iPandora

Is America a Christian Nation?

Among those brothers and sisters who claim the name of Christ as their redeemer and Lord there are as many social ideas and political persuasions as there are sequins on a glam rockers vest. Or more.

Anybody who thinks all professed Christians believe a certain way about nearly any subject, even many subjects central to the faith, is misinformed or worse. They may be correct in believe that professing Christians ought to believe certain ways, but they are sadly mistaken if they think they actually do.

Especially in recent years, as traditionally more professedly secular ideologies have come to recognize the power and persuasion of faith-based arguments, no one political party or social movement or cultural idea can claim to be leading most Christians in it’s way.

However, there are many social ideas and political ideologies that Christians ought to agree on, and at least basically agree on their importance in the grand scheme of ideas.

First, we must agree that all aspects of life are related. That words mean things, that ideas have consequences, that actions are the outward manifestations of inward ideas, though they can be easily controlled and manipulated to give a wrong impression, positive or negative. We must agree that out of the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks. We must agree that what one does in private is the truer measure of who they are than what they claim in public. We must accept that dishonesty in one part of a life will mean that person cannot be trusted in other ways either. This doesn’t mean we only accept perfection. It means, more than anything else, that we only trust God for those things that are rightfully His to do.

Second we must agree that there are standards of right and wrong, and they are not situationally or culturally defined. When Jesus said He was the only way to the Father, He wasn’t leaving options open. If you don’t believe Jesus is the only way, you’re very welcome to call yourself anything you please, except a Christian. We use labels to mean things and allow useful and necessary classification in order to function as a normal, healthy society. Co-opting a label that has meant one thing for centuries to mean something completely different is to no ones benefit except the deceiver. And referencing to point 1, such deception in more indicative of your own heart issues than any intolerance true Christians may or may not hold.

The same goes for other truths that are defined in human nature and through the Word of God. Killing of innocents is always unjust and immoral. It doesn’t matter if you’re all in a life raft and starving and the weak ones wouldn’t survive anyways. It doesn’t matter if you don’t want to live with the consequences of your actions. It doesn’t even matter if the choice was taken from you and forced upon you by evil people doing evil actions. Taking a life never expunges the memories or heals the wounds. It only adds to the pain and grief and lays actual and real and deserved blame on yourself. Abortion is murder. There is no argument that can change that plain and simple and very obvious fact. And to subscribe to and support any ideology that holds otherwise is to accept a huge burden of responsibility for the ugly truth that is our societies acceptance of this hideous and unconscionable act.

Third, we must agree that in order for God to justly judge the actions and intentions of each and every person, each and every person must be allowed the maximum use of their own abilities to do with as they please. Acting according to conviction or spite, or duplicity or compassion, or cynicism or malice or justice or pleasure, it is each and every one of our prerogative what we shall do with our own resources, got by our own hand, multiplied by our own skill, maximized by our own discipline. If the government or any other group takes from the able to distribute to the needy, they are removing that able person’s ability to show their own character and quality to God and man. And they are, more often than not, removing a powerful motivator for the needy to raise themselves up through honest and accountable charity and use of those resources they do have. A system of mutual dependency removes the onus of responsibility both from those who have and those who need.

I subscribe to conservative social and political beliefs not because I want America to return to its roots as a Christian nation. I don’t hold to my standards and ideas because I hope to create a wondrous theocracy here in the United States of America. Useful theocracies perished with the coming of Christ. At that point the theocracy moved to the heart of each and every man and woman and child. The responsibility is no longer with the nation but with the individual how they will go and who they will serve. The nation bears responsibility for maintaining an atmosphere most conducive to individual expression of their own faith, preventing such beliefs from infringing on others beliefs, and punishing where such infringment occurs. The individual bears the responsibility for using what freedom they have to serve whom they will in what manner they deem best.

The philosophies and ideas our Founding Fathers used to build such a nation were predominantly those derived from the Christian worldview. Because God does not want automatons but people who have freely and willingly chosen Him, He give to us complete choice and builds a framework, a worldview that is most conducive to such freedom while accounting for the human predilection for sin. It is the Christian government that is most conducive to all religions coexisting as peaceably as they may.

I am not Christian because I am conservative. No, political ideas can only at best be results of deeper things. I am a conservative because I am Christian. To be Christian is a deeper thing.

Myth, Power, and Deception in American History

There is supposed to be a tension between the government and the people.

I worded it that way on purpose, there is no “it’s people” with the government of the United States. There is supposed to be a tension between the government of the United States of America and the citizens of the United States of America.

The United States of America is unique in that respect among nations. While all governments are responsible and accountable for their actions for and on behalf of their citizens, the United States of America is unique among nations in that, at least in the founding documents and according to common belief, it affirms that accountability and responsibility.

The government of the United States of America has traveled far from it’s original constitutional moorings, and it is important that We the people not forget the correct alignment of the spheres of responsibility in a worthwhile culture.

I don’t follow some of Judge Andrew Napolitano’s ideas and philosophies, but my disagreements are more in details than in nature and essence, and in principle there is truly little I can disagree with.

It is a sad thing when even people who firmly believe in the original intent and the founding essence of the United States of America feel sick when they recognize the truth of where we are versus where we believed, hoped, and honestly thought we were.

And it is a good thing when someone stands up and courageously tells the truth without pulling punches.

Lies the Government Told You should be required reading before election day, before tax day, anytime we hear “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”

The tension between We the People of the United States of America and the government of the United States of America is necessary and the superior strength and push should always come from We the People because the government attracts to itself people with the lust to dominate.

And it’s the power and pressure of the people who are the first, the last, and the only bulwark against the tyrants, petty and powerful, soft tongued and flagrant.

So purchase Judge Andrew Napolitano’s book Lies the Government Told You, and let’s put the government of the United States of America back in it’s place, back on it’s heels, back on it’s butt, back on it’s back, until its submission to We the People is total and complete.

So this is what happens when the goverment has a vested interest in a certain private company.

Nebraska Senator Mike Johanns, a Republican, calls for a ban of Japanese cars until their safety issues can be addressed.

This is stupid. It is idiotic. And Mike Johanns needs to be sent packing.

GM has had similar issues as had nearly every US automaker and we never asked them to shut down their plants until they got the government stamp of approval.

It curdles my blood to hear these words. And it’s even worse that he labels himself a Republican, and a free trade proponent.

Right now, most protectionist ideology is finding it’s home on the left side of the aisle. Perhaps this is just more evidence we don’t all walk in lock step over here on the right.

But it’s also evidence that Mike Johanns time has come and passed and he needs to leave.

Toyota is a quality manufacturer of quality cars. AS US automakers have struggled to catch up with their foreign counterparts the competition has become fierce. And mistakes are made. And now that the US Government has a stake in GM, they’re willing to consider insidious protectionism to guard their asset.

Get the US out of the car business, and get Mike Johanns out of government.

A Century Turns: New Hopes, New Fears is Bill Bennett’s latest book of current American History in a series that loosely includes the more formal series America: The Last Best Hope.

A Century Turns chronicles the last 20 years of American socio-political history from the perspective of a proud, cautious, involved, and hopeful American.

When picking up history books one expects to find events with which they cannot relate. I didn’t live during the Battle of the Bulge any more than I did the War of 1812. And there is a significant disconnect which makes study of history a true study, and not just an experience.

A Century Turns tells history, but the one telling is one who was there, one who was involved in the choices that shaped our country and the world as we know them today. And the story is one I lived through.

Perhaps my earliest memory of political affairs was the inauguration of George Bush, the senior. I remember watching on television as he spoke and watching him ride and walk in the parade from the Capital to the White House. I was 6 then.

When I started working at 14 I spent a lot of time listening to Rush Limbaugh on his original station, News Talk 1530 KFBK out of Sacramento. I was aware of events and began to be involved in them on a local level, writing letters to the editor of our local rag, speaking at City Counsel meetings. The events of the last 20 years are all memories to me. And Bennett wrote about them as history.

From the LA Riots to the OJ Simpson debacle. From the home grown terrorist acts of the 90’s to the growth of Islamic jihad to it’s breaking point over our shores and on our peace-seeking psyches. From the dalliances of politicians in the Democratic party to the indiscretions of politicians in the Republican party. Bennett chronicles the currents that have shaped our world so severely and significantly in the last 20 years.

I get the sense, reading old history, that the world changes slowly. It’s massive weight fighting change with inertia. And yet, in just my own brief lifespan so much has changed. From the dominant social theories to the scrappy upcoming ideas, change is coming fast.

One thing the book lacks, but not from purposeful omission, is the sense that history is perhaps always like that. While it is true that the more things change the more they stay the same, it is also true that things change. And some that is lost in that change can never be brought back.

A Century Turns is an excellent book for contextualizing the history of the lifetimes of me and my peers. It helps to see how far we’ve come and how far we have yet to go.

Bennett ends with the election of then Senator Barak Obama to the office of the President of the United States of America:

There was a deep recession in the land. There were unfinished wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri were still alive. Russia was flexing its muscles. And a new president, with a new approach to the country and the world, would take the reins of power with new hopes and new fears on many sides of him and the country he was charged to lead.

You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.

Lax credit and easy spending policies are products of both Democrat and Republican leaderships in years past. The conservative movement has recognized the failures of this more so than their compatriots in the liberal movement. Calls for the privatization of Fannie and Freddie, two of the main contributors to the whole system of easy credit, are not likely to be heeded by the current elected leadership in Washington D.C. And Fed Chairman Bernanke believes such easy credit is the best policy, despite it’s contribution to the economic failures of the last several years.

You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.

Political correctness is losing favor across the ideological aisles. This false equality of outcome which relies on enforced restrictions on true equality, that is, the equality of potential, has been a pernicious evil in our country. But other perniciously evil policies continue to thrive here. Policies that drag down those who have achieved in order to not unnecessarily burden those who will not achieve with that natural and good desire to become something other than the abject failures. Except that’s not right, you can only fail if you’ve started at something. Many of these haven’t started anything and therefore aren’t failures but worse. Any system that encourages people in any way to remain nothings is evil for it robs them of their humanity as surely as Nazi extermination program robbed so many of their humanity.

You cannot help the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.

In that iconic moment when Joe the Plumber’s question drew out then Senator Obama’s statement that we need to spread the wealth around, it revealed a misunderstanding of economic systems that time has not changed. If you want to grow jobs, you make it easier for companies to make and keep money. If you take what they make for your own wealth redistribution programs and to “spread it around” you hurt not just the business you wanted to stick it to, but all its employees and potential employees as well. This isn’t rocket science.

You cannot further the brotherhood of man by encouraging class hatred.

Ever since FDR, liberal leaders have been adept at pitting class against class. There is no inherent nobility in the individual man whose mind and heart must be won. There is only the group, the LGBT, the blacks, the whites, the lower class, the middle class, the upper class, the “them”, the “us”, the hispanics, the wage earners, the corporations, the haves, the have-nots. Targeted fiscal policy meant to assuage the ire of a particular class are unconstitutional as they do not benefit every American equally, which is a requirement of federal policy. It’s vote-buying and favor peddling. And the result is a torn and fragmented society beset by such tensions within it cannot unify to address situations without.

You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.

The poor will always be among us. This doesn’t free us from a responsibility to assist them. Instead it requires we develop consistent and repeatable patterns of assistance with several criteria. There must be a filter that prevents moochers and freeloaders from taking resources that would be better appreciated and taken advantage of by those deserving poor. And the money for such charity must be given willingly, not taken without recourse. A rich man who does not give to charity only illumines the shallowness of his own soul. He does not deserve theft of his goods, only the scorn of society.

You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.

This is a failure of nearly everybody in leadership in Washington D.C. and a result of an uncareful electorate who do not take real pains to determine the true character of the candidate or who believe that character doesn’t matter.

You cannot build character and courage by taking away man’s initiative and independence.

Just as by helping a butterfly escape it’s chrysalid prison you doom it to a short, painful life and quick, ugly death, by taking away the responsibilities of a person or natural societal group, you end up with stunted and immature people who will continue all the ills aformentioned.

You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.

There are few things more evil than to do for someone else what they are capable of doing themselves. Particularly when they are not in dire need and what they need to accomplish is a task that would encourage or build in them traits of character not already full-fledged in their being.

Unrestricted free market

Gary A writes article on the investing opinion site SeekingAlpha.com claiming that while limited government sounds good, it’s not a reasonable policy if the goal is market stability:

I support the free market but unlike them I don’t trust the free market. I don’t think that having just capitalists in charge of the free market can possibly keep it free very long. Capitalists cannot police themselves. Every game has rules. Try playing baseball without umpires. Try playing tennis without line judges. There are even rules when racing at the Indianapolis 500.

I agree with him, to an extent:

I agree that having capitalists in charge of capitalism can and has caused many a problem. Having Marxists in charge of a market causes even more.

The issue is that there is no suitable force acting upon the individuals that make up a government capable of restraining their choices actions.

And the more levels of government that are constructed to check and balance any system of man only lead to more levels of waste and corruption as they, in turn, fall to the very same forces.

The brilliance of the original American system was that it pitted this thirst for power against itself by building three branches of government with competing but not overlapping responsibilities.

This system worked well enough, for in that inherent tension there was stability left for those under it.

As the government’s greatest enemy was itself, instead of the people, the people were free to go about their ways.

As the government power alignment adjusted, mainly beginning with Lincoln’s power consolidation in the Civil war the forces of government were aligned and now could seek to take power, not from each other, but from the populace.

So is it a perfect system? No. Is it better than the alternatives? It depends on how you define better. I would say it is, with better being that state where there is least government intrusion into my affairs and then only so much as is necessary to prevent me from infringing unjustly on another’s affairs.

Of course, then you get into what is just and unjust.

The whole problem is that unless you accept a sovereign moral force who/which defines morality for us unsovereign beings, there is really no way to define right except through might.

Those in power get to define morality apart from that sovereign moral entity. And without an acceptance of a sovereign moral entity there is no legitimate basis for a universal and effective set of ethics to guide the behaviors of individuals, groups, corporations, societies, or nations.

Yes, I believe it all boils down to whether or not you subscribe to the idea there is a higher power who will judge you for your actions and your intentions and the results.

Scott Brown casting his vote

Republican candidate Scott Brown is now Senator-elect Scott Brown, filling the vacancy left when Senator Edward Kennedy shuffled off his mortal coil.

Winning with 52% of the vote so far (as of 9:30 CST), Brown will deny Senate Democrats they’re 60th vote for health care. Now if we can shore up the ranks by shaming Ben Nelson (D – Nebraska) into coming back to his real principles.

While health care has passed the Senate already, the bill in the House must be reconciled with the bill passed by the Senate in conference. The big vote sold to Mary Landrieu and Ben Nelson was only to settle the Senate’s version. House Democrats don’t like the Senate bill as it stands, but because of the loss of the Massachusetts seat, their only chance of passing any health care socialization is to accept the Senate bill as it stands. Any edits they make would require the Senate to reexamine the bill and vote on it again.

So the Tea Party movement and the backlash to President Obama’s, Harry Reid’s, and Nancy Pelosi’s ugly ideology have won this battle. The problem is, there is still a war to be fought.

We have won this battle mainly due to a strong upheaval in the populace continuing from the waves of the Tea Parties. But if there’s one thing I know about people who live conservatism, it’s that they just want to get back to their homes and families and work and lives.

Will this victory last? Will we dance back to our houses, clapping each other on the shoulder and then go to bed and sleep the sleep of a clean conscience and then awake and forget what has transpired?

I hope not.

What needs to happen now is education.

We need to talk in our workplaces, in our social clubs. Get in discussions at church and in restaurants. During the half-time shows and at the bar.

We need to cash in on those myriad relationships which make up our broader lives, using the fact that we have credence with our friends based on our friendship to cause them to think. Even a little thought, properly motivated and directed, can go a long way towards straightening out the skewed thinking of so many.

We need to strike at the cult of celebrity which surrounds our current President and demand substance and truth in candidates along with their rhetorical skills.

It’s not that we need to talk politics, we need to talk ideology. Ideology is much easier to talk about because it applies to so much more of life. Politics is just one small corner of the extent of our lives. Politics wants to control more of life, but it belongs in the corner.

Ideology is the big “Why?” of our life. Our worldview informs our entire perception of life, and as such, you can talk about it from any perspective.

How do you respond to a medical emergency? Do you call the government or do you drive to the hospital?

If you see a promotion opportunity at work, do you try to make yourself the better candidate?

Is the government the best source for your pursuit of happiness?

Would you rather the professor gave some of your high grades to the slob in the back row of class so he can pass too?

And most important: Is Jesus a liar, a lunatic, or our Lord?

After all, if our friends haven’t got the bedrock of their life philosophy connected and rooted in the most accurate explanation for the entirety of life, nothing they believe will really match reality. And that’s what conservatism is, the most political philosophy that most accurately corresponds to the true nature of humanity and the world.

So congratulations America, you’ve forestalled oblivion yet again. But what happens tomorrow? And the next day?

Do you forget and go on with life, accepting the tranquil bonds of servitude until you awake yet again and find you’re no longer allowed to amass political power to right the ship again?

Or do you start making changes on all fronts, attacking the lies of our world at every turn. Each time maneuvering, like a chess master always circling the opponents king, to touch the heart of the matter.

We’ve been harmless as doves long enough, now let’s become shrewd as serpents.

Bill Whittle at PJTV on the real enemies of American exceptionalism and our failure to really progress in the last several decades.

I would add that there has been great progress in the last decades, but it hasn’t been progress of all of humanity, it has been the progress of the individual.

Our progress has turned internal, how do we extend our lives, how do we gain more pleasure, how do we work less.

The problem with this selfish progress is that while it benefits us physically it harms us emotionally, mentally, spiritually. Because modern science denies what it cannot touch, it cannot believe in a non-chemical or non-physical aspect of a person. What it cannot believe in, it will not work to protect.

Our culture worships hedonism and this will be our undoing as a culture.

And yet, time still remains for action, for duty, for brave acts countermanding the inevitable decline of American and Western civilization.

While the hour is late, individual lives can be changed. And individual lives change other lives, until the culture itself is righted in a correctly normative state of community interdependence and moral backbone.

Pudge at Sound Politics doesn’t “know Rep. Matt Shea (R-4th LD, around Spokane), but… consider(s) him a bit of a hero, actually standing up for rights and liberty when most people, on either side of the aisle, don’t.”

Read the list of bills Rep. Matt Shea has submitted that were dropped by that august assembly.

In the critical race for “the people’s seat” in Massachusetts, the ideological walls are as high as can be. Incumbent Martha Coakley (D), the favorite for the seat recently vacated at the passing of Teddy Kennedy is defending herself against the increasing tide that is support for Scott Brown.

Coakley supports ObamaCare, opposes the war in Afghanistan, and favors higher taxes on the wealthy. Brown is against the health care legislation, backs the president’s surge in Afghanistan, and wants across-the-board tax cuts à la JFK. Coakley is an EMILY’s List prochoice hard-liner; Brown condemns partial-birth abortion and is backed by Massachusetts Citizens for Life. Coakley has no problem with civilian trials for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Brown thinks it reckless to treat enemy combatants like ordinary defendants.

Other differences abound. Coakley doesn’t like being questioned about her stated and public views when they may reflect poorly on her and she doesn’t like admitting the possibly she may have been incorrect in the past. Even CNN reveals her follies. While Brown homeschools his kids, speaks eloquently regarding the true nature of government, and promises to be a serious thorn in the side of the currently prevailing powers in Washington.

Should Brown win, the Democrats are already threatening to block his appointment to the Senate, until after the “health-care” bill is passed.  We shall see.

Pat Robertson, again

Neil asks for someone to please take away Pat Robertson’s microphone. I agree.

But they won’t take it away because the portions of our culture that despise Christianity are much happier if they don’t have to misrepresent. Even denying morality and absolutes, they’ll take a juicy truth over a conjured or fabricated tale if it achieves the desired result.

So I’d love for that man to just go away, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t going to happen until God deems his time right.

Neil again

Neil continues his fight against liberal theology and liberal theologians.

That man has more patience than I could ever find in dealing with these people so invested in lies and fabrications, so intransigent in their fallacies.

I am glad Neil is that way, though. Perhaps those he preaches against will someday hit their heads on a doorpost so hard the voices of rationalization and self-justification will shut up, and they’ll see, through the might hand of the one true God, the truth as it is, and not as they wish it to be.

Keep up the good work my friend.

The way things ought to be

WinteryKnight is very much about that, hence his many “MUST-READ’s“.

The good news is, they all are.

He’s also very concerned about the plight of manhood and boyhood in our society. From the feminized path that boys must take through our public school system to the extreme cases of insane feminism beating down men trying to do the right thing by their children and families, WinteryKnight chronicles the sad story of the life of the man today.

Frankly, I didn’t know quite what I was up against.

But I’m glad to have found this new blogging buddy and I encourage you to check him out to.

Bonus for single ladies: he’s single, is a great catch, and has very high standards (which some of us are working to fix).

I can’t stand having pockets over full. Too often pants pockets today are constructed shoddily, almost as an afterthought, and the contents of the pockets bump against my legs and rub and get in the way and abrade.

But what can you tell about a man from his pockets? The Art of Manliness posted a selection from a 1933 Esquire magazine which portrayed the story of a man through the contents of his pockets.

Contents of His Pockets at Ten

1 watch, lacking a main spring.
1 report card, badly frayed and unpresented at home.
1 much damaged cigarette, unsmoked.
1 penknife.
1 rubber band, for use in sling-shot.
Remains of an exploded toy balloon.
2 marbles.
4 caps of milk bottles, won in competition
1 dirty handkerchief.
1 piece of chewing gum.
2 keys which do not fit locks.
7 pieces of string.

Read A Pocket History Of Milton J. Wurtleburtle.