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.

Is it too much to ask for a company who recognizes it should only succeed on it’s own merits? Apple isn’t it, that’s for sure. Market domination by litigation is an ugly thing.

Kinda ironic Apple used those “Think Different” ads with the 1984 send-up and they’re now resorting to cajoling the government into enforcing an artificial monopoly on their behalf.

Judges who accept such frivolities ought to be tossed out on their butts. And the companies that make such stupid claims, well, I can think of some things we buyers can do to them.

Once upon a time, Apple portrayed itself as David to Microsoft’s Goliath as it battled the ultimately dominant force from Redmond. A generation later, the world’s attention has shifted from PCs and laptops to mobile devices, and Apple now finds itself in the role of Goliath. It knows full well that dominance isn’t permanent, and anything that can be done to slow down new entrants should indeed be done. That it continues to let a certain degree of historically entrenched fear guide its actions isn’t necessarily a negative thing. Tension, after all, is a great driver of increased performance. But at this level, at this scale, and at this crucial moment in the history of the mobile market, it runs the risk of slamming the industry it helped define into neutral as lesser-endowed players run for the hills.

In that respect, Apple really shouldn’t be living in fear of HTC, Nokia, or any other potential competitor. The real fear belongs to consumers like us, and it should be directed back at Apple.

“Is Apple Afraid Of Google?” at BetaNews.com.

Big Plans: Obama and Pelosi

Jack Ryan, hero of most of the books penned by author Tom Clancy, is given words which President Obama and most, if not all, of the leadership in Washington DC and state capitols across this great nation would do well to hear and heed.

In The Sum Of All Fears Jack Ryan encounters a powerful member of the current administration and gives them a reality check on what they’d been considering:

(T)he most dangerous trap in government service. You start to think that your wishes to make the world a better place supersede the principles under which our government is support to operate.

The government of the United States of America operates under the constraints and the controls of the Constitution of the United States of America.

The strength of the United States of America is that we believe that no man is above the law. No member of the government, no matter how high or powerful, can escape this.

That’s why former President Clinton was impeached, he broke the law by lying before a Grand Jury.

That’s why there are governors and legislators and mayors and bureaucrats of all types in prison, because their position does not free them from the constraints of the law.

The Constitution, a document of purpose and power, is the real strength behind this American Experiment. And to the extent we ignore the conditions of the Constitution, we weaken it. And to the extent we weaken it, we weaken our nation. And to the extent we weaken our nation, we’re traitors.

Dreamers can be leaders, but we remain a strong nation only when our leaders stay within the bounds of their responsibility.

Without equivocation I condemn the murder of Dr. Tiller.

Murder is murder, and one murder never justifies another.

We live in a land of law and justice. No man is above the law or a law to themselves, when such a personal law conflicts with the law of the land.

The only way a person can lose their life legitimately and legally at the hand of man is when that person has been found guilty of some crime worthy of the death penalty by the justice system of that land. In America this means being found guilty by a jury of their peers of certain specific crimes.

In the small way I am aware of Dr. Tiller, I find his career to be revolting and disgusting in the highest sense. I find it difficult to even consider the occupation with which he has spent his life: killing innocent, unborn children late in their term.

If he did not repent, prior to his death, of this heinous sin, God has perfect justice ready for him. But it is not mine to mete out to him.

I grieve for Dr. Tiller in that it is very likely did not accept the salvation of the Lord. Eternal punishment is a fearful thing that I cannot wish on any person, ever. It is not mine to wish.

As a Christian, I take both comfort and warning from God’s claim to perfect justice:  “‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay’ says the Lord.”

Comfort because I know God will do a much better job of justice than any human court ever could. He judges the innermost thoughts and wishes, the heart and the mind. Things a human judge could never see clearly to judge on.

And yet warning, because God reserving, without qualification, all vengeance to Himself leaves none for me. Not even the vengeance of thought or hope.

I should not feel giddy or happy that God may indeed be judging an evil man for his sin. Instead, there is anguish that Satan succeeded in destroying another life entrhalled in deception and pride. Another life is doomed forever to torment and there isn’t another chance to rescue this soul from the depredations of sin and score another victory against the prince of darkness and his failing, faltering, now conquered kingdom.

Dr. Tiller was a sinner, as am I.

And his murderer ought to be brought to justice, as should the murderer of any other sinner.

To the pro-life people: We are against death. It’s the morally superior position and all those who dispute this argue against sense and reason.

When pro-abortion people state that our general position for the death penalty makes our argument false, they only reveal the moral bankruptcy of their own feeble stand.

We are for the life of the innocent and the protection of that life through the rare but possible, lawfully imposed death of the guilty at the hands of the law and the government.

They are for the death of the innocent, damage and destruction of their mothers, freedom from responsibility of the fathers, and protection of those who would kill other innocents.

There really isn’t much comparison.

If we’re tempted to support, in any way, the murder of Dr. Tiller. No matter how we may despise the sin he dug himself so deeply into, we succumb to lawlessness and anarchy. Which leads, without exception, to the death of innocents.

Burris is a crook. Whodathunkit?

And a liar, of the worst kind. Pretentiously hiding behind his squeaky clean image and claiming he’d never talked to Blagojevich about favors that resulted in his appointment to the Senate. Santimoniously sermonizing ad nauseum about how he was about the people’s business and wouldn’t allow sordid speculation sway his resolve.

There’s no sordid speculation here and that sactimonious sermonizing can go right back down the vile gullet it emerged from to add it’s putrid mass to the seething stench that inhabits that man’s soul.

Just a question, an honest one here: knowing the FBI had recorded phone conversations and in all likelihood had him incriminating himself with incontravertible proof, how did Burris walk the halls of Congress with his debonaire smile? Was  his conscience eating him at all? Or is his corruption so complete that he’s quelled all better things within him?

Oh, and now he’s “torn” over helping Blagojevich.

This much is true: as a parent we want our child to feel bad about doing wrong, not about being caught.

Burris is feeling bad about being caught. His emotional development is very likely so incredibly stunted it would take a redemptive work in his life to make him feel grief over his actual wrong.

So throw the Senator out already.

Judge Sotomayor has lots of things going for her: Obama likes her, and… Obama thinks she’ll do a good job.

Why?

A significant number of her decisions have been reversed, and of those upheld, her arguments have been faulted by superior judges. This indicates a consistency only in fallacy and not in skilled jurisprudence.

Reading through a list of Sotomayor decisions, one finds very quickly she is anti-business, pro-union,  and pro-regulation.

She believes business is out to hurt people.

She believes unions are completely good and no bad thing can come from them.

She believes generally that government knows best, especially when the right kind of people run government.

One thing conspicuously absent from her beliefs is a belief in the rule of law and the supremacy of law over all men equally.

It’s no unfair fear tactic to quote her (from the NY Times):

I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life

Would a white male judge saying a version of that phrase last any longer than a water drop on a hot iron skillet? Of course not, and for good reason. There’s no place for preference or opinion in the law.

Justice is supposed to be blind.

Sotomayor, in her arrogance and conceit, proudly claims her judgement issued with her eyes of justice wide open and uncovered is best.

It may indeed her best judgement, but it’s not the judgement we require of those occupying the highest chairs of justice in our land.

The proof is in the pudding, they say.

Timothy P. O’Neill claims the history and roots of the current members of the High Court are too similar, their backgrounds too homogeneous, to allow for true justice to be dispensed.

According to O’Neill, President Obama has an historic opportunity to correct the court. To broaden it’s foundation and strengthen it’s ability to work in this modern time with an open-minded understanding of our current situation.

Professor Lee Epstein of Northwestern has observed that “Diversity of inputs makes for stronger outputs.” Obama should cast the widest possible net to find a person who can bring a fresh set of experiences and perspectives to the work of the Supreme Court.

O’Neill claims as evidence of the problem the dearth of unanimous decisions in recent court history. And states as a possible cause the acrimonious attempted appointment of Bork and the travesty of political murder that borked Bork.

With the reticence of succeeding Presidents to propose any but established Federal judges to the high court, the court’s base has indeed narrowed, but is the non-unanimous nature of the court a bad thing?

I say not. And I say that a preconceived notion with an aim toward heterogeneity is not the solution to any problems the court now faces.

The purpose of the high court is to apply and interpret the law in difficult cases. It is not to have empathy or to make exceptions or to make law. Anything more or less than application and interpretation of the law is a failure and a grab for power not allocated to the judicial branch by the Constitution.

Reasonable people may disagree and the stress of disagreement slows down a mad human rush towards oblivion.

Such enforced conflict is not the best solution, but in our current era of stratified ideology, it’s pragmatic and effective.

The aim, in selecting judicial appointees, for any President, ought to be whether or not the person selected has an understanding and appreciation for the law. That is the only criteria which is reasonable.

Thomas Sowell counters with the basic argument of Constitutional rationality:

People who are speculating about whether the next nominee will be a woman, a Hispanic or whatever are missing the point.

That we are discussing the next Supreme Court justice in terms of group “representation” is a sign of how far we have already strayed from the purpose of law and the weighty responsibility of appointing someone to sit for life on the highest court in the land.

That Obama has made “empathy” with certain groups one of his criteria for choosing a Supreme Court nominee is a dangerous sign of how much further the Supreme Court may be pushed away from the rule of law and toward even more arbitrary judicial edicts to advance the agenda of the left and set it in legal concrete, immune from the democratic process.

It is always interesting to me that those who are so (mistakenly) tied up with the “Democracy” of America are so very un-Democratic about critical moral, cultural, and social issues. America is designed to be a Republic (if we can keep it) because of the innately sinful nature of man.

Those claiming the mantel of Democratic ideals are often the first to bypass them and the will of the people, or directly contravene it, by seeking attention and action from the legislative and judicial branches to impose their minority ideas upon the majority.

Fairness is too often very unfair for someone else, and the flip-side of tolerance is tyranny.

We are an equal society, say many. But Sowell cautions that this is often no more than smoke and mirrors:

We would have entered a strange new world where everybody is equal but some are more equal than others. The very idea of the rule of law would become meaningless when it is replaced by the empathies of judges.

Obama solves this contradiction, as he solves so many other problems, with rhetoric. If you believe in the rule of law, he will say the words “rule of law.” And if you are willing to buy it, he will keep on selling it.

We live in a society governed by the rule of law. Our society requires that it’s members be knowledgeable and intelligent and involved.

When we sacrifice knowledge and intelligence at the altar of equality we lose the ability to be involved.

As more and more power is usurped from it’s right and proper owners, we all lose.

Thomas Sowell ends his article with a somber warning we would all do well to heed:

The biggest danger in appointing the wrong people to the Supreme Court is not just in how they might vote on some particular issues — whether private property, abortion or whatever. The biggest danger is that they will undermine or destroy the very concept of the rule of law — what has been called “a government of laws and not of men.”

Under the American system of government, this cannot be done overnight or perhaps even during the terms in office of one president — but it can be done. And it can be done over time by the appointees of just one president, if he gets enough appointees.

Some people say that who Obama appoints to replace Souter doesn’t really matter, because Souter is a liberal who will probably be replaced by another liberal. But, if no one sounds the alarm now, we can end up with a series of appointees with “empathy” — which is to say, with justices who think their job is to “relieve the distress” of particular groups rather than to uphold the Constitution of the United States.

What makes us so special?

Rather than embarking on a long dialogue, as is my norm, I want to instead throw some things out on the table for you to think about.

First . . . do we really readthe Bible, or do we just preview it through our Americanized mindset? In American culture, my actions are treated as my own, and the consequences are solely mine. However, read the Bible. Truly read it. The story of Achan clearly demonstrates that not only is a person responsible for their crime, but their wife, children, and grandchildren are to suffer for the sin and their possessions are to be destroy. Do I condone this? No, with fulfilment of the law, God brought grace. But guess what? God hasn’t changed, we are still responsible for the sins of those we are connected to (accountability) are our sins still effect those we are around (responsibility), to a much larger extent than our American minds want to accept.

Second . . . what makes us so special (American Christians)? We walk around acting like being an American Christian is a benefit to God. Somehow, we have a general mindset (not when we think about it, but when we just normally act) that God is in debt to us since we are American Christians and he owes us providence and goodwill. I got news . . . I am of no more value to God than a Chinese Christian who is of no more value to God than a Chinese heathen. We act like God owes it to us to keep our country “safe” and prosperous, but God owes us no such thing.

Third . . . are we (American Christians) the ones who decided who is a Christian nation and who gets God’s blessings? Somehow, we feel like we have a direct line to God and can dictate to Him who he should bless (us) and how the world should be run (through our prosperity). However, here is a though . . . maybe God is using, and blessing the Chinese. Here is an even harder thought, maybe God is using the Chinese to reshape the world for the next stage of human development. That is a hard pill to take, but guess what . . . we (as Christians) should rejoice in that because it is the next good  step in God’s good plan.

In closing, maybe we should get over ourselves, read what God really says (not what fits our mindset), and take joy in world event (and prepare for joyous persecution) because God has ordained it for his glory.

If I ran the world I would tell people:

I’m the government, and the government cannot fix all your problems. The good things I can do are limited to:

• Protecting the entire nation and it’s immediate interests of safety and commerce through foreign war.

• Protecting each individual equally and without preference through the rule of law.

That’s it. That’s all.
Anything else I, the government, tries, I fail at.
I am not efficient or practical.
I am not flexible or creative.
I stifle.
I limit.
I take.
I hurt you.
Limit me. It’s in your best interest.

(A)s we revel in this gush of happy feelings it is important to recognize that not all change is good. It is important to recognize that we need to pin our hopes on solid ideas or our hopes will be quite hopeless.

On that depressing note I beg your pardon for having the audacity to hope that we can peer through his lovely rhetoric to see the ideas beneath as they truly are, warts and all. At the same time we must sincerely hope for his great success.

Monte Solberg in the Edmonton Sun, January 19th, 2009.

In the Bible we’re told that all authority is in God, and those that exist on earth, do so at His ordination and continue at His pleasure (Romans 13). Therefore I pray that Obama will find God’s blessing leading him on throughout his life and especially and particularly while he is President of the United States of America. Who am I to withstand God and withold my prayers from a man who will bear one of the greatest burdens known to man at this present time?

I make that statement unqualified. Barack Obama needs the prayers of each and every Christian.

But what do we pray for?

From a Christian perspective, we see the goals and aspirations, ideas and philosophies Obama espouses are diametrically opposed to God’s ideals and lofty standards. Obama has stated his unequivocal support for many of the most heinous forms of abortion/infanticide.

As an American, I see many of his goals will be to the detriment of this great nation and it’s Constitution. Obama supports and plans to implement some of the most sweeping tax hikes across the board in a long time. His social policies are in favor of taking away individual liberty, removing the Christian ideal of individual and community responsibility.

His philosophies are neither new nor are his proposals novel. They are tired and failed relics of a century lost to the dust of history. FDRoosevelt-style government interventionism which prolonged and deepened the Great (Government-caused) Depression. Soveit-style big government nannyism with the grasp of government-controlled means of production expanding.

How can we then pray for this man who will lead our nation?

In our own lives, when our parents, friends, spiritual leaders and mentors pray for our benefit and blessing, God is in no way constrained to bless our faults and sins. God’s blessing is always administered with the goal of bringing Him glory through us. In the life of Christian, his blessing may often go against our own goals and cause grief and pain as it tears us away from those things which are not pleasing to Him.

God’s blessing is not purposed for our good from our own perspective necessarily. It is instead always purposed for our own good from His perspective, and when we have been heading against His will, His blessing goes against our own will.

So it should be in our prayers for Barack Obama. He will need our prayers for the salvation and redemption of his eternal soul. He will need our prayers for God’s grace in his life, God’s wisdom in his decisions, God’s forceful and purifying love in every aspect of his life.

As politics cannot neither redeem man nor save him from himself, so the politician can no more give us our real needs than he can bring water from a rock for his own thirst.

Barack Obama, especially, will need our fervent prayers on his behalf because the real true change necessary to bring about his true alignment with God’s will and ways will require such a deep and tearing change in himself, his history, his understanding, his very soul. Such change, freeing his eternal soul and physical body from the ideas and philosophies which so enslave him right now, will be drastic and uprooting for him.

At the same time as I pray for Barack, his presidency, his salvation, and our Nation, I will, in the interest of fulfilling my obligation to God, to Barack as a fellow human, and to America, do my utmost to thwart any of the ideas or proposals which he may propose that threaten real progress and growth.

Both prayer and protection are my duty and they do not conflict.

And they were singing: Bye, bye miss American pie…

Yesterday the US automakers, the UAW, and the US government failed to reach an agreement that could have secured a bailout for the “Big 3″. GM is consulting with bankruptcy lawyers. Chrysler is considering selling itself. Ford is apparently mostly OK and will survive with little change.

Senate Republicans and several Democrats followed their constituents calls and stood up to another free money day for American business.

I don’t believe Darwinian Biological Evolution is likely have occurred but there is scant proof indeed than anything besides a Darwinian approach to business is dangerous to liberty and allows for bloat and growth of government both in the breadth of responsibility and the expectations of the populace. The dying ought to be allowed to die to make room for new and fresh ideas.

It is not a closely held secret, the fact the UAW does more harm to GM than it does good for its members.

The entitlement mentality of many die-hard union members I know of is something to behold. I make an honest wage for a job I truly enjoy. I’m expected to contribute to my insurance costs and my employer does as well. I’m given the choice which benefits I wish to make use of, and I have a marginal cost for each one. But for each additional cost, my employer also contributes amounts and so while I’m paying more (or taking home less in each paycheck) I’m actually earning more. The benefits are delayed but there nonetheless.

The union workers I know are decent people, no worse nor better than many others I know. However, they have become used to two paradigms at least which are either wrong or detrimental. They are used to a conflicting relationship between themselves and the management and they are used to a level of coddling by their employers at the behest of the Union.

The relationship of the employer to the employee ought to be one of shared and communicated goals and observed ability and process communication and refinement and achievement recognition. This is admittedly an optimal goal, but it is not unattainable and for it’s optimal nature it ought not be dismissed.

The Union infrastructure destroys both directions of communication necessary to the successful and profitable enterprise. By setting up a default adversarial relationship between the average workers and the management, with the workers via their Union trying to get more and more of the company ‘pie’ for themselves with deeper and longer guarantees of remuneration and the managers trying to get concessions and extra work from the increasingly insulated employees.

When you have cases where GM has shut down a factory and is still paying full wages and benefits to thousands of people there is something obviously wrong.

You may say that GM owes it’s employees something: I would get severance if I was fired, but the idea is to make me WANT to get a new job. Paying me as much as I made previously as part of some inactive workforce is sound business sense only to those without sense or with an incredibly skewed set of priorities.

Now that, directly because of the UAW’s actions, GM is in free-fall and will likely file bankruptcy, they will be firing a lot of people. There will be thousands fewer jobs. People will be in REAL hurt. Good union people too. And the UAW will be unable to to anything about it.

GM will be restructured and without the UAW in their shops.

Congressmen were quoted saying that if the UAW had only agreed to wage cuts they would have been able to salvage the bailout. Thank God they did not.

Greed and avarice are light labels for the UAW.

I will rise again…

But look out.

Barack Obama will be president soon, and the unions are virtually guaranteed that federal law will be changed to allow “card check” which will set the bar for unionizing agonizingly low. With public votes, strong arming and union thug pressure will thrive and the UAW will be able to unionize the Toyota and Honda factories.

So they’re not dead. They know their payday is coming soon.

If you don’t know Chicago politics you don’t know that corruption is the norm, and the appearance of honesty is a closely honed art. Unions run Chicago arm in arm with the Democrat political machine. They’ve delivered Obama to the White House and they are expecting a high return on investment.

My union friends have a problem, they refuse to see the forest for the trees. They are used to the safety and coddling in benefits they receive because of the Unions work, but they refuse to acknowledge their accepting the benefits of the Unions come at such a price.

Unions served their purpose, and in some cases they may still have  a valid place. Federal law for the most part has codified the reasonable purposes of the Union. But Unions are about power, and their continued presence in America is without merit.

The internet and the vast web of information and advocacy outside of the Union are quite capable of keeping accountability within the workplace without the need for the stultifying and parasitic presence of the Union.

Until the UAW dies, American industry will fail.