So at Christmas dinner I heard a young fella say, "Well at least Obama won't get re-elected," and I laughed and said, "Sorry to disappoint you but I think he will."
I do not think this is true because I am voting for him. I do not think this is true because the republicans are putting up a bunch of roadkill, stiffs, scary old guys, dudes wearing foil hats and guys almost smart enough to be a lamp.
I think this because a sitting president is already 78.8% re-elected. I mean we already voted the guy in once and barring a total collapse of... well everything, he is going to be reelected.
In the history fo the USA there have been 44 presidents and 15 were not re-elected. Of those W H Harrison, Taylor, Garfield, Harding and Kennedy died in their first term leaving nine. Out of those nine; one, Grover Cleveland, was president during what was probably the worst depression in the history fo the country and so was defeated by republican Benjamin Harrison who did so poorly in handling the crisis that he then was defeated by the same Grover Cleveland who became the only man to not be re-elected twice.
This does not include Andrew Johnson who, having inherited the office after Lincoln's death, was never elected but was impeached and did not seek re-election. Joining him in holding the office but not having been elected to it is Gerald Ford who pardoned Nixon... enough said.
So out of the remaining nine we have John Adams who was so paranoid he oversaw the passage of the alien and sedition acts while having Thomas Jefferson (who was a democrat and in the other party) constantly undermining him because Adams refused to enter the French Revolution. This led to Adams being so wildly unpopular and universally hated that he lost the election in a landslide and retired from political life.
John Quincy Adams' presidency was racked with scandal and he was defeated by Andrew Jackson and a populist swell whose policies caused the collapse that sank...
Martin Van Buren who was president three months when the collapse of 1837 happened because of unscrupulous credit practices which caused the economy to collapse. Incidentally the Great GREAT Depression of the late 19th century happened for the same reason as did (in large measure) the Great Depression in the 1930's
Gee 4 times in 175 years and we still haven't figured out this is a bad idea.... but I digress.
Taft lost to Wilson because Teddy Roosevelt started a third party.
Herbert Hoover... well Great Depression anyone?
Jimmy Carter was president at a time when the economy was so bad that inflation was up and the economy was shrinking. That actually shouldn't be able to happen as expanding economies drive inflation and shrinking economies, well... shrink it. And we boycotted the olympics. Iran hostage crisis. And Reagan ran... again.
Perfect storm.
Aside from that is George Herbert Walker Bush. This guy failed to win a war, the economy was crap, Dan Quayle was his VP, "No new taxes!", he only won because the Democrats put up Dukakis who couldn't have beat Hoover (and Hoover was dead), and still he lost his bid for re-election because Perot started a third party (basically) and carried 19% of the vote and many swing states including Ohio, Wisconsin, New Jersey, and Iowa Clinton won by fewer than 5% with Perot taking 18-20% of the vote.
In other words, without Perot... wait for it... Clinton may not have beaten George H W Bush. Clinton for pity's sake.
And why? Cuz Bush was the guy already there and people fear change.
44 presidents and five died, one is sitting, two chose not to run again, two lost because of splits in their own party and Cleveland did get re-elected... eventually. Meaning out of the 33 remaining 26 got re-elected good or bad. That's a .788 winning percentage and that means that guy already there almost always wins.
Don't believe me?
We re-elected W.
Monday, December 26, 2011
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Christmas Eve 1:30 AM 2011
I was listening to wife sleep and the dog snore and thinking all these things at a thousand miles an hour and figured if I could just bore myself to death then I could sleep too. So I got up to write it all down.
Enjoy.
In 2007 I was diagnosed with a Chiari 1 malformation. What that means is that the part of my skull where the base of my brain and my brain stem and spinal chord all come together is constricted because by cerebellum is too low in the back of my head. This creates pressure in the area resulting, most commonly, in migraine headaches. I had my first migraine when I was fourteen years old.
For those of you who have never had a migraine this is not the same thing as having a headache. A migraine is when your head declares war on your life. It makes the little things like light, sound, motion, etc intolerable at best and nauseating at worst. The best thing is that when vomiting occurs it makes the migraine worse thus making vomiting more likely... you get the point.
The reason why I found out I had this condition was because I had torn up my right shoulder and by the grace of God the MRI just happened to barely glimpse the malformation thus alerting my doctors to my condition. It was decided shoulder surgery was the more pressing need and so that was performed, most admirably, by a lovely doctor who looked like Cameron from Ferris Bueller's Day Off whose name I cannot remember anymore.
I was scheduled to have the surgery for the Chiari 1 the following winter and was ten days out from my surgical consult on Feb 1 2008 when I was run over in the parking lot at work. Of course being laid up in bed put off the surgery and while I was in the hospital I got a migraine and the nurse gave me tylenol and phenegran for it which cleared it up quite nicely. My surgeon decided that if my headaches, which were still the worst of my symptoms, could be handled with medication then surgery was unnecessary. I figured if a guy who stands to make a not inconsiderable amount of money on me tells me to not do it, then that advice is worth taking.
So for two plus years this was how I dealt with it. I missed more work than I should because I would get bad migraines which would lay me up for a few days at a time. I took sick time some times because of them but I managed to scrape by and be a reasonably productive person. Our family sacrificed vacations etc because I invariably used up that time being ill but my wife, saint that she is, did not complain inordinately, at least not to me. So we pressed on.
Until this year. When even the pain pills stopped working. Understand I don't take codeine or vicodin because I am allergic to them so I have to take non-narcotic pain pills which are little more than really strong tylenol, but they did the trick when needed. This year however they stopped working. My doctor and I began to discuss surgery again and tried to make contact with the surgeon I had before only to be put off again and again before finally being told that he is only a spine specialist now and so would not be able to help me. We switched to another doctor and targeted trying to have the surgery at the turn of the year.
Then in October I slid off the edge with my health.
The first thing I noticed is that I was tired all of the time. No matter how much i slept or how early I went to bed, foreswearing coffee and five hour energy etc I was tired all of the time. Then my migraines got worse. Not only had they been bad all year, but I reached the point where my head hurt all the time no mater what I did. I had a low level headache or migraine at all times and consequently I had even more trouble sleeping because laying down on my hurting head made it hurt worse which made my exhaustion even more pronounced. Then I started forgetting stuff, and I mean really simple things like things at my job that I have known for years I would forget how to do and would sit for a half hour and try to remember how to do. Then I started falling. For no reason I would be walking along and suddenly I would just be on the ground. Now my hands shake, my vision is messed up and my equilibrium is so shot I feel like I'm drunk every time I walk across the room.
The result of this is that I have missed, besides the last three months of my life, a lot, A LOT of time at work and am currently on disability because my doctor doesn't think I am safe to drive a truck and my boss can't give me light duty. Of course my company is not in the habit of paying people to sit on disability while they wait for surgery so who knows if any of this time off will be approved. I sure don't know. My surgery is scheduled for the first week of January and I spend my time mostly hoping for no more setbacks.
And do you know what the worst part is? My sister.
My sister destroyed her back in a work accident when she was nineteen years old. She is now forty-three and is permanently disabled after struggling with this for twenty-three years. She just became disabled in the last year and is now in school so she can get off the government dole. I remember when I walked a little prouder and talked a lot louder how I used to think, "Oh yeah your back hurts... Bitch we got rent to pay!" And now the shoe is on the other foot.
The problem is that you can be sick with anything in this country as long as other people can see it, or have heard of it enough to know it is serious. No one dares call a person with MS or Cancer or HIV lazy because they just can't do the front yard today. But if you are sick with pain... People get headaches and they get backaches but they don't understand that it is possible for pain to take the world away. They don't understand that your body will steal your life and force you to surrender so much ground that you can't even make it to the front door anymore.
I didn't used to, but I do now. I watch my kids play in the yard and I worry terribly about my family's future as I wait for the surgery I hope fixes my illness; wondering what will happen if it doesn't, and I would like to tell you that this has given me new appreciation for Christmas and what it means.
But that's not true.
I am not any more thankful for the love God has shown me than I was before, I couldn't be. And I am not thankful for this trial, I couldn't be. I have no idea what the future holds I just know I'm too tired to hold onto it so I pray.
And I complain a little and write an "O poor me" bit, but I'm done now.
I am very sad and very scared and I feel very alone because there is nothing I can do and consoling words won't fix this. So if you have read this and are the praying sort then please do. And if you know someone who is sick with pain, try to believe them.
I am out of things to say.
God Bless
Merry Christmas
Enjoy.
In 2007 I was diagnosed with a Chiari 1 malformation. What that means is that the part of my skull where the base of my brain and my brain stem and spinal chord all come together is constricted because by cerebellum is too low in the back of my head. This creates pressure in the area resulting, most commonly, in migraine headaches. I had my first migraine when I was fourteen years old.
For those of you who have never had a migraine this is not the same thing as having a headache. A migraine is when your head declares war on your life. It makes the little things like light, sound, motion, etc intolerable at best and nauseating at worst. The best thing is that when vomiting occurs it makes the migraine worse thus making vomiting more likely... you get the point.
The reason why I found out I had this condition was because I had torn up my right shoulder and by the grace of God the MRI just happened to barely glimpse the malformation thus alerting my doctors to my condition. It was decided shoulder surgery was the more pressing need and so that was performed, most admirably, by a lovely doctor who looked like Cameron from Ferris Bueller's Day Off whose name I cannot remember anymore.
I was scheduled to have the surgery for the Chiari 1 the following winter and was ten days out from my surgical consult on Feb 1 2008 when I was run over in the parking lot at work. Of course being laid up in bed put off the surgery and while I was in the hospital I got a migraine and the nurse gave me tylenol and phenegran for it which cleared it up quite nicely. My surgeon decided that if my headaches, which were still the worst of my symptoms, could be handled with medication then surgery was unnecessary. I figured if a guy who stands to make a not inconsiderable amount of money on me tells me to not do it, then that advice is worth taking.
So for two plus years this was how I dealt with it. I missed more work than I should because I would get bad migraines which would lay me up for a few days at a time. I took sick time some times because of them but I managed to scrape by and be a reasonably productive person. Our family sacrificed vacations etc because I invariably used up that time being ill but my wife, saint that she is, did not complain inordinately, at least not to me. So we pressed on.
Until this year. When even the pain pills stopped working. Understand I don't take codeine or vicodin because I am allergic to them so I have to take non-narcotic pain pills which are little more than really strong tylenol, but they did the trick when needed. This year however they stopped working. My doctor and I began to discuss surgery again and tried to make contact with the surgeon I had before only to be put off again and again before finally being told that he is only a spine specialist now and so would not be able to help me. We switched to another doctor and targeted trying to have the surgery at the turn of the year.
Then in October I slid off the edge with my health.
The first thing I noticed is that I was tired all of the time. No matter how much i slept or how early I went to bed, foreswearing coffee and five hour energy etc I was tired all of the time. Then my migraines got worse. Not only had they been bad all year, but I reached the point where my head hurt all the time no mater what I did. I had a low level headache or migraine at all times and consequently I had even more trouble sleeping because laying down on my hurting head made it hurt worse which made my exhaustion even more pronounced. Then I started forgetting stuff, and I mean really simple things like things at my job that I have known for years I would forget how to do and would sit for a half hour and try to remember how to do. Then I started falling. For no reason I would be walking along and suddenly I would just be on the ground. Now my hands shake, my vision is messed up and my equilibrium is so shot I feel like I'm drunk every time I walk across the room.
The result of this is that I have missed, besides the last three months of my life, a lot, A LOT of time at work and am currently on disability because my doctor doesn't think I am safe to drive a truck and my boss can't give me light duty. Of course my company is not in the habit of paying people to sit on disability while they wait for surgery so who knows if any of this time off will be approved. I sure don't know. My surgery is scheduled for the first week of January and I spend my time mostly hoping for no more setbacks.
And do you know what the worst part is? My sister.
My sister destroyed her back in a work accident when she was nineteen years old. She is now forty-three and is permanently disabled after struggling with this for twenty-three years. She just became disabled in the last year and is now in school so she can get off the government dole. I remember when I walked a little prouder and talked a lot louder how I used to think, "Oh yeah your back hurts... Bitch we got rent to pay!" And now the shoe is on the other foot.
The problem is that you can be sick with anything in this country as long as other people can see it, or have heard of it enough to know it is serious. No one dares call a person with MS or Cancer or HIV lazy because they just can't do the front yard today. But if you are sick with pain... People get headaches and they get backaches but they don't understand that it is possible for pain to take the world away. They don't understand that your body will steal your life and force you to surrender so much ground that you can't even make it to the front door anymore.
I didn't used to, but I do now. I watch my kids play in the yard and I worry terribly about my family's future as I wait for the surgery I hope fixes my illness; wondering what will happen if it doesn't, and I would like to tell you that this has given me new appreciation for Christmas and what it means.
But that's not true.
I am not any more thankful for the love God has shown me than I was before, I couldn't be. And I am not thankful for this trial, I couldn't be. I have no idea what the future holds I just know I'm too tired to hold onto it so I pray.
And I complain a little and write an "O poor me" bit, but I'm done now.
I am very sad and very scared and I feel very alone because there is nothing I can do and consoling words won't fix this. So if you have read this and are the praying sort then please do. And if you know someone who is sick with pain, try to believe them.
I am out of things to say.
God Bless
Merry Christmas
Monday, December 19, 2011
Funny Church Signs
I like it when well meaning people say silly things while trying to mean well.
Nothing says holiness and peace quite like this does.
Cuz man have you seen the cost of gas these days.
This one is funny because I found it on a Calvinist website.
I am sure the Almighty appreciates being compared to a soft drink. By the way does God go well with bourbon?
Ever hugged a cactus?
I think this one speaks for itself
When are the martians gonna beam you guys up? This is the THIRD one of these I have seen.
eeeeyeah...
I am not joining this Church
I can't decide what is more insulting...
A) God's love is best expressed with fridge magnets
B) God just might be too poor to buy a fridge.
Merry Christmas
Nothing says holiness and peace quite like this does.
Cuz man have you seen the cost of gas these days.
This one is funny because I found it on a Calvinist website.
I am sure the Almighty appreciates being compared to a soft drink. By the way does God go well with bourbon?
Ever hugged a cactus?
I think this one speaks for itself
When are the martians gonna beam you guys up? This is the THIRD one of these I have seen.
eeeeyeah...
I am not joining this Church
I can't decide what is more insulting...
A) God's love is best expressed with fridge magnets
B) God just might be too poor to buy a fridge.
Merry Christmas
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
What Karma Isn't
Karma noun often capitalized : the force generated by a person's actions held in Hinduism and Buddhism to perpetuate transmigration and in its ethical consequences to determine the nature of the person's next existence
I hear lots of people say things like "Karma's a bitch" when people who do bad things then have some calamity befall them. There is this sort of persistent blending that equates the Bible teaching anything done will paid back seven fold, the old saw of "What goes around comes around, and Karma as though Karma has a place is the Christian vocabulary.
The problem is that Karma (according to the Hindus and Buddhists) is the force which transmigrates the soul. In other it doesn't kick in until after reincarnation.
Or reintarnation if you are coming back as a red neck.
>pause for writer's laughter<
I know this is not original to me but its a funny joke.
So when the person who flips over an innocuous comment, say... oh i don't know, wrecks his car on the way home. It does not mean that Karma has gotten even with him. It means that something he did in his past life is now catching up with him.
Freaking only guarantees he will come back as a deer tick in is next life.
Or ya know an actor.
So anyway I just wanted to drop you all a quick little note to improve religious vocabulary and I hoped this helps.
Have a nice day.
But remember if you do it is because you were a good butterfly in your last life.
C'mon cow....
I hear lots of people say things like "Karma's a bitch" when people who do bad things then have some calamity befall them. There is this sort of persistent blending that equates the Bible teaching anything done will paid back seven fold, the old saw of "What goes around comes around, and Karma as though Karma has a place is the Christian vocabulary.
The problem is that Karma (according to the Hindus and Buddhists) is the force which transmigrates the soul. In other it doesn't kick in until after reincarnation.
Or reintarnation if you are coming back as a red neck.
>pause for writer's laughter<
I know this is not original to me but its a funny joke.
So when the person who flips over an innocuous comment, say... oh i don't know, wrecks his car on the way home. It does not mean that Karma has gotten even with him. It means that something he did in his past life is now catching up with him.
Freaking only guarantees he will come back as a deer tick in is next life.
Or ya know an actor.
So anyway I just wanted to drop you all a quick little note to improve religious vocabulary and I hoped this helps.
Have a nice day.
But remember if you do it is because you were a good butterfly in your last life.
C'mon cow....
Saturday, October 15, 2011
So maybe I will vote... for Obama
I have, for a while now, maintained my steadfast refusal to vote because I think it is an exercise in futility. I have, along with George Carlin, held that if the people voting are selfish and self centered then it is a cinch that those who hold office will be only the ones who will pander to the selfish and self centered. Such people are unworthy to hold office in and thus I had decided to not vote anymore. But I have changed my mind.
The reason why is Rick Perry.
Now anyone who knows me knows that I have a special disliking for the esteemed governor of Texas; a disliking I feel that is well founded and sensible, but it is his decision to run for president which has brought me out of my slough of indifference. It is not that I think I have to vote against him, since it is now apparent that he has no chance to actually gain the nomination, it is rather the reason why he failed to gain the nomination. You see things were going just swimmingly for Governor Good-hair until it came out that he was opposed to the immigration laws in Arizona and Georgia and (gasp) felt that children who grew up in Texas and knew no home other than Texas and thought of themselves as Americans should be allowed to go to college in Texas even if they are brown and spoke Spanish before they learned English. When this came to light he promptly fell from leading the polls to a distant third and his chance of securing the nomination seems to be a distant memory.
The reason why? The TEA party.
The TEA party is running things on the elephant side of the aisle and the shibboleth among that group is immigration law. Make no mistake, I do not mean the common sense sort of measures which hopefully would stem the flow of drugs into our country as well as requiring that those who seek employment here be legal to do so. No. I am talking about the immigration laws in Georgia and Arizona which give the police the right to consider a criminal anyone who might be here illegally. Far apart from acting to deny education, healthcare and tax paying jobs to these people and thus securing for the companies who employ them a slave labor force (which I do think is the corporate impetus behind the bill) I find most reprehensible the allowance in the law which criminalizes all non-anglo people and makes them subject to whim of the police.
And make no mistake, criminalizing non-anglos is the result of these laws. After all if a policeman in San Francisco was searching for illegals there is a greater than zero chance that he would be looking for Asian or Latino people, but he almost certainly would not be searching for Anglos. The same is true in New York, but in Georgia and Arizona, the searching will be almost exclusively for Latinos.
"So what is the problem?" says the TEA Partier, "Aren't the people who are in this country illegally committing a crime?"
Well the answer of course is yes, but the thing is that these laws do not target crime, they target a people group. Since the enforcement of these laws will be centered on skin color rather than deeds the laws are inherently racist. Such laws are evil things and must be resisted by any and all thinking people. After all to target a people group with a law in such a fashion as to criminalize them all is exactly the sort of tactics the Nazis used. Don't blush and say I am over the line here; read your history and see for yourself. This is precisely the sort of thing the Nazis did before they started rounding up the Jews for the ghetto and then later for the camps.
We must be above this.
Another similarity between 1930's Germany and America today is that the dominant religious groups in these states are allowing themselves to be seen hand in hand with candidates who espouse this view. The people who should be complaining loudest about these tactics are placidly going arm in arm with these candidates for the sake of defeating Obama and presumably Roe V. Wade, and that is really the excuse for the church's coddling of the racists; abortion.
But let us have some truth about abortion.
I was born in 1973. Abortion was legal before Roe, but was federalized by Roe in 1972. In my life the presidents who have overseen Roe have been Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan (twice), Bush I, Clinton (twice), Bush II (twice) and Obama. That means of the eleven different possible men to hold the office in my life, it has been held by a Republican seven times. Seven times has a Republican had the bully pulpit to speak loudly against abortion, appoint judges and, in a real sense if not necessarily a Constitutional one, direct the legislative course of the country, and yet abortion remains legal. Furthermore both houses of Congress were controlled by Republicans for twelve years and six of those were with a Republican president in office, and yet abortion remains legal.
"Well Democrats have stood in the way of reform" says the TEA Partier.
Maybe, but I can't help but notice that every time a Republican wants to cut taxes or drop bombs on someone he is able to find the political will to make it happen. And strangely, this same political will has never been mustered in the cause to overturn Roe. Perhaps the reason why is that the political will to overturn Roe does not actually exist, and instead the continuation of the wedge issue is what matters and those who profit from the anger don't actually give a damn about abortion at all.
And therefore I think a person who cares about this country and really thinks that its moral compass will determine its fate far more than its foreign or monetary policies has to ask themselves where the threat to freedom lies. Is it found in those who have a misguided idea about the best way to care for our poor and dispossessed or is it found in those who desire to criminalize people based on their skin color? A people group, incidentally, who would be extremely unlikely to maintain the power structure in states like Georgia and Arizona where a large Latino population endangers the Republican hold on those states. A people group who would be unlikely, if they were empowered by the vote, to maintain the status quo for the Anglos in those states. It seems to me that the TEA party, rather than examining its own policies, have instead decided to legislate away this threat by the marginalizing of this group to insure that they never become a political threat.
Such a ploy is wicked and must be stood against.
For this reason I have changed my mind. I will vote after all. I hope you will too.
The reason why is Rick Perry.
Now anyone who knows me knows that I have a special disliking for the esteemed governor of Texas; a disliking I feel that is well founded and sensible, but it is his decision to run for president which has brought me out of my slough of indifference. It is not that I think I have to vote against him, since it is now apparent that he has no chance to actually gain the nomination, it is rather the reason why he failed to gain the nomination. You see things were going just swimmingly for Governor Good-hair until it came out that he was opposed to the immigration laws in Arizona and Georgia and (gasp) felt that children who grew up in Texas and knew no home other than Texas and thought of themselves as Americans should be allowed to go to college in Texas even if they are brown and spoke Spanish before they learned English. When this came to light he promptly fell from leading the polls to a distant third and his chance of securing the nomination seems to be a distant memory.
The reason why? The TEA party.
The TEA party is running things on the elephant side of the aisle and the shibboleth among that group is immigration law. Make no mistake, I do not mean the common sense sort of measures which hopefully would stem the flow of drugs into our country as well as requiring that those who seek employment here be legal to do so. No. I am talking about the immigration laws in Georgia and Arizona which give the police the right to consider a criminal anyone who might be here illegally. Far apart from acting to deny education, healthcare and tax paying jobs to these people and thus securing for the companies who employ them a slave labor force (which I do think is the corporate impetus behind the bill) I find most reprehensible the allowance in the law which criminalizes all non-anglo people and makes them subject to whim of the police.
And make no mistake, criminalizing non-anglos is the result of these laws. After all if a policeman in San Francisco was searching for illegals there is a greater than zero chance that he would be looking for Asian or Latino people, but he almost certainly would not be searching for Anglos. The same is true in New York, but in Georgia and Arizona, the searching will be almost exclusively for Latinos.
"So what is the problem?" says the TEA Partier, "Aren't the people who are in this country illegally committing a crime?"
Well the answer of course is yes, but the thing is that these laws do not target crime, they target a people group. Since the enforcement of these laws will be centered on skin color rather than deeds the laws are inherently racist. Such laws are evil things and must be resisted by any and all thinking people. After all to target a people group with a law in such a fashion as to criminalize them all is exactly the sort of tactics the Nazis used. Don't blush and say I am over the line here; read your history and see for yourself. This is precisely the sort of thing the Nazis did before they started rounding up the Jews for the ghetto and then later for the camps.
We must be above this.
Another similarity between 1930's Germany and America today is that the dominant religious groups in these states are allowing themselves to be seen hand in hand with candidates who espouse this view. The people who should be complaining loudest about these tactics are placidly going arm in arm with these candidates for the sake of defeating Obama and presumably Roe V. Wade, and that is really the excuse for the church's coddling of the racists; abortion.
But let us have some truth about abortion.
I was born in 1973. Abortion was legal before Roe, but was federalized by Roe in 1972. In my life the presidents who have overseen Roe have been Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan (twice), Bush I, Clinton (twice), Bush II (twice) and Obama. That means of the eleven different possible men to hold the office in my life, it has been held by a Republican seven times. Seven times has a Republican had the bully pulpit to speak loudly against abortion, appoint judges and, in a real sense if not necessarily a Constitutional one, direct the legislative course of the country, and yet abortion remains legal. Furthermore both houses of Congress were controlled by Republicans for twelve years and six of those were with a Republican president in office, and yet abortion remains legal.
"Well Democrats have stood in the way of reform" says the TEA Partier.
Maybe, but I can't help but notice that every time a Republican wants to cut taxes or drop bombs on someone he is able to find the political will to make it happen. And strangely, this same political will has never been mustered in the cause to overturn Roe. Perhaps the reason why is that the political will to overturn Roe does not actually exist, and instead the continuation of the wedge issue is what matters and those who profit from the anger don't actually give a damn about abortion at all.
And therefore I think a person who cares about this country and really thinks that its moral compass will determine its fate far more than its foreign or monetary policies has to ask themselves where the threat to freedom lies. Is it found in those who have a misguided idea about the best way to care for our poor and dispossessed or is it found in those who desire to criminalize people based on their skin color? A people group, incidentally, who would be extremely unlikely to maintain the power structure in states like Georgia and Arizona where a large Latino population endangers the Republican hold on those states. A people group who would be unlikely, if they were empowered by the vote, to maintain the status quo for the Anglos in those states. It seems to me that the TEA party, rather than examining its own policies, have instead decided to legislate away this threat by the marginalizing of this group to insure that they never become a political threat.
Such a ploy is wicked and must be stood against.
For this reason I have changed my mind. I will vote after all. I hope you will too.
Friday, October 7, 2011
Who the TEA partiers Really Are
So I heard this morning that Rick Perry has fallen back in the presidential race because he felt that it was wrong to not allow children who 1.grew up in Texas 2.speak only English 3.identify themselves as Americans and 4.desire to go to college here to attend simply because their parents crossed the border illegally when they were very small. An event btw which many of them have no memory of at all.
SO...
Governor Rick (in perhaps his one moment of clarity) figured that these kids might as well be Americans and if they qualify for school and aid to go then why not let them good.
Well that's all fine and good unless you are a TEA partier and the unspoken plank of your presidential candidate is "BRUTALIZE THE MOTHER!@#$%^& BROWN PEOPLE" which is why Rick, having been asked about his support of this at a debate, is now trailing Mitt Romney.
Gosh I'm glad we have people like the TEA partiers out there protecting our liberty.
Just thinking.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
The Difference Between the First Amendment and Free Speech
The First Amendment
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
There are some folks upset that Hank Williams got fired from ESPN for saying this...
(Obama playing golf with Boehner (republican speaker of the house) would... "be like Hitler playing golf with Netanyahu. They're the enemy!"
A host asked: "Who's the enemy?"
Williams then went on to say: "Are you kiddin? Obama! Biden! The three stooges!"
Apart from the general stupidity of this statement (I would have gone with Ahmadinejad to at least be current) as well as proof positive of what a truly silly sporting event politics has become (DAH DAH that's I don't vote anymore) there is now this foot stomping outrage that ESPN has somehow violated the First Amendment by firing him for this.
The problem is that the amendment never once mentions ESPN or any private corporation for that matter. I work for a large communications company which has us sign a paper warning us that if we disparage the company on Facebook for example we can be fired. What Hank Williams did was say something so incredibly stupid that his employer decided they could not have him or his bad singing be part of their product anymore so they fired him. In so doing they neither violated the First Amendment or his right to free speech.
The reason why is simple.
Go to work tomorrow and call your boss !@#$)(*&^%$$%^&*(*&^%$# and find out in short order just how far your free speech rights extend. Furthermore walk into a crowded movie theatre and scream "fire" and find out whether or not the State can punish you for certain kinds of speech.
The thing I find most striking is that because there are a large number of people who agree with what Hank said there are now folks complaining he has been done wrong without actually bothering to look at what he did. And since the other team wants to defend their star quarterback (sorry president) they will call for his blood even if they only have the foggiest notion of who he is and third hand knowledge of what he said. But since we now play politics instead of govern ourselves that is to be expected. After all if anything is permissible so long as it happens to agree with my opinion then to be surprised by this is dumber than comparing Obama to Hitler and calling him the enemy.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Top Ten Creationist Arguments
So my buddy Todd posted this video on facebook (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSxgnu3Hww8) watch it if you want but I will outline it here. The idea is that there are ten arguments made against atheism and this video is supposed to refute them, in fact on Todd's post it even went so far as to suggest using these counter arguments. I asked Todd if he wanted a reply but he made no answer, of course this is not surprising as he is not on Facebook real often so he probably has not seen it yet. However I have thought about it for a couple of days and decided to reply because I think it is important not only for non-believers but for those who would use these arguments in the way they are presented here.
The top ten are:
1. Carbon Dating
2. Proving evolution
3. Monkeys
4. Human eye
5. Atheism religion
6. Scientist X
7. Chance
8. Christian Nation
9. Thermodynamics
10. Hitler
We'll do them in order but first two definitions.
Ad hominem; an argument which appeals to feelings or prejudices rather than logic usually by attacking an opponent's character rather than his contention.
Straw man argument; a weak or imaginary argument set up to be easily refuted.
The first argument presented in the video is that Christians complain that carbon dating is inaccurate and therefore an unreliable way to date the Earth. The video rightly points out that carbon dating is not the means which is used to try and determine the age of the Earth and that we can be sure that the Earth is something like 4.5 billion years old. The straw man argument here is that all Creationists/Christians believe in a six day creation. The ad hominem is that since all Christians believe in the six day creation they therefore cannot take part in Science which is why they say silly things like, "Carbon dating is used to measure the age of the Earth." Of course I have heard some folks say this arguing against atheism and it always makes me cringe because I do not think the Bible teaches six day creation.
The word used for day in Genesis is "yom" (day) as in "Yom Kippur" (the day of atonement), but the word does not mean necessarily a 24 hour period. Rather it means a period of time which can mean anything from an hour, day, year, time, lifetime, period of time; the word is used in many different ways. I think here the intention of the author is not to explain the Earth was made in six twenty-four days but rather that God (YHWH) made the universe and everything in it. Why do I think this? Simple, the Torah was not written for skeptical 21st century scientists but rather to a group of people who had just left Egypt for the desert. They had been a culture for 400 years which taught the universe was birthed by the great celestial cow (btw did anyone notice the first idol they made was a calf? That was not coincidence) and Moses is writing to tell them that the Egyptian gods are no gods at all. Rather the universe and everything in it was made by the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob and this God had sent Moses to them to lead them to Canaan. Therefore the creation account in Genesis is not, was not intended to be, and should never be thought of as an exhaustive scientific treatment on Creation. Rather it is a social/political document intended to serve as the foundation for the body politic of Israel. Which is exactly what it did. So to say that "All Christians believe in a six day Creation and the carbon dating is how we measure the Earth's age," is demonstrably false and as such point one is invalid.
Two. When it comes to proving evolution the majority report among the scientific community is that evolution is how all life came to be. However it is by no means the exclusive report. In fact as more study is done more people are becoming persuaded of the intelligent design model of the universe. However the video declares that evolution is settled proven science, but doesn't actually say why. So to argue this way is to say, "Evolution is settled science and therefore it does not need to be defended beyond the assertion that it is settled science." This is roughly akin to saying, "I know there is a God because the Bible tells me so and the Bible is the word of God." Another definition? Circular argument; an argument which assumes the truth of the conclusion and uses the conclusion to prove the assertion. And so goes step two.
The third is "Christians ask if we evolved from monkeys why are there still monkeys?" and then says "This is like saying if we came from England then why is there still England?" The problem is that this equivocates on what the phrase "came from" means. Equivocate; to change the definition of a word or phrase to suit one's argument. No one seriously believes that when we leave our homes for work or play that our home spontaneously ceases to exist until we return, and yet that is exactly the ad hominem which is used against the Creationists on this point. Also to evolve from one sort of creature over hundreds of thousands or millions of years is different than sailing across the ocean. Furthermore the whole idea of natural selection is that when a favorable adaptation comes along the species which adapts better to environmental pressures is able to supersede the non-adapted species and therefore is able to better breed/hunt/compete often resulting in extinction of the other. So the definition of "came from" is changed and thus the argument against the Creationist argument falls on its head. Furthermore no one is saying that we evolved from chimps, rather that we and chimps would share a common ancestor. An ancestor btw which is conspicuously absent from the fossil record.
The fourth point focuses on the human eye, but it centers around the idea of irreducible complexity. Darwinian Evolution argues that complex systems build slowly over time passing from one state of usefulness to the next until a fully formed eye for example is formed. Now it is important to remember that natural selection tells us that mutations which are not beneficial pass away because other members of a specie are able to use different mutations to their advantage and so cause those without the mutation to become extinct. The problem for the eye is that eyes are not good for much except for seeing. So if an eye has to develop over time a filled sack, a lens, an iris, rods, cones and an optic nerve then all of these things would have to form at the same time and rate because an eye is not much good without them. Thus the eye is irreducibly complex. The video however just points out that not everything which detects light uses an eye which apart from being startling startling example of the obvious says nothing whatever to gainsay the irreducible complexity of the eye itself. Of course then it complains that the human eye is somewhat lacking when compared to eyes of octopi, but of course this also says nothing about the irreducible complexity of the eye. It just says the narrator would have done it differently.
Next the video denies that atheism is not a religion because atheists do not believe in God. However religion is not a belief in God only, but psychologically it is a worldview which explains the universe around us, how we fit into it and where we come from. This is called a heuristic device and there is a wonderful book called Did the Greeks Believe in Their Myths by Paul Veyne which explores this in depth. For this point of view, that religion is a heuristic device, atheism absolutely is a religion and science is its dogma.
Then we are told that the vast majority of scientists do not believe in God and the video, without actually saying so, hints that those who do are a little weird citing Newton and alchemy as an example. Of course no one's belief in God makes God real anymore than unbelief makes God real so to cite the argument of "Scientist X is a theist" in reverse as a means to disprove the existence of God is to commit the same logical error about which the video complains. Furthermore I think that our narrator would not desire to set aside the findings of the human genome project because its director is a theist, even if that did make him weird, so the argument is a little hypocritical.
Next the video tells us that Creationists complain that chance is the driving force behind natural selection and that can't be so. Then the video tells us that it is not chance, but rather chance plus lots and lots of time. Here's the thing. There is no such thing as chance as a causative force. Chance cannot cause anything to happen because there is no such thing as chance. Chance is the measure of human ignorance of the odds. For example if you play poker you are not playing a game of chance. You do not get your cards by chance, you get them by the order in which they were shuffled divided by the number of players and in relation to your position to the dealer. Since chance, at best, is a short hand phrase for mathematical probability it therefore cannot do anything because it has no being, will or power and thus cannot cause anything to happen. So the narrator is saying that nothing plus lots and lots of time causes everything. Do I really need to say more?
America's not a Christian nation, neither are it documents Christian and many of its founders were not Christian, however since this is really just a restating of the "Scientist X" argument it holds no water either and for the same reason no matter which way you argue it.
The four laws of thermodynamics are;
Zeroth's Law "If system A are in thermal equilibrium with system C then they are also in thermal equilibrium with each other."
1) Increase in energy in an internal system = heat supplied + work
2) When two systems are near but separate and are allowed to interact with each other they will reach thermal equilibrium. The total entropy of the two systems will be less than or equal to the final combination
3) The entropy of a perfect Crystal at absolute zero is zero.
There took about ten second to find them on wikipedia. However since the process of entropy causes complex systems break down as they achieve equilibrium with the surrounding space it is fair to say that entropy destroys it does not build. So while it is true of closed systems, it still applies to things like the sun and earth because entropy tells us that eventually these systems will reach 0 energy no matter how complex they are now. In other words entropy does not build even if liberally salted with chance and time.
Finally the Hitler argument. This is the third stating of "Scientist X" argument, but whatever. For the narrator to complain that Creationists say that Hitler was an atheist and then argue that he was Catholic is dishonesty at its absolute finest. Furthermore Hitler's greatest intellectual influence was Nietzsche who absolutely was an atheist. Nietzsche further taught that since there was no God there was foundation for truth or morality and that life was meaningless. Therefore the existential hero was "das uber mensch" (the super man) who strove for power and meaning in the here and now even though ultimately these things did not exist. Hitler embraced this philosophy we know because he handed out copies of Thus Spake Zarathustra to his cronies who would one day form the leadership elite of the Nazi Party. We also know these men were deeply influenced by it because the existing writings of Goebbels, Himmler, Hess, Goering, etc tell us plainly that they were. Seeing as how Nietzsche was an avowed atheist and the fundamental underpinning philosophy of the Nazi movement was Nietzschean in its orientation it seems strange to object to the claim that Hitler was an atheist.
However it it is neither a proof for or against the existence of God whether Hitler was an atheist or not. So the point is moot.
There are a lot of people who will say very silly things to try and prove the existence of God, but to broad brush all Christians with these strokes is not to argue against the existence of God at all, but rather to argue against the silly arguments of some Christians. In other words the thinking atheist would appear to be nothing of the sort.
The top ten are:
1. Carbon Dating
2. Proving evolution
3. Monkeys
4. Human eye
5. Atheism religion
6. Scientist X
7. Chance
8. Christian Nation
9. Thermodynamics
10. Hitler
We'll do them in order but first two definitions.
Ad hominem; an argument which appeals to feelings or prejudices rather than logic usually by attacking an opponent's character rather than his contention.
Straw man argument; a weak or imaginary argument set up to be easily refuted.
The first argument presented in the video is that Christians complain that carbon dating is inaccurate and therefore an unreliable way to date the Earth. The video rightly points out that carbon dating is not the means which is used to try and determine the age of the Earth and that we can be sure that the Earth is something like 4.5 billion years old. The straw man argument here is that all Creationists/Christians believe in a six day creation. The ad hominem is that since all Christians believe in the six day creation they therefore cannot take part in Science which is why they say silly things like, "Carbon dating is used to measure the age of the Earth." Of course I have heard some folks say this arguing against atheism and it always makes me cringe because I do not think the Bible teaches six day creation.
The word used for day in Genesis is "yom" (day) as in "Yom Kippur" (the day of atonement), but the word does not mean necessarily a 24 hour period. Rather it means a period of time which can mean anything from an hour, day, year, time, lifetime, period of time; the word is used in many different ways. I think here the intention of the author is not to explain the Earth was made in six twenty-four days but rather that God (YHWH) made the universe and everything in it. Why do I think this? Simple, the Torah was not written for skeptical 21st century scientists but rather to a group of people who had just left Egypt for the desert. They had been a culture for 400 years which taught the universe was birthed by the great celestial cow (btw did anyone notice the first idol they made was a calf? That was not coincidence) and Moses is writing to tell them that the Egyptian gods are no gods at all. Rather the universe and everything in it was made by the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob and this God had sent Moses to them to lead them to Canaan. Therefore the creation account in Genesis is not, was not intended to be, and should never be thought of as an exhaustive scientific treatment on Creation. Rather it is a social/political document intended to serve as the foundation for the body politic of Israel. Which is exactly what it did. So to say that "All Christians believe in a six day Creation and the carbon dating is how we measure the Earth's age," is demonstrably false and as such point one is invalid.
Two. When it comes to proving evolution the majority report among the scientific community is that evolution is how all life came to be. However it is by no means the exclusive report. In fact as more study is done more people are becoming persuaded of the intelligent design model of the universe. However the video declares that evolution is settled proven science, but doesn't actually say why. So to argue this way is to say, "Evolution is settled science and therefore it does not need to be defended beyond the assertion that it is settled science." This is roughly akin to saying, "I know there is a God because the Bible tells me so and the Bible is the word of God." Another definition? Circular argument; an argument which assumes the truth of the conclusion and uses the conclusion to prove the assertion. And so goes step two.
The third is "Christians ask if we evolved from monkeys why are there still monkeys?" and then says "This is like saying if we came from England then why is there still England?" The problem is that this equivocates on what the phrase "came from" means. Equivocate; to change the definition of a word or phrase to suit one's argument. No one seriously believes that when we leave our homes for work or play that our home spontaneously ceases to exist until we return, and yet that is exactly the ad hominem which is used against the Creationists on this point. Also to evolve from one sort of creature over hundreds of thousands or millions of years is different than sailing across the ocean. Furthermore the whole idea of natural selection is that when a favorable adaptation comes along the species which adapts better to environmental pressures is able to supersede the non-adapted species and therefore is able to better breed/hunt/compete often resulting in extinction of the other. So the definition of "came from" is changed and thus the argument against the Creationist argument falls on its head. Furthermore no one is saying that we evolved from chimps, rather that we and chimps would share a common ancestor. An ancestor btw which is conspicuously absent from the fossil record.
The fourth point focuses on the human eye, but it centers around the idea of irreducible complexity. Darwinian Evolution argues that complex systems build slowly over time passing from one state of usefulness to the next until a fully formed eye for example is formed. Now it is important to remember that natural selection tells us that mutations which are not beneficial pass away because other members of a specie are able to use different mutations to their advantage and so cause those without the mutation to become extinct. The problem for the eye is that eyes are not good for much except for seeing. So if an eye has to develop over time a filled sack, a lens, an iris, rods, cones and an optic nerve then all of these things would have to form at the same time and rate because an eye is not much good without them. Thus the eye is irreducibly complex. The video however just points out that not everything which detects light uses an eye which apart from being startling startling example of the obvious says nothing whatever to gainsay the irreducible complexity of the eye itself. Of course then it complains that the human eye is somewhat lacking when compared to eyes of octopi, but of course this also says nothing about the irreducible complexity of the eye. It just says the narrator would have done it differently.
Next the video denies that atheism is not a religion because atheists do not believe in God. However religion is not a belief in God only, but psychologically it is a worldview which explains the universe around us, how we fit into it and where we come from. This is called a heuristic device and there is a wonderful book called Did the Greeks Believe in Their Myths by Paul Veyne which explores this in depth. For this point of view, that religion is a heuristic device, atheism absolutely is a religion and science is its dogma.
Then we are told that the vast majority of scientists do not believe in God and the video, without actually saying so, hints that those who do are a little weird citing Newton and alchemy as an example. Of course no one's belief in God makes God real anymore than unbelief makes God real so to cite the argument of "Scientist X is a theist" in reverse as a means to disprove the existence of God is to commit the same logical error about which the video complains. Furthermore I think that our narrator would not desire to set aside the findings of the human genome project because its director is a theist, even if that did make him weird, so the argument is a little hypocritical.
Next the video tells us that Creationists complain that chance is the driving force behind natural selection and that can't be so. Then the video tells us that it is not chance, but rather chance plus lots and lots of time. Here's the thing. There is no such thing as chance as a causative force. Chance cannot cause anything to happen because there is no such thing as chance. Chance is the measure of human ignorance of the odds. For example if you play poker you are not playing a game of chance. You do not get your cards by chance, you get them by the order in which they were shuffled divided by the number of players and in relation to your position to the dealer. Since chance, at best, is a short hand phrase for mathematical probability it therefore cannot do anything because it has no being, will or power and thus cannot cause anything to happen. So the narrator is saying that nothing plus lots and lots of time causes everything. Do I really need to say more?
America's not a Christian nation, neither are it documents Christian and many of its founders were not Christian, however since this is really just a restating of the "Scientist X" argument it holds no water either and for the same reason no matter which way you argue it.
The four laws of thermodynamics are;
Zeroth's Law "If system A are in thermal equilibrium with system C then they are also in thermal equilibrium with each other."
1) Increase in energy in an internal system = heat supplied + work
2) When two systems are near but separate and are allowed to interact with each other they will reach thermal equilibrium. The total entropy of the two systems will be less than or equal to the final combination
3) The entropy of a perfect Crystal at absolute zero is zero.
There took about ten second to find them on wikipedia. However since the process of entropy causes complex systems break down as they achieve equilibrium with the surrounding space it is fair to say that entropy destroys it does not build. So while it is true of closed systems, it still applies to things like the sun and earth because entropy tells us that eventually these systems will reach 0 energy no matter how complex they are now. In other words entropy does not build even if liberally salted with chance and time.
Finally the Hitler argument. This is the third stating of "Scientist X" argument, but whatever. For the narrator to complain that Creationists say that Hitler was an atheist and then argue that he was Catholic is dishonesty at its absolute finest. Furthermore Hitler's greatest intellectual influence was Nietzsche who absolutely was an atheist. Nietzsche further taught that since there was no God there was foundation for truth or morality and that life was meaningless. Therefore the existential hero was "das uber mensch" (the super man) who strove for power and meaning in the here and now even though ultimately these things did not exist. Hitler embraced this philosophy we know because he handed out copies of Thus Spake Zarathustra to his cronies who would one day form the leadership elite of the Nazi Party. We also know these men were deeply influenced by it because the existing writings of Goebbels, Himmler, Hess, Goering, etc tell us plainly that they were. Seeing as how Nietzsche was an avowed atheist and the fundamental underpinning philosophy of the Nazi movement was Nietzschean in its orientation it seems strange to object to the claim that Hitler was an atheist.
However it it is neither a proof for or against the existence of God whether Hitler was an atheist or not. So the point is moot.
There are a lot of people who will say very silly things to try and prove the existence of God, but to broad brush all Christians with these strokes is not to argue against the existence of God at all, but rather to argue against the silly arguments of some Christians. In other words the thinking atheist would appear to be nothing of the sort.
Friday, August 12, 2011
Rick Perry? For Real! Rick Perry?!
There is a very fundamental distinction between an error and a lie.
When George W. Bush told us that he believed that there were wmd in Iraq and that he sent men men there because of it I believe him. I believe him because I think Bush is a conscionable man. I believe he saw what he wanted to see, heard what he wanted to hear and surrounded himself with yes men and consequently committed a gaff of epic proportions in nearly every way, but I don't think he lied.
lie (v); to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive.
To lie is to say something that you know to be untrue for express purpose of subverting the truth. To err is to believe one thing to be true and misjudge or act upon bad information resulting in a mistake. Another fine example would be the democrats believing that after Bush fatigue had settled in that the election of Obama was a mandate to federalize healthcare with the blessing of the American people. You see that was a mistake.
However...
Rick Perry ran for re-election saying that his leadership had led to a balanced budget. Of course as soon as he was re-elected he promptly announced that in fact the state was 15B in debt and he planned to pay for it by closing schools and cutting off finding for police, firemen, etc. Now you see that's a lie.
Some Perry moments of amazing leadership...
Taking the stage and hinting that Texas would secede if healthcare legislation passed.
Declaring that Texas would take no filthy lucre from the federalies while actually taking the federal money and using to disguise the budget shortfall in Texas during his re-election campaign.
Disgracing Kay Bailey Hutchinson by calling her a big spending Washington insider who was soft on abortion, and then (as soon as he had won the primary) asking her to stay in Washington because Texas needed leadership like hers on the national stage.
Planning to use imminent domain to seize millions of acres of private land to build a toll highway from Mexico to Kansas City so Wal Mart can circumvent child labor laws.
Contracting the construction of said road to a Spanish contracter and thus cutting the local boys out of the loop.
Declaring that we need to punish those horrible criminal illegal aliens all the while declaring that we must roll back regulations on the companies who hire them.
Ordering the state's attorney general to sue the EPA when the agency threatened to cut off highway funding because Texas air was so bad.
Complaining about filthy federal money while suing the feds to keep it coming.
Ordering the attorney general to counter sue the plaintiffs on behalf of energy companies when lawsuits were brought against gas drilling firms because of an outrageous spike in child lukemia in neighborhoods near drilling sites.
I gotta tell you folks, if Perry is the nominee for the Republicans...
I'm voting for Obama.
When George W. Bush told us that he believed that there were wmd in Iraq and that he sent men men there because of it I believe him. I believe him because I think Bush is a conscionable man. I believe he saw what he wanted to see, heard what he wanted to hear and surrounded himself with yes men and consequently committed a gaff of epic proportions in nearly every way, but I don't think he lied.
lie (v); to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive.
To lie is to say something that you know to be untrue for express purpose of subverting the truth. To err is to believe one thing to be true and misjudge or act upon bad information resulting in a mistake. Another fine example would be the democrats believing that after Bush fatigue had settled in that the election of Obama was a mandate to federalize healthcare with the blessing of the American people. You see that was a mistake.
However...
Rick Perry ran for re-election saying that his leadership had led to a balanced budget. Of course as soon as he was re-elected he promptly announced that in fact the state was 15B in debt and he planned to pay for it by closing schools and cutting off finding for police, firemen, etc. Now you see that's a lie.
Some Perry moments of amazing leadership...
Taking the stage and hinting that Texas would secede if healthcare legislation passed.
Declaring that Texas would take no filthy lucre from the federalies while actually taking the federal money and using to disguise the budget shortfall in Texas during his re-election campaign.
Disgracing Kay Bailey Hutchinson by calling her a big spending Washington insider who was soft on abortion, and then (as soon as he had won the primary) asking her to stay in Washington because Texas needed leadership like hers on the national stage.
Planning to use imminent domain to seize millions of acres of private land to build a toll highway from Mexico to Kansas City so Wal Mart can circumvent child labor laws.
Contracting the construction of said road to a Spanish contracter and thus cutting the local boys out of the loop.
Declaring that we need to punish those horrible criminal illegal aliens all the while declaring that we must roll back regulations on the companies who hire them.
Ordering the state's attorney general to sue the EPA when the agency threatened to cut off highway funding because Texas air was so bad.
Complaining about filthy federal money while suing the feds to keep it coming.
Ordering the attorney general to counter sue the plaintiffs on behalf of energy companies when lawsuits were brought against gas drilling firms because of an outrageous spike in child lukemia in neighborhoods near drilling sites.
I gotta tell you folks, if Perry is the nominee for the Republicans...
I'm voting for Obama.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
The jobs are not coming back, but we are not doomed.
I want to tell you a story about Laura. Laura went to work for telecommunications company x in 1978. Her job at tcx was to file paperwork to reflect record changes from hands who were working in the field. She and 5-10 others had this job at the office covering the area where she worked. As time passed her job was centralized to cover a larger area, then a state and as technology and computers advanced she covered more and more.
Laura no longer works at tcx though not for any blame to anyone. However the job she did still exists. Only now it is done in one office for the entire nation. There is no longer paperwork to be filed it is all handled by computers. The techs in the field do not rely on calling a person to reflect changes anymore rather this is handled by the tech working on his own computer which he carried with him. So a job which used to be handled by a few employees at the hundreds/thousands of offices around the nation is now handled at one office.
Is this because tcx is evil and wants to be rid of employees? No. It is because technology and computer advancements allow tcx to provide an ever expanding base of services to more and more people for less money. Which is what the consumers want.
Point?
I was listening to NPR today and there was a panel of guests who were trying to explain how this program or tax plan would create jobs or the removal of that program and rolling back of those taxes would create jobs, and it struck me that these people are wrong. All seemed to agree that the problem worldwide is chronically high unemployment, but their great ways to solve the problem are empty because they are based on assumptions which were true thirty years ago. There are some who complain that our problem is that we have shipped manufacturing overseas and have driven farmers out of business and have become a service economy which is not rebuilding its infrastructure etc etc. These are all true in my opinion. However even if we did all of these things unemployment would still be 10% and growing ever higher.
The reason why is that even if we were to reopen steel mills in Pennsylvania the unemployed would not be rehired. The work which used to be done by men operating cranes would now be done by computer programed cranes which would do the work more safely, more efficiently and cheaper. If foreign automaker 'Y' were to come here and buy and retool every plant which has been closed by Detroit's "Big Three", the retooling would make obsolete many of the jobs the unemployed autoworkers would be hoping to fill. The same is true of road construction, office jobs such as record keeping etc, large scale manufacturing of any sort on and on. We The People demand goods and services at such a cheap rate that they must be manufactured by cheap labor elsewhere to accomodate us. The net result of this is that the wage structure for American workers deteriorates year after year. At some point it will be low enough that manufacturing will return to our shores, but when it does the jobs will go to high tech engineers and not wrench tuners.
In other words even if the tax thing does this and the manufacturing thing does that and the government program does the other thing the jobs will still not come back because the middle class blue collar worker is obsolete. His job is done faster, cheaper and better by a machine, and the buying public will not tolerate him anymore. Consequently the long hoped for return of good paying jobs that will allow a man to feed his family are not coming. The hope is based on a vapor and a dream that died when I was still a child.
However hope is not lost. The answer lies not in large scale government/industry programs but in self reliance and local economy. A group of people who are determined to grow their own food and trade for goods and services with the people who are their neighbors have no need for the pie in the sky age to come when everything will revert to 1965. A family that makes it own clothes, grows its own food, tends keeps and sells its animals to its neighbors does not have to worry if the government shutdown is going to prevent the food stamp or social security check from coming. Of course this will mean a great rethink on the American Dream, but hopefully enough people will realize that the dream has died and a new one must take its place. I think it can, but not if we insist on long gone models which are failing everywhere in the Western World.
So yeah I had this happy thought today and wanted to share it with you. I really do think it can be a happy thought if we will just learn to change our way of thinking.
Have a nice day.
Laura no longer works at tcx though not for any blame to anyone. However the job she did still exists. Only now it is done in one office for the entire nation. There is no longer paperwork to be filed it is all handled by computers. The techs in the field do not rely on calling a person to reflect changes anymore rather this is handled by the tech working on his own computer which he carried with him. So a job which used to be handled by a few employees at the hundreds/thousands of offices around the nation is now handled at one office.
Is this because tcx is evil and wants to be rid of employees? No. It is because technology and computer advancements allow tcx to provide an ever expanding base of services to more and more people for less money. Which is what the consumers want.
Point?
I was listening to NPR today and there was a panel of guests who were trying to explain how this program or tax plan would create jobs or the removal of that program and rolling back of those taxes would create jobs, and it struck me that these people are wrong. All seemed to agree that the problem worldwide is chronically high unemployment, but their great ways to solve the problem are empty because they are based on assumptions which were true thirty years ago. There are some who complain that our problem is that we have shipped manufacturing overseas and have driven farmers out of business and have become a service economy which is not rebuilding its infrastructure etc etc. These are all true in my opinion. However even if we did all of these things unemployment would still be 10% and growing ever higher.
The reason why is that even if we were to reopen steel mills in Pennsylvania the unemployed would not be rehired. The work which used to be done by men operating cranes would now be done by computer programed cranes which would do the work more safely, more efficiently and cheaper. If foreign automaker 'Y' were to come here and buy and retool every plant which has been closed by Detroit's "Big Three", the retooling would make obsolete many of the jobs the unemployed autoworkers would be hoping to fill. The same is true of road construction, office jobs such as record keeping etc, large scale manufacturing of any sort on and on. We The People demand goods and services at such a cheap rate that they must be manufactured by cheap labor elsewhere to accomodate us. The net result of this is that the wage structure for American workers deteriorates year after year. At some point it will be low enough that manufacturing will return to our shores, but when it does the jobs will go to high tech engineers and not wrench tuners.
In other words even if the tax thing does this and the manufacturing thing does that and the government program does the other thing the jobs will still not come back because the middle class blue collar worker is obsolete. His job is done faster, cheaper and better by a machine, and the buying public will not tolerate him anymore. Consequently the long hoped for return of good paying jobs that will allow a man to feed his family are not coming. The hope is based on a vapor and a dream that died when I was still a child.
However hope is not lost. The answer lies not in large scale government/industry programs but in self reliance and local economy. A group of people who are determined to grow their own food and trade for goods and services with the people who are their neighbors have no need for the pie in the sky age to come when everything will revert to 1965. A family that makes it own clothes, grows its own food, tends keeps and sells its animals to its neighbors does not have to worry if the government shutdown is going to prevent the food stamp or social security check from coming. Of course this will mean a great rethink on the American Dream, but hopefully enough people will realize that the dream has died and a new one must take its place. I think it can, but not if we insist on long gone models which are failing everywhere in the Western World.
So yeah I had this happy thought today and wanted to share it with you. I really do think it can be a happy thought if we will just learn to change our way of thinking.
Have a nice day.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
The Danger of Cause-Head-ism
Tennessee Ernie Ford sang a song that I think was called "Fifteen Tons".
Ya move fifteen tons and what do ya get?
Another year older and deeper in debt
St Peter don't ya call me cuz I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store.
The song is about the plight of the coal miners in Appalachia in the early 20th century. Coal companies would hire people to work the mines and since these were almost always in very remote areas they would provide housing for the miners for a cost. Basically the miners had to buy their houses from the coal company. The general store was also owned by the coal company as was everything else the miners needed to have but could not produce for themselves. However the companies were careful to have the pricing structure established far above fair prices to ensure that the miners would always be just a little short on their pay and consequently they would borrow money from the company which would be paid out to them in loans notes or coins called "scrip". The miners would borrow money in scrip and would then have it deducted from their pay the end result being that the miners would not only pay all of their wages back to the coal companies but would also borrow money from their employer resulting in a workforce which was not only unpaid but also forever in debt to the company.
The practice is now illegal in America.
However Wal Mart keeps the practice going in other parts of the world, such as China, where workers are compelled to live in company housing and repay to Wal Mart all of their wages which they earn producing textiles for American markets. The workers either live in the company housing or have the cost of doing so deducted from their pay to ensure that they are unable to do anything other than to subsist.
But hey t-shirts at the wally world are $10 for the back-to-school sale.
OK I know I have b---hed about this before but I want to point something out.
I have two friends who recently pointed out to me how much they love Wal Mart while at the same time boldly wearing their cause in direct contradiction to this practice.
The first was a person who declared that Wal Mart was good and Target was bad because Wal Mart was selling the Lady Gaga CD and Target was not. This person took this as a slur against gays, and for all I know it was, and recommended that people should therefore shop at Wal Mart.
The next person was raging against illegal immigrants and how they are hurting the economy and America's workforce as well as putting undue strain on our already over taxed healthcare system.
First. Are we to understand that there is a moral equivalency between Lady Gaga CD's and slavery? If you are so devoted to your cause, and hey I think gay rights is a good one, that you are willing to overlook the grossly evil practices of Wal Mart around the world for the sake of your pet issue being pandered to then you have just given everyone else reason to completely disregard your cause. Because you, by your stance, are declaring loud and clear that you don't actually care about right and wrong you just want your way and damn the consequences. Also Wal Mart has so pathologically discriminated against women that the employees of Wal Mart actually won a class action judgement against the company for sex discrimination. But that somehow is OK too.
So if I get this right, then we are to believe that evil employment practices and discrimination are to be tolerated just so long as it is not I who am being discriminated against, right?
Second. Wal Mart is the largest employer in the USofA and has a long established practice of refusing to pay benefits to their employees. They systematically keep the work hours beneath the threshold where they would be required by law to offer these benefits. Furthermore any and all attempts to unionize Wal Mart have been met with swift and harsh retribution which is why all the meat in Wal Mart is now pre-packaged and there are no butchers there anymore. The result is that the employees of the largest employer in America are forced to to take remedial pay without benefit. This means that they will have to apply for every social aid program which comes down the pike in spite of their employment which means that the free lunches, breakfasts, books, shoes etc that go to schools in your neighborhood probably are not just for illegal brown people but for the children of the person ringing up your milk at Wal Mart. Also the long lines at the emergency rooms and free clinics are also made longer by the persistent refusal of Wal Mart to care for its employees or their children by providing benefits which a generation ago were the norm. And, thanks to Nafta, the subsidized sugar, corn, grain etc which flows freely over our southern border into Mexico has destroyed the agriculture industry in Mexico resulting in the massive influx of dispossessed people coming to America looking for anything to do at all and the having to take the remedial jobs (which apparently are destroying our economy I guess) such as working at Wal Mart which means that their kids are seeking free lunch and free medicine every time they get sick.
So if you have a cause about which you are passionate, and hey passion is good, and you shop at Wal mart, just know that every dollar you spend their either directly or indirectly contravenes your cause in some way and also contributes to evil probably far greater than the one you are trying to prevent.
So try and remember that the next time you plunk down $200 at Wal Mart and b--ch the checker doesn't speak English.
Just thinking.
Ya move fifteen tons and what do ya get?
Another year older and deeper in debt
St Peter don't ya call me cuz I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store.
The song is about the plight of the coal miners in Appalachia in the early 20th century. Coal companies would hire people to work the mines and since these were almost always in very remote areas they would provide housing for the miners for a cost. Basically the miners had to buy their houses from the coal company. The general store was also owned by the coal company as was everything else the miners needed to have but could not produce for themselves. However the companies were careful to have the pricing structure established far above fair prices to ensure that the miners would always be just a little short on their pay and consequently they would borrow money from the company which would be paid out to them in loans notes or coins called "scrip". The miners would borrow money in scrip and would then have it deducted from their pay the end result being that the miners would not only pay all of their wages back to the coal companies but would also borrow money from their employer resulting in a workforce which was not only unpaid but also forever in debt to the company.
The practice is now illegal in America.
However Wal Mart keeps the practice going in other parts of the world, such as China, where workers are compelled to live in company housing and repay to Wal Mart all of their wages which they earn producing textiles for American markets. The workers either live in the company housing or have the cost of doing so deducted from their pay to ensure that they are unable to do anything other than to subsist.
But hey t-shirts at the wally world are $10 for the back-to-school sale.
OK I know I have b---hed about this before but I want to point something out.
I have two friends who recently pointed out to me how much they love Wal Mart while at the same time boldly wearing their cause in direct contradiction to this practice.
The first was a person who declared that Wal Mart was good and Target was bad because Wal Mart was selling the Lady Gaga CD and Target was not. This person took this as a slur against gays, and for all I know it was, and recommended that people should therefore shop at Wal Mart.
The next person was raging against illegal immigrants and how they are hurting the economy and America's workforce as well as putting undue strain on our already over taxed healthcare system.
First. Are we to understand that there is a moral equivalency between Lady Gaga CD's and slavery? If you are so devoted to your cause, and hey I think gay rights is a good one, that you are willing to overlook the grossly evil practices of Wal Mart around the world for the sake of your pet issue being pandered to then you have just given everyone else reason to completely disregard your cause. Because you, by your stance, are declaring loud and clear that you don't actually care about right and wrong you just want your way and damn the consequences. Also Wal Mart has so pathologically discriminated against women that the employees of Wal Mart actually won a class action judgement against the company for sex discrimination. But that somehow is OK too.
So if I get this right, then we are to believe that evil employment practices and discrimination are to be tolerated just so long as it is not I who am being discriminated against, right?
Second. Wal Mart is the largest employer in the USofA and has a long established practice of refusing to pay benefits to their employees. They systematically keep the work hours beneath the threshold where they would be required by law to offer these benefits. Furthermore any and all attempts to unionize Wal Mart have been met with swift and harsh retribution which is why all the meat in Wal Mart is now pre-packaged and there are no butchers there anymore. The result is that the employees of the largest employer in America are forced to to take remedial pay without benefit. This means that they will have to apply for every social aid program which comes down the pike in spite of their employment which means that the free lunches, breakfasts, books, shoes etc that go to schools in your neighborhood probably are not just for illegal brown people but for the children of the person ringing up your milk at Wal Mart. Also the long lines at the emergency rooms and free clinics are also made longer by the persistent refusal of Wal Mart to care for its employees or their children by providing benefits which a generation ago were the norm. And, thanks to Nafta, the subsidized sugar, corn, grain etc which flows freely over our southern border into Mexico has destroyed the agriculture industry in Mexico resulting in the massive influx of dispossessed people coming to America looking for anything to do at all and the having to take the remedial jobs (which apparently are destroying our economy I guess) such as working at Wal Mart which means that their kids are seeking free lunch and free medicine every time they get sick.
So if you have a cause about which you are passionate, and hey passion is good, and you shop at Wal mart, just know that every dollar you spend their either directly or indirectly contravenes your cause in some way and also contributes to evil probably far greater than the one you are trying to prevent.
So try and remember that the next time you plunk down $200 at Wal Mart and b--ch the checker doesn't speak English.
Just thinking.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
John 8; 2-11
Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst they said to him, "Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?" This they said to test him, 6that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her." And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus stood up and said to her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" She said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more."
We all know this story, at least those of us who have any knowledge of the life of Jesus of Nazareth. I am writing about this very well worn story because I think it is understood (and therefore also taught) incorrectly.
The way the teaching usually goes is this. Jesus is teaching in the Temple and the Pharisees come and place this woman before Him who was caught in the very act of adultery. Then the question is posed concerning the Law of Moses. The dilemma here is that if Jesus says to stone her then He has violated Roman authority by commanding an execution for a crime which was a right reserved by the Empire for itself. Vassal kingdoms could administer laws as they saw fit but could not execute anyone. If a capital crime was committed then the procurator/governor would have to be brought in to determine whether or not the criminal could be executed. However if Jesus declares they not stone her, because of Roman Law, then He would be saying de facto that a; Rome's authority was higher than Moses' or b; that Moses' Law needed to be set aside because stoning people for adultery was just a little harsh, and therefore they could accuse Jesus of not honoring Moses and thus discredit Him. Therefore they brought this woman to present Him with an inescapable dilemma. But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, instead knelt down and scribbled in the dirt. Now this dirt writing is really important because it made the accusers drop their stones and run away shame faced. Because of this most teachers say that Jesus was either scribbling the Law, which the Pharisees knew they were guilty under, or He was scribbling specific sins which He knew they had committed because He was God after all. Once everyone leaves He then asks the woman where the accusers have gone and receiving her answer has an "awe shucks" moments with her and sends her on her way.
Everyone applauds for Jesus.
My problem with this is not the teaching that mercy and forgiveness are also part of the Law (which by the way I think is true) my problem is that I don't think THIS story teaches that lesson. The reason why is that I think the focus is wrong. Jesus is teaching and the Pharisees and present this woman. We are to believe that they are sexist because it takes two to commit adultery, and while that most certainly was true, that is not the emphasis of the story. Furthermore they ask their question and Jesus answers them by writing in the dirt, and His words having such impact convict them of their sins. The problem with this being that the very thing over which the Pharisees and Jesus clashed the most was Jesus' constant insistence that the pharisees needed the forgiveness of God. The Pharisees had persuaded themselves that they were keeping the Law and were going to Heaven based on being "good people". <-- Sound familiar? So the likelihood that they would suddenly have a change of heart in the midst of this scene seems really far fetched to me. Furthermore then we are to believe that Jesus makes light of this woman's sin because He doesn't stone her and we too, for the sake of forgiveness and mercy, are also to make light of sin.
Does anyone else have a problem with that?
So here is how I think we can rightly interpret this verse.
Jesus is teaching in the Temple and the Pharisees bring this woman to Him to test Him because of the strictures of Roman Law concerning execution of criminals as well as the command of the Law of Moses. In response to their initial questioning Jesus stoops on the ground and begins to write whatever it is on the ground. I think we should be very careful of asserting that He wrote this, that or the other thing on the ground because the writer does not tell us what He wrote, and making a dogmatic statement on a point the Bible is I think deliberately vague on is a bad idea. Furthermore we know good and well they were not perturbed by what He wrote because we already know their disposition concerning their own sin, but furthermore the Text tells us that they continued to question Him as He did this. So what is Jesus doing? I think He is ignoring them. Why? Because they are trying to hang Him using Roman Law, but in coming to Him to ask if this woman should be executed they have already implicitly admitted that Jesus' authority is higher than Rome's. So he has no need to answer their question because they have already answered it by asking Him for judgment instead of Pilate. Which it need not be mentioned that when they really did want someone executed, namely Jesus, they took Him to Pilate and not some other itinerite rabbi.
We all know this story, at least those of us who have any knowledge of the life of Jesus of Nazareth. I am writing about this very well worn story because I think it is understood (and therefore also taught) incorrectly.
The way the teaching usually goes is this. Jesus is teaching in the Temple and the Pharisees come and place this woman before Him who was caught in the very act of adultery. Then the question is posed concerning the Law of Moses. The dilemma here is that if Jesus says to stone her then He has violated Roman authority by commanding an execution for a crime which was a right reserved by the Empire for itself. Vassal kingdoms could administer laws as they saw fit but could not execute anyone. If a capital crime was committed then the procurator/governor would have to be brought in to determine whether or not the criminal could be executed. However if Jesus declares they not stone her, because of Roman Law, then He would be saying de facto that a; Rome's authority was higher than Moses' or b; that Moses' Law needed to be set aside because stoning people for adultery was just a little harsh, and therefore they could accuse Jesus of not honoring Moses and thus discredit Him. Therefore they brought this woman to present Him with an inescapable dilemma. But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, instead knelt down and scribbled in the dirt. Now this dirt writing is really important because it made the accusers drop their stones and run away shame faced. Because of this most teachers say that Jesus was either scribbling the Law, which the Pharisees knew they were guilty under, or He was scribbling specific sins which He knew they had committed because He was God after all. Once everyone leaves He then asks the woman where the accusers have gone and receiving her answer has an "awe shucks" moments with her and sends her on her way.
Everyone applauds for Jesus.
My problem with this is not the teaching that mercy and forgiveness are also part of the Law (which by the way I think is true) my problem is that I don't think THIS story teaches that lesson. The reason why is that I think the focus is wrong. Jesus is teaching and the Pharisees and present this woman. We are to believe that they are sexist because it takes two to commit adultery, and while that most certainly was true, that is not the emphasis of the story. Furthermore they ask their question and Jesus answers them by writing in the dirt, and His words having such impact convict them of their sins. The problem with this being that the very thing over which the Pharisees and Jesus clashed the most was Jesus' constant insistence that the pharisees needed the forgiveness of God. The Pharisees had persuaded themselves that they were keeping the Law and were going to Heaven based on being "good people". <-- Sound familiar? So the likelihood that they would suddenly have a change of heart in the midst of this scene seems really far fetched to me. Furthermore then we are to believe that Jesus makes light of this woman's sin because He doesn't stone her and we too, for the sake of forgiveness and mercy, are also to make light of sin.
Does anyone else have a problem with that?
So here is how I think we can rightly interpret this verse.
Jesus is teaching in the Temple and the Pharisees bring this woman to Him to test Him because of the strictures of Roman Law concerning execution of criminals as well as the command of the Law of Moses. In response to their initial questioning Jesus stoops on the ground and begins to write whatever it is on the ground. I think we should be very careful of asserting that He wrote this, that or the other thing on the ground because the writer does not tell us what He wrote, and making a dogmatic statement on a point the Bible is I think deliberately vague on is a bad idea. Furthermore we know good and well they were not perturbed by what He wrote because we already know their disposition concerning their own sin, but furthermore the Text tells us that they continued to question Him as He did this. So what is Jesus doing? I think He is ignoring them. Why? Because they are trying to hang Him using Roman Law, but in coming to Him to ask if this woman should be executed they have already implicitly admitted that Jesus' authority is higher than Rome's. So he has no need to answer their question because they have already answered it by asking Him for judgment instead of Pilate. Which it need not be mentioned that when they really did want someone executed, namely Jesus, they took Him to Pilate and not some other itinerite rabbi.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Learn your Greek
I get a verse everyday on Facebook and this is today's.
Romans 12:3 And because of God's gracious gift to me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you should. Instead, be modest in your thinking, and judge yourself according to the amount of faith that God has given you. (GNT)
Now this struck me as odd because it seemed to say that we should judge ourselves (which is the first sin committed in the Garden) in the Faith based on the amount of Faith we have. That is if someone has more faith than me then he/she is higher in the Faith than I am and visa versa. Apart from this being an odd thing to see in any Bible verse it would be especially odd given that Paul wrote Romans and he repeatedly called all religious achievements dung. So I looked it up.
The English Standard Version (the one I use most often) renders it like this...
For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.
It seemed to say the same thing, but it still struck me as incongruous with the rest of Paul's writings so I went to the Greek.
Λέγω γὰρ διὰ τῆς χάριτος τῆς δοθείσης μοι παντὶ τῷ ὄντι ἐν ὑμῖν μὴ ὑπερφρονεῖν παρ᾽ ὃ δεῖ φρονεῖν ἀλλὰ φρονεῖν εἰς τὸ σωφρονεῖν ἑκάστῳ ὡς ὁ θεὸς ἐμέρισεν μέτρον πίστεως.
Does that help?
Actually the Greek says, "I say for through that grace that is given unto me to every man that is among you not highly to think more of himself but thinking into the thought to every man according as the God has dealt the measure of faith."
Did that help?
OK I'll stop messing around now. I think it is better rendered...
"For I say through the grace that is given to me to every man among you do not think more highly of yourselves than you ought but think clearly according to the thought that God has dealt the measure of faith to every man."
In other words do not compete with each other about the amount of faith that you have but rather remember that all faith comes from God and therefore should never be the subject of boasting.
Which oddly enough is exactly the opposite of what the Good News Translation and the ESV rendered this verse to be saying.
Food for thought.
Romans 12:3 And because of God's gracious gift to me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you should. Instead, be modest in your thinking, and judge yourself according to the amount of faith that God has given you. (GNT)
Now this struck me as odd because it seemed to say that we should judge ourselves (which is the first sin committed in the Garden) in the Faith based on the amount of Faith we have. That is if someone has more faith than me then he/she is higher in the Faith than I am and visa versa. Apart from this being an odd thing to see in any Bible verse it would be especially odd given that Paul wrote Romans and he repeatedly called all religious achievements dung. So I looked it up.
The English Standard Version (the one I use most often) renders it like this...
For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.
It seemed to say the same thing, but it still struck me as incongruous with the rest of Paul's writings so I went to the Greek.
Λέγω γὰρ διὰ τῆς χάριτος τῆς δοθείσης μοι παντὶ τῷ ὄντι ἐν ὑμῖν μὴ ὑπερφρονεῖν παρ᾽ ὃ δεῖ φρονεῖν ἀλλὰ φρονεῖν εἰς τὸ σωφρονεῖν ἑκάστῳ ὡς ὁ θεὸς ἐμέρισεν μέτρον πίστεως.
Does that help?
Actually the Greek says, "I say for through that grace that is given unto me to every man that is among you not highly to think more of himself but thinking into the thought to every man according as the God has dealt the measure of faith."
Did that help?
OK I'll stop messing around now. I think it is better rendered...
"For I say through the grace that is given to me to every man among you do not think more highly of yourselves than you ought but think clearly according to the thought that God has dealt the measure of faith to every man."
In other words do not compete with each other about the amount of faith that you have but rather remember that all faith comes from God and therefore should never be the subject of boasting.
Which oddly enough is exactly the opposite of what the Good News Translation and the ESV rendered this verse to be saying.
Food for thought.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
I can see Russia
Sarah Palin once said that she was qualified to comment of foreign affairs because "Ya know you can see Russia from Alaska." So I thought we should give her a chance to tell us which of these places cannot be seen from Russia to see if she's got the stuff.
Norway, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, Belarus, Urkraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazanhstan, China, Mongolia, Japan, and Santa's Workshop.
We would appreciate a prompt response.
Have a nice day
Norway, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, Belarus, Urkraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazanhstan, China, Mongolia, Japan, and Santa's Workshop.
We would appreciate a prompt response.
Have a nice day
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Bin Laden is dead
So the newsman says Bin Laden is dead and all around folks erupt into a spontaneous "Hooray" over his death. I suppose it makes me a bad American but I cannot understand why? I realize of course that the crimes he committed were heinous and that his ilk is a blot on the face of the Earth... I get it. But I cannot celebrate the death of another human being no matter who he is.
I am firmly convinced that there is a Hell and that it is place that people go to forever. That being said I cannot rejoice over a man going there.
Why?
Ezekiel 33 Say to them, "As I live," declares the Lord GOD, "I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die... "
Luke 6 "But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either."
Please ya'll do not allow yourselves to cheer for the death of your enemy. It is your enemy who cheers for your death and you call him a monster and a brute. So if he, by his actions, has reduced you to brutality in like fashion, then no matter what you have won you have lost.
I am happy that the world is a safer place and that one more tyrant will no longer be able to spread his hate and violence, but I am not happy that a living soul has been slain because I am sure my God is not happy. Therefore..
"We trust, sir, that God is on our side. It is more important to know that we are on God's side." Abraham Lincoln.
Ya'll be blessed.
I am firmly convinced that there is a Hell and that it is place that people go to forever. That being said I cannot rejoice over a man going there.
Why?
Ezekiel 33 Say to them, "As I live," declares the Lord GOD, "I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die... "
Luke 6 "But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either."
Please ya'll do not allow yourselves to cheer for the death of your enemy. It is your enemy who cheers for your death and you call him a monster and a brute. So if he, by his actions, has reduced you to brutality in like fashion, then no matter what you have won you have lost.
I am happy that the world is a safer place and that one more tyrant will no longer be able to spread his hate and violence, but I am not happy that a living soul has been slain because I am sure my God is not happy. Therefore..
"We trust, sir, that God is on our side. It is more important to know that we are on God's side." Abraham Lincoln.
Ya'll be blessed.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
The Founding Fathers Were Atheists
I was flying by a religio-politico show on the radio today and happened across someone complaining about something having to do with discriminating against Christians in America and as usual someone piped up with, "When are people gonna realize the country was founded on Christian beliefs and values?" Normally I just ignore this but every once in a while I think it is important to go over why this is not true. Since the Constitution is very specifically secular (no mention of God at all) the document most folks turn to is the Declaration of Independence, specifically the preamble, and so I will focus there.
When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
The phrase most people appeal to is "they are endowed by the Creator...." and yet this is one of the most non-Christian phrases in the preamble which is itself basically a long diatribe against Christian thought.
How so? you may ask.
Simple. Classic Orthodox Christianity teaches that government is instituted by God and it is the responsibility of the governed to give honor to the king even if the king is unjust. For example Matt 22, Mark 12 and Luke 20 all tell us Jesus told his followers to pay taxes. Paul told people in Romans 13 to pay taxes and honor the emperor and Peter said the same in 1Pet 2. The history of the Church in arguing against her own persecution in this manner can be found in the writings of Justin of Lyon who in his Apologia argued that the civic honor of the Church was displayed by their behavior and loyalty to Caesar. (Side note: for those who think themselves Christian and will not give honor to Obama, the emperor in question in the letters of Paul and Peter was Nero, and until the President starts dipping Christians in pitch impaling them alive and burning them to light the White House lawn you probably are on shaky ground complaining about him.)
So if you want to rebel against a duly appointed monarch and the Christian Faith says such a thing is sinful then you have to do something inventive to get around the problem. Hence the appeal to "nature and nature's God" as a source of human rights; include the declaration that rights are "certain" and "inalienable" then close with the notion that "governments are instituted by men" and you may have one of the great achievements in human history but you most certainly have not produced a Christian document.
Here's why...
First off in classic Christian thought there is no such thing as natural law. What men call natural law is rather our ability to notice the way God usually does things. Scripture teaches that the universe is upheld by the will and power of God and a "law" which exists apart from that constant governance is a deist idea, and consequently not a Christian one since Christianity is by definition a theist religion. btw the best example of deism is the notion of the "cosmic watchmaker" that God creates and winds the watch and then lets it go. Of course a lot of American Evangelicals in this post-enlightenment/ 18th century liberal/ modern culture will think the "cosmic watchmaker" is what the Bible teaches, but that is because the American/Western European Church is atheist in nearly all of its teachings and so are its adherents. This should not be surprising seeing as how our most treasured document is also deistic and therefore also atheistic just like its writers.
So any appeal to natural law is atheist. So why appeal to an atheist idea? Because the theists in the room were telling us that to rebel against the king whom God had placed over you was to rebel against God himself. This argument is of course absolutely sound and so theism and the theists' God has to leave so we can legitimize our claim to freedom. Of course the framers then say that our rights derive from nature, meaning nature itself guarantees our rights this is flatly an antichristian idea from back to front. Then we are told that these rights are certain (that is sure above reproach) and inalienable (that is no one not even God can revoke them) this is also a flatly antichristian idea. Then we close with the idea that governments are created by men and by men's consent and the Bible says exactly 180 degrees the opposite making this a thoroughly antichristian idea as well.
Add it all up and you have a, at best, deist document and deism is not a Christian worldview, and at worst a document which kicks the Christian God out into the street because the Bible is very inconvenient to our little experiment.
Of course there are those who will say, "Well if God allowed it to happen it must have been OK and America has done lots of good in the world."
A few problems with this. First God allowed Satan and Adam to fall and I don't think either of those things qualifies as 'good'. Second to say it all worked out is pragmatism, also a uniquely American philosophy and also an utterly antichristian one as well, and if you think America has been a source of great good well... read history (think Lakota/ Cherokee or Philipino/ Chillean/ Panamanian people on this one) and watch the news and see what American culture is doing in the world today.
Just a few thoughts...
Have a nice day.
God Bless
When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
The phrase most people appeal to is "they are endowed by the Creator...." and yet this is one of the most non-Christian phrases in the preamble which is itself basically a long diatribe against Christian thought.
How so? you may ask.
Simple. Classic Orthodox Christianity teaches that government is instituted by God and it is the responsibility of the governed to give honor to the king even if the king is unjust. For example Matt 22, Mark 12 and Luke 20 all tell us Jesus told his followers to pay taxes. Paul told people in Romans 13 to pay taxes and honor the emperor and Peter said the same in 1Pet 2. The history of the Church in arguing against her own persecution in this manner can be found in the writings of Justin of Lyon who in his Apologia argued that the civic honor of the Church was displayed by their behavior and loyalty to Caesar. (Side note: for those who think themselves Christian and will not give honor to Obama, the emperor in question in the letters of Paul and Peter was Nero, and until the President starts dipping Christians in pitch impaling them alive and burning them to light the White House lawn you probably are on shaky ground complaining about him.)
So if you want to rebel against a duly appointed monarch and the Christian Faith says such a thing is sinful then you have to do something inventive to get around the problem. Hence the appeal to "nature and nature's God" as a source of human rights; include the declaration that rights are "certain" and "inalienable" then close with the notion that "governments are instituted by men" and you may have one of the great achievements in human history but you most certainly have not produced a Christian document.
Here's why...
First off in classic Christian thought there is no such thing as natural law. What men call natural law is rather our ability to notice the way God usually does things. Scripture teaches that the universe is upheld by the will and power of God and a "law" which exists apart from that constant governance is a deist idea, and consequently not a Christian one since Christianity is by definition a theist religion. btw the best example of deism is the notion of the "cosmic watchmaker" that God creates and winds the watch and then lets it go. Of course a lot of American Evangelicals in this post-enlightenment/ 18th century liberal/ modern culture will think the "cosmic watchmaker" is what the Bible teaches, but that is because the American/Western European Church is atheist in nearly all of its teachings and so are its adherents. This should not be surprising seeing as how our most treasured document is also deistic and therefore also atheistic just like its writers.
So any appeal to natural law is atheist. So why appeal to an atheist idea? Because the theists in the room were telling us that to rebel against the king whom God had placed over you was to rebel against God himself. This argument is of course absolutely sound and so theism and the theists' God has to leave so we can legitimize our claim to freedom. Of course the framers then say that our rights derive from nature, meaning nature itself guarantees our rights this is flatly an antichristian idea from back to front. Then we are told that these rights are certain (that is sure above reproach) and inalienable (that is no one not even God can revoke them) this is also a flatly antichristian idea. Then we close with the idea that governments are created by men and by men's consent and the Bible says exactly 180 degrees the opposite making this a thoroughly antichristian idea as well.
Add it all up and you have a, at best, deist document and deism is not a Christian worldview, and at worst a document which kicks the Christian God out into the street because the Bible is very inconvenient to our little experiment.
Of course there are those who will say, "Well if God allowed it to happen it must have been OK and America has done lots of good in the world."
A few problems with this. First God allowed Satan and Adam to fall and I don't think either of those things qualifies as 'good'. Second to say it all worked out is pragmatism, also a uniquely American philosophy and also an utterly antichristian one as well, and if you think America has been a source of great good well... read history (think Lakota/ Cherokee or Philipino/ Chillean/ Panamanian people on this one) and watch the news and see what American culture is doing in the world today.
Just a few thoughts...
Have a nice day.
God Bless
Monday, January 10, 2011
Sick of This
When a child is shot at a political meet and greet by a lunatic there are a great many people who attempt to explain what it means. I think we may be better served by thinking about what it does not mean.
First and foremost it does mean that speech of any sort has the power to influence action. There is no speech never in history which has had the causal power to override the free will of people. Those in Nazi Germany who listened to Hitler and turned a blind eye to the plight of the Jews did so because they wanted to. No one could feign ignorance for having suspended their moral norms because of impassioned speech no matter the speaker.
The same is true of media. No violence portrayed in media has the ability to influence the actions of a person. Some will say that there are those on the fringe who may be influenced but this speaks more of coincidence than causation. In logical terms it is known as post hoc ergo proctor hoc (after this therefore because of this) but it is not true. One could just as easily point out that in spite of increased violence in media there has been a corresponding decrease in violent crime across the board.
Of course those who want handguns made illegal will not talk about this fact because it does not fit the narrative. Which reminds me, the simple fact that this crime was committed with a gun is not proof that guns should be made illegal. The cause of this crime is mental illness not a gun.
The tea party is not to blame and those licking their lips at the thought/ hope/ prayer that this guy was a right wing nut taking out his extreme views with a gun should be ashamed of themselves and have their public speaking rights revoked forever. These are the same ones who openly speculated that the Times Square bomber was also a right wing nut but did not redact those statements when he turned out to be a jihadist. BTW I used that word intentionally because I don't think Islam has the power to cause hate action either.
However those licking their lips at the thought of revolution (usually read white anger) should also be excused from public discourse forever.
So why all of the villainizing? Why this desire to lump this criminal into the right/left/ anti-immigration/ pro-immigration/ tea party/ them group? For the same reason folks long to find a grand conspiracy in the JFK assassination. It is easier to deal with shocking violence if it come from a definable recognizable group who is guilty at large. It is much more difficult to think that Oswald was a guy sort of like everyone else, at least on the surface, who was actually delusional who went to work one day and killed the President. The villain is always more frightening when he may just be the guy next door.
Same thing here. From what can be told this guy was a troubled sort who thought the government was attempting to control his mind who lashed out at a bunch of folks who had nothing to do with his bizarre fantasy. It is sad. It is evil. But the furthering of the destruction of civility because folks are afraid this guy might actually belong to their group is proof not that we lack civility (that a given), but that we lack common sense and any sort of thought which is not group in its orientation.
We should be better than that.
God knows we should be better than score boarding each other over a mass killing.
Murder is not a sporting event.
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