thoughts from the desert

future plans

2011-11-17T21:28:00.001-05:00

I'm terrible at blogging. The things I want to write about always take such a long time to plan out and execute. I'm terrible at this.
Sometime within the next month or two, I'll hopefully get started on a series of essays about what it means to be conservative. Eventually (i.e., within the next several months) I want to do a series about the book of Job. In the meantime, I'm working full-time, reading, playing video games, and being married. I need to make more time for writing if I expect to ever get any done.

The Worst Games I've Ever Played: Beowulf

2011-08-23T01:47:00.001-05:00

I never saw the Bob Zemeckis mo-cap version of Beowulf. If the game is any indication, I am already standing head and shoulders over everyone who did.
The game opens, inexplicably, with Hrothgar drunkenly raving about mead, sex, and killing. The player assumes control of Beowulf as he begins some kind of competition with one of his fellow Vikings, in which the two of them race up cliffs and around obstacles, until Beowulf falls in the sea and nearly drowns (because that's totally something that he would do). He sinks into the murky depths and is revived by a blocky mermaid-looking creature that we are led to believe is Angelina Jolie, and Beowulf swims to the surface and gets on a sandbar. Three sea serpents then attack him. At least, I think they were sea serpents; they looked more like eels with big horns. Anyway, Beowulf realizes that Angelina Jolie had given him an ability called Carnal Rage, where Beowulf can charge up his, uh, carnality, or something like that, and go berserk and beat the crap out of stuff. He then uses this ability to defeat the sea serpent.
But don't take my word for it! Read this section of the game script that I got as a bonus for buying the game:

SANDBAR, EXT.
BEOWULF dodges the Sea Serpent's vicious sandbar-slapping attack. He growls and shouts and his BODY glows RED with CARNAL RAGE. He PUNCHES and KICKS the SERPENT until the beast falls stunned onto the SANDBAR SURFACE.
QUICK TIME EVENT:
BEOWULF climbs atop the SERPENT, breaks off its HORN, and lets out a MANLY GRUNT as he STABS the SERPENT'S EYE.

BEOWULF:
Rrraarrghsharghsharghenrrargh!

The SEA SERPENT falls into the sea, STUNNED, HISSING like a velociraptor on its way down. WTF.

Later, you gather your thanes and head off to aid Hrothgar with his Grendel problem. On the way there, you and your men are attacked by crabs. Given Beowulf's sexual proclivities (detailed in a moment), I'll let you snicker without provocation on my part.
The Vikings arrive at Hrothgar's palace, and Beowulf tells the king that Grendel will be destroyed that night. That evening, Beowulf leads his men in a battle song in order to draw Grendel into the palace:

Oh, we are Beowulf's army
we think that life is great
we'll smitten your kittens
and pillage your village
and then ejaculate!

(The song was actually
Oh, we are Beowulf's army
each a mighty thane
we'll pummel your asses
and ravage your lasses
and do it all over again!
but these are merely details.)

After a few more sexually explicit verses, delivered in Beowulf's rather anachronistic Cockney voice, Grendel bursts through the doors, cradling his head in his ugly monster hands and whining like a little girl about all the racket. He manages to slaughter the thanes, leaving Beowulf alone to fight. You go into Carnal Rage and beat Grendel's ugly arse with the pillars of the banquet hall (why the building doesn't collapse is a mystery), and leap onto him in the worst-programmed quick time event ever: mash B to break his kneecap, hit X to dive around him and grab his arm, and mash B to pull his frickin' arm off. At least, that's what the screen tells you to do, but when I mashed B for the second time, Grendel threw me off as if I had been mashing the D-pad instead. I attempted this several more times before giving up and apologizing to my 360 for subjecting it to such torture. Then I flogged myself.

The Cockney brashness aside, the game fails on just about every level imaginable. The graphics are a joke, the controls are terrible, with at least a half-second delay between pressing the controller's buttons and the corresponding action taking place on-screen; and Ray Winstone (the actor playing Beowulf) seemed to think that the movie was directed by Guy Ritchie.

OUTSIDE THE PALACE, EXT.
BEOWULF and this THANES are fighting the BARBARIAN HORDE. Sensing imminent defeat, BEOWULF attempts to rally his MEN.

BEOWULF
Oye bloikes, groiw sum bollz an' FOIGHT til yer asses falluf! Oye, fickoff yah wankaz! Yeh, yeh, git outta moy whip ya bliidy bastirds!

So unless you're electronically masochistic, avoid this steaming heap. I got it at Best Buy for $5 and got $1.10 of credit at GameStop for it. GameStop got the better deal.

Love Wins 2.0

2011-08-17T01:10:00.000-05:00

It's been several months since my original critique, and today I felt the need to revisit and polish it up a bit. I have redacted most of the original disclaimers, but the most important note remains. Obviously, I cannot speak for everyone who has written against Love Wins, but I for one am not criticizing Rob Bell on the grounds of simply asking questions about our faith. What I take issue with is his answer to those questions, his method of questioning, and the logical fallacy on which his entire argument rests.
All Scripture quotations of mine are from the NLT unless otherwise noted.

The Critics

"A staggering number of people have been taught that a select few Christians will spend forever in a peaceful, joyous place called heaven, while the rest of humanity spends forever in torment and punishment in hell with no chance for anything better. . . [To many], this belief is a central truth of the Christian faith and to reject it is, in essence, to reject Jesus. This is misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus's message of love, peace, forgiveness, and joy that our world desperately needs to hear." -Preface, viii

Unfortunately, baseless statements like this are the norm for the book: Bell says that a lot of people have been taught X, but X is wrong, just because. He never offers an explanation of why he thinks the traditional view of Heaven and Hell, of which he draws a crude caricature here, is wrong. No Biblical evidence for that view and no explanation of the traditional view are provided, just that this is what people have been told, and it's wrong because it's wrong. And if you believe this view, then you're "misguided." This is the tone he takes to preemptively delegitimize any argument against his view. He caricatures what "some people" think and then silences them by calling them "toxic."
The truth is, the orthodox understanding of Heaven and Hell is found in Scripture, and Christians believe it for just that reason. Not because we are prideful, arrogant mockers who want to see all those filthy heathens rot in hell, but because that's just the way it is. Bell appears to have not realized it, but he answers his own question. Jesus' message of "love, peace, forgiveness, and joy" has no ultimate ramifications if divorced from the looming specter of eternal punishment for rejecting Jesus.
Christians don't call the shots here. Christians don't decide who gets into heaven or hell (despite what the Westboro Baptist "Church" likes to think).
God offers us the choice between life or death, leaving us ultimately responsible for our decision. He has made that perfectly clear throughout the Bible. But in order to see that, we need to revisit the basics of God's story.

God and Man
It starts in Genesis. God creates the universe, and we get an idea of how He formed this planet. God creates human beings in His image, and gives them the garden of Eden, along with the freedom to eat any fruit except that of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. "If you eat of its fruit, you will surely die" (Genesis 2:17b). Adam and Eve choose to disobey God and eat the fruit, in an act of disobedience that we call the Fall of mankind. Mankind is now corrupt and in need of redemption from sin, which God promises in Genesis 3:15. Because of man's sin, man cannot be reconciled to God, for God is holy (Habakkuk 1:13, Isaiah 6:5), necessitating the promised redemption.

Thousands of years pass. Jesus arrives on the planet, preaching the Gospel:

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life." -John 3:16

Jesus is crucified, and rises from the grave on the third day. Through His sacrifice on the cross and victory over death in the Resurrection, we are saved from eternal death if we choose to accept salvation through faith in Him, and only those who believe in Him will be saved (Romans 5:8-11, 1 Timothy 2:5-6, Acts 2:21, 4:12; Ephesians 2:8-9, 2 Timothy 1:9-10). Those who do not believe in Him will be damned for eternity (Acts 3:22-23, Revelation 21:7-8). The Bible is very clear on this point. We can have debates over the nature of what will happen to these people, or whether or not the "lake of fire" is to be interpreted as a literal body of fiery water, etc. But the heart of the matter is this: those who do not believe in Jesus will not be granted eternal life. Revelation 20:15 tells the truth as clearly as it can be told:

"Anyone whose name was not found recorded in the Book of Life was thrown into the lake of fire."

Why would a loving, compassionate God allow this to happen? If God loves people so much, why doesn't he just allow them all to have eternal life, regardless of whether or not they follow one particular religion?
Because of choice. God wants us to choose to love and accept Him, which is why He allowed the tree of the knowledge of good and evil to stand in Eden, even though He knew the consequences it would have. Sure, He could have made it easy and never given human beings the opportunity to disobey Him, but then we would not truly love. Giving someone no other option but to love is coercion.
If we have the option to choose God, we also have the option not to. Those who do not believe in God have no excuse; they can't say that they never knew. Romans 1:18-20 spells it out.

". . .God has put this knowledge in [people's] hearts. From the time the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky and all that God made. They can clearly see his invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse whatsoever for not knowing God." -vv. 19-20

As for believing a particular religion, Jesus established it Himself. The essence of Christianity is that people take up their cross and follow Christ (Luke 9:23). Not all religions lead to God because only one points to Jesus, without whom there is no salvation (Acts 4:12).
Those are the basics. God created man, man sinned and is separated from God, God provides redemption from sin in the person of Jesus, and man has the choice to accept Him. If man doesn't accept Jesus, then man is separated from Him forever, because God is holy and cannot reconcile with sin.
Keeping that in mind, let's take a look at what Rob Bell has to say.

The Straw Man
This is a logical fallacy where the opponent of argument X describes it in an intentionally weak way so that he can easily disprove with his own argument. Unfortunately, Bell engages in this a lot. Within the first 10 pages, there are at least 3 or 4 instances of this. The text from the preface that I quoted earlier is one of them. The next one is on page 2:

"Does God punish people for thousands of years with infinite, eternal torment for things they did in their few finite years of life?"

People don't go to hell on the basis of only doing things. He makes it sound like God punishes people just because they were bad. On its face, this has some truth to it: because of our sins, we are separated from God. However, if we accept Christ's forgiveness, we will be saved. People don't go to hell because they did wrong; people go to hell because they rejected Jesus. This is disingenuous on Bell's part in that he's asking the questions in such a way as to supply his own answers without having to engage the question (this is otherwise known as "the Socratic method," the most famous example occurring in Meno, 82-85d). If you ask a question like he did above, well, of course the answer is "No, He doesn't." But Bell has to intentionally misrepresent the argument that he is attacking because that is the only way his own argument can make sense.

The next straw man is on page 5, where Bell questions the concept of "the age of accountability," which says:

"Some Christians believe that up to a certain age children aren't held accountable for what they believe or who they believe in, so if they die during those years, they go to be with God. But then when they reach a certain age, they become accountable for their beliefs, and if they die, they go to be with God only if they have said or done or believed the 'right' things."

Notice that Bell never provides any real examples of such a theory. He just puts it out there. One of the most important rules in any kind of debate is that you need to provide evidence for the viewpoint you're arguing against, otherwise your arguments are baseless--they are straw men. Bell is a pastor: one would expect him to throw in a sermon, or a website, or a Bible verse about the age of accountability. Something. Anything. But he doesn't do that, because he's more interested in using this "age of accountability" as the impetus for asking numerous questions about the nature of salvation and how it is attained, questions that all lead to his own conclusion. Building the argument on a theory that only "some Christians" hold is logically weak.

"Some Christians believe and often repeat that all that matters is whether or not a person is going to heaven. . .If that's the gospel, the good news--if what Jesus does is get people somewhere else--then the central message of the Christian faith has very little to do with this life other than getting you what you need for the next one." -page 6

Again, the problem here is that he never provides an example of how many Christians supposedly believe this, or what the details of their belief are. But that's okay, because that snippet is all the information he needs to move on to his next point, which is this:

"If you truly believed that, and you were surrounded by Christians who believed that, then you wouldn't have much motivation to do anything about the present suffering of the world, because you would believe you were going to leave someday and go somewhere else to be with Jesus. . . [if this message prevailed], you could possibly end up with a world in which millions of people were starving, thirsty, and poor; the earth was being exploited and polluted; disease and despair were everywhere; and Christians weren't known for doing much about it. If it got bad enough, you might even have people rejecting Jesus because of how his followers lived."

His point is that the problems in this world are caused because Christians care solely about the next life and can't be bothered to care about this one.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Yes, there have been points in history, including today, when Christians don't engage the world as much as they should. Francis Schaeffer lays some of that criticism out in his book "How Should We Then Live?" But Bell's argument is flawed in that
a) the problems in this world are because of sin, not uncaring Christians (Romans 8:19-22, Genesis 3:17), and
b) Christians have done more than most to alleviate the world's suffering.
Think about William Wilberforce, who was the loudest voice in England calling for the end of the slave trade--a Christian. Think about William and Catherine Booth, founders of the Salvation Army--Christians. Think about Compassion International, World Vision, Mother Teresa, Bono--Christians and Christian organizations all. I'm barely scratching the surface here. Yet it's the Christians' fault that the world is such a dark place?

The last straw man I'll look at is the one that Bell props up on pages 7-9. He gives extreme examples of Christians in Eastern Europe who gun down Muslims, a "Christian" father who raped his daughter while reciting the Lord's Prayer, and the image that Bell has visited in the NOOMA series: the "bullhorn guy," who makes Jesus out to be some "antiscience, antigay" lunatic, "telling people that they're going to burn forever." The context is that

"...all that matters is how you respond to Jesus. And that answer totally resonates with me; it is about how you respond to Jesus. But it raises another important question: Which Jesus?" -pg. 7

Obviously, none of the Jesuses mentioned in his examples are representative of the real thing. But Bell uses these extreme examples to make his own view, which we will look at later, sound like the most reasonable alternative.
Shamefully, some churches out there are merely cults with a Christian face and do not represent the true Jesus as revealed in the Bible. But Bell doesn't go into that. He just uses some of the most revolting examples imaginable to legitimize his own view, then he jumps through several hoops, questioning whether or not a "personal relationship" with God is truly the heart of the faith, since that phrase never occurs in the Bible (a dangerous argument, since the word "Trinity" never occurs in the Bible, but Bell believes in the idea anyway); questioning whether or not going to heaven is "dependent on something I do," questioning just about everything he can.
Not that asking questions about your faith is bad; it isn't. As Bell rightly points out in the prologue,

"Some communities don't permit open, honest inquiry about the things that matter most. Lots of people have voiced a concern, expressed a doubt, or raised a question, only to be told by their family, church, friends, or tribe: 'We don't discuss those things here.'
I believe the discussion itself is divine.' -page ix, emphasis mine

But there's a difference between asking honest questions and asking leading questions. Honest questions, asked in humility and out of the desire to seek God's truth, will get you somewhere (Isaiah 1:18, Matthew 7:7). Leading questions get you to where you already wanted to go, regardless of whether or not it's true. Unfortunately, that's exactly what Bell is doing in this book.

Heaven
According to Rob Bell, Jesus never told people how to get to heaven, because "it wasn't what Jesus came to do." He goes on to discuss the Greek word for "age," aion, and how when applied with the proper meaning, means that "eternal life" is best understood as "the age to come," or "a new era," which Bell interprets as heaven merging with earth (pgs. 33-40). He talks about freedom from war and poverty and racism and death as if those are the best things that God has to offer in "the age to come." He goes on to describe this new age as "the day when earth and heaven would be one."
The problem with this view of heaven as explained in pgs. 33-40 and 44-47, is that Bell views it as Jesus "dragging the future into the present" and His followers make that happen by doing good things. He denies this at first, saying

"Taking heaven seriously, then, means taking suffering seriously, now. Not because we've bought into the myth that we can create a utopia given enough time, technology, and good voting choices, but because we have great confidence that God has not abandoned human history and is actively at work within it, taking it somewhere" -pg. 45

But the utopia myth is exactly what he is putting forth, both here and elsewhere (which I have written about at length).

"When Jesus talked about heaven, he was talking about our present eternal, intense, real experiences of joy, peace, and love in this life, this side of death and the age to come. Heaven for Jesus wasn't just "someday"; it was a present reality. Jesus blurs the lines, inviting the rich man, and us, into the merging of heaven and earth, the future and present, here and now." -pg. 59

In other words, heaven is only as good as the good things we experience in this life. Which is all fine and good, except Jesus never, ever spoke of heaven as being anywhere near what Bell describes above. No one else in the Bible does either. Yes, there are verses that describe a very real renewal of Creation (Romans 8:19-22 is probably the most well-known one), but they never indicate what Bell seems to think they do.
This rather shocking idea is followed up with a brief discussion of what eternal life actually means, and here, I have no issue with what he's saying. He says that eternal life doesn't start when we die, but it starts now, "in connection to God." And this is true: from the moment you accept Jesus as your Savior, your eternal life begins. But to go from "eternal life starts now, not just when you die" to "'Heaven' is really code for 'making the world a better place'" requires quite a few hoops to jump through, including the abandonment of logic--and Scripture.
(For a much better discussion of aion than I can provide, check out this review.)

Hell

"God is loving and kind and full of grace and mercy--unless there isn't a confession and repentance and salvation in this lifetime, at which point God punishes forever. That's the Christian story, right? Is that what Jesus taught?" -pg. 64

An oversimplified explanation, in which the expression of God's wrath is interpreted as an abandonment of His love and mercy, which is patently false. Love and punishment are two sides of the same coin. In God's love, he reached out to us "while we were yet sinners," and provided the path to salvation and restoration to eternal life in His presence, in the person of Christ. However, if we choose to ignore Christ, eternal punishment must necessarily follow because He is the only way eternal life can be attained. Punishment is not the absence of love, it is the forewarned consequence of rejecting Jesus.
So to answer Bell's question, yes, Jesus taught that (barring said oversimplification).

"And since we have been made right in God's sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God's judgment." -Romans 5:9
"For God decided to save us through our Lord Jesus Christ, not to pour out his anger on us. He died for us so that we can live with him forever. . ." -1 Thessalonians 5:9-10a
"I don't want you to die, says the Sovereign Lord. Turn back and live!" -Ezekiel 18:32 (emphasis mine)

Bell's approach to hell is the same as with heaven: Jesus isn't so much concerned with the afterlife than he is with the earthly life. Bell interprets the idea of hell as all of the horrible things that people do on earth, including molestation, adultery, corporations that exploit the planet's natural resources, the disparity between the rich and poor, and the sex trade (pg. 78). Notice how Bell is only too happy to name a couple of progressives' favorite scapegoats as some of the worst things on earth, effectively propping up progressive talking points as orthodoxy. This is a shame, to say the least, because he starts off on page 73 talking about Jesus' rhetoric in the verses where He tells people that they would be better off mutilating themselves rather than commit certain sins. The discussion comes to a dramatic climax here:

"[Jesus] uses hyperbole often. . . it can all sound a bit over-the-top at times, leading us to question just what he's so worked up about. . . But when you've sat with a wife who has just found out that her husband has been cheating on her for years, and you realize what it is going to do to their marriage and children and finances and friendships and future. . . in that moment Jesus's warnings don't seem that over-the-top or drastic; they seem perfectly spot-on.
Gouging out his eye may actually have been a better choice."

This is a powerful statement about the destruction that sin causes, and I'd be hard-pressed to find a better description of just how bad sin is. Unfortunately, that's what hell is limited to in the Rob Bell view. "Hell" is the painful, horrible consequences of sin, which we experience here and now, in the same way that heaven is here and now, or as Bell puts it, "a particular period of time" (pg. 92). Furthermore, the consequences of sin are not eternal, but last as long as it takes for the sinner to realize what he has done and eventually come to repentance, at which point he is brought into fellowship with God (pgs. 83-93), which sounds an awful lot like Purgatory (another unbiblical concept). This is where his theology becomes even more precarious than it already is. The Hebrew word for "forever," olam, when used to describe God, more or less means "forever" as we understand it to mean: never-ending, everlasting, eternal. But in other passages, when it isn't describing God, it means "a particular period of time." The consequences are thus:

"So when we read 'eternal punishment,' it's important that we don't read categories and concepts into a phrase that aren't there. Jesus isn't talking about forever as we think of forever. Jesus may be talking about something else, which has all sorts of implications of what happens after we die. . ." -pg. 92, emphasis mine

Bell's proof for the "period of time" understanding of olam? The word described Jonah's time in the belly of the fish, which turned out to be three days, along with most of the other non-God-referencing occurrences in the Bible. Note that he doesn't apply the same exegetical, textual look at Jesus' actual words when He speaks of "eternal life." Instead he says, more or less, "Olam means a certain period of time in most other places in the Bible, so that's probably what Jesus meant too."
"That's probably what Jesus meant" isn't a very good standard for theology.

Does God Get What God Wants?
This is where Bell goes from bad arguments and selective quoting of Scripture to outright blasphemy.

"I point out these parallel claims: that God is mighty, powerful, and 'in control,' and that billions of people will spend forever apart from this God, who is their creator, even though it's written in the Bible that 'God wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth' (1 Timothy 2). So does God get what God wants?"

The obvious answer to that question is "not always." This is verified, not only by looking at the Bible, but the rest of history. Because of His character, God did not want the Holocaust to happen, God does not want children in Africa to suffer and die of AIDS, God does not want there to be illness or death. Yet, the Holocaust happened, children in Africa are experiencing unspeakable torment, and people everywhere die, every day. This does not mean that God is somehow indifferent to suffering or that He caused it. The Problem of Evil indicates the belief to the contrary, stating that if God is omniscient and omnipotent, then He knows of all evil and how to prevent it, but He does not, therefore God is not omniscient and omnipotent. Bell, like the philosophers who argue against God, makes the same mistake: the confusion of capability with culpability (the idea that because God has such and such characteristics, He has to act in a certain way). Bell's argument has the same fallacy inherent.
1. God is all-powerful and "in control" and wants everyone to be saved.
2. But billions of people will be doomed for eternity, which is not what God wants.
3. Therefore,

"[God is] great enough to achieve what [He] sets out to do,
or kind of great,
medium great,
great most of the time,
but in this,
the fate of billions of people,
not totally great.
Sort of great.
A little great." -pgs. 97-98

It is unwise to mock God, and that's putting it gently.

Bell then goes through and quotes various verses, like Philippians 2:10-11 ("Every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord"), Job 23:13 ("Who can turn [God] from his purposes? Whatever he wants to do, he does"), and Psalm 30:5 ("His anger lasts for a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime"), all with the intent of showing that God is not powerless, despite the satirical statement to the contrary on page 97; that God can do whatever He wants; and that God will not be angry with us forever. This is all fine and good (and true). Bell continues the Scriptural references, talking about the parable of the lost sheep in Luke 15, to show that

"The God that Jesus teaches us about doesn't give up until everything that was lost is found. This God simply doesn't give up. Ever." -pg. 101

Then he contrasts this unstoppable God with churches that declare that those who don't accept Christ are going to be damned for eternity. He makes the bold statement that if God lets some people suffer for eternity, then God gives up.
God fails.
Nothing could be further from the truth. But Bell isn't content to stop there.

"As it's written in 2 Timothy 2, 'God cannot disown himself.'
As Abraham asked in Genesis 18, 'Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?'
Which is stronger and more powerful, the hardness of the human heart or God's unrelenting, infinite, expansive love?"
-pgs. 108-109

Not only does Bell mock God, but takes Scripture wildly out of context in order to justify his view. Yes, Abraham really did ask that question to God, but he was asking God to spare what righteous people lived in Sodom and Gomorrah, which God had marked for destruction, as punishment for their immorality--Abraham was not asking God to give everyone a free pass because God is just that nice of a guy. He did not want the innocent to perish along with the guilty, which propelled his question, and if you read a little further, you will see that God promises Abraham that the righteous will not perish on account of the sins of the wicked. However, Sodom and Gomorrah are still destroyed, even though Lot and his family were spared.

Remember Philippians 2:10-11? Bell takes them to mean that the entire world will be reconciled to God; redeemed, regardless of whether or not all of these people accepted Jesus Christ.
Bell takes 2 Timothy 2:13 to mean that for God to deny people access to heaven is to deny Himself.
To put the icing on the cake,

"Many people find Jesus compelling, but don't follow him, because of the parts about 'hell and torment and all that.' . . .Not all Christians have believed this, and you don't have to believe it to be a Christian. The Christian faith is big enough, wide enough, and generous enough to handle that vast a range of perspectives." -pg. 110

"Hell and torment and all that" are the reasons for Jesus' sacrifice. The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23), and in order to save us from that death, Jesus came so that none may perish, but have everlasting life (John 3:16). Those who do not accept Jesus will be condemned (John 3:36).
To say that there is no hell, no eternal punishment for our sins that every single one of us deserves (Romans 3:23), is to say that the worst that sin can do is make us miserable on earth, which negates the power of Christ's sacrifice. If all that God wanted was for human beings to never suffer, He would have never given us the choice.

Universalism

"I am the good shepherd; I know my own sheep, and they know me, just as my Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep, too, that are not in this sheepfold." -John 10:14-16a, emphasis mine
"This same Good News that came to you is going out all over the world." -Colossians 1:6a

Bell uses the italicized portion of John 10:16, and the quote from Colossians 1, to prove not only that God has proclaimed His gospel to the entire world, but that He has done this through every single religion and belief.

"What he doesn't say is how, or when, or in what manner the mechanism functions that gets people to God through him. . . Jesus is the way, but. . . the all-embracing, saving love of this particular Jesus the Christ will of course include all sorts of unexpected people from across the cultural spectrum.
As soon as the door is opened to Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and Baptists from Cleveland, many Christians become very uneasy, saying that then Jesus doesn't matter anymore, the cross is irrelevant, it doesn't matter what you believe, and so forth.
Not true.
Absolutely, unequivocally, unalterably not true.
What Jesus does is declare that he, and he alone, is saving everybody. And then he leaves the door way, way open. Creating all sorts of possibilities. He is as narrow as himself and as wide as the universe." -pgs. 154-155

This is heresy. In Bellspeak, "absolute, unequivocal, unalterable" heresy.
It is not true by any stretch of the imagination.
It is logically impossible for all religions to point to Jesus, because every religion says something different. The Bible, God's revealed truth to us, is consistent. God is consistent. For God to say that every religion ultimately points to Him, with all of their mutually contradictory beliefs and conflicting paths to salvation, is inconsistent. As pointed out in 2 Timothy 2, God cannot disown himself.
Acts 4:12: "There is salvation in no one else! There is no other name in all of heaven for people to call on to save them." The Bible does not make any provisions for Buddha, Mohammed, or Krishna.
1 Corinthians 1:23: "We preach Christ crucified."
Romans 1:16: "I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes. . ."
The gospel is Christ crucified. The apostles acknowledged this in saying that there is no other way to salvation but Christ.

The End: Everyone Goes To Heaven

"As Paul writes in Philippians 3, 'Let us live up to what we have already attained.'
The father has taken care of everything. It's all there, ready, waiting. It's always been there, ready, waiting. . . On the cross, Jesus says, 'Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing" (Luke 23). Jesus forgives them all, without their asking for it. . . Forgiveness is unilateral. God isn't waiting for us to get it together, to clean up, shape up, get up--God has already done it." -pgs. 188-189
"The only thing left to do is trust. Everybody is already at the party. Heaven and hell, here, now, around us, upon us, within us." -pg. 190

The late Richard John Neuhaus interpreted the gift of salvation, not as a free pass to everyone who ever lived, but as a testament to the boundless love of God:

"...absolutely no one is beyond the reach of God's love in Christ. All are found, and therefore are not lost. That some may choose not to accept the gift of being found is quite another matter. We pray and hope that all will accept the gift of salvation that is most surely available to all." -the August/September edition of First Things, under the section "The Generosity of God" (emphasis mine)

Rob Bell's troubling conclusion about eternal life raises the question: if God is going to spare everyone, regardless of what they believe or don't believe, then what does it matter what good we do or don't do here on earth? There is no point in "dragging the future into the present" by fighting evil corporations, child molesters, and the rich, because we're all going to have a blast in the future-present-pluperfect heaven with Mother Teresa, Hitler, and Gene Simmons. In Bell's framework, there is no reason for us to do anything good here on earth except to avoid the harmful consequences of sin (an issue that he never takes to its Biblical conclusion). All this talk about sin and dragging the future into the present boils down to cosmic utilitarianism.
Absent the possibility of ultimate condemnation for our sins, there is no reason to follow Jesus Christ. Sure, we might feel a whole lot better if we do, but if Jesus is in every religion; if every Christian, Muslim, Hindu, pagan, and atheist are all going to be spared because "love wins," there is no compelling reason to give a damn.

The Response

Unfortunately, if you disagree with Bell, you're "toxic and misguided," as he stated in the beginning of the book.
The founder of Recovering Evangelical throws the Bible under the bus in an attempt to defend Bell, and writes off the controversy surrounding Love Wins as being one of "the stupid battle Christians fight."
Juvenile rabble-rousers at "The Online Discernmentalist Mafia" took my throwaway line about Gene Simmons and built a straw man out of it, mercilessly mocking me for my critique of Bell.
Criticizing him makes you a "Pharisee," according to Eugene Peterson.
A commenter on the above-linked page asks the critics, "Why are you so anxious to make sure there are people in hell? The fact that you NEED Bell to be wrong and have people in hell communicates much more about yourself than either Bell or God."
No Bible-believing Christian wants people in hell, because that isn't what God wants.
"Do you think, asks the Sovereign Lord, that I like to see wicked people die? Of course not! I only want them to turn from their wicked ways and live." -Ezekiel 18:23
The reason that we need to be clear about the eternal consequences of denying Christ, which are real and revealed by the Scriptures, is because that's what is at stake.
Jesus did not die a criminal's death and rise from the grave so that we could all feel good about ourselves, have a nice life, drive fast cars, and be rich.
Jesus did not become a man so that his sacrifice could save the world from his bipolar father.
Jesus did what he did to save our souls.
That is the real story. That is the real truth.

"I don't want you to die, says the Sovereign Lord. Turn back and live!" -Ezekiel 18:32

Recall

2011-08-10T08:45:00.001-05:00

Hey, unions: you smell that? That's called vindication. Your millions of Big Labor dollars, angry protesting, and all-around complaining couldn't stop the majority of Wisconsin voters from reaffirming their support for Governor Walker and the state GOP.

Priorities.

2011-07-19T12:21:00.001-05:00

Have you ever been asked to list the top three things that you spend the majority of your time on, in an attempt to show you that God really isn't #1 in your life? Most people would answer something like this:
1. Job
2. Family
3. Etc.
And then you realize, "Oh no! I'm not spending enough time with God. I guess I have to change things around a lot." Which is a reasonable conclusion to draw from the evidence, but the problem is that you can't really subtract time from your job if you're working full-time. So you try to juggle things around with your family time, but you really can't subtract a whole lot of time from them either. So you work around the nebulous third category, where you look at just what it is you do with the rest of your time. Some people have hobbies, some people have home improvement projects, and so on. Some of those things are necessary and can't be put on the side, but some of them can be. I'm not going to tell you the specifics because you know what they are in your life. I'm talking in generalities here. My point is that for most people, I suspect, God doesn't take up as much time as their job or their family.
The problem with that is that well-meaning Christians, including ourselves, think that that's a huge problem. And for some people, it really is. Workaholics and spouses/parents who neglect their families need to get that crap taken care of, pronto. But for the rest of us, we think that maybe there's something wrong with all that. "If God's really important to me, shouldn't I spend the most of my time with Him as I can?" Well, yes, but the underlying assumption behind your question is that your priorities are measured solely by the amount of time you spend on them. People working 40-50 hours a week typically don't have a lot of time to spend at home, so when they are home, they ideally devote as much time as they can to their families (obviously, my underlying assumption is that most people have families, including a spouse and/or kids. Do with that what you will). And so on and so forth. You know what this life looks like better than I do--I speak as an unemployed recently-wed video game nerd, avid reader, and movie junkie.

So what's the point of all of this? You can't measure your priorities solely based on how much time you spend doing them. Most Christians, I wager, would fail the time criterion of prioritization simply because of the realities of their lives--jobs, families, what have you. So don't get all flustered because you don't spend 40+ hours a week praying or reading the Word. It's just not going to happen. What you can do is do more with the time that you have, without using your busyness as an excuse to neglect God entirely. I am not saying that you should. All I am saying is that quality of time with God is more important than quantity of time, when it comes down to it. A guy can spend three hours a day solely focused on providing his wife attention and still have a miserable relationship with her. In the same way, you can spend three hours a day praying and reading, and not have a whole lot to show for it because you're too concerned with giving God x amount of time. Instead, concern yourself with the time that you have, and give Him as much as you are able. Judging time spent is the most seemingly obvious way for you, and others, to appraise your priorities. But this isn't about the externals. It's about your soul.

"I'm not saying, I'm just saying."

2011-07-15T00:24:00.000-05:00

Have you ever heard someone preface a statement with "I'm not saying this to hurt your feelings, but..."? I'm talking about when someone tells you something that they know will be annoying to you at best, and offensive at worst. They try to dance around their statement by informing you that they aren't saying it to upset you or offend you, they're just saying it... just because. For example, take recording artist Jill Scott's recent article for Essence magazine in which she expresses her disapproval of interracial relationships, giving the example of a black friend of hers marrying a white woman. She briefly mentions that she was raised in a religious household and taught to appraise people based on their character and values, rather than skin color, but spends most of the article talking about the white man's sins of slavery and racism, and how those past sins cause her to "wince" when she sees "a seemingly together brother with a Caucasian woman and their children." Of course, she dismisses any objections that her "wince" is "racist," because she understands that men and women of all ethnicities can find love with people who are different from them, "but underneath, there is a bite, no matter the ointment, that has yet to stop burning. Some may find these thoughts to be hurtful. That is not my intent. I'm just sayin'." Aha! See? See? She wasn't trying to hurt anybody's feelings, she was just expressing her opinion. She was just saying. The problem is that when you say something that you know will hurt another, there's no room for "just saying." By saying something, you are putting your opinions and ideas out there and you take immediate ownership for that which you have said, as well as the consequences of expressing your ideas.
Now, this doesn't mean that everyone who says "I'm not saying this to hurt your feelings or offend you" is actually mistaken or lying. You can tell when someone is being genuine when expressing themselves to you, and it is up to you to discern who is telling the truth. Sometimes someone else's opinion will run so counter to yours that there is no possible way for them to express it without causing some kind of ill reaction in you, and at that point it's up to you to not hold it against them. For example, when you are doing something that you think is fine and good but your friend, parent, pastor, or whoever, thinks it isn't so fine and good, and they think that they have to talk to you about it. They'll tell you that the disapproval that they express is not meant to hurt you, but they believe that they have to communicate it in some way because they are concerned about you. But in that situation, there is no room for them to cop out of what they're saying, because their intentions are truly pure, and they will stand by their conviction that what they are doing is right; they just have to make sure that you know that they are not trying to offend. For Jill Scott, she more or less likened interracial relationships to race betrayal, and that's a strong (and racist) statement to make. So strong, in fact, that there is no way that someone could not be offended by her expression of it, in what I am assuming is a popular magazine written for black audiences. It's like telling a mom who you know struggled with anorexia in high school that her teenage daughter is fat. You know that that would be a rotten thing to say, especially to someone with a history of past struggles with such things, but you say it anyway--but wait! You weren't trying to offend her, you were just saying. Get it?
Let's take this a step further. Let's say that you know a parent whose child died in an accident of some sort. Let's say that you are convinced that you have to speculate as to the ultimate reason for the death, so you talk to the parent and speculate. "Maybe it was because, you know, God needed another angel in Heaven... or, well, maybe it was because of something bad that you did that God punished you for. Maybe it was because you should have tried harder to avoid getting into that accident. But I'm not trying to offend you, I'm just trying to figure it out... I'm just saying." I'd give that parent about three seconds before they inform you that you were never, in fact, asked to theorize as to why the child died, and that you are neither welcome in their presence anymore nor have you been talking out of your mouth.
Stop dancing around it. You knew what you were saying. Denying something then restating it is not really a denial.

In case you can't tell, it bothers the crap out of me when people like Jill Scott say something deeply and legitimately offensive, then try to save face by offering the expected "I'm not trying to hurt anyone. I'm just saying." People--especially me--need to stop hiding behind their own words and say nothing at all if they can't speak with love. At the very least, if you are going to say something hurtful, be honest about your intentions. Your audience will know when you are trying to hurt them and when you aren't. Don't try to fool them, and don't delude yourself into thinking that denying the intent behind your words will save you.

A simple question for President Obama:

2011-05-19T20:38:00.001-05:00

Why do you hate Israel?

Disconnection

2011-04-15T11:21:00.001-05:00

I'm a misanthrope, and for all practical purposes, a shut-in. I rarely leave my house except to go to class, run the occasional errand, see my friends, or see Katie. When I'm walking to class, at least half of the students walking with me have their iPods or other MP3 players going, earbuds in their ears, just plodding along as usual. When I got my first iPod back in 2006 or 2007, sometimes I would have it playing when I'd walk to lower campus, on my way to class, but I didn't keep that up for very long. There's a level of disconnection from the outside world that even I, a misanthrope's misanthrope, can't maintain. To say that I don't do it because I'm concerned for my safety would be, well, overdramatic. I'm rarely genuinely concerned about my safety. But I like to know what's going on around me; I like having an awareness of my surroundings. I like what minimal interaction I have with other people and the outdoors. As much as I'd like to listen to Radiohead's "The King Of Limbs" for the xth time, while walking to class, I just can't bring myself to do it.

a different perspective on the WI unions debacle

2011-02-20T13:11:00.001-05:00

Some teachers have never been in a union, have never had the so-called "right" of collective bargaining, are unpaid, have their benefits (if they can afford them) paid for by their spouses, and don't have the luxury of having a contractual work day. I'm talking about homeschoolers. Keep that in mind when your public schools shut down because the majority of teachers put their own prissy protesting above their job.
I'm talking to you, Madison and Augusta.

Peace on Earth?

2011-02-16T11:40:00.000-05:00

U2 > Discography > Lyrics > Peace On Earth

"Jesus this song you wrote
The words are sticking in my throat
Peace on Earth
Hear it every Christmas time
But hope and history won't rhyme
So what's it worth?
This peace on Earth"

I have to shake my head every time I hear this song and songs like it. Look at sinful, fallen man: does anyone really think that we will ever have a true peace on Earth, a complete and irreversible cessation of all human hostilities? To the believers who are on the peace bandwagon: what kind of peace do you really want? Man is inherently sinful... there will always be war and conflict on Earth, both just and unjust. But when it really comes down to it, what peace would you rather have, peace on Earth or peace in Heaven? Eternal peace, where humanity is completely restored to God and washed clean of all sin for all of eternity, will be far more beautiful and fulfilling than a life lived on Earth free of this particular kind of pain.
Granted, this does not mean that all forms of peace are unattainable. When a nation's freedom is threatened and it is necessary to fight back to defend that freedom, then a limited form of peace can be achieved, understood in the sense that there is national peace (i.e., freedom). Fighting to defend freedom is one of the most noble things, and I have nothing but respect for those who are on the front lines this very second, doing just that. But what the idealists talk about, an all-encompassing peace where no one fights or uses weapons or armies or anything of that sort, is impossible... until Heaven.
That said, the idealists' peace would be a great thing to have--I'm not rejecting the idea because I don't want it. I can think of a lot of military families who would take peace on earth if it meant filling the empty chair at the dinner table, and my heart goes out to them. But on the whole, we need to "store up our treasures in Heaven," especially the most valuable treasure of human life, instead of trying to keep them on Earth, where even a peaceful life, if it were possible, would be filled with other kinds of pain.

"holy crap!" moment of the night

2011-02-16T02:26:00.001-05:00

I am driving down Summit Ave., coming to the light at Summit and First. The light is red, so I stop. In the distance, in the bowels of Water St. just ahead of me, I hear people on the sidewalk yelling about something. I ignore them and wait for the light to turn green. I hear a police siren start to go off, in the initial "bleep bleep bleep" staccato kind of way that usually means "don't make me chase you." I see a small grey coupe, headlights off, race out of the corner of Water St., in the opposite lane, and it drives straight through the light, accelerating as it goes. It looks like one of those older coupe kind of cars; like a Plymouth Eagle or something. If there's no such thing as a Plymouth Eagle, well, that's what this coupe reminded me of. As it passes me, I smell the distinct scent of burnt rubber. A cop SUV barrels past me in an angry explosion of red and blue light and piercing siren sound. Whoever the guy in the grey car is, I hope he gets his ass kicked. I even say to myself, after the initial OMG: "I hope he gets his ass kicked." I see the light turn green and I linger for a second, hoping there isn't another speeding car coming down the opposite lane. As I turn onto First Ave., on my way home from work, I pray that the guy in the grey coupe is stopped before he hurts or kills someone, and that he will get his ass kicked in the process. I end my prayer with "Lord, please protect this city."

my new iTunes project

2011-02-14T00:37:00.003-05:00

starting tomorrow at work, I am going to listen to my entire iTunes library from A-# (iTunes groups albums starting with numbers after the end of the alphabet). I think this will be a good way to really sit down and listen to music I rarely listen to, as well as re-familiarize myself with music that I haven't listened to in years. I've grown rather static in my listening habits... I listen to the same song or album over and over and over until I can't stand to listen to it anymore. Hopefully this will help me find music in my library that's just as good as some of my favorites.

why am I really doing all of this? because I'm bored and I want to say that I did it.

refocusing

2011-02-14T00:37:00.001-05:00

Starting sometime this week, I am going to convert this blog into more of a personal one, since I rarely write the types of posts that comprise the whole of it (i.e., long-winded essays and rants). That way, I can write slightly more interesting things on here than I usually do, and possibly attract new readers, ~~because I am a comment whore~~ because that would be really cool.

Titletown!

2011-02-07T01:20:00.000-05:00

It's a great night to be a Packer fan. Congratulations, guys!
Quote of the night: "To God be the glory" -Greg Jennings

Why I gave up on politics

2011-01-03T13:32:00.001-05:00

The GOP tried every trick in the book to stop another trillion from being added to the deficit in the form of that awful omnibus spending bill, which is a good thing to stop from happening, don't get me wrong. However, in the same breath, Republican representatives voted to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," in the face of military commanders who said that repeal was a terrible idea, as well as the majority of servicemembers in active combat who said the same thing. Okay, great. The GOP has got our back on the economic front. But what about the moral front? What about the assault on freedom of religion that will follow the repeal? Don't scoff: military chaplains are in grave danger already, according to the implementation plans that Elaine Donnelly writes about here. Once these chaplains are forced out of the service, further assaults on the homefront are inevitable.
If there was anyone who should have stood up to the repeal and blocked its passage, it should have been the Republican Party. Putting the issue of morality aside, they should have blocked its passage because the military spoke out against it, and if there's anyone who knows how certain legislation will directly affect the military, it's the military. Instead of listening to their concerns, the legislative branch gave them the finger.

Sadly, our leaders have proven that they are not willing to take a stand for what really matters. Sure, we can count on them to not add another trillion to the national deficit, but what's the point in that when religious freedom and the military's capacity to do its job without unreasonable interference are on the line? Give Obama and the Senate Dems their trillion and our grandchildren will pay it off someday. Refusing to stand for moral issues can't be paid off in a decade or mortgaged to the next generation for them to deal with.

I'm angry. I'm angry at a party that should have done its job and won this battle instead of conceding victory to the enemy. I'm angry at a President who's so hellbent on appeasing the gay Left that he'll assault the military and religious freedom to keep them happy. Our leaders stand for nothing, so they fall for anything, but somehow expect us to catch them. No longer.
Don't count on my vote ever again, because I'm not going to. The GOP and politics in general are a waste of time, because they, like all other politicians, are just in it for themselves and their career and their power. They promised otherwise, but they delivered just what we've come to expect from them. The Psalmist was right when he said to not put trust in men. Maybe I should have listened to him all along.

DADT

2010-12-20T12:10:00.001-05:00

‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Repeal: Congress Ignores Combat Troops

Apparently, people's "feelings" and "gay equality" are more important than the military's mission, which is to protect and defend this country. Our soldiers' ability to function has been severely impeded and we have the United States government to thank for it.

So the Wachowskis want to take on Robin Hood...

2010-12-08T22:12:00.001-05:00

EXCLUSIVE: Wachowskis, Warner Bros. Take Aim With 'Hood' - Heat Vision

Synopsis: 'Hood' will star Will Smith as Speed, a thirty-five year old sexually confused pimp, who steals dirty cocaine from his lesbian hookers and makes violent love to his gay partner, Malcolm (played by Adam Lambert) while wearing a bunny suit. Speed gets caught up in international intrigue and geopolitics when Karl Rove, former Bush administration advisor, solicits one of the lesbian hookers, pays her to dress like Sarah Palin, then beats her to death with a Koran and dumps the body in the Potomac. Speed finds himself embroiled in the ensuing scandal and flees into the woods of Yellowstone National Park, where he meets up with a group of outlaws who steal government secrets from disgruntled gay Army privates and publish them on the Internet. Speed vows to get revenge for his dead hooker and embarks on a mission to kill every millionaire in America and redistribute their wealth among homeless transsexual dildo jugglers, culminating in a showdown where Speed poisons Karl Rove with a cyanide capsule delivered via an extended tongue kiss, pisses on Rush Limbaugh, and goes back to Yellowstone where he fantasizes about murdering George W. Bush while playing Twister in the nude with his merry men and Katy Perry, his Gothic heterosexual love interest who cross-stitches homoerotic art involving the Pope and the Cat In The Hat. Co-starring Keanu Reeves as a cactus.

Outer Heaven

2010-09-22T01:16:00.000-05:00

There are a couple of sayings that I hear about Heaven and people in Heaven, and these sayings annoy me to no end.
The first is "So and so is looking down from Heaven and they are so proud of you!" I'm not sure what all goes on in Heaven, but I'd imagine that people in Heaven, being in constant direct fellowship with God, have better things to do than look down on all us sinners.
The second is "There are so many glimpses of Heaven right here on Earth! God gives us little glimpses into Heaven!" Yes, there are many incredible things that we experience here on Earth: the beauty of nature, love, sex, even amazing food and drink. But if these things are glimpses into Heaven, and that's the best that awaits us on the other side, I don't want a part of it. Give me love, give me nature, give me food, but if the best of what's here on Earth is going to be repeated in Heaven, then God can keep it to His mediocre self.
Fortunately for us all, Heaven is going to be better than that. So much better, in fact, that I don't think any of us have a clue of how good it is going to be.

When Did Anne Rice Become Anne Lamott?

2010-08-13T11:43:00.001-05:00

Well-known vampire novelist Anne Rice has quit Christianity, citing the concerns of her conscience; concerns such as the Catholic Church's position on gay marriage and abortion, as well as issues of feminism, secular humanism(!), and artificial birth control. Now, I'm not going to pretend for a second that I know anything about Catholic teachings; I don't. But it seems to me that these aren't really matters of conscience, but matters of previously held beliefs that clash with Christian orthodoxy. When those two kingdoms collide, guess which one gets deep-sixed?
I'm not sure why secular humanism or feminism should be embraced by anyone, especially Christians, because they sell people short. Secular humanism is a religion of the species. Feminism, at least in its modern-day liberal form, puts down males every chance it gets and pins every evil in the world on them. Christian orthodoxy can lay these ideas to shame, because there is no need for petty 'humanism' when human beings can find ultimate peace and purpose in a transcendent, infinite-personal Being. Christian orthodoxy also accepts men and women as being equal before God, and allows them to find fulfillment in their different capacities as delineated by their sex, rendering feminism unnecessary. Abortion and homosexuality are immoral in God's eyes, yet He does not call us to condemn their proponents, but to reach out to them in the ruthless love of Christ (while obeying our conscience and disapproving of their behavior).
Sadly, these ideas seem to be lost on this woman. Apparently the Christ of the Bible just isn't good enough, and must either conform to every passing whim of the age or be rejected.

Anne Rice, get over yourself.

Mel Gibson

2010-07-19T13:01:00.000-05:00

Our society glorifies filth and then acts surprised when someone's hands are dirty.

Inception

2010-07-19T01:54:00.000-05:00

is one of the best movies I have ever seen. It's a masterpiece, and Christopher Nolan is a genius. I'm still in shock, and I finished watching it around 4 hours ago.

Christian utopianism

2010-06-05T18:42:00.001-05:00

We're going to keep on praising. I am confident that we can create a Kingdom right here on Earth.
-Barack Obama, speaking to Redemption World Outreach Center in Greenville, SC, 2007

Apparently, according to our President, we can create a Kingdom on Earth. I suspect if you ask a lot of Christians, they'll give you the same answer. They might not say that we can 'create' a Kingdom, but they will probably say that we can bring about God's Kingdom here on Earth. The problem is that God's Kingdom, the kingdom of heaven, is not attainable through human means.
What is the kingdom of heaven? Jesus certainly mentioned it a lot; the phrase and its equivalents occur around 80 times in the Gospels. "...behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst [within you]" (Luke 17:21). Elsewhere, Jesus says that the kingdom is near (Matthew 4:17). Fantastic. But what exactly is it? One writer interprets it as the "Reign of God, [the] Kingdom of God in the person of Christ." Interpreting the 'kingdom of heaven' in this way is what makes most sense to me, because Jesus said that it is within us; when we accept Him as Savior, He comes into our hearts and dwells within us (John 14:23). The reign of Christ is spiritual; not a physical subjugation or abstract concept of administration such as those seen in earthly nations. Christ Himself said so: "My kingdom is not of [not derived from] this world... My kingdom is not of this realm" (John 18:36). Because there are only two ultimate realms, physical and spiritual, and Jesus said that His kingdom is not physical, then it must be spiritual. Since that is the case, Christ's kingdom can be 'brought about on Earth' in the sense that God can save people's souls and reign in their hearts, thereby extending His spiritual reign on Earth, but the kingdom cannot be brought about through human means.
It seems that many Christians believe otherwise. According to Brian McLaren, the kingdom of heaven is brought about on earth by our good works. As Rob Bell puts it,

For Jesus, the question wasn't how do I get into Heaven? but how do I bring heaven here?... the goal isn't escaping this world but making this world the kind of place God can come to. And God is remaking us into the kind of people who can do this kind of work [emphasis mine].

One person goes so far to say that faith in Christ will topple the "secular salvation" of "political, economic, social, and moral structures" and the Church will become the agent of change in our society. As the writer of the article from which these quotes are gleaned puts it, "It is thought [within these circles] that when the church operates as this type of change agent, the world can't help but get better." This idea is also seen in a 2007 article in Christianity Today, where the author writes,

...Believers should pray for God to bring peace and justice to the world we currently live in... But God's people shouldn't just be praying. They should be working too. In addition to praying that God fixes earth's broken stuff so it's more like heaven, the church is also charged with bringing the kingdom to earth by the way they live.

McLaren, Bell, and the Christianity Today writer have got it wrong. Heaven cannot be brought to Earth by our good works or by any other means. It is not our job to ask that God "fixes the earth's broken stuff so it's more like heaven." This world cannot be made more like heaven; it is full of death due to the presence of sin (Romans 5:12). Christians are never charged by God to save the world; we are commanded to "go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation" (Mark 16:16). God's ultimate goal is to redeem humanity from sin through the sacrifice of Christ.
It is a utopian strand of thought to say, like then-Senator Obama did, that we can create the Kingdom right here on Earth. Utopianism's core belief is that man is inherently perfectible, and given the right environment or leadership, he can overcome his obstacles to perfection and live in peace and harmony with others. Although he was speaking of the goals of fascism, Jonah Goldberg may as well have been describing utopianism as he noted in his book, Liberal Fascism, that some of the commonalities between fascisms are

the quest for community, the urge to 'get beyond' politics, a faith in the perfectibility of man and the authority of experts... most of all, they share the belief--what I call the totalitarian temptation--that with the right amount of tinkering we can realize the utopian dream of 'creating a better world.' (pg. 14)

It seems to me that the Christian sense of community, a desire to 'get beyond' theological differences, and a Christianized concept of man's perfectibility are the ideas that unite the proponents of the earthly kingdom of heaven, which is really Christian utopianism, and not the kingdom that Jesus spoke of. This is puzzling to me because Jesus Himself did not describe His Kingdom as being able to be brought about through human means; I believe that He made it clear that it definitely could not be. Luke 17:20-23:

Now having been questioned by the Pharisees as to when the kingdom of God was coming, He answered them and said, "The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; nor will they say, 'Look, here it is!' or 'There it is!' For behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst." And He said to the disciples, "The days will come when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. They will say to you, 'Look there! Look here!' Do not go away, and do not run after them."

The Christian utopianists are saying that we need to work to make this world a better place. Now, this is not to say that mere rhetorical excess is on par with the desire to form a better, more functional society; is there anyone among us who hasn't heard a politician or motivational speaker talk about 'making the world a better place'? However, the ideals that the utopianists advance are not just that we can make our society better, or our cities safer, but that we can save the world if we just work hard to do good things, and be nice to our neighbors, and stop arguing over theology. After all, the goal is to better the world, and ourselves, so that Jesus has a nice clean house to return to.
At the heart of the matter is the idea that man is perfectible. The best illustration of this idea that I have seen is the character Adrian Veidt, in the graphic novel-turned-movie Watchmen. When gathering the Watchmen for the first time, he tells them, "We can save this world with the right leadership." Later on in the story, he tells a group of executives that his conquest is "not of men, but of the evils that beset them." His attitude is the same as all utopianists: man can be perfected through the right leadership, the right application of technology, the right environment. For Christian utopia, man can be perfected through the right religion and the right deeds that follow.

However, the Bible teaches that man cannot be perfected. Romans 3:23 tells us that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. In the same book, chapter 7, verses 15-25, Paul writes of the inner struggle between his sinful nature and his desire to to good, saying in verse 18 that "nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh." The only way that man can be redeemed is through faith in Jesus Christ (1 Thessalonians 5:9, John 3:16). Mankind can be sanctified, which is God's desire: not that we perfect ourselves through our own works (an impossibility, since our works are 'filthy rags' before God, according to Isaiah 64:6), but that we are "holy, as [our] Heavenly Father is holy" (Matthew 5:48). If all that God wanted was for us to be perfect and live in a perfect world, He wouldn't have given us the ability to choose between good and evil.
This world will never be perfect, and it is a fool's dream to think that it can be. Humanity cannot bring about the true kingdom of heaven anymore than oxygen can be turned into gold. There are people who are intent on bringing about a counterfeit kingdom of human goodness, which might make us feel better about ourselves in the short term, but in the end, it's just another utopian ideal. Christian utopianism is the same thing as secular utopianism; they are both humanistic ideas that derive their power from the supposed perfectibility of man. The only difference between the two is that the Christian strand seeks to be legitimized by attaching Christ's name to it, and once that's done, the idea can't be argued with because then you argue with God, and if you do that then you're a fool, and obviously don't have as much love and compassion as the people who advance the idea. We are, as Larry Norman put it, "only visiting this planet", and our real treasure lies in Heaven, not here on Earth, "where moth and rust destroy" (Matthew 6:19). Man can be saved, sanctified, and healed through faith in Christ alone. The true kingdom of Heaven is within our hearts, where God dwells and fills us with His Spirit.
Any other kingdom, and any other means of redemption, is lunacy.

History, Herstory... Mystory?

2010-05-13T01:09:00.000-05:00

You know it's Women's History Month at UWEC when the sidewalks get covered with ridiculously asinine sidewalk chalk sloganeering. Judging from the writing on the ground, one would think that all men are raging women beaters and rapists, just waiting to explode in a frenzy of sexual violence and late-night pugilism. "Guys, Domestic abuse is NOT COOL." "A woman is raped every 11 seconds." "It's Herstory too: Women's History Month." Things like that. Of course, myself being the typical biological male that I am, possessing your typical male organs, I am led to think by all of this chalking that because I am a male, I am evil, and I really hate women, and I'm probably going to rape a girl someday, or punch one, or something like that. This is, of course, complete nonsense. But that doesn't stop the WAGE (Women and Gender Equity) Center from having their bright-eyed, dim-witted lackeys from combining feminist talking points with histrionics and sensationalism.

"I don't have kind things to say about the military either"

2010-04-20T01:51:00.001-05:00

Several months ago, I was helping one of my roommates push his car from one end of Madison St. to the Family Video parking lot. Not just me; a few other guys were helping too. After pushing the car down the street, over a bridge, and into the lot, we stood there for a few minutes, chilling out and stretching. One thing led to another, and I ended up telling an acquaintance that I didn't particularly care for a mutual friend; truthfully, I couldn't stand this person. Not because he was gay... that had nothing to do with it. I couldn't care less about that. My reason for disliking him was that he had said some very unkind things about the military, and to those who know me well, you'll know that such things don't sit well with me. My acquaintance responded with "well, I don't have kind things to say about the military either" and I don't remember what happened after that. I probably had to ignore whatever he said next and focus on not going berserk on him.
How many people honestly think like that? "I don't have kind things to say about the military either." Personally, I believe that such sentiment is unacceptable. Completely unacceptable. I don't give a tinker's cuss if you are against the war in Iraq, or war in general, or violence in general, or whatever the case may be. The reason we live in a free country is that men and women are willing to lay down their lives to protect us and our God-given freedoms; not just that they are willing, but because hundreds of thousands of them have done just that. Is it so hard to recognize that fact and be thankful for our military, and give them the respect that they deserve? You sure aren't going out into harm's way to protect your way of life.
If you can't find it in yourself to say anything kind about our military, it makes me wonder just what you're doing living in America to begin with. If you're going to be a prig and act all high and mighty, there's probably a nice little spider hole in the Middle East you can crawl into. Better yet, run off to some dingy flat in Vichy France where you can sip wine with your other anti-American cohorts and insult your nation from afar. It would be the intellectually honest thing to do.

Money, Steve Hemsley, and Whining

2010-04-17T02:13:00.001-05:00

There's been a small amount of buzz around my cubicle at work, apparently the local paper did a story talking about how the CEO of the company I work for (can't find the original link, so here's a similar one), and the money that he made last year. Predictably, discussion centered around "Why is he making so much money" and "if he's making so much, why can't he make this a better place to work" and "He doesn't deserve that money because of the ongoing problems within this company."
My reaction? Quit whining. It's no one's business what Steve Hemsley makes. If he made $100 million last year, good for him. It doesn't affect my life.
The underlying idea behind the simplistic carping and moaning about his income is essentially this: people honestly think that he made his money by shorting other people, like his underlings (us). They view money as if it's some kind of fixed commodity, and the people who have a lot have "too much" and need to "give back" to the rest of us. Basic economics says otherwise. Money is liquid; constantly changing. So what if our IT department is inept? So what if people at the bottom rung don't think they make enough money? So what if the economy is bad? Stop your simplistic whining and think for a second. Hemsley doesn't control the IT department. He doesn't decide our payroll. He has nothing to do with the economy other than that he is an active participant in it. Stop blaming all of our company's problems, whether real or imagined, on him just because he made a lot of money last year.
Making $100 million doesn't make you an evil guy, and we've lost sight of the American spirit if we start thinking that.

a question of competency

2010-04-12T13:17:00.000-05:00

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RebeccaForReal

Help make 2010 the Year of the conservative Christian woman. Support Rebecca Kleefisch for Lt. Governor.

Look, I'm all for having more conservative Christian women in government (heck, in all other areas of life). I'm all for having more Christian Republicans representing me, because that's who I am. To be fair, I have no clue who this Rebecca lady is, and I know nothing of her platform or her past experience in public office, but I'm not going to vote for someone simply because they're in my corner, all else being equal. If it's between someone like Rebecca or someone like Jim Doyle, Russ Feingold, or Barack Obama, I'll vote for "my guy" in a heartbeat, because they can't do much worse than the above three. Barring that situation, though, someone's got to prove to me that they can do a good job in office. The person has to prove their competency before they even get the benefit of me considering marking their box. Yeah, we need more pro-life, pro-democracy, pro-military victory people in our government. But we also need them to do a good job.

15 March 2010

2010-03-15T13:49:00.001-05:00

Beware the Ides of March!

The Hurt Locker

2010-03-08T11:32:00.000-05:00

6 Oscars. Can't say that I'm surprised, because Hollywood hates our troops almost as much as they hate George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, and this movie was just another anti-American, anti-military piece of trash churned out by the hard-Left propaganda machine. But it's disheartening to see that the screenwriter and director praised the troops in their acceptance speeches. Do these people really have the audacity to thank the troops and heap good words on them when accepting awards for a movie that portrayed our soldiers as adrenaline junkies who don't love their own families, and commanding officers as heartless pigs who refuse medical treatment to Iraqi prisoners of war, letting them bleed to death?
Even more disheartening is that there are conservatives who praised the movie, saying that it's different from the other propaganda films of the past seven years. Wake up: it isn't. You are perpetuating the myths about our troops that Hollywood fills our cinemas with when you applaud anti-American jerkoff fantasy movies like this one.
Another Oscar season, another movie that shouldn't have ever been made.

"Climate change exaggerated"

2010-02-25T10:14:00.002-05:00

check it out! My new article is in today's Spectator.

Thought of the day

2010-02-17T16:04:00.000-05:00

I know that this is old news, but the Dems don't have any grounds on which to make fun of Sarah Palin for writing a couple speech notes on her hand, because

a) President Obama takes a teleprompter everywhere he goes, even to a class full of grade-school children, and

b) teleprompter with complete prepared remarks (not counting the "uh's," and "um's") ≠ a couple scribbles for guidance and clarity.

Rush and Haiti

2010-01-15T02:35:00.001-05:00

Liberals never cease to amaze me. If there's one thing that defines the lunatic Left, it's their hatred of Rush Limbaugh. It doesn't matter if it's Media Matters, Keith Olbermann, MSNBC in general, or whoever; they live to hate El Rushbo. The latest smear coming down the pike is that Rush said that we shouldn't make donations to Haiti because taxpaying Americans like you and I indirectly contribute to them via the income tax.The only problem is that Rush never said that we shouldn't make donations. And, believe it or not, he was right about the tax.
From the show transcript:

RUSH: We're going to start in Raleigh, North Carolina. Justin you're first today. Great to have you with us.

CALLER: Mega Rush Baby dittos. My question is, why did Obama in the sound bite you played earlier, when he's talking about if you wanted to donate some money, you can go to WhiteHouse.gov --

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: -- to direct you how to do so. If I want to donate money to the Red Cross, why do I need to go to the WhiteHouse.gov page and --

RUSH: Exactly. Would you trust that the money is going to go to Haiti?

CALLER: No.

RUSH: Would you trust that your name is going to end up on a mailing list for the Obama people to start asking you for campaign donations for him and other causes.

CALLER: Absolutely.

RUSH: Absolutely right.

CALLER: That's the point.

RUSH: Besides, we've already donated to Haiti. It's called the US income tax.

The United States sent $1.46 billion to Haiti from 1990 to 2005 with various emergency relief funds sent in the past two years. This establishes that Rush was right about the income tax. Plus, if you read the actual transcript of his show or listen to the archive (which zero liberals will do, predictably), he never said that we should not send aid. All that he said is that we need to be careful about what organizations we donate to so that we can be sure that our money goes directly to Haiti, into the hands of people who will do good with it.
If you feel led to donate to relief efforts, World Vision is a good place to start.

Film

2009-09-27T22:08:00.002-05:00

Seeing as I am now a year behind on movie reviews...

1. National Treasure: Book of Secrets
-This was a really interesting movie in the same way that the first one was. Plenty of history woven with fiction. Riley Poole is still hysterical.
It isn't the greatest movie ever made; there are still a few moments where you scratch your head and say "...what?" just like in the first one (like when the bad guys are chasing Nicolas Cage on the rooftops and apparently don't know how to shoot). The conflict resolution at the end is way too sudden and doesn't jibe with the characters at all, but they needed to end it somehow.
There is a very interesting part when the President gets tipped off to Nicolas Cage's scheme and it involves Cage having to entrust the President with some pretty big secrets (or something like that). The President asks, "How do you know you can trust me with this?" Cage replies, "Whether by virtue of your character or the oath that you swore to uphold the Constitution, I can trust you." I wish we could say the same of our President today.
All in all, it's worth watching a few times. PG for very mild violence, etc. etc. Three stars.

2. 12 Monkeys
-The problem with special effects-laden dystopian films is that they don't have a tendency to age well. This is very painfully true of 12 Monkeys. The dated quality might be redeemed if the movie were worth watching. It was rather belabored and overdramatic with nothing really making sense. After watching it, I had to sit for a few minutes to think of whether or not the movie lived up to the hype. It didn't. Bruce Willis is flat, Brad Pitt is boring, Madeline Stowe is just weird. The story wasn't very original.
Rated R for violence, language, and other things that I can't think of right now. 2 stars.

3. Hitman
-This belongs squarely in the "subpar movies made from awful video games that people seem to like" category. Tell me: if you were a crowd full of people at a railway station, would you easily spot a bald guy in a suit with a barcode tattooed to the back of his head? Apparently the people in the movie wouldn't.
rated R for language, nudity, violence, and stupidity. 1 star.

4. 3:10 To Yuma
-Yuma came out around the time I was beginning to wonder if the Western was completely dead (ignoring Deadwood, etc.). I didn't see it until a few years after it came out, but when I did, I was blown away. Russell Crowe and Christian Bale are absolutely brilliant actors. Everyone involved did a sweet job, especially Ben Foster, who is very good at playing a psychopath. Did you know that it's possible to kill someone with an eating utensil? I didn't until I saw this movie.
rated R for violence and language. 5 stars.

5. Speed Racer
-I had reasonably high expectations for this movie, seeing as it was done by the Wachowski Brothers. I figured that watching it would be similar to drinking a gallon of vodka and smoking a pound of ganja at the same time while sitting upside down in a rave, but my eyes were hating me by the end. Very bright jellybean-colored cars flying around really fast... oohh...
Don't come in expecting Speed Racer to discuss existentialism with Trixie, or John Goodman to beat Hugo Weaving to a pulp with his bare hands. The story was flat, the characters were boring, and Racer X's story makes absolutely no sense. The kid brother and his pet monkey were pretty funny, but think twice before showing this to the kids: it may be PG, but it's got some very PG-13 language. Other than that, and the fact that you probably don't want to watch this if you have a chemical dependency, it's worth watching once. Maybe.
rated PG for language, racing, and really bright moving objects. 2 stars.

6. Street Kings
-awesome. that is all that can be said.
rated R for violence and language. 4 stars.

7. Juno
-another brilliant film from Jason Reitman and penned by a former stripper. Ellen Page is drop-dead hilarious, and Michael Cena is his usual effeminate self, with J.K. Simmons as Ellen's dad and Olivia Thirlby as Ellen's bf to round it all out. it's pro-life too! whoda thunk?
rated... PG-13? I think so. language, adult situations, stuff like that. 5 stars.

8. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
-boring. there are so many allegiance-switches (double agents? naahh... triple agents!) and incredulous moments (escaping a nuclear explosion in a refrigerator), even for an Indy movie, that it makes you wonder what Spielberg, Lucas, and Koepp were on when they made it. The alien thing makes no sense. Nothing makes sense.
Although there is one redeeming quality, and that is that Harrison Ford is still a bamf.
rated PG-13 for moments of jaw-dropping stupidity, intellectual recklessness, and disregard for the patrons of movie theaters. 1 star.

9. Tropic Thunder
-brilliant. Robert Downey Jr. is brilliant. A terrific send-up of Hollywood, action movies, and celebrity ego.
rated R for language, violence, nudity, and a dude in blackface (if you're easily offended by that sort of thing). 5 stars.

10. Jay-Z: Fade to Black
-a video document of The Black Album from inception to recording, as well as Jay's farewell concert at Madison Square Garden. Easily the most boring movie ever. I turned it off halfway through so that I could fall asleep unabated.
rated R for language. 0 stars.

11. Keeping The Faith
-It had some funny moments, but as Roger Ebert put it, it is "a profoundly secular movie," which is why it bothers me so much. The rabbi says that God needs people to keep His thing going, and that it's up to us to change the world, be nice to each other, and that we just need to have faith in people. Ugh.
rated PG-13 for language and some sex. 0 stars.

12. Katt Williams: The Pimp Chronicles, Vol. 1
-typical stand-up fare. except it's brilliant in parts.
rated R or whatever HBO rates. figure it out. 3 stars.

13. Dana Carvey: Squatting Monkeys Tell No Lies
-I sat through this movie wondering when it was going to get funny. It never did, which is a colossal shame.
rated R for language. -1000 stars.

14. The Terminator
-the effects are very dated, but it's a brilliant movie. watch it. now.
rated R for violence, language, and sex/nudity. five stars.

15. Terminator 2: Judgment Day
-the effects hold up, nearly 20 years later. Sarah Connor is a b.a. Edward Furlong is annoying, but nowhere near as annoying as when he was in American History X.
rated R for language and violence. five stars.

16. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
-I'm still trying to figure out how this fits chronologically. I can't decide if it was due to a low budget or directorial retardation that a car chase looked fake. Nick Stahl as John Connor just doesn't do it for me, he's too much of a punk. For the record, I would gladly be terminated by that chick Terminator.
rated R for language, violence, and nudity. three stars.

17. 1984
-it was extremely faithful to the book. it looks very dated, but it will probably stand up against the upcoming adaptation (which will no doubt take shots at the Bush administration). the only thing is that there was a ton of full frontal female nudity, which was very... off-putting and awkward. and unnecessary. however, they pulled off the Five Minute Hate very well, so well in fact that it was eerily reminiscent of segments of the American Left.
rated R for language, sex, and nudity. 2 stars.

18. Prince Caspian
-it was pretty good. they really pushed the hubris/nemesis concept with Peter and Caspian. the effects were very well done, especially during the seance where they try to call up the White Witch. it's a bit scary and violent, so it might not be for the younger kids, but definitely worth watching.
rated PG or PG-13 for scary stuff with animals. 4 stars.

19. Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels
-brilliant. a bit hard to understand in parts since it's a British film, but definitely worth watching over and over and over.
rated R for language and violence. 5 stars.

Wilsongate

2009-09-13T20:35:00.002-05:00

I've been thinking about Joe Wilson for the past few days. More often than not, I've been conflicted about what to think about the situation. On one hand, he was right: President Obama lied about coverage of illegal immigrants under Obamacare. According to a paper by the Congressional Research Office, the health care bill "does not contain any restrictions on noncitizens--whether legally or illegally present, or in the United States temporarily or permanently--participating in the Exchange" and would "mandate that resident aliens would be required to have health insurance." So if you want to look at the simple fact of what the President said and what Wilson said, Wilson's right, Obama's lying. Case closed.
On the other hand, there's something to be said about civility, especially since we're talking about a guy who talked out of turn during a Presidential address to a joint session of Congress. Yeah yeah, I know, the Brits do this kind of thing all the time. But this isn't the House of Commons.

These are the things that I've been thinking about for the past few days. What to make of it all? I wasn't really sure until today. After watching the video several times and reading up on analysis of the bill and paying close attention to how President Obama deals with his critics (which is to call them liars who make "cynical" and "irresponsible" claims... can you imagine George W. Bush getting away with that?), I've made up my mind.

Joe Wilson was right.

The Left has a fetish that they like to call "speaking truth to power." More often than not, this involves smearing their opponents as Nazis, fascists, and various other forms of filth. Think "Bushitler," "sexist racist bigot homophobes," "Bush Lied, People Died," ad nauseam. It's okay to shout down your opponent as long as you're a liberal and they've conservative, right? That's how the story goes. Inconveniently for the Left, as well as President Obama, Joe Wilson was speaking truth to power. There's no debating that the President lied (unless, of course, you think that every word that comes out of his mouth is Holy Writ). What about the venue? Wilson's taken some heat from conservatives who think that he acted inappropriately. To that I say that there are times when speaking forcefully is required, even if it breaks a few rules. But don't think that this should establish some kind of precedent where shouting at the President is always right: it isn't. There are, however, times when it is necessary to get loud and suffer a bit of indignation to speak the truth. I believe that this counts as one of those times. The President called his opponents liars and told a few whopping untruths in the process. This is part of an established pattern in the Obama administration and shouldn't shock anyone, considering that the day after the incident, Obama said that we should discuss these important issues "without vitriol, without name-calling without the assumption of the worst in other people’s motives." Funny thing is that this is after he says that his critics are liars and that "their only agenda is to kill health care reform at any cost" via "almost laughable, cynical, irresponsible" claims. Pathetic.
But enough is enough. I know that I don't speak for myself when I say that I'm sick of the President's pride and condescending attitude to the growing number of Americans who are mad as hell and not taking it anymore.
It's time to be bold.

iPod OS 3.1.1 = Disaster

2009-09-13T11:00:00.001-05:00

I recently downloaded the 3.1.1 update for my 2nd-gen iPod touch, and now I'm in the process of downgrading to 3.0.0. 3.1.1 makes a complete mess of the iPod, and I'm not the only one who thinks so. My problems with it are almost the exact same as the people in the MacRumors forum:
1. Tons of missing artwork when looking at the album list view (but oddly enough, the artwork shows up when you tilt the iPod to the side and when you actually listen to a song),

2. Extreme lag and unresponsiveness, and very long "updating iTunes library..." times. It's incredibly frustrating.
I'm running iTunes 9, so maybe that has something to do with it, but I can't say for sure. All I know is that I'm restoring to 3.0 and Apple better get cracking on a couple of software updates to fix all this. I've only had one truly bad experience* with Apple before, but this makes a strong 2nd.

*When they totally emasculated iMovie starting in iLife '08 and made it into a YouTube Lite editing program with zero functionality for people who like to edit sound and add cool effects.

UPDATE: I tried resetting the iPod and restoring it from this morning's 3.1.1 backup, and all the artwork is back and there isn't so much lag when scrolling through albums. Hopefully this will solve it!

Christopher Faughnan

2009-09-11T02:06:00.002-05:00

It is hard to believe that it has been eight years since September 11th. Sometimes I wonder if my country has forgotten about that fateful day. In hopes that 9/11 will never be forgotten, I humbly offer this post in memory of one of the 2,996 fallen countrymen, Christopher Faughnan.

Christopher Faughnan worked in the North Tower as a trader for Cantor Fitzgerald. At 8:30am on September 11th, Christopher was on the phone with his youngest daughter, Juliet. She was the last family member to talk to him before the first plane struck at 8:46.

In 2008, Christopher's oldest daughter, Siena, wrote a poem in his memory for a school project. She had this to say:

Whoever says

that time heals the wounds that death makes

has surely never rendezvoused with loss

has never tipped their hat

to an empty coffin buried in the frozen soil

they have never nearly fallen into the hole that death leaves

when it unremorsefully plucks away what you hold dearest

a hole that crumbles in on the edges each day eroding away more and more of you

they have never looked back

and realized that you can’t even remember

the last words you said

to your father

when he walked out the door briefcase in hand

for the final time

they have never cried on their birthdays

picturing his face that will never change while you just keep on changing

Whoever says

that time heals the wounds that death makes

has surely never felt its warm hand on your shoulder

offering a false sympathy on a September day

The Bible tells us to weep with those who weep. On this day, we must remember those who died in the 9/11 attacks, and join their families in remembering the lives of their loved ones. We must also remember our Lord's promise: "...and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain..." -Revelation 21:4

Leaba imeasc na naomh go raibh acu
agus ag an chlann mac is iníon atá leo.
(May they rest in the company of the saints,
and their sons and daughters with them.)

(many thanks to Chanman at Buckhorn Road for sending information my way.)

September 11th, 2009

2009-09-11T01:38:00.003-05:00

Has it really been eight years?

On this day, we must remind ourselves of the horror and the chaos of September 11th. We must remember the images of planes crashing into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania. We must remember the fallen, not only in the WTC's destruction, but those who died in the rescue efforts as well as those brave souls who stormed the cockpit of United 93 and averted another bloody attack. "Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."

Sometimes I wonder if we have truly forgotten. I look at our elected officials and wonder how on earth some of them were elected. It seems that we are regressing toward a September 10th mentality and hoping that if we don't talk about terrorism, think about it, or take necessary steps to fight it, then it will simply disappear. This is unrealistic and holds fatal consequences.
There are also those who blame America first, saying that if only we would stop meddling around with Israel and other nations' affairs, then this could all be avoided. We need to understand the terrorists and realize that it is their poverty and lack of education that drives them to kill. We need to listen to them, "dialogue" with them, and give them what they want. Two generations ago, Neville Chamberlain helped give Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany, and Hitler used that as a springboard from which he could invade Poland. Millions died as a result. Yet the same appeasers would have us play Chamberlain today and surrender ourselves to the terrorists. Remarkable.

Make no mistake: the Islamofascists are hellbent on killing as many "infidels" as they can. We must do whatever is necessary to ensure that they fail. If that means going to war, we go to war. If that means stepping on the world's toes, we step. If that means being hated and ridiculed, then it is what it is. We must never compromise. As Winston Churchill said in the days of World War II, "Never, never, never, never give up."

I will reiterate the point that I made a year ago: There can be no peace with evildoers who are hellbent on our destruction. We cannot lay down our arms for them, as that will only make us easier targets. We must fight back. As George W. Bush said in November 2001, "You're either with us or against us in the fight against terror." Whose side are you on?

We're going to kill them all.

"Responsibility does not end at conception"

2009-07-09T11:02:00.002-05:00

In one of the recent issues of NR, the writer mentions then-Senator Obama's 2008 Father's Day message, delivered at the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago. He talks at length about fatherhood and how African-American communities are in very short supply of fathers, and how that contributes to a general moral decline, among other things. And he's right: fatherless homes breed violence and broken lives. I'm with him 100%. He goes on to say,

...we also need families to raise our children. We need fathers to realize that responsibility does not end at conception. We need them to realize that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child -- it's the courage to raise one.

This is all fine and good. But what catches my eye is the statement, "we need fathers to realize that responsibility does not end at conception." So he's admitting, at least for the purposes of his audience, that life begins at conception, or at the very least, that conception begins the process of something that takes on life eventually (as odd as that sounds). This is not out of character for him. Remember the flap about his Pennsylvania town hall stop?

"I got two daughters... I'm going to teach them first about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby."

Here, he also admits that rather than being a blob of tissue, that thing in the womb is a baby; a human being. And this also says that he is perfectly comfortable with snuffing out the baby so that his daughters don't have to be "punished" (I've spoken on this at length before). So really, President Obama, responsibility can end at conception, or the second trimester, or whenever you want it to. Why?

a trendier, more hip, more fresh God

2009-06-16T00:18:00.004-05:00

I've pretty much always gone to church because it was expected of me. Christians go to church because that's just what Christians do. I go to church because my family goes to church, because we're supposed to or something. If it were really up to me, though, I'd forgo going to church and do something more constructive, like finger paint.
Why is this, you may ask? Well, as many of my close friends can tell you, church really hasn't been that great of an experience for me. If you could sit through some of the services that I've sat through over the past several years, you'd probably emerge in the same boat as me. And I'm not talking about the stereotypically "fundamentalist" kind of church where the pastor will say that he doesn't believe in watching movies, and that he "doesn't go to that movie house." That's laughable, but not necessarily wrong. I'm talking about churches that imbibe the Kool-Aid of Word-Faith health and wealth "God's gonna send me checks in the mail because I told him to because he promised that I'd be rich" kind of thing. I'm talking about churches that will say, from the pulpit, that the church is the Body of Christ and that if you leave a certain prescribed church, you are divorcing yourself from the authority of the Body. I'm talking about churches where we all get to hear about how much money the church is going to need for the year, and that IF we don't get your offerings, we won't be able to add on the $2.3 million shopping mall-sized expansion so that we can do more cool things that make us feel good, like sell T-shirts and bumper stickers. Churches that only care about how many kids they draw in to youth group instead of how many of those kids are going to get something meaningful out of it, like a firm foundation of truth (so that once they get out into the real world, they won't become atheists). And so on.

But it's not just church that's grinding my gears. I went into the local Christian Bible bookstore the other day with my beautiful girlfriend, and perused some of the books there at my own peril. I discovered, somewhere in Rob Bell's "Sex God," that maybe unmarried couples who are living together and sleeping together are really actually married according to God's standards, since sex unites male and female. I found out that God wants me to be rich and famous from one of the newer Creflo Dollar books. And I also discovered that Joel Osteen kinda looks like John Edwards.

(pause)

It would help if Christianity had some decent standard-bearers instead of the New Agey waifs that have gained popularity in recent years. I've heard that 'Plan B', a book by Anne Lamott, is a really good book and that I should read it. I also know that she believes that everyone is going to Heaven and that unborn babies aren't actually human beings at all. I've heard that Rob Bell is a cool cat, and that his DVD series, NOOMA, is pretty sweet. Which is true; he's a hip dude and the few episodes of NOOMA that I've seen are immensely interesting. He also thinks that we can find truth in every religion. And don't even get me started on Rick Warren's incredibly superficial-looking Purpose Driven Magazine. Or Greg Boyd, who believes that no violence is justfied, that God doesn't want you to defend yourself or your family from harm, that to repent and turn to God is to completely forsake violence for any and all reasons, and that "we must be willing to die at the hands of our enemies." It's a good thing that this idiot wasn't around during the Holocaust, because he sounds an awful lot like a more famous proponent of non-violence...

Liberal politics are constantly pushed as faith. Megachurches seek to be hip and trendy at the expense of having a soul. Being blunt and forceful in your messages takes precedence over Ephesians 4:15. God is reduced from the all-powerful, all-knowing, infinite-personal Being that He is to being just another cat with some serious chops (think Miles Davis without the woman beating). Acts 16 gets turned on its head: "The jailer asked, 'Sirs, what must I do to be saved?' Paul and Silas replied: 'You must dig the cut of Christ's jib.'"

I'm sick of church. I'm sick of hearing that if I don't make my choices in accordance with one guy's interpretation of God's teachings, then my choices are controlled by evil spirits. I'm sick of hearing that God is a cosmic Santa Claus. I'm sick of hearing that "God changed Pepsi to Coke and found my fucking car keys." I'm sick, sick, sick, sick. I just want to experience God, and worship Him. I'd love to be able to go to a church and actually feel God there instead of feeling people.

Maybe I have legitimate complaints against church and popular Christianity. Maybe my disillusionment is justified. Maybe I'm just cynical, jaded, and angry. Maybe I'm just an evil Republican. Maybe I need to just be friends with everyone and stop being so darn intolerant.
However you want to spin it, I am a broken, messed up human being that is starving for God, and most of that is due to my own mistreatment of the guy. I haven't exactly been the most faithful over the past few years. But is it so much to ask that other people are honest about it too?

Tiller

2009-06-10T13:48:00.002-05:00

I've been thinking long and hard about how I feel/think about the murder of George Tiller (you know, the abortionist in Kansas who performed 3rd trimester abortions). I've come to the conclusion that while his murder was an awful event and it was completely wrong and entirely unjustified, I can't bring myself to shed too many tears about the guy. Yes, that's probably not the most Christian thing to say, and I'm sure that there's going to be at least one person who will read that and think to themselves, "what a hypocritical, heartless bastard." Oh well.
Let's look at the facts. This guy was an abortionist, for starters. He clearly didn't think that unborn babies were valuable lives, if they could even be considered 'lives' at all (and if he did, he didn't think that they had rights, which in my mind is worse than not thinking someone human at all. Does the three-fifths compromise come to mind? Slavery? Hmm...). He also performed 3rd trimester abortions, which only a scant few people in this country do. It's even illegal in some states. So we're talking about babies that are as close to being born as you can get without waiting until the mother gives birth and then ripping their brains out, or injecting them with saline, or tossing them in a bucket where they can slowly starve to death, or whatever; pick your poison. And this guy did them because, as a commenter on Big Hollywood dryly put it, the mother "can't fit in her prom dress."
And -irony of ironies- Tiller was murdered at his church. Think about that for a minute: a 3rd trimester abortionist was serving at a church. The other churchgoers seemingly didn't have any qualms about such a guy attending their church, much less being one of their ushers. What he was doing in a church is beyond me.
So what's my conclusion? George Tiller was a despicable human being, and his murder was precisely that, but I'm not too torn up about it, for better or worse. It's awful hard to feel sorry for a guy who wantonly killed babies. The only thing that really worries me is what the Obama administration is going to do in the aftermath of this situation. Judging from the recent DHS memo about returning vets, anti-abortion advocates, and anti-illegal immigration activists all being susceptible to committing terrorist acts, this just might be the witch-hunters' ace in the hole. Naturallly, it would be very cynical of them to use this as an excuse to crack down on abortion protesters and organizations nationwide, and you can bet that there would be a giant backlash if the slightest rumors of such surfaced. But anything is possible.

ROTC: the unfolding saga

2009-06-10T00:48:00.003-05:00

Okay, so I'm a month late in posting this (in truth, I didn't even know about this letter until tonight), but an actual servicemember sent a letter to the Spectator in support of ROTC, citing concerns about the faculty opposition that I detailed in my article. Vigilance!

IMHO: Incubus and their spotty lyrics

2009-06-10T00:44:00.001-05:00

I’m a big Incubus fan. I have nearly all of their CDs. I love them because musically, they’re nothing short of awesome, especially when it comes to Mike Einziger’s guitar work. However, they fall incredibly short in a key area, namely lyrics. Brandon Boyd can’t write lyrics to save his life. Yeah, he strikes gold with songs like 11am, Pardon Me, and Monuments and Melodies. Contrast them with some of his not-so-good efforts, like Stellar (“I need you to see this place, it might be the only way that I can show you how it feels to be inside you”), A Kiss To Send Us Off (“bring your mouth and respective irreverence”), and of course, the anti-Bush hit, Megalomaniac (“Hey megalomaniac, you’re no Jesus, yeah you’re no fucking Elvis”). Their newest album, Light Grenades, is the best (or worst, depending on your viewpoint) example. From the opening Quicksand (“sometimes you fall in love and touch the sky, sometimes it’s like falling in quicksand, I’m somewhere in between”) to the terrible Dig (“we all have a sickness that cleverly attaches and multiplies… you’ll act as a clever medicine”) and Earth To Bella (Part 1) (“you think you’ve got it all figured in”), it becomes obvious that Brandon should either retake high school English or let someone like Ben Kenney, who is a good lyricist, take the pen and notepad for a few tracks. Related to this shortcoming is the fact that Incubus is also one of the more glaring examples of poor English that I have in my library. Yes, I know that songs don’t have to follow every convention of grammar, because a song is different from a term paper, but with these guys it just gets out of hand. Take the line from Earth to Bella and add that to the pre-chorus of Leech, “I’m kicking myself that I shared spit with you” (what the…?). I could go on and on for many more paragraphs, but will leave off with this doozy from another Light Grenades track, Love Hurts: “Love hurts, but sometimes it’s a good hurt.” Uh, no Brandon, not really. Unless you’re Chris Brown.

Of abortion and "open-mindedness"

2009-05-18T11:37:00.001-05:00

I find it incredibly ironic that President Obama called for "open-mindedness" in his shameful commencement address at Notre Dame yesterday. Of course, it's the pro-life people who are supposed to be open-minded when it comes to abortion, and leave their silly ethics behind. Open-mindedness, in his eyes, means that pro-lifers are supposed to march in lockstep with his radical pro-abortion agenda and they are the ones who are supposed to compromise with him, while the unborn of this country bend over and take it. He can gab all he wants about helping women carry unintended pregnancies to term, and making adoption a more viable option, but his policies do not reflect that in the least. On the campaign trail, he promised to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, which would erase every pro-life gain made over the past thirty years, and we all know about his feelings on unborn babies themselves ("I've got two little girls... if they make a mistake, I don't want them to get punished with a baby"). Sorry, Barry, but all the rhetoric in the world won't change the fact that you're a murderer.

New article in the Spectator!

2009-04-23T10:08:00.003-05:00

In which I detail the assault on ROTC and student freedom by anti-military faculty and staff.

Happy Birthday, Vladimir Illych Lenin!

2009-04-22T13:42:00.002-05:00

Well, since today is Earth Day, I think that it's fitting to recognize the efforts that Lenin made to reduce the carbon footprint in Russia in the early part of the last century, which is really something because they didn't even know what a carbon footprint was. From what I can figure, the death toll of his regime was 6-8 million Russians (this is based on a cursory Google search). Man, Lenin really knew how to get rid of those pesky peasants who weren't properly utilizing Russia's bountiful natural resources! They probably reduced Mother Russia's carbon footprint by at least a few winter boots' worth.

World Malaria Day...?

2009-04-16T00:27:00.005-05:00

While perusing a friend's Facebook, I came across the above advertisement. Having read Michael Crichton's State of Fear, I'm not sure that providing someone with a mosquito net is going to stop the spread of malaria all that much... maybe if we lifted the ban on DDT (which almost eradicated malaria worldwide), we wouldn't have to buy T-shirts to raise awareness about malaria. Just a thought.

No Line on the Horizon

2009-04-11T00:21:00.003-05:00

How does one describe No Line On The Horizon? Judging from reviews on iTunes and Amazon.com, some people love it and others hate it. The people who love it praise its sonic landscapes, production value, and thoughtful lyrics. Those who hate it decry the obvious hand that Brian Eno had in production, the fact that it doesn't rank with truly great albums like Achtung Baby and The Joshua Tree, and the album cover (yes, people really did give the album one-star reviews because they hated the artwork). What is the best way to look at U2's latest?

The biggest thing to keep in mind is that the band will never, ever make another Achtung. That was arguably one of their peaks, musically and creatively, and it can't be outdone. But when it comes to a band like U2 that have constantly experimented with different genres (remember Pop?), pushed themselves in terms of artistic maturity, and never sat still in either place for too long, it's unfair to them to characterize their music in terms of "this album isn't as good as Achtung Baby" or "they'll never be as good as x album." They're constantly evolving and maturing, and fans should know by now that they never really know what to expect.

However, I think that if you're going to compare this album to a past one, the best one to compare it to would be The Unforgettable Fire. That was when Brian Eno first came aboard and many regard the album today as being the transformative element in their sound. It wasn't too well received at the time, way back in 1984: Bono would later talk of people asking him, "what are you doing with this doggone hippie Eno album?" The atmospheric elements and synth-stylings, coupled with Eno's production style, unlocked what Bono called U2's "lyrical soul in abundance," which was something that the band felt had been repressed on their previous efforts (1). Granted that a lot of things are different for No Line: there hasn't been too much loss of their lyrical soul and this album isn't experimental like Unforgettable Fire was, but I think that No Line is the modern counterpart to Fire. Enough argument, time for the music...

The album starts off with an energetic punch, "No Line On The Horizon." Listening to this track makes it easy to see what U2 meant when they said that they were reapplying for the position of "best band in the world," with Bono's soaring vocals against a backdrop of pure rock guitars and stomping rhythm. Then we head into "Magnificent," which I would say is one of the band's most unabashedly worshipful songs, right up there with "Gloria" off of their sophomore album, October. "I'll give you back my voice from the womb, my first cry it was a joyful noise... you and I will magnify, the Magnificent!"
"Moment of Surrender" tones down the energy for a more subdued musing on love and the story of life. The guitar takes a backseat while keyboards come into the front of the mix alongside Bono's characteristic wailing. It's also one of their longest studio tracks ever, timing in at 7:24. But the pent up energy builds up in the intro on the next track as voices echo "sunshine, sunshine..." and then U2 enters with a shout to confront the "Unknown Caller." According to Bono, this song is a story about a strung-out junkie who starts receiving technology-inspired phrases via text message.. okay, it sounds weird, but this song will make you tap your toes and thrust your fists into the air. If you're me, anyway. Also, there's an organ refrain that's straight out of "My Saviour's Love," which you're most likely to find in an old hymnal.
The next song throws me for a loop. "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight" is typical U2: rock, Bono's poetic lyrics, and the standard U2 sound. It's a good song, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it's an Obama anthem in disguise ("every generation gets a chance to change the world, pity the nation that will listen to your boys and girls, cos the sweetest melody is the one we haven't heard... but change of heart comes slow"). The fact that will.i.am aided in production reinforces my hunch, but knowing U2, their lyrics can be interpreted a hundred different ways.
The first single off the album, "Get On Your Boots," caused me to nearly despair about the future of my favorite band. Is there some kind of unwritten rule that says that U2 has to issue a single with seemingly nonsensical lyrics ("Sexy boots, get on your boots, bossy boots") and annoyingly catchy hooks with every album post-2000? I heard a snippet of this on Amazon about a month before the album actually came out, and my first feeling was that the whole album was going to sound like this song, and that the effort as a whole would be a huge hit or miss for U2, and that if it were a miss, then we could pretty much kiss the lads goodbye... luckily, the style in this song isn't representative of the whole project.
"Stand Up Comedy" is also typical U2. I'd place it in the same category as "Elevation," "All Because Of You," etc.
Then suddenly we're introduced to the two-part song "FEZ-Being Born," which starts off with ambient noise, a weird guitar-sounding rhythm, and Bono's echoing voice, then transitions into a repeat of the above, along with a very spy movie-sounding bass and drum line, then it's as if the tape jumps ahead a few tracks into "Being Born," a piece that gives you the idea that the musicians are rushed, trying to convey some important message before they have to leave, but trying to kill time paradoxically.
When I first listened to "White As Snow," I was absolutely elated. Did this decade's U2 really write a song about war that wasn't sappy-sounding and peacenik-y ("Peace On Earth") or arrogant and naive ("Love And Peace Or Else")? Rumor has it that Bono wrote the song through the eyes of a soldier in Afghanistan who has been mortally wounded by an IED, whose last thoughts comprise the lyrics... the end result is a very plaintive, realistic, and ultimately divinely hopeful song that captures the brutal actuality of America's war on terror ("the wolves are every passing stranger, every face we cannot know") while finding solace in "a Lamb as white as snow."
"Breathe" is another energetic, joyful song that lays out the beauty in the fact that we are alive, as Bono shouts: "Every day I die again, and again I'm reborn, every day I have to find the courage to walk out into the street, with arms out, got a love that you can't defeat..." Definitely one of their more uplifting songs.
The album closes with "Cedars of Lebanon," a haunting piece that has made my eyes moist on more than one occasion. It's definitely a dark song, with Bono's character reflecting on love and loss: "This shitty world sometimes produces a rose, the scent of it lingers and then it just goes..."

In terms of presentation, I bought the special edition that comes with the expanded booklet, poster, and link to online video, and I was fairly impressed. Anton Corbijn's photographs are stellar as always, the case is of decent construction, and it's even got a cool plastic slipcover! The only serious complaint that I have is that the poster is glued to the inside of the box, forcing you to carefully rip it off of the box. When I did that, some of the backside of the poster peeled off, leaving me with a poster that's got some pretty obviously thin spots. Why couldn't they have just cut a flap in the box and slid the poster into it? Oh well, it could be worse, there could be a flap in the box where the CD slides out of, which will scratch it up quicker than you can say "disc doctor" (please note Kanye West's "Graduation," and Ben Kenney's "Distance and Comfort").

All in all, I'd give this album a solid 9 out of 10, and definitely one to listen to if you're a fan. I listen to it at least once a day at work and love every minute of it. This is not an experimental album like Zooropa or a pop album like All That You Can't Leave Behind (which until recently was one of the only albums in my iTunes library to only get a three star rating). U2 is back in business with a rock album, reapplying to be the best band in the world.

1: "The Complete Guide to the Music of U2" by Bill Graham, pages 35-37

Is Barack Obama A Nazi?

2009-03-19T11:20:00.023-05:00

In the past couple weeks or so, I've heard a few comments that had the intent of linking President Obama with "Nazi." A drunk guy at Erb's and Gerb's talked about stimulus money from "Barack Nazi Obama." A student in my Nazi Germany class, when the prof posed the question "could Nazism ever happen again?" muttered, "Obama." While most people would automatically reject the idea that Obama could be a Nazi without even thinking about the specifics of the question, I'm going to examine it.

1. What is a Nazi?
If you're looking for historical specifics, a Nazi is a member of the German National Socialist Party. Technically speaking, it was a movement that was unique to Germany and focused on 'the pure German race,' so unless you go along with the whole supreme pan-German race thing, you can't really be a Nazi in the true historical sense of the word. But don't let that stop you. The Nazi party aside from all of the German-specific stuff was a socialist party, and believe it or not, Obama has proposed some very socialist things for this country. So let's start with the basics.
The Nazi party platform consisted of 25 points, which I have summarized below, with the exception of all German-specific ones.

1. The State's primary responsibility is to provide the opportunity for livelihood and way of life for its citizens
2. Immigration of non-Germans must stop now, and existing non-Germans must be forced out of the nation
3. All citizens have equal rights and obligations
4. The first obligation of every citizen is to work spiritually and physically. Individual activity must benefit the entire community, therefore we demand:
5. Abolition of unearned incomes
6. All war profits must be confiscated
7. All associated industries (trusts) must be nationalized
8. Heavy industries must profit share
9. Expansion of old age welfare
10. Assistance for middle class and public housing
11. Abolition of property taxes and legal provisions for public use of all land
12. Any activity that injures the national interest (national criminals, usurers, etc.) are to be punished with death
13. The State is responsible for a national education program, starting from preschool
14. Child-labor is outlawed, physical fitness is encouraged by means of legal obligations to sport and fitness
15. "Known lies and their promulgation through the press" must be outlawed and opposed legally (all writers and employees of newspapers must be German, non German-papers must have the government's approval to be published). "Publications which are counter to the general good are to be forbidden." Any artistic and literary project that exerts "a destructive influence on our national life" must be legally prosecuted
16. Freedom of religion as long as it does not oppose the State. "Common utility precedes individual unity."

How does President Obama measure up to the Nazi party platform? Going through the points:

1. There is no question that Obama believes that the primary goal of the State is to provide for the livelihood of all citizens. We have already seen this in the recent "stimulus" where massive amounts of government jobs were created at the expense of private jobs. Forget "opportunity for livelihood", which is what America is all about: Obama wants to ensure outcome of livelihood.
Take that along with the proposal to require all businesses to provide a week of paid sick leave per year.
2. Obama is just the opposite of the Nazis on this one. Rather than force all illegal immigrants out of America, his administration has made it clear that they have no intent of making them leave at all.
3. As far as I know, Obama has not proposed anything that de facto rescinds the 14th Amendment... but he has said that he wants to sign the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act and empower the Justice Department to vigorously prosecute "hate crimes" thereof; essentially rescinding the 14th Amendment.
4. Does anyone else remember Michelle Obama's comment? "Barack Obama will require you to work... that you engage... [he] will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninformed, uninvolved." Granted, that doesn't say much about the substance of what his administration is doing. However it is important to note the proposal to require all middle/high school students to complete 50 hours of community service per year and all college students to complete 100 hours per year. Take that, along with the proposal to ensure that 25% of all work-study funding goes to give college students jobs in public service rather than campus work.
5. I'm not 100% sure on what an unearned income is, but when taxes increase, anyone who earns such an income will probably lose it (gee, doesn't that sound simplistic?).
6. Please see the recent defeated proposal to force returning vets to pay costs for health care services incurred resulting from injuries in the field. As well as: "Obama and Biden will end the abuse of supplemental budgets by creating a system of oversight for war funds as stringent as in the regular budget. Obama and Biden will restore the government's ability to manage contracts by rebuilding our contract officer corps. They will order the Justice Department to prioritize prosecutions that will punish and deter fraud, waste and abuse." There's nothing wrong with that graf in theory, but in practice, I'll bet that it's going to involve castration of the military.
7. Socialized health care and nationalization of banks.
8. Hmm... not sure on this one.
9. Socialized health care, once again. (it must be noted that one of the biggest expansions of government in recent history was under Bush, with the Medicare Part D expansion in the early part of this decade.)
10. All that Obama is doing to "help the middle class" is foment class envy by portraying the wealthy of America as evil, greedy, manipulative shysters. It doesn't take an economics class for someone to realize that when the "rich" are punished for being successful, it reduces overall incentive to succeed. Remember that whole bit about "95% of Americans getting a tax cut"? Income taxes may take a slight dip, but net taxes are going to be increased. It's a lie.
11. Not sure on this one either.
12. I don't think that Obama's that extreme.
13. Obama probably believes this one too, judging from the billions he wants to pour into Head Start and other parent-replacing programs like "Zero to Five."
14. A cursory glance at Google results doesn't bring anything up for this one.
15. I could have a field day with this one. Last year, a Southern Republican group made a television ad that criticized Obama's relationship with Bill Ayers. Obama's response was to send a letter to the Justice Department, requesting that the DOJ pull the plug on the ad and criminally investigate the group. When writer Stanley Kurtz took to a Chicago radio program to discuss Obama's ties with Ayers, the Obama campaign sent out an Action Alert, telling all Obama supporters to jam the phone lines of the show with scripted talking points; disrupting the show. Ben Smith also reported that the campaign blasted Kurtz as a "slimy character assassin." All of this because... why? Because Kurtz had the nerve to criticize a controversial relationship of Obama's, something that is technically protected speech under the First Amendment (and if John McCain had once been friends with a closet Klansman, the Left would have been up in arms about it, but of course the same standard doesn't apply to them...).
This is the same crowd that wants to reinstate the "Fairness Doctrine." The law would effectively kill all conservative talk radio in pursuit of "fairness." Sound familiar? I'm thinking of the Sedition Act of 1918.
16. Obama hasn't proposed anything that repeals the First Amendment... yet...

So, if we just look at the party platform, Obama's got some ideas that are clearly in sync with those of the Nazis. Or are they just compatible with socialism as a whole? Most of the ideas that weren't German-specific in the platform are boilerplate socialism, which makes sense, given the clever name "National Socialism." But Obama isn't completely off the hook yet.

2. The Cult
"...this is the moment that the rise of the oceans will begin to slow, and the planet will begin to heal!"
That was at the tail end of Obama's acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, the premise being that if Obama were elected President, he'd reverse global warming. Messianic? Maybe. Rhetorical excess? Definitely.
Hitler-esque? We'll find out.

"I will be faithful and obedient to Barack Obama, President of the United States, to observe the law, and to conscientiously fulfill my official duties, so help me God."
That's from the end of Ashton Kutcher's "I pledge" video, pledging to do patriotic and inspiring things like serve the President, use less plastic, plant 500 trees a year, and drive slower. The cynics might say that this video is harmless and only represents how far celebrities are willing to go in order to inflate their egos and brown-nose our President.
Oops! That was a cutting and pasting mistake. The oath above isn't from the Obama video; it's a shortened version of the Hitler oath, public servant edition.
"I pledge to serve President Obama... I pledge to be a servant to our President and all mankind, because together we can, together we are, and together we will be the change that we can seek."
Now, did Ashton and his idiot friends really try to make an oath that was as eerily similar to the Hitler oath as possible? Probably not. Most of them probably think that "Hitler" was George W. Bush's college nickname. But that doesn't change the fact that the oaths are similar in many respects, and that pledging to serve Obama is just as creepy as pledging to serve a totalitarian madman. We are not an "Obama nation," we are an American nation, and Obama is our President. We pledge allegiance to America, one nation under God; not whoever is in office.
"Adolf Hitler is our Saviour, our Hero. He is the noblest being in the whole wide world. For Hitler we live. For Hitler we die. Our Hitler is our Lord who rules a brave new world."
"We're gonna spread happiness. We're gonna spread freedom. Obama's gonna change it, Obama's gonna lead 'em. We're gonna change it; we're gonna rearrange it. we're gonna change the world. Now's the moment where we will sing, sing with all our hearts. Sing for joy and sing for peace. Sing for vision, sing for unity. Yes we can."
I found a video on YT that compares the infamous "Obama Youth" video with footage of German schoolchildren singing a song of praise to Hitler. There aren't too many differences, except one's in German, the other in English; one's in B&W, the other's in color; and of course, one's directed to Hitler, the other to Obama. These differences are trivial: having groups of schoolkids in Germany don the Nazi uniform and sing worship to Hitler is no different from having American kids in Venice, CA wear professionally-designed Obama shirts and sing worship to Obama.
What about 'American Prayer'? This was another celeb-produced video that featured celebrities like Forrest Whitaker and Jason Alexander (remember him?) singing a song to Obama and clasping their hands in a prayerful motion. There's even a black choir at the end that sings a paraphrase of Luke 23:42! "When you get to the top of the mountain, remember me." Funny, that sounds like something that the thief said to Christ as they were crucified: "When you go into your kingdom, Lord, remember me." The same thing happened in Germany. German churches preached obedience to Hitler, kids sang songs about Hitler being their "intercessor and redeemer." Where else do you see a man taking over the role of religion in a nation? Totalitarian dicatorships (the cult of Mao in China, of Kim "I'm So Ronery" Jong Il in North Korea).
Did Obama approve of any of this? "... a light will shine through that window, a beam of light will come down upon you, you will experience an epiphany ... and you will suddenly realize that you must go to the polls and vote for Obama." Well, if that quip of his at a January 2008 New Hampshire campaign stop is any indication, he sure didn't come out opposing it. I remember some months back that there was a controversy regarding something that Obama said about men making a "new creation," but I can't find what he actually said... once again, if anyone knows where a primary source for this is, help me out.

All that been said, there are definitely eerie similarities between the Obama leadership cult and the Hitler cult. But is the cult unique to Nazism? Mao Zedong, Josef Stalin, Vladimir Lenin, Benito Mussolini, and Nicolae Ceausescu were all idolized and worshipped. Their images flooded public life and the media, schoolchildren sang songs of adulation to them, and propagandists cultivated images of them as not being merely men, but gods. Enter Barack Obama. Images flooding public life and the media? Check. Schoolkids singing songs of worship? Check. God-like propaganda? Check.

3. Anti-Semitism
I don't need to explain how Hitler was anti-Semitic; anyone with half a brain can figure that one out. But Barack Obama?
As far as I know, he hasn't said anything that is directly anti-Semitic. His associates take care of that by themselves. His former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, was friends with Louis Farrakhan, a radical Muslim who has called Jews "bloodsuckers" and Judaism "a gutter religion." Wright heaped praise on Farrakhan time and time again, by reproducing Farrakhan's talking points in the church magazine and bestowing a church award on Farrakhan in 2007. Wright himself is no stranger to anti-Semitism, as an anti-Israeli excerpt from one of his poisonous sermons will show:
"The Israelis have illegally occupied Palestinian territories for almost 40 years now. It took a divestment campaign to wake the business community up concerning the South Africa issue. Divestment has now hit the table again as a strategy to wake the business community up and to wake Americans up concerning the injustice and the racism under which the Palestinians have lived because of Zionism."
And then there is a guy named Rashid Khalidi. He's a professor at Columbia University, he helped organize the Woods Foundation with terrorist Bill Ayers, and he's a radical anti-Semite. He has given aid to the Palestinian Liberation Organization, decried Israel as a "racist" state, and praised suicide bombers and terrorists for their oh-so-inspiring murders of Israelis. Khalidi has also expressed that Obama is "sympathetic" to the Palestinian cause, something that should send chills down the spine of every Jew and Israeli.
Before Khalidi left New York for a new job, his friends held a going-away party at his house. One of the attendees spoke warmly about the experiences with his friend, the Jew-hating Rashid: "[My many talks with the Khalidis are] consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases. . . . It's for that reason that I'm hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation..." Thus spoke Barack Obama. The party, which featured pro-Palestinians reading anti-Israel poems and comparing "Zionists" to Osama bin Laden, was videotaped and a copy obtained by the L.A. Times, but it was never released.
President Obama, while on the campaign trail, spoke of his desire to meet with Iran's Jew-hating dictator, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, without preconditions. Mahmoud is the same guy who every other day calls for the destruction of Israel, denies the Holocaust, and rants and raves about international Zionist conspiracies. But we don't have to worry about the moral ramifications of such a meeting, because it is doubtless that President Obama will issue a press release stating that the "Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that I had lunch with last week is not the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad I knew..."

What conclusions can we draw from this? President Obama was surrounded by anti-Semites, from his own political advisers to his close friends, and he never decried any of their poisonous talk until it became politically necessary to do so ("The Jeremiah Wright that I saw yesterday is not the Jeremiah Wright I knew for 20 years..."). Is that ipso facto proof that Obama is anti-Semitic? No, but it is troubling nevertheless.

4. The Conclusion
While Obama has many things in common with Nazism, the commonalities are not with Nazism specifically as much as they are with socialism in general. Obama wants the State to take over as much private industry as possible and has proposed that the State take up an even larger role in the education and raising of children (an idea that has fascism at its core, as Jonah Goldberg documents in his book, Liberal Fascism). Heck, Obama ran in 1996 as a member of the New Party, a radical leftist group that was explicitly socialist:
"Illinois: Three NP-members won Democratic primaries last Spring and face off against Republican opponents on election day: Danny Davis (U.S. House), Barack Obama (State Senate) and Patricia Martin (Cook County Judiciary)." -the New Party website
He also signed a contract in 1995 promising to maintain a visible relationship with the New Party. Whether or not he has maintained the relationship hasn't been documented, but he let the mask slip for a brief moment last year, when he said, "We just want to spread the wealth around," responding to Joe the Plumber when asked about what effect his tax policies would have on the middle class. Seizure and redistribution of income as proposed by Obama is pure socialism, as the country is just starting to (hopefully) realize after Obama's spent more money in his first month than Bush spent in eight years.
Obama ran as the candidate who would "transcend" politics; as the Third Way that was better than the Left or Right. The problem with this is that historically, the only people who have run on such a platform have been megalomaniacs and dictators. Hitler ran as the Third Way, as the Savior for Germany. Does this mean that Obama is a Hitlerian dictator in the making? Not necessarily. But the similarities must be noted.
In conclusion, no, Barack Obama is not a Nazi, nor is he Adolf Hitler. But he is a socialist, and he wants to fundamentally change America; he's said so himself. The problem with socialism is that it ultimately leads to the crushing of the human spirit and the destruction of freedom. And we have elected a President who views the office as a platform for pushing radical ideas on the nation instead of upholding the Constitution.

the hypocrisy of "science"

2009-03-02T15:30:00.002-05:00

At the beginning of my Physics class, we talked about the scientific method and the meaning of a theory. Here's the definition of a theory, more or less, judging from my notes:
"A theory is a logically consistent and falsifiable framework used to predict or explain a naturally occurring phenomenon."

Except when it comes to the theory of evolution, we can throw out that whole "falsifiable" bit.

Gran Torino

2009-02-06T02:01:00.003-05:00

Gran Torino is not racist.

There, I said it.

Ask anyone about the film (assuming that they've actually seen it) and I'll bet that at least half of those people will say that it's racist. I'm also willing to bet that said people are also the effete liberal type, who define "racism" as "anything that anyone says that might be considered offensive to persons of certain prescribed ethnicities or epidermal pigmentation." But I digress.
Just because a movie has racist characters does not mean that the movie in and of itself is racist. Something needs to be said about the transformation of Clint Eastwood's character from a racist curmudgeon to, well, just a curmudgeon. Yeah, after he becomes non-racist, he still says racist things, but the Hmong people around him just shrug it off because they know that he's really their friend and likes to give them a hard time. I know that that sounds really simplistic, but that's what happens in the movie.
As a movie, Gran Torino is magnificent. The style, acting, music, story... it shines. Anyone who was bitterly disappointed by Million Dollar Baby, that euthanasia-praising abortion of a film, are in for the only action/drama movie that can have a septuagenarian protagonist and make it riveting and realistic. Indiana Jones 4, eat your heart out.
The film also gives realistic depictions of honor, justice, and war. Clint's a veteran of the Korean War, and is troubled by the things that he had to do. "Have you ever killed a man?" He asks his young Hmong friend. "I have. And it's a goddamned horrible thing. I hope that you never have to do it."
The Catholic Church also gets a really good treatment, unlike in Million Dollar Baby. Granted, there's a lot of friction between Clint and the young priest early on, but that evens out as the priest delves deeper into his life, and Clint's heart softens towards the priest, and the Church, and God. Very compelling.
But let the faint of heart beware: the movie has very brutal parts. The racist elements in Clint's character pre-transformation will probably grate on some (never mind the fact that it's just a movie and Walt Kowalski [Clint's character] isn't a real guy), and the gang violence is very rough, and a young Hmong girl gets beaten up and raped, though thankfully we only see the after effects and not the actual acts.

All in all, this movie gets a straight A. Cinematography, acting, writing, direction... it's one of the most compelling films I've seen in the past few years. Rated R for language, violence, etc. Five stars.

The Icarus Agenda

2009-01-31T13:18:00.004-05:00

Last week I finally finished reading 'The Icarus Agenda' by Robert Ludlum. It's typical of his style: international conspiracy, governments within governments, corruption, an incredibly thick plot with plenty of twists and turns along the way, etc. It's a pity that other, more degrading elements come into play that are sadly typical of his style as well.
The CIA is portrayed as a classically inept agency that is knee-deep in corruption. Okay, okay, the CIA does have a history of mind-boggling ineptitude. I'll give you that.
But America is always portrayed as being a big bully run by militaristic psychos who want to nuke the world and escalate the arms race to the point of national bankruptcy, and only heroes like Icarus' protagonist, Evan Kendrick, do the right thing by speaking truth to power when they appear on national television and berate generals and other officers for being bloodthirsty maniacs. These Joe Citizens are whistle-blowers! They've got morals and don't want the world to be blown up! Yeah, yeah, sure. And it just so happened that the book was written in 1988, at the closing of the Reagan years, with SDI being bashed by all reasonable, thinking people because it was an excuse for the military to put big lasers into space so that they could kill people. At least according to the book.
Going along with the idea of America as the Big Bully, everyone else in the world harbors a deep distrust of America because America is bad and does bad things. This is probably one of the more realistic viewpoints in the book, because there's a lot of people in the world who don't like America (this is because they are morons). But everyone?! Come on, Bob.
Also, why do all characters in the book use the Lord's name in vain ("Christ," "goddamnit," etc., in case you had no idea what I was talking about) exclusively? Sure, there's the "damn," "shit," and occasional "fuck," but it's almost as if the only way to swear is to use God. This sadly is another part of Ludlum's typical style.
The last thing that really bugged me about the book is how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is portrayed: there's good people on both sides, but the conflict is dumb and unnecessary because killing people only produces more killing, and they're just fighting over land. Tell that to Israelis who can't even walk through shopping malls without a 12-year-old Palestinian blowing himself to bits and taking innocent lives with him.

So we've got the inept CIA, a corrupt government, evil military men, and Jews and Arabs killing each other for a petty thing like land. Is there anything good about the book?
Yep, there is. Once I started reading it, I couldn't put it down, which is typical Ludlum for you. He knew how to write a compelling story, and I myself was guessing about the plot up until the very last page (and even the back cover). The characters are deep and multi-dimensional, the settings seem authentic, and who doesn't love a good old-fashioned conspiracy plot to... wait, wait, no spoilers.
All in all, reading the book was time well spent, even with all of the typical nonsense that seems to be required when writing an international thriller. However, if you'd like to read a more realistic novel that doesn't treat America and Americans like civilization's worst enemies, I'd suggest reading any of the Blackford Oakes novels by the late great William F. Buckley, Jr.

Notorious

2009-01-19T23:01:00.003-05:00

Christopher "The Notorious B.I.G." Wallace was a hustler, rapper, and all-around scumbag.

Not what you'd expect for the opening of a review of his biopic, right? Well, it just so happens that that's what most people are going to glean from the film 'Notorious.' He was raised in a broken home, started writing rhymes, dealt drugs, went to prison, had an illegitimate child, cheated on baby mama, started rapping, got married, cheated on his wife, made an amazing album, and people got shot and he made another album and he got killed. That's a rather simplistic rundown of the movie, but that's basically what happens.
(here's the part when I flip the cynicism switch to 'Off.' deep breath...)

As a film, it's pretty standard biopic fare. It's going to give newcomers to the Biggie phenomenon a pretty good picture of his life and his music, while providing interesting popcorn theatrics for the more seasoned listeners and fans. The guy they picked to play Big, one Jamal Woolard, looks a lot like him and sounds a lot like him (which leads into my only serious complaint about the movie's style which I'll get to later). The girl playing Lil' Kim sounds unbelievably like the real Kim. Angela Bassett delivers a very compelling performance as Big's concerned mother, Voletta. All in all, the acting is pretty standard. Cinematography is about the same, with a lot of overhead shots of the concrete jungles of New York and Los Angeles, and the filmmakers did an excellent job of balancing film footage with news footage after his death. Stylistically, it did a pretty good job of uniting the music with the film, although they should have either had Jamal rap over the original Big tracks or simply had him not rap at all, because the difference between Jamal and Biggie is glaring and rather distracting. We could have done without the intense sex scene with Lil' Kim. The script relies on cliches like "if you make it, Biggie, we all make it" and "if we're going to change the world, we have to change ourselves" to pack an emotional punch, which left me feeling, well, cliched. And the movie spends a lot of time on the making of Ready to Die (his first album) but glosses over Life After Death, instead focusing on the struggles of recovering from gunshot wounds and trying to spend more time with his first daughter.
The movie portrays his life honestly. He was a guy who lived a life of filth, whether it's cheating on every woman he has a relationship with, getting fellated in the recording studio by a couple of chicks off the street, and rapping some pretty dirty songs (full disclosure: I happen to like his music and listen to it often). As he put it in the song 'Suicidal Thoughts', "When I die, fuck it, I want to go to hell, cuz I'm a piece of shit, it ain't hard to fuckin' tell." I wouldn't classify Biggie as a piece of crap, really, but he was not a good man when it came down to it. In the film, he admits that he never had a father around to teach him how to be a man, so the streets had to do it for him, and with a dad like that, you know that you're going to be messed up for life (please reference Kurt Cobain, etc.). Somehow, past the filth and my own cynicism, I found myself wanting to sympathize for Biggie and his everyday struggles, but I just couldn't. He might have thought that in the hood "you're either slinging crack rock or you have a wicked jumpshot," but that doesn't mean that your only options in life are to deal drugs to pregnant women or rap about "money, hoes, and clothes."
Would I buy this movie? It's hard to say.

Rated R for pervasive language, violence, drug use, and some fairly graphic sex. Three stars out of five.

The Bush Legacy

2009-01-19T22:32:00.003-05:00

As the clock ticks down to the inauguration of the Messiah-elect, a lot of people are wishing farewell to President Bush. Some are wishing him the best; others, wishing him not so much. It is no question that George W. Bush has been one of the most polarizing figures of the past several years, and whether or not he really deserves that title will probably be debated for years to come.
He once said that history will judge that some of the things that he has undertaken (the military response to terrorism, the war in Iraq, etc.) to be correct and necessary. Personally, I don't think that we have to wait for history to cast its eye upon his eight years in order to make such a judgment. There is no question that 9/11 warranted a forceful response, and all liberal whining and brouhaha aside, he acted within the boundaries of the law at all times while ensuring that everything that could be done to prevent another attack was being done. It is no coincidence that there has not been another terrorist attack upon America since that fateful day seven years ago.
I fear that his most recent actions threaten to ruin him in the eyes of a lot of people. While conservatives' misgivings about his economic policies vis-a-vis the bailouts are certainly not petty, we must look at the big picture; everything that he has done over the course of his administration. As far as pro-life policies go, he has been an absolute godsend to those who strive to create what he called 'a culture of life' in America. The Mexico City policy was reinstated and the barbarous practice of partial-birth abortion was banned. Two of his Supreme Court nominees sit upon the bench. The victories achieved for the pro-life movement during this administration are no small feats... sadly, they threaten to be overturned by President Obama.
In terms of economics, don't be fooled by the bailouts. He understood that for a nation to prosper, its people have to prosper, and the pro-growth policies that his administration pursued helped keep our economy strong in turbulent times (at least until the credit crunch).

Bush has taken a lot of crap over the past eight years. Some of it has been deserved; his amnesty plans, a massive Medicare expansion, and unfettered growth of government are definite blemishes on his record. But I believe that the vast majority of the slander and disgusting accusations thrown his way were completely unwarranted. Bushitler? 9/11 conspiracy? Bush lied, people died? Bush Derangement Syndrome? Impeach Bush? Photoshopped posters at the 2004 Iowa caucus of Bush with a pistol to his head? I rest my case.

I sit here at my desk tonight, writing a few scattered paragraphs, wishing the best for our departing leader. Some are wishing nothing but 'goodbye and good riddance' to our departing President. They might fancy themselves to be clever or realistic, but they're simply haters; the same league of morons that Bush has been gracefully dealing with for the past two terms.
President Bush, don't let the mob get you down. Thank you for serving your country, and God bless you.

A country that I no longer recognize

2008-11-06T13:33:00.001-05:00

It's officially over. America as we know it no longer exists. We have replaced integrity, honor, valor, justice, and courage with "hope and change."

Barack Obama is dangerous. Not because he's a Democrat, and certainly not because he is black, but because he has said that he wants to "fundamentally transform" America. Universal health care, socialist redistribution of wealth, ending Operation Iraqi Freedom... these are things that stand against everything that made this nation great. We can all "hope" that he will govern from the center-left and that none of his radical ideas will ever make it to paper, "hope" that in four years America will be so thoroughly disgruntled with the Left that they will elect conservative leaders, "hope" a lot of things. Earth to America: there is no hope. Obama has never given us any reason to believe that he will do anything but govern from the hard left. The anti-war hippies and Marxists of the country now have their secular Messiah in office and he will be at the beck and call of the lunatics now running the asylum.

I have never been ashamed of my country. I have never even dared to think that I could be ashamed. But on Tuesday night, I was ashamed. Twenty years ago, the world watched as America (with help from key allies) delivered the coup de grace to Communism. Three generations ago, our nation saved the world from Nazism and fascism. Barely a century before that, our nation saved itself from being irrevocably torn apart by slavery. Scarcely a hundred years earlier, we broke free from tyranny and established ourselves as an independent democracy. Now we have chosen defeat in the face of Islamofascism. Obama will most assuredly pull us out of Iraq, and the thousands of Americans dead will have sacrificed their lives for nothing.

People say that there is always hope; that God is still in control. I don't see God in any of this at all. I have no hope that God will not let this nation crumble.

This is the beginning of the end for the Western world. America was the world's last best hope, as Bill Bennett put it... and within a couple years' time, we will be another European socialist state. The terrorists will strike us again and again and we will not lift a finger to stop them. We are committing suicide on a national scale. And for what reason? Because we wanted to prove that racism is dead in this nation by electing a black president? Because we are tired of war and want to bring the boys back home to stay? Because, because, because... there is no reason that is good enough to justify such an action.

Don't look to the Republican Party for hope, either: it's dead. The American people have decided that they were tired of electing liberal Republicans, so they may as well elect liberal Democrats since the two are indistinguishable. The GOP is finished. The people are liberal. Nothing is ever going to change that. How can that be, when four years ago, Bush was re-elected due to the values voters, and now those same voters have elected the most liberal candidate of the past however many decades?

The anti-American crowd says that the American people are ignorant, lazy, selfish, and that they deserve to suffer. This election vindicates them, as horrible of a thing that it is. The people have chosen to put their own prissy ideals before doing what's right in Iraq, allow a completely willing suspension of disbelief about the numerous character flaws and severe ideological problems of the new President-elect, and are not willing to do what is necessary to secure true peace and freedom, not just for us, but for our children and grandchildren. Whatever terrorist attacks occur on our shores in the next four years, as they undoubtedly will, we've asked for them. Maybe we deserve to suffer. That's what we asked for when we elected Barack Obama, isn't it?

I'm reading "We Will Prevail" right now. It's a collection of President Bush's speeches and remarks from 9/11 to 2003. Reading these words takes me back to that fateful day in September that the entire nation seems to have forgotten, when we all stood in solidarity and declared that the terrorists would never reach our shores again. I find it ironic to read the speech delivered on the deck of the USS Enterprise on December 7, 2001:
"The terrorists are the heirs to fascism. They have the same will to power, the same disdain for the individual, the same global ambitions. And they will be dealt with in just the same way. Like all fascists, the terrorists cannot be appeased: they must be defeated. This struggle will not end in a truce or treaty. It will end in victory for the United States, our friends, and the cause of freedom."
If only President Bush knew that seven years later, America would choose to appease the enemy and elect a defeatist know-nothing demagogue.

This nation of cowardice and unrestrained ideological pornography is not the nation that I grew up in. This is not the nation that saved the world from Hitler. This is not the nation that killed Communism. This is the nation that is about to reach the point of no return. Hell, we're practically there. Whatever happens, we get what we deserve.

Pucker up, America. It's time for change.

Our moron representatives

2008-09-30T00:01:00.003-05:00

Let's all give the legislative branch of our national government a heaping round of applause, because now we're totally screwed.
Two-thirds of Republicans voted against the bailout (one that they had managed to finagle nefarious things like ACORN and the like out of), 95 Democrats voted against it (funny how a largely Democratic bill can't pass in a Democrat-controlled Senate, isn't it? it probably wasn't socialist enough), and the markets continue to drop. Thanks, guys.
It wasn't a perfect bill. Republicans were painfully aware of this (with John Boehner going so far as to call it a "crap sandwich"). But it was a heck of a lot better than the initial socialist economy-killing piece of crap that the Democrats threw together first, and even if something isn't perfect, you've got to work with it. Reasonable, responsible action needs to be taken about the looming crisis in the economy, and the Senate stands by and plays political games while the rest of the nation officially goes into crisis mode.
Larry Kudlow thinks that the Dems are going to remake the bill and put all their crap into it that Republicans had stripped out: ACORN, bankruptcy judges setting mortgage terms and rates, etc., and that such a bill will probably pass, because people's fear of economic failure is going to override their better judgment... never mind, people's idiocy has already overridden their better judgment and could possibly bring about what Larry calls "the end of the U.S. financial system as we know it."
At this point it doesn't matter if the representatives are Democrats or Republicans: you may very well have screwed the country.

The American people are "basically decent"

2008-09-17T12:40:00.001-05:00

"The one thing that I want to insist on is that, as I travel around the country, the American people are a decent people. Now they get confused sometimes. You know, they listen to the wrong talk radio shows or watch the wrong TV networks, um, but they’re, they’re basically decent, they’re basically sound."
-Barack Obama

Translation: You know, the American people are bitter over the economy, and they cling to guns, xenophobia, and religion, and a lot of them are racist because they're not voting for me, and a lot of them are typical white folks, and they need to elect an enlightened Messiah like me because they're confused about a lot of things right now, and they shouldn't watch Fox News or listen to Rush Limbaugh because they're wrong, um, but they need change that they can, uh, believe in, and, um, I am the one that the thinking people in this country have been, uh, waiting for, and, I'm not saying that they're all a bunch of morally bankrupt mentally deficient rednecks, but they're basically ok.

(kudos to The Corner)

9/11

2008-09-11T12:27:00.003-05:00

Today is a very grey, rainy, and dismal day, as well suits the mood of the past seven September 11ths. We must never forget that our nation was senselessly and brutally attacked by Islamic terrorists whose aim was to kill as many Americans as possible. With that in mind, we need to possess the courage and strength of will and force to ensure that there will never be another 9/11 ever again.
"America is a nation full of good fortune, with so much to be grateful for. But we are not spared from suffering. In every generation, the world has produced enemies of human freedom. They have attacked America, because we are freedom's home and defender. And the commitment of our fathers is now the calling of our time."
-President George W. Bush

I was just watching video footage of the WTC being hit and ultimately collapsing, and it brought tears to my eyes. All 2,977 people who died had names, faces, families, and souls. And they were all wiped out in an instant. Why? What causes evil men to commit such unthinkable acts?
When I watch the movie United 93, chills go down my spine when the passengers storm the cockpit. An emotion grips me as several passengers overtake the terrorist guarding the door to the cockpit and I find myself whispering, instinctively, as the enemy is beaten to death with a fire extinguisher: "kill him. kill the motherfucker."
this might not be the most loving, kind, gentle, or Christian thing to say, but I suspect that just as many people are thinking this today as they were on this fateful day seven years ago. "we're going to kill them all." Jamie Foxx's character in The Kingdom tells that to Jennifer Garner as they find out that their compatriots and friends had perished in a suicide bombing attack, and that's what the leader of a terrorist group gasps with his dying breath. cynics and many progressive types would say that an eye for an eye makes the world go blind, and that we need to lay down our arms and seek peace with the enemy instead of all of this killing.
Screw that.
There can be no peace with evildoers who are hellbent on our destruction. We cannot lay down our arms for them, as that will only make us easier targets. The blood of the thousands slain not only on this day, but in the War on Terror cries out from the earth, crying for justice. Yes, vengeance belongs to the Lord, and He will accomplish the ultimate judgment against all evil men, but justice and security demand that we take the fight to their doorstep. As a Marine put it shortly after the terrorist attacks, "It's God's job to forgive Osama bin Laden. And it's our job to arrange the meeting." While I believe that it is all our job to forgive the enemy, forgiveness does not erase the fact that there are consequences to murder, and war is not in itself an exercise of hatred.
We must do what is necessary to keep our country safe and ensure that there will never be another 9/11. As Toby Keith put it in his song The Angry American, "We'll put a boot in your ass, it's the American way."
and as Todd Beamer put it before the passengers of United 93 stormed the cockpit of their vessel and prevented more terrorist violence, "Let's roll."
We're going to kill them all.

Seven Houses?

2008-08-21T12:42:00.005-05:00

This just in from The Corner: Obama's made a TV ad that goes after McCain because McCain "can't keep track of how many houses he owns." Never mind the fact that McCain's in his late, late years and has paid for his houses, and that it's perfectly fine to own seven houses, because people can do things like that in America. Obama bought his house with aid from a convicted criminal, you know?
Even more insane is this section of the latest press release:

CHICAGO – Today, the Obama campaign released a new 30-second TV ad, Seven, discussing just how out of touch John McCain is with the struggles of everyday people. The ad highlight’s John McCain’s desire to just offer more of the same economic policies we’ve gotten from President Bush, as just yesterday he declared “the fundamentals of our economy are strong” and lost track of how many houses he owns.

In addition, Obama supporters are speaking out in battleground states across the country about how out of touch Senator McCain is. Listed below is information on the ad as well as just a few of the events happening today across the country.

...TAMPA , FL: Campaign for Change in Florida launched a statewide search to find Floridians who, like John McCain, have so many homes that they just can’t keep track of the number.

Why do the Obamaniacs need to find these Floridians, and what concern is it of theirs as to how many houses they own? You'd think that owning things was a crime (as no doubt it will be under The One's administration)...

Obama's New Campaign Banner

2008-07-25T01:33:00.003-05:00

It's a work in progress. I've got another version where I actually copied the letters from the original banner (it sits atop his regal main web page), but there's too much color confusion and mismatching for me to work it. I'm thinking about busting out the polygonal lasso or whatever it is (I haven't Photoshopped in ages), but the letters might be too small to be used effectively. If any readers are into Photoshop and want to give me pointers, feel free to...

The Messiah Visits Berlin

2008-07-24T23:59:00.007-05:00

In lieu of having a play-by-play on the entire speech, I'll just comment on some sections that really jumped out at me.

"I know that I don’t look like the Americans who’ve previously spoken in this great city..."
First, as VDH has pointed out, a black American speaking in Berlin isn't anything new; the two past Secretaries of State (Colin Powell and Condi Rice) are black.

"The terrorists of September 11th plotted in Hamburg and trained in Kandahar and Karachi before killing thousands from all over the globe on American soil. As we speak, cars in Boston and factories in Beijing are melting the ice caps in the Arctic, shrinking coastlines in the Atlantic, and bringing drought to farms from Kansas to Kenya. Poorly secured nuclear material in the former Soviet Union, or secrets from a scientist in Pakistan could help build a bomb that detonates in Paris. The poppies in Afghanistan become the heroin in Berlin. The poverty and violence in Somalia breeds the terror of tomorrow. The genocide in Darfur shames the conscience of us all..."
There are certain categories of events and hypothetical situations that should not be mixed with others because they are irrelevant to each other. September 11th and the threat of rogue nuclear weaponry can be squarely placed in the category of "threats to national security." Drugs from Afghanistan, violence in Somalia, and Darfur can be placed in "terrible events, but on a different level than threats to national security." Both categories have moral foundations to them. September 11th was a terrorist attack and murderous; rogue nuclear weaponry can easily accomplish the same end. A drug flow from Afghanistan and the violence in Somalia and Darfur are horrible things and should be stopped, but are not on the same playing field as large-scale terrorist attacks (however, the argument could be made that terrorists profit from drug money in Afghanistan and therefore the resource influx for them should be stopped. I hesitate to argue this simply because I have no data with which to back it up.) Pollution and the entirely made-up, baseless fear of global warming? That's a horse of a different color, to put it mildly. You can't go from terrorist attacks to pollution to genocide in the same breath as if it's all square, because it definitely isn't. Is it so much to expect a prospective President to possess more than an iota of common sense?

"The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand..."
Obama, you are not Ronald Reagan.

"America has no better partner than Europe. Now is the time to build new bridges across the globe as strong as the one that bound us across the Atlantic..."
Actually, Senator, Europe by and large has proven to be one of our harshest and most irrelevant critics (with notable exceptions). If Europeans would remove their heads from their "enlightened" rear ends and start to face reality, they'd actually be useful.

"This is the moment when we must renew the goal of a world without nuclear weapons..."
It's a worthy goal, but entirely unattainable. As long as there are bad guys in the world who don't give a tinker's cuss about following the rules, there will always be the danger of rogue nuclear violence. Until the end of the world (and necessarily the end of violence), someone's got to carry the bigger stick, and it is vital that America is that someone.

"This is the moment we must help answer the call for a new dawn in the Middle East. My country must stand with yours and with Europe in sending a direct message to Iran that it must abandon its nuclear ambitions. We must support the Lebanese who have marched and bled for democracy, and the Israelis and Palestinians who seek a secure and lasting peace. And despite past differences, this is the moment when the world should support the millions of Iraqis who seek to rebuild their lives, even as we pass responsibility to the Iraqi government and finally bring this war to a close..."
As long as there are forces in the world who seek to wipe Israel off of the map, there will never be a new dawn. It is impossible to make peace with bloodthirsty killers, especially when you want to have tea with their dictators without preconditions. And I hate to keep singing the same old song, but you're dead wrong about Iraq. If you really want to support the millions of Iraqis who want to rebuild their lives, then you have to keep American troops there, in force, until they can fight terror themselves. Withdrawal will not accomplish anything except leave a country to burn, not to mention the fact that the terrorists will be emboldened enough to attack us again. Why withdraw when faced with the consequences?

"Will we reject torture and stand for the rule of law? Will we welcome immigrants from different lands, and shun discrimination against those who don’t look like us or worship like we do, and keep the promise of equality and opportunity for all of our people?"
We have rejected torture, Senator. Your problem is that "torture" is defined as "anything we would do to an enemy detainee that would cause him the slightest bit of discomfort." We have welcomed immigrants, so long as they enter this country legally. We have shunned xenophobia, insofar as it's all in your head (unless we're talking about those toothless rednecks who get bitter about the economy and turn to guns and God and antipathy towards those not like us...).

"People of Berlin – and people of the world – the scale of our challenge is great. The road ahead will be long. But I come before you to say that we are heirs to a struggle for freedom. We are a people of improbable hope. With an eye toward the future, with resolve in our hearts, let us remember this history, and answer our destiny, and remake the world once again."
I'm confused: Is Obama running for President of the United States, or President of the World?
There's only one man who can remake the world, Obama, and you are not Him. Besides, the world has never been remade as far as I know, so... you're simply an idiot.

This joker's arrogance, narcissism, and megalomania know no bounds. When will America take notice?

UPDATE, 07.25: A couple of things that I forgot to mention are that he used the phrase "This is the moment" roughly 16 times, and he refused--refused--to visit wounded American troops while overseas. That should tell you something about his lack of character, courage, and sensibility (as if everything that comes out of his mouth hasn't accomplished the same already.

Obama: "My wife is not the issue here"

2008-07-22T00:50:00.003-05:00

When I first heard that Obama had told some supermarket shelf rag that Fox News, National Review, and "their ilk" were taking shots at his wife and that he didn't appreciate it, the second thing that came to my mind was the part in The Big Lebowski when The Dude is confronting the Big Lebowski about the Dude's rug being ruined because the Big L's wife had owed money all over town, and the Big L slammed his hand down on his desk and shouted, "My wife is not the issue here!" and goes on to complain that she thinks that her allowance isn't big enough, etc.

Of course, seeing as I'm bitter about the economy and that I cling to guns and religion and antipathy towards those not like me because of said bitterness, this was the first thing that came to my mind.

Sorry, Mac... but you're no Messiah

2008-07-22T00:18:00.002-05:00

The New York Times has once again put itself squarely in the lead for "Most Self-Nullifying Publication In America" by refusing to print a little number that McCain wrote in response to Obama's recent NYT editorial about the war in Iraq, "My Plan for Iraq." (here's a hint: Obama's plan for Iraq involves us cutting and running, while McCain's involves us finishing the job...)

The op-ed page editor, David Shipley, defends his decision:

'It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama's piece... I'm not going to be able to accept this piece as currently written.'Of course, Shipley could just come out and say that his head is too far up Obama's rear end to perform any other role than a brown-nosing lapdog, but such moments of honesty are a rarity around those offices.

Why I'm Voting For John McCain

2008-07-20T21:20:00.003-05:00

I should have probably named this post "One of the Many Reasons Why I'm Voting For John McCain," but it would have been too long.

Compare this quote...

The journey will be difficult. The road will be long. I face this challenge with profound humility, and knowledge of my own limitations. But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people. Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth.
-Barack Obama

With this one...

I do not seek the presidency on the presumption that I am blessed with such personal greatness that history has anointed me to save my country in its hour of need. I seek the presidency with the humility of a man who cannot forget that my country saved me. I am running to serve America, and to champion the ideas I believe will help us do what every American generation has managed to do: to make in our time, and from our challenges, a stronger country and a better world.
-John McCain

All italics were mine.

The Dark Knight

2008-07-20T01:00:00.002-05:00

"The night is darkest right before the dawn. And I promise you that the day is coming."
-Harvey Dent

This has got to be the best film of the summer, and I haven't even seen any of the other ones.
Suffice it to say that this is the darkest, most violent and psychologically chilling film in the rebooted franchise thus far. Heath Ledger's cynical and unabashedly insane Joker nearly makes the film, and there's talk in Hollywood of a posthumous Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. He'd better get it.
Everyone. Go buy tickets to the next available showing as soon as you can. Don't waste time. Watch this movie. Now.

Today's Knee-Slapping Moment

2008-07-19T13:22:00.002-05:00

Kinda reminds me of this Larry Elder column...

WNQ Radio: Obama and Abortion

2008-07-16T11:35:00.003-05:00

In today's episode, I give a few thoughts about Obama and abortion. Recently in the blogging world, there's been a lot of talk about his support among Catholics, but there should be no support for Obama among any Christians due to his radical anti-life stances.

Find out more here.

Boring administrative details

2008-07-15T09:31:00.002-05:00

I went through the blog this morning and cleaned house (i.e., deleting posts). Specifically I axed the posts from earlier in this blog's life when it was more of a personal blog than whatever kind of blog it is now... so if you happen to notice that there are only 87 posts as opposed to 101, that would be why.

4th July

2008-07-07T14:00:00.003-05:00

God bless America.

(I meant to do this a couple of days ago but I didn't have Internet access.)

Sensitivity and Inexperience (or, When Style Trumps Substance)

2008-07-03T11:27:00.003-05:00

I'm reading the latest issue of National Review right now, and there's a fascinating article by Byron York that talks about B. Hussein Obama's days in Chicago as a 'community organizer' and how he and his supporters use that as proof of his qualification to run the country. As Obama himself put it last February, "I can bring this country together... I have a track record, starting from the days I moved to Chicago as a community organizer." If organizing the community was all that someone needed to be qualified enough to grab the highest office in the land, then the Good Humor guy should have been elected years ago.
Terribly unfunny jokes aside, there's revealing information that York shares about Obama's stint in Chicago. Getting paid to be a community organizer wasn't as bad as he made it out to be when giving the commencement at Wesleyan U this past May: after three years on the job he was probably making $35,000 (in the late 80's, even!), and that's right from the mouth of the guy who hired him.
But we're not even to the best part. The guy who hired him, Jerry Kellman, recalled that Obama had a burning desire to work within the community, but he was 24 years old and didn't have much experience, if any. Kellman needed to convince the leaders of the community group that Obama was worth a shot despite his youth and inexperience, and as York writes, "Despite those drawbacks, he seemed to work some sort of magic on the leaders." One lady who was one of those leaders back in the day recalled that "He had a sensitivity I have never seen in anybody else to this day. He understood... He didn't have experience, but he had a sensitivity that allowed us to believe that he could do the job."
Sensitivity might help you get a job working within the community, but is it enough to make you President? Obama might whine about America's success and chide the unschooled masses for their seemingly wasteful lifestyles ("We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times and expect that other countries are going to say 'Okay'"), which would certainly express a sensitivity to the opinions of other nations; but it's not enough to make you President. If anything, sentiment like that should disqualify him.
Obama might promise to appoint judicial nominees who have "the empathy to understand what it's like to be poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old" because it's the "sensitive" thing to do, but the law does not need sensitivity: it needs force, for as Pascal reminds us, law without force is impotent.

I fear that come November, the electorate will be saying the same thing about Obama as one of his peers did when considering him as a community organizer. "He didn't have experience, but he had a sensitivity that allowed us to believe that he could do the job." Narcissism is the key theme of Obama's campaign, and people are flocking to him because he makes them feel good. As the banner on his website states, "I'm asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington... I'm asking you to believe in yours." In the age of self-help and sensitivity training, we no longer need to exert the effort to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps; we just need to believe that things are going to get better.

It is not enough for a Presidential candidate to be a really really sensitive nice guy. We do not need some kid with a God complex leading the free world.
This is not the moment when the rise of the oceans will slow and our planet will begin to heal.
This is the moment when the American people will decide between style and substance. Hopefully they'll choose the right one.

"Faith in a greater system"

2008-05-28T13:10:00.002-05:00

Today I started the time-consuming task of archiving my stacks and stacks of newspaper clippings that have accumulated over the past several years, mostly columns by Dave Barry, Cal Thomas, and Kathleen Parker. I came across a column by Thomas that dealt with the controversy earlier in this decade about the display of the Ten Commandments at an Alabama courthouse. In the penultimate graf, Thomas references an AP story from some 30 years back which mentions a Democratic Senator from Iowa leaving the Senate to become a "lay Christian worker." Senator Harold Hughes, in Thomas' words, "..realized after a successful political career that government has the lesser power. He once told me: 'I'm not leaving the political structure because of a lack of faith in the political system. I'm leaving because of faith in a greater system.'"
These days, it's fashionable to run for President on a platform that you are the Messiah and that if you are only elected then you shall make an end to all injustice and ensure equality and happiness for all (ahem, Obama). "We are the change we have been waiting for," his campaign and enthralled fans like to proclaim. "Hope we can believe in," they say. The problem, though, is that government cannot correct vital flaws that are permanently embedded in human nature.

(sidenote: There will never be across-the-board equality in a democratic free-market society such as ours, depending on how you define equality, because in a market where people are free to succeed and fail, there will be winners and losers no matter what. Of course, if you wanted to "fix" the system in the same way that the Mafia can "fix" the outcome of the World Series, you could have government come in and take over the economy, but 1) it's been tried before (it's called Communism) and failed miserably, causing mass starvation and economic disaster, and 2) when government forces everyone to be paid the same wage and what have you, that completely removes any incentive to succeed, because the system punishes success and encourages sloth. The Marxists like to say that under their system, the big guy can't screw the little guy, but what they never mention is that the big guy and the little guy both get screwed by the even bigger guy of the government. I guess government can't solve all economic problems.)

"Change" and "hope" are both nebulous terms that have no substance whatsoever in today's context, except that they sound good to people who are disgruntled, so people jump on the bandwagon and eventually a narcissistic orgy of self-aggrandizing and New Age positivism occurs. The people need a secular Savior, so they turn to the guy who markets himself as one. Interestingly, these people go all gung-ho about hope and change and a brighter future, but all this positive talk is rooted in a very strong pessimism about the current state of affairs and an abiding hatred for the current President.
"Hope you can believe in." What hope? Hope that Obama will accomplish all of his goals when he gets elected, like turning tail and running from the fight in Iraq, having tea with Jew-hating tyrants, and socializing health care? Hope for a brighter future and a happier nation? Can Obama personally guarantee life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for the price of a vote to the starry-eyed groupies that comprise his supporters? Government can do a lot of things, but it can't provide the kind of meaning that this crowd is needing Politics of meaning, folks. It's been tried and being tried, and it's a failure.

I don't believe that government can provide integral meaning to our lives any more than it can make the trains run on time, all else being equal. For true hope and change, I believe in a greater system, one that is not dominated by imperfect human beings like me. Until we realize that government ultimately holds the lesser power, we're going to keep throwing ourselves at the feet of jokers like Obama, looking for value and worth that can't be got by any other means. I'm sorry, but I'd rather not follow a Messiah who's been democratically elected.

9/11 Truther Nuts Beware

2008-05-27T16:10:00.003-05:00

You should really stop putting up those stupid stickers all over Brackett Ave., because we're going to take them down wherever we see them.

And now for something completely different.

2008-04-14T19:52:00.004-05:00

I went on a walk this evening. I started from my house then found myself walking through parts of downtown EC that, until tonight, were unknown to me. The trail/park area over by the RCU building on the riverfront is a lovely place, especially at twilight.
From there, I walked up to Galloway St. and past some of Banbury, then went across a very lovely wooden bridge and found myself next to a business that I was trying to ascertain the ownership and purpose of but I could not, then from there I headed towards Dewey St. (I found it by accident) then past Acoustic and from there it was pretty much a straight shot home. All in all, it was a fifty minute (or so) excursion, and it's something that I'm going to try to do more often.

The world is a lovely place. I'm the type that finds beauty in both nature and commerce, unlike some of the lefty types around the city who decry Big Bidness's chokehold on the beauty of the natural landscape, but I love it. I love buildings (especially new ones) and cobblestone paths and street lamps and everything else. Of course, I'll always love nature a little bit more than the construction around it...

WNQ TV is on the air!

2008-04-03T11:23:00.001-05:00

Here it is, the very first episode of WNQ TV. It's an alternate version of the Obama interview, complete with photos and clever video manipulation.

WNQ Radio

2008-03-26T17:13:00.004-05:00

Here's a new endeavor. WNQ Radio is now live as of today, with our first episode being an interview with Barack Obama.
(note: I'm not actually interviewing Obama. I used a bunch of clips from the audiobook of 'Dreams From My Father' and rearranged them, etc. [***WARNING: there's a couple of pretty bad words in here.***] Bear in mind that the stuff that he's saying may or may not actually be quotes of himself saying things. Before you leave any comments about how I'm evil, please consider that this is nothing more than a pathetic attempt at amusement and nothing more, although I'd like to think that I make a couple of good points here and there.)

Justify My Thug

2008-03-24T21:11:00.009-05:00

I ain't never been smacked; a nigga better keep his hands
to himself or get clapped for what's under that man's belt
I never asked for nothin I don't demand of myself
Honesty, loyalty, friends and then wealth
Death before dishonor and I tell you what else
I tighten my belt 'fore I beg for help
Foolish pride is what held me together through the years
I wasn't felt which is why I ain't never played myself
I just play the hand I'm dealt, I can't say I've never knelt
before God and asked for better cards at times to no avail
But I never sat back feelin sorry for myself
If you don't give me heaven I'll raise hell
'Til it's heaven

Justify my thug!
My thug.. (hoping..)
My thug.. (praying..) for you
to justify my thug...
-"Justify My Thug," on The Black Album by Jay-Z

So I was listening to this song the other day and it got me thinking. Hova's basically asking God to understand that he hustled and sold drugs on the street back in the day because it was the only thing he could do... right?
And what's all this talk of justification? In my concordance, the word "justify" is defined as "declare guiltless." It's used a lot in Romans 8 in the context of "being justified by faith in Christ" (v.16) which falls into the broader context of being dead to sin and alive in Christ. Is Jay-Z asking God to wipe out his 'thug'? Or is he asking for another definition of "justify," which is "show or prove to be right or reasonable"? In other words, does he want God to look at his past and not judge him for it, because it was that which was right and reasonable at the time? The first sense is a matter of faith; the second is a plea for a system without standards. And he can't have both.
God's justification isn't just a shrug of the shoulders with an "it's okay." Sin isn't okay, which is why God provides justification in the first place. But I really want to focus on the second sense. What are the thugs in our lives, and how often do we ask God to justify them? Instead of asking for justification qua midnight-hour pardoning, should we be asking for sanctification?
Hopefully I'm not making a mountain out of a molehill here. I just found it interesting is all. Feel free to lambaste me for my chronic overthinking.

Obama: the Christian right has hijacked faith

2008-03-15T20:44:00.002-05:00

“But somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us together,” Mr. Obama said. “Faith started being used to drive us apart. Faith got hijacked.”

He attributed this partly to “the so-called leaders of the Christian right, who’ve been all too eager to exploit what divides us.” Yet he said that in traveling around the country he had sensed an “awakening” of an interfaith movement of “progressives.”

There are those on the Christian Right who have blurred the line between faith and politics, to be sure. But "an interfaith movement of progressives" is the same exact thing as that which Obama decries. Anything "progressive" is not Christian in nature, period.
The divisions between us exist because there is a right and there is a wrong. Abortion is wrong. Gay marriage is wrong. Anyone who takes a side contrary to this is wrong, and that's simply how it works due to the nature of final morality. Faith and secular politics can never intermingle because morality ultimately loses (to say nothing of orthodox faith). I simply do not understand how aberrations like this are allowed to continue.

Politicians and spiritual leaders on both sides have used faith as a vehicle for politics and vice versa. But it's a straw man to say that the Right is to blame. Both sides are. But I'd almost rather have my pastor tell me that it's my Christian duty to vote conservatively than for him to tell me to vote for whoever supports abortion and gay marriage, because at least in the first instance he'd probably be right.

Christians for Obama?

2008-02-21T21:48:00.006-05:00

I'm sick of seeing Christian folks support Barack Obama. The guy has a 100% pro-abortion rating from Planned Parenthood (2006), NARAL Pro-Choice America (2005), Illinois Planned Parenthood Council (2003, 2001, 1998, 1997), which should be (and I heavily emphasize should) enough to make any Christian with half a sense of knowing the difference between right and wrong to flatly reject him.
The same goes for his stance on "gay rights." He's said (can't find any links to this speech or excerpt or whatever it is...) that Christians who believe that homosexuality is immoral take one passage from Romans and put it above the Sermon on the Mount. His analysis, if it can be called that, has at least two very big problems with it. The first is that he implies that such Christians are cherry-picking verses from the Bible in order to conform with their previously-held beliefs on issues such as the moral status of homosexuality.
But that's exactly what he is doing, except he's doing it in reverse: he's cherry-picking what parts of the Bible to ignore. The fact is that the Bible clearly states that homosexuality is wrong. Romans 1:25-27 is a good place to start:

They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural [lit. against nature], and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts...

1 Timothy 1:10 mentions 'homosexuality' as one of the many things that are 'contrary to sound teaching.' Anyone who says that Christianity and homosexuality are compatible with each other are simply dead wrong. It can't be made any clearer than that.
The second problem is that the Sermon on the Mount has nothing to do with homosexuality, doesn't say that "gay is probably normal in the Good Lord's sight" (apologies for the obscure musical reference), and that regardless of what Christ said, it doesn't contradict or supersede what has been God-breathed in the text of the Bible because Jesus is God and God never contradicts Himself. But these are just minor details, and Obama's argument, well, there really isn't one here.
The fact is that Obama does not support legalization of gay "marriages" but is in favor of government recognition of civil unions as being on par with marriage (which is basically marriage, sans religious ceremony). His beliefs (or opinions, depending on how you'd like to view them) on homosexuality et al should once again be enough for any thinking believer to say "no."

Obama also says that he's an avowed Christian, which is somewhat confusing to me seeing as he's willing to abandon principles of the faith to get votes. If he does get the nomination, we're going to see a lot of the morally bankrupt political paraphernalia like we've seen in 2004 ("Christians for Kerry/Edwards," etc.). I don't think that any Christian should cast their vote for any candidate who distorts the truth of the Bible and has the blood of dead babies on his hands, but that could just be me. The Bible doesn't matter anyway... we just want to please the world.

The Matrix and the Death of God

2008-01-25T16:17:00.000-05:00

It has been quite a long time since I last posted... nearly two months. Sorry about that. I wasn't intending to have such a long interim between posts, but I've been rather busy. I disappeared to Florida for two weeks to spend some time with my amazing girlfriend and her amazing family, and school has been, well, school. Hopefully I will post on a more frequent basis... because I've had plenty of things to think about.

Today, I've been thinking about the Matrix and its philosophical/religious underpinnings. I've intended to write a post talking about Christian interpretations of the Matrix for several years now (I'm not exaggerating here), but the gamer magazine GamePro beat me to it a few years back, in the issue in which they featured The Matrix: Path of Neo. Sadly, there is no digital version of this article on the mag's website, and back issues are not available. Pity.

Now, I just might write that post someday. But even more pressing is not the issue of if there can be Christian messages or philosophies interpreted from the films (and there certainly can be), but the issue of the absence of God.

Simply put, in the world of the Matrix, God is not there.

Yeah, there's references to God and there's Biblical symbolism (e.g. 'Zion' as the last human stronghold, which may or may not be a reference to end-times theology and Jerusalem), but God in the sense of the infinite-personal God is conspicuously absent. He's mentioned in profanity ("God damn," "Jesus Christ," etc.), but that's just about it.

Focus on the profanity issue for a second. Obviously God was on the scene at some point; otherwise there would be no blaspheming. This is corroborated in The Animatrix, in the episode The Second Renaissance Part II, when priests are blessing soldiers about to go and fight the Machines (this happens about two minutes in).

So: it's been established that God was there. So when did He leave?

In The Matrix Reloaded, when the humans gather in the 'temple' to be addressed, Councilor Hamman delivers the 'opening prayer' and speaks of remembering the brave ones fighting against the Machines, as well as remembering 'those that have been lost.'

Let us give thanks for those that have been found and stand here beside us. Now I would like someone else to close this prayer... (enter Morpheus)

The Councilor is delivering a prayer. But what kind of prayer, exactly? According to the Oxford American Dictionary, prayer has three definitions:

a solemn request for help or expression of thanks addressed to God or an object of worship : I'll say a prayer for him | the peace of God is ours through prayer.

• ( prayers) a religious service, esp. a regular one, at which people gather in order to pray together : 500 people were detained as they attended Friday prayers.

• an earnest hope or wish : it is our prayer that the current progress on human rights will be sustained.

The actual script for Reloaded doesn't provide too many details. As Kid runs into the Temple, he runs into a couple of ladies carrying baskets filled with bread and mushrooms; the script describes them as 'priestesses.' There's no mention of whether or not the gathering is a religious service or just a regular gathering. There's talk of 'prayer' and 'giving thanks,' but to whom are we praying, and to whom do we give thanks? It is entirely possible that the Councilor would leave this open to interpretation, after all, there could be Muslims, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, etc. in the crowd: let them decide who they're talking to. But I'm still not seeing any connections.

At least on a symbolic level, it would seem that Neo himself has almost (almost) taken the place of God. When he arrives in Zion, there are swarms of people waiting for him, asking him to watch over their sons and daughters stationed on various ships. They also have food and other items with him (there's an Oriental chap in the foreground as soon as you see the elevator doors open, he's in an orange robe, and looks like he's carrying incense... is he some sort of monk?), and I'm guessing that they offer these things to him or at least ask his blessing.

This interpretation of Neo almost makes sense when looking at other contexts in the trilogy... [WARNING: if you haven't seen the sequels, I strongly advise skipping over this part because there are major, major spoilers!]

-Neo dies in The Matrix, but is brought back to life by Trinity (death and resurrection of Christ)

-When Trinity dies in Reloaded, Neo brings her back to life (Christ raised Lazarus from the dead)

-in Revolutions, when Neo announces that he needs to take a ship to the Machine City, and Niobe reflects on how the situation seems to be orchestrated by Providence, Morpheus interjects by telling Niobe that he didn't think that she believed in Providence, to which Niobe replies: "I don't. I believe in him [Neo]."

-and of course, in Revolutions, Neo sacrifices himself to save Zion (Christ sacrificing Himself to save humanity, or as the Wachowskis refer to it in Path of Neo, 'the Jesus thing.')

-Not to mention the countless references to Neo as a Messiah, as well as the 'prophecy' of the Oracle (Christ is Messiah, His coming was foretold in numerous prophecies in the Old Testament)

But one of the most striking scenes that would fit with this idea of Neo-as-God is the scene in Reloaded when Commander Lock grills Morpheus about leaving a ship in the Matrix to await contact from the Oracle:

A different interpretation of God's absence from the world of The Matrix would be that God chose to judge humanity (end-times, anyone?) by allowing the Machines to do what they did in taking over the world, enslaving all the humans, etc. In step with the Deistic view of God, He merely pushed the buttons and calmly stepped aside to watch the chaos, which would make sense with Him being around before the war started. But even that seems like a stretch. Then of course, once there is peace between the Machines and the humans, the humans continue to exist peacefully in Zion (do they ever go elsewhere now that the war is over?), what's the point of existing besides existing? Ahh, complicated things...

So there it is. Some thoughts about God and the Matrix. Not much of a coherent argumentative post, but it's something interesting (at least I think so). Matrix buffs, feel free to add your own input.

And I promise I'll try to update the blog with increased frequency.

UPDATE: I meant to put this in there while I was writing but I forgot about it in the process. I know that The Matrix is just a movie. I'm not taking all of this as seriously as it might seem. I had an idea, and I explored it; that's all. (at least, that's what I'd like you to believe *wink*)

(H/T: Josh)

Theologians to Islam: let's all be friends

2007-12-02T21:42:00.000-05:00

Recently, many theologians have written an open letter to Muslims in response to a letter written from Muslims to Christians (138 signatories including clerics, scholars, and such) in October. The first letter was titled "A Common Word Between Us And You," which sought to prove that there is common ground between Christians and Muslims, especially when referring to the principles of

The Unity of God, the necessity of love for Him, and the necessity of love of the neighbour is thus the common ground between Islam and Christianity.

The second letter, headlined "Christian Leaders Ask For Muslim Forgiveness," sought to extend the spirit of love and unity:

In this response we extend our own Christian hand in return, so that together with all other human beings we may live in peace and justice as we seek to love God and our neighbours.

There's nothing wrong with living together in peace and justice. I believe that people of different faiths living together in peace and justice is a factor in keeping a just society stablized. However, the letter asks for "forgiveness." Forgiveness for what?

...We want to begin by acknowledging that in the past (e.g. in the Crusades) and in the present (e.g. in excesses of the “war on terror”) many Christians have been guilty of sinning against our Muslim neighbours. Before we “shake your hand” in responding to your letter, we ask forgiveness of the All-Merciful One and of the Muslim community around the world.

Now, I am no history scholar, but my attitude concerning the Crusades is that they aren't what today's world makes them out to be. It would be helpful if the theologians specifically named some injustices committed by Christians against Muslims instead of using a vague blanket statement.
It would also be helpful if they described what exactly they meant by "excesses of the 'war on terror.'" What excesses? What have Christians done to Muslims in our fight against Islamofascism that warrants an apology from numerous Christian leaders who purport to speak for all of Christendom, including Brian McLaren and Rick Warren?
In short, the answer, I believe, is "absolutely nothing." The fact is that our country was senselessly attacked by Muslim extremists on 9/11 and that we are right in fighting against them to ensure that such ideologues do not kill thousands more. The blanket statement of "excesses" sounds more like a loaded political statement than an admission of actual guilt.
And why do Christians ask for the forgiveness of the "All-Merciful One?" Whatever happened to "thou shalt have no gods but Me?"

If we can achieve religious peace between these two religious communities [Christianity and Islam], peace in the world will clearly be easier to attain.

I do not think that mere "religious peace," whatever that means, is going to stop extremists from blowing up mosques, flying airplanes into buildings, and calling for the death of British schoolteachers.

Surprisingly for many Christians, your letter considers the dual command of love to be the foundational principle not just of the Christian faith, but of Islam as well. That so much common ground exists-common ground in some of the fundamentals of faith-gives hope that undeniable differences and even the very real external pressures that bear down upon us can not overshadow the common ground upon which we stand together.

Yes... "love" is definitely the word that I think of when I read "Ye shall not attain unto righteousness until ye expend of that which ye love," and "God loveth the just dealers..."
I also think of the word "love" when I read this:

Fight in the way of Allah against those who fight against you, but begin not hostilities. Lo! Allah loveth not aggressors. And slay them wherever ye find them, and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out, for persecution is worse than slaughter. And fight not with them at the Inviolable Place of Worship until they first attack you there, but if they attack you (there) then slay them. Such is the reward of disbelievers. But if they desist, then lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful. And fight them until persecution is no more, and religion is for Allah. But if they desist, then let there be no hostility except against wrong-doers. (Koran 2:190-193)

and this:

Fight against such of those who have been given the Scripture as believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, and forbid not that which Allah hath forbidden by His messenger, and follow not the Religion of Truth, until they pay the tribute readily, being brought low. And the Jews say: Ezra is the son of Allah, and the Christians say: The Messiah is the son of Allah. That is their saying with their mouths. They imitate the saying of those who disbelieved of old. Allah (Himself) fighteth against them. How perverse are they! They have taken as lords beside Allah their rabbis and their monks and the Messiah son of Mary, when they were bidden to worship only One God. There is no God save Him. Be He Glorified from all that they ascribe as partner (unto Him)! Fain would they put out the light of Allah with their mouths, but Allah disdaineth (aught) save that He shall perfect His light, however much the disbelievers are averse. He it is Who hath sent His messenger with the guidance and the Religion of Truth, that He may cause it to prevail over all religion, however much the idolaters may be averse. (Koran 9:29-33)

and this too:

Now when ye meet in battle those who disbelieve, then it is smiting of the necks until, when ye have routed them, then making fast of bonds; and afterward either grace or ransom till the war lay down its burdens. That (is the ordinance). And if Allah willed He could have punished them (without you) but (thus it is ordained) that He may try some of you by means of others. And those who are slain in the way of Allah, He rendereth not their actions vain. (Koran 47:4)

But these are just minor details.

To avoid confusion: I am not saying that we should say "screw you" to Muslims or anything like that. However, I think that instead of writing long, sad letters and apologizing for wrongs that have not been committed, we should do as we have been commanded: love one another and treat each other as we ourselves want to be treated.
We should also not hold any illusions. The fact remains that terrorists have attacked our country and that they were Muslim extremists. These same extremists recently sentenced a 19-year old rape victim to 200 lashes and clamored for the death of a British schoolteacher whose only "crime" was to name a school teddy bear "Mohammad." Perhaps the Muslim community-at-large should be condemning these lunatics and apologizing for their actions because they seemingly are not what Muhammad would have them do. Apologies, however, only go so far.

The "apology letter" closes with this statement:

If we fail to make every effort to make peace and come together in harmony you correctly remind us that “our eternal souls” are at stake as well.

The statement refers to this fragment from the original letter:

And to those who nevertheless relish conflict and destruction for their own sake or reckon that ultimately they stand to gain through them, we say that our very eternal souls are all also at stake if we fail to sincerely make every effort to make peace and come together in harmony. (A Common Word)

Tell that to the extremists.

(this would not have been brought to my attention without reading Mark Steyn's priceless commentary on the Corner here and here.)

Some late-night strategeryizing

2007-11-15T22:09:00.000-05:00

full disclosure: I didn't watch the Democratic debate because I was too busy studying for an impending history quiz (you know, something actually worth my time, wink-wink nudge-nudge). I've been reading some of the liveblogging on The Corner though. Reading about some of the stuff that the Democratic folks have said and thinking back to stuff that's been said since the beginning of the election season, I have only one piece of advice for them:
You are not running against George W. Bush. George W. Bush is not running for President in 2008. However, please feel free to keep operating under that strategy, because it just might cost you the election.
That is all.

Clinton to 9/11 Conspiracy Theorists: "How dare you!"

2007-10-26T13:22:00.000-05:00

Full disclosure: I am not a fan of Bill Clinton. Never was. But he deserves kudos for putting these nutjobs in their place.
Context: At a fundraiser for his wife, some hecklers in the audience interrupted his speech by shouting that 9/11 was a "fraud" and "an inside job." He shut them down pretty well, as you can see in this brief clip.

Whiners Never Stop Whining

2007-10-15T12:32:00.000-05:00

Former Vice-President Al Gore has won the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of being "the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted [against climate change]." Good for him. Propogating alarmism certainly does have its benefits. But that's not the point right now. I'm referring to this bit in a CNN article that goes on about Gore's past career:

Gore served as vice president for eight years under President Bill Clinton. He won the Democratic presidential nomination in 2000 and ran against George W. Bush.

But he failed in his bid for the White House -- despite winning more votes than Bush -- when the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his challenge over voting results in Florida, securing an electoral college majority for Bush. [emphasis added]

Will they never let the 2000 election go? Gore lost fair and square, and he ended up getting the courts to order recounts so that he would end up winning after all. But we all know how that one turned out.

In the immortal words of Dana Carvey, "Live in the now!"

Kingdoms crash, collide...

2007-10-08T11:04:00.000-05:00

''We're going to keep on praising together. I am confident that we can create a Kingdom right here on Earth." -Barack Obama, speaking at Redemption World Outreach Center in Greenville, S.C.

With all of Greg Boyd's harping on the "evils" of governments and how Christians need to stay away from them entirely, and how Christians getting involved in politics is wrong, what's his take on Obama's social gospel?

One thing is for sure, the Dems are trying to party like it's 1899. But the thing is, their talk of "faith" mixed with their politics brings up a whole laundry list of moral contradictions... more on that later.

(Kudos to The Corner)

UPDATE: here's a great quote from John O'Sullivan, in a recent issue of National Review:

A whole series of political issues involves moral concerns and should arouse evangelical passions. The Christian Left is very much alive to this fact. Its leaders are currently urging evangelical (and other) Christians to oppose the GOP on "global warming" and related concerns deriving from the so-called "social gospel." Unfortunately, the social gospel and its more extreme Catholic equivalent, liberation theology, both make religion the handmaiden of politics rather than vice versa. They begin by urging us to adopt Christian principles of social justice but end by specifying that these require solutions rooted in socialist intervention. Their prescriptions will simply add to the number of issues dividing society along moral lines.

The Problem with Peace

2007-10-05T18:36:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking about peace lately. The word itself seems to be in fashion these days, especially with the multi-front war that our nation is fighting against Islamofascism (while our government stubbornly refuses to frame it in such terms, resorting to abstract and feel-good concepts like "terror"). There are the obvious anti-war protesters who hold rallies in our nation's streets, waving around signs that say "No Blood for Oil" and "Bring Our Troops Home." These are your run of the mill, Sixties-era demonstraters. Then you have the quiet types, the people who have lawn signs that say "Another Neighbor for Peace" and "War is not the Answer." Then, of course, there's the radicals who spit out charges against the President and all supporters of the war, labeling them "Nazis," "Profiteers," "Baby-killers," ad nauseam. All of these folks and more comprise the anti-war movement as we know it today. They say that they want peace... but what does that mean? If we simply lay down our weapons and open our arms to our enemies, won't they see that they're wrong to kill innocents and embrace us?
In short, no.
Such a simplistic view of peace demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the enemy as we know it. The enemy is a radical idealogy of unbridled hatred and its proponents, and these thugs have gone to great lengths to show their uncompromising hostility [v. 26-31] against who they perceive to be the 'infidel.' They'd like us to lay down our arms in a gesture of universal brotherhood; we'd be much easier targets. However, can one really believe that a contextually-undefined word like "peace" or "love" will sway the hearts and minds of terrorists who would fly airplanes into buildings, strap bombs to women and children and send them into urban centers, and make snuff films out of the beheading of journalists?
In the preceding graf, I said that "peace" is contextually-undefined. When we've got people crying out for peace in our current situation, what do they mean? Do they mean an immediate end to the conflict in Iraq, as in "a complete withdrawl of all U.S. military forces?" That would bring about a substantial increase in conflict and terror, because the forces against whom we are fighting (Al-Qaeda and their allies) would come upon the country with renewed vigor and bloodlust once we left. In this case, "peace" really means "genocide," which makes me think of Psalm 35:20... "For they do not speak of peace, but against the quiet ones of the land they plot treacheries..."
Or do they mean an increased effort to diplomatically engage the enemy with talks of compromise? In the companion book to the Limited Edition of U2's magnum opus "How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb," one of the band members writes:

We expect little of our politicians and what little we expect is that they stick to their guns, they shouldn't. They should put them down and go talk to the enemy.

If the mindset of our enemies was different, this might be possible. But as long as our enemies hate us simply because we are free, we are Westerners/Americans, and not subscribers to their radical idealogy, this will never happen. Nonviolent protest is also a no-go, and don't hearken back to the days of Gandhi and how he caused a revolution in India: he believed that any form of violence against the enemy is wrong, even when you're a Jew trying to escape a concentration camp.
As Mark Steyn put it in his column in the March 5th issue of National Review,

"We are confronting violence with violence, when what we need is nonviolent conflict resolution that's binding on all sides"--i.e.... well, i.e., whatever. Half the time these assertions are such enervated soft-focus blurs of passivity, there's nothing solid enough to latch on to and respond to. But when, as they often do, they cite Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi, I point out that we're not always so fortunate as to find ourselves up against such relatively benign enemies as British imperial administrators or even American racist rednecks. King and Gandhi's strategies would not have been effective against fellows who gun down classrooms os Russian schoolchildren, or self-detonate at Muslim weddings in Amman, or behead you live on camera and then release it as a snuff video, or assassinate politicians and as they're dying fall to the ground and drink their blood off the marble. Come to that, King and Gandhi's strategies would not have been effective against the prominent British Muslim who in a recent debate at Trinity College, Dublin, announced that the Prophet Muhammad's message to infidels was "I come to slaughter all of you." Good luck with the binding nonviolent conflict resolution there.

You may accuse me of oversimplifying things when I say that the enemy hates us because we are free. Osama himself has stated the contrary, right? Let's see...

We fight you because we are free and because we want freedom for our nation. When you squander our security, we squander yours.

Instead of murdering innocent people, why don't they seek peaceful negotiations with us, seeing as they are the ones bringing forth complaints against us? They're just trying to keep our nose out of their business, right? (If you take mass murderers at their word, I guess so...)
Their business can aptly be described as "Murder, Inc." They are the ones who want to bring the world under sharia law at any cost because that is what their idealogy commands.

Or we could define peace as "peace for everyone," which is what Greg Boyd put forth in a radio interview last year (I don't have a link yet, I'm working on it...). The problem with "peace for everyone" is that this means peace for America and the rest of the civilized world and peace for the terrorists simultaneously. Peace for us means being safe from terrorist attacks. Peace for them means either subjugation of us under sharia or us all being killed. These ideas of peace cannot coexist because they are mutually exclusive.
Running in the same vein is the idea that says, "well, if we give the terrorists what they want, they'll leave us alone, right?" What do the terrorists want? They want us to stop supporting Israel, stop promoting democracy in the Middle East, and a whole host of other things. What would happen if we did as they asked? Israel would find itself under increased attack and possible destruction (depending on your viewpoint of the end times, etc.), the terrorists would crush any hopes for democracy that any nation in the Middle East has and convert them all to radical Muslim theocracies (which, if applied to the entire Middle East, would serve as a catapult for violent takeover of other nations). Another word for giving evildoers what they want is "appeasement," which is what Neville Chamberlain tried in the Thirties; giving Nazi Germany permission to annex Czechoslovakia and use that as a springboard for invading Poland. Funny thing is, the whole invasion thing wasn't brought up at the meeting... Hitler promised that if he was given Czechoslovakia, he would stop there. The powers-that-be took him at his word and acceded to his demands. And as David Zucker said, "we all know how that turned out." (New antiwar slogan: "Put the peace back in appeasement")
While war is never truly hoped for or wanted, sometimes it is what is necessary to ensure the safety and security of a nation. The alternatives of inaction, appeasement, or compromise would be much worse than the sacrifice being paid, for all three would result in widespread destruction and chaos. In America today, we live in a relative peace in the sense that we are safe and secure from the enemy, and the only reason that we have that is because we took the fight to the enemy's doorstep instead of letting him past our threshold.

Now, am I mocking or condescending to those who are against the war and hope for peace? Not in the least. I too hope for peace, but I also believe that the only true peace that we can achieve is peace through victory. In our present situation, peace by any other means is suicide or worse.

The end of history

2007-10-03T14:08:00.000-05:00

According to a study released on September 18, 2007 by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, students at the most expensive (and prestigious) colleges and universities in the nation are graduating with less knowledge of history than they had when they entered as freshmen. This is bad. Even worse is the response of a leading academic, a history professor at Columbia (whose textbooks I used in American History last semester and the continuation of that class this semester), Eric Foner:

"The study of history has changed enormously," Mr. Foner said. "It's become much more broad and diverse. The study of facts about particular battles has diminished, but maybe students are in a better position to answer questions about the abolition of slavery."

How has the study of history changed enormously, when did this happen, why did it happen, and why is this supposed to be a good thing, sir? The study of history has traditionally been what happened, why it happened... you know, the five W's and the H (gotta love grade-school for that). How that could become "much more broad and diverse" is beyond me, especially seeing as I'm a history student. How has studying battles become less important than, say, the abolition of slavery, in Foner's words? Battles are important because they shape history. The Battle of Thermopylae showed that a handful of men could stand against one of the biggest armies in the world and make them tremble. It is important to understand that because it gives us an insight into the bravery of determined men (and we can draw parallels from that to current situations, as is the nature of history). Battles during the Revolutionary War are important to understand because they comprised a good deal of America's war for independence. And it is vital that we understand the battles that occur in modern history because they influence us and shape our beliefs and opinions about our situations. Now, am I saying that we all need to memorize every nitpicking detail about every battle in history? Of course not; that would be an exercise in futility because rote memorization in and of itself doesn't help us. What we need is to have an understanding of what has been fought, why, etc. because our perception and grasp of the past and present will help us in where we are going (and possibly understand why). It doesn't help that we've got "history teachers" like Foner who reduce the value and necessity of understanding history (and how are we going to understand if we are not taught to?) to wishy-washy simplifications of "the abolition of slavery." How can we properly understand the abolition of slavery if half of the students in our institutions of higher learning cannot attribute the phrase "we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal" to the Declaration of Independence, whose language of equality and freedom was echoed by the abolitionists? (New York Sun)

The chairman of the history department at Princeton University, Jeremy Adelman, said that providing students with a foundation in American history and governance should not be the sole mission of any institution of higher education. "You have to ask what is the social function of the university?" Mr. Adelman said. "If you're in chemical engineering, why study history? Should we require students to study history?"

Here's a little bit of common sense for Mr. Adelman: American students need to know and understand this country's history in order to be informed citizens as well as an educated populace of the country in which they live. It's called 'general education.'

In the name of "broadening" and "diversifying" the study of history, we've reduced it to the study of nothing. How is this generation supposed to lead, to educate, to take up the reins of the future?

(P.S. I'm experimenting with a new look and feel for the blog. Let me know if there are any issues, whether of style or readability or access that I need to address.)

September 11th

2007-09-11T09:49:00.000-05:00

"These acts shattered steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve." -President George W. Bush

On this day, it is vital that we remember the atrocities that occurred six years ago. We must never forget the senseless brutality of these attacks and we must never let the memory of the dead fade away.

Of course, there are those who politicize this hallowed day and exploit it to further their own propaganda and extremist agenda.
The fools who make statements like this might think themselves to be clever at least and patriots at worst. They are neither clever nor patriots. They are mindless sheep engaging in vitriolic fantasy. Acts such as these do nothing to commemorate the importance of this day, and they certainly do not respect the 3,000 dead. This detracts from the gravity of this day by exploiting the attacks to libel the President and spit on the graves of the fallen.

Remember this day for what it truly is: the six years passed since America was brutally and senselessly attacked by cowards. May God continue to bless this great land, and may we seek His face through it all.

Pro patria.

God's Warriors?

2007-09-03T18:50:00.000-05:00

While exploring the depths of the Internet, I went from a search for the meaning of open theism, to Greg Boyd, to CNN's recent documentary titled "God's Warriors." I came across one particularly troubling note (besides the whole open theism thing, which basically says that God can't see into the future... hmph, not much of a God then is He...):

On his blog, Boyd refers to "God's Warriors" as "simply fantastic... well done, balanced, and over all enlightening." It's too bad that the three-part series (one part each for the world's three biggest religions) was anti-Semitic, warm and fuzzy towards Islamic terrorists, and likened conservative Christians to the Taliban. Then again, knowing Boyd's animosity towards conservative Christians, maybe calling the series "balanced" and "enlightening" isn't too much of a stretch for him.
Among other things, here's what happened in parts of the series:

-Muslims were portrayed as victims while Christians and Jews were likened to radical Islamic extremists (Wikipedia, The Dawn Patrol, NewsBusters)
-Reporter Christine Amanpour, while interviewing Ron Luce, likens an enforced 'modest' dress code (skirts of a certain length, etc.) to the teachings of the Taliban; and various other requirements of the Teen Mania campus to "totalitarian regimes" (NewsBusters, along with video [Windows Media] of this portion of the interview)
-Describes all supporters of Jewish settlers as "right-wing" and "fundamentalist" (hmm... those couldn't possibly be the same buzzwords that the media uses for conservatives) (NewsBusters, Culture and Media Institute)

Not to mention that the "God's Christian Warriors" segment focused mainly on dissenters from and critics of Christian conservatives, which is a crowd that includes... Greg Boyd, who believes that Christians should not be involved in politics at all (unless, of course, they're advancing "radical social activism," which is another way of saying "liberal politics.").

This is extremely problematic to me, and not only because a pastor and leader lends credence to a propaganda 'documentary' that is anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, and anti-conservative. What is particularly troubling to me is that Boyd writes so lavishly about the series, offering nothing but good things about it to the reader, while the series itself was nothing more than a tool of propaganda designed to give the audience a heaping helping of the mainstream liberal view of Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Zionism, and terrorism (which you can read in the various links and references that I have posted). I have to wonder, what were Jewish and Christian supporters of Israel thinking when they watched this series?

Pastor Boyd, your church has lost 20% of its congregation (as of July 2006) due to your refusal to support conservative political causes (Wikipedia). You assert that Christians should never get involved in politics because "Jesus never did" (unless they're politics that you endorse, perhaps?). You are stabbing our Jewish brothers and sisters in the back with your wholehearted endorsement of this piece of propaganda.

In the closing paragraph on his blog entry dealing with the series, he has this to say to the folks at CNN:
"Thank you Christiane, Mike, and the whole CNN team for giving me a chance to contrast the Jesus of the New Testament with the ugly, politicized Jesus of far too much of American Evangelicalism."

No, Greg: You contrast your own politicized Jesus with the conservative straw man Jesus manufactured by the Left. Cui bono?

the end of history

2007-08-04T21:21:00.000-05:00

No, this isn't a review of Francis Fukuyama. I'd just like to share a few thoughts on a travesty that is occuring.
A book titled 'Alms for Jihad' has been destroyed in every convceivable sense of the word. In the face of a lawsuit, Cambridge University Press has confiscated all available copies of the book and ordered them to be pulped (or at least is in the process of doing so). Why?
Because the book's content (from what I hear, it documented Islamic terrorism's network of 'charitable organization' fronts) offended someone, and he decided to take it to court.
History is being wiped from the face of the earth. Literally.
(read The Corner for updates)

There's crime... and then there's hate crime. [UPDATED]

2007-05-01T11:24:00.000-05:00

(this originally appeared in Monday's issue of The Spectator. However, I was greatly dissatisfied with the way that the article turned out in terms of editing and grammar, so I polished the article up, added a new graf in response to a commenter, and other such things.)

Recently, Senators Ted Kennedy and Gordon Smith introduced a piece of legislation called the “Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007,” aka “The Matthew Shepard Act.” This bill proposes that the Justice Department be given authority to prosecute crimes committed based upon a person’s “actual or perceived gender or gender identity.” The reasoning behind this bill, defined in Section 2, is that bias-motivated violence “poses a serious national problem,” “disrupts the tranquility and safety of communities,” and bias-motivated violent crimes damages not only the victim (and the victim’s family and friends), but “the community sharing the traits that caused the victim to be selected” as well.
Let’s take a look at the claim that violent hate crime is a “serious national problem.” In 2005, only 2,150 of the 1,390,695 violent crimes reported to the FBI were bias-motivated, constituting less than one percent of total reported violent crimes. Judging from these data it is hard to find the logic in the bill’s statement.
Another problematic statement in the bill is that part about “the tranquility and safety of communities” being disrupted by bias-motivated crimes. It is true that such crimes are threats to the security and safety of society, but the same thing is true of all other crimes. Theft, rape, willful property damage, murder… all crime is a threat to our security. Crimes committed against a person based upon his/her “actual or perceived gender or gender identity” possess no quality that makes them worse than a crime committed against a person for any other reason, and to increase the legal weight of a crime because of said bias is a direct violation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Subjective definition also plays a key role in the bill. The bill seeks to make it possible for bias-motivated crimes against someone’s “gender identity” to be prosecuted. Things like religion, color, and national origin fall under the same umbrella of government authority. However, the difference between “gender identity” and those other terms is that religion, color, etc. are all objectively defined clearly and unambiguously. “Gender identity,” according to the bill, is defined as “actual or perceived gender-related characteristics.” Such open-ended language leaves the term subjective, which allows plenty of room for interpretation, not to mention abuse.
Speaking of abuse, what constitutes a hate crime? We already know that violence is covered, but so is “hate speech,” which is defined as “speech that attacks a person or group on the basis of race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation.” This definition can be (and is) liberally applied to anything said or written that is potentially offensive, such as Bob referring to Jane as a “dyke,” or a pastor preaching that homosexuality is wrong. More often than not, it seems that “hate speech” is judged not by if it is truly derogatory, but by whose feelings it hurts. The issue is compounded further when people falsify claims of hate crimes and baselessly accuse others of hate speech solely on the grounds that they “have been offended.” Such behavior diminishes the severity of truly defaming speech and can go so far as to violate the First Amendment rights of others, ironically.
Needless to say, this bill serves no real purpose other than to give special attention to a subjectively defined group and make one group of crimes worse than other violations of the law. The bill is named after Matthew Shepard, a college student in Wyoming who was murdered in 1998… and he was murdered because he was gay. Right?
Wrong. In 2004, ABC News interviewed Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, the two men who killed Shepard, and it was revealed that the two had been strung out on a methamphetamine binge previously and needed money so that they could continue their habit. On the night of the murder, McKinney was going to rob a local drug dealer of $10,000 worth of meth. This plan fell through, however, and the two found themselves at a local bar, where they encountered Shepard. Since Shepard was well-dressed, McKinney told ABC, it appeared that he had a lot of money; money that McKinney and his partner could take. To cut a long story short, the three men left the bar with Shepard under the pretense that the other two were giving him a ride home, drove to the outskirts of the city, and a man was murdered. Matthew Shepard was not murdered because he was gay; in the words of the lead investigator, “what it came down to really is drugs and money and two punks that were out looking for it.” (it is worth noting that the two murderers had had their share of violence prior to the murder, purchase required to view full article)
Now, there is dispute as to whether or not ABC’s story is accurate. On the Spectator’s website, someone left a comment saying that ABC misrepresented Judy Shepard (Matthew’s mother) and the police chief of the time, one Dave O’Malley. O’Malley has since stated that 20/20 (the program that ran the story) misrepresented him and that they had gotten it wrong about, well, just about everything. I realize that hanging this whole story up on one 20/20 program (that, according to the commenter, has not been corroborated, although there are those who believe it nonetheless) may seem to be a profoundly bad idea. However, if 20/20 truly did get the whole story wrong, then someone can come out and thoroughly debunk the story with evidence, not flimsy claims from the former police chief and Shepard’s friends that go along the lines of “I know in my heart that Matt was killed because he was gay.” That is hardly concrete. If the story is proven wrong, then I’m wrong for having made a claim based upon that story, and I will retract what I said and apologize. But it almost seems as if the gay-rights crowd is upset because someone is trying to provide a different angle on the murder. Why would they be? Matthew Shepard was used as a martyr for the gay cause (if you want to frame it in such terms), and it is entirely possible that his death was exploited to serve other purposes, like passing unconstitutional laws.
Regardless of motive, though, Matthew Shepard is dead. It doesn’t matter if it was a fit of drug-propelled rage that killed him or if it was a gay-hating stance that did it. One motive is not worse than another.
In 2000, the New York State Legislature had this to say about bias-motivated crimes: “Hate crimes do more than threaten the safety and welfare of all citizens. They inflict on victims incalculable physical and emotional damage and tear at the very fabric of free society.” The truth is that all crimes threaten the safety and welfare of all citizens, and that all violations of the law tear at the fabric of free society. We have laws against wrongs like murder and theft that apply to all citizens regardless of any quality they possess. Giving special preferences to any group is unjust and unconstitutional, and any legislation that would accomplish such needs to be rejected without delay.

UPDATE: in response to this commenter who said...
"Some people are confused as to what does or does not constitute a hate crime, and why such crimes should be handled differently from "ordinary" crimes.

It's a hate crime if a victim is targeted because of their identity as a member of a particular group. Such crimes are more egregious than "ordinary" crimes because the intended victim is not only the targeted individual, but also all members of that group."

-I have a serious qualm with the term 'hate crime.' After all, what else motivates someone to commit a crime? There's 'love crimes' as well, right? Uh... no.
If a victim is targeted because of his or her group status, it's still a crime. There is nothing special or morally relevant about it. If Billy Bob kills Sally solely on the grounds that she's a lesbian, it's still a murder. There should be no harsher penalty for the murder just because Sally was a lesbian. If she happened to be heterosexual, should the penalty be lighter because she didn't belong to a minority group? If Russell McKinney was really telling the truth about the 'drug rage' motive, does that mean that his sentence should be commuted?

New Article

2007-04-30T10:56:00.001-05:00

Ditch the "hate crime" bill

Your tax dollars at work [UPDATED, again]

2007-04-04T14:27:00.000-05:00

Here at the good ol' University of Wisconsin- Eau Claire, we have an 'alternative press' called The Flip Side. The organization behind this publication is a University-recognized (but not affiliated, gotta keep that one in mind) student group that gets its funding from Student Senate, advertisements, and donations. Anyone, meaning any student, faculty member, or community member can submit articles for the paper. Now, while I do not usually read the bi-weekly because it is a stomping ground for radical liberalism (the current issue has an article decrying the practice of banning children's books due to sexually loaded material, a short piece on how evil the war in Iraq is, a piece on how awesome the counterculture of the 60's was and how people today are just puppets of the system, and the 'spirituality' column today is a piece on how Islamic fundamentalism and the Christian Right have 'striking similarities.' there's diversity of opinion for you), I had heard talk during my math class about the cover, and when I say talk, I mean reactions such as "Oh my GOD! Look at that shit!" So, my curiosity piqued, I decided to pick up my free issue on my way out of Hibbard Hall. I looked at the cover, and I saw this:
(Warning: A good argument can be made that the below image is pornographic. You have been warned.)

In case you can't see the image too well, it's a woman who is presumably totally naked. You get a wonderful shot of her from the mid-torso on down, with a very relevant area pixelated out.
Now, remember that shtick earlier about how this is a publication recognized by the University? Of course, the powers-that-be aren't affiliated with the paper, which means that any opinion therein is not endorsed by the University, blah blah blah.
But, these folks presumably get University funding, which may very well include taxpayer dollars (I speak with uncertainty because I have not requested such information from the U by means of invoking FOIA. Maybe I'll try doing that and get back to you, or you can find out yourself. In any case, someone's going to find out, hopefully). Think about it, Joe Citizen. Your money is helping to produce trash like this, in the name of 'diversity of opinion,' 'free speech,' and what have you.

I realize that in modern times (maybe this is nothing new, but it's new to me), universities can get away with publishing sex columns (Northern Arizona University's student newspaper published a column on February 12, 2004 that apparently gave a detailed how-to on oral sex, but I can't find the actual article on the paper's website) and other risque material. Even if they can get away with it, that doesn't make it right, and it only goes to cast shame on our purported institutions of higher learning, regardless of whether or not these rags get state funding.
(information on The Flip Side taken from the FAQ page of their website)

UPDATE: I emailed the editor-in-chief of TFS regarding this photo, and I just got a reply back from him. It states:
"Sean, If you look closely at the inside cover [the inside cover was a horizontally reversed image of the front cover, sans pixelation -ed.], you will notice a lack of genitalia as well as a leg seam indicating that this "naked woman" was, in fact, a mannequin with about the same anatomical correctness of a Barbie. The pixilation of the genital region was intended as a bit of social commentary regarding the nature of censorship (i.e. censoring something that deserved no censorship). I guess it must have been a bit subtle, as you apparently missed the wry humor behind it. FYI, we are funded with student seg fee dollars allocated by the Student Senate Finance Commission and approved by the Chancellor; I would encourage you to contact them if you feel strongly that we are inappropriately funded. Thank you for your input, [name withheld]"
Okay, so the image technically may have not been a porno. Even so, it was tasteless and vulgar. Wry humor? Give me a break, and give me my share of the student seg fees back.

SECOND UPDATE: I suppose that, for posterity's sake, I should post my original email to the editor. (By the way, the Flip Side deemed it necessary to devote an entire page to my email, the editor's reply, and the photographer's reply.)
"The vulgarity of the image of the naked woman on the cover of the latest Flip Side blatantly disregards the fact that pornographic trash like this has no place in taxpayer-funded University publications. If you have a strong affection for smut, feel free to imbibe as much as you want, but only when you personally are footing the bill, and are not parading it around in the public square. Even if this press is not funded by tax dollars, it is no less disgusting, and the fact that student organizations recognized by the University can print an image like this on the cover of their bi-weekly and get away with it is shameful beyond measure."

A bit heavy-handed, am I? Possibly. Do bear in mind that the black and white lo-res image really looked like a naked woman... and as we find out from the photographer...
"Sean, I am responding in regards to your reaction to the latest cover of the Flip Side. As the photographer, I shot this image in a studio using a mannequin, a ceramic antique piggy bank, and an empty champagne bottle. The original photo does not have the blur over the mannequin's groin and there is a red hue to the photo (the color associated with love, lust, passion, etc...). I'm very interested in taboos in our society and it is my representation of how alcohol has that magical effect to help us make decisions regarding sex [it's funny how that was your intent, because to the casual observer, it looked like a naked lady, a piggy bank, and a bottle. they must be pretty darn stupid to not get the message about alcohol. -ed.] That is as far as I went with the concept and the rest is left for the viewer's imagination. It is by no means intended to be smutty or pornographic, and by the tone of your e-mail I can only guess that you only briefly glanced at it and immediately reacted it with distate. [FYI, I wrote about three drafts of my email to the editor, I looked over the cover multiple times before writing said email, and from talking with other people about it, I wasn't the only one who thought that it was porn. -ed.] I urge you to look more closely at the Flip Side and you'll see that on the inside cover (where the table of contents is located) the photo is printed in its original state, and you can clearly see the line where the mannequin's leg is attached. The blur was cleverly added during the editing process with the knowledge that it would be risque move, and its intention was to make one take a closer look within the publication."

Mannequin or not, it's still vulgar and disgusting. I may stand corrected on the count that it wasn't an actual human being, but as far as the rest of my story goes, I'm sticking to it, as Mr. Doverspike would say.

thoughts and prayers

2007-03-29T21:23:00.000-05:00

Please take a minute today to remember White House Press Secretary Tony Snow in your prayers. His cancer has resurfaced, and from what I hear, things aren't looking extraordinarily bright. On the same note, please remember John and Elizabeth Edwards and their family as Mrs. Edwards has been struck with cancer as well.

My fifteen minutes of fame

2007-03-08T21:16:00.000-05:00

My recent article on the sexual revolution garnered a mention from the illustrious Dawn Eden (she's one of my most favorite people of all time). I also plugged her book in said article. Read her book. Do it. Now.
(update: if you click the link to Miss Eden's blog, you'll be taken to the March archive page. Her mention of my article is about 3/4's of the way down the page.)

In pace requiescat

2007-02-28T16:29:00.000-05:00

Army Girl: Well Said Soldier.. RIP

I read stories like this, and I have a conflict of thoughts and emotions. One emotion is sorrow for the fallen, sorrow for the family and friends. Another is respect for the bravery and willingness to offer the ultimate sacrifice for freedom (reverence falls under this umbrella as well). Once these pass, I feel an anger burning inside of me. Anger towards the terrorist or insurgent who snuffed out the life of a good man or woman (a title that terrorists neither have nor hope to ever have). Anger towards the network of evildoers who plot to kill as many innocent people as they possibly can. Anger towards the peaceniks and hippies who blindly oppose war because they don't believe that anything in this world is worth fighting for. Anger towards the bastards who spit on our troops, call them 'baby-killers,' and attack their honor. Anger towards the orgy of spineless monkeys commonly referred to as the Senate Democrats who will do everything in their limited power to stop the war in Iraq and thereby make a mockery of the blood, sweat, tears, and lives spent by our brave men and women. Anger towards the dumb white kids on campus whose strongest argument against Iraq is 'it was a mistake, end this fucking war!' Anger towards the liberals who oppose the war, well, just because, and don't think that fighting for country is honorable.
Then I take a look at myself.
In my junior or senior year (I don't recall which), I went to the recruiting office with interest in joining the Marines. Why did I want to? Because I wanted to fight for my country. I believed that our cause is just, our motives pure, and our fight well worth fighting.
Ultimately, I didn't join. Now, I'm flat-footed, and I don't believe that the USMC takes kindly to flat-footed folk. Regardless, I went through the process of getting more information about the Corps, talking to the recruiter, and I left the office with a lot of things to think about. I never got another phone call from them.
Unless I'm completely missing something, I could still serve in the military, just not the Marines. It could be well within my power to leave this school and join the fight against terrorism. But I haven't decided to, and it's unlikely that I'm going to. Why? Because it's not what I think I want to do, and I don't think that I possess the capacity to do it.
So when I read stories of heroism, and fallen soldiers, and Medals of Honor, a patriotic sorrowful respect wells up in me. At the same time, I feel guilty for choosing the life of a dumb white kid going to a somewhat dumb liberal school for a yet-unspecified degree that ultimately doesn't matter. I feel disgusted at myself for wussing out of the defining war of our time. I feel tempted to hate myself because of my stupid weakness, cowardice, and perceived inadequacy. I don't go so far as to hate myself and curse my spirit for any of the aforementioned reasons, but sometimes, it sounds like a pretty good idea... and it makes sense to think that I'm not as much of a man as the warriors overseas.
Regardless of internal conflict, I pray for our brave men and women, and I pray that this fight will be finished, with the forces of good victorious.
May God be with the friends and family of Mark Daily. And may his sacrifice not be forgotten.
May God also be with all of our soldiers, and may He continue to bless this great land.
(addendum, 03.01.2007: this is a bit more of a personal post, and I try to refrain from posting that kind of thing in these pages, seeing as this isn't my personal blog. But, it's here, and I'm probably not going to move it, so there it is.)
(addendum, 03.03.2007: I've just been informed that I'm not able to join any branch of the military on account of my extreme flat-footedness.)

Of Washington outsiders

2007-02-09T01:14:00.000-05:00

The Democrats control Congress. The nation is reeling from a controversial war. The administration is recovering from scandal. The sitting President is unpopular with his party.
A Washington outsider and ‘reformer’ runs in the Presidential election. He’s a professed Christian, an honest guy, and runs a campaign based on trust, compassion, fairness… some of the values that make our country tick.
Do any of these things sound familiar?

In 1976, America was still recovering from the Vietnam War. Watergate was a fresh wound in the people’s minds, and then-President Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon proved to be a political disaster. Conservatives were unhappy with Ford’s lack of aid to South Vietnam (which collapsed in 1975). The Helsinki Accords, which Ford signed in 1975, implicitly accepted and recognized Soviet control of Eastern Europe.
The American people felt distrustful of their government. Although Ford had no connection whatsoever to Watergate, he had been Vice-President under Nixon (after the resignation of Spiro Agnew). He had also pardoned Nixon (in the name of ‘healing the nation’).
The people wanted a change. They wanted someone whom they could trust.
Enter Jimmy Carter.
He was a relatively unknown guy, having only held three terms in office: from 1962-1966 as State Senator of Georgia (representing the fourteenth district), and from 1970-1974 as Governor of Georgia. Politically, he was somewhat of a novice. But the media gave favorable coverage to him and his campaign, and he went from obscurity to Presidency in nine months (Wikipedia).
During his term as President, Carter increased military aid by 80% to the dictatorial regime of Indonesia, resulting in nearly 200,000 deaths of East Timorese people (Indonesia had invaded East Timor previously). Morocco had invaded Western Sahara a year after Carter became President, and its regime under King Hassan II also received aid. Turkey seized the northern 34% of the Republic of Cyprus in 1974 (Wikipedia)… and they also received aid from Carter, the premise being that if the U.S. resumed giving aid to Turkey, they would withdraw. Needless to say, Turkey never withdrew, and retains de facto control of the region to this day. (Commondreams.org)
Other notable events during the Carter administration were:
-A record inflation high of 21.5% when Carter left office
-Thumb-twiddling over the energy crisis of 1979 (he advised the nation to bring an extra blanket to bed… how comforting)
-A half-hearted attempt to rescue the 52 hostages taken during the Iran hostage crisis (Initially, Carter attempted diplomatic measures with Iran, then a rescue mission in April 1980 that ended in failure and the deaths of eight people) (Bartleby.com)

Now, on the surface, a ‘Washington outsider’ may seem attractive to the American people, because the corridors of power haven’t seduced him (it would appear that way, at least). It's a lovely sentiment, but realistically speaking, such an outsider really can't capably hold the most powerful office in the world.
Does our nation really want another Jimmy Carter?

Insanus est.

2007-02-08T15:45:00.001-05:00

Crimes like this are the reason for the death penalty.

Would you like a spine with that?

2007-02-01T10:34:00.000-05:00

Check this out: a Baptist church in Sydney, Australia has put up a sign that says 'Jesus Loves Osama.'
There's a grain of truth in that statement, but I have to agree with the Anglican archbishop of Sydney: "What we've got to say is 'Jesus doesn't approve of Osama.' It makes it sound like, 'Oh, Osama's doing the right thing.'"

A real post? Fuggedabatit...

2007-01-25T21:45:00.000-05:00

What does it mean to be devout in the faith? Help me out on this one.

Some new stuff...

2007-01-24T08:43:00.000-05:00

Hmm. There haven't been any visitors in a month. To this I attribute the fact that I haven't written anything decent in a while. But don't lose heart. Stay tuned... I'll come up with something soon.

Sic semper tyrannis, II

2006-12-29T22:30:00.000-05:00

It is being reported that Saddam Hussein has been executed.
May the families of his victims find peace in knowing that he is dead.

It is never an occasion to rejoice when someone dies, even if the someone in question was very evil (as Saddam was). Justice is sobering. Undoubtedly, Saddam got what he deserved, and personally, I'm not going to lose any sleep over the event. Vive le justice.
NRO has a plethora of editorials about the execution. They are well worth reading.
And for what it is worth, here is a video (I am not sure if it is the definitive "the") of the execution. I provide this link purely for historical purposes. It's a video of a hanging, so the whole "graphic subject matter" warning comes with the territory.

Saddam Hussein, 04.28.1937-12.30.3006
In pace requiescat? Doubtful. In the words of Conor McManus (The Boondock Saints), "Evil men: dead men."

Christmas

2006-12-14T13:10:00.000-05:00

Mark Shea on Christmas
(Kudos to the Corner)