iPandora

On a recent Michael Medved show a caller, identifying himself as a moderately liberal high school political science teacher, stated that the conservative force he fears most in America is from the Christian conservatives who allow their theology to inform their politics.

To him, so long as your politics do not inform your theology and your theology is kept far away from your politics, you’re ok. They may agree, but only incidentally.

There’s a problem with that: humans cannot, by nature, exist in a dichotomous state.

In fact, to demand such a personal internal segregation of ones internal beliefs and external actions is to request something dangerous and displays a profound ignorance of human nature and need.

First, everyone has a theology. Commonly called our “beliefs”. It is our understanding, findings, or opinions regarding the nature (or lack thereof) of God. An athiest has a theology as surely as a Christian, they are just convinced there is not a god.

One’s beliefs regarding God informs one’s ideas on life, purpose, meaning, history, and the future. This is indisputable and is not a value judgment, merely a statement of fact.

One’s understanding of life, it’s purposes and meanings, history and the future, definitely informs one’s political persuasions. I vote with a goal and purpose. I don’t roll dice (often) and I don’t sell my vote. Though both those actions would allow us to infer your understanding of life and likely, your theology.

I am a whole human, with will and purpose. I try not to say one thing and act another. Yet even should I engage in such hypocrisy, accidentally or purposefully, there is a consistancy to the failure. My hypocritical life would have a goal and purpose: likely a hope for self-aggrandizement or gain for some deeply and closely held belief.

Watching Chariots of Fire last night with my wife, we came upon the scene where Eric Liddell has found out the heats for his race is on Sunday and is now meeting with the crown prince and the Olympic committee. Young Lord Lindsey has offered his own, longer, race to Eric as a solution and as the meeting is dispersing the Duke of Sutherland and Lord Birkenhead discuss what has just occurred:

Duke of Sutherland: A sticky moment, George.
Lord Birkenhead: Thank God for Lindsay. I thought the lad had us beaten.
Duke of Sutherland: He did have us beaten, and thank God he did.
Lord Birkenhead: I don’t quite follow you.
Duke of Sutherland: The “lad”, as you call him, is a true man of principles and a true athlete. His speed is a mere extension of his life, its force. We sought to sever his running from himself.
Lord Birkenhead: For his country’s sake, yes.
Duke of Sutherland: No sake is worth that, least of all a guilty national pride.

The Duke of Sutherland has the correct diagnosis of the issue: we can no more separate one part of a man’s soul from his other parts than we can parts of his body and expect them both to continue living.

I am a Christian. I am convinced of God’s existence and His divine will. I try to live my life in the salvation offered by the death of Jesus, God’s only begotten son and according to His laws.

I hold these beliefs in faith, not a hope in wishful thinking. Faith is not a firmly held belief in unprovable or illogical ideas, it is the belief in things proven and yet unseen.

My faith informs my life. I try to live my life according to the law of God. And not just those parts lived in private. I fail miserably more often than I succeed, but what is life without a contest, without a goal?

If I were to deny the influence of my theology on any part of my life, I would be trying to live as though I were two seperate people within the same physical body: It just doesn’t work.

And so, to you political science teacher, I hope that you will always live your entire life according to the dictates of your conscience and that your theology informs your choices. I pray that your theology will grow and you will find and find faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and countless millions since them. And yet, even if you do not, I still pray that you will be a complete person with one goal and purpose.

I’ve not given up on Romney and still consider his vastly superior to McCain, but in light of the results of Super Tuesday and some thought I’ve given to other articles I’ve written recently, here’s my Mea Culpa:

In the article on winning the culture war I wrote:

A key fact in any war is that those fighting FOR something have a distinct advantage over those fighting AGAINST something. A positive goal inspires confidence and wins allies, while a negative goal works against the human spirit bringing discouragement and desperation.

This principle is equally applicable on a battlefield, in the ‘culture war’, and in elections.

There is something wrong with how I’ve presented my arguments for Mitt. In fact, there’s something wrong with how much of the conservative blogosphere and talk radio and the new media have argued for Mitt.

While I do believe, in a positive sense, that Mitt is a better candidate, and not just for pragmatic reasons. Issue for issue, he is more in line with true conservatism and my ideals of what America needs than any other candidate, Red or Blue.

I have framed my argument as a negative, and that is wrong and counter-productive.

Michael Medved, even though he supports McCain, has maintained decorum throughout this debate by maintaining that each of the Republicans are superior in many ways to the Democrat alternatives.

I do not agree with him completely in this, but I do agree that a better and stronger argument is made from a positive position, and his position has been unflinchingly positive.

Will I support the Republican nominee at all costs? I don’t know yet.

Is there a point at which conservatives need to take a serious look at where the party is headed and maybe allow a fall to occur in the hopes we’ll regain the moral high-ground and wrest control of the party? Maybe.

Would it be better to stick with the party and work in individual lives and hearts to bring about the sea change necessary to reclaim the party and then the entire culture? Yes.

That is why I blog.

Mea Culpa.

McCain and the Gang of 14. Listening recently to Michael Medved, who has endorsed McCain, I was appalled by an apologist he had on as a guests’ argument that the Gang of 14 was a farsighted and wise investment by McCain in the continuing success of the Republican party.

We had a majority and were not defending anything. We weren’t trying to kill all filibusters, only judicial filibusters which are not strictly constitutional.

Hugh Hewitt has this to say:

The damage to the GOP was instant and immense.  Not only were fine judges sacrificed to John McCain’s ego, many in the base simply tuned out the GOP from that moment forward.  Why work that hard and invest that much in a party that cannot deliver on its pledges even when gifted with 55 seats?   Why fight for a majority that would not fight?  Ohio’s Mike DeWine, an otherwise reliable conservative, never recovered with the Buckeye State’s GOP base and lost his seat in 2006.  Rhode Island’s Lincoln Chafee was also turned out, though the party’s bill of grievances against Chafee was much longer than just the Gang of 14.

There were other stumbles along the way to the loss of six seats in the fall of 2006, but the McCain Gang’s coup in the Spring of 2005 started the slide.  And for what?  White and White argue that we should be grateful for the successful confirmations of Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito and Judges Brown, Pryor and Owens.

Read it and turn McCain out on his ear. I have no patience for that man.

Listening today to the Michael Medved show, just before the 1pm (PST) break a caller describing himself as having used to be pro-war and conservative says that he now does not support the war. Citing declining numbers supporting the way and the unpopularity of President Bush, he claimed he just does not want to hear about soldiers dying anymore.

First of all, for a man, he is a poor specimen. Character is the measure of your ability, desire, and record of doing what you ought especially when it is difficult, the way is long, and there is much opposition. The difference between pigheaded stubbornness and character is found in the morality and ethics of your method and goal. Manliness, often caricatured in the idea of refusing to ask for directions, is an especial talent at or willingness to proceed with what is perceived to be the correct course of action to reach a particular goal, without regard for the opinion or denigration of others. This is their strength and their weakness, but it is a weak man who wilts in the face of opposition, especially opposition that does not face them but faces their country, the family, the life, their standards and their beliefs. If anything, a true man is stronger when others are being harmed than when he himself is the only one at risk.

This weak man goes even beyond the self-inflicted ignominy of bowing to the canard of “everyone else is doing it” in saying he doesn’t want to hear about soldiers dying. Granted, he wants that to be accomplished by removing the troops from “danger” by bringing them home and ending the conflict (at least the part of the conflict that involves our response to the naked aggression and lust for our death which is espoused and championed by our mortal enemies, the Islamofacists). But his wording, he doesn’t want to “hear” about their deaths is appalling. What kind of weak-spined excuse for a man (most women I know have more courage and honor than this sorry person) is it who can’t stand hearing about death? It’s the kind of man who would rather hide his head in the sand while a poison which creates zombies whose only desire is for the death of all that is good and right on the earth takes over the Europe and then eats the heart out of America.

How dense must one be to ignore the hatred in the screams of Imams around the world and here in America calling for the destruction of all Jews and those who do not subscribe to their hatred?

I’m saddened and appalled by this. I would like to meet that man in a dark alley and… well, no it’s not right. I would protect and defend him as I would any other.

Michael Medved, in an article posted today on Townhall.com, counters the rabid anti-Christian ideologues and their munchkin-esque (“Ding-Dong, Falwell’s Dead!”)  attacks on the fallen/risen figurehead of so much of the Christian conservative political social movements of today, Jerry Falwell.

Despite the effort to disregard him as “little,” Falwell qualified in every sense as a large figure– big hearted and cheerful, secure and sincere in his own faith, with enormous dreams and major impact. He never would have stooped to a cruel, small-minded, petty and pathetic publicity stunt like smearing one of his ideological adversaries on the very day that opponent died.

I do not know Falwell well. I have not heard of him besides the periodic news articles, same as many other perhaps. But recall that Medved is no Christian, but a practicing Jew. Jerry Falwell was known as a cheerful warrior even to his critics and ideological adversaries. Always affable but never wavering in his pronouncement of the truth. May he be an example to each and every one of us in this, that he loved his enemies and hated their sin. Wanting them to be freed from the bondage so many of us accept with servility. And that dichotomy was so obvious even many of his detractors cannot admit otherwise.

There lies a body, a shell of a man gone on not just to a better place, but to a greater reward. Listening even now to his Lord and God tell him: Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter in to your eternal reward. You have served me in the little, now serve me greatly.

Listening to Michael Medved on the radio on my way home from work recently, I heard him interviewing an author of a study regarding the disparity of pay between male and female workers. A major tenet of the feminist ideology is that men make more than women, universally. Apparently it is true that on average, women do make less than men. But sexist policies and male-run workplaces are the least of the causes, if at all. I do not recall the name of the author Michael was interviewing and not having a MedHead subscription I was unable to look through the archives. But…

In an article in Reason Magazine, Steven Chapman writes on the study:

On its face, the evidence in the AAUW (American Association of University Women) study looks damning. “One year out of college,” it says, “women working full-time earn only 80 percent as much as their male colleagues earn. Ten years after graduation, women fall farther behind, earning only 69 percent as much as men earn.”

But read more, and you learn things that don’t get much notice on Equal Pay Day. As the report acknowledges, women with college degrees tend to go into fields like education, psychology and the humanities, which typically pay less than the sectors preferred by men, such as engineering, math and business. They are also more likely than men to work for nonprofit groups and local governments, which do not offer salaries that Alex Rodriguez would envy.

As they get older, many women elect to work less so they can spend time with their children. A decade after graduation, 39 percent of women are out of the work force or working part time — compared with only 3 percent of men. When these mothers return to full-time jobs, they naturally earn less than they would have if they had never left.

Steve goes on with additional and interesting facts and findings by other researchers and concludes:

June O’Neill, an economist at Baruch College and former director of the Congressional Budget Office, has uncovered something that debunks the discrimination thesis. Take out the effects of marriage and child-rearing, and the difference between the genders suddenly vanishes. “For men and women who never marry and never have children, there is no earnings gap,” she said in an interview.

That’s a fact you won’t hear from AAUW or the Democratic presidential candidates. The prevailing impulse on Equal Pay Day was to lament how far we are from the goal. The true revelation, though, is how close.

Steve does include one paragraph in which he discusses the varying expectations and general responsibilities of men versus women in society. He ponders whether the men in families are compelling their wives to stay at home with the children while they go work. While I’m sure there are cases of this, as a general fact, the differences in nature between men and women are such that women do a better job, generally, at raising children as an at-home parent than men. Women are not necessarily compelled to stay home to raise children more than they desire to stay home.

And even those arguments have no standing in the presence of the damning question: Is not motherhood a high calling equal to or greater than nearly any other calling a woman could choose? Why are stay-at-home mothers considered second class (mostly by freakishly feminazi fem-bots)? My dad fixes peoples telephones, he has done this and other work for the phone company for around 30 years. My mom went to college to study nursing and spent several years as an RN working with premature babies. Then she stayed home and raised us. She’s spent 27 years of her life now (that’s over half) raising a new generation, pouring herself into our education, our relationships, our joys and sorrows, our friends, our lives. What is second rate about that.

It would seem, and this is the greatest joke of all surrounding the whole idea of feminist propaganda, that a feminist ideal woman is a man, climbing the soulless corporate ladder, bringing home the bacon day after day until the day they die. What’s so great about that?

In recent comments on this blog there have been several popular, oft-repeated conspiracy theories presented. That of the Illuminati or ancient global ruling class, which rumor has been around since time immemorial, and that greed for oil took us into Iraq both now and in 1992.

I make no claim to special knowledge in either case, I will only state what I believe regarding theories such as these: If it were true, why isn’t it common knowledge? “Well, duh, because the government has covered it up, how dense can you get?” Consider this: is the government capable of keeping anything secret? A friend recently told me the only way to keep a secret is to make sure only three people in total know it, and make sure the other two people are dead. Especially now in the internet era, if anybody knows anything, the likelihood of that fact remaining a secret is very near nil.

Consider the case of the Bush family seeking oil in Iraq. There are many people, obvious to all of us, who would benefit from making that ’secret’ public. All their political opponents, the various regimes in the Middle East such as Iran, all members of OPEC, the predominantly liberal main-stream media, the list continues. Frankly, I believe this theory is one of the more obviously wrong on it’s face of current conspiracies. And then consider the current progress Mr. Bush (“W”) is championing with an independent government in Iraq making decisions the US doesn’t fully support but is agreeing with because they show the country is definitely making strides towards self-government and true independence. There’s little concievable chance of an independent Iraqi government relinquinshing control of it’s most precious asset, it’s only real income source.

And then there’s the Illuminati. Yea… well… If you believe that there’s a group that WANTS to rule the world, I could agree with you there. But one that actually has any real control? Call Michael Medved when he has his conspiracy theory days on the day of the full moon every lunar month. He’ll have the patience to deal with it.

You can still post any lunacy you like really, as I don’t believe in deleting comments except in cases of serious ugliness, defined as:

• More than half the words misspelled, badly.
• Large numbers of links to sites of questionable content (porn).
• No cohesive argument whatsoever (carefull polyproff, that first one almost made it, try to seperate your different arguments into different paragraphs, like my teachers told me to do)
• If the post seemed to be lifted verbatim from some publication without any reference or attribution.
• If I’m really really mad at you (trust me, this is very hard to achieve).

So really, all that above was just my opinion (which, amazingly, I think is right) and doesn’t really carry any real weight of looming tribulation on violators.