My question: why even try?

If ethics are situational and morality is ambiguous at best and pointless at worst, why even pretend, in all your intelligence, to pander to use rubes down here in the trenches?

For many of the leadership in Washington, and most of the Democrats in that rarefied local, there is no objective truth. The only morality comes from being caught.

And so, instead of claiming to run the most ethical congress ever and training a huge microscope and target on yourself, use all that energy to cover and obfuscation and hide what we know you’re going to do anyways because when you don’t believe in objective truth and morality, there’s no reason to trust you to do anything except what furthers your own aim and brings power to those things you consider most important.

So, with the recent “everybody knows except Pelosi” Rangel scandal, and now the Massa issues, and Mr. Porkulus (may he rest in peace) Murtha, and Mr. Sweetheart-Deal Dodd, and Mrs. My-Husbands-Business-Likes-My-China-Policy Pelosi herself, it seems that (D) stands for Dishonest.

The bible asks what companionship can light have with darkness. This isn’t just good marriage advice. It’s good advice for any place where we trust others to work on our behalf. For the average Joes and Janes out here in the sticks, we can still operate as friends and coworkers and have normal friendly relationships. But when we are speaking of handing power and national responsibility to people, we need to ask ourselves this: “If I wouldn’t truth them babysitting my children, why would I trust them running my country?”

…an instrument for human redemption. It is a safeguard for We The People to protect us against powerful special interests who would use their influence to abscond with our property and try to alienate us from our unalienable rights. ~Scott Ott on Trifecta

The Gospel According To Lost

The Gospel According To Lost is not an explanation on how to use the stories and characters and ideas of the hit TV series Lost to witness to people. It’s so much more than that.

It’s a relatively short read for the size of the book. Clearly written considering the depth of the subjects it deals with. And it makes me want to finish the series.

Readers of this blog and friends know that I’m deeply concerned about the deeper things in life. Actions and externalities interest me, but intent, thought, background, worldview and philosophy hold my attention far longer.

The Gospel According To Lost is a book exploring the deeper things of that TV series from an explicitly Christian perspective.

From Hurley to Locke to Ekko and everyone between and beyond, The Gospel According To Lost explores the characters beyond their surface. Jack’s super-hero complex. Sayed’s assurance that he is beyond redemption. Kate’s inability to get beyond her terrible past.

And then it shows how the growth in each character embodies a growth we can empathize and sympathize with. We’ve either been there ourselves or we can see it as normal to the human condition. And it all revolves around a redemptive process. Some experience redemptive change, some cannot make that leap and so are left grasping in futility.

I recommend this book for anyone who loves the TV series Lost, for anyone who enjoys great literature for it’s character depth and wants an exploration of characterization in a newer medium, and for anyone seeking to understand an icon of our popular culture which has with such strength and depth provided this intriguing and complex look into each of our hearts and lives.

Or if you just want to see how the grand scope of the Bible can be effectively applied to our modern lives in a constructive and informative way, The Gospel According To Lost is for you.

Charles' Scartlett Letter

YaVaughnie Wilkins posted the signs after she learned that her lover, Charles E. Phillips — president and director of the tech conglomerate Oracle Corporation and a member of Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board — had reconciled with his wife, the New York Post reported.

Charles E. Phillips has a 10 year old son, has had an 8-1/2 year “serious relationship” with Wilkins, and is a “family man”.

That means he’s “loved” this woman almost as long as he’s had a son. Consider the implications of that.

He’s a creep, untrustworthy, etc.

Well, he’s worthy of something, social disapprobation and shaming.

Which is exactly what YaVaughnie did. For the wrong reasons, yea. But I’m begging and not feeling particularly choosie.

Read about her billboards.

I completely agree that pornography is very drug-like in it’s effects. It’s addictive, it changes your body’s natural patterns and how your body expects to fulfill certain needs.

Check out FightTheNewDrug.com.

Consider this comment in a thread on one of the more entertaining sites on the internet:

And that response is exactly what is necessary, were we still living in a culture that predominantly believed in absolute truth and real morality and ethics.

Seeing joy in everything

Equating a person’s feelings for their cat bred with respiratory issues from a shortened snout with society’s considering mentally deficient people special, either as a politically correct label or as a true measure of our regard for that person, is pure and simple evil.

This is, no doubt, a person who’s in favor of aborting children if they’re found in pre-birth testing to be potentially mentally retarded or suffering from some other deficiency.

I’m glad there are people in the world willing to adopt these special children when their own parents do not consider themselves up to the task and that there are people willing to accept these children and give them full and rich lives.

So to this person who would deprive this world of the joy and delight that are people who have been blessed with something other than a sound mind, I say shame on you.

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.

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

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.

A Liberal: He's offended and it's my fault.

If a conservative doesn’t like guns, he doesn’t buy one.
If a liberal doesn’t like guns, he wants all guns outlawed.

If a conservative is a vegetarian, he doesn’t eat meat.
If a liberal is a vegetarian, he wants all meat products banned for everyone.

If a conservative sees a foreign threat, he thinks about how to defeat his enemy.
A liberal wonders how to surrender gracefully and still look good.

If a conservative is homosexual, he quietly leads his life.
If a liberal is homosexual, he demands everyone know it and demands legislative action!

If a black man or Hispanic is conservative, they see themselves as independent and successful.
Their liberal counterparts see themselves as victims in need of government protection.

If a conservative is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation.
A liberal wonders what government program is going to take care of him.

If a conservative doesn’t like a talk show host, he switches channels.
Liberals demand that those they don’t like be shut down (the so-called Fairness Doctrine for example).

If a conservative is a non-believer, he doesn’t go to church.
A liberal non-believer wants any mention of God and religion silenced.

If a conservative decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping for it, or may choose a job that provides it.
A liberal demands that the rest of us pay for his through the government.

If conservative slips and falls in a store, he gets up, laughs and is embarrassed.
If a liberal slips and falls, he grabs his neck, moans like he’s in labor, and then sues.

If a conservative reads this, he’ll forward it so his friends can have a good laugh.
A liberal will delete it because he’s “offended”.

Thanks to IronicSurrealism for this email forward.

AskMen.com has a short article about why we get offended and what we ought to do about it (Caution: AskMen.com has some small images of scantily clad women if you don’t have ad-blocking software in your browser). Here are some of their solutions, read the whole article for their explanations and more solutions:

Find a middle ground to react
Read things in context
Have a sense of humor about it
Ignore it