World’s Only Living Brain Donor Displays EPIC FAIL! Understanding of Insurance While Attempting to Be Clever

“Ahh.  Good.  Yessssss!  Your hate makes Darth Cheney Strong!”

I am I the only one who would pay good money to witness a 10 minute face-to-face between Cheney and Clownshoe?   Really, someone should set that up and put it on pay-per-view, just to make these socialists grit their teeth even harder at capitialism.

Read Full Post »

Its Like They’re On A Different Planet

For the faithful of the Left, Barack Hussein Obama is like The Shadow. He has the power to cloud [leftist] men’s minds. Case in point? My buddy Rutherford, who, after watching the Dhimicrats and their Dear Leader embarrass themselves with the worst execution of a trap that I have seen in my lifetime, asserts:Well, my friends, I’ll tell you what’s gonna happen. Today Barack Obama showed that the Republicans are not interested in increasing ACCESS to health care. They talk a great line about tort reform and cost cutting (with penny ante foolishness like eliminating paperwork) but when it comes to making insurance coverage available to MORE people, they come up completely empty. This is now clear to the American people. The GOP has got nuthin’. 

Now the House will pass the Senate bill and then any adjustments that need to be made will be done through reconciliation. Then come November, the Democrats will run on having gotten something DONE and they will show how the Republicans tried to get nothing done. With that said …. Obama has given the Democrats the green light to get this thing finished. If the Dem’s fail now, they are toast and utterly, completely incompetent.

Except that whole “The GOP got nothin'” bit? Yeah, not exactly true:

In that regard, Republicans have been prolific. Since the beginning of the year, they have introduced more than 35 health care reform bills. Many deal with small slices of the health care debate. For example, one, by Rep. Sam Johnson of Texas, would allow small businesses to band together to negotiate health care plans with providers. Another, by Rep. Darrell Issa of California, would allow nonfederal employees to enroll in the same health care plan that is currently enjoyed by members of Congress and federal employees.

And then there is the little matter of the cost. Just like noooone expects the Spanish Inquisition!, no one really believes that this will cut costs either. And when Paul Ryan took 6 or so minutes to talk about the numbers from the CBO, the group actually charged with figuring out what these little love letters from Congress cost we, the unhappy recipients, Barack Hussein Obama looked like someone peed in his ice cream. It was like Congressman Ryan didn’t realize that he was actually addressing Barack Hussein Obama, who didn’t appreciate anyone making light of the fact that a gargantuan increase in a government entitlements don’t save us money, especially when the entitlements they already gave to us are choking the states, and ballooning uncontrollably. I especially like the look on Barack Hussein Obama’s face at 5:25. 

Read Full Post »

Open for Business In The Marketplace of Ideas

One of the things I have truly enjoyed in starting a dialogue with Rutherford is the opportunity to engage a few leftists who actually make a real attempt to justify their beliefs, and are capable of talking without simply tossing a bomb and leaving. One of these people is the Rutherford regular, Hippieprof.

A few days ago, the Hippieprof tossed out the idea that FOX is an “unbalanced” news source because he has never seen a positive news story on Obama’s successes on it. I suggested that perhaps that would be because there was no success to report. Which then tumbled to his postulation that conservatives never see any of his successes as successes because we only watch FOX and FOX only says that he is a dismal failure. (Yeah, I know that means that he always seems to miss where Juan Williams, Bob Beckel, and other left-leaning spin doctors try to educate the various viewers about all the things the Democrats do right, I was trying to roll with it…), and I asked him what these successes were.

Life was intervening at various points, and the only answer he had time to provide was the appointment of Justice Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. I asked him why he thought this was so, and pointed him to my post “Unfit and Injudicious”. Instead of telling me why this was a success, he simply informed me that my demonstration of her repeated instances of injudicious conduct was simply an opinion, which could be wrong because other “experts” had come to a different conclusion. I suppose that because some “experts” believe that drug use is a victimless crime, those who conclude differently by measuring the cost to society and damage to non-using family members also have an opinion that could be wrong, because of the “experts” who never actually answer those issues.

This morning, he finally gave a more detailed response to my query about Obama’s successes, and rather than trying to my response into another blogger’s comment section, it seemed appropriate to offer a post here rebutting my learned friend’s opinions.

BiW….

On to Obama’s successes (including a list of what I see to be his failures at the end). I suspect you will not agree with any of the successes I list. You are entitled to your opinion, as I am entitled to mine. There is no objective standard on most of these – and we have no historical perspective.

I take issue with the false premise that you begin with, that being that there can be no objective measure of success. Success, like every other word has a definition, and to define something is to clearly declare its meaning. To say that a word that has a clear meaning, several of them, in fact, is somehow incapable of being objectively measured is sophistry, plain and simple. But before I begin my rebuttal in earnest, I will set forth the definition of “success”, so that we can be clear about our expectations.

From the Websters Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language:

Success: 1. The favorable or prosperous termination of attempts or endeavors;
2. the attainment of wealth, position, honors, or the like;
3. a successful performance or achievement;
4. a person or a thing that is successful.

Note also that we are merely 13 months into his term – so much of this remains a work in progress.

Wow. I cannot tell you how disappointing this particular walk-back of expectation is after all the “The First 100 Days” hype we were treated to every single one of those first 100 days by MSNBC, CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, etc…

Here goes:

1) Obama has symbolically broken the racial glass ceiling. He has empowered a huge segment of our society – a group who in fact felt that the American dream did not apply to them. He has given a sense of hope to the disenfranchised. Go ahead and scoff at this – but believe me, it is real and it is important. This is one reason I am so resentful of those who seek to take Obama down for mere political gain. You may have already seen my blog post on the topic: http://hippieprofessor.com/2010/02/10/ahhh-sarah-about-that-hopey-changey-thing/

Really?  I thought that Billy Jeff was the nation’s very first African-American President? 

He has not empowered anyone, and any sense of hope that he might have offered was the cruelest kind of illusion.

There has been no explosion of minority entrepreneurial activity.  The black single mom living in the ghetto with her three kids relying on welfare under Bush is still living in the same place and still relying on welfare for a living under Obama.  If there is a difference, it is that more Americans, ones who don’t want to be dependent upon government now find themselves in reduced circumstances and relying on unemployment extensions to keep paying some of their bills.  There is no growth in opportunity to take control of one’s own destiny and cast of the shackles of government dependency.  Indeed, the cornerstone of his plan to fundamentally change our country has been to offer even more dependency in the offensive usurpation of power that is the health care take over plan.

What hope has he offered?  Now that we have a black President, is it a hope that blacks will finally “come into their own” and take a larger leadership role in government because of his being elected President?  I think that is very insulting to every “person of color” who worked their way into positions of power on their own accord and by measurable, concrete achievement.   However, after decades of being called Uncle Toms and worse by a self-appointed African-American leadership for not staying on the modern-day plantation and accepting the prevailing political philosophy, people like Justice Thomas, Dr. Rice, or Thomas Sowell either have the good grace to let such assertions go unchallenged, or are too busy actually doing what they do with skill and intellect to bother speaking against this mirage.  Certainly such a belief continues to mistake equality of opportunity with equality of ability.

Or perhaps you were speaking of the Hope his candidacy offered to white liberals who don’t just hold close to a race guilt that they do not deserve, but actually cling to it as an article of faith?  Certainly these people were instrumental in this historic candidacy, and such irrationalism would be necessary to elect a person so undeserving of the position. 

I can see the color coming to your cheeks, and the OUTRAGE!111!! building behind your eyes.  Take a breath and ask yourself this question:  “Would I have cast my vote for a white man with the same or similar record?”  Obama is a supposedly brilliant man, yet we don’t know what his grades were at Occidental College or at Harvard.  We know his opponent’s class rank.  We know what kind of grades his predecessor got, and Al Gore’s grades for that matter. 

What did he do for a living beforehand?  He was a ‘community organizer’ and sometimes law lecturer.  But what does that mean?  He certainly wasn’t going to tell us that it means coaching organizations on new and better ways to work against the government, or lecturing to students about what a deeply flawed instrument the Constitution is because it provided no means to accomplish the aims of social justice a/k/a wealth redistribution.

Where did he distinguish himself in politics?  What ideas or issues were so important to him that he put something…anything on the line in defense of them?  He gave a nice speech at the Democratic Convention years prior, and voted ‘present’ in the Senate most of the time.  Before that, when in the Illinois State Senate, he found it important to stand against palliative comfort care for children with the temerity to survive their mother’s attempts to murder them.   I can’t think of very many serious candidates in years before with similarly sparse resume’s who rated real consideration for the office.  It certainly didn’t measure up to his opponent’s curriculum vitae, which reflected achievement, accomplishment, and sacrifice, not just for select subgroups of the country, but for us all, despite the fact I have disagreements with the various issues he has chosen to make a stand on, such as campaign finance, and illegal immigration.

You, and so many like you expose an unhealthy fascination with race, when you show that you are willing to elect a person carrying a paper-thin resume, and vague promises of hope and change because you find the historic achievement to be so necessary that you cannot wait for someone with both the correct racial pedigree and a demonstrated ability and character for the job (and speaking against even comfort care for the most innocent and defenseless among us is NOT the kind of character required for the leader of the free world).  And it so blinds you legitimate criticisms that you are willing to dismiss real and logical disagreements as criticism for “mere political gain”, which you deem as offensive, and I suspect, inherently unacceptable.  I don’t know what country you grew up in, but I would call your attention to the first real Presidential campaign between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, and the years intervening, when there was a vile vitriol between the two camps that was all about “political gain”, and it consisted not just of different political philosophies, but slanderous filth of the most unimaginable kind.  The Chicago Messiah™ has so far had it much easier than his immediate two predecessors, both in scrutiny from the press, and criticism by political opponents and interest groups, and neither of their critics were continually savaged with the politically correct attempt to shut them up with the hysterical cries of “Racism!11!!!”, which has become the textbook response by people who have no desire to honestly address criticism.

2) He has stabilized the economy at a time when we might well have made a tailspin into a second great depression. You will scoff. Seriously – can you honestly claim that the economy would be in better shape right now without the stimulus? Had GM and Chrysler and AIG failed we would have seen a massive cascade of business failures and unemployment would be far far far higher than it is now. I have said it a billion times – in economics we don’t get a control group. Wish we did – because I know I would be right.

I don’t recall him “saving the economy”.  In fact, I’m pretty sure that it was his predecessor who peddled the intellectually bankrupt concept of “breaking the rules of the free market system in order to save it.”  Yes, your messiah was involved, but he only came to the TARP table reluctantly…after basically saying “If you need me, call me.”  That was hardly the act of someone who was interested in the job, or the effect of the economy on the American people.

As for the spendulous, while it has benefitted a lot of people in government jobs (i.e. people who don’t produce anything that contributes to economic growth), I can say that we would be better.  When there was 6.4 Billion Dollars spent in Congressional Districts that don’t exist (there’s a story for an uncritical Fourth Estate to pursue…unless it would be raaaacist to do so.), unemployment that went well above what we were promised that it would, and lots of signs touting invisible projects funded by the bill, and an enormous bill that necessarily has to fall on to the backs of my children, no, I can’t say that we are better off.  In fact, for me to do so would be a silly as touting a belief in the ridiculous and unprovable metric of “Millions of jobs saved or created”.

3) BTW – saving GM and Chrysler – at least for now – was a big thing. I suspect you will claim it was illegal and unconstitutional. I tend to think it wasn’t – but as you have pointed out I don’t have a law degree. Now we will actually see the Chevy Volt – and with Toyota in disarray the US may even to be able to catch up in the race for green technology. Yeah – I know – not important to you.

Hmmm.  I guess I’ll start with a simple question:  Do you believe in private property?  If your answer to that question is “yes”, then I’d like to know what that concept means to you. If private property means that something is truly the property of them what owns it and pays the bills due on it, then it is not a legitimate or legal act for government to step in, take it over, screw over preferred creditors…private parties who took a risk in granting these companies additional capital in exchange for collateral so that they knew exactly what they were risking in making the loans…in favor of unsecured creditors who played a large part in making the entities fail economically.  Put another way, government had neither the right or authority to take over the corporations, ignore established bankruptcy laws, strong-arm collaterized creditors, and then essentially give the corporations to the very parties that contributed to their downfall (i.e. the UAW) with their inflexible approach and sense of entitlement to a much higher standard of living than virtually every other class of manufacturing worker currently employed in this country. 

I care about this more than you can imagine.  I grew up in the Flint suburbs, in a family that has always driven Chryslers, and when I reached adulthood, I tended to favor GM.  These workers were the parents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents of my friends.  They were my neighbors.  We drove American through the 70’s and 80’s, when driving American wasn’t cool.  I have a Chevy and a Chrysler in my driveway right now.  I was looking forward to the hope of picking up a used Dodge Challenger in a few years, just because the idea of owning such a sleek Gaia-raping, deep-throated street predator filled me with such awe and wonder that it almost made me giggle with delight.  That isn’t going to happen now, and if I am going to stick by my committment to drive American, I have to look at Ford when the time comes to replace my beloved Impala, simply because I have no intention to reward the bad behavior of any of the parties involved…managment, union, or government.

However, a more important consideration is this:  GM is now basically a union-government joint venture.  During and after the restructuring, they received even more of our money to stay afloat.  No steps have been taken to control legacy costs, or even to address incredibly generous union contracts, and as long as Uncle Sugar (really you and me) keep writing the checks, the unions have no incentive to make their end of the business more competitive.  They will continue to spend our money for as long as they possibly can.

As for AIG and the rest, it was patently wrong for the government, which already played a role in the economy as regulator, to step in and become a participant.  Business succeeds in generating wealth not just for its owners, but for the national economy at large because it has a better idea, or can be more cost efficient than its competitors.  Competitors that can’t or won’t control their costs, and/or put out inferior products should fail because of competitors that accomplish this better.  Ford did this better than GM or Chrysler, and as a result, had every right to expect to be rewarded for doing so with the greater market share that comes when a competitor fails.  And while it has continued to do much better since turning down the sugar that Uncle peddled, it now is in competition with the same entity that regulates the market, and its practices and processes. 

The government, which already had enormous regulatory power over financial markets, and had instituted policies such as the Community Reinvestment Act, which required banks and other regulated lenders to make bad business decisions in the form of risky loans, decided to that it was appropriate to step in and pick winners and losers when the decade of looting, overseen by prominent (and well-paid) Democrats such as Jaime Gorelick and Franklin Raines, could no longer be concealed and the time came to pay the bill.  We paid gobs and buckets of money to cover bad loans that we never should have made in the first place through the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern of the home finance world, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and then we decided that firms that took part in this ongoing fraud such as Bear Sterns were not worthy of saving, but Goldman Sachs (Turbo Tax Timmy’s old gang)  and AIG HAD to be saved at any cost…which means at any cost to the taxpayer.  Interference with private property rights, circumventing the law, competing in the same markets it also regulates, and spending piles and piles of other people’s money on these dubious investments is not something that should be celebrated.  It should be severely sanctioned with convictions, jail time, restitution, and if all else fails, tar and feathers.

4) He has articulated a moderate vision of health care reform. Despite dishonest conservative commentary(fueled by a desperate insurance industry) It is far from a progressive position – a progressive position would entail single payer or at least a very robust public option. An honest politician on the right would find a lot to like in the bills now on the table – yet they seek to to score political points instead – and they disgust me. See my section on failures below for commentary on Obama’s failure to get this done.

It isn’t up to the government to provide health care for people, and that includes Medicaid and Medicare.  I would make an exception for the care that the VA renders because I believe that injuries suffered by those willing to give their lives to preserve our way of life should be repaid in such a fashion, and because the injuries were suffered in the service of the Republic, we assumed that duty. 

Medicaid and Medicare prove that government cannot efficiently manage such a process.  The billions of dollars in waste and fraud and decades worth of IOUs for tax receipts looted for other entitlement spending are ample testimony to that.  There are other considerations also, first and foremost being that such an undertaking is not Constitutional.  I know from our previous exchanges on this subject that you want to believe otherwise, and will seize upon any argument you feel supports your decision (the welfare clause, the fact that Medicare has never been declared Unconstitutional, etc, etc, etc.) but the fact remains that there simply is no Constitutional authority making it the government’s right and duty to see to it that we have to provide any health insurance for everyone, and the idea that government can impose financial penalties and prison time for my failure to purchase a plan it approves of is antithetical to every principle this nation was founded on.  If health care becomes the purview of the government, then what health care I can receive by necessity also becomes the purview of the government.  Just as the power to tax a thing is the power to destroy a thing, the power to control health care is the power to deny health care.  The power to deny health care is the power to kill.  I shouldn’t have to point to the proof available to all who look, such as the NHS in Britain denying breast cancer drugs that work to breast cancer patients because they cost too much, or the old Soviet trick of declaring political opponents and critics to be “mentally ill” and institutionalizing them in wretched facilities with the expectation that they die there, isolated and silenced.  “That’s extreme!!!111!!!”  you say.  “Perhaps,” I say, “but at the same time, I’m not inclined to leave my physical well-being in the hands of people so unprincipled that they continue to subvert and ignore the inviolate law of the land, and act in contravention to the will of the recognized source of our unalienable rights.” 

But my insurance company can deny me a drug or a treatment now, you say.  You are correct, but my decision to buy health insurance is just that: my decision.  If my employer provides it to me, then it is something my employer chose to provide to me.  Nothing is stopping me from shopping for and purchasing my own policy right now.  If we get Obamacare sans the “public option”[for now…Bwarney Fwanks was absolutely correct that it is the next inevitable step], I don’t get to chose not to have a plan…a choice made by many young people because they are young and in good health.  I don’t get the plan of my choosing.  I get to choose from the plans that government will approve.  This is a wonderful opportunity for graft and kickbacks, and will still lead to the death of private insurance because a publically funded alternative has NO INCENTIVE to operate like a business.  If the money runs out, they simply charge the taxpayer more, and the private companies have to compete with an entity that has its hand in our collective pocket every time they spend too much.  If I didn’t understand the underlying belief held dear by most liberals that people should be relieved of the burden of making their own choices and the consequences of the choices that they do make, though the power of the government, that they, as the ones who know what’s best for us, always plan to control, I would say that it is an unusual position for someone who believes in freedom of choice, as long as it includes the right of a mother to murder their offspring.

5) He is taking strides to end “don’t ask, don’t tell” – he should have done it earlier, and it will take too long in the end – but it is the right thing to do.

Why is it the right thing to do?  I have yet to hear a logical explanation why we as a nation have a vested interest in upholding and supporting the notion of gay rights.  Indeed, most of the arguments that I do hear could just as easily be employed my NAMBLA members or people who like having sex with farm animals.  Come to me with scientific proof of an immutable condition, or admit that if we accept the current reasoning, there is a great deal of behavior, including behavior that liberals find offensive, that we will have to legitimize for the exact same reasons later.

6) He has, as promised, given a tax cut to the vast majority of working Americans. That they apparently don’t realize this is testimony to the power of the conservative press. You can be damned sure that had McCain lowered middle-class taxes to a similar degree FOX would be shouting it from the mountaintops.

Allowing the Bush tax cuts to sunset raised taxes for everyone.  Manipulating the withholding tables to give an average of $13 of the normal American’s pay back to him in his weekly paycheck, while making no change in the actual tax rates that dictate the amount of taxes that they will pay for the year is not a real tax cut.  Of course, most Americans won’t really pick up on this until next year, and the continued lack of any movement by members of both parties will create a situation were more and more middle class Americans will be hammered by the AMT, but that won’t be honestly reported if the Chicago Messiah™ gets to continue lowering the definition of who is actually “rich” in America.  By then, his strategy of fomenting class envy and generally pushing the various doctrines that comprise The Politics of Lowered Expectations™ will really be taking hold, as the entitlement class grows more restless in its greed, and the paying class grows weary of the increasing levels of confiscation of its life energy imposed on it from a ballooning government.  On the Mark Twain scale, your statement isn’t just a lie, its a damn lie.

7) He acted boldly and decisively with the Somali pirate situation. Before you scoff, just think what you would be saying had that rescue attempt failed. Why – you would be saying the same things you say about Carter’s failure to rescue the Iran hostages (though of course that was a much bigger undertaking).

I’m scoffing because his action was neither “bold” or “decisive”.  The Maersk Alabama was hijacked on April 8, 2009.  The crew themselves took the ship back later that day.  The US dispatched response arrived the following day, but the captain of the Alabama was not freed until the 12th…after Obama sent FBI negotiators to talk to the pirates, and dithered for days about letting the Navy do its job and dispatch the pirates with extreme prejudice.  I realize that in academia, bold and decisive action is rapidly criticizing a decision made by a conservative politician or denouncing a state government for reducing the number of taxpayer dollars that a legislature will be sending to institutions of higher indoctrination within their borders in that budget year, but in this case bold and decisive action would have been immediately unleashing the SEALs to kill the pirates and rescue the captain if possible, and then to bomb the pirates’ land based support into rubble, and capturing and hanging any pirates who subsequently attempted to hijack commercial shipping in the area.
 

He has made an unprecedented outreach to the Islamic world. No doubt you will think this was a mistake – a sign of weakness perhaps. You fail to realize how badly our image has fallen in the rest of the world after Bush. Something needs to be done about that – this is a start.

I know.  Actually acting after stacks of resolutions against Iraq piled up for violating the otherwise ineffective directives of the “international authorities” and many of our allies profited on the side from the Oil-for-Food program while helping a ruthless dictator to rearm and continue to attack people that “international authorities” continually told him to keep away from was pretty reprehensible.  After all, it is bad form to shed light on and shut off your allies’ graft personal enrichment programs that are in direct contravention of their public statements made in front of cameras and reporters.  Its kind of like waiting to tell your wife that you’re sterile until after she announces that she’s pregnant.

I do support his current program of reaching out to jihadis with Predator drones and missile strikes, as well as sharing real time intelligence with governments that actually make an effort to root out such vipers in their midst, as is currently occurring in some middle east nations like Yemen.  Unlike you, I have no illusion that this will somehow translate in to lots of fluffy bunny and skittle crapping unicorn sessions with the various members of the Islamic world, but also unlike you, I have no reason to see the approbation and approval of people who have demonstrated a willingness time and time again to kill anyone who doesn’t think like they do, which means most of the western world.

9) He made a good choice for his first Supreme Court appointment. I stand by that. I knew what “wise Latina” meant the moment I heard the phrase – and I am saddened that she had to backtrack on that and pretend it meant something other than it did. Yes – we all know what you think here.

Yes, but I still don’t know why you think it was a good choice.  I suspect, based on our exchanges, but I do not know.  You simply keep saying that it was a good choice, and frankly, that reads much like some of her more notorious decisions.

[I have omitted the rest of his comment because he started on his list of Obama failures, and while I don’t agree with much of his underlying rationale, I also didn’t see cause for disappointment in these “failures”.]

Read Full Post »

The Empty Chair

Last Sunday, during the service at church, I took a minute to look around. I was dismayed at how many empty chairs we had. In and of itself, this was not surprising. According to a 2004-2006 Gallup Poll, only 32% of Washington residents say that they attend church on a weekly basis. The only states with a lower percentage are the New England states. The National Average is 42%. Given these numbers, I’m not surprised at the apparent consternation in the legacy media of late about America’s Christian Heritage.

Certainly, the campaign waged by secular humanists since the early 20th century has had its successes. History has been progressively rewritten to whitewash the influence of Christianity on our nation out of our history. What cannot be explained away is increasingly not taught, or treated as inconsequential and no longer relevant.

Now we find ourselves in a place where secular humanist ideals are upheld as neutral values, rather than simply different moral values than those generally accepted from the birth of this country to the 1940s. While those who knew better have occasionally let their knowledge slip into public fora, like the decision in Torcaso v. Watkins, in which Justice Black recognizes Secular Humanism for what it is: a religion, [“Among religions in this country which do not teach what would generally be considered a belief in the existence of God are Buddhism, Taoism, Ethical Culture, Secular Humanism and others.”] these spoilers and thieves have largely been successful in creating the impression that their religion is not a religion, and in instilling it into the popular culture, and daily operation of law and civic life, while continually pushing, poking, and prodding the formerly dominant religious philosophy aside by constantly employing the false notion that the Constitution requires the complete separation of religion from any activity in which the state is even tangentially involved, and by creating the impression that a philosophy is only a “religion” if it has an element of the supernatural or professes a belief in a supernatural being. This handy definition allows the pernicious faith of secular humanism, which purports to depose God from his throne and install man in his stead, to be exempt from the crusade that secular humanists wage against all religions, but foremost, Christianity, in the public square.

Christianity is singled out for special vilification by these modern-day crusaders for 3 prominent reasons.

The first is that Christianity is at odds with the post-modern philosophy that the secular humanists have helped to usher in. Modernity sought to use academic disciplines, driven by rationalistic assumptions, to find truth that applied to every person, while discounting the role of the supernatural in its quest. Put another way, it sought truth without God. This lead to the various nasty breeds of the -ism political philosophies…marxism, communism, socialism, and imperfect and dogmatic scientific philosophies, such as Darwinism. The inherent problem in declaring science (as an archetype of rationalism) to be truth is that as knowledge advances, this truth is constantly rewritten in the form of paradigm shifts. Truth is only truth until someone finds the new truth. This subtle fact helped to usher in the current philosophy of post-modernism, which holds to a single core philosophy: The only absolute truth is that there is no truth. This allowed for the entry of spirituality into the modernist’s worldview, and at the same time allowed them to make it personal and flexible to whatever they chose to believe. Christianity, with its belief in one God, and the absolute truth he reveals to man in the Bible is, by its nature, at odds with the post-modern philosophy which denies all truth save its own.

Second, Christianity, with its stubborn belief in God’s truths, is seen as “judgmental”. This is something that any honest Christian would have to admit is correct. It is indeed judgemental, as it prescribes an accepted “code of conduct” and penalties for failure to adhere to it, with the full knowledge that such perfection can never be fully achieved by man. Christians often understand that they are not perfect, and that is only through God’s grace and his son’s sacrifice that they are forgiven. That is not a blank check to act as they would without such knowledge, but rather to continue to strive to live as they have been directed and to be the body of Christ in the world today. The rest of the world, believing as it does, that nothing they can do should be denied to them, look upon the prohibitions that would separate them from the desires of their hearts, and disapproval of Christians of the various sins, and lash out. They insist that there can be no consequences for their actions. They deny the very concept of sin, even as its consequences manifest themselves in their lives, and they seize upon only the parts of the faith that they think do not touch their beliefs or demand a change in their hearts as well as their actions. “Jesus is love.” they say. “You people hate, and that makes you hypocrites.” they say with the confidence of ones trying stubbornly to convince themselves. They do not want to hear about the Jesus who turned over tables in the temple. They do not want to know that they are like those in Romans 1:18-19. They have the knowledge, but refuse it. They cannot reconcile the Lord’s hatred of sin with his love for the sinner, a charge to Christians set forth in Jude 1:20-23, and thus are doomed to the belief that Christianity is irreconcilably hypocritical in its judgment, or more perversely, that it has been hijacked by extremists who fail to understand that God is love.

Third, regular study of the Bible and prayer changes people’s beliefs and behaviors. More than one critic has set out with the goal of discrediting the Bible and its message, and ended up converting. It has been the basis of law and the moral code of much of western civilization for centuries. While the secular humanists have celebrated their victories in marginalizing Christianity and separating its morals from the law, they have been less than successful in replacing it with a moral system that makes sense or keeps human depravity in check. The result is the emergence of a nascent savagery that our society is less able to effectively confront or turn back. We now live in a world where actions are increasingly governed by situational ethics, and then we are shocked at the decisions that are made. Children are increasingly at risk from predators who would steal their innocence. There is no shame. There are no boundaries. There are no remaining taboos. And even the secular humanists are confronted with behavior they cannot understand, despite their role in removing the framework that defined what was right and wrong for our society.

I do not believe that this battle between Christianity and Secular Humanism is one that our society can afford to lose. It isn’t lost on me that the men responsible for there being a United States of America believed in God…the God of Abraham (even Jefferson, and Franklin), or that he takes an interest in human affairs (Don’t believe me? Look up the definition of “providence”, then look at how they used the word in reference to their own endeavors.)

I am encouraged that there is a renewed interest in the history that is no longer taught. I am encouraged that many of the children of the most secular generation have been willing to start seeking a structure and discipline that they did not have growing up. I was even encouraged by the President’s willingness to invoke God last year in his ongoing quest to take of the nation’s health care system. After all, if a far-left Democrat like Barack Hussein Obama can dare to invoke a “partnership with God” as part of his plans to take over health care, then it just got harder for the Left to try to shove him back into that little box where they have tried to confine him for the last few decades. It just might be that we will see a revival, and that the secular humanists will learn about the true “Power of persuasion and the persuasion of power.”

Filling the empty chair in your church and mine will be a good start.

Read Full Post »

More Social Disconnect While Rome Burns

I was driving to work this morning when the host broke into his own broadcast and played the Tiger Woods “Statement“.

I listened, and refrained from talking back to the radio as is sometimes my habit when I am subjected to such things.  Unlike the President’s uncritical appraisal of his own performance for the last year, I give the statement a solid “C”, with a few reservations.

I understand that his ability to play golf exceptionally well has allowed Tiger to enjoy a level of wealth and celebrity that very few other people ever enjoy.  With those benefits often come temptations of the type that he indulged in.  Yet, for some reason, there seems to be a degree of public upset that cannot be easily explained.  Why do I say that?

Think about it this way:  Is a big time sports star that much different from a rock star?  They both are very recognizable.  They both make buckets of money.  They both travel lots for their job.  No one bats an eye anymore at the rock star sport screwing anything that crosses their path.  It is largely taken for granted that they have sex on demand with multiple partners from coast to coast.  That is one of the reasons why so many young men dream of become rock stars.

This mindset seems to be more common for the NBA, as well, as the stories of life on the road leak out into the mainstream consciousness.  Wilt Chamberlain claimed to have slept with thousands of women over the course of his career, and many younger players seem to be determined to follow in his footsteps.

Is the difference that Tiger is married?  I doubt it.  One of the hallmarks of today’s society is infidelity.  The stigma and shame appear to have been set aside for most people.  A scan of daytime TV or a cruise through the family law docket at your local court should drive that point home.  No fault divorce, a decline in religious practices and attendance, and even the mainstream character of terms like “Babymama” provide ample evidence that infidelity is no longer taboo.  If that isn’t enough, a spin around the dial of primetime TV, the appeal of companies like the Ashley Madison Agency, and any number of “hook up” sites on the internet should make that a bit clearer for you.

When I take all of the above into consideration, I have to ask myself “Why did  he do it?”  I mean, if I were the world’s best golfer, making buckets of cash, and still able to draw large crowds even though I had this “problem”, I might look at the free pass that other wealthy celebrities get on the same topic and say “Screw this.  I did it because I could.  It is an entitlement that I have little reason to believe that any of you would pass up if you had the opportunity.” 

Maybe it was the image that he benefitted from, if he did not outright cultivate.  The nice guy…close to his parents, married with kids…the kind of guy you want to root for.  The kind of guy that not even Barack Hussein Obama could publically declare “makes too much money” and get the same head bobs that he gets for similar remarks about those “Greedy Wall Street Executives.”  Maybe we feel betrayed…betrayed enough to ignore the obvious double-standard that we have apparently imposed on him.  And maybe that is enough to keep me from exploring that idea that this pointless public apology wasn’t either a dramatic gesture towards a justifiably pissed spouse, or an attempt to straighten and polish a crooked and tarnished halo that was worth millions in endorsements that have since abandoned him.  I’d like to think that he is smart enough to know that redemption isn’t the same as making it all like it was before.

He was right about one thing:  character does matter.  But if you are more worried about your character because of how other people choose to see you, rather than how you see yourself or are right with God, then you’re still doing it for the wrong reasons.  Character is defined by what you do when no one is looking.

Read Full Post »

The Odor of Truth Is Wafting Like A Freshly Brewed Pot of Coffee…

…and our self-appointed betters need figure out that we’re on to them before things get ugly.

It is bad enough to have the proles reject the specific policy proposals of the good and the wise. But what may infuriate those liberals who have been castigating the idiocy of the angry mob even more is as follows. Their program is premised on believing a select group of superior people should be empowered to organize everyone else’s affairs. The Tea Party proles who reject the interference, reject also the premise that the Obama administration and its progressive supporters constitute a superior class: America’s would-be overseers really are no better than anyone else. For those who profess to care about equality, this must be terribly hard to hear.

Go read the whole thing.  Nice to know that some in the legacy media are starting to get it.

H/t to Car in at H2

Read Full Post »

Whatever…

 

So this week, we were treated to yet another week of the “Sarah Palin is dumb” meme, brought to you by the usual suspects, the clueless cadre of media elites and self-appointed cognoscenti, which was seized upon by the dutiful lower ranks of the liberal intelligentsia, who more often than not, take in their daily programming from such ideological organs as MSNBC.

For smart people, they sure do silly things.

Consider this: After McSame chose her for a running mate, the left declared war on her, and truly ran a campaign that was against her, all but ignoring the top of the Republican ticket. Only in a year when lemmings in thrall of making a “historic” choice, and white liberals captivated with the idea of finally absolving America of racial sins paid off more than a century before could a ticket led by a man with a paper-thin resume and a record showing dedication to nothing but the right to let murderers stained with the blood of innocents take their contemptible practices outside the womb, and a vice presidental candidate who’s major accomplishments included failed bids for the top job himself, reliable gaffes nearly every time he opens his mouth, and a career backing bad legislation and generous entitlement spending in Congress could succeed in calling a self-made governor stupid, and carry that platform to victory.

However, after a year of executive ennui and legislative excesses that would make the most hardened shopaholic blush with embarrassment, the opinionmakers still carry water for the party of “It didn’t work, so let’s do it again only bigger this time” and, inexplicably, this agenda requires them to continue campaigning against someone they already defeated.

If the idea is distract Americans from the incompetence of government and its solutions to America’s immediate problems, it isn’t succeeding, as polls clearly demonstrate that the average American is concerned about the economy and rates a need to have government take over health care at the bottom of their priorities.

If it is an attempt to dismiss and marginalize a threat in the next election, it is a dangerous strategy, especially when so many loyal party legislators are facing the prospect of electoral annihilation in the upcoming mid-term elections for their unwavering willingness to go along with a legislative agenda that Americans know runs contrary to the Constitution and that we cannot afford. To spend so much time to neutralize a threat that they keep telling us is dumb, stupid, etc. only calls attention to the fact that with a few notes on her hand, she can give a speech that the Chicago Messiah wouldn’t be capable of without the beneficent assistance of TOTUS and a beautifully polished and manicured script.

Perhaps the left’s shot callers would have more success if this wasn’t such a personal matter to them.

I recently had an exchange with one of the few left voices who will actually attempt to defend the left’s policies on the issue of Palin. He exhibits all the symptoms of a fatal case of Palin-itis, characterized with all the venom and “but-but-but”s that you see in the voices who are desperate to silence her. His latest issue is that she is not genuine, and that her family is simply a prop to be trotted out when convenient and ignored and left to their own devices between photo ops. His source for this meme is an Alaskan blogger who has been practicing the very same form of stalking that the legacy media has been practicing since she was chosen as McSame’s Number Two. This perceived insincerity for him is yet another bit of political and cultural damnation that is so significant that it justifies the uneven and biased scrutiny focused on Palin, rather than the more relevant and glaringly lacking turning of it to the Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight currently pretending to know better than we do in the Capitol and the Oval Office.

I think that the Sarah Palin’s real sin has nothing to do with her intellect, sincerity, or the purported lack of either. For the left, and the feminists who can’t stand her and have attacked her from jump, her real sin was not knowing her place. Politically powerful women had to be cut from their mold, present their image, and tell their story. Their ambitions were acceptable, even necessary to show the fulfillment of women and their ability to play the game with the big boys. Her ambitions are venial, and unacceptable because she hasn’t paid her dues the way that they have, and don’t reflect the goals of the interests that have carried them to were they are. And many Americans not only get that, but love her because of that. For them it isn’t a problem that she isn’t the typical Democratic female politician. They know that NOW and Planned Parenthood don’t represent their values, and are more concerned with the pursuit of power than the issues that affect them.

The hypocrisy of feminism and the left’s “progressive” agenda has openly come to the fore in their mistreatment and continued attacks of Sarah Palin, and have done far more to polarize the cultural climate in this country in the last year and half than anything said by a conservative politician or pundit, all the left’s cries of “code words” and thinly veiled [fill in the Democratic denunciation of the week here] aside.

The jig is up. I’d start making some plans for what you do after, (I’m looking at the assorted voices on the left) because I see the sun setting rapidly on the legitimacy of the expertocracy with which you planned to rule.

Read Full Post »

A Funny Thing Happened…

Ok, so I lied.  It wasn’t funny.  It ticked me off.  I went to log on to my laptop last night, and got the BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH™, so blogging my be light for the foreseeable future.

Read Full Post »

Remembering John Murtha

Few people get to be so damned by their own words and deeds and still remain in their positions of power until the assume room temperature. 

I’m sorry for his family, but not for the “unindicted co-conspirator“.

Abscam:

Maligning American Marines:

Statements Later Determined to be Untrue By The Proper Authorities:

Then Reduced to What Remains For a Person With No Remaining Honor… Just Making Shit Up:

Read Full Post »

February 7, 2010

Why is this day special?

Not because some men who get paid very handsomely to play a game will meet in what is almost always an overhyped, underplayed contest that allows people all over the country an excuse to come together, drink too much,  and gather around their televisions for several hours so they can watch a few minutes of game, punctuated by ads that cost their sponsors dearly for the privilege of an inebriated audience.

February 7, 2010 is Scout Sunday.

In 1910, when Sir Baden Powell formed the Boy Scouts, having reverence as one of the group’s core values for its young charges was hardly controversial.  At the time, religion, as it is commonly understood, was still very much a part of the American Psyche, and considered a necessary element of a moral and just society.  This was in keeping with prior generations, reaching back to the one that originally threw off the yoke of european leadership and formed this nation.

In the century since, there has been a relentless assault on religion and its place in society, lead, ironically enough by a religion, albeit one that tries to avoid the title at all costs.  Secular humanism has clothed itself in the garb of a neutral and liberating doctrine that rejects God and what he requires in favor of what the human heart deems to be progress.  It has employed terms that it refuses to model, like ‘tolerance’ to characterize all moral judgement as bad, and continues to espouse the beliefs that the only absolute truth is that there is no absolute truth, and that to judge is wrong, unless it is to judge those who believe in absolute truth.  This means that the Boy Scouts, as any institution still believing that reverence has a place in society, has come under attack from those who preach the gospel of self, and the good news of their own selfish desires, regardless of the clear damage that such beliefs cause when practiced in real life.

Nevertheless, the Boy Scouts have remained as an institution, instilling proven values in boys, as well as teaching valuable skills, so that they can continue to learn and grow with confidence, and be an example to others around them.  And I am glad not only because they are helping my sons to grow this way, but because they helped me.

Read Full Post »