Educating Gabby, Part II

Still insensed, I wrote this with more ammunition...

I thought it would be good to repost them for the upcoming election to remind everyone what happened back then.

Educating Gabby, Part I

This is a repost of something I wrote last year in the furvor of the health care debate...

A Puritan Prayer

"When Thou wouldst guide me I control myself

When thou wouldst be sovereign I rule myself

When thou wouldst take care of me I suffice myself

When I should depend on thy providing I supply myself

When I should submit to thy providence I follow my will

When I should study, love, honour, trust thee, I serve myself;

I fault and correct thy laws to suit myself,

Instead of thee I look to man's approbation,

And am by nature an idolater.

Lord, it is my chief design to bring my heart back to thee.

Convince me that I cannot be my own god, or make myself happy,

Nor my own Christ to restore my joy,

Nor my own Spirit to teach, guide, rule me.

Help me to see that grace does this by providential affliction,

For when my credit is god thou dost cast me lower,

When riches are my idol thou dost wing them away,

When pleasure is my all thou dost turn it into bitterness.

Take away my roving eye, curious ear, greedy appetite, lustful heart;

Show me that none of these things

Can heal a wounded conscience,

Or support a tottering frame,

Or uphold a departing spirit.

Then take me to the cross and leave me there."

 

Arthur Bennett, ed., "The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 1975),91  -- taken from  "The Owner's Manual for Christians" by Charles Swindoll", 2009, p119.

Charles Swindoll's book is excellent, refreshing, and cleansing.  I highly recommend it to anyone…even non-Christians.

Holiness and purity are the rarest of things and wonderful to behold.  You feel cleaner just reading this book.  Truly a blessing.

Bought With A Price

"Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body" 1Corinthians 6:18-20

I was reading last week about this new diet regimen, developed by A.W.T. Simeons quite some time ago, and ran across this little piece that struck a nerve:

A careful enquiry into what may have brought on such an attack almost invariably reveals that it is preceded by a strong unresolved sex-stimulation, the higher centers of the brain having blocked primitive diencephalic instinct gratification. The pressure is then let off through another primitive channel, which is oral gratification.

I realized that most of us are being stimulated sexually all day long every day simply by living in modern day America. You cannot drive or walk around in the city, or watch TV, or listen to the radio, or even go to work for some people, without being exposed to countless sexually suggestive, if not actually explicit imagery…everywhere.

This one is at the bus stop that I drive by every day on my way home from work.
There are countless ones just like it all around town on bus stops, billboards, storefronts at retail stores, etc. If you walk into a nice office where women dress up, they often will wear beautiful, but very sexually suggestive clothing. The universities, especially in the warmer parts of the country are filled with half-dressed young ladies wander around campus.

Television? Forget it. It seems that every single show is filled with gorgeous women, wearing form-fitting, and revealing clothing and most prime time shows have, at the very least, a tacit understanding and acknowledgement of sexual activity, if not a very plain reference or display.

Movies are no better unless you carefully watch only animated movies for the little ones. Now this is just the passive stuff. If you actually go looking, there is much, much more from simple celebrity gawk sites all the way to porn on demand internet sites.

My hypothesis is this:

As sexual imagery has become more and more available to us as a nation and technology has made it easier and quicker to access and as advertisements and the popular culture has supposedly become "desensitized" to it, I argue that we haven't. Not only that, but I would be interested if there was a way to track obesity in our nation as a function of the quantity of sexual imagery passively and even actively available to the general public.

My hypothesis, is that even people that are in sexually gratifying and healthy monogamous relationships, can be and probably are, sexually-stimulated in a way that cannot possibly be resolved often enough or complete enough. In turn, people turn to eating, drinking and smoking in an unhealthy manner.

As a very unscientific piece of evidence, how about tracking the size of a proper drink that one orders at a restaurant or a convenience store? A cup, a measely 8 ounces, is called a cup, because that was how much one supposedly drank at a sitting in polite company. Sure, you might have a second or third cup over the course of a meal, but that is only 16 or 24 ounces. Go to a convenience store and observe the sizes of the soda fountain drink cups available. There are some stores that you won't even find one as small as 24 ounces. The standard seems to be 44 ounces, with some stores having a 64 ounce option. That is over a half a gallon.

Now consider that a person working might down this half gallon drink once or twice a day and consider that this might be Dr. Pepper, Coke or some other soft drink, and we have the source of our obesity problem. The source of that desire to continually put junk in your mouth? Bebe. Not to put all of this on Bebe, but you get what I mean.

I think I've always understood the concept that what you put into your body directly contributed to your health and quality of life. I've never gotten into the drug scene and don't like taking medication of any kind. But I overeat and now have gotten into a rut of over-eating junk.

After reading Simeon's essay, however, I think I now believe that consumption is not only what you eat and drink, but what you listen to and what you watch, and I think it affects your health in a physical way that I had not considered before.

And wouldn't it be the perfect truth if the false promise of gratification by consuming large quantities of sexual imagery, results in obesity and a reduced ability to function sexually?

Isn't it the truth that chasing after worldly delights always ends badly?

What if by keeping your mind on purer stuff, was the cure for obesity? Smoking? Alcoholism? I guess obeying God's commands can actually be good for you after all.

Texas Board of Education Revisited...

My friend over at Dove Mountaineer, replied to my question I posted to him in this post. As I expected, he had a lot to say. Thank you!

When acquainted with a real expert, it is a pleasure to get a good perspective. I will be eager to read the book you talked about buddy.

Texas Board of Education

Looks like we have, in this bit of news, possibly the first rightward shift in the battle over public school text books in quite a while.  Any thoughts Dove Mountaineer?

Am I my brother's keeper?

And it came about when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, "Where is Abel your brother?" And he said, "I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper?" Genesis 4:8b-9.

How I came across this was while reading "Rules for Radicals" by Saul Alinsky. On page 46, Alinsky writes:

The kind of personal safety and security sought by the advocates of the sanctity of means and ends lies only in the womb of Yogism or the monastery, and even there it is darkened by the repudiation of that moral principle that they are their brothers' keepers.

Emphasis mine.

What does he mean here? What he is talking about in this despicable chapter, titled "Of Means and Ends", is his dismantling of anyone that claims the sanctity of the concept that the ends never justify certain means. Alinsky argues, with blatantly false factual references and misinformation, that morality is defined and history written by the victors and if your cause is important enough, you can justify any means at your disposal. The world is split between the observers and actors, and observers can have the luxury of having high moral principles and can justify their losses with proud posturing that they never compromised their principles. Alinsky wrote this book for the actors. Those that won't let moral principles get in the say of their goals.

I will write more about Alinsky later, but for this post I want to focus upon his use of the highlighted phrase above: "brother's keeper".

Alinsky states, as certain fact, that there is a universally understood "moral principle" that we are our brother's keepers. All of us.

I am puzzled by his wording here about the "repudiation of that moral principle that they are their brothers' keepers" I am not so sure that there is a moral principle. In fact I am pretty sure there is NOT a moral principle to be your brother's keeper. Why else would Cain say such a thing, unless he was pretty sure that the answer was "no".

Cain was deflecting God's question so that he would avoid taking responsibility for killing his brother. God's answer to Cain's question is to avoid the question as a deflection and return a question of "What have you done?" Does God really need to ask? Of course not. God is omnipotent and omniscient and omnipresent. God already knows the answers to the questions. Answering questions is sometimes about the person answering more than the person questioning.

Anyone with children knows this. When a child steals a piece of chocolate and their face is smeared with the evidence, you ask if they stole any chocolate. Not to learn about the chocolate, as the evidence of guilt is readily apparent. But rather to reach into the heart of the child and teach them about telling the truth, honesty and theft.

As Christians, are we our brothers' keepers? The Hebrew word used here is "shamar", which means to hedge about (as with thorns) i.e. guard; to protect, attend to. Cain uses the same word that is used many other times in the Old Testament to indicate a strong, active "keeping", such as guarding a door or something. It was a rhetorical question where the expected answer was a definitive "no".

I think we are to offer our help to those in need, but we are not to place a thorned hedge around our brothers to protect them. That is not our job.

In our most explicit example of Christian charity, the Good Samaritan, this hedge was not constructed. No one protected the man from attack. The lesson was what to do about someone you find in need. There is a huge difference between helping someone in need and making sure no one ever has a need.

To me, it seems that interpreting this phrase to mean that I am responsible to care after and make sure nothing bad happens to my "brother", is like interpreting "thou shalt not covet" as a treatise against the existence of private property.

This is typical of the radical manipulators like Alinsky and it has caused confusion and damage amongst the Christian faithful. There are entire ministries set up around the principle of being their "brothers' keepers". I believe they are scripturally misguided, even though they probably do some wonderful things. There are plenty of justifications for helping those in the community around us, without using this passage.

When I read the phrase "my brother's keeper", I think of a disrespectful, sarcastic response to a direct question from God Himself as an attempt to divert attention away from a heinous sin. The lesson to be pulled from this is not that we should be doing what Cain clearly stated in sarcasm, but rather focus on the sinful heart of Cain and recognize in ourselves that same effort at deflection when confronted with our own sin.

On a political level, this premise, derived from a misreading of scripture, suggests that we all are responsible for each other in a very direct and active sense, which means that no one is responsible for themselves. We should all have the expectation of sustenance from our fellow travellers, without effort or merit. Since this is impossible, certain people have to be assigned the "keepers" of other kinds of people and some group of really smart "betters" gets to decide who is who. This is socialism. It doesn't work. It isn't biblical and twisting the words of scripture is dangerous and has a very ominous predecessor in previous chapter of Genesis:

And the serpent said to the woman, "You surely shall not die!" Genesis 3:4

Alinsky uses phrases and concepts born of a religion he does not profess or even understand to promote an agenda that is morally despicable.

I am not my brother's keeper, but I am bound to him by love, and committed to helping him, were he in need of it. To be my brother's keeper, I would have to have control over him, would I not? Isn't that the real goal of these socialists? Isn't that the unwitting goal of the Social Gospel movement? Isn't that the underlying theme of progressive and collectivist thought from any source? Control? Power?

I don't want that control, nor that power, nor do I want anyone else to have it, other than God Himself. That, my friends, is liberty, which happens to be a very biblical concept after all.

Do You Not Know That We Shall Judge Angels?

"Does any one of you, when he has a case against his neighbor, dare to go to law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints?  Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world?  And if the world is judged by you, are you not competent to constitute the smallest law courts?  Do you not know that we shall judge angels?  How much more, matters of this life?" 1 Corinthians 6:1-3

It is a rare and difficult thing to understand the mind of another.  It takes a relationship built by lots of time, and/or a common interest and background.  Something that connects.  A shared experience.  It is this very same feature of Man that dooms us to repeat the mistakes of history and enables us that most glorious and miraculous gift of friendship, and love.  Let me explain what I mean:

 

In order to understand the mind of another human, you have to spend some time or have some shared experience.  There is no other way.  Our brains are learning machines and can only process information that it gets.  This is why the young cannot comprehend the lives of the old - because they haven't gotten there yet.

 

On the down side, we must recognize, that as humans, we cannot truly understand the thoughts and emotions of another unless we ourselves have experienced very similar things.  That is why people of today don't recognize patterns of the past and will often repeat the mistakes of previous generations.

 

On the good side, because of the rarity of shared experience, there is true joy when we encounter someone that understands us and our thoughts and has similar experiences and thoughts to share.  There is also true joy in spending time together with people to actively share experiences together.  This is the foundation and source of friendship and love.

 

Lawsuits can only happen where there is a catastrophic absense of love.  This is why brothers under Christ should never be in a lawsuit on opposite sides.  Justice and love are equally rare to find in the secular court system, even in a righteous country like ours.

 

I had the misfortune of being in a multi-million dollar law suit that went to a very lengthy and painful arbitration.  Things I would have sworn were true, turned out not to be, and things that I knew could not happen did happen.  We won in the end, but it was painful and it robbed me of much during the process.  There was no love in it.  I cannot imagine two Christians, bonded by fellowship in Christ letting things get to such a state. 

 

Paul writes in this chapter six such wisdom.  But I fear that most will not truly appreciate its implications or understand the power of what he is saying unless they have been through the legal system in a painful way so that the understand how unpleasant and void of love the process is. 

 

I think this first half of the chapter has two lessons to draw:

 

1.  Don't let a disagreement destroy the love between Christian brothers or sisters.  It would be better to give in and let the other win, even sacrificially than to break the bonds of fellowship.

2.  Even against non-believers, there is mercy to consider.  If the saints will truly judge the world, you will be deciding the fate of others and whether they spend an eternity in damnation or salvation.  Anything in this world is trivial by comparison.  Besides, mercy may show a love that could plant a seed that eventually may lead the opponent towards Christ.

 

One lesson drawn from my experiences is that no legal document, no argument, no contract, no carefully crafted strategy will get 100% to the truth.  There can never be total satisfaction from the law.  In fact, rarely can they come remotely close to such a thing.  As Christians, we should know this.  No man-made institution can produce truth, justice, or especially love.  Only God can do that.  Better to settle the case before court amongst each other than to waste the time, energy, and material treasures on arguing.  More often than not, there is pride at stake and there is no room for love or brotherhood in it.

 

Indeed, the sign above every courtroom should read "Am I my brother's keeper?"  I think that would better set the expectations of participants and discourage the use of the building in the first place.  (Read Genesis 4 to understand what I mean)

Who is Hegel, Burgess and Rauschenbusch?

This is the question I ask myself as I read this article that I found at the Heritage Foundation website.

The reason? Because from that article, I read this:

For Hegel, whose philosophy strongly influenced the Progressives, "the state is the divine idea as it exists on earth." John Burgess, a prominent Progressive political scientist, wrote that the purpose of the state is the "perfection of humanity, the civilization of the world; the perfect development of the human reason and its attainment to universal command over individualism; the apotheosis of man" (man becoming God). Progressive-Era theologians like Walter Rauschenbusch redefined Christianity as the social gospel of progress.

This bold statement on the part of these progressives confirms the supposition from conservatives that socialism is a Godless philosophy. I grew up seeing statements made by lampooned, warmongering generals in movies and television spouting stuff like "those godless commies", and such. The notion of the lunacy of the commentary was accepted without question by my young brain. It was just rhetoric from some fanatics in our own country. Now, as I read more and more writings from the progressive movement, communists, etc, I find that, in their own words, they have discarded any notion of faith in God.

If you go to the ivory tower of progressive thought, you will not find God in it. He does not belong. However people may believe downstream from there might think or belief, the foundational philosophy and belief system of collectivism and all its unholy children and relatives, is that Man is perfectable by Man, and God is not required, or desired.

This is not some crazy, paranoid, Christian radical talking; this is the progressive intellectual themselves talking from their own writings. It is not a matter of debate, but rather of exposure to the original source.

I am tired of the political banter in my country and its rank dishonesty. Not because all of the participants are dishonest, but rather ignorant. I believe people on the left when they say they have no allegiance to Stalin or Mao or Marx or even Hitler. But I also believe that the part of those characters that they reject is simply the unsavory reputations, and if you were to somehow present to them the philosophies of these men to modern liberals, without revealing the sources, they would find much to be admired.

The problem with collectivism is not the goals, necessarily (although with more understanding we can find problems with these as well), but rather, it is the necessary conclusion and implementation of those goals. They either don't think through the conclusions of their ideas, or don't believe bad things can happen if they just have good intentions.

The good and the bad? The good thing is that if people actually understood what progressives actually thought and said behind closed doors, they would never get elected to office in this country except in the most radical leftist corners of our society and perhaps not even then. The bad? Collectivist thought has become very good at disguising itself as something else and coopting language and words that sound like things people want and believe in. It is truly Orwellian, the use of language in politics and, if we want to keep our liberty, we truly must become what John Adams once observed in the America of his day:

It has been observed that we are all of us lawyers, divines, politicians,
and philosophers." - The 5000 Year Leap, Cleon Skousen, p. 250

I would add historians to that list, particularly the era of the American Revolution and that of the Progressive movement between 1880 and 1920. Only with that proper historical and philosophical perspective can we truly understand current events and modern politics of any stripe.

I am at a loss to title this post...

This Photograph, courtesy of the Yahoo News (hat tip to Drudge Report), struck me as particularly ridiculous. This is the sort of image one would expect in a political cartoon, or a Saturday Night Live skit, not real life.

Accident and Force

"It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the
people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important
question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing
good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined
to depend for their polititical constitutions on accident and force" -
Publius (aka, Alexander Hamilton), The Federalist, No.1: General
Introduction

Indeed. That was the great question of their day and they answered the call greatly, being men of high character, reflection, and good judgment. Our U.S. Constitution has ushered in the most amazing civilization ever to grace the surface of the earth. All roads of progress since the Revolution, can be traced back to the United States and its quirky concept that it was even possible for a nation to be "conceived in liberty".

The great question of our day, is not nearly so grand or demanding. It is not even worthy of mention in the same thought accept that it must tragically be so, for it is human nature. The great question of our day, was Benjamin Franklin's prophetic words echoing forth: Can we keep it?

Can we preserve this nation conceived in liberty? This Republic? Or are we destined to succumb to the inexorable draw of history, down the path of the ancient Israelites, demanding a king? Man is clever, however. Far too clever. We reject, out of hand, the notion of a king, but we have concocted something far more serious and dangerous; socialism. It promises what it cannot deliver, and in order to obtain it, we must destroy our nation's very conception. Only the desparate person, that has lost faith in a society of free men, would agree to the shackles of socialism.

In order for socialism to succeed, people have to believe that a centralized government is more qualified and capable of making life choices for you than you are. It starts as caring for the poor and needy, and ends in tyrrany. Am I arguing that we should not care for the poor and needy? My goodness, no. I am arguing that the government should not care for the poor and needy beyond the most rudimentary level, as may be necessary to maintain order in the society.

Again from Federalist No.1,

"...and that a dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious
mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidding
appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government.
History will teach us that the former has been found a much more certain road to
the introduction of despotism than the latter, and that of those men who have
overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their
career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and
ending tyrants." - Federalist No.1, Alexander Hamilton

The connection here is that whenever you rely upon someone else for any portion of your sustenance, or livlihood, you are beholden to whatever choices they have made. In other words, when you go to a birthday party and they are serving cake, you don't get to choose what kind it is. If someone offers you their coat, you don't get to choose the color. When you borrow money, to are beholden to the person or institution that you borrowed the money from. If you need a handout to survive, you don't get to choose what they put in your hand.

It really is very simple, and is a complete explanation of Hamilton's comment on how someone starts as a demagogue and ends up a tyrant. Make no mistake every demagogue has a tyrant's heart, and what he lacks in accomplishments, is only due to a commensurate lack of opportunity, not desire. This should never be confused.

If you take a poll today about the least savory and trustworthy professions in our society, you would find in the top ten, or higher, the politician. If, in that same poll you asked what profession was the least likely to perform any task set before them efficiently or skillfully, you would invariably find at the top of the list, a government worker; be it the Post Office, the DMV, or any federal or state agency you care to name.

No offense to the many people that work in governmental positions that do a fine job and are dedicated, ethical, moral and conscientious servants of the public good, but that is the stereotype. Most people are familiar with the quiet jest about the model of inefficiency that is our government, yet people on the left want to leave important life choices to the people that society trusts the least (politicians), to be administered by the people least likely to work in a productive manner (government bureaucrats), and then expect the result to be just, fair, and inexpensive. It just doesn't make any sense.

But the leftists don't want that converstation to happen. They don't want you to think through that little problem, because you will realize that the government is never the best solution to a problem, and most times it is competing for being the worst possible solution.

Socialism will degrade into tyranny as surely as the earth will continue to rotate on its axis. And when it does, it will degrade into just another form of every other governmental system devised by man, for which the people can rely upon justice to be meted out only by "accident and force", and not from "reflection and choice".

Our only hope for this country, whether we can keep our republic or not, is to remind ourselves of our cultural DNA. We must reread the founding documents and learn what arguements these great men used to devise the government that we have. We must learn what has been systematically removed from our public education system by leftists. We must learn our heritage of liberty, and responsibility and truth...

...and send the demagogues packing.

Cloward and Piven, the strategy to collapse our economy

Richard A. Cloward and Francis Fox Piven were Saul Alinsky acolytes in the 1960’s and took to heart his rule for radicals about making the enemy live up to their own rules. So they made a plan to collapse the economies of large cities by flooding the welfare rolls with so many people that it would bankrupt the government and force the Federal government to come in and create guaranteed redistributive, guaranteed wages for everyone. The poor and disadvantaged were to be used as unwitting foot soldiers in the effort to bring about their vision of a socialist utopia. Glenn Beck believes that this strategy is being implemented on a scale before unseen upon our own government in order to collapse, once and for all, our nation’s economy. If successful, these radicals would recreate the government into a communist state.

I’m not sure that is the plan of the President, but I’m not so sure that it isn’t. It sounds crazy, but we know that Obama was a student of Saul Alinsky. We know that Hillary Clinton’s Senior Honor’s Thesis at Wellsley was an analysis of Saul Alinsky’s tactics. Now MSNBC, that paragon of objective journalism tries to whitewash her association, but they fail to supply a link to obtain a copy so the reader can see for themselves. They also try to whitewash Alinsky as having not been a member of the Communist Party, as if that changes his focus, beliefs or changes what team he is on in the grand scheme of things.

To cure those two unforgivable lapses by an organization that doesn’t deserve to be categorized as “news”, I present you with a link to Mrs. Clinton’s thesis here , and a quote from it describing Alinsky’s late in life migration of thought:

“Alinsky, ever consistent in his inconsistency, recently expanded his radical commitment to the eradication of powerless poverty and the injection of meaning into affluence. His new aspect, national planning, derives from the necessity of entrusting social change to institutions, specifically the United States Government.”

At that moment in Alinsky’s life, if he wasn’t a Communist, he certainly became of one flesh with them intellectually, if he were ever truly separate. Money quote from MSNBC’s own attempt at a whitewash:

“Looking back at the 1930s, he said, “Anybody who tells you he was active in progressive causes in those days and never worked with the Reds is a goddamn liar. Their platform stood for all the right things, and unlike many liberals, they were willing to put their bodies on the line.””

Alinsky was a communist, a socialist, a progressive, or whatever you want to call him, but he that is what he was. Hillary knew him well. Cloward and Piven were present during the signing of the ‘motor-votor’ bill into law, and they were well known to the Clintons both.

We know that Cloward and Piven were university academics for the School of Social (ist) Work at Columbia University, which was also the temporary home of The Institute for Social Research, also known as “The Frankfurt School” . Now I know this is the worst sort of guilt by association, but I am pretty comfortable making the connection. The Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy (ISERP) is still going strong at Columbia, which appears to me to be a continuation of ISR’s work, albeit in a more “nuanced” and subtle way…or not so subtle. I doubt I would find much subtlety if I were to attend some classes there. The extreme leftist views of a vast majority of university professors in general is well documented today and the proof that my accusation of guilt by association is not far from the mark is in the fact that Cloward and Piven worked there in 1966 and they were extreme radical communists and still are to this day. I think ISR planted a seed of Marxism at Columbia that has spread throughout American academia.

For more on Cloward and Piven, look here. Key paragraph to note:

“Cloward and Piven never again revealed their intentions as candidly as they had in their 1966 article. Even so, their activism in subsequent years continued to rely on the tactic of overloading the system. When the public caught on to their welfare scheme, Cloward and Piven simply moved on, applying pressure to other sectors of the bureaucracy, wherever they detected weakness.”

For a full text of the article by these two communists, go here . If he is correct, then we must examine all of our current welfare programs.

But Bill Clinton ended welfare as we know it, right? Well, yes, but check this out. It should chill you to the bones. If you don’t have the time to read the whole thing, just skip to this key paragraph that should pop right out:

“The Cloward-Piven Strategy remains relevant today especially because -- in a move that just about nobody noticed -- the spectacularly successful Clinton era welfare reforms were erased in language buried deep within the February stimulus package signed into law by President Obama. As Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation has documented, federal law has been changed to offer new financial incentives to states to increase their welfare caseloads.”

I think the more that we dig, the more we will find. More to come. I am on the hunt…

A Thought for the Night

I was reading in the Federalist Papers, the introduction essay by Charles R. Kesler, and it occurred to me two things:

1. Kesler writes, “These robust institutions (House, Senate, POTUS, SCOTUS), each shaped to its function or task, make republican government responsible in a larger, higher sense than the Anti-Federalists had in mind, and encourage the public to judge government not only by its immediate actions, but by its long-range policies and tendencies.” This encourages us to keep a strategic vision while evaluating current events. I quite concur. It is not the immediate actions in this form of government that are the problem in the long term. It is the general trend or precedent that these action promote or create that is cause for concern. Our public discourse should be focused upon the long-term philosophical implications of policy-making, and not the immediate political benefit. This thought reminded me why I think the 17^th Amendment should be repealed; States rights have been eroded severely and a Senator that is completely beholden to the State legislatures for his/her position is a lot less likely to vote against the interests of the States. The 17^th Amendment reminded me of another thought I had a while back;
2. How many people does each congressman represent? So I looked it up. It is hovering around 693,000 according to Wikianswers. Do you know how many the Constitution talked about? “The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand, but each State shall have at least one Representative”. That means anywhere from 30,000 to the entire population of the smallest state, Wyoming would be a good range, but the only true constraint is the 30k. 30,000 people vs. 693,000. Pretty stark. Are communications really THAT much better? In some ways even better that those numbers suggest, but I think there is something to be said for representation from someone that actually knows who you are. I wonder if there is any benefit to re-examining the number of Representatives in the House? Would it have been easier or harder for Congress to pass bad legislation with more members? In 1911, Congress fixed the number of Reps to 435, regardless of the population size that they represent.

Now for a final thread to stitch it all back together and complete my thought;

Wouldn’t our current political climate be more dynamic and responsive to our condition had we simply kept closer to the model of the original Constitution? Let me clarify. If we delete the 17^th Amendment, then Senators are beholden to State governments and local business leaders much more so than today. They are less nobility and more ambassadors for their States. They represent the vested, landed, power of their States.

If we made the House more responsive to the people by making more Representatives, i.e. adjusting the rules so that there were only 100,000 per Rep, wouldn’t the likelihood, or at least the severity of the disconnect that the public have with its elected officials automatically diminish?

The Senate would represent the “rich” and the House would represent the vox populi of the immediate moment. Ostensibly, any bill that made it through the conference process would be pretty well balanced between individual freedoms and private property rights, the state vs. the individual, etc.

Interesting to think about anyway. Goodnight.

Remote e-mail posting, Reading List

I am a little slow to learn new twists on the technology, but this is my first post coming from email, instead of logging onto the blog host directly.  I think this may give me better choices on editing tools, so I may do this type of post from now on. 

In other news, for my reading, I am bouncing between several books at the moment;

1.  "The Federalist Papers" - Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay
2.  "How Should We Then Live?" - Dr. Francis Schaeffer
3.  "The Coming Insurrection" - anonymous
4.  "Rules for Radicals" - Saul Alinsky

The greatest contrast in the reading, and this contrast is stark, is responsibility.  Perhaps another word that has been misused and abused over time.  In selections 3 and 4, there is none.  The people have no responsibility for themselves, other than to protest and agitate for revolution because the big mean established governments are corrupt and a failure.  In selections 1 and 2, the offer is freedom, and the price is personal responsibility.  For #1 it is physical, and for #2 spiritual.

I get the distinct impression from 3 and 4 that these people are spoiled children throwing a tantrum at the realization that they are now 18 and no longer receiving checks from daddy.  They are used to being taken care of and expect it to continue and the thinking really doesn't go any deeper than that.  They want what they want and they don't care what must be destroyed to get it.  The problem is that what they want is impossible to achieve by mortal man.  They want enacted, immediately, a utopian vision of the world, where everyone gets along and loves one another and no one has to do without.  They want to set up paradise on earth and are willing to destroy anyone and anything to get it.  I know.  i know.  That last sentence seems to contradict with the one prior to it.

That's the problem.  No disagrees that things shouldn't be better.  Things can always be better.  The problem is that socialists have this childish and boorish expectation that things should be perfect, worry-free, and comfortable for everyone, all the time, right now.  And if it isn't, there is some evil afoot and some rich guy is raking us lesser types across the coals to steal our prosperity for his gain.

No one other than the Father of Lies, could have concocted such a perfect lie to sell to the desparate, prideful, and disenchanted of this world. 

I don't think modern politicians of the conservative, Republican, or even the libertarians understand the depth of this problem and how deeply rooted into the psyche it is.  We need some serious root-killer, and fast.

Immorality Rebuked

"But those who are outside, God judges. Remove the wicked man from
among yourselves" - 1Corinthians 5:13

I start the New Year with another installment of my look into 1 Corinthians. In chapter 5, Paul admonishes the church at Corinth to cleanse themselves of sexual immorality. He simultaneously rebukes the sin and warns the church not to focus on rebuking sin in the entire world, but rather only their congregation.

This reminds me of some bit of wisdom from my mother when I was young; she said that you are who you surround yourself with. Your friends are like mirrors for who you are. If you find yourself surrounded by mean, wicked people, you are, at best, condoning and enabling that behavior. At worst, you are yourself, mean and wicked.

The correllary is also true. If you surround yourself with righteous, good, and godly people, you yourself cannot help but move in that direction yourself. I think that is why the small group model for discipleship is so effective. You end up becoming close friends with the people in your group and you are automatically self-selecting good, decent people to be in your life, befriend you, and encourage you when you need it.

Like most, if not all of my experience since becoming a Christian is that the Bible never ceases to amaze me and prove that it is, in fact, the font of all wisdom...and true.