In a sudden decision I left work after lunch and visited the Oregon house of legislation. Some people call it the Sausage Factory because seeing laws “made” can be as nauseating as watching what they put together - and how – when they make the meat product.
Incentive was conservative talk-show host Jeff Kropf (KUIK 6:00-9:00am) saying this was the “last day” of the legislative session for the year, and that anybody that could should go down and support the conservative folks (Oregon Citizen’s Lobby) in Rm 350 at the Capitol where they were trying to appeal to congressmen to vote in favor of guarding Oregonian’s life, liberty, and property. I was hoping to find some co-belligerents in the war to reconstruct Church and State.... maybe get a discussion going on the source of ethical authority to define law, and pick up some better ideas.
By the time I got there, there were just a couple ladies going to lunch. There was insufficient activity expected with the Houses of Congress, so folks had dispersed. I did get to sit in on a 4:00pm session of the Senate. I missed the first part of it, because I was learning about Oregon’s “9/11” from a friendly guy in the hall. All I saw was a senator making a motion to “read” the three bills again that were on the schedule to be read earlier in the morning. The President had to ask him to phrase his motion again in a more professional “orderly” manner. Senator responded with a “what you said” answer, then, upon soft rebuke, tried to initiate a little less un-official formulation of the request. Finally they got no one to object to the motion to “suspending the rules” (oh, the irony). So they “read” the bills again, which consisted of a very-fast recitation by a young staffer, of the long titles of the bills, which was too fast for me to even barely recognize.
One of the Rm 350 ladies graciously toured me through the 3rd floor Senators’ and Representatives’ offices so that I could better identify my district and who my Reps were. It wasn’t until later that I remembered that there was no security in the building. I had even forgotten going in that I was anticipating taking off my belt and my shoes and emptying my pockets like you had to do to get through the Wash. County courthouse scanner -- Remarkably open and relaxed there in Salem.
Then I was on my own, and besides taking in the displays and memorabilia, I profited from about 3 interesting conversations.
After a few passes I found Betsy Johnson free in her office, (Democratic Senator of the new coast district we have been redistricted to) and got acquainted. She was admitting to “conservative” voting on keeping the Concealed Hand-Gun List private (Freedom was preserved by one vote), and preventing college administrators from outlawing them on campuses. She guessed we would be on different sides of the Abortion/health-care issues.
She can stack adjectives. On her 2/24 audio blog (I will pull quotes) she represented the mad-dash finish of the session, “tired, mad, frustrated”, “raw edge of completely blowing up”, “I share his frustration, this is a secretive complicated, acrimonious, personal session”. She doesn’t think they are doing the process very proud or being as open and deliberative as it would take to make good laws. You wonder if this happens like this because it is a great excuse to pressure for more and more days of the biennium to legislative processes, or because this is the easiest way for the planners to power bills through secretively without alarming people and embarrassing themselves, or whether people are just so power-happy they can’t help themselves trying to introduce way more new laws than are realistic to deal with in a 35 day season.
She continues: “I am really…. chafing isn’t a strong enough word… I am increasingly, deeply troubled by the emerging philosophy in this building that Leadership makes decisions and they tell the rest of us what to do….Starting to bother me more than I can articulate.”
There were two big initiatives they were trying to resolve this session. She has some interesting comments about the huge, long-constructed “governor’s” health-care bill (Medicaid funds) SB 1580 [passed House, 53-7 2/23] – mentioned lay-people had no way of understanding all the nuances of the bill, “Senate republicans were completely excluded from the conversation”. Hear how she mentions “bribes”: “There were lobbyist who had paid tremendous amounts of money to the people who were negotiating the bill, and I think that sets up a bad dynamic from the get-go”. Ya think!
Some issues were: How to pay for it, (handling the future influx of new beneficiaries, changes and uncertainty regarding how much the Feds will contribute), getting adequate Tort reform/medical malpractice reforms.
Of course it has an emergency clause at the end “This 2012 Act being necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, and safety, an emergency is declared to exist, and this 2012 Act takes effect on its passage.”
Our intro was brief; she had to go to session (one of the few senators who even sat at her desk), which was quickly adjourned.
The other, longest, more satisfactory conversation was with Rep. Jim Weidner from the Yamhill district just south of my Gaston area. Even though we realized I wasn’t on his map, he invited me into his office and we talked a good while until his next appointment. I found him sober, serious, and very conservative, seemingly reflective of a Christian worldview (certainly for a OR legislator). He says he has ancestry in the Yamhill/Gaston area back to first land claims in 1843. He tried to highlight for me some details of his objection letter to SB 1580. You can see him here on YouTube encouraging his colleagues to recognize that it is doubtful Oregon can pay for this scenario, and that any wise and right-protecting solution simply must have more deliberation. Alas.
He shared some of the frustrations and misunderstandings and traps that Reps have to avoid in his job, that sometimes you have to just hold your nose and vote for a no-effect bill that is wrong, but can do hardly any substantial damage – just because if you don’t go with the crowd, your media enemies are going to beat the drum that you are trying to snatch livelihood from the elderly, handicapped poor, or beat baby seals with clubs (purely my word-pictures to portray the basic themes, I can’t remember the specifics). Actually he did vote with everybody else, just the other day, to give taxpayer dollars (thru income-tax deductions) for people who loose livestock to the new Wolves being encouraged in the State. He might know it is wrong to bring the wolves in and protect them. He might know it is wrong to plunder the non-ranching taxpayer to pay so the Environmentalists can feel good about rebalancing the natural habitat, even though we will eventually lose a human or two to these wolves. Yet it hurts to see the rancher ravaged of his property, and it doesn’t seem smart to have all the rancher’s in his district disgusted with their Rep. for voting them “to the wolves”. You can see how a legislator could get frustrated having to deal with laws we insist on complicating our lives with. No matter how he votes, he is going to suffer criticism.
He is disgusted with things like TriMet spending 2.5 million a year to advertise to persuade people to ride tax-subsidized transportation. Apparently 20% of the population will end up being under one subsidized healthcare plan or other, or maybe just Medicaid, I don’t remember the exact scope of this. I wish he were my Rep. There is a chance he might be one of the most conservative guys there. I hope he isn’t, but I am very glad I met him. He half-confirmed that Sen. Brian Boquist might be the guy to talk to about monetary matters for the State of OR. Their districts overlap.
Just now, checking out Boquist, I discover SB 1580, the Kitzhaber health bill, did pass on 2/23, the day before Sen. Betty’s audio blog. Here is an “I told-you-so” in the making for that Bill from Boquist: I’ll reprint here instead of link, cause I can’t count on it being there in the future:
Subject: SB 1580 Vote Explanation
Secretary Taylor:
Please enter my vote explanation from the Floor of the Senate into the record.
The State of Oregon needs a comprehensive health care overhaul without a doubt. In the 2011 Session, this Senator was originally told health care transformation would fill a $650 million hole in the budget if I just voted for it. Nobody could explain the $650 million figure. Then this Senator was told if I voted for health care transformation it would fill a $350 million hole in the budget. Nobody could explain the $350 million figure. Today, on the floor of the Senate we were told if we did not pass this bill there would be $700 million hole in the budget. Nobody could explain the figure.
Today, and this past two week, this Senator was told the Governor had an agreement with some mythical person in Washington DC that Oregon would get $500 million from the federal government if it passed health care transformation. Check is in the mail. Nobody signed anything. Nobody could provide even an email saying this was true.
Lastly, when this bill transforms the existing health care entities into Community Care Organizations nobody could explain what would happened to the existing $253 million in reserves at those entities. The only rumor that could be found was the doctors and shareholders of those entities would get to keep the those reserves i.e. they would turn into profits at the expense of the public. The only non-rumor to this question is the State of Oregon records show these same entities donated $2,295,831 to political campaigns this last cycle. The top four recipients were the Governor and three Legislators who steered the bill thru the chambers. Their campaign receipts totaled $623,767.
There are serious questions that remain unanswered about SB 1580.
Sincerely,
Brian J. Boquist
State Senator
District 12
The other interesting conversation (Oregon’s 9/11) was with Dr. Jim King: Infectious smile, Peace-Sign pendant around his neck, cowboy boots, tall, lean, gray, friendly “How do you know (whoever I had been talking to)?”, half-glasses far down his nose so that he would tip his head down to see you making it seem like he was speaking to you confidentially, letting in you in on his important secrets few others knew about.
He gave a name to the sad spectacle observed as you travel from Sweet Home to Sisters, over the Santiam Pass.
The Bear Butte and Booth Lake Fires (subsequently known as B & B or B & B Complex Fire) started as separate fires within hours of one another on August 19th 2003 as then President Bush prepared to speak in Camp Sherman about the congressional extension of the Healthy Forest Restoration Act. Both of the "parent" fires of the B & B started on August 19th, and sadly before the resultant B & B Complex Fire was contained on September 26th, it burned 90,769 acres, and $31 million in suppression costs, the largest ever in Oregon history. The fire was a huge conflagration, crowning and leaping, and burning for over a month, stripping more than 100 square miles of some of the most beautiful pristine areas of the Cascades – your public land - down to bare soil and scorched rocks.
So I listened in amazement as I had formed in my mind’s eye another huge Conspiracy that had happened, right here in Oregon under our noses. Now I find out James King, Ph.D. truly lives up to the flavor I sensed from him there in the hall:
In addition to working with the Occupy Oregon group, I am also registered as a lobbyist with the Darkness to Light Foundation about better protecting Oregon’s Children from sexual abuse (now at 1 in 4 girls) and was the convener of the Camp Sherman B&B Fire Truth and Reconciliation Committee related to the 2003 B&B Complex Fire (Feel free to contact me at jimking4peace@gmail.com about these other issues as well.
This from an OWS Salem bulletin from Jim King, Convener/ Event Coordinator for Occupy Oregon. One of the supported ideas listed in his catalog of zeal (besides general socialism/communism), is a government bank of Oregon.
E. As proposed by Treasurer Wheeler, economic reforms including a State Bank to better serve the banking needs of Oregonians.
He said he was daring to go back to the Camp Sherman area after hiding for some time (after arrest and incarceration), since he had reasonable assurance from some high-level State official that there would be official protection of his person from some counter-party in this whole B&B-Truth issue. Apparently, the motive was to highlight Pres. Bush’s speech in a few days at Metolious House in Camp Sherman, and to boldly intimidate resistors, or to “prove” to supporters, that some policy profiting corporations/government – should be adopted to “prevent” the potential for disasters like this. Just treason in high places – move along, there, there’s nothing to see here. Or click here to research it more….
http://www.bandbcomplexfirerevisited.com/
Dr. King is certainly a mixed bag, just like many who have understood the issues of the WTC 9/11. That moral law God writes on men’s hearts gets distorted to see lots of evil as good, but occasionally, some big, blatant travesty against truth or bloodguiltiness will bring them to sacrifice treasure, time, and comfort for some cause of real truth. This OWS movement reminds me of the unprincipled Anabaptist revolters that caused such problems around Martin Luther at the ramp-up of the Protestant Reformation. They championed the correction of legitimate corruptions in Church and State, but only stole, enslaved, and murdered as a result of ignorance of God’s law. In the attempts to fix things that are wrong, in the wrong – they only further the problems. You can’t fix Communism in High Places by promoting Communism in Low Places.
Other observations from the downstairs displays in the Capitol Building: points of history.
Oregon political organization began with a meeting to coordinate a response against predation by wolves. How symbolic, and ironic that this very session, in historic 2012, all the conservatives, even, had to vote to plunder tax-payers to reimburse ranchers again, because taxpayers insist on voting to Save The Wolves. We are our own wolves, devouring our own flesh, because we are unwilling, in so many areas, to refuse dishonest gain.
Oregon was ‘first’ in so many ways to step away from the rule of Biblical law. 1912 Women’s Suffrage, 1913 Gas Tax, now only one of two States prohibiting customers from filling their own tanks.
1989 Oregon Basic Health Services Act. This, I think, is the OR Health Plan, first in nation? Forget RomneyCare! Provides subsidy for all below some measurement of the Federal Poverty level (2x?). Family of 4, under $44k gets it free, sliding scale up to $66k. Open to everyone regardless of pre-existing conditions or denial of coverage by others. All employers required to offer group plan coverage. 120,000 enrolled at inauguration.
I’m sorry I didn’t learn more about the inner workings of the new initiatives in Education in the State during my visit. It was helpful to see the practical out-workings of Public Education Unions in the Ambiance of the Capital Building that afternoon. Sen. Betsy Johnson, for all her disclaimers about technological ignorance, actually had the most advanced and informative web site with audio and video. I was impressed with her abilities to communicate and take advantage of getting a punchy interview out to her constituents, weekly, by radio and web page. She has an interesting viewpoint of the Sausage Factory and forging Oregon’s super-Obamacare-in-the-making. She hopes, like others, that eventually the Defensive Medicine (over prescribing to prevent lawsuits), and Tort-Reform (suing for unreasonable amounts) will finally get fixed in all the health-care laws.
The whole health-care thing is a huge battleground. If we are dependant on men in high places for our lives and health, you can bet we are going to do whatever they say, and give them whatever they say they need.
Education is huge, because through school and Media channels, they control what the majority thinks about everything else. The other crucial campaign-front is money and banking – because people don’t do much without getting paid, and right now, with all due respect to Revelations mark-of-the-beast, nobody is buying and selling without dependency on the global reserve-currency and our American central banking system – especially the State of Oregon who may not use anything other than gold or silver coin in payment of debts. I did not hear that anyone in the State House that day understood how Oregon would be able to meet its monetary obligations in any realistic sense. It is interesting that the OWS group that is supposed to oppose the oppression by bankers, is calling for a State central bank. I wonder what they expect out of that, that the current arrangement is not able to provide?
Part of the historic-moment-of-the-day was hearing on the radio that the Federal Congress had thumbed their noses at religious objections on the contraception issues in the national health rule formulations.
Overall, the day only strengthened my certainty that there is no real hope for effective reform without starting with the Church, and how well She teaches Biblical applications for the definitions of crime and punishment.
This Salem visit was a refresher in how vigorously every man is intent on plundering his brother under the justification of Human Law. I hear Betsy Johnson complaining that not even duly elected, conscientious Representatives have the human capacity to keep pace. There are so many problems, and they are losing the ”race for the cure” of them all. She admits that the real control of the laws is in the hands of those that work between the sessions, between the lines, and behind closed doors.
Today I am 58. When my father was this age, I was 10 years old and I learned my first lessons about Unions. My dad needed a job at a local lumber mill in Klamath Falls. The Mill needed workers to keep the business produce for paying customers so that they could pay the workers. Both willing parties had their freedom taken away by a union strike. I understood from that moment, without understanding the details, that unions were bad. In these last couple years I have finally understood what has happened with Unions in our State. The customers never got the lumber they wanted. My dad never the wages he wanted. But the Unions have ended up with the State they wanted. I hear and see that they wield more effective influence and control in Oregon than the governor, the Legislators, or the Political Parties. They can't pass legislation if the unions oppose it. Unions control the Educational processes in the State, and the Educational processes control how the State thinks about the unions, the politics, the economy, and even religion. There are those that support the idea of Unions, out of principle. There are those that think they benefit from the unions. And there are those that don't benefit or believe, but still are afraid to oppose them and suffer consequences. Assuming they are not in the general welfare public interest -- what Power can we appeal to -who might be able to recover our rights to the property they have coerced out of our hands?
Unless good people come to understand the purpose of government, and how crimes need to be punished, they will not know how to vote, and more importantly, they will not understand what laws they are to conform to between elections, what laws they need to see enforced, and what law they need to teach their children, students, and parishioners.
It has been so long since these things have been taught, there is no way the majority could recognize godly statesmanship if they saw it, and certainly no way they would be able to send that kind of representative to the State House. There is no substitute for discipling the entire population, because – no matter what kind of political action you have in a generation – God gives people the kind of government they deserve.
Right now, we deserve a government that says, “Come with us, Let us lie in wait for blood, let us ambush the innocent without cause…..we shall find all kinds of precious wealth, we shall fill our houses with spoil. Throw in your lot with us, we shall all have one purse.
They don’t know it, but they lie in wait for their own blood. They ambush their own lives. So are the ways of everyone who gains by violence, it takes away the life of those who possess those dishonest gains.
When elders of churches argue with me that we should always respect and comply with what governments ask us to do, because God has ordained them over us, or deny that God’s case law is relevant for magistrates today, I say think it is way too close to: “we have no king but Caesar”.
Maybe we should vote for Jesus. If He is so wise and gracious, like we always sing – maybe we should expect that the laws He gave Moses were the best way to love our fellow man like we would want others to treat us? Remember "do not murder", "do not kidnap", "do not steal", "do not covet"?
I got a picture of the Circuit Rider Memorial in the Park outside. It reads:
"Commemorating the labors and achievements of the ministers of the Gospel who, as circuit riders, became the friends, counselors, and evangels to the pioneers on every American frontier."
By the time these circuit riders exerted themselves to disciple their fellow Oregonians to follow the whole counsel of God for all their lives, losing sleep on horseback to study the Bible for the next sermon, America had already lost the consensus that the Lord Jesus Christ was Emperor, and rightful head of all law-making bodies, all judging bodies, and all law-enforcing executives. They disregarded Him as the ultimate Lord/Owner of all Land and human Labor. The American Union government became the substitute god in the the thinking of the people. They began to regard their stewardship responsibilities to civil government instead of the God of the Bible. People assigned these rights to the human institution. Whose fault is it that the government can do whatever it wants from the rent of our lease-hold real estate? Whose fault is it that the government chooses how much of our wages to hand back to us slaves?
Preaching the whole Gospel is what will have to be done again, if we are going to reconstruct Oregon with a populace who understands God’s law, and governs themselves to obey it. Maybe you can’t get any government to stop borrowing and taxing to provide for a selfish, demanding welfare public. Hopefully, you can retrain a significant minority to say, “no thanks”, you don’t need no stinkin’ Majority Law to steal for me, I will trust God to provide for me in accordance with His law. That is what the old Bible-teaching circuit riders taught. Unless and until - the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ can recapture this obedience of refusing dishonest gain, She will never have the moral courage to be able to effectively proclaim God's establishment of personal ownersihp of property in Labor, and property in Land. Until people believe that it is theft, we will never arrest the culture-wide rush-to-the-spoil of everyone seeking benefits from the government at the expense of the innocent worker and property owner.
