Category Archives: General

General

Codex Alimentarius

This entry is part 11 of 28 in the series Freedom 21 Conference

f21-banner-4The title sounds foreboding, doesn’t it? It should. Codex Alimentarius is Latin for “food codes”, and it is a massive global effort to “harmonize and standardize food regulations, both domestic and international.” Attorney Scott Tips, of the National Health Federation, presented on the issues surrounding this initiative, and how it can have severe negative impacts on the health and longevity of the populace. One of the key areas targeted for severe restrictions under this program is natural health care products.

Under the Codex standards being developed, alternative therapies for significant diseases would be banned, even though many “mainstream” treatment modalities are signficantly more health-threatening than natural health care preparations.  As a matter of fact, looking at the data, the “conventional” approach to health care has resulted in over 800,000 deaths at the hands of medical professionals, 100,000 deaths by pharmaceuticals, and 5,000 deaths by food issues.  By comparison, natural products have been implicated in only 10 deaths, over the last 23 years!

Codex Alimentarius is a template for coordinating action between governments, utilizing treaties and executive agreements to tie countries into the centralized control mechanism.  The Codex Alimentarius Commission has been in existance since being created by the United Nations in 1962, and has grown into a massive bureaucratic structure with 27 committees and numerous working groups creating these standards, meeting in either Rome or Geneva each year to ascertain progress on the coordination goals, which ultimately will centralize control over all food production and distribution (or redistribution) on the planet.

Tips ceded that the Codex is a noble concept, as it is supposed to be developed to eliminate trade barriers and protect the health of consumers, but it has been “captured” and the actual process has been twisted to become an anti-natural product, anti-free market, pro-drug, slow to change leviathan whose decisions are based on junk science, and will ultimately lead to negative consequences for the health and welfare of the populace.


General, Events, Commentary

The Feds are stealing your health care choices–and have been for over 70 years!

This entry is part 9 of 28 in the series Freedom 21 Conference

f21-banner-4Dr. Jeff Marrongelle, a Doctor of Chiropractic and an certified clinicial nutritionist and a researcher on the effects of electromagnetic fields on human physiology, opened the day with a discussion of the history of the creation and radical expansion of the powers of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and how that regulatory entity has been impacting our health care choices for over 70 years.

The FDA was created as an entity to prevent interstate commerce of adulterated foods and drugs in 1930.  The advent of the Roosevelt administration and their radical expansion of federal power with numerous acts such as the National Industrial Recovery Act and the Judicial Reorganization Act of 1937 broke down the wall of separation of powers and gave sweeping legislative and judicial authority to executive branch regulatory agencies, including the FDA.

A crisis is usually used to consolidate power, and the FDA’s expansion of control over the American populace was generated the same way.  The 1938 Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, which created safety standard testing, was passed as a result of a problem with a sulfa drug creation problem that resulted in 107 deaths among children.  This act also set the standard that if a drug is proven safe at standard doses, then it was approved.  This approval usually took about 60 days.  The act also swept in those preparations that were already considered “safe”, including homeopathy, grandfathering them, but also including them under the statutory definition of a “drug”.

Over time, the control over “drugs’ was expanded with the Kefauver-Harris Act of 1962, which expanded the required testing beyond showing “safety” to including “efficacy” as the standard for approval.  This increased the time to get a new drug approved from 60 days to 6 months or more, and drove the cost up to over $138 million for the industry (which today is in the range of $1.6 billion dollars).   It also limited competition in the industry significantly, which also drove up the final costs of these drugs.

Today, the FDA is by and large a self-contained regulatory giant.  It creates its own rules, regulations and edits with little to no legislative oversight or control.  One study recognized that 25 cents of every dollar spent in the United States is on products over which the FDA has regulatory control over, and the FDA continues to try to expand its power by attempting to regulate vitamins and minerals as “drugs”.  They have complete control over all medical and food advertising (remember the recent edict that Cheerios had to be regulated because of making “health claims”), even to the point of being able to disallow claims that are already proven and truthful.

The most concerning issue with the unfettered power of this regulatory agency is that their governing philosophy is not “should we approve this” but “how can we get this approved”, which has led the FDA bureaucracy and directorate to approve drugs for consumer use even over the objections of their own scientists and safety officers, leading to numerous adverse health effects and deaths among the populace at large (remember the Vioxx debacle?)

The FDA’s hubris is exampled by the 1990 Nutrition Labeling and Education Act, which Congress passed that allowed food and supplement claims to be made as to their effects on disease without having the approval of FDA as a “drug”.  Between 1990-1999, the FDA routinely ignored this statute and pursued regulatory action against many making such claims.  The worst instance of this was the 1991-1993 debacle over the FDA’s refusal to allow information to be published on the beneficial effects of folic acid consumption by pregnant women on preventing Neural Tube birth defects.  Over 2500 cases of this defect could have been prevented in babies if not for the FDA’s insistence on keeping this information from the general public “for their own good”.

Marrongelle summed up his presentation by noting that there are created “artificial crises” to expand the powers of these regulatory agencies, and gave some data.  The total number of deaths from both avian and swine flus from 2003-present is 431 people, according to the World Health Organization.  Conversely, the number of deaths in the same period from iatrogenic causes is 786,936, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association.  This data is indicative of the idea that the cure may actually be worse than the disease, and the FDA may be causing more harm to the public than preventing such harms.

Private Property, Commentary, Public Policy Principles News, General, Education, Events, Public Policy Radar

Freedom 21–Day Two

This entry is part 8 of 28 in the series Freedom 21 Conference

f21-banner-4Today is a busy day at the conference.  It is health care and health freedom day, and the afternoon sessions are on the ever-expanding push for electronic monitoring of all of our lives and activities.  Stay with us as we bring you notes and thoughts from Freedom21–Day Two.

General, Public Policy Radar, Public Policy Principles News

Policy Points–new feature

1 Comment
This entry is part 1 of 1 in the series Policy Points

Public Policy RadarPolicy Points from the Institute for Principled Policy
June 29, 2009

State policy actions
House Bill 176 (Steward {D} and McGregor {R})–Equal Housing and Employment Act—This legislation would create special protections under the state’s civil rights laws for “sexual orientations” to include homosexual, bisexual and “gender identity” classifications. The bill contains language to require the development of educational programming to teach of the origins and sources of “discrimination”, which is mandated to be taught to all public school children and “all Ohioans”. There are exemptions for religious organizations or orders in relation to hiring and housing, but not for individuals whose religious beliefs or conscience would be violated by having to comply with these provisions. The bill passed from the House State Government committee on a party line vote, but may come to the floor of the House this week where it may pick up some additional bipartisan support.

House Bill 1 (Sykes) State operating budget—This legislation, which is the funding mechanism for state government for the biennium beginning July 1, 2009, is currently before a committee of conference to work out difference between the House version and the Senate version of the bill. The House version would resurrect the old Outcomes-based Education catastrophe that was defeated in this state 16 years ago, create mandatory “community service” as a condition for graduation in Ohio, assess students on behavioral or belief positions as part of their ability to graduate, and turn over key decision making to the State superintendent rather than to elected education policymakers. The Senate has removed this from the bill.

The bill was sent from the House with a growth of spending of over $1 billion from the Governor’s proposal, which was itself a 6% spending increase over the biennium. Economic conditions and the reduction in revenue estimates have made this spending level unachievable without significant increases in taxes. The Senate has removed the additional spending growth, but is faced with having to replace nearly $1 billion in resources that were going to be used in this upcoming biennium from the state’s rainy day fund, as that money will now need to be used to bring the current budget into balance, as revenues have fallen below the projections upon which the current budget’s spending were based.

The bill also “balances” the budget on one-time funds (stimulus money), grows government by over 6%, increases taxpayer burden through the imposition of increased and newly-created “fees” and “penalties”. The state auditor has projected the next biennium’s shortfall, because of the use of one-time funds to bring this budget in “balance”, as in the neighborhood of $8.2 billion. Without more one-time funding, such an irresponsible budget now will ensure tax increases in the next biennium.

The budget must, by the Ohio Constitution, be in balance and in place by July 1. The conference committee will meet to try to finalize their difference and issue a report that both chambers mayvote upon on Tuesday.

Video Lottery Terminal proposal—This move by Governor Ted Strickland would allow for up to 2500 “video lottery terminals” (ie slot machines) at each of Ohio’s seven horse-racing tracks, in an effort to prop up a dying racing industry. Ohio’s restaurant and bar lobbies, retail merchants, grocers, and others also want to be included in the plan. The Ohio Lottery Commission would oversee this radical expansion of gambling in Ohio, much as they have recently presided over the rollout of the wildly unsuccessful Keno game in bars and restaurants in the state. This has become a showdown with the state’s out of balance budget used as the vehicle to move this proposal forward. Numerous studies have shown the deep and traumatic effects of this form of gambling on the family and on communities in which this is allowed, where the costs outweigh benefits by a significant factor. Additionally, there are serious Constitutional questions as to whether this can legitimately be accomplished as an expansion of the lottery.

Casino ballot initiative–A group of casino operators (Penn National, Argosy, etc.) have circulated petitions to place on the November 2009 ballot a casino authorization measure, allowing full casino gambling in 4 Ohio cities. The proponents collected and submitted to the Ohio Secretary of State over 800,000 signatures of registered voters, needing just over 405,000 to qualify this initiative for the ballot. It is highly likely, barring any legal challenges, that voters will be deciding upon this on November 3.

House Concurrent Resolution 11 (Martin and Jordan) and Senate Concurrent Resolution 13 (Grendell and Faber)–State Sovereignty—These companion resolutions would put Ohio on record as reiterating their rights under Article 4 and the 9th and 10th Amendments to the US Constitution to protect the sovereignty of the state against federal mandates and actions. The House version has had one hearing in the Democratically-controlled chamber, and will not likely be brought back up for hearings. The Senate version has been scheduled for its second hearing in the Senate State Government committee, but that hearing has been postponed due to the pending budget action.

General

The Institute on the Road

Institute for Principled Policy Director Barry Sheets will be on the road in the upcoming days speaking at churches.
He will give the message “A Christian’s duty in relation to government” at Bethel Baptist Temple in Columbus on Sunday morning at 11 a.m. Visit their website for more information and directions. On Monday, he will address the “God and Country” class of High Street Baptist Church in north Columbus at 7 p.m. to discuss current policy issues at the national and state levels that will impact our families, faith and freedom.

We hope to see you at one or both of these events.

General

Live from CHEO

I am blogging today from the vendor room of the Christian Home Educators of Ohio annual convention, in downtown Columbus at Veterans Memorial Auditorium. Traffic is light but steady on this early Friday afternoon.

I am here not because I am a home educating parent (which I am), but because I am doing a favor for a friend. I will be broadcasting a live, 3 hour radio program from 3-6 p.m. on AM 880 WRFD radio, filling in for regular host Bob Burney on his drivetime program on this Salem Radio affiliate. Bob’s wife Joy is undergoing surgery today, so please keep them in prayer.

I will be interviewing a number of home education experts, speakers and analysts, as well as taking calls from listeners. It is always a great time to be among so many people taking personal responsibility for the education of their own children, without government assistance or funding, while still paying for “public” education through their taxes and dealing with governmental requirements, not to mention the well-meaning but generally uninformed critiques of their choices by family and friends.

Tune in and learn why home education is an exercise in liberty and freedom, for now and for our future.

General, Commentary

My Favorite Liberal

God certainly seems to have a sense of humor.  Take the “global warming” fearmongering for example.  Isn’t it curious that almost every time these folks schedule a major conference to beat the drums on this issue, a major snowstorm or other “global cooling” happens!  After a while, one might get a complex over this, happening over and over again.

Take Al Gore for example.  Now there’s a man on a mission, who won’t let a little thing like facts or the truth stop him.  Al definitely has a complex when it comes to “global warming”.  For anyone who has been forced to sit through “An Inconvenient Truth”, you know that Al loses sleep at night worrying about San Francisco becoming part of San Francisco Bay (and we’ll forego the easy quip on that one).

Now Al has to deal with detractors.  LOTS of detractors, it is starting to look like.  These detractors aren’t just your average, everyday, run-of-the-mill folks like me who can read and reason that the “global warming” hysteria is an utter farce.  These are major-league level detractors, like the founder of the Weather Channel,  a former NASA astronaut, various climatologists and meterologists, and even the President…..of the European Union.

My favorite liberal is none other than EU President Vaclav Klaus, who has been extremely vocal about his rejection of the “global warming” (or “climate change” for those who want the edited version of it).  In January, Klaus directly took on Al Gore’s complex, and his diagnosis:  hysteria.  Klaus stated unequivocally at the World Economic Summit in Davos, Switzerland that there “is no global warming.  I don’t see the statistical data for that.”  Klaus had met directly with Gore during the Summit.

Now, my favorite liberal has come to America to give you, as the recently-passed radio great Paul Harvey would say: “the rest of the story.”  Klaus is a participant in the Heartland Institute’s summit on global warming, speaking last evening on what he sees as the major thrust of the “climate change” crowd:  control of the public, ala communism.  Minceing no words, Klaus said that the thrust of the “global warming” effort is behavioral change and energy rationing, all a part of a socialist/communist central planning framework for human behavior.  That’s the real “inconvenient truth” behind the “global warming” scam.

Oh, and Al…temperatures in New York, where the Heartland conference is being held, is an early-March average 42 degrees.  God does indeed have a sense of humor.

General, Commentary, The Church

Politicizing the Church- Part IV

This entry is part 4 of 4 in the series Politicizing The Church

The Crumbling ChurchIn the last e-zine, I explored the idea of the church as the body of Christ.  Not in a nominalist sense, but somehow in a real sense.  I observe some interesting indicators of this in contemporary Christian thought as it pertains to politics.

It seems the only valid reason to seek change in the nation through political means is because the political realm has the power to change things.  Now this concept of power is a powerful one and often mistakenly applied.

In the Bible power and authority are connected.  To have authority was to have power.  Jesus said, “All authority is given to Me” (Matt. 28:18).  Was he speaking as the Triune God in general, or more specifically as the second Person of the Trinity?  There is a fine difference, because Jesus and the Father are One, in essence if not in their functions.  But Jesus appears to indicate all authority belongs to Him as Second Person of the Trinity.

Recently I was a prayer meeting and the pastor was reminding everyone that we have the power of the Spirit.  This got me thinking.  Is the source of our power in Jesus, the second Person of the Trinity, or the Spirit, the third Person of the Trinity?  Interesting question to be explored more a little later.   Meanwhile, think of the implications of these two concepts.  If you believe Jesus is the source of all power and authority, and you can wrap your mind around the idea of the church as the body of Christ in some real sense, then it seems to that the church becomes the place to find power.

The alternative as indicated in the pastor’s statement above, is that the individual has God’s power available though the Spirit.  Now these may not necessarily be two competing claims, but when it comes to saving society, it needs to be asked do you really believe the church has the power of Jesus embodied in it to change the world.  Intuitively, apparently, people recognize that the individual does not have sufficient power in himself to change the nation.  Corporately, however, Christians can change many things.  But is that corporation to be the church — the body of Christ manifest in the flesh — or some other entity?

If nothing else, there’s an historical backdrop to our culture that indicates this “real” view of the church as the body of Christ was part of the success in transforming the world from paganism to Christianity.  Unfortunately, so much evidence is lost as to how the early Christians evangelized into Asia and the African continent.  All we do know is that the Gospel reached places such as India or Ethiopia very early in the Christian era.

But it seems their concept of spiritual power was superior to our own.  Here’s why.  They had some significant success.

We, on the other hand, have several hundred years of Nominalist failure to deal with.  And the result is a culture that is becoming less Christian as a result of the inability of individualistic Christianity to overcome evil.  Something has to change.

God bless you this week in your activities for His kingdom.

Ian Hodge, Ph.D.

P.S.  If you like what you read at www.biblicallandmarks.com, forward this essay to your friends.  For a FREE subscription, go to www.biblicallandmarks.com and select the Subscribe button.

General, Commentary

From the “No Kidding!?” Dept…..

Well, it’s now confirmed as a scientific fact. Men’s and women’s brains are different. Who’d a’ thunk it?

According to this article published in Britains online version of the Telegraph, science now confirms what every man and every woman not blinded by an irrational ideological attachment to the “no difference between men and women” dogma already knows- men and women think differently. And that’s because their brains are structurally different. They are also different in wiring. Men have 1/3 more synapses in certain parts of the brain while women had larger connective areas between the frontal and temporal lobes.

College students take note; the next time a professor of one of the humanities or one of the soft sciences (sociology, psychology, etc.) tells you there is no difference in men’s and women’s brains, you can say with confidence “bunk!”

General

Guest Blogger- Ian Hodge

The Crumbling ChurchAre you an overcomer?

Three issues ago I drew attention to what I called the “designer collection” in theology.  Make up your own.  Use the Bible to do it.  Who knows what you might end up with.

Well, as I thought about this, there’s another approach to biblical theology which is also bad.  It’s as bad as the “designer collection” approach.  And it is equally endemic in our churches.  Here’s how it goes.

We all know that Christianity is divided.  If it’s in Presbyterian/Reformed circles, they want to make sure you have the TULIP formula correct.  If it’s in Charismatic circles, they can get into arguments over whether you speak tongues in the right fashion or even do it often enough.

There are some other churches, however, which figure that any kind of argument that disagrees with their opinion should be dealth with in a particular way.  This is how they respond.

These folk figure that avoiding the discussion with a “well, the world is divided on this view, no one can be sure” response addresses the matter satisfactorily.

As I said earlier, systematic theology requires sytematic thinking.  This response is like the atheist who says “nothing is true.”  But he expects us to accept that his statement is true, therefore providing his own self-contradiction.

Well, the theological “agnostics'” claim that “no one can be certain” is itself a contradiction.  If no one can be certain, how come they are certain no one can be certain?  Do you get the idea?

This is anti-intellectualism at it’s most vicious.  It castrates the biblical notion of knowedge and wisdom, but still expects rigorous intellectual performance from its adherents.

The interesting thing, though, is that some of us were raised in those kind of churches.  If you want to see real miracles, sometimes you just need to look at yourself and ask how come you ever made it this far.

And then you realize that God really is an overcomer!

God bless you as you serve him this week.

Ian Hodge, Ph.D.

P.S.  If you like what you read at www.biblicallandmarks.com, forward this essay to your friends.  For a FREE subscription, go to www.biblicallandmarks.com and select the Subscribe button.