Now, this isn’t a blog about Governor Sanford and his problems, though we are reminded that when one “preaches” about one set of values and then lives and entirely different set of values, it is very difficult for people to hear the truth.

And while I am saddened by the death of Michael Jackson, it isn’t that high on my list of concerns. But, depending on what the autopsy finds and what that means for each one of us, I think that Farrah Fawcett’s death was more important (even if it did get pushed back because of Michael Jackson’s death). I say that her death was more important because she died of cancer.

But instead of hearing about research on cancer treatment and what needs to be done, we are going to be (and are being bombarded) with reports about Michael Jackson and his problems. It makes me wonder what our values truly are.

Why are we not more concerned about the state of health care in this country today? Why are we not pushing for active research in curing disease and removing the curse and scourge of cancer from our lives? Why are we not fighting for a more equitable health care program that reduces the cost of healthcare?

Now, I know one of the arguments being made today about healthcare and the efforts of the present administration to reform healthcare is that we don’t want the government telling us who we can see and what can be done? I agree with the concept of not having some bureaucrat telling me how my healthcare should be managed but tell me how having a bureaucratic insurance company is better than the government? Besides, Medicare is a government-run program and a very successful one at that.

To tell me that insurance companies, which are only interested in profits for themselves, is a better alternative than the government is really stretching the point. Insurance companies in the healthcare business are getting rich at the expense of individuals and I would not be surprised if the number of uninsured individuals in this country is not on the rise.

I always find it interesting how we bandy about the term “Christian nation”, especially when it is used by individuals who are not willing to lead Christian lives. It is no wonder that the Christianity is threatened today but the threat comes from those who use the label without using its meaning.

Consider what happened to Jesus. At the end of the 3^rd chapter of Mark, Jesus’ mother, brothers, and sisters came looking for him.

Just then his mother and brothers showed up. Standing outside, they relayed a message that they wanted a word with him. He was surrounded by the crowd when he was given the message, "Your mother and brothers and sisters are outside looking for you."

Jesus responded, "Who do you think are my mother and brothers?" Looking around, taking in everyone seated around him, he said, "Right here, right in front of you—my mother and my brothers. Obedience is thicker than blood. The person who obeys God’s will is my brother and sister and mother." (Mark 3: 31 - 35)

Jesus redefined the family; if we are part of that family, then isn’t time that we started caring for the family. Isn’t time we put some value to the term “family values”?

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This is cross-posted to Thoughts From The Heart On The Left

Congressman Barney Frank, one of the chief architects of the current housing crisis, is once again asking Freddie and Fannie to relax restrictions on condo loans. Yes, the opposite of progress is Congress. The full story is here.

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Cross-Posted at Allan R. Bevere

President Obama has taken criticism from Republicans and from some others for what they say has been his weak and timid statements and his tone on the protests taking place in Iran after the recent election, which has returned Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the role of puppet under the control of the puppet masters formally know as the mullahs. President Obama finally made a very strong statement yesterday at a press conference, but some feel that it was too long in coming.

But I think the president’s critics are being unfair on this one. I do wish the president had said a little more at the beginning of the protests about the right of all people to protest and assemble and to have free and fair elections without singling our Iran specifically; after all, the signs of the Iranians protesters that were in English were not directed at the people in the streets with them, but they were sending a message to the United States for support. The president could have done a little more in the beginning to affirm in a tactful way our support for their gatherings. I also think it was a mistake for the president to say that even if the other candidate for president, Mir Hossein Mousavi had won, nothing would have changed. That may in fact be true since Mousavi was in the government under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, but the problem is that such a comment sends a message to the Iranian protesters that their election ultimately doesn’t matter because if their candidate had won, it would still be business as usual. But the issue of the moment was not whether Mousavi would have brought change, but the fact that the people want change and they were being denied the right to make a difference in their nation. The president should have addressed the aspirations of the people, not the reality of the policies of their candidate.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you want to lower your auto insurance premiums you drive safer.

If you want to lower your life insurance premiums you live healthier.

If you want to lower your health insurance premiums you … get a new job?

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Crossposted from My Three Cents

Well, the North Koreans are at it again.  This time it is reported that they may be planning to fire a missile over Japan toward Hawaii.  Granted, it will fall far short, but it is symbolic nonetheless.

According to the AP:

North Korea may fire a long-range ballistic missile toward Hawaii in early July, a Japanese news report said Thursday, as Russia and China urged the regime to return to international disarmament talks on its rogue nuclear program.

The missile, believed to be a Taepodong-2 with a range of up to 4,000 miles (6,500 kilometers), would be launched from North Korea’s Dongchang-ni site on the northwestern coast, said the Yomiuri daily, Japan’s top-selling newspaper. It cited an analysis by the Japanese Defense Ministry and intelligence gathered by U.S. reconnaissance satellites.

The missile launch could come between July 4 and 8, the paper said.

While the newspaper speculated the Taepodong-2 could fly over Japan and toward Hawaii, it said the missile would not be able to hit Hawaii’s main islands, which are about 4,500 miles (7,200 kilometers) from the Korean peninsula.

It seems to me that whatever the Obama administration does, North Korea is intent on sticking their finger in his eye.  They test nukes, he expresses grave concern, they sentence two journalists to hard labor.  It is like they know we won’t do anything about it.  Oh, I know, we’ve got a UN resolution now.  We will now ask North Korean ships suspected of carrying arms or nuclear technology “can we inspect you, pretty please?”

That has got them shaking in their boots I’m sure as we at the same time cut our missile defense.  With these missiles they are firing, a nuclear warhead isn’t all that we have to be worried about.  We’re reminded today not to forget about their chemical arms.

North Korea’s massive stockpile of chemical weapons is as threatening as its nuclear program, analysts said Thursday, highlighting an aspect of the secretive regime’s pursuit of weapons of mass destruction that is rarely talked about.

How does the thought of a missile armed with a nerve agent hitting Anchorage, Fairbanks, or Honolulu strike you?  Or even a likelier scenario, Seoul or Tokyo?

It’s time for the Obama Administration and Democrats in Congress to realize, rhetoric and empty threats won’t cut it.  Now is not the time to cut missile defense, and to respond with meaningless U.N. resolutions.  We need some backbone here.  Backbone in the form of a sturdy missile defense shield, naval blockade, oil embargo, and possibly even a nuclear Japan. 

Our words need teeth.  That is the only thing North Korea will understand.

Originally posted at Caffeinated Thoughts.

The late F. Donald Coggan (1909-2000), the former Archbishop of Canterbury wrote a wonderful little book many years ago entitled, Christ and Our Crises. It is delightful to read and quite insightful. Over the years I periodically take it off my book shelf and read portions of it again. I was reading it the other day and came across the following in his chapter on “The Crisis of Success”:

All too often, I suspect, Christianity has been thought of in terms of gloom. In the old days we used to bind our Bibles in black as if they were intended only for funereal occasions, not for joyous living day by day.The way we bound our Bibles in black made it seems as though God were on the side of the drab. What an extraordinary idea!

I like that saying of Kierkegaard. You can see the cook taking a drab dish and making it much more interesting with a pinch of spice. Or you can picture the artist adding a magic touch of red. I believe God does that to life. Read the Gospels and you will see that Jesus is the heart and soul of the party at the wedding feast at Cana of Galilee. Quite clearly you see that He often found Himself more at home with worldly types than the sour-faced rigorists of the world about him.

Read the rest of this entry »

The cold-blooded murder of a doctor whose clinic performed late term abortions was one more travesty in the midst of the abortion wars. No such killing can ever be justified and there appears to be something even more heinous about this particular act as it happened in a church on Sunday morning.

As anyone who reads this blog knows, I oppose legalized abortion and I would not be disappointed at all to see it outlawed, even though I believe the matter involves much more than the law. But I categorically reject any justification for the murder of someone who performs abortions as do the vast majority of individuals I know who call themselves pro-life. One does not respond to the killing of innocent and unborn children with killing in kind. To suggest otherwise reveals a contradictory ethic of life in the same way as those who reject capital punishment, war, but not abortion.

I am very aware of the the fact that there are some very difficult cases where an abortion may be a tragic but acceptable procedure, such as when the life of the mother is actually threatened. What amazes me is that those who consider themselves pro-choice usually appeal to the difficult and rare cases as a justification for their position. It is one thing to take the exceptional cases into account in one’s ethics, but an ethic based on the exception is something quite different and makes for a bad ethic.

I do not have anything else to say about this except that while I can make various arguments as to why unborn children should not be killed and neither should the physicians who perform such deeds, the most convincing case for me is that I cannot imagine Jesus performing an abortion on a child created in the divine image, nor can I imagine him gunning down a doctor who performs abortions, who is made in that very same image.

It was Karl Barth who said that because of the incarnation, the light of God shines even in the womb.

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Cross-Posted at Allan R. Bevere

On Pentecost Sunday I had the great honor of confirming fourteen young people during worship. Two of them were our sons, Joshua and Jason. It was a very meaningful time of worship and I pray that these young people remain strong and steadfast in their faith.

Bishop William Willimon noted many years ago that confirmation is the last stop on our children’s way out of the church. The good bishop is unfortunately quite right. We have a difficult time as mainliners holding on to our children, and I wonder at times whether we in the leadership of the denomination and the individual churches, as well as those sitting in the pews, though well intentioned, are contributing to that decline. We can probably give more than a few reasons why our denomination is getting rather gray and why we do not seem to be attracting younger individuals. (I rather doubt that we are attracting older persons either quite frankly.)

We Christians spend much of our time attempting to avoid ridicule; we work to be acceptable and civil. We try hard just to be seen as normal. If we are viewed like everyone else, then perhaps people will pay attention to what we have to say. And it may indeed be the case that we have been successful at the acceptability project. We have worked so hard to blend in that we indeed have. In appearing to be like everyone else, we are like everyone else. There is apparently nothing unique in what we are offering. We, the church are the prop for the state and the surrounding culture. We have ceased to the alternative.

Of course, that is not the way we view ourselves. We believe we are harbingers of a radical gospel. So, we Christians choose sides, that is we embrace the categories imposed upon us by Enlightened modernity that surround us. Some of us become Republicans, others Democrats, some capitalists, others socialists. We identify ourselves as liberal or conservative, never thinking that such labels are not only inadequate in capturing what it means to be a citizen of God’s kingdom, but that they distort the very nature of Christian faith. And as each side embraces its own polarizing position, each side is sure it is displaying the radical nature of the gospel and the other side has compromised their faith, when in reality, no one can claim to have captured the radical nature of the gospel because everyone around us, religious or not, has assented to the same categories. We are seen as no different from anyone else, and therefore our message is viewed as irrelevant. When it comes to critical issues of our time, the church basically sounds no different except for sprinkling into the discussion a trite understanding of the love of God mixed in with a shallow notion of inclusiveness. No one listens to us… but hey, at least we are acceptable and civil and normal.

Two thousand years ago on that first Christian Pentecost, the believers in Jerusalem that day proclaimed the word of the Lord in a way that simply could not be ignored; and they were accused of being drunk, at nine o’clock in the morning no less. How else does a world domesticated by the rulers of this age explain such divine power that cannot be contained? And throughout Acts those first disciples found themselves in prison and often their proclamation of the gospel in towns across the Roman empire started city-wide riots. Those early believers hardly found themselves to be accepted by those around them, but at least they weren’t boring… at least they could not be ignored.

I like civility as much as the next person. I like being accepted as much as others. But, perhaps those of us who follow Jesus would be more faithful to Jesus if we were accused more often of being drunk; if we found our message as the cause of civil unrest instead of restful meditation. Perhaps, if the church in the twenty-first century looked more like the church in the Book of Acts, we might discover that just by being the church Jesus has called us to be, those around us could not ignore us. We might not be viewed as civil and normal, but we would be noticed. If that were the case, then maybe confirmation would not be our children’s last stop on their way out of the church.

A sobering thought indeed.

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Cross-Posted at Allan R. Bevere

“If you want to tell whether someone is conservative or liberal, what are a couple of completely nonpolitical questions that will give a good clue?”

“How’s this: Would you be willing to slap your father in the face, with his permission, as part of a comedy skit?”

“And, second: Does it disgust you to touch the faucet in a public restroom?”

“Studies suggest that conservatives are more often distressed by actions that seem disrespectful of authority, such as slapping Dad. Liberals don’t worry as long as Dad has given permission.”

“Likewise, conservatives are more likely than liberals to sense contamination or perceive disgust. People who would be disgusted to find that they had accidentally sipped from an acquaintance’s drink are more likely to identify as conservatives.”

“The upshot is that liberals and conservatives don’t just think differently, they also feel differently. This may even be a result, in part, of divergent neural responses.”

“The larger point is that liberals and conservatives often form judgments through flash intuitions that aren’t a result of a deliberative process. The crucial part of the brain for these judgments is the medial prefrontal cortex, which has more to do with moralizing than with rationality. If you damage your prefrontal cortex, your I.Q. may be unaffected, but you’ll have trouble harrumphing.”

You can read Nicholas Kristof’s entire editorial, “Would You Slap Your Father? If So, You’re a Liberal,” here.

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Cross-Posted at Allan R. Bevere

North Korea tested their 2nd nuclear weapon this weekend and has fired three surface to air missiles off of their coast yesterday.  How does the Obama administration confront North Korea regarding this blatant disregard of a U.N. resolution?  With weak words says Jeffrey Emanuel.

The inexperienced president and his administration appear reluctant to go any farther than issuing sternly-worded admonitions to the rogue state.

Yes I’m sure that Kim Jong Il is trembling with fear now after the fear-inspiring statement President Obama made.

Today, North Korea said that it has conducted a nuclear test in violation of international law. It appears to also have attempted a short range missile launch. These actions, while not a surprise given its statements and actions to date, are a matter of grave concern to all nations. North Korea’s attempts to develop nuclear weapons, as well as its ballistic missile program, constitute a threat to international peace and security.

By acting in blatant defiance of the United Nations Security Council, North Korea is directly and recklessly challenging the international community. North Korea’s behavior increases tensions and undermines stability in Northeast Asia. Such provocations will only serve to deepen North Korea’s isolation. It will not find international acceptance unless it abandons its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery.

The danger posed by North Korea’s threatening activities warrants action by the international community. We have been and will continue working with our allies and partners in the Six-Party Talks as well as other members of the U.N. Security Council in the days ahead.

HT: Michelle Malkin

Then, of course, we have the U.N. “stop it or we’ll say stop it again” Security Council to add to the drama - while North Korea prepares for war and threatens military action on the South if it’s ships are stopped or searched.  Instead of taking us seriously North Korea is laughing at us.

Obama wants to implement the six-party talks (one’s that he said were an utter failure for President Bush).  What’s the definition of insanity?  Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.  Brian Kennedy from The Corner says let’s use some common sense.

These recent tests demonstrate both how serious the North Koreans are and how manifestly unserious the United States remains. Throughout the Clinton, Bush, and now the Obama administrations, we have lived under the delusion that we could negotiate with the North Koreans or the even more absurd notion that we could use China to pressure them. None of this has worked.

We are not going to stop North Korea from seeking to produce nuclear weapons unless we do one of two things. First, we could launch a preemptive nuclear strike on their nuclear-weapons facilities and their major cities — so as to both reduce their capability and preempt a lethal conventional counterattack by North Korea on South Korea or Japan. This we will not do.

Or, we could build robust missile defenses that make the North Korean nuclear missiles meaningless. This would be relatively inexpensive compared to the cost of war, and effective in that our missile-defense technologies could stop a missile launched from North Korea (although not yet a North Korean missile launched from a freighter ship off our coast).

Missile defense, that sounds like a great idea.

Oh yes, the Obama administration thought in light of a nuclear North Korea and nuclear Iran that it was a good idea to cut back on this.  Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska, whose state is positioned well to deal with (or be negatively impacted by) a nuclear North Korea urged against the cuts.  Perhaps Alaska or the West Coast getting attacked would be a “matter of grave concern” as well.

Charles Krauthammer says another solution would be a nuclear Japan.  That I’m sure will not be palatable to the Obama Administration, but it would tip the scales in the region.  Dick Morris & Eileen McGann agree regarding Japan and say economic sanctions could be effective as well, if China will get on board.

The irony, of course, is that North Korea is probably the single state in the world most vulnerable to international sanctions. It produces no energy of its own. If China chose to bring the country to its knees, it could do so in a heartbeat. But will they?

China is worried about triggering a flood of North Korean refugees across its borders and tends to be protective of its erstwhile ally.

But the real pressure point on China is Japan. If the Japanese signal that they will respond to the North Korean nuclear test with a decision to change its constitution and develop nuclear weapons itself, the impact on both China and North Korea will be intense.

HT: Gov. Sarah Palin

The time for just talking is over, toothless U.N. resolutions are not helping.  We need teeth to go along with the rhetoric.  It is the only thing the North Koreans will understand.

Cross-posted at Caffeinated Thoughts

I can’t embed videos here, so visit My Three Cents for a clip of SCOTUS nominee Sonia Sotomayor sharing her view of the role of the courts in making public policy.

Memorial Day began as a remembrance of the Union dead of the War Between the States. It was not until after World War I that the meaning of the day was expanded to honor all those who died in American Wars. And it was not until 1971 that Congress made the day a national holiday.

Major General John A. Logan, head of the Grand Army of the Republic (an organization of Union veterans) picked the day of May 30th as Memorial Day since it was believed that flowers would be in bloom all over the country. General Logan’s orders for that day stated,

"We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance. … Let pleasant paths invite the coming and going of reverent visitors and fond mourners. Let no neglect, no ravages of time, testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided republic." (From http://www.appc1.va.gov/pubaff/mday/mdayorig.htm)

But, for many, Memorial Day is a day of racing, parades, and the unofficial beginning of summer. For many students, Memorial Day is the marker that says school is almost over. It is hardly what we could call a day of memory and remembrance.

It need not be a somber day of memory and reflection for we must honor those who died to insure our freedom and the liberties that we have. But I am afraid that this is becoming a day of celebration of war, not a remembrance of war and what war does. We glorify that which we should abhor and we ignore the consequences of our actions.

The speeches that will be given today will not be about ending wars but seeking to glorify war. The politicians and pundits will speak of making this world safe for democracy but they will not speak of what must be done. They will not speak about removing the causes of war; only in making sure that we win the war. No one will speak of working to insure that this world becomes a truly safe place.

I have come to the conclusion that the loudest voices speaking on Memorial Day should be those from the Peace Movement, not in protest of past, current, or future wars but in honor of those who died in service for this country. But the words that should be spoken should be words that proclaim “no more war” and they should echo the words of those who served and fought and died and saw the horrors of war and what happens when mankind turns against itself.

We should and must honor those who served this country and remember them. But I want to work for a world in which those who died serving this country died at home with their family and friends, not on a battlefield far away from home. The words that we should hear should echo the thought of “no more war”.

We are reminded of the quote first attributed to the Greek philosopher, Herodotus, “in peace, children bury their parents; in war, parents bury their children.” We should not be hearing the cries of parents who have lost their sons and daughters, of husbands and wives who have lost their spouses, or of children who have lost their parents for a cause no one remembers or understands.

Some will tell me that war is inevitable. But if it is inevitable that means that we know it is coming. And if we know it is coming we can let it happen or we can work to stop it. I think that it is far better to work to stop war than let it happen.

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Cross-posted to Thoughts From The Heart On The Left

With all of the debate swirling around recently with the Iowa Gay Marriage Ruling, with my stand on Abortion, and in my work with high-risk kids when sharing the Gospel; I’m often told… “yeah Shane, but God is love.”  “A loving God would never do that.”  “A loving God wouldn’t make me this way and then call it sin.” (That should be a blog post all its own.)  “How could a loving God send me to hell because I don’t believe in him.”

It is ultimately based on a one-dimensional view of God focused solely on one of his attributes.  They often neglect the fact that God is also just.  Neither can be sacrificed for the other.  He is both.  How are those reconciled?  At the cross.  Dr. Michael Horton in Christless Christianity: The Alternative Gospel of the American Church gives an excellent explanation.

In justifying sinners, God does not relax his righteousness that is revealed in his law but imputes Christ’s righteousness to every believer.  In this way, God’s justice is not sacrificed to his love; rather his love and his justice are mutually satisfied.  We are saved by works – in fact, by perfect love and obedience.  However it is Christ’s works rather than ours that serve as the basis of our confidence: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1, NIV).

Amen and amen!

Cross posted at Caffeinated Thoughts

This is a portion of what I have posted on my own blog for this Sunday:

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Abraham Lincoln once told us that the government of this country was a “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” But it doesn’t appear to me that we have that sort of government anymore.

In the period from 1995 to 2005, the gap between the rich and the poor has gotten bigger and there is almost virtually no middle class left. (Gap between Rich and Poor Growing) The number of people unemployed keeps getting larger each week and while the number of foreclosures may be slowing down, they are still much higher than one would expect in “normal” times. The people of this country are hurting and, yet, we are not doing much of anything to ease the pain and suffering.

It has been reported that the money for the stimulus bill was going to areas that didn’t necessarily need the money while areas which needed the funds weren’t getting any funds. In a review of 5,500 planned transportation projects, the Associated Press found that most of the funds are going to be spent in areas that most likely don’t need the money. The government, according to the AP review, is going to spend 50 percent more money on projects in areas with lower unemployment rates than in areas harder hit by unemployment. Elks County, PA, with a unemployment rate of 13.8 percent is not receiving any of the funds while Riley County (home of Fort Riley Army Base), KS, with an unemployment rate of 3.4% is receiving approximately $56 million dollars. (STIMULUS WATCH: Early road aid leaves out neediest). It was also pointed out that it will probably cost the states as much money to manage and distribute the money as they will receive over the course of the stimulus package. (Stimulus funds in states: It costs money to spend)

Somehow, this doesn’t compute. I am sure that there is some sort of logic to what has been done has some logic to it but it is logic of a day and time that is out of step with what is happening. There is no doubt in my mind that we need to create jobs in this country and that if major parts of this country’s economy go down, then jobs will go down with them. But you cannot create jobs that are copies of the jobs created in the 1930’s and expect anything less than 1930’s results. And I do not believe that anything that is being currently done or anything that took place in the last eight years has done anything for the people of this country, unless they happen to be richer than most or more connected than most.

Our healthcare system is broken but the fixes offered only seek to enrich self-interests on both the left and the right sides, not the people. There are solutions to the health care problems of this country that do not involve immense bureaucracies or are driven by the profit motive but no one wants them because they mean that some will have to give up so that others may have something better.

Our schools are in trouble and while there is talk about upgrading things like science and mathematics education, when it is done it will not reduce the inequality between school districts and it will simply mean that the high income school districts will have more money and the low income school districts will have less. And the students in each district will reap or not reap the benefits accordingly.

I don’t deny that we need to work on the infrastructure of this country but it has to be done in a manner which is fair and equitable, not one that responds to the political prowess of each area’s representatives and senators. While the mantra of the political campaign was and still is change, it doesn’t appear that much change has taken place. But that is because the culture hasn’t changed all that much anyway.

We do not need the same old thoughts because, quite honestly, the same old thoughts don’t work. We do not need responses from our political leaders that are reflections of the old political methodologies and mythologies but rather are images of what we can be. We need new ideas and we are not getting them.

I don’t want the conservatives to begin cheering out loud or telling me that they told me so. To the greatest extent, all conservatives have been doing lately is offering resistance and negative comments, not real and viable alternatives.

This isn’t about being a liberal or a conservative; it is about being who we say we are. We proclaim that we are a Christian nation, though such proclamations come from conservatives and not liberals. But, as Christians, we need to remember the words of Christ when He began His ministry some two thousand years ago. He proclaimed that he had come to heal the sick, feed the hungry, and bring hope to the oppressed; yet today the only words that we seem to recall are his command to go and make disciples of all the people.

Read the rest of this entry »

Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi has created a real firestorm for herself when it comes to what she knew and approved of in reference to the practice of waterboarding by the CIA. At first she insisted that she did not know it was actually happening, but then briefing documents were released by the CIA clearly showing that she knew that waterboarding had been used There was no reference at all that she protested. In fact, it has been suggested by Porter Goss and other members of the CIA that Speaker Pelosi expressed concerned that not enough was being done to extract information.

This is not a post in defense of the practice of waterboarding, but what must be said is that politicians get themselves into this kind of a hypocritical mess, especially those who represent people who generally have extreme political views on the left or the right. The Loony Left is so hell bent on payback when it comes to the Bush Administration for a whole host of things they didn’t like, that their representatives are feeling the pressure to criminalize and humiliate somebody. Because of the influence of the Wacky Right, the Republicans attempted to do this with the impeachment of Bill Clinton and they paid the price. One would have thought that Speaker Pelosi would have learned from that whole affair (pun intended), but apparently not. It would be all well and good to have a bipartisan commission to look into the practice of interrogation techniques and where things got out of hand, because we know that at times they did. But when one even hints at the possibility of prosecution for illegalities, the one doing the accusing better be squeaky clean and above moral reproach on that specific matter.

Read the rest of this entry »

Here are my thoughts for the 5th Sunday of Easter.  The Scriptures are Acts 8: 26 – 40, 1 John 4: 7 – 21, and John 15: 1 – 8.

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I was thinking about two different things this week; one which dealt with the lectionary readings for this week and one that didn’t. But in a sense, they were related.

The one that didn’t immediately relate to the lectionary was about taxes. Now, I supposed that I could have written this when the lectionary includes Matthew 22: 21 (“Then give Caesar what is his, and give God what is his”). In fact, I have done so on several occasions; see “The Order of Things”, “The Parts of the Church”, “What Do You See?” or “A New Model for the Church”.

But in light of the discussion of these troubling economic times and what the government should and should not do, there comes a time when we have to consider what our taxes should pay for and what they actually do pay for. It is a discussion that goes beyond a simple sermon on Sunday morning or a piece on a blog during the week. But what is the role of taxes in our country and what is our role as citizens when it comes to the needs of the people and the country?

First, let us suppose that those who say we are paying far too much in tax are correct and we were to eliminate all the taxes we pay. This would mean that there would be no federal taxes, no state taxes, no local taxes, no sales taxes, no property or school taxes; no taxes of any kind. There are some who, I have come to conclude, would love that to be the case.

But if we eliminate all the taxes, then we would have to eliminate all forms of government and government services. This would mean not only would there be no welfare programs; there would be no military, no police, no fire-fighters or teachers in the public schools. There would be no government of any sort, be it local, state, or federal. There would be no departments to maintain the roads and bridges. There would be no one to insure that our food was safe to eat or insure the quality of the air we breathe or the water we drink (though I am not sure that is being done right now anyway).

This, of course, is an extreme view of the removal of taxation from our society. But there are reasons for government and reasons for which we pay taxes. And those who espouse a limited role for the federal government and want to see it limited by the reduction or removal of federal taxes fail to see, I believe, that state and local taxes are raised in proportion to the reduction in federal taxes.

Granted, there are many things that we pay for with our tax dollars that perhaps we shouldn’t but that’s the point of all of this. What should we be paying for? I am reminded of the poster/bumper sticker that says “It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need and the air force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber.” But it is more than money spent on the military-industrial establishment in relationship to the money spent on our school systems. It is the fact that the money spent within that establishment doesn’t go for the people in the establishment, the personnel who serve. It always seems as if it goes to the corporations and “trickles” down to the rest of the people.

Should spending on the defense on this country be any greater than the spending on basic services? And shouldn’t the money that is spent on defense be directed towards the individuals who, like the police and firemen, put their lives at risk instead of towards the businesses and corporations that are part of the business.

Whose worth is greater? What should a policeman or a fire-fighter get paid for serving in a vocation where their lives are on the line every day to save ours?

And in one sense, that is the same problem within many of our organizational structures. We tend to pay those at the top more than we pay those who actually do the work. Should an administrator in a school system be paid more than a classroom teacher?

Should some services, such as mass transit systems, be a part of the government or should they be self-sustaining entities on their own, dependent on the revenue they receive from their riders? There is a need for services that only a government can provide; the question is and will always be one of priorities. It is also a question of values and worth? Whose effort is worth more to the future and safety of this country? Isn’t a classroom teacher more valuable to the success of this country because they are teaching the future citizens?

The fundamental question isn’t and shouldn’t be about taxes but whether or not what we receive for the value of the money that is spent. And it also should be about the relative value of an individual’s work. I have no problem with anyone individual making any amount of money as long as 1) it is sufficient to meet their needs, and 2) as John Wesley stated it, it isn’t done through the exploitation of others. If a person makes $1 million dollars a year, then their efforts must be worth it and they must need that sum of money. Right now, I don’t see how anyone can earn that type of salary.

And I think it is time that we seriously reevaluate our priorities and our values. And that brings me to my second point. How do we define success?

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So Arlen Specter is now a Democrat. Or is he? Is it more that what he believes is more in line with how Democrats are identified than how Republicans are identified? Or perhaps he switched parties in order to stay in the Senate because it appeared that the Republican party of Pennsylvania was looking to find someone to replace him in the next election?

Is it so critical that he made the switch? After all, Richard Shelby, the senior senator from Alabama, was originally elected as a Democrat in 1986 but switched to the Republicans in 1994 when the Republicans won control of the Senate. And let’s not forget Strom Thurmon, who switched from the Democratic side of the Senate to the Republican side in 1964 and was the vanguard in Richard Nixon’s “Southern Strategy”.

The thing that always amazed me, growing up in the south, was how different Democrats in the north were from the Democrats in the south. On the one hand, you had Democrats who were very liberal and Democrats who were very conservative. And at the same time, you had a similar mixture of conservative and liberal Republicans.

Now, of course, the mixture of liberalism and conservatism is almost gone, though I am not sure that what is left serves the people of this country very well. And that is the point of this piece.

It seems to me that we are more interested in the label we attach to a person than we are the quality of his or her ideas. It is a division that transcends political boundaries. If I should even mention that I am a Christian then my qualifications as a chemist and a chemical educator are considered suspect. And if I say that I am a chemist/chemical educator, then I must be some sort of secular humanist.

Conversely, in saying that I am a Christian, many people view me as a close-minded troglodyte while those who see me only in terms of being a scientist/educator put me in the same vein as a Vulcan.

And our labels of other people are as equally extreme. It makes it so much easier to attack another country if we somehow place “godless” before their name or suggest that they are somehow “sponsors of terrorism”. It makes it so much easier to send our children off to war if we can somehow make the enemy less than human.

What would happen if, on the next form that we had to fill out, we put “human” in the spot where it asked us for our race? Would the people who ask such questions understand what we are saying? Would they accept what we are saying?

I am not certain that we need labels in our lives when it comes to working with other people. We need to know what they think and what they mean; we need to know more about what drives them and what they seek in life (though all people, no matter who they are or where they live probably have the same goals in life).

As I said last Sunday (“The Order of Things”), the world is in a crisis right now. And while I spoke of the crisis of faith on Sunday, I could have added that it is a crisis of thought as well. We know very little about our neighbors and are quick to react because of the labels that we place on them, just as they place labels on us. Perhaps if we took the labels off and looked at each other as individuals, neighbors on this planet, then perhaps this world will be a better place.

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Cross-posted to Thoughts From The Heart On The Left

Oklahoma looks like it’s about to be the next state to remind the federal government about the 10th Amendment. It sounds great, and I’m sure it’s very cathartic.

Beyond that it’s really quite meaningless.

I think the states should pay attention to Prof. Randy Barnett’s recommendation to “petition Congress for a convention to propose amendments to the Constitution.”

His point is that such conventions, once convened, can do just about anything, so Congress would naturally want to avoid such an event. Thus they might be inclined to behave and maybe even offer the states a constitutional amendment to address their concerns. It’s certainly worth a try.

Or maybe we should just repeal the 17th Amendment. Instant return to federalism.

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Crossposted from My Three Cents

Specter hints Hemp died of GOP agenda

“Sen. Arlen Specter … suggested that had the Republicans taken a more moderate track, Jack Kemp may have won his battle with cancer.”

“‘If we had pursued what President Nixon declared in 1970 as the war on cancer, we would have cured many strains. I think Jack Kemp would be alive today. And that research has saved or prolonged many lives, including mine.’”

Which is a load of crap. As the WSJ pointed out today,

“Between 1994 and 2006, when Republicans controlled Congress or the White House or both, NIH biomedical R&D spending more than doubled in real terms, jumping to $25 billion in 2003 from about $10 billion in the early 1990s.”

“Most of the advances in biotechnology and pharmacogenomics that are revolutionizing the diagnosis and treatment of disease are occurring in America. One reason is a research environment that is less centralized, more competitive, tolerant of risk and richer in cash — public, yes, but especially private.”

The truth is, if we had adopted a single-payer healthcare system in the 90s, we would almost certainly have a program like Great Britain’s NICE that determines which treatments are sufficiently cost effective. More to the point, they decide if a new drug’s promise to give a cancer patient a couple of more years are worth the cost of said drug.

If the Democrats had their way in the 90s, Sen. Kennedy would probably be dead today.

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Crossposted from My Three Cents

The last election saw the Republican party beat down, cussed out, and given a wedgie by the electorate. And it was all well deserved. The party of the Contract with America became just like the party it had deposed. After the election, pundits spent a lot of energy and ink on what they need to do to return from the wasteland.

Did they listen? Signs suggest they might have done just that. The Republicans in Congress have worked hard to not just oppose but to counter-propose on just about every issue that’s come up. They offered a different vision on the stimulus and on the budget and at least tried to have a conversation about the bailouts. Not that any of it had any impact.

Meanwhile some Republican governors have tried to highlight the difference in their approach to governing from the Washington Democrats by refusing at least some of the “stimulus” money offered to states. That’s putting your money where your mouth is. And it will probably cost at least one of them his job.

Has it done any good? Not really. First, the media pays little attention to out-of-power Republicans. If their counter-proposals get no air time, they will be of little use. They’re going to have to figure out a way to get their message out despite that. Of course, this is the age of the alternative media — Fox, Drudge, blogs, twitter, etc; they should be able to make some headway, but they’ve got a lot of work to do.

Second, when they call the president or congressional Democrats on spending, the voters will rightly think them hypocrits. They are going to have to work very hard to earn back the people’s trust — or wait for the Dems to make such a mess of things that people are ready to vote for anyone who isn’t a Democrat.

In the meantime, they should take every opportunity to remind the voters — and the president — of Mr. Obama’s promises of bipartisanship. Of course it was just a campaign promise, but there are a lot of people who need to learn that Barack Obama is just another politician.

I give them a C+ for lots of effort with little results.

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Crossposted from My Three Cents

So it’s the time when people rate how a president has done in his first 100 days in office. How can a conservative rate an unabashedly liberal president? Well, if it is done carefully, I think it can be done fairly.

The operative question is, “what did I expect”, or maybe “what did I fear?”

From that perspective, the Obama administration hasn’t been the train wreck it could have been. He’s allowed continuity with the last administration in handling the war, he hasn’t pulled the all the troops from Iraq, he’s increased the troops in Afghanistan, and he’s left wiggle room in the closing of Guantanamo.

Though he’s certainly not pro-life or pro-gun, he hasn’t pushed for FOCA or new gun controls. Yet. And many of his cabinet appointments are far less liberal and far more responsible than they could have been.

Beyond that, well, he’s a Democrat, so there have been few real surprises.

He ended the Mexico City policy and sort of funded ESCR. Well, he pretty much promised that up front. The European Apology Tour, though irritating, was hardly surprising. His “stimulus” was a typical liberal response to any problem – give money we don’t have to people who produce nothing and expand government power and influence.

The death of the post-partisanship wasn’t surprising – every politician claims to want to bring a new tone to Washington; the swing voters require it. The only surprise is that they still believe anyone.

The only real surprises have been the dismissing of corporate officers as if they were government employees (I really didn’t expect that kind of gall) and the administration’s passive approach to this new flu (of course, this is still fairly new).

If the rest of Pres. Obama’s term is as quiet as the first 100 days, we’ll be lucky. Broke, but lucky. Unfortunately all signs suggest he’s only getting started. My rating? C (You can decide whether that stands for “could be worse” or “conservative bias.”)

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Crossposted from My Three Cents

With the release of the “torture memos,” the media is acting — and has for years — as if what is “torture” is obvious to everyone.

If a prisoner refuses to tell us what we want to know, do we just let it go?

“I’m pretty sure he knows where the bomb is, but he won’t tell me no matter how much I beg, so I guess we’re stuck.”

Or do we try to convince him?

Most people would agree, “America doesn’t torture.” Some would make exceptions, but they definitely want them to be exceptions, not the rule. And it doesn’t really matter who it’s being done to, what they were doing when we caught them, or what we think they’re going to do, before we decide what we’re going to allow, we need to answer one fundamental question:

What is torture? How agressive do you have to be before it constitutes torture?

How far is too far? Let’s don’t pretend the answers to these questions are obvious.

Let me suggest a few guidelines:

If it happens every day in football practice, it probably isn’t torture.

If it’s something guys with Greek letters on their sweaters do to each other, it probably isn’t torture.

If it happens in boot camp, it probably isn’t torture.

If it involves non-stinging/biting insects, it probably isn’t torture.

If a Vanity Fair columnist voluntarily undergoes a procedure, it probably isn’t torture.

Removing tongue from cheek, though, what is torture?

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Crossposted from My Three Cents

Here are my thoughts for the 2nd Sunday in Easter.  The Scriptures for today are Acts 4: 32 - 35, 1 John 1: 1 - 2: 2, and John 20: 19 - 31.  This is also a political piece but the times demand it.

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For as long as I can recall, I have considered myself a liberal. It may be that I came to this decision because my father and mother were very much conservative in thought and I was seeking the ultimate act of childhood rebellion.

But there were other factors involved as well. As I have noted many times before, I am a second-generation military brat and I moved around this country more times than I care to admit during the 1950’s and 1960’s. Those were times of change in this country and I could see the change, even if I was not old enough to realize what I was actually observing. But as I looked around at what was happening, I began to see conservatism as a desperate clinging to the past and the ways of old, of holding on to the status quo, and a violent resistance to new and what some would describe as radical ideas.

In 1963 we lived in Montgomery, Alabama. That spring, Colin Chapman and Jim Clark brought the Lotus-Ford car to the Indianapolis 500. Up until that year, the cars that raced in this event were front-engine monsters with Offenhauser engines; they were big and bulky race cars with, of course, no resemblance to the automobiles that we drive today (or even then). What I remember about the “Indy 500” that year was how every so-called expert predicted that the relatively speaking tiny Lotus race car (designed by Chapman and driven by Clark) would be humiliated by the traditional racers of Indianapolis. But, what few people realized was that Jim Clark was a fantastic driver (I think I had seen him on some of ABC television “Wide World of Sports” events) and that his driving skills were on par, or even greater than, most of the drivers that raced in this race.

Were it not for some problems in the pits that year and a misunderstanding of the rules of the race, Clark would have won the race (he finished 2^nd in a very close race; he ultimately would win the race in 1965). But I was fascinated by the change in design and how the tradition bound US auto racing establishment wrote off the cars before even seeing what they could do. As two websites (http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A827598 and http://www.ddavid.com/formula1/chap_bio.htm) point out, racing in America was technologically stagnant and woefully behind the times. And while American racing began to change following the 1965 Lotus victory and the cars that race at Indianapolis are linear descendants of those first Lotus-Fords, I don’t think that we can say the same thing about the American automotive industry.

Earlier that same year, George Wallace was inaugurated as Governor and defiantly announced that segregation would be a part of Alabama life. Even though I am white, the rules of segregation affected me (perhaps not as much as it did black students) and I began to question the rules of society. We would move from Alabama to Colorado that summer but would be back in the south, living in Tennessee in 1966 but the rules of society had not much changed. I have written before about the nature of segregation and its affect on all the children of the south, so I will not spend much time on that point here.

And, as the Civil Rights drama unfolded around me in Memphis and the shadow of the Viet Nam War passed over my life, I continued to see conservatives speak with the same tired rhetoric and an adherence to the status quo while liberals sought change and equality. While the town where I was an undergraduate was very much a conservative rural part of Missouri, the campus ministers were very much in the forefront of bringing change to the area. It was the campus ministers who gave me hope that there was possibility in life and it further brought about my thoughts about what liberals and conservatives were and should be.

And while I am beginning to question what many liberals are doing in today’s world, I still see conservatives as opposed to anything that disturbs the status quo or suggestive of new ideas. I still see conservatives as longing for the old days, no matter if they were good or bad.

It has been long noted that if you presented someone with a copy of the Declaration of Independence without references to 1776 or King George and asked them to sign it, they probably wouldn’t do so. What would happen if we were to present the first reading for this Sunday (Acts 4: 32 – 35) without any Biblical reference to the people and ask them what they thought it meant.

The whole congregation of believers was united as one—one heart, one mind! They didn’t even claim ownership of their own possessions. No one said, "That’s mine; you can’t have it." They shared everything. The apostles gave powerful witness to the resurrection of the Master Jesus, and grace was on all of them.

And so it turned out that not a person among them was needy. Those who owned fields or houses sold them and brought the price of the sale to the apostles and made an offering of it. The apostles then distributed it according to each person’s need.

Without a doubt, I think it would strike the reader, especially conservatives, as “socialism” and not a very good idea.

It strikes me that one of the problems with the modern church, and Christianity in this country, is that we have forgotten what the early church did and endured. We confuse the corporate church of today with the real church and the message that it once presented, a message that threatened the very structure of society, not because it was dangerous but because it was radical and went against the status quo.

For many people, the image of the church is one of “old” people who still sing the same hymns from fifty years ago and are aghast at the idea of “modern” music in a worship service and who still use the same format for worship that was used when they were young. The church itself is seen as the monolithic corporate body that found Galileo guilty of heresy and refused to admit that perhaps the Sun, not the Earth, is the center of the Solar System. We see it in the battles to force teaching of “intelligent design” as a viable theory of science in the biology classroom today.

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Barna has published the results of a recent survey on how those who identify themselves as liberals and conservatives differ on the beliefs, practices, and politics. I am only going to list, though not exhaustively, the results without commentary. Anyone is welcome to offer their insights and comment, but I ask you to read the entire report before doing so.

The religious beliefs of liberals and conservatives:

-Religious faith is very important in life (liberals 54%, conservatives 82%)

-Faith is an increasingly important moral guide in life (liberals 38%, conservatives 70%)

-The church they currently attend is very important in helping them find direction and fulfillment in life (liberals 37%, conservatives 62%)

-Their primary purpose in life is to love God with all their heart, mind, strength, and soul (liberals 37%, conservatives 76%)

The religious practices of liberals and conservatives:

-Read the Bible, other than at church events, during the past week (liberals 33%, conservatives 57%)

-Attend a religious service during the past week (liberals 35%, conservatives 62%)

-Pray to God, other than at a religious service, during the past week (liberals 76%, conservatives 91%)

-Have ever participated in a short-term mission trip, either within the U.S. or in another country (liberals 6%, conservatives 12%)

-Those who categorize themselves as “unchurched” (liberals 40%, conservatives 19%)

I have not enumerated the results of the faith alignment of liberals and conservatives, nor the political impact of their faith choices. That information is also available in the report.

Barna concludes: “Every person’s central choices in life are driven by their worldview, and everyone’s worldview is greatly influenced by their spiritual inclinations. The social and political preferences of people are closely tied to their spiritual beliefs and practices. One of the great challenges to our nation’s leaders is to help people of different spiritual and ideological perspectives maintain dialogue and an appreciation of each other’s innate value despite those divergent points of view.”

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Cross-Posted at Allan R. Bevere

“Sharpshooters firing from the fantail of a U.S. Navy destroyer killed three pirates holding an American cargo-ship captain in a lifeboat, ending a five-day ordeal that unfolded amid a surge in piracy off Somalia’s coast.”

After two years of talking about the intrinsic good of multilateralism and his recent European apology tour, my hopes for a show of strength from Pres. Obama were low, but I’m pleased to see that when push came to shove he didn’t call the lawyers or the Security Council but the SEALs. God bless him, those SEALs, and Capt. Phillips.

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Crossposted from My Three Cents

President Obama plans to rescind the conscience clause which protects medical professionals and organizations (such as hospitals) to choose not to provide services which are contrary to their religious beliefs or missions. This specifically pertains to the performance of abortions and sterilizations.

I’ve blogged about the effects of this before since it was part of the Freedom of Choice Act that President Obama promised to deliver.  This is a bad decision that will negatively impact the health care system.  You have the opportunity to express your thoughts about this clause, but that ends on April 9.  Here are ways you can express your opposition to the rescission:

• Through their webform (select the leave a comment link).
• E-mail them.
• Call them at (202) 456-1111 (comments) or (202) 456-1414 (switchboard).

Some points that you can make:

• This clause has been in effect for 30 years and has not in any way diminished a person’s ability to obtain abortion or sterilizations.
• This violates a medical professional and organization’s right to conscience, as well as, the medical professional’s constitutional rights to freedom of religion.  They should not, because of federal funding, be forced to check their values and consciences at the door.
• This will negatively impact the health care system due to the potential (and likelihood) of Catholic and other faith-based organizations (hospitals) who depend on federal funding closing their doors rather than perform abortions.
• Medical professional’s could be fired from organizations that provide abortions by refusing to participate as well.

Please let the Department of Health and Human Services know that you oppose this decision.

HT: Lisa Graas

While the “Estimated U.S. taxpayer cost for bailout jumps,” the Treasury is reportedly refusing to allow early repayment of TARP funds. I’m sure this has nothing to do with recent laws allowing the feds to control anyone who took bailout money.

This one comments on itself pretty well:
First images of North Korean missile launch
North Korean Missile Test a Growing Possibility (a different missile, I think)
U.S. defense plan kills programs, trims missile shield
Bipartisan Group of Senators Opposes Cuts in Missile Defense

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Crossposted from My Three Cents

Much ado is being made over the protests of many in the Catholic Church, including its leadership, over the invitation offered to President Obama to speak at the commencement of the University of Notre Dame in May because of his support for abortion rights and embryonic stem cell research. The national media doesn’t understand what all the hoopla is about, which is usually the case when it comes to matters of religion. I have read commentary on the issue from political pundits who think all this is nothing more than right wing extremism from people whose religious views are out of date. Nothing could be further from the truth.

There is an underlying narrative that is being played out in the midst of the Notre Dame controversy. It has bubbled beneath the religious waters for some time, it is now emerging to the surface, and it will only become more pronounced. What is happening at one of America’s most prestigious Catholic universities is less about President Obama per se and more about the long-time shift going on within Catholicism in America and the Vatican’s response to that shift. From the perspective of the bishops of the Catholic Church, three problems have emerged in America that undermine Catholic moral teaching.

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