iPandora

This is a repost from June 4th, 2008. A friend of mine and I were discussing this tonight and I was trying to recall where I’d read this reconciliation of the two viewpoints. Funny I should find myself the author.

This is only the lightest of treatments of what has muddled many a mind and rankled many an argument over the vast span of history between Christ’s walking on earth and out present day.

Let me begin by putting all my cards on the table:

Predestination (or election) and choice and free-will in salvation are not mutually exclusive and in fact are both true throughout both the moment of salvation and the life-long process of sanctification.

First up in the list of evidence is that passage many evangelicals love to hate, Romans 8. This excerpt from verses 28 through 30 contains the most difficult bits:

(28) And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. (29) For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. (30) And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

The meaning of this verse is not open to much discussion or debate, it is rather clear on it’s face: we are not responsible for our salvation or sanctification. We are merely fortunate to have been chosen.

Next up, Romans 9: 6-22:

(6) …it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, (7) and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” (8) This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. (9) For this is what the promise said: “About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.” (10) And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, (11) though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls— (12) she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” (13) As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

(14) What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! (15) For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” (16) So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. (17) For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” (18) So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.

(19) You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” (20) But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” (21) Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? (22) What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,

This is very similar to God’s ultimate response to Job at the end of his complaining. God tells him his mind is too small to understand all the purposes behind His working in the world. Trust is not trust when we see the whole picture or comprehend the entire situation.

But then what of choice? It seems that Paul has not left any room for choice and free-will in either salvation or sanctification.

So then we get to the “friendly” passages. The ones that are quoted every Sunday and most every other day from thousands of pulpits and soap-boxes around the world promoting the ease of access to God’s redemptive plan, John 3:16:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

As we can see, there is little debating this scripture either. “Whoever” is an inclusive word with the only limiter being one of undebatable choice: “believes”. The choice is obviously ours to make when it comes to salvation.

So then there is a paradox, there are two apparently mutually exclusive claims made regarding salvation and it’s cause and effect.

Using these verses and their context, it is not difficult to see how they fit together like two sides of the same coin.

John 3 begins with the account of Nicodemus’ talk with Jesus. Jesus was telling an unsaved and searching man how he ought to find salvation.

Romans 8 and 9 are revealing a greater understanding of salvation, sanctification, and the Christian walk to those already saved.

When God speaks to those who need Him and who He desires to come to Him, that is all of us, He speaks of our need and choice. And when He speaks to those of us who are working out lives defined by His process of sanctification, He speaks of His own supremacy and unmatchable ability to reach out to us, draw us, save us and sanctify us and of our own inability to accomplish any of the same.

God’s omniscience and His perspective seeing our entire lives, He sees our beginning and our ending at the same ‘time’ and therefore knows how we will choose before the choice is even presented. This is confirmed and expounded upon by Paul’s statement that “He works all things together for good to those called”. However, in much the same way an observing scientist’s knowledge that a mouse will eventually reach the cheese in the maze does not negate the free-will in the choices that mouse made reaching the cheese, God’s knowledge and awareness of our entire life-path at all times and His active work in our life-path do not negate the fact that we are responsible for the choices he has given us.

Once to every man and nation, comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, some great decision, offering each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever, ’twixt that darkness and that light.

Then to side with truth is noble, when we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and ’tis prosperous to be just;
Then it is the brave man chooses while the coward stands aside,
Till the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied.

By the light of burning martyrs, Christ, Thy bleeding feet we track,
Toiling up new Calv’ries ever with the cross that turns not back;
New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth,
They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of truth.

Though the cause of evil prosper, yet the truth alone is strong;
Though her portion be the scaffold, and upon the throne be wrong;
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own.

Update 8/31/09:

Neil at 4Simpsons links to an article attempting to reconcile Predestination and Free Will at the blog Winging It. David argues that God’s predestination and election awakes the heart to experience the free will capable of accepting salvation.

From last week: I learned I’m not allowed to decide how responsible my children are and the resulting levels of freedom they can then enjoy.

And in the re-running of the classic comic For Better or For Worse, we learn that Ellie is an abusive parent, allowing and even requiring her children, and her friend’s children, to walk to the park.

She ought to have helicoptered as the current social freaks require, driving the boys to the park, catered to their every whim.

And allowed their legs to shrivel up and fall off.

…I’m not allowed, as father and parent, to decide when and how my children are allowed to be mature.

I was quite capable, at 10 years old, to go to the grocery store by myself, on my bike, and pick up various thing my mother needed but couldn’t load the whole family into the car for.

But in Illinois, if I allow my children to be unsupervised before they’re 14, I’m negligent and liable.

So the question is:

Do I make myself the target in order to illustrate how ludicrous such nanny-state tactics are in arming do-gooders and busy-bodies the world over with false moral standing in their quest to ruin the world for the rest of us normal people?

Or do I keep my kids in the back yard until they’re fully feral?

What kind of responsibility did you have growing up? And how much responsibility would you give you children today? How similar are you to your parents or how different?

And what about the mother who let her son ride the subway home alone in New York city?

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.

Want to know how to kill a butterfly?

Help it.

Yes, it’s that easy.

You see this newly metamorphosized creature, brimming with potential beauty and wondrous mystery, struggling weakly against the tough confines of it’s chrysalis shell. Moved with pity you gently tear the chrysalis further, freeing it’s hostage, the beautiful young butterfly.

And yet, what is this?

The fair creature is still weak. It’s body not energized with the pangs of struggle, and it’s abdomen still engorged with liquid it must now pump into it’s wings. Without the necessary and draining struggle for freedom from it’s chrysalis, the butterflies strength is stunted and it will not have the strength to pump it’s wings full.

It will fall to the ground and become easy prey to the other creatures waiting for food or it will simply die.

It is good to minimize suffering whenever we can. It is our moral responsibility to strive to help and assist others however we are able.

However, all assistance and relief must be provided with an awareness of the necessity of the situation.

Does a parent do their child good by covering for them when they cheat or break the law? Often, it is a parent’s failure to provide the necessary discipline at home that allows the child to grow up to break the law, and the best thing they can do is to allow that authority willing to provide the necessary correction the freedom to mete out the necessary punishment.

Does a parent do their child good by demanding the opening of the school basketball court to where they are skipping classes and failing everywhere except for their “mad skillz” on the court? Wouldn’t it help the child by standing firm beside others who care and require higher standards from children who obviously have drive and intelligence?

The easy solution is often fraught with foreseeable future failure.

An often maligned conservative standard is to expect more from people. It is completely true that this perspective tends to hurt more than the soft tyranny of low expectations held by many of a liberal bent. However, the people who grow through adversity are stronger people, more independent and more positively beneficial to the independently interdependent system our Founding Fathers devised for us.

It has been said the most difficult part of raising children is consistency, and also the most rewarding. Consistantly providing instruction, correction, support, guidance, and parental leadership will take life from me and cause hurt and pain. But it will reap rewards far beyond any mushy permissiveness or laissez-faire Spockian parental philosophy.

Our dear child is to be a butterfly, and I shall not do more nor less than hold his hand as he struggles through the various chrysalis’ life passes him through. I not ease his way only in giving him the tools he needs to accomplish his own way.

I will not kill my butterfly.

From today’s Whirled Views from the WorldMagBlog:

Today’s quote is from an African-American pastor on abortion, the leading cause of death among black Americans since 1973: “The most dangerous place for an African American to be is in the womb of their African American mother.”

How true, and how sad. Entire generations wiped away because of any of so many lies and decietful and destructive philosophies.

The rocks are drenched in blood and the cries of a multitude massacred rise before our God.

Who will hear?

Who will praise the Lord when His smallest children, the offspring of the jewels of His creation, are being murdered?

Continued from part 5

10 Little and Big Things You Can Do:

1: Hypocrisy: Publicly-”Green” people tend to fly more, take more expensive and expansive vacations and use loop-hole systems such as Carbon Offsets to make the claim they are caring about the environment (ie: Al Gore).
Demonizing Corporations: Requires corporations.Solar panels require extremely high amounts of wealth and take extreme amounts of time to recoup the dollar and energy costs.

2: Average people are better at this, the cost of items drives conservation. Growing up we always used paper garbage bags for our trash bags in the kitchen. I upgrade computers for several years, replacing internal parts piecemeal as my needs change.

Potential Hypocrisy: “Visibly engage in re-use”: It’s what we do when people aren’t watching that shows who we are. We should simply engage in re-use, not visibly or invisibly, but as part of who we are.

3: Good, but know where the rational, reasonable, and practical parts are, and avoid the conspiracies, fallacies, and manipulations which use the Green movement to further enrich callous liars such as Al Gore.

4: Al Gore, wrong poster boy. John Doe, right poster boy. Climate change, arguable issue, plenty of science on either side. Cyclical, “hockey stick” graph magnifies an infinitesimal temperature change, ignore the fact that the pollution spike follows after the temperature spike. Sun spot cycles are more closely correlated in a casual relationship.

5: Good, but Chemical and Toxic do not necessarily equal. Is not government’s responsibility. Internet and modern communcation allows ’small’ people to have large voices and affect real and substantive pressure for change on private industry.

EU example: “Tin slivers” are dangerous, lead better, more reliable, safer for the reliability it has. Forces private industry to make inferior products.

6: Agree. This is the Church.

7: Public transportation does not ease congestion, is prone to government-induced cronyism and corruption in the lucrative contracts. Dirty, inefficient, cannot profit. Is not federal government’s responsibility. Privatize public transportation. Airlines and bus lines and Ocean lines are profitable and successful. Why not trains? Government run failures.

Master-planned communities tend to be less diverse economically and inhibit the upward- and cross-mobilism that is encouraged by an open and spread community system. Is government going to require people live within 5 miles of their job? Who can do this? Do you want to be forced to live next door to the supermarketor the office building? This inhibits personal freedom and the meeting of needs by artificially conforming all members of a community to lead similar lives in a pre-defined economony. This is a tried and proven recipe for economic stagnation, poverty, and dissatisfaction (ie: communism/socialism). Causes harm.

8: Hypocrisy: CFLs (“energy efficient light bulbs”) contain mercury, which is released when they are disposed of or broken. Talking about toxins: Mercury is known bad. Also, some people are more sensitive to the 60-Hz “flicker” of fluorescent bulbs, causing headaches and other physical problems. It’s a good idea at its root, but more wealth allows for more development which allows for better solutions. CFLs are not the solution to the lighting problem. Corporations need the freedom to innovate further to address the needs which we present to them through the force of the market.

Answer is to innovate and develop and start own corporation which will produce the solution.

9: Recycled bottles take more energy to make than “original” bottle of similar dimension. Needs innovation and development to make effective. Only because we have corporations allowing people to make money and get rich can we afford to support economically wasteful systems which are cleaner and more “Green”.

10: Good… but. Wal-mart. Average family in Wal-mart neighborhood has $2000 extra at the end of the year because of the price deflation a Wal-mart forces on the area. Thats $2000 they can spend on glasses for their kids, medicine, etc, without going to the government. Wal-mart hires people not as ‘acceptable’ at other places: mentally handicapped, older, etc. Without Wal-mart keeping their costs down they would be forced only to hire healthy, good-looking people like everybody else. What is better: An Old person with self-respect due to a productive job who has to pay for their own health insurance or an old person decrepit and decaying in the lounger at the nursing home paid for at exculpatory rates by money taken from you and me by government-run bloated social welfare programs which I can no longer use to give to my Church so they can’t keep up the outreach to the nursing home or to pay for medicine for my children?

Yes, there is a problem and the root of the solution is not all that complex.

Continue reading in part 7

Continued from part 3

DISTRIBUTION: “Selling all the toxic, contaminated junk as fast as possible”
“Keep the prices low, keep the people buying, keep the inventory moving”
“How do they keep the prices down?”
“They don’t pay the workers very much, and they skimp on health insurance everytime they can. It’s all about externalizing the costs. What that means is the real costs of making stuff aren’t captured in the price.” – Is there a mandate that companies provide health insurance? It definitely is a perk and people are perfectly able to vote with their feet and take jobs which provide insurance coverage, which will then encourage more employers to provide health insurance.
“We aren’t paying for the stuff we buy”
“I didn’t pay for the radio. So who did pay?”
These people paid with the loss of their natural resource space.
These people paid with the loss of their clean air, with increasing asthma and cancer rates. – A bugbear: healthy diet and exercise have been shown over and over again to allow our body to process toxins it encounters and avoid the problems many people result to medication to resolve. Also, studies have shown that rates of many diseases are not increasing so much as diagnosis of them is. People are more willing to be tested for diseases and conditions and accept treatment of those diseases and therefore the incidence rates are going up. There may indeed be increases in the actual incidence rate, but we cannot know a) how much is accounted for by the more pervasive testing and b) whether there is significant enough correlation between the two data sets to support the claim of pollution causing the increasing incidences of illness.
“Kids in the Congo paid with their future. 30% of kids in the Congo dropped out of school to mine… a metal we need for our cheap and disposable electronics.” – If that job payed them more than they’ve ever dreamed of earning before in a society where education does not mean what it means to us, is that as terrible as the initial claims sounds? The video makes the error of viewing these cultures through the prism of a Western viewpoint. The children would be better served in the long run by staying in school now. Their potentials would be significantly improved. But to leave those schools now and go to work supporting their families was a valid and tempting option to many of them. Our cheap and disposable electronics has grown their economy and given money to the lowest of the low in their society. How is that bad again?
These people paid by having to cover their own health insurance. - If you compel every employer to provide health insurance, you raise the cost of each employee to their employer. If the cost of employing people goes up, employers will employ fewer people. So then which is better: A worker paying for their own insurance or an unemployed person unable to pay for anything and living off the government dole?
All along this system people pitched in so I could get this radio for $4.99. - That is the beauty of the system. It is not perfect, and many people don’t get the same “treatment” by the system. But by and large, more than any other system that has been tried or theorized, more people benefit to a greater extent across all levels of income, culture, and economy by the capitalist system. It is not that capitalism is the perfect system, it is simply the best system we humans can engage in.

Continued from part 5

Continued from part 2

PRODUCTION: “Use energy to mix toxic chemicals in with natural resources to make toxic contaminated products” – Very crafty. Immediately we associate the words “toxic” “chemical” “contaminated” and “products” where there is not a necessary link. Chemicals are naturally occurring elements. Sodium Chloride is a chemical, and we use it in food to help our bodies retain water (Table salt). Dihydrogen Oxide is a chemical, and yet we’d die without it (water).
Over 100,000 synthetic chemicals in use in commerce today. – Very little could be made without them.
Only a handful tested for health impacts. – This is true, and a problem. Market pressure from a populace wealthy enough to pay for the extensive and expensive testing is the best way to fix.
None tested for “synergistic” health impacts: impacts when combined with other chemicals accidentally or purposefully. – See above
Toxins in = toxins out – True. Read about Lobsters. Talk to ShatteredChina.
BFR’s = neuro-toxins, flame retardants added to many products. – How many lives are saved because of it? Is there something better right now? There are places people can purchase products free of this.
Food with highest level of “toxic” contaminants: Human Breast Milk – Real gut-wrencher. Likely true, but what does it mean? Here in the most toxic land on the planet we have very low infant mortality rates. Why?
Babies = most vulnerable – What about abortion? Which is the greater moral ill: possible harm from higher toxin rates in their food, or killing them before they even have a chance?
Why are we not protecting “sacred” breast feeding.
Goes back to government: “I thought they were looking out for us” – Is the government morally responsible or is it defined in their limited scope to protect breast feeding? This is a ludicrous assumption. Government policy may indeed have been indirectly responsible for pollution, but if that is true, do you trust them, being part of the problem, to be part of the solution? Further, your rage, as a consumer with a voice, is much more effective in causing change on the part of the corporations which can develop and create and invent actual solutions to problems. Is the government capable of development of creative solutions?

Factory workers, many women, of reproductive age – This is a bloated claim. Quick to tug the heart strings, but without serious validity. The number of safety precautions in modern manufacturing are mind blowing. Further, this is reminiscent of the tales told in Sociology classes of the hideous conditions of the common man over the years of industry. They are sensationalist and disproven. The photographers famous for their cataloging of the ills of modern commerce were out to make a buck. “If it bleeds, it leads” is a truism and has led to many a distortion. Not that there are not cases of real damage, they just are not nearly as common or egregious as is commonly believe based on the narrative sold us by the purveyors of doom.
No other option – What about the better lives they are able to give their children because they have a more stable job with better wages? A good parent will do what is necessary to give their children every advantage they can. If that includes taking risks, that is a judgment made by each individual. Certain jobs carry risk. Do we ban jobs which entail risk? Would such a ban be truly beneficial?
Erosion of local economies and resources push people to leave previously self-sustaining local economies live in cities - If they were self-sustaining why did people leave? The agrarian economy is subject to a boom/bust cycle which is one reason the push to a industrial/commercial economy has been so embraced by so many. We tend to glamorize the agrarian life-style to a dangerous degree, philosophically. And while there are many good people who survive and thrive in that life-style, many choose to leave it, and have chose to leave it, due to it’s many hardships.
“many to live in slums” – Should we outlaw slums?
“looking for work no matter how toxic that work may be” – And now we are to outlaw work? As a husband and potential/hopeful father, I make a judgment call when I take a job whether the potential risk outweighs the potential benefit. Watch the Discovery Channel’s shows Dangerous Jobs, Ice Road, and other shows which highlight people performing hard work under extreme conditions. Often they enjoy the jobs. They fill serious needs and sometimes ‘frivolous’ desires of
“Not just resources wasted along this system, people are wasted, whole communities” – There is never a waste where people choose to apply themselves to a system which produces. This is loaded language with the intent of causing us to be increasingly against the heart of personal enrichment: the ability to create and earn wealth from that creation.
Environmental impact of production: toxic byproducts, pollution. – This is incontrovertible, but incomplete. Therefore it is misleading.
4 billion pounds US industry “admits” to releasing each year. – Spread that across the volume of the atmosphere, water, subtract for the processing ability of the green on the earth. Now how much is left?
“It’s probably a lot more because that’s only what they admit” – Leading language, assumes they are all crooks.
“So what do they do? Move the dirty factories overseas. Pollute someone elses land.” – Why is it that the Kyoto Accord and other such environmental pacts exempt third-world countries and their corporations and factories from any accountability? Because without the ability to produce “more than their fair share” of garbage until their populace gained enough general wealth they will not be able to afford the production standards and technology necessary to make cleaner factories and production environments.
Pollution “comes right back at us carried by wind currents” – This has been true for a long time. Early mariners sailing outside the Los Angeles bay and basin noted the smog in the areas. It’s not worth panicing over.

Continue reading in part 4

Voting for Obama, for many black people, is about sticking it “To The Man,” – whether they know it or not. Other than the color of the skin, Obama is simply popular among his ethnicity because he is a socialist and black culture is heavily influenced by this belief system – take from those who are capable and have, and give to those who are not and have not. Much of this aligns with the black culture which believes they are still regularly discriminated against by the white man in high places from businesses. So if the government can be turned into a tool to take from the rich, they will vote for people to do so; and the socialist Democratic party is more than willing to use these votes to their advantage. This partially explains why, even though it was the Republican party which freed the slaves, that the Democratic party gets the largest percentage of votes from the black community.

Obama in a radio interview in the early 2000s stated he believes the Civil Rights movement of the 60s didn’t go far enough because he believes there wasn’t enough “distribution….change.” LINK. He’s also went onto say the founding fathers did not do enough with the constitution because it doesn’t say what the government is to do for us LINK So this IS the change of which Obama wants to bring to America. I can understand why people with entitlement mentalities would vote for him, however, what really concerns me is the average American who is okay with paying more in taxes directly, or indirectly via the products of companies which pay, now, higher taxes. With this passive, boiling-frog mentality, before they know it they or their grandchildren will be in the cross hairs of the government.

As an Independent I have some serious issues with the Republican party, but the vote is between an American socialist (John McCain) and a European socialist (Obama); and the reason my founding fathers came to America was to NOT be like Europe and be our own nation. I hope my generation, which by many polls is more conservative, can steer this great nation back on course.

This is going to be an interesting election and next four years.