iPandora

…is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.
~Thomas Sowell

Yesterday I gave my thoughts on the death of Michael Jackson.

True to form, shortly after posting that article I thought of a simple argument that sums up what I spent paragraphs attempting to explain yesterday.

If a pedophile made music, we’d not consider him great for his music.

Music is amoral: it is not necessarily moral or immoral.

Pedophilia, however, is immoral. It is wrong in any and every situation to sexually abuse or misuse children.

If Charles Manson were a skilled artist, we would not celebrate his life and art when he died.

If the Una-bomber were an amazing trapeze artist, we’d not be celebrating his life and art when he died.

Just as we would not celebrate the life of a pedophile who wrote music, no matter how great his music, we ought not celebrate the life of a musician who was an unrepentant pedophile.

We ought to grieve that he failed to accept the redemptive work of Christ in his heart.

We ought to feel shame that we participated in the culture that deified him and protected him from the consequences of his actions in the illusory bubble of stardom.

But we cannot celebrate him.

To the extent we celebrate his life, we show our willingness to accept the unacceptable, and allow the unconscionable.

It’s been all over the place and most everybody has the same thoughts: the world has lost wonderful talent as it has lost Michael Jackson.

Conservatives, Liberals, Christians, Heathens alike are, for the most part, mourning the loss of this skilled musician.

Mike Gallagher was the first I heard to ask the question: Why are we remembering only the talent and the skillful music made by this man?

Let me get the boiler plate out of the way: The death of anybody is sad. If a Christian dies, there is the grief of loss here on earth, but the balancing joy knowing they are truly home at last and that our grief ought to be for ourselves still toiling here away from our true home. When an unrepentant sinner dies, the grief is much worse. There is no welcome for this person. There is simply the immediate inability to deny God any longer as the force of His self and all His holy attributes is no longer held off by the rationalizing mind and the containing body.

There is no reasonable evidence Michael Jackson accepted the saving Grace of Jesus Christ prior to his death.

There is always hope: he may have, on his deathbed, cried out to an ever-waiting and ever-listening andever-ready Jesus. If this is the case, we’ll know when we get to heaven.

But for now, it is reasonable, from human judgement, to assume Michael Jackson died with the full guilt of his own sins resting weightily upon his own, weak, shoulders.

Sin is sin, and there is no variance to it’s result. The Hitler’s of this world will suffer the same intermnible punishment meted out by the same just God for the same rejection of the same Holiness as the girl and boy blown up because they were too close to the exploding suicide bomber on their way to market in Fallujah.

But human’s judge variance in sin, because we must rationalize our own faults as not being “that bad.” And because we must restrain and punish those whose actions convey and cause inordinate danger to those around them.

Michael Jackson was a sinner.

There is little doubt he was a pedophile: His grown up sexual appetite coupled with his child-like and stunted emotional state and the stories of the several young boys with whom he slept and subsequently paid off leave little room for exhonoration.

As a society of justice we punish those who hurt and damage others by their actions. Those who prey sexually on the young damage those children’s ability to grow normally and lead productive lives, and so we punish them severely.

And when pedophiles die, we don’t celebrate them as an entire society.

I don’t advocate burning Michael Jackson’s music or videos. There is no purpose served by destroying it.

But his life isn’t worth celebrating. He made some ok music. He had some cool moves on the dance floor.

But he sexually assaulted young boys to satisfy himself as he was unable, in his stunted mind, to appreciate their future.

And so now, barring a hopeful miracle, he is facing God.

God isn’t playing reel-to-reel Thriller.

God is asking him for an account of his life.

It is with grief for the true loss of a life precious to the Lord God that I say, I fear it is going poorly for Michael Jackson.

…is that eventually you run out of other peoples’ money

~Margaret Thatcher

…the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen. ~Samuel Adams

From the Mud Monster file:

Roland Burris (yup, that guy) “failed” to disclose a lot of stock options. He plans on amending his mandatory financial disclosure report to the Senate to reflect the fact he was caught. Again.

I believe that all people, regardless of race, are capable of being a moral as any others. Therefore, they are all held to the same moral standard.

Therefore, it is not racism for me to state that Senator Burris is an immoral, lying, cheating, conniving, duplicitous, ne’er-do-well who I wouldn’t trust with my money or my country.

In the Blood-Chilling and the We Told You categories:

Obama says stopping pointless procedures for terminally ill people can help cut costs.

Who decides what’s pointless?

It isn’t cold-hearted Republicans trying to take kill Grandma. It’s the Liberal Ideology and it’s domestic partners, Euthanasia. Their love child, President Obama is their Messiah.

In the It’s None Of Their Business category:

“Consumer protection” groups are encouraging new government bureaucracies to oversee hidden costs and predatory behavior on the part of evil corporations trying to stiff us for out money. The Democrats love it, of course. The Republicans don’t, of course.

The Reuters headline has more truth that it probably realizes itself:

Personal Finance: Don’t wait for Congress, be your own regulator

Concise yet cogent argument to the plain fact that we are responsible for ourselves.

The real question shouldn’t be if the government is going to look out for us in this way, too. It should be, why aren’t you using the tools available to you, the glut of information waiting to be perused, to make yourself as knowledgeable as you need to be regarding your own financial situation?

Forget the government, I’ve got the Internet!

From the Why Can’t We Get This Right file:

Hugh Hewitt posts a letter from an anonymous ad exec regarding the dearth of creativity emanating from the conservative movement.

I agree whole-heartedly with the ad exec.

While I love the witty yet pithy videos on PJTV (yes, watch that video, it’s great), I’ll admit most people I’d like to convince of their accuracy of the philosophy they espouse would be bored by them.

Maybe I should take up video editing? I’d have to revise my vocabulary. A lot.

And finally, from the Here It Goes Again and Will We Ever Learn and It’s Obvious They Just Want The Money files:

Fannie and Freddie (remember them?) are being “encouraged” to offer mortgages to high-risk and low-income borrowers again.

AGAIN!?!?!?

Good night, and keep laughing.

Regarding the energy bill going through Congress right now, Obama claims the legislation

“will spark a clean energy transformation that will reduce our dependence on foreign oil and confront the carbon pollution that threatens our planet”

Spark a clean energy transformation? All butterflies and daisies with our President, eh?

Our President has an entirely too rosey view on the efficacy of regulation and government finagling than is good for this country.

Consistent discipline works for both recalcitrant children and rogue nations.

With children, letting them know their options and the consequences of their choices and allowing them to choose and accept their consequences is the bedrock of discipline.

Growing up, all of us children knew that for standard disobedience, the punishment was three swats from the Red bud rod. For lying, it was “triples” or 9 swats.

Some infractions had stronger or different punishments: when I tried burning the house down by inserting foreign objects into our old furnace, Dad grounded me for 6 months (I think I was out after 3 months on good behavior). For throwing nuts and dirt over my friend’s neighbors fence into their pool, we had to go to their front door and apologize. When I yelled at mom ( a few times), dad “tanned my hide” until he felt I’d learned that wasn’t an approved method of communication.

But the consistency was that we knew when we did something, there were expected and consistent consequences.

Now what if my parents were elected every 4 years, and they could only get 2 terms consecutively?

That wouldn’t work for child-rearing, obviously. But it is the best bet for a Republican form of government.

And yet, many of the weaknesses that make a constantly changing head of state such a bad idea for a family continue into the structure of the Presidency of the United States.

Right now, there is a nuclear-armed North Korea threatening severe retaliation to any attempts to curtail their missile-rattling. They are publicly stating their intention of shooting a missile towards Hawaii. None of their current arsenal will reach that far, but it’s no light thing to shoot a missile in the direction of the United States of America.

It’s my country.

The organization which likes to think it is the supreme chancellor of the entire world has already laid out sanctions against North Korea explicitly stating that country is not allowed to export any weapons or weapons materials.

North Korea has their number: now shipping to Myanmar/Burma is a shipload of weapons origination from North Korea.

So the cheeky brat has toed the line. It’s the recalcitrant child acting up and testing how far he can push against the rules.

The UN is in high dander over this and is threatening… wait for it… more sanctions! Yea, that’ll stop ‘em.

The United States of America is not the mother of the world, nor the father. We’re the big brother. We’re not responsible for controlling the internal workings of other nations, but as the largest and most moral (I did not say perfect, I said “most moral”) we bear a responsibility to the rest of the world that is not shared by any other nation right now.

In the Reagan and Bush days, our President would be standing tall and calling the leadership of North Korea on the carpet for the systematic denial of basic human rights even to their own citizens. Shame would be called upon the leadership of that nation for it’s repression of dissent backward, anti-liberty policies. And for it’s missile-rattling, North Korea would be facing an insurmountable and effectively devastating result to it’s brutish and bullying behavior.

In the Obama era we sit, and wait. And send a single ship to babysit the weapons-carrying vessel as it plies the waters heading towards the despotic dictatorship destroying Burma/Myanmar.

We aren’t allowed to board or hinder the vessel in any way.

We can ask them to stop.

Perhaps these people just feel they are misunderstood by the rest of the world. And if we just ask them how they’re feeling they’ll open up to us.

A word of advice, completely free: Don’t let psychologists run the police department and don’t let them run foreign policy.

“How do you feel” is not a valid question in foreign policy. Particularly when the one you’re asking is holding the trigger on a nuclear device and when his history shows mental instability on the part of the entire government.

You hold up a bigger hammer that he has and you let him know that if he takes one more step, you’ll whack him.

And when he takes that step?

Whack him.

As an expectant father, I’m none too interested in raising my child in a new round of fall0ut shelters and nuclear attack drills.

MADD is not peace. MADD is fear. (Nothing against Mothers Against Drunk Driving).

I don’t live in fear.

I choose to live in peace brought about by the appropriate and effective use of threat and fact of force.

President Obama apparently plans to achieve peace through the shrinking violet method.

Something the American populace needs to understand, and quickly, is that every election is a foreign-policy election.

The less our government does internally to America, the better off we’ll be. The more our government is involved in protecting American interests off-shore, the better off we’ll be.

And because, right now, we’re still the most moral nation in the world. It can be generally said that when America operates in it’s own best interest, the world benefits from it.

Not that we are so full of ourselves that we believe goods things for us are good things for all.

But a strong United States of America means petty tyrants the world over will know they can trust the actions and will of America will be continually against their petty tyranny. And that if they attempt to export either their pettiness or their tyranny, we’ll be there with a big stick, a mop, and a bucket to beat them into submission again and clean up their mess.

A strong United States would be calling steadily and constantly for freedom of the election in Iran, and working actively in support of the open and democratic process in that nation. And the world would safer.

A strong United States would be responding to North Korea’s insane and idoitic ambitions as it would to a petulant and rebellious child. We would state the consequences of their continued stupidity, and if they continued, we would give them the consequences they were promised. And the world would be safer.

It’s not really a difficult or complex idea, from this side. Which is probably why the hyper intelligent President Obama, who, along with his leadership team insist on seeing everything in so many shades of grey it would make a color blind person swear they could differentiate green and blue.

But unless there is a consistent, strong, and swift exercise of our own (and all others on this globe’s) rights to life and liberty ensured through the appropriate show and use of force, there will be consequences…

For us.

I’ll be wearing green Friday to support an Iran ruled by law and not despots.

While the world burns around me:

• Obama and the leadership of the greatest nation in the world refuse to condemn the naked theft of a nation’s election allowing a despot and megalomaniac to continue his aggression against the lone hope of freedom in the Middle East, Israel. A conservative, however, can and does stand up.
• Socialized medicine fails someone else: woman delivers baby without trained medical attention while in a hospital. Shortage of medical staff in Canada means she can’t get a bed to have her child. I’ll be she still get’s a bill. Or at last the Canadians will.
• ABC News decides to air a live infomercial for our Comrade in Chief from the White House in place of the evening news. In true Marxist fashion there will not be opposition presented.
• Scientists admit they don’t know the slightest thing about the most studied fundamental force: gravity.

And I’m upset over a movie.

An early 90′s comedy even.

Father of the Bride, billed as good clean family fun.

It’s dangerous, folks.

I even got a few laughs in before it just got so bad I couldn’t even laugh at the, few, funny parts any more.

The father is an idiot. No self-control. Few moral qualms. He’s the butt of every joke, and not in a nice way either.

He is not wise or caring.

He has no personal charisma or drive that should make us want for him to mature and grow through the movie.

And his character is inconsistant and false. He runs a successful business, has the adoration of his children and wife, and adores them in return. Yet he sneaks and fears and bumbles about like a complete fool.

The “here he goes again” looks from his wife are supposed to evoke further chuckles, but I couldn’t.

What good does this kind of portrayal do?

Is the only purpose of this movie to make us laugh? It failed at that. The “humor” was too shameful.

Consistently, the other characters are smart and likeable and have depth and a future. It’s the dad we’re supposed to laugh at.

And supposedly Steve Martin is good at that.

As Inspector Clouseau, it’s a good thing. He’s supposed to be an idiot hero, a hapless savior.

But when he is portrayed as an “everyman” and a father it’s ugly and terrible.

As a husband and expectant father I took personal offense and umbrage at this portrayal of what I aspire to.

I’m no fool taking my queues from Hollywood. My dad and my heavenly Father are quite enough for me to aspire to, thank you very much.

But what about those who do not have a father or who do not yet know their heavenly Father? The father on the silver screen may be their only target.

What responsibility is borne for those who see this dad and despair because they recognize his idiocy and the fun had lampooning his foolhardy attempts to be involved in his daughters wedding?

The only victories he achieves occur when he gives up.

In real life, the only victory that occurs that way is the most important one: salvation. Everything else requires determination and purpose.

I’m not planning on being an idiot dad, and so I’ll gladly forget Father of the Bride and heartily recommend against anybody seeing that abomination.

Is it entertainment when fatherhood is played for the fool?