How Did The Most Important Thing In the World Become Nobody’s Business?

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Today I was pondering a Facebook comment about faith. Or more accurately, openly discussing faith with others.  The comment was in response to a video of Obama discussing his faith.  Interestingly enough, all of my Obama-loving friends were posting this video as proof of Obama’s faith in Jesus, and all my Obama-hating friends were posting this videos as proof that he wasn’t a Christian.  Interesting how political perspective changes interpretations of remarks.  You all do know how to tell when a politician is lying, right?

But, anyways… A few comments on the video were of the “people shouldn’t ask other people about their faith/it’s not any of their business” type.  I have to excessively disagree with this mentality.

After all, what you believe in God (or don’t believe) is the most import belief you could possibly ever have. It kind of effects everything you do. How can you really know a person if you don’t know what they believe? Or why would you want to keep it to yourself if you think you have a good answer to the most important question in life? Wouldn’t that be kind of bad or selfish?  You will talk about movies or food or tell people where to get a good sale price… but not the answers to the most important question in life?  Doesn’t that seem odd?

It seems that only in America and a few random other countries do we find that attitude, really. I have been to many other countries in Asia, Europe, Africa, etc – and no one there really thinks that their religion is no one’s business. In fact, it is usually one of the first topics that will come up when you meet someone. It’s quite refreshing – they will freely talk about it, and even if you disagree with them they will just let it be and still be friendly to you.

Some people also get a little mad that Obama was asked this question.  Should it really matter what faith or president follows?  Personally, I don’t have a problem with a non-Christian president.  What is very important to me is honesty.  So if the president is going to answer the question, he should at least do it honestly.  If he is just telling the American public what he thinks they want to hear, then we have a HUGE problem.  If he is being honest, than great. The issue is not whether Obama is Christian or not, but whether he is telling the truth.

“The American people should demand that their President tell the truth.”

Clouds and Mountains, NorwayAfter all, what you believe in God (or don’t believe) is the most import thing there could be. Kind of affects everything you do. How can you really know a person if you don’t know what they believe? Or why would you want to keep it to yourself if you think you have a good answer to the most important question in life? Wouldn’t that be kind of bad?

All This Talk of Bailouts

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I wonder if any these bailouts are going to happen.  I have to admit – I am a big believer in less government.  I also really hate the idea of handing large amounts of money to people that have proven they can’t read the signs of the times and keep their companies going.

Of course, those are just my ideals.  Our country is kind of beyond ideals right now – we are in crisis mode, and we need to do what is necessary to fix the problems – even if it is not ideal.  It’s just too late for ideals, unfortunately.

What really surprises me is how flippantly or callously people oppose the bailouts.  They say things like we should let the auto makers “fail” or “tank.”  Saying that is like saying the bomb dropped on Hiroshima was a firecracker.  Do people realize the widespread devastation that would happen if even one auto company would go out of business?

There was a story on the news last night about what would happen in the Dallas Metroplex of GM goes bankrupt.  Tens of thousands of people would lose their jobs, resulting in over $2 billion worth of income gone overnight.  The resulting loss of tax revenue from that could cause entire cities to shut down.  All of that would cause tens of thousands more to lose jobs, and then tens of thousands more, and you would have a massive domino effect until the area would be in a major depression.

I realize that it was okay to be flippant about the economy when it just meant that you couldn’t get the newest, coolest iPod because prices were going up, but we are in a different situation now.  Losses like this would can devastation in peoples lives – starvation, suicide, crime, etc.  We can’t just go back to “living off the land” as some have suggested we need to do – there are just too many people on the planet to do that.  Do you know who much space one person needs to live off the land? More than most city apartment buildings have… just for one person.

And let’s not forget the fact that if GM tanks, they will stop manufacturing parts.  So, once you lose your job and have to drive to go to an interview and something breaks in your vehicle – a replacement part might just not exist anymore.  So, no job or way to get to a job interview.

the problem with the bailouts is that the government just doesn’t want to bite the hand that bribes them.  They need to keep the people working but get rid of the top level management in many cases – but that would mean firing the people that are keeping them comfortable with lobby money.  That is the basic reason they are taking their time on deciding on these.

Letting a car company tank is only really going to hurt the hard working people at the bottom.  There is no way ten thousand people will be able to find jobs next month in DFW if GM goes away.  I’m not sure about a bailout, but we shouldn’t let hard working people suffer because idiot CEOs don’t know what they are doing.

Finding a New Way in Politics

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Some of my friends (the few that will discuss politics with me) know that I don’t claim a party affiliation.  Many of my beliefs fall into the conservative realm.  But not necessarily Republican.  In fact, there are many things about being a Republican that I just can’t agree with.

I can say the same about Democrats, too.  I think my running mix is about 55% GOP and 35% DEM and 10% random unknown.  Lately, many prominent Democrats have just been bugging me, with their smug cockiness over Obama’s win.  I am glad to have the first black president, I just think DEMs should be concerned that nearly half the voters didn’t get the president they wanted… and that we are still stuck with one of the lowest rated Legislatures in history.

But back to my original post.  I tend to ramble, which is bad for you reading this.  Anyway, I have thought that there has to be some other middle ground or third party worth following, or some system that I can tell people when they ask me what side I am on.  Recently I have been interested in the concept of the “Crunchy Conservative” (CrunchyCon).  There just isn’t that much out there on CrunchyCons, so I am reluctant to throw my support behind a movement that might be gone faster Guns’N’Roses chance of having a hit record.  But I am intrigued by what I’ve read so far… we’ll see if they keep gong the direction I want them to.

A Crunchy Con Manifesto
By Rod Dreher

  1. We are conservatives who stand outside the conservative mainstream; therefore, we can see things that matter more clearly.
  2. Modern conservatism has become too focused on money, power, and the accumulation of stuff, and insufficiently concerned with the content of our individual and social character.
  3. Big business deserves as much skepticism as big government.
  4. Culture is more important than politics and economics.
  5. A conservatism that does not practice restraint, humility, and good stewardship—especially of the natural world—is not fundamentally conservative.
  6. Small, Local, Old, and Particular are almost always better than Big, Global, New, and Abstract.
  7. Beauty is more important than efficiency.
  8. The relentlessness of media-driven pop culture deadens our senses to authentic truth, beauty, and wisdom.
  9. We share Russell Kirk’s conviction that “the institution most essential to conserve is the family.”
  10. Politics and economics won’t save us; if our culture is to be saved at all, it will be by faithfully living by the Permanent Things, conserving these ancient moral truths in the choices we make in our everyday lives.

Now, if I can just find a good middle position for the Calvinism/Arminius debate….

Should Anybody Be Happy About the Recent Election?

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I have two things to admit: I didn’t vote for Obama.  That means that most Obama supporters will stop right reading this about now.  I’ve noticed that most Obama supporters just refuse to discuss politics anymore.  Weird.  Anyway, my second admission: I don’t have a problem with him being president either.  But I also have a word of caution for anyone that is happy about the election results.  Even if they had gone the other away.

But first of all, let me also point out that I am really tired of Christians that say things like “now that we have Obama, we can finally fix this nation.”  Right…. because there is no such thing as an all powerful Being out there that could do the same thing?  Or maybe Bush was such a mess-up that God was just sitting there shrugging His shoulders for 8 years going “this whacko is too bad for me to do anything about… good luck dudes!”  Obama is the nu-messiah, anyway – so I guess he can fix what the old school Messiah couldn’t?  Hmmmm…. I think the Bible might have a different view on how to fix this country….

But, back to my word of caution.  I have heard a few sermons and other teachings about how God gives us the leader we deserve.  I tried searching for what scriptures that is based on, and came across some interesting results.  Not that I found the scriptures yet, but it seems that there are many people – from political theorists to obvious non-religious types – that also believe that nations get the leader they deserve.  This means that in 2004, we got Bush again for another 4 years because we deserved him.

Scary.  But even scarier is that I really can’t believe that we have improved so much as a nation that we now deserve a better president than Bush four years down the road.  Greed has led us into a recession, giving to the poor is down a little, and (at least in my neck of the woods) people still drive like they want to meet their maker before getting to work for the day.

I personally think we should have been concerned about the how the recent election turned out no matter who won – because we deserve to get a worse president than we have ever had.  I am hoping that we are in such a bad place as a nation that we deserve a break now, but who knows?  Time will tell, but we should pray as fervently for the nation for the next four years as we have for the past four.

How to Give Your Workers An Instant Raise

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Can anyone tell the oil companies that they are killing this country?  Yes, I know they have a justification for how their huge profit is in no way related to the quickly rising fuel prices… but I just don’t buy it.  Somewhere, someone is jacking up the prices at our expense.   But that’s not what I was going to post.

What I did want to post was a good way to give your employees an instant raise.  Well, that is if you have employees.   I was noticing that I spend $40-50 a week driving in to work – and that is with me working from 9 to 6 to miss the rush hour (on purpose – gotta do what I can to save money).  At least haf of those days I sit at a computer and don’t have any meetings.  I could look at saving almost half of what I spend on driving if I just worked from home for 2 days a week.

Please realize that I hate working from home.  Its just boring to me.  But gas prices are getting killer.   So, if I was allowed to work from home on a regular basis, I could see about – what – an extra $100 or so freed up?  Well, that would probably go straight in to rising food costs.  But at least it would be something.

Just an idea….

It’s Election Year, and The Circus Is In Town

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Or I guess I should say, “the circus is on the TV screens.” I hate election years. Just because it exposes the worst in human behavior. People can’t seem to disagree respectfully anymore. Nope – they have to resort to using emotionally manipulative words in a vain attempt to guilt other people into feeling bad for thinking differently than they do. Which, of course, never works – people just get offended and get into a war of insults. Lovely.

Both Republican and Democrats have serious problems with their party lines. Mainly because they sometimes take up positions just because it is the opposite of what the other one has. And then some third party or independent party will come along and take up a stand opposite of the two major parties just to be different.

Here is what I say: I think we should just give each party one term in office and then switch to the other party. One term for Republicans, and then one term for Democrats. Of course, four years is not enough time to get any good done, but eight years is enough times for the stupidity that hides in the shadow of either party to start ruining our country, so maybe we should expand that one term to maybe five or six years. Whoever can win their party’s nomination for the election year that their party is in power gets the presidency for the next term. Of course, we would have to let everyone vote in the primaries that year. But I just say we give both sides a shot every other term and be done with all of the stupid mud slinging.

Oh… wait… Obama and Clinton proved that even intra-party mudslinging can get ugly. Drat – shoots down that theory….

Support Net Neutrality

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If you value a free Internet, you need to support net neutrality. Net neutrality means that the Internet is neutral – any company, of any size, can get on there and offer their service to anyone. Of course, this gives rise to companies like You Tube and Skype that offers us free Internet versions of services that we usually pay for, so the big phone and cable companies are hacked off. Someone else is making money that they want.

What the big 5 phone and cable companies are proposing is a two-tired Internet system. Companies that pay the Big 5 a hefty sum of money will be able to still offer their sites over broadband. Those that don’t (or can’t afford to) will be relegated to the dirt roads of dial-up speeds. Note that this doesn’t matter what you the end user is paying for. Even if you are paying for “high speed” Internet, you still may try to go to a site on the lower tier access, and your connection will slow down massively.

The more than likely scenario is that smaller companies will be faced with going out of business, or passing on the benefit of being on the high speed tier on to you. Which means you would have to pay for broadband over and over and over again (each time you hit a site that had to jack up prices in order to stay in business). This also means that companies like YouTube – that started out in someone’s garage – could never take off.

The Big 5 try to tell us that they have First Amendment right to enforce this system, or that they put up the wires, so it’s “evil” for Internet based companies to use them for free to steal money away from them. Which, of course, anyone with a brain knows that no one technically uses the Internet for free. And, of course, we all know that this issue really nothing to do with religion, freedom of speech, assembly, or petitioning the government. What it really comes down to is this: companies like Skype, Vonage, YouTube, etc came up with ways to make money off of what they do, and the Big 5 were too slow and/or stupid to change business models to get a piece of this profit. So now they want to be greedy.