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Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Don't mock a comic

   There's an old saying that says,
"Don't get into arguments with people who buy ink by the barrel".  
    This adage was aimed mostly at politicians and it meant that a newspaper has the resources to make you look really bad to a whole lot of people.  Therefore you should just leave them alone even if they are wrong in their assessment of you.   In our modern world I would modify this saying to include TV-comics who have their own daily one hour length show.   Namely, for this article, none other than Jon Stewart.

    It seems Jon cannot take criticism these days when he is called out for his mistakes on his show he will use his show to criticize the critics that he already has it in for...  Republicans.   

Check out the video for yourself here


    If I were to give any advice for politicians or other news media that wish to engage him it would simply be this.   DON'T DO IT!   For as in the old case of newspapers (which no one reads anymore), Jon Stewart has more writers (over 30 for his 1 hour show) and a daily opportunity to mock and deride you without the need to actually supply substantial facts and his use of video-clips so short they are hard to call them "clips". 

    A second reason I would not engage him is simply this.   Most of your viewers/followers are not people who frequent his show and vice versa not many of his viewers are frequently exposed to you either.  This is because most of his listeners are what Karl Marx referred to as "useful idiots".  They want sound-bite policy that is easy for their partially functioning drug infused brains to digest. They are more interested in tingling their funny-bone rather than stimulate their logic-processing parts of their brains.   So for the most part, your complaints will either go unnoticed or have no meaning at all and therefore a total waste of your time.

    So when Jon Stewart mocks you.... just move on and know his followers are a completely lost cause not worth the time saving.


Thursday, December 4, 2014

Congress is merely window-dressing

   Here is a video of Congressman Trey Gowdy questioning an immigration official about the President's new executive-order/law on immigration.   One major thing you might want to notice is how Congress now must ask for information about what is in the laws the President is implementing and getting this information is extremely muddled and lacking any clarity.   The official (Marielena Hincapie) must discuss with the congressman to communicate exactly what the order will be and that much of the "details" have yet to be laid out and will be decided NOT by Congress, but instead by the Department Of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security.   They will decide who will stay and who will go and it seems that they will inform Congress on a needs to know basis.

     Congress has officially been moved to the capacity of mere "window dressing".   They no longer make the laws in our country but now only serve as figureheads to appear on camera for the media.   The real government now are the endless bureaucrats in countless government agencies taking their direction from the President.  We have noticed over the past 6 years a change in tone from these agency heads as they appear in Congressional oversight committee meetings.   They no longer fear Congress at all.  They will lie directly to their faces. They will hold back information and destroy government documents and equipment to hide their illegal actions.  They will plead the 5th amendment and walk away without a care in the world.   They will disrespect the members of Congress and show no concern.   They do so, because they know the DOJ has their back and will not prosecute them and even if they somehow get caught they will be either allowed to retire with full benefits or they will be put on administrative leave until the heat is off of them.

    Some say Congress can get their power back by managing "the purse" and de-funding various agencies that are involved in this debacle of executive overreach.   Maybe they can, but my bet is on the agencies.  Somehow they will either shuffle money around unbeknownst to Congress to keep those actions alive or they will find some way to keep Congress at bay through the courts. 

    But the real loser in this battle is the American people.   WE THE PEOPLE no longer have a say in the laws that are made.   First it started with the 17th amendment that took the power away from the States to have a say in the federal government when senators were no longer elected by the state legislatures but instead by the people of the states.    Without senators reporting back to their own state legislatures,  they no longer had a voice.   Now the President, without any Constitutional amendment, has usurped the power of writing and changing legislation from Congress.   OUR voice now in Congress is gone as well and we no longer have a say in our government.   Laws from now on , even if passed by both houses and signed by the President, will only serve has "hints" or "suggestions" which can be ignored if necessary.    Our FOURTH branch of government, the countless bureaucracies, will be our new masters.  
 

Wednesday, December 3, 2014

What would you do?

      A friend of mine was working as a cashier in a Walmart store when he saw a family come through with 2 carts loaded with every imaginable toy.  The boy (about 8 years old) was grinning from ear to ear while the mother looked a little sheepish and the father very unhappy.  My friend asked of the boy, "Is it your birthday?".   The boy exclaimed, "Oh no!  My birthday isn't for 3 months.   I am getting these because all my toys are all broken and I need new ones!".  My friend asked, "How did they they get broken?"  To which the boy replied, "I smashed them!"     "Why would you do that?" asked my friend.   "Because I was angry about not going to the movies with my friends" said the boy.    At this point the mother interjected and said, "He has a bit of a temper and he realized he was wrong to do it and says he will try to do better".   The father standing behind the mother said nothing, but only glared wide-eyed at my friend as if to say, "I don't agree to this at all!".


     Imagine if YOU were that father and you were paying the price for your child's temper-tantrum.  What is the likelihood that this child grows up to be a good, decent, well-adjusted, caring human-being?   Not likely at all.    Such a family where one parent allows all hell to break loose with no repercussions and the other wants to lower the boom cannot be good for the child.   The child will of course cozy up to the lenient parent to get their way in the future.   He will know who to turn to when life deals them heaps of problems from their bad choices and the lenient parent will never let the child grow up to be a responsible adult.  They will keep him in perpetual childhood living in their shadow to protect them from the big bad world.

     Now I must confess to you that the above story, never really happened.  I wrote it as a parable to show what has happened in the city of Ferguson and what will transpire in the coming months and years.

The child:
Represents the rioters who took to the streets after not getting an indictment for the death of Mike Brown. These "boy-men" did not get what they wanted and rather than accept the answer given them by a jury of 12 citizens who heard eye-witness testimony from 50 people (6 witnesses who were black said Mike Brown charged at the police and did not stop coming at him until he was shot dead).   These "boy-men" had an adult-sized-temper-tantrum and destroyed everything in their sight with arson and looting.
The broken toys:
The businesses in Ferguson that employ the people of Ferguson and the city vehicles burned by the protesters.  
The mother:
Represents the politicians (Republicans AND Democrats) that will seek to sooth the rioters anger with "new toys" in the form of buildings, parks and maybe a new school or town hall.  They will call for endless committees and conferences (mostly in Vegas) to discuss white-on-black crime even though most crime in their are is black-on-black.   Main street will be renamed Michael-Brown-Avenue and schools will have an additional holiday added to their list of days off.   
The father:
Represents the private-sector business-owners and taxpayers.  They are stuck with the bill for all the new toys that need to be bought.   Their employment and property taxes will go up to fix the buildings and pay for all kinds of social programs.  Their insurance premiums will go up.   Their labor costs will go up (minimum wage hikes).   They will pay for security services to protect their properties from future assaults.   They will restock their shelves with new merchandise to replace the looted items they lost and fix the broken windows and burned down walls.    They like the father will have their anger burn quietly inside them as to open their mouths would be unleash more pain and suffering from the mother who can make their lives a living hell.
    I know that all parables fail at some point.   I know that not everyone who rioted in Ferguson was FROM Ferguson and that many came from other cities just to have a "good time" at others expense.   I know many in Ferguson stayed home on that night, but as the famous anti-Hitler German Pastor Bonhoeffer said, "Not to speak is to speak, Not to act is to act"  and so those who stayed home rather than than stand up to the protesters and protect their homes and businesses are just as guilty as those who showed up to create havoc.  When we let those with evil intents to outnumber the good people we deserve what we get. 

    This is the hidden danger when we see our government swoop in to "save the day".  Whether its a man-made disaster like a riot or a natural-disaster like a hurricane or flood, government patching it all up after its done to make it all "good again" only encourages others to not be responsible.   I think people begin to expect the government to fix it all up at no cost to us so we in turn do nothing to protect ourselves to make sure it never happens again.   Like people who continue to build their houses on Florida beaches and in flood areas by major rivers, so also people of riot torn areas learn nothing and become less willing to stop the next riot from occurring as they know the riot will be followed by more government funding and loans.

   How do you think the people of Ferguson would have reacted if they knew that no one was going to come to their aid after the riots?   Maybe Ferguson should be left in tatters as a reminder to everyone that this is the price of rioting and looting.   Like the broken toys strewn around the boy's bedroom all broken and smashed, the burned businesses and police cars will be a constant reminder to the people that there is a price to pay for bad behavior and maybe the next city faced with the same angry mobs will do more than just stay home and let evil have its way.


Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Mike Brown and the Boston Massacre

   Karl Marx once referred to religion as "the opiate of the masses" because to him it placated the people to not rise up in violent revolution which is why he advocated for the removal of religion from the world and the adherence to atheism.   In some ways, Marx was right but even a broken clock is right twice a day and so he is as well.  He is correct that Christianity in particular calls for us to pray for our leaders, respect those in authority, and love those who persecute us.  These ideas are very anti-violent-revolutionary and run completely counter to those who advocate such behaviors.  Secondly its followers have hope in a better world yet to come and know this world will always be a far cry from our future one.   Thirdly, we believe God is ultimately in control and will have the final say in what happens on this earth and no one ever really gets away with murder.  Because of these ideals and principles, it's hard to stir people up into a frenzy when they see that no matter what you promise to do to reform their current situation it will never ever be perfect.

      However it's not completely impossible to rally the Christians to revolt.  First,  your cause must first be seen as just and second it must be the only card left to play.  Take for example our own revolution in 1776.  The leaders of this revolution were pious and very religious yet they came to the conclusion nothing else could be done.  But because of their faith, they did not rush into revolution or war.  They sought other means for many months and years.  They wrote countless letters of opposition to the King to seek compromise yet time and time again they only saw the British increase their clamp on their throats.  Some tried to use violence to push the Colonists into war but these methods were short-lived.  Take for example the so-called "Boston Massacre" in 1770 in which 5 people were killed in the fight when an unruly crowd (some drunk) ran into a group of British soldiers.  While many tried to capitalize on this event, others used reason to see their way through it.  One such person was none other than John Adams (our future 3rd president) who, as a trained lawyer, represented the British soldiers in court.  Even his own wife Abigail pleaded with him to not take the case as it was a lose-lose proposition.  If he won the soldiers their freedom he might be ostracized by the people of Boston and never have another case to take.  If he lost the case and the soldiers were hanged, he would have the king and his army to deal with.  Yet he decided to take the case anyway and was able to get them acquitted because the call to "fire" came from the crowd and not from regiment leader (as witnessed by a person in the crowd).   Justice was served and the flames of revolution were squelched for the time being.

    Today is no different.  We see people trying desperately to use the Mike Brown case as a cause for their own revolution.  They stand with their hands up saying "Don't Shoot" after which they loot and burn local businesses.  To them, Mike Brown is the new Boston Massacre and hate mongers like Rev. Al Sharpton inflame their hatred of the police and people who don't stand with them (I guess Jesus words of "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" never made into the Al's Bible reading list).  Like the Boston Massacre justice was sought.  A grand jury was convened and after 50 eye-witnesses (many of them black) and even testimony by the police officer who was allowed to be questioned for over 4 hours (also note, grand juries do NOT have defense attorney's present.. only prosecuting attorneys) a ruling of non-acquittal was reached which meant the jurors did not feel a crime had been committed by police officer because:
  • Mike Brown performed a strong arm robbery and the police officer received this account when he detained Mike Brown for walking in the middle of a busy street.
  • Mike Brown initiated the attack by punching the officer  through his open window
  • Mike Brown tried to shoot the officer with his own gun (autopsy confirmed with shot to his hand at a very close range)
  • Mike Brown was shot ONLY from the front (and not from the back)
  • Mike Brown was fatally shot in the head with the bullet entering the top of his head as he was leaning towards the office when he rushed him.
  • No witness testified that Mike Brown was ever on his knees with his hands up saying "Don't Shoot"
   While I am sure there were many in Boston who were angry at John Adams for getting the British soldiers "off the hook"; they ,as a mostly christian nation, did not retaliate with burning Boston or British barracks.   Instead, they allowed justice to be served by the courts.  Could the courts have been wrong?  Of course they can.  No system invented by man is perfect.  Mistakes will be made and good people will sometimes be sent to jail and bad people released to the streets.  However, we entrust real justice to be delivered by a just God when that time comes and so we leave it to him even if we think our system has failed.

      The best example of this in the Bible I can think of is the story of David and King Saul.  Saul was hunting down David because many people loved David and Saul saw him as a threat to his throne.   While hunting David down, Saul went into a cave to relieve himself not knowing David was in the cave as well.  Some of his followers wanted David to kill Saul right there in the cave while he was unprotected.  Instead, David took Saul's cloak and cut a large piece off of it and later yelled at Saul from on top of hill showing Saul that he had the chance to kill him but he did not and he wanted peace with Saul and not war.   The reason David did not take Saul's life was because, to him, Saul was still God's anointed king and he was going to leave it to God when Saul would be replaced rather than usurp it himself. Now imagine that for a second!  Here is a person, with a large following of men wanting him to be the king, who has the opportunity of a lifetime to kill the current king and thus allow himself to ascend to the throne. Yet, he holds himself back because murder is not the right way to gain power.  He respects the kings position and God who has placed him there.      

     I fear that as we lose these basic principles and more people equate JUSTICE with REVENGE we will reach a tipping point where the clear-headed will be overruled by the ignorant, hate-filled crowds and those who manipulate them for their own purpose and want to take power by force.  


Monday, December 1, 2014

Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?

   Any time someone wants to point out the "obvious" they sometimes make a reference to an old riddle that says, "Who is buried in Grant's Tomb" ?   The answer is obvious!  Grant of course!   Some times in life things you take for granted for so long all of a sudden changes and you see something you should have seen a long time ago.  The reason you didn't see it before was because it was too obvious.  It was hidden in plain sight.

    Take for example, the Statue of Liberty. 

    We have all seen the iconic pictures of her standing in the
New York harbor beckoning newcomers to her.  I, like many, always saw her as a symbol of America and her famous poem engraved on her base was a call of immigrants to our shores.  Then last week as I was contemplating this poem (in regards to the Presidents immigration executive order to ignore congressional law) I suddenly realized how wrong I was was.  Like the iconic "Grant's Tomb" riddle the Statue of Liberty is NOT the Statue of America.  She does not represent the United States, but instead she embodies an ideal. A concept if you may.   Her poem is not meant to be a dinner bell to all the world's poor to come to THIS land.  In fact, it would be physically impossible for the United States to assimilate the entire world's poor here in this one small country.  Instead, her call is a CHALLENGE to all the other countries in the world to release their tired poor and their huddled masses to her, LIBERTY.  Her words echo the demands of Moses to Pharaoh some 4000 years ago when he said : "Let my people go!".   She tells them to forget their "storied pomp" as it has not worked and to leave it all behind.   She tells them to try freedom instead.  Her resources and borders are boundless and she will accept any all who come to her shores "yearning to be free"

Given then this insight, now read the famous poem attributed to her with liberty replaced for the statues pronouns (original words in parenthesis)

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and liberty is its (her) name
Mother of Exiles. From liberty's (her) beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; Liberty's (her) mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries liberty (she)
With silent lips. "Give liberty to (me) your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to liberty (me),
Liberty (I) lift its (my) lamp beside the golden door!"

Friday, November 21, 2014

Time is up!

    The President has declared:  TIME IS UP!   Like a teacher timing his students during an exam, his congressional-egg-timer on his desk has gone off and there is no more time to debate.  He he has lost his patience with Congress and with you the American people who are just too stupid to elect good Senators and Congressmen.   To him, the world runs on Obama-Time now and he just could not take it anymore.   Like the guy from the movie "Network" he has decided to open up the window of the White House and yell:

"I am mad as hell and I am not going to take it anymore!"
  
    He is a new American Trinity!  

    No not Father-Son-and-Holy-Spirit, but Legislative-Executive-and-Judicial-branches all rolled up into 1 person and there is nothing we can do about it.  

    What if the Supreme Court says he has overreached?

          He will probably just write new executive orders to override the older ones
          and wait for the next ruling from the Supreme Court (which usually takes
          months if not years to come about).

    What if Congress passes contrary legislation?  

            He will VETO it of course!

    What if Congress passes legislation that is veto proof?   

            He will IGNORE it and will declare the law as "ignorant" and Congress acting "stupidly".

    So here is how it works now.

    1) The President writes his own laws as he sees fit.
    2) If Congress' law is contrary to HIS law then....he gets to VETO it.
    3) If Congress passes a veto proof law, he can IGNORE the law and only implement his law  

    Therefore the only law that gets past the Presidents desk AND gets enforced is the law he has written to begin with.  This being the case, the process becomes simply...

     1) The President writes and enforces the laws.
     2) Congress must accept them as written

  Times up America!   
Democracy is dead!
 

  

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

The most dangerous court to be convicted in

   What court do you think is the worst one to be found in as a citizen?   Some think its a court in Dallas Texas or some small town in New Mexico or Arizona.   Others might argue that there are probably some pretty nasty courts in New York City where you would never want to find yourself being convicted in.   Visions of judges with axes to grind or being in cahoots with a local prison warden pop into our minds from multiple movies where the hero finds himself doing 25 years of hard labor working swamps and rock quarries. 

    Actually the worst court in America to be convicted in is not a real court at all.

    It's the court of public opinion. 

    What makes this court the most dangerous court in the land?

1) Guilty unless proven innocent without a shadow of a doubt.

Unlike our real courts you are considered guilty as charged.  People will say, "Why would this woman (or person) come up with such a story unless it wasn't true?"  Since they are the victim they are anointed "Sainthood" (and we all know saints never lie).  TV journalists will show countless pictures of them in their youth when they were young and carefree and innocent.  Tears from the victims faces will be played in slow motion with music playing in the background to tug at the juror's heartstrings.

2) Everyone is a juror and no one is a judge.

Do you have a Twitter account?  Then you too can be a juror in this court.  You can send out your whimsical and sarcastic 140 character messages to the Twitto-sphere and wait for your responses from the other jurors (you think to yourself "I missed my calling as a writer on Comedy Central").  Are you a TV personality looking for ratings?   You too can sit in a chair across from the convict to cross examine them and ask them personal questions they don't have to answer and it they don't answer that show complete guilt on their behalf.   You can squint your eyes with a serious look of anger towards the convict and offer a tissue to the victim as they shed tears

3) No 5th amendment rights in this court

As mentioned in the previous paragraph, the convict (note this court never uses the word "accused") is not allowed to NOT answer any questions.  To NOT answer is to confess guilt.  Look at Bill Cosby's radio interview where he decided to NOT answer the question by the host.   His lack of answer was a considered to be a clear and unmistakable confession of guilt.  If you say you don't want to give credence to these questions you are quickly confronted with questions of "don't you feel anything for these people who are accusing you?"

 4) No defense lawyer

In this court, there are very few who will be willing to come to your defense.  Since you are already guilty as charged, those running to your defense will be leveled with the same charge you have been found guilty of already.  You will be called a bigot, or a racist, or a woman hater and you will be only in attendance in this court to set your own future court appearance to be charged as well.

 5) No statute of limitations

What you do and say will be held against you in perpetuity (even after you are long dead).   Take for example what happened to Paula Deen.  She made some racist comment in a court case 30 years ago and it was drummed up and used against her with such force that she had to leave her TV show despite all the evidence to the contrary of what kind of person she is today.   Or another example, Bill Cosby today is being lambasted by women who say he raped them over 40 years ago and none of them ever went to the police to file a complaint or make a formal charge and all the evidence is gone.

6) Endless lawyers for the prosecution

"I'm not a lawyer but I love to play one on TV" is the common phrase used by streams of pretend journalists. These people want nothing more than to sit in a chair across from the convict with their legs crossed and holding the ever important pen and paper in their hand, asking those questions that "just HAVE to be asked".   Questions of the "victims" assume your guilt and probe only when the event occurred and how it felt to be victimized by the convict.  Lawyers will come out of the woodwork in the form of late-night-TV-hosts,  TV talk show hosts, TV gossip shows like "Inside Edition",  comedians, radio personalities, book writers and authors and even Washington politicians looking for anyone to compare themselves to that will make them look like saints.

7) Evidence is anything that proves you are guilty

"I heard a friend of mine who has a sister who is good friends with waitress whose uncle served in the military with a guy who used to mow the lawn of a neighbor 5 houses down from this person and that person said they thought they saw something strange happen around the house but wasn't very sure because they were drunk at the time".  

8) Sentencing never occurs, but the punishment begins immediately

You will be hounded every time you leave your abode.  You will wish you were dead at times and sometimes death is your only way out.   So often we have seen people who later commit suicide or die by drug abuse brought on by their conviction.  After your death, the sentence will be acquitted and loving tributes may be said in your honor with some mention to what caused you to lose hope. They may yet revisit the victims of your "crime" to see if they have found "peace in your dying" or not.   No amount of tears you offer on national television will ever be enough.  Your tears will be analyzed for true contriteness of heart by an array of psychologists who couldn't tell you the difference between schizophrenia and psychosis (but darn they look good on TV).  You may be mocked for your attempt to set things right and say your sorry.  Lawyers against you will say "No amount of tears will undo the damage they have done".   Most convicts will sentence themselves to home jail by locking themselves up in their homes never to be seen again.  (This will be also haled as additional evidence of your guilt as well).


The only GOOD thing to say about this court is that it is SWIFT and it is DECISIVE.  There are no hung courts (just hung convicts) and there are no court of appeals as their motto is:

Reus Supplicia semper, et semel, reus

which means

Once guilty, always guilty  

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

The New Golden Rule

    The golden rule for this century is, "He who has the gold makes the rules" as our nations banking system today is used as a mechanism to subversively take away our rights as citizens.  Ronald Reagan in 1960 in his address for Barry Goldwater said,
 "What good does it do to own property if you are regulated as to what you can do with that property?"  
This he referred to as State-ism which was a lighter-gentler form of Communism that allows people to own property (whereas communism disallows all private property), but regulates what owners can do with the land whether in building or planting crops.

     Today the Obama administration is doing an end run on our 2nd amendment rights by working through banks to restrict credit on companies that manufacture guns.  The DOJ program, rightly called: Operation Choke Point, seeks to choke out businesses in the firearms industry altogether.   It utilizes laws put on the books to go after the Mafia and drug dealers but now used for other purposes.  As we learned in 2008, credit is the life-blood of business and without it they wither and die quickly.  If successful, they would be able to eventually drive out all gun manufacturers and prevent us from owning guns.  Thus the 2nd amendment becomes as meaningless as the 3rd amendment (quartering of soldiers) as we would "technically" still have the right to own a gun, but no where to buy one (or even if you could the cost would be too prohibitive for most Americans).

    The federal government has no right under the Constitution to control the economy of legal enterprises (especially one that is guaranteed by the Constitution itself).   This is a misuse of the laws on the books used to take down the mafia and drug cartels who do business outside the confines of the law.   But as with all laws, they can be used for good and for bad depending on who is making the rules at the time.

    Could such laws be used to control us as well?   Possibly.

    Take for example if the government wants to limit how far from work you live.  If the government thinks everyone should walk to work and not drive they could use the credit system to control you as well.   Therefore when you go to apply for a car loan they take into account the distance between your work and your home.  If further than 3 miles, they cannot approve your loan.  The same could be with regards to your mortgage as well.   Too far from your places of work?  Forget about it!   Maybe you should rent a government approved apartment near your work instead?   How about your child's college education?   You want them to go to a Christian college?   Forget about it!   How about a nice state sponsored college instead?   Your church wants a loan to expand or build a new building?   Forget about it!  (unless your church is willing to change their stance on abortion).

     The possibilities are endless... unless we tell our congressmen to investigate and put an end to this abuse of law abiding citizens.
        

Monday, November 17, 2014

The Ends Justify The Means

    Every child (well hopefully every child) has been told by a parent or teacher at some point in their
young life that "the ends does NOT justify the means" or another version of the proverb, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions".   I can probably re-count half a dozen TV family sit-coms from "The Andy Griffith Show" to "Growing Pains" to "The Cosby Show" where a TV dad or mom tries to enlighten their young TV child that good intentions never trumps lying and or stealing to achieve those ends.  Normally the child sets out to fix some problem on their own and in their pre-adolesant mind it all makes sense at the moment, but as they go along things begin to unravel like a bad sweater and their lies begin to catch up to them until they can't do it anymore and the parent lovingly scolds them and sets them back on the right path.

    Yet somewhere in our world those lessons were missed or never taught at all.  Take for example, poor professor Jonathan Gruber of MIT.  In video after video he discusses how lies and deceit were used to get ObamaCare pushed through Congress.  He tells us how it was written in tortuous language to make it near impossible for the CBO to score it and to see that the mandate was in fact a TAX on the American public.   He goes on about how they intended to "dupe" the American public who he refers to as "the stupidity of the American voter" or how the average voter has little or no knowledge of economics.   This has caused many democrats now to distance themselves from Mr. Gruber.  Nancy Pelosi for example says "I don't know the man" but videos show her saying glowing things about his report back in 2009.  The White House says he was not involved in the writing of the legislation yet they paid him over $400K for his work and reports say he may have been compensated even more than this amount.  (Don't worry Mr. Gruber, even Jesus was disowned by his own disciples in the same manner). 

    To the left, we are just stupid sheep that are too stupid to live our own lives.  To them ObamaCare is so beneficial for us that they must use lies and deceit to get their way.   This of course is not the first time they have done this.   It is the same method they used to get Social Security passed through Congress in the 1930's.  On record, they passed it as a government "insurance" plan (That is why your paycheck says FICA .. Federal Insurance Contributions Act) but when Congress wanted to use this money for other social welfare programs it was brought to the Supreme Court.  It was there in front of the court that they confessed that they only used the word "insurance" to sell it to the American people and that really it was a tax to be used for any purpose they sought fit in keeping with the "general welfare" clause of the Constitution.  But the arguments didn't end there either.  Even today this bill is argued in court over whether or not American citizens have a contractual claim to benefits from the Federal government as anyone would have in any normal "insurance plan".  If it's not really an insurance plan then the federal government could argue that we have not claim to benefits when we retire (the so called lock box is empty).

   While this may anger a lot of people, it doesn't anger me anymore.  Not because I am numb to the matter, but because I try to see the bigger picture.  In my opinion, these people should be pitied more than anything. I actually feel sorry for them because their lives are wrapped up in one long string of lies and deceit that just gets more messy as they go.   Maybe it's because the left predominately sees no need of God in our world (my opinion).  To many of them there is no heaven or hell, there is just here and now and therefore they must make this the best heaven on earth they can create. To do this, requires lots of force and coercion to accomplish as not everyone is going to enjoy the earthly heaven you set out to create.  To do this, they must spend every waking hour addressing every new video that comes up and every lie they said with new and improved lies.    They will have to re-write and ignore sections of their laws as the unexpected consequences of their legislation begin to become obvious to the voters.   As Reagan put it best, "The more the plans fail, the more the planners plan" until it consumes every minute of their lives on earth.  To that, all I can say is....

    What a pathetic lot they have become.

    Or as in the proverb by the famous Scottish author, Sir Walter Scott

 "Oh what a wicked web we weave when first we practice to deceive"
 







Friday, November 14, 2014

Fixing the problem of Executive Orders

   Executive orders have been around almost since our founding with George Washington issuing 8 such orders.   The president with the record of MOST Executive Orders is good old Teddy Roosevelt with a whopping 1,081 Executive Orders issued and the only president to NEVER use it was William Harrison.  While many will argue that it's not the number of orders but the power of each Executive Order that is abused we still must somehow come to grips with and how to balance such power whether for good or for bad.

   I have watched countless political pundits on TV list things congress can do to stand up to the President and his idea to use Executive Orders to "fix" the immigration issue that he says he has "grown tired" of waiting for an answer from Congress.  Their ideas to fix  this "Constitutional Crisis" range from impeachment (which they don't have the stomach for), to suing the President, to shutting down the government or de-funding parts of the immigration department.   None of which seems effective against this President as he has nothing to lose with only 2 years left and his "legacy" will be written by liberal scholars and glossed over in time with him being America's first Black President (Sorry Bill).   Also, the President, who claims to be a Constitutional scholar (though he was never a tenured professor of any college), has it completely backwards.  He has said that Congress can always pass a law that super-cedes his "law" (he meant order...but you get what he means).  But that is not our system.  Congress passes legislation and the President can veto them.  The president does not make laws and Congress vetoes them with legislation.   In fact, nothing would stop the president from vetoing their legislation in the end by declaring their law as either "wrong-headed" or "going too far" and letting his "law" super-cede theirs.
  
     But there is another answer for this Constitutional Crisis and its staring you right in the face.

     It's the Constitution of course!

     The only way to fix a Constitutional Crisis is to have a Constitutional fix.  And I think given the
situation right now it is ripe for implementation since both the left and the right are on record as being against Executive Orders (when its the other side of course).   Congress now sees that their power is dwindling and the President is usurping most of it from them.   And as in the words of that great political thinker, Rahm Emmanuel, who said "We should never let a good crisis go to waste" we too should take advantage of this crisis as well.

     What can be done?

     First of all we must accept that some executive action is required at times to address issues that cannot wait for Congress to convene or are too trivial to be of their concern.   So while we don't want to strip the President of all of his power to manage minor governmental details, at the same time Congress does need to have a check to determine if his actions are encroaching on their authority or are in defiance of the people and the Constitution that we live by.

    An answer came to me while watching an NFL football game.  Today each coach is given the power to play "referee" during the game by the throwing of a "red flag" to request the last play to be reviewed by the leagues referees (who are watching the game in New York).   The coach is given 2 red flags per game.   He must use these flags wisely because if the ruling on the field stands (was deemed correct) then the coach loses the flag and is also charged a timeout.   If he's right and the ruling is overturned he gets his flag back and is not charged a timeout. Call it an "NFL check and balance".

   A similar process could be done for Executive Orders.  First of all, the president would have a special Executive Order pen.   Second his order would need to provide an expiration date of no more than 90 days.   During this 90 day period, Congress can convene and vote on allowing his order to stand or not.  If they approve the EO, the President gets his Executive Order pen back immediately.  If they veto his order, he loses his pen for TWICE the expiration time (max of 180 days).  In this way he is prevented from re-issuing the exact same order back-to-back indefinitely (there could be an additional clause that after 4 vetoes he loses his pen for the remainder of the year or term.

    I believe Congress could get this done as both side hate it when Presidents abuse this power and it would re-balance the power between the Executive Branch and the Legislative Branch at the same time give the President some control over the government.








    

Monday, November 10, 2014

Falling Short

   Football is often called a game of inches played on a field measured in yards.  Recently I saw a video clip of a Utah State football player making one of the largest goofs in college football history.   You can see the clip here.  The mistake was so narrow that it even went unnoticed by the announcers on TV.   What happened?

   A player for Utah had caught a pass and run it in for a touchdown, but just 1 yard short of the end zone decided to drop the ball.  The referee noticed this and did not signal a touchdown and while the Utah players we celebrating an Oregon player realized the situation and picked up the ball and ran it back 99 yards for a touchdown. 


      The reason I decided to write this blog is not to rub salt into the Utah players wound ( I am sure this will haunt him for years to come) but instead to use this story as an illustration of how we are in God's eyes on our own merits.   Paul says in Romans, "For all fall short of the glory of God...".   Just as the Utah player fell short and it didn't matter to the referee that he had all intentions of scoring a touchdown, the fact was that the ball did not cross the goal line.  Some would say this is knit-picking and close should be "good enough" but that is not how it is in football or in God's world.  

    It's sad to see such effort wasted.  It pained me to watch the players face as he saw what he had done on the TV screen in the stadium.  He messed up and it cost the team a touchdown.   He let down his team, his coach and his school.   God too is pained by our loss.  He is not sitting on the opposite sideline cheering our misfortune.  Instead, he is there sitting next to us on the bench consoling us.  But not consoling like we do here on earth with words like "There there... you'll do better next time" or "We all mess up sometimes.. its ok.."     Instead he has the power to rewrite the history books and the scoreboard.   We look up at the TV screen and we don't see US dropping the ball but instead his own Son , Jesus Christ fumbling the ball at the 1 yard line and taking the punishment for us.

    John writes:  "He who knew no sin, became sin for us"

    That's called the grace of God. 

Thursday, October 30, 2014

Wall Street: Washington's money launderer

    Money laundering is process of taking illegal money (such as money from selling illegal drugs or extortion) and making it look "legal" by putting dirty money through
an investor and then taking the clean money out later through a check or money transfer.  Many methods exist to do this from: structuring (breaking cash up into smaller deposits), investments (cash based businesses like parking garages, strip clubs and casinos), round-tripping, and using shell-companies.  To make this process work it usually takes a secondary partner who is willing to look the other way because they will benefit from the transaction as well (usually in the form of a small kick back). The partner usually has a legitimate business which has a large cash supply in which the illegal money can be mixed up into and therefore difficult for the government to distinguish the good money from the bad. 

    You can say that this is what our politicians are doing as well in Washington DC through the banks and Wall Street.   While DC is not selling drugs (though many of them seem to be using a lot of drugs) they are using a similar process to hide their real activities from the American public.

   How Washington DC launders its money

   First of all you must understand that our government cannot print money directly and use it by
itself  (imagine how bad things would be if they did).  This is because  the Treasury uses the Federal Reserve to do its printing.  The government can issue bonds that can be sold which then the Federal reserve can use to order the printing of more money but that is all.  However, the Federal Reserve has been using a new system call Quantitative Easing (QE) to give the banks more "electronic" money (no printing needed at all) by going into their accounts and changing reserve amounts.  So far over 2 Trillion dollars has been distributed thus far to the banks since 2009 in this manner. The banks then can tap into these new found funds and invest the money on Wall Street.   This flood of new money is what is responsible for the NYSE reaching all time highs even though most of the news on street is not all that good.   When these short-term investments are later cashed in by the banks, the money is taxed by the IRS and the money finds itself in the governments pockets.   In this way, the "dirty" electronic money distributed by QE is washed and put back in the governments pockets as clean tax money for them to spend on their endless welfare and government programs.

    Wall Street, therefore, acts as Washington's money launderer and everyone benefits from the scheme except us the average citizen as we see our dollars we've saved destroyed by inflation.

  

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Science catching up with .... the Bible?

   Sometimes you hear stories about scientists arguing over who "discovered what and when" to claim ownership of the discovery.  While the Bible is not intended to be a science textbook, often it shows us many of these "discoveries" are already made known to us through it.  One example of this I like to use is Einstein's law of relativity in which "time" flows at different rates for different observers.   Until the turn of the 1900's common scientific thought was that time moved at the same rate no matter what speed you moved at.  It made sense.  Why should a clock run slower or faster for a person who is moving or stationary?   But given the fact that light (an electromagnetic wave) propagates through a vacuum and therefore there is no "physical medium" in which the wave is transferred meant that all observers of the wave must measure the exact same speed.   For years scientists convinced themselves this could not be and searched endlessly for an invisible medium call "ether" that inhabited this invisible vacuous void.   After many experiments none could be found and Einstein (a Jew) resolved the problem by saying time must be measured differently so all observers measure the speed of light to be 186,000 miles/sec.  Could Einstein have recalled Psalm 90:4
A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.
Also St. Peter writes in 2 Peter 3:8 (Einstein would not have read this but I add it anyway)
But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.
So even the Bible as ancient as it is shows that time is NOT observed the same by everyone (especially by God) and that time is relative.

Creation

    While some view Genesis as anti-science, I see it as an example of how God's wisdom precedes our own wisdom in how the universe began.   To do this, first you must look at Genesis from the view point of a person who has no scientific knowledge (early man) and also a very limited vocabulary (counting may have been limited to 1-10 and no words to describe complex environments).  Given that I will show you that Genesis is NOT anti-science at all when examined and science lags its interpretation.

Note: The reason creation is often so attacked by non-believers is that by casting "doubt" about the first chapter of the Bible you therefore cast doubt on all subsequent chapters and books as well.  The premise is that if God "lied" about creation.. then everything else could be a "lie" as well.  It is not the story of creation that they wish to eviscerate, but the whole book they want to ignore.  I believe God never lied in the creation story but told it in such a way as to show his order, his strength, his truth and how special we are in a way that they could understand it best. 

Genesis 1:1
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
     I always wondered about this verse and it puzzled me even as a child. How the earth is "formless
Earth in there ...somewhere
AND void"?    It's like saying it's there and yet...  NOT there.   Then later it says God was "hovering above the waters"... wait didn't it just say the earth was "formless and void"?  Where did the water come from?  It then occurred to me that "waters" is the only word the ancient Hebrews had for something that is there... yet NOT there.. like a gas or a plasma.  I was watching a TV show on the big bang and they talked about the universe when it was still a "singularity" and how it "had no real shape".   You could point at the singularity and say with certainty, "There's the earth!" as it would be in there somewhere (formless and void) and God can be outside this "water" to call it forth. 

Note: The Bible is the ONLY creation story that starts with NOTHING!  All other so-called   
           creation stories all start with "something" whether it be mud, water, or even fire and ice.

Genesis 1:3
And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
     Ironically this is actually the first visible action of the Big Bang for, according to scientists, the only force that exists at the beginning is gravity and electromagnetic energy comes later.  Therefore as the universe expands in the beginning it expands faster than the speed of light until it reaches a point where its "cool enough" for electrons to be formed.  At that point this large accumulation of negatively charged ions (protons come later) repel each other (like charges repel) which such a magnificent force they create the largest electromagnetic wave (light) the universe will EVER "see".   Later as the universe cools further protons are formed and these combine with the electrons to form the most abundant element in the universe: Hydrogen.  When this happens the "glowing universe" begins to take shape and "light and dark are separated".

Genesis 1:6
And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

     Translating "water" to "plasma" or "dust-gas" we see God filtering or separating lighter elements from heavier elements (above and below).  This also happens in the early universe into 2 ways.  First in the creation of stars by the gathering of hydrogen into early stars which manufacture heavier elements (below) and lighter elements (above).  Secondly in the creation of our solar system as our dust-clouds of elements from older  starts separates into Sun, solid-planets, moons, gas-planets(Uranus,Neptune,Jupiter) and other material such as comets and asteroids.   
 
 Genesis 1:9
 And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.
    Here we see God now separating water on the earth from the land.  Interesting enough is that scientists now say that our earth initially had only 1 continent (a super-continent) called Pangaea which later broke up into the 7 continents we now have today due to plate tectonics. 

Genesis 1:11
11 Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day
     Science also confirms that vegetation was the first form of life on the earth as their DNA is a simpler form and that the earliest type of plant life was most likely mold or yeast.   This was necessary to remove CO2 from atmosphere and produce the oxygen needed for more complex forms of life to use.

Genesis 1:14
And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. 16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.
    Here some may say "Gotch-ya!" as this seems out of order with science as it has the sun being created later than plants.   However there are plants that can grow without sunlight (mold for example) and therefore it is possible for the sun to come later.  I often wonder whether or not when the earth is being formed around the sun (asteroids colliding to form planets etc..) that possible the sun had not reached a point of generating fusion energy yet (big help form planets... but not big enough to crush hydrogen into helium to make fusion ) such that planets are swirling around it but in the dark.  This would actually help solve one of sciences big mysteries as sunlight is actually detrimental to early life development.  This is because ultra-violet light DESTROYS amino-acids (they are fragile compounds) needed to form proteins and DNA/RNA.   If these are formed in the "dark" using the heat of the earths core to form them then it may be more likely to happen.  But this is just a hypothesis on my part.  

Genesis 1:20
And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” 23 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.
   Here we see God creating the first "living creature" in the sea.  This also, is confirmed by scientists that ocean life was most likely the first "life" on earth and "birds" could have evolved from bugs or fish "flying" out of the water.

Genesis 1:24
And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
    After the water is filled with creatures the next is the land animals.  This too is corroborated by biologists as many believe fish left the ocean to escape predators or find food.  Therefore land animals came after ocean dwellers.

Genesis 1:26
26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” 
    Finally we have man as the LAST creation.



    So I say to scientists today.... you didn't discover anything new... it was already written long ago and you are just catching up!



Monday, October 27, 2014

Will America ever have another "Reagan"?

    My son once asked me if I thought we would ever see a strong president like Ronald Reagan again.   After thinking about it for some time I said , "It's possible but not highly likely".   The reason I say this is that Presidents are not born that way... they are raised that way.   Reagan was a product of his environment and his education.   He was born in 1911 and saw the economic boom of the 1920's as well as the great depression.   He saw how good at could be and how bad it can get.  Reagan lived at a time when religion was still in high regard and citizenship was still taught in our schools and boys were taught what it meant to be a MAN.  For a Reagan to appear again he would need to survive a gauntlet of assaults.

Gauntlet level #1:  A socialist education system
   When Ronald Reagan was in school, schools still taught a love of country and a hard work ethic.  Children were taught to respect authority and adults and going to church was common place and even encouraged in schools.   Today's education system is more bent on  supporting a socialist ideology of "fairness" and making kids feel good about themselves.   Hard work has been replaced with "trying your best" and B's are the new C's.   For a new Reagan to make it past this level would require him to either attend a private school or be home-schooled.  Given that 90% of all children in the US go to public school that gives a 10% chance of getting past this first level.

Gauntlet level #2:  Hollywood's attack on men
     Watch old movies and compare them to today's movies.   Men were portrayed as strong, no nonsense types who were not afraid to punch a person who insulted them or their family.  Fathers were portrayed as honest, faithful and wise, but today they are all too often portrayed as stupid, womanizing and liars.  Just watch your average commercial where its hard to differentiate the men from the women.   Hollywood often lifts up the "Beta-Male" in their shows and commercials and that is the model our children are given.  Reagan's world was still an Alpha-Male dominated society and Reagan emulated those men in his presidency.  I still believe our boys hunger for that kind of strength but it will not be supplied to them in TV or Movies they watch.   But with our ever changing media Hollywood might not be able control this much longer as the next generating will be getting their input from a large variety of suppliers (mostly on-line streaming) and so there is hope this might change in the near future.

Gauntlet level #3:  Attack on marriage
    Like the saying goes: "Behind every successful man is a strong woman urging him on".  So also, Ronald Reagan would not be Ronald Reagan without Nancy Reagan beside him.   So much of our movies and television shows today portray marriage as a "game" with shows like "The Bachelor" , "The Bachelorette" and "Say Yes to the Dress"   and several other "reality" shows which reduce marriage to nothing more than a Prom-Night-On-Steriods.  Our kids are shown this unrealistic view of dating and what to look for in a man.   As mentioned in the previous section, most of these so-called "men" who are nothing more than "women who shave" and the "women" are nothing more than "low-cost-hookers" who have no self-respect.   Reagan lived at a time when marriage was about having children and raising a family and women were taught to look for qualities in a man that would benefit the raising of a family  (good job, hard working, respectful, honest, protective, intelligent).  Men like Ronald Reagan are made in the marriage process and given that the marriage rate is dropping in our country it will be harder in the future to get past this level.

Gauntlet level #4:  Attack on religion
    Ronald Reagan was a strongly avowed Christian from his youth.  He believed strongly in God and in Jesus Christ.  He was not afraid to make his beliefs known either.  Was he a saint?  No.  But his faith in God and his view that God rewards those who seek justice and truth allowed him to speak truth to acts of evil and call a spade a spade.  Faith gave him the audacity to tell Russia to "tear down this wall!" when no one around him would.   Our politically correct view of religion today were all religions are correct and fine does not provide the fertile spiritual soil to raise up a Reagan today.  When Reagan grew up, religion was honored in movies (for the most part) and good and evil were as different as black and white (rather than shades of grey).   Religious people today are often attacked when they speak up or run for office.  They are dismissed as either "too simple", "too narrow minded", "out dated", "out of touch" or even "racist".   In our world today religion is seen as drawback rather than as a help to many.    It's okay to mention God in a "general way" but don't ever say you draw strength from reading his word on a regular basis.   

Q: What will it take to make another Reagan?

A: Another great depression
   
    I know that is not an answer you will like to hear, but its the truth.  Like Reagan, we need to re-learn that we need to be self-sufficient. Only through a long economic depression will our children learn what really matters in a man.   Cuteness, sexiness,  sensitivity and how he looks in a speed-o will go out the window.  Men will have to grow up and fight to gain the woman they love.  Marriage will become about SURVIVAL and not about having someone to snuggle up to on rainy days.  Men will have to go back to manual labor to earn their keep and those with JOBS will be longed for by woman over girly-men or only sell insurance.   Men will learn to save their money again and not be fooled into thinking that our economy is "un-sinkable" and therefore throw their money away on every stupid technological toy that comes along just for the sake of having it.  And finally, men will learn to trust in God again and not themselves.

    Then a new Reagan will come along to lead us to a better future.
  





















Friday, October 17, 2014

Economics, Football and Tom Brady

   I am always looking for microcosms to help explain complex ideas and there is no more complex topic than economics.   We need ways to get across to our young people how different economic systems work and don't work and why.

     Last week while watching my favorite team,The New England Patriots, I was intrigued to hear one of the TV announcers mention that Tom Brady doesn't throw to every receiver on the field.   They have to first EARN his trust before he throws the ball to them.  This trust is earned over times of practice by how hard they work and if they perform well on the field.  It was then that it occurred to me that competition on the football field not only occurs between the two teams, but also between the players on the SAME team.  Tom Brady uses this inter-team competition to help influence his players to improve their skills and become better players in the process.

    We could call Tom Brady's method the Capitalism Method of Football Management as he uses competition to improve his players and rewards "results" with more opportunities to show their skills. This helps not only the new players to work harder to earn his trust but it also helps his current "trusted" receivers to continue to work hard because they know that trust can be lost as quick as it can be earned.  This doesn't mean that Brady will stop throwing to Edellman if he drops one pass to him next Sunday, but it does mean that if he drops a long series of passes to him, Tom may be looking to one of his other receivers.   The reason for this is that each dropped pass is like a $1000 dollar thrown down the toilet.  Tom needs to make sure as many passes "count" for them to win their games.  So also companies, like Tom Brady, want to maximize the money they spend.  By using inter-company competition managers insure that their workers are bettering their skills and workers that have earned their trust are rewarded with more opportunities to show their worth to the company.  Giving larger amounts of money (and responsibility) to workers who have earned it insures that less money has the possibility of being lost or wasted.

     Are there other ways for QB's to decide who to throw to? 

     Of course!

     Another way would be for the QB to throw to his friends and those guys he likes to be with.  Call this the Fascist Method.   Tom could throw lavish parties and invite his receivers to these parties.  The ones who show up the most and cozy up to Tom at them and make his parties the most enjoyable would be rewarded the most during the game.  While this doesn't happen at the NFL level (at least not very often), it does happen at the high school level.  The game no longer becomes about winning and losing but instead about who's more popular.   This method is by far the worst method as it doesn't sensitivities the good players or the bad players to do better at receiving as that is not the method used to measure the receiver by and determining who gets the ball thrown to them.  Like Pavlov's dog, the dog only salivated when the bell was rung and not when a whistle was blown so also we react to the event that rewards us and ignore the one that doesn't. In the football scenario, it would cause the good players to stop practicing and spend their time socializing with the QB in order to get what they want (i.e. more passes). For this reason Fascism in an economic sense is a horrible system as it rewards people for things that don't benefit society at all and causes those who do want to work hard to change their behaviors to be unproductive rather than productive.

     A third way for a QB to distribute the passes would be for him to equally distribute them to all of his receivers.  Call this the Socialist Method.   While this method is a step UP from the Fascist Method as at least all the players will get a chance to be thrown the ball, there is no incentive for bad players to try harder for after all they are going to get the same number of chances as the good ones.   This method also hurts the teams chances of winning the game as there will be an increased number of "wasted throws" by the QB as the bad players will undoubtedly drop more balls thrown to them.

       Let's say he has 3 players A, B and C.   A catches 90% of his throws, B catches 50% and C only 20%. If he throws 10 throws to each one, then at the end only 9 + 5 + 2 will be caught (16 total).  He has "wasted" 30-16 = 14 passes by doing it this way.   So also paying all your workers the same will waste lots of money as some workers will be less capable in earning it back. 

     But if he weights his throws with higher numbers to A such as 20, 8 and 2  (The Capitalist/Brady Method),  he will get 18+4+0=22 total receptions and increase the chances of winning.  This is why companies must reward better results with higher pay as they will insure that their money spent is not wasted and the less capable workers either improve their skills or move on to other companies.

Is Jesus a Socialist?


    I remember hearing a story of certain university professors teaching their students that they believe Jesus would associate with the Socialists Party because he was all about taking care of the poor.

    First of all I think the whole argument is ridiculous given that Jesus is the Son of God and exists outside the whole realm of stupid politics.  But to play along with these idiots I would have to first remind them of Jesus Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25.

14 “Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them. 15 To one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag,[a] each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. 16 The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more. 17 So also, the one with two bags of gold gained two more. 18 But the man who had received one bag went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.
19 “After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. 20 The man who had received five bags of gold brought the other five. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five bags of gold. See, I have gained five more.’
21 “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’
22 “The man with two bags of gold also came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with two bags of gold; see, I have gained two more.’
23 “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’
24 “Then the man who had received one bag of gold came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. 25 So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’
26 “His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? 27 Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.
28 “‘So take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags. 29 For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. 30 And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
     Two things to note with this story
  1. The king did not give each man the same amount before he left
  2. He  rewarded greater return with a greater reward.
     Obviously the king knew something about the men he was about to leave with his money to invest.  These weren't men strangers pulled off the street.  These men were managers who worked for the king and therefore had a known track record.  The King therefore, wanting to maximize his return, gives the man with the best track record the most money and so forth.  At the same time he gave all of them an opportunity to up their game by giving even the most untrustworthy of the three, one bag of gold.  Then upon their return he doesn't hand out meaningless plastic trophies to them like we do with our kids today.  Instead he rewards each one with the same amount of gold as they EARNED for him when he was gone. 

    Does any of this sound like a socialist?

    Not to me.

     If Jesus followed the socialist point of view his parable would have had the King give the same amount to each of the managers and rewarded all of them the same regardless of what they had earned.  In fact, a true Socialist would have take the earned bags of gold from the best manager and given it to the worst manager who buried his gold and commended all of them for trying to do their best with what they had been given.













Note that in this story, the man who had the LARGEST RESULTS was rewarded with the LARGEST REWARD.  In other words,  the king did not reward them equally, nor did he give the ma


Friday, October 10, 2014

Will God find Faith on the earth when he returns?

Jesus asked this question, "When God returns, will he find faith on the earth?"

The implied answer to the question is: NO.

Recently two stories have come to my attention that reminded me of this verse.   Both stories have at their core the basic question of life.  One story deals with the beginning of life and the other deals with its end and yet both have one common theme:

A lack of Faith.   

The first story is from  a woman who has decided to end her child's unborn life in her womb and rather than do it quietly she pens an open letter posted on Reddit.   Below is what she wrote:

Little Thing:

I can feel you in there. I've got twice the appetite and half the energy. It breaks my heart that I don't feel the enchantment that I'm supposed to feel. I am both sorry and not sorry.
I am sorry that this is goodbye. I'm sad that I'll never get to meet you. You could have your father's eyes and my nose and we could make our own traditions, be a family. But, Little Thing, we will meet again. I promise that the next time I see that little blue plus, the next time you are in the same reality as me, I will be ready for you.
Little Thing, I want you to be happy. More than I want good things for myself, I want the best things for the future. That's why I can't be your mother right now. I am still growing myself. It wouldn't be fair to bring a new life into a world where I am still haunted by ghosts of the life I've lived. I want you to have all the things I didn't have when I was a child. I want you to be better than I ever was and more magnificent than I ever could be. I can't do to you what was done to me: Plant a seed made of love and spontaneity into a garden, and hope that it will grow on only dreams. Love and spontaneity are beautiful, but they have little merit. And while I have plenty of dreams to go around, dreams are not an effective enough tool for you to build a better tomorrow. I can't bring you here. Not like this.
I love you, Little Thing, and I wish the circumstances were different. I promise I will see you again, and next time, you can call me Mom.
   What amazes me the most (other than she refers to the baby as "Little Thing") is how little faith she has either in herself as a mother or in the future for her child.   If she cannot provide, does she not think someone else might be able to?   In referring to "I can't do to you what was done to me..." does she not think her life was worth keeping either?   How does she know what the future will bring?   Is her child's life preordained by the stars?   Beethoven was born to a poor family and was one of 7 children and yet he went on to be one of our world's most famous musical composers.   Both my mother and father were born in the middle of one of our country's worst economic depressions (my mom was born in 1932 and my dad in 1930) and both of their families had very little money to speak of and yet their parents faith in God gave them the strength go forward and raise them.

    The second story is about a young recently married woman by the name of Brittany Maynard who has terminal brain cancer.    She has decided that the day after her husbands birthday, she will end her life rather than try to remain alive.   Her planned date of termination?   November 1st 2014.   Some are heralding her decision to end her life on her terms as "courageous" and "selfless", but I would rather show it to be "faithless".   She has no faith that God (or the universe) might cure her.  She has no faith that she might be able to give some one in her family the right advice for the struggles they are going through.   I understand the pain she is going through.  I too worry about my end as well as my father died of Alzheimer's a few years ago ago and it was difficult to watch his decline.   But even in his last days he was able to give me word's of wisdom I will never forget and will always cherish.

A Sad Generation

    To me, we are witnessing the beginning of  a new generation I call: Generation-Q (where the Q stands for QUIT).   A generation that has no faith or hope in a future (most of these sadly probably voted for Mr. Hope-and-Change)  and is all to willing to push the big red-button labeled "QUIT" rather than stay and fight.  Each generation following this one will be followed by an even worse generation even more willing than the first to eject itself from life.

    Some would ask:  Why should we allow ourselves to go through such pain?

    Answer: For 2 reasons:
    
1) Because the next generation needs to see how it's done. 

    We owe it to those who follow to see how life is to be lived and every breath fought for until we can breath no more.   We owe it to them to see that it CAN be done and that we CAN persevere. We are modelling for them how life is to be lived. 

2) Quitting can be contagious

       This is true not only of suicide but in sports,  business and even in the military that quitters often give rise to more quitters.   Even at my work I have witnessed the effect of seeing many people I admire suddenly leave the company they have spent so much time working for.   It pulls you down and makes you question your willingness to stay and make it work as well.  So also it is with life as well.  We have seen how teen suicides often cause more teen suicides.   It is for this reason that most TV news stations no longer report on them as far too often they often see increased levels of suicide occur afterward.  Once this avalanche starts it will be very difficult to stop as it will increase under its own momentum.

The writer of Hebrews puts it best in Hebrews 11:1
"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see"
We need to have FAITH that ....
  • Tomorrow will be better than today
  • I can be of service to others even if I am lying flat on my back
  • That God will be there for us no matter what.