¹² For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. ¹³ Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.

— Ephesians 6:12-13

The whole passage, from verses 10-20, is even better.

The Armor of God

 ¹⁰ Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. ¹¹ Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. ¹² For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. ¹³ Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. ¹⁴ Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, ¹⁵ and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. ¹⁶ In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. ¹⁷Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

 ¹⁸ And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people. ¹⁹ Pray also for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, ²⁰ for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.

— Ephesians 6:10-20

Tuna Noodle Casserole

Boil a pound of pasta and drain. Mix pasta with two or three cans of tuna depending on your preference (I used three), two cans of cream of mushroom soup, a bag of shredded cheddar cheese, and one or two handfuls of parmesan (a “traditional” tuna noodle casserole includes peas too, if you’re into that, but I’m not so I left them out). Put in a greased casserole dish and cover with another layer of shredded cheese. Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes. I put a couple dashes of dried onions and dried garlic in with the pasta mixture too, so there’s also that, but I put garlic in everything.

Company Chicken (as in, chicken for when you’re having company, not a company of chickens)

A nurse at the hospital told us about this one. Take four or five chicken breasts and put them in a greased baking dish. Pour 1/3-1/2 cup of white wine over the chicken, enough to put about 1/2 inch in the bottom of the pan. Put slices of provolone cheese on top of each piece of chicken. Pour a can of cream of chicken soup over the chicken and cheese. MISTAKE THAT TURNED OUT DELICIOUS: I accidentally grabbed a can of broccoli cheese soup and poured that over it instead, then I put the cream of chicken on top of that. Melt a stick and a half of butter and mix with herb stuffing mix, then sprinkle the mixture over the top of everything. Bake at 375 for 50-60 mins.

Beef Stew

This one can be done in a roaster in the oven (at 275 for five hours) or in the crock pot (on low for 5-6 hours). Line the bottom of the roaster/crock pot with beef stew meat. Add chopped onion, carrots, celery, potatoes, and mushrooms. I also added several generous shakes of salt, pepper and dried garlic. Pour a can of tomato soup over it and then fill the can half way with water and add that as well.

The whole reproductive health mandate issue has been the dominant story in the news the last couple days. I’ve written about it here three times now, mostly in reaction to what was going on as it was happening. This is an issue, though, that reveals many deeper problems with Obamacare, with the administration’s policies, and with the driving principles behind these decisions.

Underlying issue #1: Religious freedom

The crux of the matter here is not the morality, accessibility, legality, acceptability, or any other “-ity” of birth control and contraceptives. I don’t think anyone has made an argument that we need to block access to birth control for people who choose to use it, or that we should make it illegal. The issue is that religious institutions don’t want to be forced to pay for insurance policies that include things they teach are immoral.

The other distinction to be made here is that churches themselves are exempted, but their affiliated institutions such as schools, hospitals and social services organizations are not. Because these institutions hire and serve people who are not members of the faith they are affiliated with, some argue, they should be subject to the mandate like any other school or hospital. Take, for example, a Catholic school, though. An integral part of a Catholic school’s curriculum, mission, and identity is the Catholic faith and moral teaching. What kind of example would it set for the students of the school if the school’s administration went along with this mandate? And if they don’t go along with it, would the school, without offering health insurance benefits, still be able to attract high quality teachers and administrators? That’s a horrible situation to box an institution into — its principles, or its livelihood. The same could be said for a religious hospital or social service organization.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” The First Amendment is intended to stop this type of philosophical interference. The Establishment Clause has been debated as to its intention for a long time in the context of school choice and social services. But this issue isn’t one of government-church cooperation, it’s one of forced contradiction. And that’s where the Free Exercise Clause kicks in to protect our churches and their affiliates.

Underlying issue #2: Mandates in general

A further issue with the contraceptives mandate is that the federal government is telling private insurance companies that they have to cover these things. The justification for any type of regulation like this is under the interstate commerce clause, but Obamacare failed to open the insurance market to transactions across state lines.

Insurance, by definition, is meant to be a safety net against catastrophes. Your car insurance doesn’t cover oil changes and tire rotations, it covers accidents and thefts. Health insurance isn’t meant to be a catch-all for every type of health expense. It’s a relatively recent development that insurance covered portions of routine check-ups and prescription drugs. In general, insurance is meant to cover hospitalizations and other major expenses. When you start mandating that certain things be covered, and that certain things be covered fully instead of partially, and you don’t let the companies make those decisions based on what makes business sense and will allow them to make money and not go out of business, you’re destabilizing the industry. There is a legitimate argument to be made that government interference of this type, and the resulting destabilization, is to blame at least in part for the rising costs of health care in the U.S., because by covering more things you’re requiring insurance companies to take on more overhead and more risk.

The federal government doesn’t mandate what Jiffy Lube includes in its oil change packages, and we still have an operational, efficient auto repair industry. Health insurance is a product, and people who have the ability to earn their way in society should have to earn their insurance as well. The federal government has not business mandating that people have to be covered, that they have to carry a policy, or that policies have to cover certain things. The market will work all that out over time. The states have the constitutional power to make those regulations, and some states have, but logically they probably shouldn’t. If there is a legitimate reason for contraceptives to be covered (and there is an argument that there is, because of the preventative nature of the medication, etc etc), the companies will offer it as an option and people can choose that.

Underlying issue #3: The End Game

The underlying issue of the religious freedom debate is, like I wrote before, that of forced contradiction. Does a religiously affiliated organization cave in and do something that runs contrary to its mission, and have that hypocritical stigma making their services less desirable on the market? Or does it drop health insurance for employees and lose a major recruiting tool to bring in qualified employees and maintain quality of services? It’s a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t (pun intended) situation.

The other issue of insurance mandates is one that destabilizes a huge sector of the American economy. Health care is an industry that has grown as manufacturing and production in the U.S. have declined. By destabilizing the insurance companies, the government is setting them up for a colossal failure in the same way they set up the mortgage and student loan bubbles. And we saw what happened with those — nationalizations, bailouts, and crony capitalism.

So what’s the end game here? The religious schools and hospitals and social service groups are being put in a position of choosing between two paths that both weaken them. Insurance companies are being put on a path toward a bursting bubble. And who will be there when the hospitals close, and the schools shut down, and the insurance companies collapse? The government. With single-payer health care, bureaucratic welfare offices, and politically correct public schooling to “pick up the pieces.” It makes you wonder if that liberal utopian idea is the intended outcome of all of these policy decisions. That’s a scary thought.

On one hand, it’s a good step toward flexibility as harnessing the power of federalism to solve problems. In that way I have to give President Obama some props. Allowing states to design their own programs and letting them out of the NCLB requirements to implement them is a much better idea than the stupid Race To The Top redistributionism system they are also pushing.

On the other hand, though, states shouldn’t need a waiver from the federal government to design their own education policies and programming. We’d probably all be better off if the feds took their hands off education and let people at the local level decide what works best in their community. So in the larger scheme of things, 10 waivers is a good step, but not far enough toward true federal education reform.

Quotes like, “Our parents and grandparents did not come to these shores to help build America’s cities and towns, its infrastructure and institutions, its enterprise and culture, only to have their posterity stripped of their God-given rights,” are things you’d expect to hear from oppositions in banana republics somewhere, not in the U.S., but here we are in America in 2012.

And, His Excellency is a dog person, so you know he’s good people.

It’s one of those things that I knew existed, and that I knew I could be using, but just hadn’t tried yet. Hopefully I can turn that into more consistent blog posts in the future.

1. The action — Why? When the administration is handing out Obamacare waivers like candy to its union friends and blue-state allies, why aren’t religious institutions given the same deference so they can maintain their First Amendment rights against government interference?

2. The timing — During the week of the Roe v Wase anniversary, this action seems particularly poorly planned.

3. The principle — What business does the government have telling private insurance companies what they have to cover and what they don’t? And, by extension, telling employers what kind of coverage they have to offer their employees? Especially when it comes to something like contraceptives. Granted there are medial reasons other than birth control for those medications to be prescribed, but for the purpose of contraception, they should be considered elective.

I’m no fan of Mitt Romney, and his record on this issue isn’t great, but I likes what he said last night about making health care more of a true marketplace with greater flexibility and portability for everyone. Having a system where people bought insurance on their own instead of through their employer would solve a lot of problems like this. I guess we should be glad the administration deigned to gave the religious institutions another year to comply, giving their court cases against the rule time to get through.

UPDATE (11 p.m.): Politico reports Jon Huntsman is out and will endorse Romney on Monday.

Newt Gingrich — Going negative is bringing Newt’s campaign to an end. When he was staying positive, his poll numbers soared. And when he was hit with negative attacks, he was wounded, but not fatally. Going negative himself, though, changed the angle he was coming from and made his candidacy much more cookie-cutter. If, by some turn, someone besides Romney is the nominee and wins the election, Newt would be a great chief of staff, but I doubt that happens in a Romney administration after everything that’s gone down in the last couple weeks.

Jon Huntsman — It’s kind of surprising that Huntsman hasn’t taken off more. He made a big mistake, though, running to the center instead of to the right. It’s possible to run as a pragmatic conservative and pick up the independent/centrist vote the way Huntsman was aiming to. Instead, he largely alienated himself from the field. He has a really great record as governor and ambassador, but his service in the Obama administration and his excess media attention raised red flags with a lot of conservatives. He explained that all very well, but never took off. He’s a good bet for Secretary of State or some other major diplomatic appointment in a Republican administration.

Ron Paul — I’m pretty sure Ron Paul will stay in through the convention, and that he’ll get a significant amount of delegates. His goal is likely to use that bloc of votes to gain concessions in the party platform. He’s the most principled of the bunch, and if he had presented his foreign policy differently (the Iran thing is killing him), he might be doing better, because his domestic policies are spot-on. He’d be a great Treasury Secretary.

Rick Perry — I love Rick Perry’s platform. I greatly respect his guiding principles and I think he’s got the right ideas. But I can’t stand to listen to him talk. And I cringe when I think of him representing America abroad as president. If you could combine Romney’s presidential composure with Perry’s principles, we’d have a real winner. But unfortunately that’s just not the case. Perry has a future, but likely not as president. Maybe he’ll leave the race after South Carolina and jump into the race for Texas’ U.S. Senate seat. Who knows.

Rick Santorum — Rick Santorum is a big-government conservative. He is not someone that believes in the supremacy of individual liberty. Coming out of an administration that aims almost exclusively to curb freedom, that’s the last kind of nominee the GOP should consider. I will give him the concession of not being as out of the mainstream on social issues as he has been portrayed, but I have a fundamental disagreement with his philosophy of government and I hope his momentum fizzles.

Mitt Romney — If he wins South Carolina and Florida, it’s over. The exit polls from New Hampshire were extremely interesting, and if the polls in SC and FL are similar, it will be very telling. Romney won almost all demographics in New Hampshire. Conservatives, moderates, evangelicals, Catholics, people who view the Tea Party positively, etc. etc. etc. If that continues, it goes to show that despite misgivings about his principles and background, electability will trump all of it to make people vote for Romney anyway.
This is an interesting point, in that conservative talk show hosts and bloggers and pundits keep pushing this idea that conservatives don’t want Romney and won’t vote for him. Even though, up to this point, they are. If Romney’s momentum continues and he snags the nomination early, that’s going to have to stop because it plays into the narrative that Republicans are too fractured and disgruntled to win. In addition, it makes them look disconnected from the grassroots in the same way they argue that the “liberal” mainstream media is disconnected from mainstream Americans, undercutting their credibility.

South Carolina and Florida will be really telling in all of this, and might end the process before it’s really had a chance to play out and develop even more. Hopefully the divisive and spiteful tone that things have taken of late will simmer down a bit.

I’m working on re-tooling the blog part of this site in a way that’ll be more conducive to me posting every day, and in the process of figuring out how to do that, I’ve hidden all but some of the more “fun” posts. I still want to use my blog as a way to flex my political writing muscles and show that I can write intelligently about that stuff, so until I can get this back on track and more consistently updated, I put the old posts away until I figure out how they fit into whatever new plan I come up with. Stay tuned.