addictions of drugs and alcohol. There are self-help programs, recovery programs, private counselors with a Christian perspective, public health programs, government drug substitution programs, and others who have made a lifetime vocation of seeking to help any and all who is addicted to some substance or way-of-life that will lead to self-destructive behavior.

Families and friends of those who are caught in the trap of addiction and have become slaves to their personal inner struggles, spend many hours and money trying to find ways to assist the people they love in order to change their behavioral pattern of self-destruction. There is nothing as helpless as a person trying to assist a loved one dealing with the types of issues as young Amy had. Reports tell that Amy Winehouse had tried several different rehab treatments, none of which brought about the desired result of freedom from her addictive drug use. She once told a reporter: “I’m of the school of thought where if you can’t sort something out for yourself, no one can help you. Rehab is great for some people but not for others.”

Before we throw a righteous pointed finger into the face of the young and immature, let us all realize that we could also be caught in this same trap of self-destructive behavior. Before we lecture those who are addicted, let us seek the source of the behavior and do all we can to encourage a recovery program that will change the way-of-life of the addict. Communicating love and support as early in life as possible to the ones we love can go a long way toward having success as the temptations of drug, alcohol, and other destructive behaviors are dangled before the eyes of the young. Some people reading this column will push back telling of years of love and support that fell on deft ears as the behavior of the addict grew more severe with each new event.

Too many die too young as a result of addictive self-destructive behavior.

Ray Newman