The Value of a Life

In a free-wheeling discussion with a friend the other day, I was broadsided by a comment that did not seem to fit with his libertarian views. The subject had wandered around to the controversy about the Tebow ad during the Super Bowl. And he asked me what I thought about very late term abortions.

I said that I had real moral issues with that, because I could not imagine a situation in which delivery could not be attempted, with the hopes of saving the life of both mother and child. And I had looked but found no information that contradicted my conclusions. I pointed out that I had developed severe pre-eclampsia late in my pregnancy with the Boychick, a condition that required induction of labor in order to save my life and that of the Boychick. Fortunately for me, it was not a difficult decision because the delivery would be less of a risk for me than continuing the pregnacy would have been, and we were so close to term, the Boychick and I, that delivery was not likely to be risky for him either. As it turned out, with the help of modern medicine, we came through the delivery fine, both of us and the neonatal team that was standing by filed out of the room without making any interventions. That said, I told my friend, I would not have wanted a government official interfering with such a potentially life-altering decision. I would not want some bureaucrat to require me to undergo an induction of labor. However, I would expect that doctors would be rightly reluctant to perform late-term abortions.

With this as a jumping off point, my friend commented that he wondered if a murder should be prosecuted if no one cared about the death of the person who had been killed. After all, he said, the dead person would be dead, and if no one was left to be devasted, then it was if the life of the person was unimportant.

I was speechless. One can know a person reasonably well and still be surprised.

I probed. I asked, then does that mean if the parents of a six-month infant murder him, and there is no one else to be outraged, does this mean it is not murder? He said he would have moral concerns about such an action, but that it should not be illegal since no one was injured by the action except the child--who would now be dead.

Immediately, images of concentration camps and gas chambers began to roll across my mind's eye. My argument was that certainly someone has been harmed, and that is the person whose life had been taken unjustly. My friend argued that people die all the time.

Of course, we are mortal, I argued, but there is a difference between dying of disease or accident, and the purposeful taking of a life. Certainly, the person who is murdered values his life. And as we were speaking, I realized that my friend had wandered into a collectivist view of the value of a life. His value of liberty was not completely based on the principle of individual rights. Because if his values were firmly rooted there, he would realize immediately that the value of a life is not based on how useful to society, or how precious that person is to another. The value of a life is the ultimate value to person himself.

I was so disturbed that I stopped the discussion when I realized that all of my attempts to elucidate the principle had not penetrated my friends mind; that to him this had become a sophist's argument--made for the sake of continuing the discussion.

For me, the inheritance of the Holocaust makes these discussions more than argument for the sake of argument. As we spoke, the biblical injunction about the responsiblity of the nearby towns to adjudicate the death of a stranger on the road kept coming to mind.
Even the taking of the life of a stranger for whom no one cares must be treated with justice.

Hit and Run Snowstorm

NEARLY WORDLESS WEDNESDAY BONUS

We knew a storm was coming.

It was supposed to be mostly rain,

with snow tonight at the higher elevations.

We were expecting 3 to 5 inches.

It started snowing this morning at 8 AM.

And we got a foot.

More to come tonight.

One foot today means approximately

two feet on the back patio.

With wind blowing snow off the roof,

we now have three foot drifts

in the lee of the house.

This storm packed quite a punch.
Hours of blizzard conditions closed
the 40 between Albuquerque and
Moriarty.

The Engineering Geek left work before
the highway closed--and he got through
until the bottom of our hill. The car is there
and he is here--thanks to a neighbor.
The Boychick is with a friend who lives
close to school. Maybe he will come home tonight!

Umbrae loves the snow.

He ran, played, and dug deep

to get at sticks and grass.

Coming inside was not on his agenda.

But staying outside was not on mine!

The snowplow came around just at 5 PM.
Now there are 2-3 foot piles of snow,
all along our road.

Lily didn't mind climbing it,
but Shayna stayed on the
plowed area.

Now this is quite enough. We will probably have snow cover until mid-March this year!

January Moon, February Cross Quarter

NEARLY WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

The January 2010 full moon appears to be the largest of the year, because this moon is the closest to the earth. Mars, in opposition, actually passed by the moon on Friday night, although the appeture of my camera was not large enough to catch it.
















Moonset on January 30, 2010.
The moon appeared to be very large,
and the air was very clear. Here the moon
stands over the Sandia Mountain front, just before it slipped behind the mountains and under the western horizon.








Although frontal clouds had begun to come up from the south, indicating stormy weather tomorrow, the rising sun shows pink and orange on South Mountain, and lights up the houses on
Rancho Verde Hill.










February cross-quarter sunrise from the top of Los Pecos in the high meadow. On the Winter Solstice the sun rose about two fingers to the right, and as the Old Calendar spring progresses, the sunrise will appear further to the left on this picture.










One of the delights of living in the mountains is the opportunity to see the sun rise more than once on a single day. The Ground Hog's Day sunrise redux--from a lower point on the road at the lower end of the high mead0w. At the winter solstice, the sun rose straight above the road in this picture.

Although clouds were coming in, the Ground Hog saw his shadow, and by legend this means six more weeks of winter.


Although I saw the sunrise twice-- I said one blessing: ". . . who forms light and creates darkness, who makes wholeness and fashions all things." I am sure to the ancients, the progress of the sunrise appearing further and further north with each passing week must have been an entirely reassuring sight.

Articles of Freedom: The New Website

The R3volution continues . . .

I am proud to annouce that the Articles of Freedom Website has now been launched and that I had a teeny, tiny part to play in the drama! One of the two webmasters launched it from my kitchen--and in our excitement and because we were distracted--I forgot to feed him!

A sorry come-down for the Mother of the R3volution NM.

The Articles of Freedom represent the work of the Continental Congress 2009, and several versions have been distributed on the web. Each of the 15 Articles present the facts about one Constitutional violation that our servant government has used to increase its power at our expense. The We the People Foundation, over years of activism, has established a record of formal Petitions for Redress of Grievances for each of these 15 violations, and our employees in all branches of government have refused to respond to any of them. Therefore three delegates from each of 48 states-- Americans from all walks of life--met together to created a record of these violations, and moving beyond a time of petition, have issued instructions for how to redress the violations to all branches of government, federal and state. In case those instructions are not followed, and in case our servant government mistakes our intention, we have also made recomendations to the People of the United States, in their several sovereign States, for peaceful civic action to hold government accountable to the Constitution.

These civic actions can be effective if a mass movement of between 2.5% and 5% of the population engages in them together, in order to hold the government accountable. This has been the case in every place and time where the People have held their governments accountable.

If you desire liberty for yourselves and your children; and if you have been concerned about the concentration of power into the hands of venal politicians, who "have erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our peopel and eat out their substance" (Declaration of Independence), then go to the website on the widget at the top of this blog, read the Articles of Freedom and sign the pledge to take action together. And if you are a patriot--prove it by reading the Plan of Action for April 19th, 2010. And spread the word. Do your part to restore Liberty and Constitutional governance. Then you can look your children in the eye when they ask you what you did to protect their inheritance of Liberty.

The Fourth Storm: Snow Upon Snow

NEARLY WORDLESS SPECIAL

Yes, I skipped Nearly Wordless Wednesday, because I was waiting for today, and the Fourth Pacific Storm to post what I knew would some new snow pictures. So without further ado . . .

After the third storm, we had some clear weather, but cold. Gold and Blue joined the gray and white colors outside Ragamuffin House . . .

Snow lingered on the trees,

and like deep frosting on the

stump--the roads were cleared

courtesy of graders and tractors,

----not by melting!

Yesterday afternoon, meteorologists on all media

said that the fourth storm had intensified--

that it would be slower, with more precipitation,

and colder than earlier predictions indicated.

This morning--here it is.

Schools in the East Mountains closed.

The Engineering Geek stayed home from work.

They say it will get worse this afternoon and evening.

Falling steadily this morning,

snow upon snow,

making for a slow, slippery,

unpredictable morning walk.

So far about four inches on top
of the remaining five inches or so
on the ground from last Friday's
snowfall.

Looking forward to Candlemas,
Groundhog's Cross Quarter.
I hope Mr. Punxutawney Phil sees
his shadow and is scared back into
his den!


Will spring ever arrive? And whatever happened to Global Warming?

Atlas Chronicles: Feds Loot Charter Bank

Until recently, our small state-regulated banks and small local banks under federal regulation have been left alone by the Feds. But last week the looting of the wealth of New Mexico for the sake of political expediency began. This is happening in communities and states across the United States. The looting of our communities has begun.

On Friday, the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) closed Charter Bank, a closely-held conservative local bank that was in the business of lending money to New Mexicans and their businesses for the purchase of homes and commercial real estate. They then forced the sale of the remaining assets to a vulture "capitalist" from Texas, a company that has no interest in making conservative loans to New Mexicans interested in owning their own homes. The looting began because the OTS, a bureaucratic agency in fear of its own survival, is imposing standards based on conditions at the big banks--the ones on the government dole--to small banks who couldn't get government "help" if they tried. They are imposing standards required by the disaster that, through the Community Reinvestment Act, and the looting of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the federal government itself created.

Charter Bank was not "too big to fail," and the owners knew it. They also understood that by doing their business honorable and conservatively, they kept the trust of their customers and brought wealth and stability to New Mexico. At the time Charter was forced to close, their commercial loans not being paid on time amounted to about 0.33% of their total loans. (Note: this is late payments, not foreclosures). These are numbers that speak to the careful underwriting that Charter clearly did to make sure the loans they made were good ones. These are numbers that many of the bail-out banks could only dream of having.

How then did OTS close Charter Bank? Through an assault by devaluing Charter's holdings on paper. Like it has for many small and conservative banks, OTS decided based on national trends that have little relevance to the situation on the ground in New Mexico, that some of Charter's commercial customers might not be able to continue paying down their loans. They therefore forced Charter to reduce on paper the value of those loans. (This is like Pre-Crime in The Minority Report, a short story by Phillip K. Dick. The Pre-Crime Division would arrest and imprison innocent citizens because they might commit a crime in the future). This creative bookkeeping reduced Chater's capital holdings on paper, bringing it below the federally mandated amount, and presto-chango, Charter went from being on solid footing to being a "failing bank" by sleight of hand.

The OTS did this for political reasons. It has been fashionable in DC for a long time to blame all of the financial problems of this country on businessmen and capitalism. Like the medieval rulers of Europe, and the ruling families of corrupt middle-eastern kingdoms, American politicians have found it expedient to divert the attention of the population away from their own tyrannical machinations and corrupt policy by blaming the bankers. The OTS failed to stop the melt-down of the big national lenders because other government agencies had forced on them policies (like the Community Reinvestment Act) that could only end in failure. And the big lenders and investors played along, sucking at the government teat, in order acquire unreal profits at the expense of future stability. And when reality finally came crashing in on them, they all screamed that they were too big to fail, and received bailouts that will impoverish the next generation of productive Americans. And bookkeeping sleight-of hand continues at that level, as AIG payed back their bail-out with money printed by the Office of Treasury and sold to the Fed. So now, with their future existance in doubt, the OTS is trying to look busy by rushing to close the barn doors on small, local banks that never were in danger to begin with. The horses, already long gone, did not come from those barns.

Charter Bank did not engage in the illusory lending practices that created the real-estate bubble and the painful burst that the people in this country are now enduring. Charter Bank did not participate in subprime lending. And Albuquerque's housing market remains relatively stable, as the housing prices were not much over-inflated, and the slow-down in housing sales, a reaction to changes in conditions elsewhere, has already begun to recover. OTS made this decision by the fiat of a bureaucrat far away, based on conditions in places like Las Vegas and the State of Florida.

But OTS doesn't care that they have destroyed the personal wealth of a strong, responsible banking family in New Mexico by the stroke of a pen. They certainly don't care that they have replaced a strong conservative engine of wealth for New Mexico with a vulture "capitalist" from Texas, who also will not care about local needs. His business is to feed off of what remains from failed banks and his business model will not likely benefit New Mexico, where the wealth he and the OTS looted at the stroke of the pen originated.

It is time for our local sheriffs to make sure there are actual court-produced leans on homes and businesses, before allowing any federal agencies to invade homes and close businesses in our counties. It is time for the States to assert the 10th amendment, and nullify any action by the federal government that would move wealth away from the local economy and to the bureaucrats in Washington, that "Great City". We must stop these unelected people from looting us by regulatory strokes of the pen before we find ourselves paupers and slaves in the land our fathers and mothers built.

Prior to our marriage, the Engineering Geek and I both had financed our first homes through Charter. Both of us knew the Charter Bank owners, the Wertheims, members of the Jewish community here, and benefactors of the larger community in many ways beyond their business.
After our marriage, we also financed the loan portion of our first home together there. And when we paid off that loan and the home we now own outtright, Charter Bank has succeeded in producing another satisfied customer, and had contributed to more wealth in our economy. They did with good sense, and provided excellent and courteous customer service.

Like many in the community, we were shocked at the destruction that the Feds had wrought right here in little "Cow-town" USA. One letter written to the editor of the Albuquerque Journal today stated:

"When armed men enter a bank and take everything away from the owners, it is bank robbery. What do we do when the bank robber is the federal government? . . . I refuse to do business with thieves!" (Vickie Averhoff, Letters to the Editor: Breaking the Bank. The Albuquerque Journal, Wednesday January 29, 2010, p. A9).

Likewise, the Engineering Geek and I will not entrust one more dime of our money to the vultures who looted Charter Bank, and are sucking the wealth out of our community.

And this begs the question. This type of thievery by government regulation is going on in every area where the federal government has usurped its Constitutionally limited powers. All of us who choose not to do business with thieves must begin to look carefully at how to stop supporting a federal government gone rogue, that lies, cheats and steals for the momentary benefit of a small number of politicians cum-potentates. This will not be an easy task. It will require courage and it will exact a price upon all of us, because the piper for this dance of destruction will have to be paid. If not by us, than it will be paid by the toil and loss of freedom of our children and grandchildren.

If you are a patriot; if you a just a person who gives a damn about the people being destroyed in your community; if you want to preserve your birthright to Life, Liberty and Property: Read the Articles of Freedom. Sign this Pledge:

"In full view of the Creator as my Witness, I hereby pledge my signature, and vow to join a goodly number of millions of Americans to hold our elected and appointed officials accountable for all of their violations, with the firm reminder that each one of them has sworn an Oath (or Affirmation) to Preserve, Protect and Defend the Constitution for the United States of America. In seeking to hold them accountable, I shall hold myself accountable to do the same.

"We, undersigned renounce and condemn the INITIATION of Force, and will pursue all lawful and Constitutional means to fulfill our duty." (Articles of Freedom, Christmas Eve "Miracle" Edition).

Together, we can stop doing business with thieves.
Before they rob us blind.

R3volution: Our Weapon is Our Refusal

Last week I spent some time writing an essay that did not appear first here. Ragamuffin readers had to wait until the essay came out in a new version of The Patriot Times, which is now published by the New Mexico Patriot Alliance. Now I can publish the essay here as well, and I hope to whet your appetite to read several other excellent essays, as well as the information and humor offered in this new publication.

With no further ado, then, here is the essay.

Our Weapon is Our Refusal: The Articles of Freedom
by Elisheva Levin
New Mexico Delegate to Continental Congress 2009

Our weapon is our refusal: our refusal to bow to any order but our own

--any institution but our own.'' - Michael Collins

"What does a free people do?" What does a free people do when repeated Petitions for Redress of Grievances is met with repeated injury? In November 2009, three delegates from each of 48 states met in Continental Congress to discuss, deliberate and debate and return with an answer to this question. For over 100 years the federal government of the United States has been engaged in the violation of the Constitutional limits to it's power.

For most of the past two decades, Bob Schulz of the We the People Foundation and We the People Congress, with the help of many dedicated patriots, has engaged in formulating and serving each of the branches of the federal government with petitions for Redress of Grievances. This capstone First Amendment Right to Petition is well established in the English Common Law, appears in the Magna Carta, and is discussed in the writings of the Founders, as well as in various state constitutions. The Magna Carta declares that any petition by a citizen to his government requires a response. The petitioner does not have the right to a specific answer, but the petition must be answered. The Magna Carta states that an answer to a Petition for Redress must be made within forty days or the petitioners may take any action necessary, up to and including war against the king, in order to force a response. The right to Petition is that important.

Each of the We the People Petitions for Redress addressed a specific violation to the Constitution of the United States by at least one branch of the federal government. Among the many petitions served on the federal government are those related to the Federal Income Tax, the Federal Reserve, and the USA Patriot Act. The federal government has refused to respond to any of the many Petitions for Redress served by We the People. Through this process of formal Petitions for Redress, We the People has therefore established a substantial record of this refusal, and it has become clear that our petitions will not be heard and that all of our petitions are only met with further injury to the Constitution and to our liberty. Therefore, through the We the People Congress, a Continental Congress was called to consider the next step in the restoration of Constitutional governance to the United States.

The stated purpose of Continental Congress 2009 was to gather a body of delegates, elected by supporters of the Constitution in their respective states, in order to consider the actions of the federal government with respect to several of the formal Petitions for Redress. The Congress had these specific tasks: 1) to document the violations of the Constitution related to the Petitions; 2) to compose remedial instructions for the federal government as well as to the governments of the respective states; and 3) to develop suggested civic actions that a mass movement of at least 5% of the people can take in order to return the federal government to its Constitutionally mandated limits of power. The written results were to be gathered into a document, now called the Articles of Freedom, which would, together with a plan of action, be used to gather that mass movement. All of this was accomplished at St. Charles, IL, last November, and most of the delegates signed the Articles on the evening of November 21, 2009.

The Articles of Freedom represent that Next Step for a Free People. They represent the intention of a goodly number of the people to be done with petitions and proceed to the step of giving our servant government instructions on how to place itself back under the rule of the Constitution, the highest Law of the Land. Although the delegates do not expect compliance from our servant government, this is a necessary step in documenting the abuses of power that these Constitutional violations represent. We have petitioned for redress of our grievances, and the violations to the Constitution and our rights and have been ignored. Now we will tell the federal government how we want those violations to cease, and our rights to be restored.

The Articles of Freedom also are intended to inspire a mass movement of the People who respect the Constitution and wish to see it restored. To that end, the closing sections include a Call to Nationwide Civic Action by the People, stating in part:

When a goodly number of millions of American people agree, we will withdraw our financial support from the federal government, in a lawful and constitutional manner, and implement other responsible civic actions, until all violations of the Constitution for the United States of America CEASE.

(Articles of Freedom, Christmas Eve “Miracle version, p. 61)

This is followed by a pledge that the delegates signed, and that is available for your signature online here. You may also read and download the entire document in pdf at the same location.

In signing the pledge, you are agreeing to becoming more than a “sunshine patriot and a summer soldier”; you are agreeing to take actions that signify your withdrawal of support to a government that has overstepped its mandate and has violated your rights. These actions will begin at such time as “a goodly number of millions of people” have signed the document, so that no one will stand alone in these actions and the consequences thereof. For make no mistake, history shows that every act of civil disobedience has first been met with further force.

The time for petitions is past. The time to restore the Republic is upon us. Your Continental Congress has deliberated and returned to you these remedial instructions to the government and these recommendations for civic action. The recommendations can be summed up as a refusal to continue to support tyranny. Our Constitution is the statement of our lawful order and our institutions. We must proceed to protect and defend it. It is our refusal to bow down to tyranny; our refusal to support a government out of control. Our refusal is our weapon.

Are you a patriot? Prove it. Sign the Articles of Freedom and join in Nationwide Civic Action. In April we will serve representatives of our servant government with the Articles of Freedom. Crisis Patriots and Winter Soldiers will be there to give their refusal to tyranny.