Here’s a very worthwhile video of Dennis Prager speaking at the Reagan Forum on May 1 this year:
Posts Tagged ‘America’
Turning “Follow the Money” into Heroic Leadership. Obama on Gay Marriage.
10
May
How is Time considered credible to anyone with garbage like this?
They say the arc of history bends toward justice.
Who says it? Who are you quoting, or rather, misquoting? It was the Republican Baptist Pastor Martin Luther King Jr. who made this quote by Theodore Parker famous. Parker, it seems, was referring to the end of slavery, a world wide immorality that characterized the entire world until movements of Christians in England and Republicans in the US changed everything. King would respond to the question of how long it would be until equal rights with “Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
So “Toure” starts by framing the argument on MLK’s belief that denial of people’s Declaration rights (life, liberty, pursuit of happiness) would end, but misquotes King to remove the absolute morality (inserted “history” and removed “moral universe”), which was the basis of King’s statement.
If that’s true then as a nation we’re having a hard time bending on the issue of gay rights.
Ok… If the arc of history bends toward justice, we’re having a hard time bending on one issue. So if the arc of history doesn’t bend toward justice, then we’re not having a hard time bending on this issue? We’re only at sentence 2 and the writer’s ability to construct sentences is already in question.
“gay rights.”
This is a curious phrase to apply to a discussion of marriage. My marriage is a marriage and would be regardless of whether the state recognized it. People were married before the government granted marriage licenses, thus it doesn’t seem that the government’s distribution of certificates actually affects marriage.
What are rights, anyway? Looking back to the founding documents, we see rights to life and liberty, to speech, gun ownership, the press, etc.
- The Right fights for the right to life, even for unborn humans and people in comas. The Left seeks death in both cases.
- The Right fights for the right to liberty (to do what one wishes with one’s self and the product of one’s labor without infringing on these same rights of others) by pushing for less regulation and lower taxation. The Left believes the government can decide what to do with you (Obamacare) and your stuff (taxation and redistribution of wealth) better than you.
- The Right fights for the right to the pursuit of happiness through pushing for private property ownership and less regulation. The left fights against this, believing you are too dumb to pursue happiness and can’t be trusted with tough choices such as what food to eat and what snacks your kids can buy.
- The Right fights for the right to free speech and press by pushing back against Leftist policies like the fairness doctrine.
- The Right fights for the right to bear arms. The Left consistently seeks to limit this right.
- The Right fights for the free exercise of religion by working to preserve people’s ability to live out their religious beliefs. The Left has made it illegal to do so in many situations and with Obamacare are working to force religious hospitals and other businesses to either cease exercising their religion or cease providing health care.
Rights are consistently defended by conservatives, and consistently assaulted by progressives. Apparently they’re just seeking progress in taking away your rights.
But this week will be remembered as an historic turning point because President Obama threw political caution to the wind and came out as the man who can put principle over politics in announcing his support for marriage equality. “I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married,” Obama told Robin Roberts in an interview to appear on ABC’s “Good Morning America” Thursday.
After Joe Biden came out of the closet as a gay marriage supporter, news broke that several big dollar donors would stop supporting Obama unless he changed his position to support the same. That’s what the article’s author means when he “threw political caution to the wind and came out as the man who can put principle over politics” : He did what would get him more money. Wow. Caution to the wind, principle over politics. Reversing positions to get more money. That’s inspiring! It’s heroic!
With Obama’s declaration that he “personally” thinks one thing, and publicly thinks the opposite, believing the federal government should stay out of it, we have clarity: instead of still trying to hold both sides on the issue, he’s… trying to hold both sides on the issue. So, with his public policy as the president remaining exactly the same, what’s changed?
- Obama’s earliest record on the issue was in 1996, when he answered questions, in writing declaring “I favor legalizing same-sex marriages” as he ran for Illinois Senate.
- In 2008 he spoke on stage with Rick Warren, saying “For me as a Christian, it’s also a sacred union… God’s in the mix”
The only change here is that Obama’s temporary pro-traditional-marriage position was picked up when it would benefit his running for office to claim Christian values, and dropped when politically expedient as a fundraising effort for re-election.
The “Toure” article goes on to get facts wrong, contradict itself, and commit most logical fallacies you could name. If you enjoy pain, you can read the entire article. It’s disappointing that this type of poorly written inflammation of an article is considered reputable and worthwhile, but I’m not a leftist, so I’m not calling on people to destroy him and his employment as he has done with Rush Limbaugh.
Work It! aka, Obedience Excemptions for the Rich
25
Apr
This post is part 3 in a series exploring the biblical principles around retirement and saving for retirement.
We have been trained in our culture and in our Christianity to value retirement. What does it mean to retire? To stop working.
To withdraw from one’s occupation, business, or office; stop working. – American Heritage Dictionary
Leave one’s job and cease to work, especially because one has reached a particular age. – Compact Oxford Dictionary.
Some declare the Bible has anything to say about retirement, thus it’s amoral and anything goes. While our translations of the Bible may not contain the word “retirement,” the Bible has a lot to say about work. Since retirement is simply to cease working, we must understand what the Bible teaches about work.
Why do we work?
Who should work?
How long should we work for?
Are we to cease working, and if so, when?
Work is not a curse. It’s tempting to think so because of the curse in Genesis 3:
And to Adam he said,
“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife
and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
‘You shall not eat of it,’
cursed is the ground because of you;
in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
and you shall eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.”
(Genesis 3:17-19 ESV)
Work is referenced here, but Adam had already been put to work.
The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.
(Genesis 2:15 ESV)
Further, Eve was created to help Adam.
Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”
(Genesis 2:18 ESV)
Work was not the result of the curse. Work is an essential reason we exist. So what was cursed? Adam wasn’t cursed. The ground was.
Conclusion 1: When we choose to stop working, we’re going against how God created us to be.
Work is also one of the 10 commandments:
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
(Exodus 20:8-11 ESV)
Humankind’s calling as seen in Adam is reconfirmed as a command here. One of the reasons we work is because it is commanded, as part of loving God. How is it loving God? By modeling our lives after him. God worked for 6 days and rested, so we are commanded to work for 6 days and take 1 day of rest, every day a reminder of God.
So we’ve seen 3 reasons to work from Genesis and Exodus:
- It’s how God created us to be.
- God commands us to.
- It is living a life modeled after God.
Conclusion 2: When we choose to stop working, we are considering ourselves exempt from God’s commands.
Conclusion 3: When we choose to stop working, we cease living a life modeled after God.
The New Testament reiterates the importance of working:
Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you. It was not because we do not have that right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate. For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies.
(2 Thessalonians 3:6-11 ESV)
There’s multiple principles here: the importance of paying for what one uses; the importance of toil and labor; the consequence of not working is to become a busybody. The word “busybody” in the Greek is a hapax logomena, that is, a word only used once in the Bible, so the meaning isn’t totally clear. It may mean busying one’s self with non-work, such as a hobby; it may mean meddling in the affairs of others. One thing is certain from the context:
We become bad people when we choose to stop working.
Conclusion 4: When we choose to stop working, we ignore Paul’s warnings of what we will become.
Conclusion 5: When we choose to stop working, Christians should keep away from us. Yikes!
There is no biblical declaration that it is ever ok to choose to stop working. By holding to the idea that saving for a self-sufficient retirement is appropriate, we’re saying the rich can purchase exemption from God’s commands. Would we do this with any of the other 9 commandments? Is it okay for the rich hold another god before God? To steal? To dishonor their parents? To murder?
On passage that is used to justify retirement is the end of Numbers 8, which the ESV even subtitles “Retirement of the Levites:”
And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “This applies to the Levites: from twenty-five years old and upward they shall come to do duty in the service of the tent of meeting. And from the age of fifty years they shall withdraw from the duty of the service and serve no more. They minister to their brothers in the tent of meeting by keeping guard, but they shall do no service. Thus shall you do to the Levites in assigning their duties.”
(Numbers 8:23-26 ESV)
The Levites were not to stop working! They were to stop doing service in the tent of meeting and change jobs to serve by keeping guard.
It’s quite true that we may not be able to go full pace at our jobs for our entire lives. The biblical response is not to stop working, but to find a new career that we can do well.
Choosing to stop work is in contradiction to the Bible.
Agree or disagree? Let me know in the comment section. I’m just working out what all of this means and am writing up the biblical arguments as I see them. Please feel free to show where I’ve gone wrong.
“Do not store up:” If He Meant It, Would You Dare?
24
Apr
When Jesus gave the command to not store up on earth, could he have meant we are not to store up on earth?
This question has resulted in a strong backlash and plenty of insults. I thought asking the question of Western Christians might be like kicking a hornets nest, and that suspicion proved true. Today I was told that I was forcing the idea of saving for the future on this text where Jesus speaks of saving for the future. I was called a socialist for suggesting we obey the biblical commands to take care of one’s elderly family members who can no longer work.
How I have reacted (and now see others reacting) to this text, reminds me of my children. Sometimes my kids pretend they don’t hear me. If they can pretend they didn’t hear or didn’t understand what I told them to do, they have justification, in their little minds, for doing whatever they are doing. We adults do the same thing with scripture. The Bible is crystal clear on some points and vague on others. Sometimes we get those mixed up because it’s more comfortable to be, for example, secure in an age of accountability, and unsure of whether our gossip is really a big problem.
I wonder if it’s worth backing off a bit and thinking about how strong our dedication to Christ is. We know that God is perfectly loving and perfectly just. Within that, God has commanded people to do all sorts of crazy things. Would you dare obey his commands, whatever they are?
If Jesus commanded you not to save for self-sufficient retirement, but to give away the excess he entrusts to you, would you dare obey?
When the reader responds with “Jesus will never ask me that, so I refuse to answer the question!” the reader is just avoid answering the question because he knows he has the wrong answer. The reader doesn’t trust Jesus enough to even hypothetically obey a command like this. The fear and insecurity we feel drives how we approach the biblical text. Before we open the Bible, we’ve put up limits to say “This far, God, and no farther!” We are willing to obey Jesus to a certain point of discomfort, but this is asking too much!
Only those who can answer the above question affirmatively, with or without trembling, are able to approach the text and consider what it has to say.
I plan to write out some more thoughts as I work through this and other related passages, but if the reader can’t answer even hypothetically obey Jesus, I don’t think it will make much sense – it’s simply outside of the reader’s modified version of Christianity.
Tax Cuts for the Rich
10
Sep
Cutting taxes for the richest citizens is only a bad thing if you believe it is the government’s job to punish people for being successful.
Those who want to raise taxes on some and lower them for others do so because they believe it’s the government’s job to use the power of the federal government to pick winners and losers – to punish people arbitrarily for what they like and don’t like.
My kids get paid for doing chores. If son 1 does more work more efficiently and earns $4 but son 2 only earns $2, is it my job to forcibly take away money from the one who earned more and give it to the one who earned less?
No. It’s immoral.
On the other hand, those who want to lower taxes do so because they believe that money in the private sector is more productive for the economy and freedom than government confiscation, waste, and redistribution
The private citizen has no vested interest in wasting money. The citizen (and corporations run by citizens) are interested in investing the money to get something of greater value, whether that’s goods or more money. So if the rich keep more of their own money, they invest more in the market – that’s putting money into businesses, who add value to the economy and create jobs.
This pursuit to get more value drives the market and also drives corruption, where someone will want to use their ability to impede the ability of others’ liberty for their own gain. This is where the government steps in, protecting the citizens’ liberty from being infringed on by others.
These two views are diametrically opposed on what the purpose of the government is. The first “liberal” view is that the government’s job is to solve all of society’s problems and through arbitrarily deciding what is “fair,” pick winners and losers by force (like taxing some at different rates than others). In this view, government is the solution to everything and should be always getting bigger and more invasive in citizen’s lives.
The second “conservative” view is that government’s role is ONLY to do things that the market cannot practically do – protect people’s inalienable right to liberty from being invaded by others in or outside of the country, and a few other things that private citizens or corporations can’t do. In this view, government intervention into people’s lives is a problem, and government should be strictly limited with enumerated powers.
The second view is how the founders set up America, and is the view that lead to America’s greatness from the start.
You’ve bought the political lies.
23
Jul
How much of what you buy politically is totally disconnected from reality?
Today ends a week where the Democrats voted No on the second budget proposal put forth by the Republicans, which the President promised to veto anyway. The Democrats have had zero proposals so far. Today Obama gave a speech saying that the Republican party needs to decide if they can say Yes to anything. His speech is totally disconnected from reality, as he is now part of the Party of No.
Do you buy it?
It’s not just the President.There’s lots of lies we believe about politics:
- All politicians are the same – corrupt liars
- I can’t change anything
- It’s acceptable to be uninformed and uninvolved
- Republicans have no heart
- Democrats are the party of equal rights
- We can trust the Republican Party
- We can trust the Democrat Party
- If the media presents someone negatively, they’re unqualified for office.
- The pursuit of profits is evil
- Corporate Jets always are a waste of money
- The New Deal helped the economy and Americans
- Higher tax rates always means more revenue
- When the country is in financial trouble the solution is to go further into debt.
Have you bought into any of these? What other lies about politics do we tend to believe?
TSA Procedures are not about safety (Part 1)
01
Dec
(I’ve thought about blogging on the Transportation Security Administration’s new procedures, but every time I start another news story hits. At this point, there’s too much for one post, so I figured I’d get started.)
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has implemented new procedures which include a special type of full-body X-Ray whose radiation is absorbed into your skin and the tissue just under the skin, to produce a naked image of the passenger, and/or the passenger must be patted-down including the passengers sexual organs.
One basic question about this is:
What’s the point of these new procedures?
Napalitano and the TSA says its necessary for safety.
For safety? Airport security was dramatically changed after 9/11. In the last 9 years, how many commercial plans have been successfully used in terrorism? 0. That means whatever’s been going on has had a 100% success rate.
“BUT THERE’S BEEN ATTEMPTS!” Certainly, there was the shoe bomber (Episcopal, right?), and now we take off our shoes to go through airport security. There was also the failed underwear bomber (Presbyterian I think?). There’s real questions about whether the new procedures would have even detected the underwear bomber’s device.
Further, these devices and pat-down-feel-ups will not detect anything hidden inside of one’s body.
So, as far as any information the public has, these new techniques will not improve on the 100% success rate we’ve had for 9 years without them.
Perhaps the government has other information that hasn’t yet been published on wikileaks. Perhaps we are under imminent threat by terrorists who will use on-the-skin devices to try to commit terror. Perhaps the only way we will be safe from known threats is to hit the terrorists with these new procedures. These new procedures were in place just in time for the busiest travel day of the year. If there’s ever times to use heightened security, it’s when there’s evidence of a threat at a specific time, or the busiest travel days of the year.
What better time to want to blow up a plane than when more people are flying, lines are backed up, everyone is stressed out and in a rush. It’s then that one would most easily slip through undetected.
And it was on the busiest travel days of the year that the TSA played a very sly hand and didn’t enforce the new procedures to deflate the threat of “Opt-Out Day” when many people were going to refuse the scan. When the threat was greatest, they stopped the procedures they said would keep us safe.
And no planes were used to crash into buildings. The standard procedures continued to be 100% effective.
I’ve heard Michael Medved and others write off concerns about this – it’s not that invasive, it’s not that embarrassing. But those aren’t the point. The point isn’t that you or I feel embarrassed, the point is that there’s constitutional issues here about unlawful search. The point is that the government is lying and in the name of security they’re testing to see how much freedom we’re willing to give up when promised safety.
Are you willing to take off your belt and your shoes? Yes.
Are you willing to have your bags x-rayed? Yes.
Are you willing to go through a metal detector? Yes.
Are you willing to be splashed with radiation that will increase your rates of infertility and cancer and/or be subjected to sexual assault by government employees?
Are you willing for your children to be splashed with radiation that will increase their rates of infertility and cancer and/or for your children to be subjected to sexual assault by government employees?
We do not forfeit our rights when we fly on a plane. The purchase of a product or service from a private company does not cause your civil rights to be terminated or suspended.
Clearly the issue is not about security. The TSA was very clever in playing up the concerns and then yanking out the rug from under”Opt-Out Day” so now everyone believes this was just media hype. In the process, the American people have agreed to submit themselves to sexual abuse by the government.
I thought we were supposed to be proud of the call “Give me liberty or give me death,” but instead we together chant “Give me liberty or take it away but tell me it’s for my own good.”
Bad, bad, US Health Care
30
Nov
Proving the recent studies that say Cuba and other countries have better health care than the US, another international leader, the Saudi King, has traveled internationally for health care.
To Cuba? To the UK? France? Canada? Netherlands?
No. To the United States.
The problems with health care isn’t the treatment – we’ve got the best treatment in the world. Otherwise, perhaps the Saudi King, Canadian officials, and others, would perhaps stay in their own countries or head to Cuba.
The problems have been cost and an entitlement attitude of a large group of citizens.
Cost is high because of a few factors:
- Cost of compliance with government regulation.
- Cost of excess treatment to attempt to prevent frivolous lawsuits from being filed.
- Cost of malpractice insurance and/or legal expenses to fight frivolous lawsuits that have been filed and which benefit trial lawyers (aka Democrat congressmen) more than anyone.
The entitlement attitude is not just among those on government healthcare. If the middle class didn’t feel entitled, we wouldn’t all be in so much debt, having “bought” things we cannot afford. What many Americans expect:
- Someone else should pay for the health consequences of my behavior.
- Someone else should pay for the elective treatments I receive.
- Someone else should take financial care of my family and parents.
- I deserve to keep the money I make for my work. Doctors that provide treatment and insurance employees that ensure it’s as affordable as possible do not deserve to be paid for their work.
The Obama-Pelosi-Reid health plan does a few things to ensure all the problems get worse:
- Dramatic increases in government regulation are raising the cost of health care.
- Purposeful ignorance of the frivolous lawsuits has empowered trial lawyers (Democrat congressmen) to continue to file even more frivolous lawsuits which is raising the cost of health care.
- Adults up to 26 years old have been told that legally they are not needing to be responsible for their own health care.
- Everyone has been told that pre-existing conditions, often the result of behavioral choices are not their responsibility and someone else will pay for them.
The costs continue to rise, and the entitlement attitude is being encouraged.
The Obama-Pelosi-Reid health care plan has successfully made the two main aspects of the problem worse.
RNC Pledge To America
24
Sep
Photo credit: SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images
The Republicans have published a 21 page “Pledge to America“. I have only skimmed it so far, but some of the bullet points indicate a commitment to spurring economic growth by lowering taxes on the citizens and downsizing the government. This means that every business and every individual has more money, and the federal government spends less money.
Pelosi, Reid, and Obama are expected to announce the DNC response today: a 2,200 page document called “Hope for America” that no one has read, and we’ll find out what it contains after the Democrats are elected.
Religious Extremists, Part 1
08
Sep
Since Rosie O’Donnell declared that Christian extremists were as dangerous as Muslim extremists, it seems to have become an official talking-point of American politics. I’ve heard media talking heads say that Christianity and Islam are the same: not all Muslims are terrorists, not all Christians proselytize.
Naturally, telling someone there’s a free gift of eternal salvation available to all is strikingly similar to blowing up yourself along with a bus load of people, or two trade towers. Why didn’t we see that before? In perspective, we can all now see that every Billy Graham event was as damaging to America as 9/11. Yet the American military doesn’t seem to be able to track down one old man in the mountains of North Carolina. I smell conspiracy. How did we not realize this when Graham called his events the most politically incorrect word: “Crusades!” Oh, the horror of extreme Christians!
George W. Bush promoted the idea that Islam is a religion of peace. What about that sneaky worldwide trend of violent extremists rising up within Islam? We’re told that every religion has extremists, but it is no reflection on the religion or the people who follow it. But especially Christians.
Today a Christian extremist is in the news again.
A small US church says it will defy international condemnation and go ahead with plans to burn copies of the Koran on the 9/11 anniversary.
The top US commander in Afghanistan warned troops’ lives would be in danger if the Dove World Outreach Center in Florida went through with the plan.
Muslim countries, the US government and Nato have also hit out at the plan.
But organiser, Pastor Terry Jones said: “We must send a clear message to the radical element of Islam.”
The US government, NATO, even General Petraeus have spoken against this man. Petraeus warned that the action could cause violence “not just in Kabul, but everywhere in the world.”
The Huffington Post calls this “our own home-grown variety of dangerous extremism.”
The State Department calls him “un-American.”
I’m not arguing that this guy is correct – or that he’s incorrect – in what he’s doing. But I think it’s important that we get down to what is happening here. Like the conversations at Jim Taggart’s wedding reception, no one is willing to name what is going on here: Terrorism.
Crowds of Muslims in Afghanistan are chanting “Death to America,” and burned an effigy of the pastor – who as of yet, hasn’t done anything. The Obama administration has called on Americans to join these protests against this American pastor.
And yet, less than a year ago, there was a Bible burning that did not receive international or even presidential condemnation. What’s the difference? What’s the thought pattern in this case?
Everyone’s behavior should be modified out of fear of violence from a certain group of people.
Yet – isn’t that the very definition of terrorism? (Yes, it is: “the state of fear and submission produced by the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce.”)
Will this empower the enemies of America in Afghanistan? Perhaps. It already has, and nothing has happened.
Will this endanger American civilians in Muslim countries around the world? Possibly.
Is it foolish to tempt a bully that is threatening violence against you? Perhaps. And that’s why the bully stays the bully. That’s why the mob wins. That’s why terrorism works.
The government of the United States is one that will pay someone $15,000.00 to take and popularize photos of a crucifix in urine, that will ignore Bible burnings, yet speaks out against anyone who does not submit to at least some of the commands of Islam.
Regardless of Rosie’s talking point, anyone who argues that this guy is a dangerous Christian extremist is saying that only because of what Muslim extremists will do. Anyone who argues that he should stop because of potential violent Muslim reactions is saying there is a difference between Christian and Muslim extremists.
