Who Owns The Money?

McCain may not be with conservatives on many social issues, but he’s definitely with us on fiscal issues. He’ll at least work hard to keep America from going broke.

Three articles across the internet today highlight the heart of this issue: the willingness of the candidates to spend money which you’ve given them in self-serving pork projects.

Buying votes with your cash.

First, from the Washington Post: Candidates Earmarks Worth Millions:

Working with her New York colleagues in nearly every case, [Sen. Hillary] Clinton [(NY)] supported almost four times as much spending on earmarked projects as her rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), whose $91 million total placed him in the bottom quarter of senators who seek earmarks, the study showed.

Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the likely GOP presidential nominee, was one of five senators to reject earmarks entirely, part of his long-standing view that such measures prompt needless spending.

In the Boston Herald (winner of todays Most Absolutely Annoying And Alliterative Headline: Blustering Bubba Blasts Barak for Babbling Baloney) editorial, The Race For Earmarks, the editors note that Hillary sent $342 million to her own constituents, putting her in the top ten porkers. McCain, on the other hand, was against earmarks before that was even beginning to become popular.The porkers which inhabit Washington desire power. It is not altruism which drives them, but instead a compelling desire to get as many people subscribing to their ascendancy by giving them money.

But whose money do they use? Yours.

If it were their money there would not be an issue, except for the ethical implications of graft and cronyism and what they say of the character of the individual engaging in them.

Further insight into the candidates philosophies can be seen in who they get money for:

As a campaign issue, earmarks highlight significant differences in the spending philosophies of the top three candidates. Clinton has repeatedly supported earmarks as a way to bring home money for projects, while Obama adheres to a policy of using them only to support public entities.

McCain is using his blanket opposition to earmarked spending as a regular line of attack against Clinton, even running an Internet ad mocking her $1 million request for a museum devoted to the Woodstock music festival. Obama has been criticized for using a 2006 earmark to secure money for the University of Chicago hospital where his wife worked until last year.

McCain, for his seeming contempt for many social-conservative causes, respects the citizenry enough to protect their investment in government.

It reminds me of the story of Davy Crockett, who, when a disaster struck his home state while he was a member of Congress, and his constituents begged that he send federal money to help the stricken area, said that he would not.

He stated that money spent by the government can only be used in ways which benefit ALL citizens equally.

If only more in the current crop of public megalomaniacs servants would espouse this truism.

But the porkers currently running for the Democrat nomination do not.

The Scheming Communist Operative, Hillary, does what is best for her and only, ever, what is best for her. If this involves giving your money to someone she thinks can pave her way to power, that’s what she does.

The Idyllic Communist, Obama, only gives to “worthy causes”.

The problem is, people (you and I) are much more efficient and effective at getting money to worthy causes:

• We are better at choosing those causes which are actually worthy.
• We’re less likely to be duped in significant numbers and for substantial amounts of money than the government with its fat-handed largess.
• And it doesn’t cost as much for us to get our money to those causes which are worthy, so more money gets to them overall and less is wasted in the endless iterations of bureaucracy.

Hillary is a smart (not intelligent, just smart) and conniving operative with one goal, her own supremacy.

Obama is an intelligent and misguided idealist. He wants to solve all the world problems, but everything he claims for his plans have all been tried before, and failed. Over and over again.

The picture which comes to mind is that of Kranzy October, the Russian Revolution in “Red” October of 1917.

The idealists, mostly young Russians, many of the Jewish Russians seeking a Utopian society free of the perceived inequities of the Tzarist system followed headlong into the dismal black of Communist Russia. The smart ones saw chance of personal aggrandizement and turned coat. Spying on their idealist brethren and reporting false crimes until they were the only ones surviving. Lenin rose to power in this era not through altruism and idealism but through corruption and power-lust, scheming and buying his way to the top.

Hillary is a Lenin-type, while Obama is a type of the dead idealists.

Both are dead wrong in their goals, but each have their own reasons, methods, and paths to achieve the death of our Great Nation.

Obama is not naive, but he is not a leader.

Check his closet for skeletons.

The Dark Ones

It is not the quiet ones who go on to commit heinous crimes, it’s the dark ones.

After a crime such as a school shooting or the like, the neighbors and acquaintances are trotted out on TV saying they always wondered about this person. A phrase they usually use is that they were quiet.

I know quiet people who are just in a shell which needs a little cracking, they aren’t potential murderers, they’re just thinkers.

It is not the quiet ones who kill, it is the dark ones. A darkness of the heart so deep it can be seen in the eyes. Usually mistaken for pain, it is a festering rot which requires great and heroic effort by those around them to draw out.

What troubles me is the inability to describe this sin on the part of those around them. I would submit that the vast majority of those around actually did not see anything which concerned them too greatly, in the glare of the limelight however they speak with sagacity and deep import.

No one wants to be the idiot.

In contrast, a friend of mine told me he knew the murderer at the mall in Omaha. They grew up in the same neighborhood and while they were not friends, per se, they were acquaintances. He commented to me this boy was the darkest person he ever knew. That is an accurate assessment.

We don’t recognize the rot of sin because we’re all in it. A caring, loving individual would see the problem and it would be a true test of their care and love to seek to intervene in that life.

Those in a dark room don’t have the perspective to see how dark others are. As noted in the Bible:

He who fails to find Me, injures himself,
All who hate Me love death.
Proverbs 8:36 (ESV)

Now wait a minute, we say. The audacity of that claim is appalling. We know plenty of people who do not believe in God and yet are good people who would never kill or commit crimes like those we see around us.

But if God is life, and not just life, but Life. The epitome of vitality. The very essence of Being. Then to not know Him is to not know life. To not follow Him is to not follow life. And to not love Him is to not love life.

God does not accept ambivalence toward Himself.

Therefore, those who are around us living life as they feel they ought instead of how God directs are suffering from the same root condition as those who have killed without mercy.

Our responsibility to them is the same: we must show them Christ. Show them a way out of their lives of quiet (or in our modern world: hurried) desperation.

God’s responsibility is the same as well: accept repentance, shower mercy and grace, and when necessary, dispense judgment.

On Abortion

“If morality is the point here, and if it’s right or wrong, not just a political question, then you can’t have 50 different versions of what’s right and what’s wrong” Mike Huckabee

Going to a humanistic but practical definition of the Moral Good outlined by a Philosophy professor I took a class with:

Moral good is a quality of the action or intention of a free and knowing agent, which action/intention adds/preserves the physical i.e.biological, psychological, economic, etc–whatever is “natural”(to the object) good of some natural whole such as humans and other species in some rational subordination to human and with keeping in mind the distinction between essential goods and incidental (trivial) goods.

In the issue of Abortion, are there some benefits which are essential and some which are trivial? In a relative scale, a continuum, are there some benefits which are better than others?

What are the benefits of Abortion as defined by it’s supporters?

• Health of the mother.
• Protection of the victim in cases of rape and/or incest.
• Protection from abuse of the mother and/or an unwanted child.
• Protection of those who are going to abort anyways by providing safe/legal environment to have it performed.
• Preventing deformed and handicapped children from having a less worthwhile life.
• Quality of life of the rest of the family.
• Happiness.

To these I would add protection of the perpetrators of rape and incest.

What are a few of the problems with Abortion? The anti-goods. This list is very short. I wanted general categories rather than specifics.

• Abortion kills human life.
• Abortion causes physical and emotional issues in the mothers.
• Abortion destroys potential.

Now, compare any other these items in these two lists, the “goods” against the “bads”, and is there a case where the “goods” are morally superior to the “bads”? For the sake of our discussion, how do the list of “goods” and “bads” line up on the continuum from essential to trivial?

In the extreme case, perhaps the strongest, most emotionally charged arguments for Abortion are those involving rape and incest and the life of the mother. How do these cases compare in the essential to trivial continuum with those against Abortion?

I would submit that killing a human to resolve an ugly, evil situation such as rape or incest does not mitigate the evil of the original situation nor the lasting consequences of it. If anything, adding the guilt of murder to an already traumatized victim cannot be a safe course of action.

And what of the child? The child has no say in the circumstances of it’s conception. The child could well be a prodigy, it could be special needs, it could be normal and unique like all other children. With special needs children, any person who can look at such a child and not be struck both the intense love such a child needs and is capable of reciprocating, is sorely lacking in humanity. The point is, to unjustly cut off the potential of any child at any point is a grave mistake and a crime with few equals.

Therefore, comparing the competing cases, we see that on the continuum, any benefit to the mother to be attained by killing her child would be trivial compared to the essential goods to be attained in the potential of that child.

And what of the idea that another child could rob the older children of some of their owed love from their parents? Is love a zero-sum game, where there is a set and finite amount of love contained in this world, that to add to those who need love we subtract from the total available to any other? To believe that is to believe a lie, an obvious and tawdry lie. A child both receives love and gives love, adding to the total love in a family. Love is not, cannot be, selfish. We experience love when we are not even the direct or intended recipients of it. To witness love is to feel love and experience it. As older children observe their parents giving of themselves, selflessly, to a new and dependent child, they can understand true love as it is modeled for them.

Finally, what of happiness? Is a smaller family a happier family? Are children likely to be aborted more likely to experience unhappy lives? It is true that abortion primarily appeals to poor and minority families (Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, was a documented White Supremacist and supported eugenics and abortion as methods of controlling what she deemed to be unworthy aspects of society), but are these necessarily unhappy families? If even one of the children may experience a happy family, basic decency demands we give that child the chance to experience that life. And not every child who experiences an unhappy child will necessarily experience an unhappy adulthood. We are not automatons completely dependent on our situations and histories. Instead, we have choice in how we respond and react to each of our situations. To deny the chance that child may grow up to use their troubled history as a springboard to launch them into the far reaches of achievement in society and culture. Or do you have so little faith in humanity?

Abortion is wrong, evil, hateful, arrogant, stupid, and blind.

Hillary Uncensored

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Hat tip: WND

Efficacy

Something I’ve struggled with for sometime is the efficacy of my various efforts over the years to save our struggling culture and reform the hearts and minds of people I meet.

Is political maneuvering the best way to change the culture? No, I don’t believe it is.

Can getting people to vote for the right person and the right bill save America and the world? Yes, it can, and this work is vital to the continued survival of America, but the task is too big, the mountain of the people is overwhelming.

I’m no pessimist. And nearly everyone who calls themselves “realists” are actually pessimists. I’m an idealist and an optimist, but when I consider all the issues that face our nation, the crime, gangs, abortion, encroaching socialism, homosexuality and alternative lifestyles, white collar crime, the media and entertainment culture, and all the other things in modern life which are not all good, they are all dependent on one another. Abortion feeds a culture of irresponsibility among men which supports pornography and crime which feeds a lack of self-control which feeds abuse of women which feeds abortion. And that is by no means a closed loop, causality goes both ways and is not limited to the small pool of ills mentioned.

But the causality for ill and evil are such a tangled and sturdy web that there is precious little chance for the fixing of one issue to “stick” and remain.

Political change can only change the outside, the mask. You can legislate right conduct but you cannot legislate right thought, and it is evil to try.

Instead, you need to balance the political change with a greater work of salvation. Only by Christ entering hearts and minds and reforming the dross and dregs found therein can there for any meaningful change significant enough to affect each and every issue in that person.

Political action is necessary and vital, but the work of Christ is first and foremost a work of the heart. Only by redeeming the hearts of those in the culture can we redeem the culture.

Every person may and each person must follow God’s calling in their lives where they are. Sometimes God calls one to leave where they are and follow Him in acts of more public or visible sacrifice. But the greatest mission for each of us is to, where we are, work to redeem those around us. For by doing this we can redeem the hearts AND the culture.

The effective campaign will seek not to win the hearts, but to change them. And the greater and more effective change is always found in the work of Christ.

Quick Takes, October 15th, 2007

Democrat House staffers recommend getting full immunizations before going to NASCAR events. Recommended immunizations include the Hepatitis B (an STD) vaccine. Apparently their caricatured idea of NASCAR fans include homosexual and promiscuous hicks of varying degrees of uncleanness openly engaging in sexual acts in the stands and infield.

…either that or they think conservatism is transmittable. Heh, they have no idea.

(Ain’t worth a)Hill(of beans)ary Clinton says that for African Americans, she’s going to be Clinton.

…and how long ago did she drop Rodham?

…and that means they should vote for her, why? The inscrutable logic simply does not follow.

…and for all the Chinese- and Mexican-, and German-, and British-, Australian-, Swedish-, Spanish-, Brazilian-, and every other (hyphen) Americans, who will she be? Urkel?

Run, Al, run!

…anything to give the nutroots more choices. They are pro-murder “pro-choice”, right?

Speaking of running: Harry Reid may want to start running, along with Clinton, Schumer et al.

Democrats push through bill making sure we all know the Turks committed genocide 60 years ago.

I don’t deny it’s a good thing to be accurate, especially about such heinous events and crimes as genocide. But they’re our staunchest ally in the Mid-east region. And we need some clout with them to keep them from beginning a war on the northern border of Iraq with Kurd rebels who are taking shelter among some of our strongest supporters inside Iraq, the Kurds.

Either intelligence on the left side of the isle is lower than even I thought, or ego is even larger. Do we really have to lose at all costs?

It was aliens, I knew it.

Quote:

You do not negotiate peace until you’ve kicked somebody’s rear end.
~Rush Limbaugh

Dem’s Cut Funding To Agency That Holds Unions Accountable

While Democrats want to increase the Department of Labor’s budget by nearly $1 billion, they are leaving the little agency that oversees union transparency out. The agency currently receives $47.7 million and President Bush wanted to increase the budget to $56 million. Instead, Democrats have set funding at $45.7 million.

Clearly, union bosses are calling the shots on Capital Hill.

• Example One: Only the agencies unions can use to bully employers, such as those tasked with employer accountability and worker safety, are getting the increased funds. The singular subject on which Dem’s are exercising fiscal restraint is the agency that, from 2001 to 2006, “investigated more than 2,000 criminal cases that secured some 650 indictments of union officials who had engaged in everything from embezzlement to extortionate picketing. The [agency] has also implemented a 2004 rule requiring unions to file expanded disclosure reports, obliging them for the first time to disclose how much dues money they spend on politics and union salaries.”
• Example Two: The Hill wrote yesterday, “In an op-ed e-mailed to reporters, Chao criticized Congress for being ‘all for boosting the Securities and Exchange Commission’s [SEC] budget so it can ride herd on businesses.’ In contrast, she said, Congress had singled out the one federal entity charged with protecting union members from corruption for budget cuts.”
• Example Three: Democrats are succumbing to pressure to renege on promises to keep the free trade agreements with Panama and Peru alive. Charlie Rangel has been persuaded to visit the two countries and tell them that if they want the agreements to pass (i.e., Democratic support of the agreements.) to make their labor laws more union-friendly.

Predictably, unions take a “Who? Me?” approach, raised eyebrows and all. “The statistics are cooked,” associate general counsel to the AFL-CIO, Deborah Greenfield, said to The Hill.She said DoL double-counts convictions (If one union boss is convicted of 5 different crimes, the agency counts five convictions, not one.). She told The Hill that an AFI-CIO study on union bosses says that less than four-one hundredths (4/100 or .04) of 1 percent of union officials are guilty of crimes against their unions.”

Also note: Democrats who voted for the Kline amendment were Reps. Dan Boren (Okla.), Bud Cramer (Ala.), Lincoln Davis (Tenn.), Brad Ellsworth (Ind.), Tim Mahoney (Fla.), Mike McIntyre (N.C.), Harry Mitchell (Ariz.) and Heath Shuler (N.C.). Sixteen Republicans voted against the Kline amendment, including Reps. Mark Kirk (Ill.), Ray LaHood (Ill.) and Christopher Shays (Conn.).

Read the Wall Street Journal editorial here: Congress’s Union Dues
Read The Hill’s news report here: Sec. Chao criticizes House for cutting union oversight funds

Global Warming So Much Hot Air, Fighting Racism With… Racism?

The Chicago Sun-Times, my new home-town newspaper, published an article recently noting a few of the many claims made against the religious dogma known as Global Warming.

A cooperative and productive discussion of global warming must be open and honest regarding the science. Global warming threats ought to be studied and mitigated, and they should not be deliberately exaggerated as a means of building support for a desired political position.

Read the article and weep, if your name is Al Gore. Otherwise, just read the article.

In the shadow of the landmark decision by the Supreme Court striking down key provisions of Brown v. Board of Education, ideologues, politicos, and public school administrators are struggling to find new policy now that they’re not allowed to be racists any longer. Racism in any form is evil. W.E.B. DuBois was, and his philosophies continue to be, as racist as any other. The idea that by artificially creating “diversity” at any given social strata benefits no one, and harms many, most of all the ones the do-gooders purport to be assisting.

When any person, regardless of any unchangeable characteristic (such as race, gender, etc), is advanced artificially because some higher “level” of society is not “diverse” enough, that one’s most harmed are: first, the individual or individuals being elevated, and second, those they represent symbolically or actually. Role models are important, there are none who can deny this fact. When a whole generation of black Americans are seeing role models in the form of rap stars who are in and out of jail as frequently as they are on and off the stage. When the women the girls look to dress like whores and sluts, selling and subserviating themselves to men and boys. There is no respect or honor here, there will be precious little in the generation who looks up to them.

Rather than elevation there is opportunity. Booker T. Washington, a contemporary of W.E.B. DuBois, founder of the Tuskegee Institute, and promoter of the plight of the black American post Civil War during the reconstruction, espoused the idea that instead of artificially elevating an unready person who would then doubtless fail, adding insult to injury, “proving” the lies believed by the ex slave owners, and damaging the fragile plight of the newly freed humans, we ought to remove any restrictions that hindered the black American any more than the white American. Given opportunity, the strong would succeed, no matter their race. And those black Americans who succeeded because of their own strength would be less likely to fail and far better role models. Out of the Tuskegee Institute and the dreams and visions of Booker T. Washington came such shining examples as George Washington Carver, arguably one of the paramount inventors of America and one of the more prolific of all time. His inventions benefited millions with additional uses of common agricultural products, growing the demand for products common to the extremely poor, depressed post-war south. The Tuskegee Airmen, an all-black American Fighter Squadron formed during WW2 had one of the best records of success for bomber escort missions, to the point where bomber groups would ask for and demand them as escorts for their missions. These are examples of opportunity seized, and any of the Tuskegee Airmen would make excellent role models, several of them are still alive today (I’ve met them). George Washington Carver, were he alive, would make an excellent role model as well, and you can meet him, in books and articles, and every time you eat a peanut butter sandwich.

Racism occurs any time there is any measurement based on race. There is an important distinction between measurements based on race and measurements which take race into account. A measurement based on the incidence of terror propensities would be pointless in todays world if it did not take into account the religion and race of its sample. We need to know who is more LIKELY to be a terrorist. And right now, though it is dreadfully unpopular to say so, radical Muslims and those of Middle-Eastern descent are more LIKELY to be involved in terrorist action. Security is a numbers job. We don’t KNOW when and where and who and how. We can only guess based on when and where and who and how are more LIKELY. This is not a judgment, per se, on any race or creed, merely a statement of fact which happens to be rather sad in it’s results. A measure of crime will show that young black males are more LIKELY to be incarcerated than counterparts of other races. This is another very sad fact, but it does not make a judgment based on race, it merely takes race into account in measuring another, important, metric.

Racism is where you take those who have done no wrong and, because they, inescapably and through no choice of their own, belong to a particular category and either benefit them or cost them. Racism is always evil.

And if you like to read about odd and unethical experiments which nonetheless shed light on burning questions of human nature and vast social evil, the Milgram Experiments are classic cases studying the propensity of normal humans to do harm to other humans in given authority structure situations.

The Numbers Tell The Tale

Today in the Investors Business Daily, the editorial Scoring the War delves into the real numbers and the truth that’s being deliberately and maliciously hidden to affect the perception and the outcome of the War on Terror.

(T)he numbers tell the tale. In his 24 years as Iraq’s Stalinist supreme leader, Saddam Hussein killed at least 2 million people. That averages out to about 6,944 a month for the better part of three decades.

Most responsible estimates show that, at most, 60,000 or so civilians have been killed since the war started, about 1,200 a month.

Moreover, no one doubts that Saddam was responsible for all 2 million of his deaths. In the case of the U.S., most of the civilian deaths come from al-Qaida and other terrorists, not U.S. troops.

There is no balance in reporting on the war. I have a hard time understanding the state of the soul which allows many millions of innocent dead to be further trodden by the bloodied heels of their tormentors, and condemns those who would seek to not avenge but set aright the state of being which allows such heinous crimes.

Crime Is Crime: The Real Agenda Behind Hate Crime Legislation

If I assault you intentionally and maliciously, is that a crime? Yes. Should I be punished for such an action? Yes. Should it matter at all if you or I are or any particular group or category, chosen or not? No.

The whole concept of Hate Crimes is a lie based on a falsehood and the result is the devaluation of humanity in general. The concept of justice is based on the principle that all people are inherently equal. If it wasn’t than any arbiter of justice could decide arbitrarily to favor some and denigrate another, and that is obviously not justice. There should be no gradations in how justice is meted out besides those based on the type and severity of the crime and the intent of the guilty. The purpose of justice is to punish the criminal, not make the victim feel better. There are many institutions who work to help the victims, whose purpose it is to help the helpless, it is not the responsibility of justice. Justice is blind, and one must see to help.

The agenda behind the concept of Hate Crimes is to make some classes of people special in the administration of justice. Look north to Canada and see how it is now illegal to even speak anything which might be construed to be negative towards the homosexual lifestyle. Why is it not wrong to speak negatively of everybody? What you have now in Canada is injustice and inequality, in short you have a travesty. Even speaking established truth and fact plainly and without guile can get you jail time in Canada. Truth like the fact that AIDS is almost exclusively found in the homosexual/bisexual/pansexual/alternate-lifestyle community. The claims that everybody should fear AIDS because everybody gets it are lies. You contract AIDS primarily by engaging in promiscuous levels or and/or risky forms of sexual activity with members of the same gender or with people of the opposite gender who engaged in these behaviors. If I were a citizen of Canada, for those words above I would be violating federal Hate Crime law and would be subject to punishment, completely removed from the fact that the words I just wrote are confirmed, proven truth.

I am all for punishing criminals, but several points must be defined before I can call a person a criminal and deserving of or rightfully subject to punishment. Words are rarely crimes: unless accompanied by actions or following a life of suspect or criminal behavior in which the words are catalysts or statements of reasonably provable intent, or words whose specific intent is to incite wrongful violence. Facts and statements that are true and accurate do not incite violence within reasonable people. What happened to Matthew Shephard and the many other victims of violence against people who were homosexual was, is, and will always be wrong and criminal. Just as much as if the victims were any other person. Any variance in penalty assumes the superiority of certain people over others and is immoral and wrong.

Those who participated in those crimes have been punished. What more is needed?

Resources:

• Canada: Religious Freedom, Canadian Style
• Canada: Religious Freedom in Canada
• Canada: Religious Liberty Under Stress
• US: Hate Crime Bill Veto Is Vowed
• US: Hate Crimes Could Include Gays
• US: Hate Crime Bill Inspires Threat, Hate, And Celebration