I came across this word, 'sehnsucht,' recently. It is a German word. There seems to be no good English equivalent. It denotes profound homesickness or longing or yearning, but with transcendent overtones. C. S. Lewis speaks of this spiritual homesickness in his famous essay, "The Weight of Glory." I thought you might like to explore this glorious bit of prose--it is careful thinking expressed by a precision that is scintillating.

Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter. Wadsworth's expedient was to identify it with certain moments in his own past. But all this is a cheat. If Wordsworth had gone back to those moments in the past, he would not have found the thing itself, but only the reminder of it; what he remembered would turn out to be itself a remembering. The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things--the beauty, the memory or our own past--are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself . . . Now we wake to find . . . we have been mere spectators. Beauty has smiled, but not to welcome us; her face was turned in our direction, but not to see us. We have not been accepted, welcomed, or taken in . . .

Our life-long nostalgia, our longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we feel cut off, to be on the inside of some door which we have always seen from the outside, is no mere neurotic fancy, but the truest index of our real situation.

Sehnsucht is never discovered easily or else everyone would find it--like a Starbucks on every corner.

Today's post will be in the form of reporting contents of H.R. 3962, the 'Affordable Health Care for America Act' that Speaker Nancy Pelosi is seeking to bring to a vote as quickly as tomorrow in the House of Representatives.

I am reporting because Speaker Pelosi has backed off her earlier commitment to publish the bill 72 hours prior to bringing it to the floor for a vote. I just think you ought to know some of what is in the bill.

A letter from the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) confirming that the failure to comply with the individual mandate to buy health insurance contained in the Pelosi health care bill (H.R. 3962, as amended) could land people in jail. The JCT letter makes clear that Americans who do not maintain “acceptable health insurance coverage” and who choose not to pay the bill’s new individual mandate tax (generally 2.5% of income), are subject to numerous civil and criminal penalties, including criminal fines of up to $250,000 and imprisonment of up to five years.

Key excerpts from the JCT letter appear below:

“H.R. 3962 provides that an individual (or a husband and wife in the case of a joint return) who does not, at any time during the taxable year, maintain acceptable health insurance coverage for himself or herself and each of his or her qualifying children is subject to an additional tax.” [page 1] - - - - - - - - - -
“If the government determines that the taxpayer’s unpaid tax liability results from willful behavior, the following penalties could apply…” [page 2] - - - - - - - - - -
“Criminal penalties
Prosecution is authorized under the Code for a variety of offenses. Depending on the level of the noncompliance, the following penalties could apply to an individual:
• Section 7203 – misdemeanor willful failure to pay is punishable by a fine of up to $25,000 and/or imprisonment of up to one year.
• Section 7201 – felony willful evasion is punishable by a fine of up to $250,000 and/or imprisonment of up to five years.” [page 3]

When confronted with this same issue during its consideration of a similar individual mandate tax, the Senate Finance Committee worked on a bipartisan basis to include language in its bill that shielded Americans from civil and criminal penalties. The House bill, however, contains no similar language protecting American citizens from civil and criminal tax penalties that could include a $250,000 fine and five years in jail. Language in the bill actually contains a provision of jail time for those who cannot afford or would choose not to buy the $15,000 premium the plan creates. According to the Congressional Budget Office the lowest cost family non-group plan under the Speaker’s bill would cost $15,000 in 2016.

All of the above is reporting and is referenced. Now for comment: No comment necessary. The actual language of the bill says it all.

Greetings Faithful Readers,

I have been inconsistent in posting. Probably a relief to many of you.

I came across a couple fascinating articles this morning. The first comes from:
http://www.tenthamendmentcenter.com/
It is entitled "They Can't Push Us Around Forever" by State Rep. Susan Lynn from Tennessee. It is a joint resolution by the Tennessee House and Senate, signed by Governor Phil Bredesen. Basically House Joint Resolution 108, the State Sovereignty Resolution, is a call to the other 49 states to stand up for their Constitutional rights in our union against the extraordinary power grabs coming out of Washington.

The tenth amendment defines the total scope of federal power as being that which has been delegated by the people to the federal government, and also that which is absolutely necessary to advancing those powers specifically enumerated in the Constitution of the United States. The rest is to be handled by the state governments, or locally, by the people themselves.

The joint resolution calls for a joint working group between the states to enumerate the abuses of authority by the federal government, and to seek repeal of the assumption of powers and the imposed mandates by the federal government.

Wow!

You may not be Wowing with me! So let me explain. This is a call to the states and the people to stand up to the power grab of this government. And to protect the rights of the people. This may well provoke a constitutional showdown in the Supreme Court. Will our experiment in self-government under constitutional law prevail--or will we allow Washington to simply gobble up more and more of our rights and legal protections?

Now to the other article. it is entitled, 'President Obama and American Exceptionalism' by Robert Heiler. You can find it on: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/

American Exceptionalism is a theory or 'doctrine' of self-government that both the people and the state are answerable ultimately to the Creator and that the state is answerable to the people. This compact, which is codified in our constitutional form of government, is what makes America unique in the history of nations. This is what is worth fighting for and preserving. Elections do not make self-government. Mouthing the word, 'democracy,' does not make for a government of, for and by the people. It is this political creed that has been the guarantor of our rights as citizens of an amazing experiment among the nations.

I believe that our president does not understand or believe in American exceptionalism. He openly scorned it when asked if he believes in American exceptionalism--he stated he believes in American exceptionalism the same way a Greek believes in Greek exceptionalism or a Brit believes in British exceptionalism. We are not talking about love of country here. Or who one roots for in the Olympics. We are talking about a unique contribution to the history of civilization. A concept of authority that allowed our forefathers to cast of the yoke of a tyrannical crown and to embark upon an experiment in liberty that was unprecedented at the time--and which still stands as the best formulation of governing authority the modern world has yet to see.