A ‘Naturalized’ Woman

March 24, 2012 1 Comment

Transgender. The word sounds surreal, mysterious and out-of-the-comfort-zone scary. Transylvania, transubstantiation and transmogrification have similar unsettling effects on the hearer.

In a less frightening usage, “trans”, the Latin prefix “across”, evokes thoughts of crossing a border or a change from one type to another. Consider the words “translate”, “transition”, “transportation”, “transposition” and “transformer.”

The chemical usage of “trans” in describing food may also promote consumer acceptance or rejection based on whether or not a product contains “Trans Fat.”

In personal use I do not use the word “transgender” to describe myself. I find it reproachful and slighting, in fact, due to its connection to the LGBT community and the connotations that this community has engendered for the word.

I realize that there are many in the LGBT community who use the word “Trans” to describe themselves:  “I am happy to be a Trannie.” But this was never true for me.

To begin with I am not associated with the LGBT community whatsoever. There are reasons why I am not involved in the LGBT community and I have written about those reasons elsewhere in previous posts. But to mention it briefly my choice not to be involved in that community has to do with the fact that I am a Christian. Because I follow Jesus Christ I do not encourage or promote homosexual or bisexual behavior of any kind. Beyond this I certainly do not base my life or center my life around sexuality as do the members of the LGBT community.

In conversations with others I have often found that if a person says that someone is living a “lifestyle” they are in fact seeking to buttonhole that person into a predefined category. And certainly there are some people who want to be buttonholed.  You have probably seen the tee-shirt that says “Out and Proud”. But someone using the word “lifestyle” to define who I am and what I am about would be demeaning to me.

Often, the tag “lifestyle” will be used in a pejorative sense:  “Why are you living this lifestyle?”  The speaker presumes that he or she has a legitimate life and that in my case I, by cross purposes, have a faux or superfluous life, a life opposed to the “normal” conventions.  I find their point to be pointedly dismissive. Thankfully, though,  I am not thin-skinned. I don’t let their verbal barbs scratch the surface. And you can’t let others control the narrative of your life by giving them the chalk to draw a box on the ground for you to live in. Especially when you need to make the change that I and others have made, changes that were never as frivolous as a “lifestyle”.

I began living as woman several years ago. Since then I have written only a few posts regarding the topic of my change. To be honest, the whole “change” business bores me to death.  And yet there are times when I feel the need to dredge up the words and ‘splain myself to others. I do this because I have learned over the course of many years that people usually fear, dislike and even hate what they don’t understand.  So here goes.

Though not born with female body parts, I became woman through a naturalization process. I call the process “a naturalization process” because it is similar to becoming a naturalized US citizen: a person not born in this country can become a ‘naturalized’ citizen by acceptance of its Constitution, its language, its laws and so forth. You get the picture.

The naturalized citizen acquires all of the benefits and responsibilities of their new country. Likewise, as a naturalized woman I have acclimated to my new country: I go to work, I go to church, I go… as woman. If asked (and thankfully I never am), I would say that I am a “naturalized” woman as opposed to saying that I am “trans-gendered.”  In doing so I take the conversation out of the gutter to a whole new level.

As a person who was gender “stateless” before my naturalization process I felt I needed to find a place where I could live in one place without segregating the mind from the body. And having always believed in a God-given binary gender – male and female – I knew that I had to be one or the other. And though the out workings of so-called masculinity and femininity are  relative only to the opposite gender I could never see myself as an effeminate man or as a butch female. I had to be female and not a bastardized version of one or the other.

The genesis of my gender understanding and the psychological disconnect with my body was most likely genetic and pre-natal hormonal influences on my brain along with a good portion of mystery. It is not exactly clear as to why I desperately needed to make the change. But of course, along the way I have met those who see things “clearly”, who believe that you do not need to make the change. In their words, “”just bear your cross (gender).”

 Over the years I have been involved in para-church ministries where the gender dysphoria issue is lumped in with the main issue of homosexuality. These church ministries talk about “trans-genderism”  or gender confusion because of its guilt-by-association with homosexuality: the gender dysphoric participants practice homosexuality and they are looking for a way to stop.  

Now, every follower of Christ accepts that homosexuality is expressly forbidden by the Lord.  But gender dysphoria, on the other hand, is not talked about by the Lord and is not mentioned anywhere in Scripture (no matter how much hermeneutics parse or stretch the Scripture to fit a certain “Bible-ized” social ideology).

The leaders of these ministries will tell you that gender dysphoria comes from a broken place in the person. They will use the word “broken” (along with various psychological terminology ) in their spiritual diagnosis so as to make their underlying assertions: such a change would be morally wrong, a sin; it’s not “normal” because God doesn’t work like that; it doesn’t fit God’s redemptive purposes. But I disagree.

Over the years I have also had Christian psychologists tell me that if I wanted to become a woman that they could not help me with the change. And yet the very same Christian “professionals” told me that I should see a psychiatrist in their clinic to get a mind and mood altering drug prescription to help avoid depression. They were very willing to change the state of my mind but not the state of the rest of me.  Why? One remedy is seen as “Biblical, the other remedy is deemed not “Biblical.”   One can see where the true disconnect is and how much the subjective, inaccurate and unverifiable field of psychology influences Christian thinking! (I find it ironic to say the least that Christians will whole heartedly accept the unproven theories and conjectures of psychology to guide their lives in tandem with Scripture but they will not accept the  theory of evolution, a theory which has overwhelming evidence to support its claims.)

Now I would have to guess that Christian psychologists seek to alter your behavior via mind altering drugs and remedial counseling in order to be in keeping with Scripture’s own prescription:  “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.” Translated this means that you change your way of thinking to be in line with what most people think and not your body, at least not in the mysterious gender dysphoria realm where the trollism of homosexuality may be lurking. “If you are obese or anorexic or addicted to mind altering drugs (see above) or whatever else then we will help you change your body.”

 At one point in his ministry Jesus spoke this practical polemic:  “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.”  This is a direct and terse statement of transition from one physical state to another and clearly doesn’t come across as a metaphorical mind purging laxative. In this case His path to wholeness was to cut off that which causes you to sin (that which doesn’t make you whole or holy) and not deal with it anymore. He didn’t seek to medicate or to counsel the issue to some undefined conclusion.

J.B. Phillips once wrote a book called “Your God Is Too Small.”  I agree with the basic premise of the book that people’s conception of God is most readily based on a projection of their relationship with their parents, with male and female figures authority figures and so on. For Christian counselors, ministers, et al I would amend the title based on my experience with their counseling: “Your God is Too Much Like Sanitized Societal Norms.”

Those in the ministry who do not have gender dysphoria (and that would be most) think that it is something that can be dealt with or overridden with therapy, prayer and redemptive (bear the cross I am handing you) suffering. They will place a diagnostic label on you and curtly denounce you for living a “lifestyle.” This stereotyping happens over and over again in these ministries. 

A theologian at this point may say that such a change is working at cross purposes with God, that  the ‘naturalized’ person is not getting their understanding from Scripture (though the New Testament writers desire that people be trans-formed and put on Christ). The theologian may also say that they have ‘bastardized’ what God has created. A Christian psychologist may go further and say that they suffer a neurosis.  Others may say things like “God doesn’t make mistakes (implying that they know the mind of God because they have reason on their side.)” I have heard it all.

Now you should know that my gender understanding and change are both coupled with my understanding of God’s grace – God’s elbow room for sinners like me. But, at this point, let me make something clear: I don’t practice homosexuality. I am celibate. I have been given the grace to make the change and to be celibate. This has been a wonderful healing/direction for my life.

Grace and elbow room. Do divorced people receive God’s grace? If you listen to Christian talk radio the answer is yes.

Divorce, not a feature of Adam and Eve’s garden relationship came about because of the hardness of men’s hearts since the garden. Today we have Christian radio personalities who are divorced. Did God, who sanctifies marriage, allow divorce – the One becoming Two? Does God’s grace allow you to divorce your husband because he looked at pornography? Does grace (both God’s and yours) allow and enable you to stay with your sinner of a husband as a salient witness for Christ in the marriage? What’s the appropriate use and measure of grace? Is grace the wherewithal to transition from a broken state into a temple for the Holy Spirit? Is grace the transmogrification of a person’s point of view? (see Flannery O’Connor’s short story, A Temple of the Holy Ghost. )? Is it all of the above? I think so.

God hates divorce but he allows it to take place. His grace works with man’s brokenness. Should I be judged or weighed differently than a divorced person? But let’s not think about the subject of my change in relativistic terms. I don’t. I think about my change in terms of grace, in terms of unction, in terms of personhood, set apart not for sin and the world but for God.

There was no doubt that I was divided or split about my gender since my earliest remembrance. To resolve the matter I spoke to all manner of counselors. And, as mentioned above, psychologists will often use the word “neurotic” to describe someone who is ‘severely’ divided in their thinking. But I have since learned not to accept the unproven ‘science’ of psychology and its “naming” conventions as truth. And since I am not Woody Allen-esque enough to need regurgitation of emo and hypochondria three times a week or even once a week I stay away from counseling. Counseling, for me, has been nothing more than the ebb and flow of mindless goo.

Beyond all this, there will always be people who want to nail down the morality of my change as something bad. Some will seek to nail me down to their own cross but I’m not going there. I have my own cross to bear.

Wholeness, I have understood and accepted, could be achieved through a “naturalization” process where mind and body could coexist in a stable peaceful state – the beginning of the thousand-year reign of Christ in my life. I can live within God’s grace and with God’s blessing. And, I can now concentrate on God’s Kingdom.

It was Abraham Lincoln who said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” And, it was James, the brother of my Lord, who said, “A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.” And, it was Carol King who sang, “You make me feel like a natural woman.”

Jesus said, “Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.”

It was me who said, “Amen.”

Filed under essay, gender, gender dysphoria, GLBT, LGBT, Life As I See It, Non-fiction, Short Piece Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

I Will Not Be Denied Showing You This Nonsense

March 21, 2012 Leave a comment

From the Occupy Myself Movement, an absurd and sappy video warning us that women will not be denied anything because, lo and behold, they are women. 

Here is yet another example of the gushing narcissism that is encouraged by BHO’s White House. (BTW:  I’m surprised that Al Sharpton has not yet called the White House a racist building!)

BHO’s explicit message to Americans:  

“America is all about equality and fairness, about getting what I want when I want it at any cost to someone else, about stealing from the rich and giving to the “poor.” America is all about creating a big intrusive government to make this happen for you, the Obama supporter.”

This is a twisted and perverse version of capitalism and the free market system and is eerily similar in motive to Wall St.’s “fat cats” “greedy” motives that BHO hubristically denounces. Why the hypocrisy, Mr. Obama?

 I find it completely ironic that the proponents of Left (Progressives and Democrats) so want to help others with their pseudo-humanitarianism and talk of “fairness”, “fairness”, “blah, blah, blah”, that each of the Left’s namby-pamby “afflicted” groups starts by helping themselves, forgetting that someone else has to unfairly pay for their desired self-absorbed utopian lifestyle.

The best thing for this video would be to deny it the oxygen of publicity.

 BTW:  Who is denying you anything, ma’am?  Who is telling you what to do, ma’am? If someone was telling you what to do would you even hear them?

Filed under 2012 election, Health Care, Life As I See It, Political Commentary, Politics Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

The Fog of Controversy Has Lifted Leaving Us With…

March 15, 2012 Leave a comment

   …Obamacare in the light of day:  “…the bill is substantially more expensive – twice as much as the original $900 billion price tag.” (emphasis mine)

Move over Greece, Portugal and Europe.  The US will join you soon with its own version of bankruptcy, a bankruptcy due to the ill-advised actions of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Barack Hussein Obama and the Democrat Party.

What good is democracy when you use it to f— yourself and others!

Democrats like to think of themselves as touchy-feely people who care about things (“things” being the operative word).  The “things” they care about are rights, animals, abortion (a fetus is a “thing” to them), licentiousness and the environment.  They are so focused on how their world is affected by these “things” that the never look beyond their own stage one thinking to see the consequences of their voting actions.  They shoot themselves and others in the foot when they elect politicians who pass bills which do so much more harm than good.

A vote for Obama and the Democrats in the 2012 elections will keep the continuum of STUPID in place.

***

That was the bad news.  Here is the worse news, as reported by the CBO (emphasis mine): 

“Obama’s budget would increase the size of the national debt held by the public from $10.1 trillion today to $18.8 trillion in 2022, according to CBO. “

Filed under 2012 election, Life As I See It, Political Commentary, Politics Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

What’s “Biblical” About It?

March 4, 2012 Leave a comment

Whenever I see the word “Biblical” in front of a title or a statement I pause as anyone should who cares about what the Bible really does or does not say. 

Recently this word caught my eye:  a local Evangelical church, a church of great size, advertised a Biblical Masculinity and Femininity Conference.  I thought this rather odd since the Bible does not tell men how to behave as men or women how to behave as women.  I thought that stereotyping had gone out with analogical thinking (if a, then b follows).

 Regarding male and female behavior I’ve come to the conclusion that masculinity and femininity are social contrivances or social regulators which help us navigate our relationships.  Again, the Bible does not tell men how to behave like a man or a woman how to behave like a woman.  The Bible does tell us in very simple general statements how we as men and women are to relate to the opposite sex and to each other.  The Bible also provides us with examples of what men find attractive in a woman (e.g., the Shulammite woman of The Song of Solomon & the industrious woman in Proverbs 31) and what women find attractive in men (the Ruth/Boaz story). Masculine or feminine qualities, if there are such things, are worked out between each man and woman in the give and take of relationship. They certainly are not the rubber stamping of contrived gender roles promoted by such Conferences.

 Without a whole lot of fanfare the Bible commands men to love their wives and women to respect their husbands. Beyond this the Bible only gives us some storied examples of men and women in action. Masculinity and femininity if Biblically revealed at all is the plain and simple romantic dance of the male and female psyches within the narrative of relationship.  As mentioned above we can see this dance in the lives of the Bible’s men and women.  Another example:  the love story of Jacob and Rachel.

 So, the impetus of this post is to hopefully negate the misinformation doled out by those who feel the need to conform everyone to certain gender defined roles and who also seek to make others abide by the same gender templates, templates created extra-Biblically and more decidedly culturally derived. Hopefully, I can set the record straight.  You decide.

 Raised in a Baptist/Evangelical church I understand that the word “Biblical” connotes a God-given standard that you are expected to honor, to follow and to conform to. Over the years, though, I have had to disentangle my understanding of what the Bible really says from the “Biblical” fishing nets tossed out by commercial fishers-of-men who believe they have captured what the Bible says and then can sell it back to you in the market place of ideas as truth.

 Let’s look at one of their “marketable Biblical items”.  A common passage of Scripture used to define Biblical Womanhood is Proverbs 31. 

In this passage the writer Lemuel or Anonymous describes the attributes he likes in a woman.  Proverbs 31 is the writer’s description of what he thinks is noble character for a woman.  Now, if women want to aspire to these same traits they may find similar recognition. The word “Biblical”, though, as in “Proverbs 31 is an example of Biblical Womanhood” often implies a kind of warrant of a personal guarantee of outcome (if a, then b follows). If you do these same things then you are Biblically feminine.  But is that true?

 The industrious “woman” in Proverbs 31 works to fulfill the needs of her family as do men.  But, as you know, men and women do different things to maintain the household and will often overlap in the household duties required.  Does the example of this woman’s qualities and behavior mean Biblical femininity? If you as a woman do not do all the things listed in Proverbs 31 are you less feminine? Or, if a man did the same things is he being feminine? Or worse, are you being less Biblical if you are not matching up to these same traits?  I hope you can see where this type of “Biblical womanhood” typecasting leads.

 In the Song of Solomon, a lyric poem in dialogue form, King Solomon describes marked physical attributes of the woman he loves. Is what he describing Biblical femininity? Or, is what he describing what he likes about the woman he loves, the Shulammite?

 Now most Christian scholars, most trusted Christian scholars, would tell you that the biblical canon is closed – there is no further written revelation from God. Yet, we are told that there is Biblical Masculinity and Biblical Femininity – a continuum of a more codified and concise version of the Bible which informs us as to how a twenty-first century man or woman behaves. To me, though, this extra-biblical and apocryphal “decoded” addition of Scripture’s text sounds a lot more like a Pharisee’s laundry list of dos and don’ts than the Bible’s simple and direct statements:  “Husband love your wives. Wives see to it that you respect your husbands.”

 The church conference I am talking about was directed at the youth – junior and senior high school kids.  I have no doubt that the parents are concerned about what the LGBT community is doing to affect gender “norms” in the local public schools.  To be sure the LGBT community is misguided and has no concern whatsoever about what God says.  I, like these parents, am concerned about the LGBT lies and the nonsense being promulgated in our schools as normative. At the same time I do not want the church to overreact to the same degree by narrowly defining gender into masculine and feminine stereotypes, supplying false “Biblical” alternatives to the LGBT community’s errors.

 Gender confusion has become an issue recently because of the LGB community.  It is the members of the LGB community who want to take control of masculinity and femininity in order to receivec acceptance and codification of their behavior. They seek to use homosexuality as a subsitute for what God had created as good – a male and female relationship.  The LGB community depises the Christian community for wanting to maintain what God created.  Homosexuality, the centerpiece of the LGB community then is the ego’s defiance of God and stands in direct contrast to what God created and said was good – a male and female relationship. Hence, gender confusion, anger and pride exists wherever the LGB community is. For most people, though, gender confusion does not exist apart from the false narratives promoted by the LGB community.

Gender dysphoria, though,  does exist in some individuals and should be met with differently than the individual simple searching for culturally accepted masculinity or femininity.

 For most people gender confusion is not an issue.  The searching for where you fit in comes and goes naturally during youth.  The rub usually comes from culture.  Scripture has nothing to say about it even though people create sermons and seminars about it.  During this adapting process  we as parents need to know what the LGBT community is saying about gender and then discount any of their false notions about gender along with false “Biblical” ones. The individual will eventually define him or herself by their sexed body and will respond according to what those around them are telling them about their gender.

The parents who are very concerned about the LGBT community’s activism should be careful to not define masculine and feminine as having “Biblical” attributes and as exsiting apart from relationship with the opposite gender.  Masculine and feminine are culturally defined romantic notions of male and female attributes within relationship. The Bible has only a few things to say specifically about man’s behavior or a woman’s behavior and it is in the context of relationships.

In the beginning God saw that it was not good for man to be alone so God created woman and human relationship.  Within that relationship God let men and women work out their masculine and feminine qualities. God did not prescribe what masculinity and femininity meant before or after the fall.  God only mentioned pragmatic matters:  what men and women will do as a result of their fall and what relationships they should absolutely stay away from.

As a result of Adam and Eve’s fall God said that men would work hard to make a living from the earth and that women will labor hard to give birth to a child.  And later, in the Old Testament book of Leviticus, God provided some practical laws or boundaries regarding men and women and their physical relationships.  These Levitical issues in particular dealt with the exchange of bodily fluids (do not commit incest or homosexuality or bestiality, avoid sex during a woman’s menstrual flow, etc.).  In the New Testament the Apostle Paul, in a strongly worded letter to the members of the church in Corinth, told them to “Flee from sexual immorality.  All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body…your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit…”  What defiles (and confuses) your personhood and the context for working out “masculinity” or “femininity”  are sinful relationships which quench the Spirit.

Now can one boy be more masculine than another?  No.  (Now, you may think that a boy who hangs around with his mother is more feminine than a boy who hangs around with his father.  In reality, each boy is sharing things they enjoy in common with the respective parent. Should it be demanded of the boy to act more like his father? Culture might demand it but Scripture doesn’t. The answer is No.) I would have little doubt that shaming a child into submitting to a gender stereotype is part of the personality pathology of homosexuality. 

Parent’s desirous of fitting their kids into society’s norms and into their own idealization of gender will restrict a child to a certain prescribed behavior and manner of presentation.  This need to conform their child to a certain delineation of a gender role may lead to post traumatic stress disorder in the child. (See this recent article:  Gender nonconformity linked to child abuse:  Uncomfortable adults often compel strict role presentation)

 A boy is more masculine than a girl,  of course. Just as in the garden of Eden before Eve came along, masculine and feminine were meaningless terms (The conference gods will strike me down, now.) They were meaningless until Eve stood in contrast to Eve as a separate gender.    Masculinity and femininity basically are the features in the opposite sex that we are attracted to.  This sounds rather unspiritual, too down to earth, but is what God had intended  – the simple elemental attraction of opposites.

 Within a male and female relationship you are drawn to the other gender.  You are attracted to gender-derived differences, to those features that are reciprocal (the roller-skate-and-key principle, if you will).  I realize that this may sound more like fuzzy math, more like the probability nature of quantum physics and not at all like rock-solid classical Newtonian physics that people more readily grasp but solid marriages prove the point.  An example would be my parents.

My parents have been married for over 60 years.  To my knowledge there has never been any talk between my mother and father about who was masculine and who was feminine.  They simply followed Christ and let gender find its way within in the context of their relationship to each other and to Christ.  They attended no seminars about “Biblical Masculinity or Biblical Femininity.”

Now regarding binary gender, the analogy may apply:  men are from Mars and women are from Venus.  As two distinct sexes we relate to each other differently, the differences being derived from basic biology (physical sexed body and hormonal) and cultural adaptations. Beyond this, there are no such things as the True Masculine or the True Feminine. 

 In fact, when we elevate certain aspects or attributes of men or women that we perceive to be quality masculine or feminine specimens to the position of the “True Masculine” or the True Feminine” we make idols of man-made aspirations (and, perhaps,  of Freudian psychology).  The church, as shown by the conference ad, wants to package masculinity and femininity and resell certain accepted features of it as “Biblical”.  They will even supersize the issue with book sales, heated sermons and biopic posts giving us what they see as the jot and tittle of masculine and feminine as viewed through their myopic lense of socially acceptable Biblical “truth.”

Concerning this topic, the book Exclusion and Embrace by Miroslav Volf was of special interest to me, especially the chapter titled Gender Identity. The primary focus of the chapter as I read it was to rightly describe the basis of gender identity and to show how the ideas about masculinity and femininity, described in “essence” forms, are often used to exclusion rather than embrace of the other.

 In this chapter Miroslav Volf says regarding his argument about gender identity:  “I have claimed that (1) the content of gender identity is rooted in the sexed body and negotiated in the social exchange between men and women within a given cultural context, and that (2) the portrayals of God in no way provide models of what it means to be male or female. I suggested, instead, that the relations between the Trinitarian persons serve as a model for how the content of “masculinity” and “femininity” ought to be negotiated in the social process.” (emphasis mine)

 He further states neutrally:

 “The content of gender identity is left unspecified; anything seems to go.”

 Also:

 “Biblical “woman” and “manhood” – if there are such things at all, given the diversity of male and female characters and roles that we encounter in the Bible – are not divinely sanctioned models but culturally situated examples.” (emphasis mine)

 And:

 “If neither models of God nor the explicit statements of the Bible about femininity and masculinity are normative for the content of gender identities, what is?  Does anything really go?  My proposal is that we locate the normativity in the formal features of identity and the character of relations of divine person. Instead of setting up ideals of femininity and masculinity, we should root each in the sexed body and let the social construction of gender play itself out guided by the vision of the identity of and relations between divine persons. What is normative is not some ‘essence” of femininity and masculinity, but the procedures, modeled on the life of the triune God, through which women and men in specific cultural settings should negotiate.” (emphasis mine)

 Further thoughts from the chapter:

  •  Father figure imagery has become sacrosanct in Christian circles.
  •  Psychology attempts to use the father figure imagery to decipher…
  •  Freud: we create god as a need for a father figure or oedipal complex
  •  Man’s projection of a father figure into the heavens due to an oedipal complex

If you as a man or you as a woman want to be all that you can be (to borrow an advertising phrase from the Army) then be in relationship with Christ.  Period. Don’t fashion your life around the drivel described as “Biblical” masculinity and femininity.  Put on Christ and walk in the Spirit instead. (I realize that many people want self-help books, tweets and conferences to tell them what to think.  Forget these things. Put on Christ and get walking.)

Now, you can always parse or stretch Scripture to make it mean what you want to say regarding masculine and feminine attributes.  Instead,  it would be better to not focus on these things, on whether you or someone else is more or less masculine or feminine. The Evil One will always stir up comparisons.  Just look at the media and you can, hopefully, see that the Evil One’s world view is one of comparing yourself to celebs, to physical attributes, to images of macho men and sexy babes,  to myriads of false idols. Walk in the Spirit and you will not fill up the flesh with a pretense of the masculine or feminine.

 And by far the best antidote to the cloying gender confusion issue that the LGB community brings with it is the solid mutually beneficial relationship of a man and a woman.  The spectrums of masculine and feminine can be fully explored within a committed relationship. In such a relationship there should be no threat to your perceived masculinity or femininity.  These things just co-exist.  And as such, the two will become one with no thought or time given to someone’s canonized version of “Biblical Masculinity or Femininity.”

Filed under Christianity, Life As I See It Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , ,

We seem to forget…

March 4, 2012 Leave a comment

We seem to forget…

 What goes around does come around.

 To become an American is to be given a gift of liberty.  Use the gift wisely. There are many today who have been born American and don’t realize what they have. There are many today who do not have Truth to guide their lives.  They have only feelings and sincerity as their moral guides.

 As a citizen of the United States you deserve nothing more than life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Anything else becomes a demand that grows government and government in turn robs people of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. A large government places people under the tyranny of its control first by controlling those you want controlled (unions, environmentalists, animal rights groups, etc. want others to be controlled) and then by controlling you.  Government in the “demand” process becomes a slave owner.  The Democrat party platform is the best example of a group seeking large government to corral people for “their own good.”

Voting for a Democrat means that you support the party platform:  abortion, casinos and gambling as revenue streams, higher taxes (you are the direct revenue stream for political favoritism ala Obama style politics), less return on your money, less control of your life, more government intrusion, government-run health care, European bailouts and bankrupt states (Greece, California, Illinois, etc.), political cronyism ala Chicago style politics, the Greek riots, government controlling others (while pretending that government will never control you), laziness, handouts, the perversion of marriage, more joblessness, more food stamps doled out, more crap at your expense. If you vote for a Democrat you deserve all the consequences. You still need to be spoon fed.

 We avoid pain, suffering and difficulty at all costs even though to overcome these onerous things make us feel alive and gives us character.  No amount of material possessions owned can do the same for us.

 You can’t take it with you and even though class warfare proponents such as Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Mao and yes, Barack Obama, say that you can have it all at another’s expense.

 “A good name is more desirable than great riches.  A good name should be esteemed more than silver and gold.”  (The Book of Proverbs)

 A generous man will himself be blessed. It is better to give than to receive. (Jesus)

 “A sluggard does not plow in season; so at harvest time he looks but finds nothing.”  (The Book of Proverbs) How many kids spend their time in pursuit of a useless degree and find out they cannot support either themselves or give to others who are needy.  This is not government’s fault.  It is their doing, is it not? (see Occupy Wall Street protestors).  You reap what you sow and what you don’t sow.

You cannot give what you do not have.  Making others give what they have does not fulfill the requirement of you giving to others even if you call it you call it a fancy name – wealth redistribution (“social gospel” for the lazy)

 Truth will come to you during your life.  Act on it while you can.

 Self-pity is a drag on your soul.  Unload it at the next trash bin.

 Holding a grudge against someone will destroy the person holding the grudge.  Destroy it before it destroys you – forgive.

 We are forgiven as we forgive others (Jesus).

 “There is a path which seems right to a man but the end thereof is the way of death.” (The Book of Proverbs)

 “The fool says to himself “There is no God.”” (The book of Psalms)

 “The fear of the Lord leads to life.”  (The Book of Proverbs)

 “He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the Lord.”  (The Book of Proverbs)

              “So God created man in His own image…male and female He created them…God saw all that He made and it was very good.” (Genesis chapter 1)

(Note that homosexuality came after the fall of man and is a perversion of the good that had been made.  You should know that those who claim to be “Gay and Proud” will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven, they will not return to the garden.)

 Life is short, especially for the aborted.

 Women’s rights do not include destruction of a fetus – a child.  Murderers, also, do not enter the Kingdom of Heaven. (If you have had an abortion, repent and turn to seek God’s mercy.)

Women’s rights already include free contraception:  It is a woman’s right and freedom to keep her legs together and to say “No” to sex at any time and at any place. Do be fooled by the Democrats desire to supply you with so-called “free” contraception. And, the Democrats are more concerned with population control and controlling who is born (quality of life) and how many people are born (they don’t want the planet overrun with people who will use up its natural resources.)

 In a God-breathed marriage women desire love, men desire respect.

We will all give an account of our lives before our Creator.  There is a heaven and there is a hell.  Heaven is to be within the dancing embrace of the Trinity throughout eternity.  Hell is to be alone forever, constantly thirsty for the living water, constantly in agony as you remember your life.

 Like it or not you have free will.  Blaming God for your life only makes you a bad rendition of a human.  Rejecting your personal responsibility shows your self-indulgent pride. Sadly, there are many who wash their hands absolving themselves of responsibility.  They deflect accountability by asking “What is truth?”

 “Before his downfall a man’s heart is proud, but humility comes before honor.”  (The Book of Proverbs)

 The Bible contains the words of God and the factual history of Jesus: 

“But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” (The Gospel of John)

Filed under Christian character, Christianity, Human Interest, Life As I See It Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Towering Babel-ist in America

February 12, 2012 Leave a comment

I would like to think that the American voter is trying really hard to make a go of it in this oppressive economic climate created by Obama and the Democrats. I would like to think this is the case but I have also come across another kind of voter:  the life’s victim-voter.

 This victim-voter, because of their constantly reinforced victim status, is basically mush – a supine non-thinker who asks government to bail them out of life’s difficulties, out of life’s pain and losses.  Instead of pursuing happiness though hard work this voter demands that government guarantee that their life will be easy and trouble-free. They say to themselves:  “Life is hard. If God won’t take away our pain we’ll make government do it.”  They may also argue, “Others are doing it why don’t I.”

It is this same victim–voter who continually seeks the balm of government hand-outs. The same victim–voter will instantly and freely give up their liberty for the license to be a perpetual needy victim. And, at the same time, this type of voter will seek to impose government restrictions on others thus fulfilling their need to keep others under control and/or paying the bill.

 Now I wonder, do these same voters just want to go about their lives doing their art, taking self-photos to post on Facebook, watching crap TV and movies, surfing the internet, smoking, drinking, tattoo-ing and living a life apart from the having to deal with reality? (I would like to write about other things but our nation is being dismantled by Obama and the progressive movement.)

 Now, why is Obama telling you and me what to do? Why is Obama, as announced recently, giving us a compromise regarding contraception?  Why is he involved at all in this very personal conversation? He and the Dems need to get the hell out of our lives.  They are absolutely intrusive, overreaching and becoming more totalitarian by the minute.

 Ask yourself:  “Why is Barack Obama involved in my personal stuff? ”

 Why does the government need to be intimate with the details of my medical records? Of my earnings? Of my life?

 Why is BHO telling me how much I can have?

 Why did Barack Obama tell the world that we are not a Christian nation?

 Why does Obama pick and choose who wins and who loses? (think car companies, unions and big banks)

Why is Barack Obama trying to create a climate of discontent? A climate of covetousness?  Of envy?

Why does Barack Obama conflate Scripture (“to whom much is given, much is required”) with class warfare? (Why,  brother Obama, sow discord and disharmony among the brethren? Perhaps you are a wolf in sheep’s clothing!)

 Why is AG Eric Holder allowing the Black Panthers a pass on voter intimidation? Or, allowing guns to be sold to drug dealers which in turn kill our own officers?

 Why is Michelle Obama telling me what I should eat?

 Why did Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats pass a national health care bill and then say “we had to pass the bill to find out what was in the bill?”

 Why are dictatorial judges (think 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, San Francisco) ignoring the Constitution in their legal decisions? Why are the rules changing for special interest groups?

Why did Ruth Bader Ginsburg (now in the SCOTUS) say that Egypt should have a different Constitution than the Constitution of the most free and Democratic republic in the world? Does RBG not like the Constitution under which she is to make her rulings? She should recuse herself and retire Jan 2nd, 2013.

 Obama and the Dem’s progressive overreach: Health care, contraception, faith, marriage, the family, earnings, investments, inheritance money, what you eat, omnipresent and oppressive regulations and…

 “Hope and Change.”  These words, verbal promissory notes to the militant Left during the 2008 presidential campaign, are code words replacing “Progressivism and radicalism.”  The 2008 election of BHO, as I see it, became the beginning of the end for America, an America once of the people, by the people and for the people. Our country is now being radicalized, being rewired into a dystopian matrix of parallel connections all wired and channeled to a small political ruling class of elites. (Think Obama’s czars. Think the EU – the European Union.)

 Why would BHO trash America?  Because he and those like him believe they have a better way for you to go – a hopey and changey pablum kind of way – a way we are told that transcends God, the church, race, gender and economics.  We are told that this “better way” transcends everyone and everything and for your own good. The inference being here that we the people are too stupid, too inept and out of control (read free) to live our lives without the better “Way.”

 The Hope and Change Lie has been told and re-told.  Those who voted for Obama in 2008 believed that the world would be a better place (?) if BHO was in the White House.  Without a denial of the facts, the effect of his presidency and the Democrat majority Senate has been the destruction of our nation’s economy, an encouragement to blatantly disregard the American Constitution, the torching of American exceptionalism (read flag) and the implementation of a scorched earth ideology that replaces everything in its path with the word “Fair” – fairness as defined by an elite group of people. 

 You, the voter, get a say for now but soon your say will be silenced by this political ruling class and the increasing murmur of illegal immigrants entering our country. The value of your own interests or concerns, once your own business, will soon be decided by the Obama government.  Remember, you are thought to be too stupid to act for your own good. Sadly, I think there are, as I have mentioned above, victim-voters who quickly acquiesce because they don’t want to think about what it takes to live this life. They, instead, want Obama and the Democrats make their life decisions for them.

 We are repeatedly told by the Obama-led progressives that we need this change so that we as a nation of diverse people and needs can get along fairly, equally. BHO sees himself as the champion of the little guy.  He will, in fact, promote himself as such for the 2012 presidential campaign. But, you should know that he is walking up the ladder of ascendant power on the backs of the little guys.

 What I have also seen is that Barack Obama seeks to create strife among the races (race “carding” any dissent; think Al Sharpton, MSNBC and the media); strife among economic groups (class warfare), strife among workers (union and non-union); strife among church and state; strife among people of every stripe and color. He does so in order to promote himself as the gentle, wise old black man (a Morgan Freeman-like narcissistic typecasting) to help the poor embattled nation (now at odds in its Barack Obama-incited civil war). Obama creates the problem and then reveals himself (the “level-headed” One) as the solution to the problem. And, it is this One who wants to bring “peace and harmony” to the nation ala Abe Lincoln (more narcissistic typecasting).  Barack Obama is politically motivated to play you and this nation at every level in order to build his tower of Babel overlooking his constructed world.  Many let him do it.  But why?

 What is now truly transcendent is the totalitarianism of Barack Obama and the federal government. And, the over-reach continues:  Obama will feign moral high ground when he opines professorially “we (the political elite) know best, we are above the bickering.” This is the Hope and Change Lie re-packaged to encourage supine surrender to the elitist tyranny.

 The voter must be ever vigilant against the totalitarianism of sincere motives in the hands of a few.  Some of you bought the lie in 2008.  It is almost too late.  The Lie, with its ring of totalitarian power, must be thrown into the fires of Mount Doom and be forever destroyed.

(I have flavored this post with plenty of metaphors in hopes of giving the reader a bitter taste of what is happening to our liberty under Obama.)

 There is hope, though:

“The Tea party Movement is nourished by a very American creed, namely that governments don’t have the answers, that reform comes from below, that people are wiser than their leaders.” British MEP Daniel Hannan in The New Road to Serfdom:  A letter of Warning to America

 And, this video tells it like it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXsrajvFGk8&feature=player_embedded#!

Filed under 2012 election, essay, Life As I See It, Political Commentary, Politics, Progressivism, prose, social commentary Tagged with ,

Wrestling with God?

February 5, 2012 Leave a comment

Christopher Hitchens, 1949–2011. God rest his free will.

*****

Out of fear of creating a post too long and drawn out (as it turned out to be) and one that no one may read I will try and summarize as best I can my take on the video posted below. Please view the video first. (You will need several cups of coffee.  Hold the scotch.)

*****

As you will see and hear in the video, Christopher Hitchens’ (Hitch) arguments for atheism (or against theism), after many dead-end asides, were centered on his aversion to having anyone telling anyone what to do.  His followers readily know that over the years Hitch has repeatedly taken umbrage on paper or in one-upmanship debates against totalitarianism and against any authoritarian person or religion having a say in his life or in the lives of others. For the record, William Lane Craig (marker 13:59) noted that Hitch despised and hated religion.

Hitch was certainly OK, though, with authoritarian imposition upon others if he felt the cause justified removing other authoritarian figures from the lives of those he thought were oppressed.  He, to the horror of the liberal elitists, aligned himself philosophically with G.W. Bush regarding the Iraq war and the war on terror against radical Islamists.

In the February 2012 issue of Vanity Fair, Salman Rushdie penned In Memoriam, Christopher Hitchens: 1949-2011. Rushdie wrote about Hitch’s return to the left:

“Paradoxically, it was God who saved Christopher Hitchens from the right. Nobody who detested God as viscerally, intelligently, originally, and comically as C. Hitchens could stay in the pocket of god-bothered American conservatism for long.  When he bared his fangs and went for God’s jugular, just as he had previously fanged Henry Kissinger, Mother Teresa, and Bill Clinton, the resulting book, God is not great, carried Hitch away from the American right and back toward his natural, liberal, ungodly constituency.”

As a way of life Hitch sought to stand juxtaposed to the universal rule of law (his own conscience) in an antinomian position while at the same time declaring moral diatribes against religious and political authorities he considered too over arching in their imposition. He also liked to keep his conscience well inebriated and his roving moralist eye ever looking elsewhere ~ looking outside and not within ~ denial and pretense being typical liberal traits.

With atheistic cowardice and hubris, Hitch attacked Mother Teresa, a little old lady. He apparently wanted to feed his prurient desire to neutralize any authority figure (overt or implied) by trying to bring her down several notches in people’s eyes.  Why? He claimed she was pushing her authoritarian teachings onto the helpless. He accused her of hypocrisy in her dealings (an easy, self-serving claim for an atheist to make against any Christian). He may have felt threatened by her devotion to an unseen God and her ability to make things happen for others and doing so as a little old lady.

Why would a grown man verbally attack a helpless woman who indeed went about helping others who themselves were under the totalitarianism of poverty and squalor?  Maybe Hitch thought she wasn’t helpless. Maybe it was a direct attack against God. It certainly was an act of unmatched intelligential cowardice. To be sure Mother Teresa fought the unseen authorities of this world (the “powers of darkness”) by physically helping the outcast, the hungry and the hurting with an agape-powered love and not verbal hubris.

Hitch, on the other hand, fought the very public “seen” authorities of this world by aligning rhetorically with causes which he felt were important for him. He should have noted that he and Mother Teresa were fighting the same issue ~ human suffering at the hands of others (whether a dictator or a false religion) -from two different sides. Yet, he chose to denigrate Mother Teresa. I believe he did this because he felt threatened by her belief in the unseen God.

Hitch postures that Christians, especially Christian missionaries like Mother Teresa, are hypocrites who say things they know to be true and good but live disconnected lives apart from such truth – their deeds not matching match their words. This argument (?) against God was replayed in his use the La Rochefoucauld quote “hypocrisy is a tribute vice pays to virtue.” Yet, this hypocrisy argument folds in on itself if one were to hold any moral standard at all. Perhaps Hitch, a polymath, saw moral laws as “many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore.” (The Raven, Edgar Allen Poe)

Clearly Hitch’s excessive lifestyle (his immoderate drinking, smoking, etc. have been noted elsewhere) made his salacious attacks against God all the more the more forthcoming and lubricious.  His lifestyle had also proved his belief in nihilism – life is nothing if not suffering. So he apparently used a “get it while you can” justification to medicate the blows between verbal jousting contests.

His liquid lifestyle also spoke to the fact of Hitch’s drive for “freedom” from any limitation imposed on his person including by his own person – his physiology. He chose against himself again and again.  He did this while throwing the world a bone now and then, choosing willy-nilly causes to deflect away any personal soul-searching which might lead to accountability to any higher authority. (see marker 25: 5, If god does not exist then objective moral standards don’t exist – a self-satisfying argument.)

Hitch detested dictatorships of all kinds and he did so while as a potentate of his own world. He would not bend the knee to anyone or to anything.  He would fight, as Salmon Rushdie recalled in the same Vanity Fair article remembering his friend, for anyone who was made to do so.  Hitch’s rebellion was against dictatorial authority of any kind and not just in the political and religious realm.  And he certainly rebelled against authority stated as codified truth – the Bible and the recorded history of the resurrection of Jesus.  His moral relativism, stated above, is characteristic of most atheists (and the “ungodly constituency”) since they affirm that no moral standard exists outside one’s self.

In the video Hitch asks the universal question posed to theism:  why would a God who was all powerful and good allow suffering?  My answer:  suffering comes out of created man’s free-will choices in a fallen world. God has allowed it for a time but not forever. Justice will be meted out and suffering will end.

He continues his disbelief:  “Why would God spend eons of time in creating a world that he could set up in a blink of an eye?” He went on to say that Christians are now co-opting evolution theory in accordance with the Creation argument, evolution being a position long held by atheists.  He “christens” this “tactic” or “style” of argument as “retrospective evidentialism” or as a “second thought.” (marker 37:40)

As a Christian theist I see no conflict whatsoever with science and creation.  I believe in theistic evolution-a finely tuned theistic universe, a personal cause of the universe and a theistic objective morality. As scientific evidence becomes available it should be used and not discarded.  Beyond scientific proofs, my own belief in God is vindicated every day because I, a rational human being, know that God exists. I continue to pursue Him actively and I submit to His authority. Hitch, on the other hand, fled from any such authority outside of himself and employed his own existentialist belief system where he felt safe from intrusion.

Also in the video, Hitch uses the Creationist argument of a literal seven days to say that we as Christians are basically lunatics to believe such things. Again, I see no conflict with a Creationist’s position of a literal seven days and the theory of relativity which could make thousands of millennia appear as seven literal days.

Hitch takes another jab at Christian theism by invoking his own god-like view point when questioning why God would do what Christian theists believe He did. He balks (and I’ll paraphrase):  “…the eons of time that God has created-evolved ~ that all of this fine tuning, mass extinction and randomness is the will of a Creator God (marker 40:21) and that all of this happened so that one very imperfect race of evolved primates might become Christian ~ all of this was “with us in view” is a curious kind of solipsism, a curious kind of self-centeredness.”  Hitch jests that he thought Christians were modest and humble, not self-centered with certain arrogance to the assumption that this “was all about us.” And, “The tremendous wastefulness of it, the tremendous cruelty of it, the tremendous caprice of it, the tremendous tinkering and incompetence of it, never mind at lease we’re here and we can be people of faith.” This projection from one who, with a free will, spoke from a self-centered and solipsistic core!

The Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Creator, was always meant to bypass the wise of this earth: “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God. As the Scriptures say, “He traps the wise in the snare of their own cleverness.”” (Apostle Paul’s letter to the Corinthian church).   A priori rebellion coded as cleverness is found in the Mitochondrial DNA of man.

Apart from free-wheeling self-directed solipsism, there is a bounty of sound arguments for theism and William Lane Craig (WLC) highlights them artfully:  “No good argument that atheism is true, there are good arguments that theism is true ~ not via social questions or ethics (marker 16:00).

WLC philosophical arguments in quick notation:

Cosmological argument:  things exist, not nothing; the universe began to exist not infinite, not eternal ~ Big Bang Beginning, ex-nihilo, a cause by an UnCause beyond space and time;  David Hillburg ~ The infinite;  there must be a cause of creation. This Being must be uncaused, timeless, space unfathomable & personal and not abstract thought or object; The universe has begun to exist and is not infinite, not eternal (astrophysics concur); Past event are real, there must be Personal creator of the universe, transcendent intelligent mind

Teological argument:  (marker 20:00) finely tuned universe ~ mathematically constants (e.g., gravity) not determined by the laws of nature & the arbitrary conditions (entropy, balance between matter and antimatter); any change in these would be the end of life itself (the atomic weak force being altered)

Chance?  Odds are incomprehensibly great, life prohibiting universes are more probable

It follows logically by Design ~ intelligent argument, intelligent designer

Moral argument (marker 25: 15):  if god does not exist then objective moral standards don’t exist; if God exists then valid and binding; the morality that has emerged proves that god exists ~ via moral experience; we understand that there are things that are really wrong.

Historical fact (marker 27:40):  The resurrection of Jesus a historical fact not just a belief;  tomb discovered empty eyewitnesses;  individuals and groups saw Jesus, appearances to believers and unbelievers;  the original disciples believed in the resurrection and Jewish religion believed otherwise about when resurrection occurs; Christian die for the truth of the resurrection (marker 30:26)

Experiential knowledge:  The experience of God or claim to know that God exists – properly basic beliefs part of a system of beliefs including the belief of an external world;   Context of physical objects; grounded in our experience of God; God immediate reality

Hitch responds (marker 33:16):  arguments the same across religions ~ belief in God but differences; presuppositionalists (by faith) and the evidentialists a distinction without a difference.

As you will note Hitch’s arguments are all basically dismissive of Christian belief and are not evidentiary in favor of atheism; note his “rather sweet” dismissal of those who believe ~ that those of faith should have evidence.  (Hitch once again conveniently dismisses the facts of the resurrection and the improbability of causation by chance.)

Hitch: “We argue that is no plausible or convincing reason, certainly no evidential one to believe that there is such an entity…all observable phenomena is explicable (marker 42:00); I don’t believe that following the appropriate rituals…

“Even if this deity did exit it doesn’t prove that he cared about us…cared who we had sex with …care whether we lived or died… (marker 42:32)

“Miracles suspend the natural order ~ Christians want it both ways (“promiscuous”) (marker 44:00); The natural order – “It is miraculous without a doubt”

“I have to say that I appear as a skeptic, I doubt these things.” (marker 46:16)

“The theist says it must be true…”Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”;

“Too early in the study of biology…to make these claims.”

Perhaps Hitch, the verbal grappler, was as a sound and fury professional wrestler who was successfully agile at avoiding a real match-up with Truth. But now, the fight has ended, the match is over. All that’s left in the empty corner is a book ~  God is Not Great.   His last words?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KBx4vvlbZ8

Filed under Christianity, Creationism, essay, Human Interest, Life As I See It, Non-fiction, Short Piece, Writing Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Just Say “No”

January 27, 2012 Leave a comment

Obama and the Dems want to bring everyone down to the same “bottom-feeder” level called “fair”.  In lieu of a good record to extol, Obama’s campaign plea is take more money from the so-called 1% and then to redistribute the money according to some vague notion of fairness to the 99%.  Obama is not about wealth creation.  Obama is about wealth redistribution.  Obama doesn’t want to make the pie bigger.  Obama wants to slice the pie into smaller slices. Obama and the Dems don’t create wealth, they syphon off wealth by all manner of taxation.  The Dems also build casinos or as I call them, shell games, to gain revenue money from the fools who happily play their life away hoping to “Win the Future”  (a Obama campaign mantra).  And with no money yet in hand Obama, the snake-oil salesman he is, makes financial promises to his base (e.g., college kids, unions, banks, etc.) and does so without regard for the taxpayer who would foot the bill.

After destroying America’s financial future his first term with bailouts to his cronies and the passing of Obamacare, Obama now seeks a second term to continue the pillaging process.  Obama is hell-bent on wiping the American slate clean with a rag he calls “Hope” and then spray painting his own perverse ideological graffiti, “Change”, on the walls of history. For Obama and his posse the U.S. Constitution is just another authority to hold in contempt. This is Obama as Ludicrous, a political class gangsta member from Chicago with the same old denigrating street  rap – “I’m for me and my crew. The rest can go to f___ themselves.

Think about this.  Do you really want someone defining fairness?  Do you really want someone to pick and chose who wins and who loses?  Do you really think that government will stop private property encroachment (taxes) with the 1%? Once you give government the rights to your pocketbook (healthcare included) you lose complete control of it regardless of your democratic representation.

 Now for social gospel junkies, this type of ideology is nowhere near Christianity – robbing Peter to pay Paul.  For the voter, this socialist ideology is nothing other than giving him a false hope of security wrapped in yesterday’s newspaper. It certainly smells like day-old fish.

 True conservatives like myself want everyone to have an opportunity to succeed, to rise up to a new level called “personal success.”  Think about this:  if your money is being taxed away to feed a socialist’s irrational vision than you have less money to provide for your family, less money to build a successful business, less money for charity. Government becomes the focus of your life – not God, family, friends or the needy.

 A vote for Obama will bring you and your family down to a new low and will suck the life out of our nation.  His re-election would move our country from constitutionalism to despotism. If you vote for that you deserve it.

This next presidential election we must not put our votes out to the “hope and change” pasture. We must think and choose wisely.  Just say “No” to the stupor inducing drug called socialism and its street-corner salesman Obama.

When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle. Edmund Burke, Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (1770)

illionoiswithnewt_TheNewtGingrichRecord

Filed under Life As I See It, Political Commentary, Politics Tagged with , , , , , ,

I Support the Man of Action: Part One

January 9, 2012 Leave a comment

WLS-890 AM, Sunday afternoon:  On my way to the grocery store I turned on the car radio.  Phil Ponce, a Chicago television journalist for WTTW, was filling in for one of his sons, either Anthony or Dan, during their Sunday afternoon radio broadcast. I believe the Ponce Brother’s program was also substituting for Bob Brinker’s Money Talk (a favorite program of mine) that afternoon. As I tuned in Anthony or Dan was mentioning how that most of the callers were favoring Newt Gingrich as the GOP nominee.

 The Ponces, father and son, then took another call, a female caller who mentioned her age of 59.  She talked (I’ll paraphrase) about how the country needs to be taken back. Phil Ponce mentioned that many callers had said the same thing.  He then asked her what she meant by that. In brief she said that many of the laws and the Constitution itself that we as a nation have in place are simply disregarded by the people in power, especially by President Obama and his administration.

 In talking about her childhood she recalled how that we as a nation knew what the laws were and that they were not subject to arbitrary change by those in power as they are now. She said no country is perfect or has it easy but our nation was a light shining on a hill (a Reagan reference) but is now it is dimming in that capacity.

 That is what I heard. Her exact words…if the show’s podcast or transcript becomes available I will post it.

 Also, as I found out later, during the same broadcast and prior to my turning the radio on, Illinois Senator Mark Kirk surprised the Ponces by calling in.  Phil Ponce recounted how he had jokingly suggested that the illinois Senator call in to talk about his choice for a GOP candidate. Senator Kirk did call in and said that he was backing Romney.  This is too bad.

 About two weeks ago I wrote an e-mail to Senator Kirk asking him to back Newt Gingrich.  I did this when I heard that Kirk was coming out for Romney.  Romney, I believe, will be in over his head.  But if Romney becomes the GOP nominee Romney would still be a much better choice than Obama, Obama and his multiple czars who are responsible to no one but the president. 

By bypassing our elected representatives in Congress and appointing these czars Obama showed flagrant disrespect for America, her Constitution and our elected representatives. Also, Obama’s appointment of Eric Holder as AG was meant as a slap in the face of the American system of justice (e.g., Holder’s ignoring the Black Panther’s intimidation of voters).

************* 

I am backing Newt Gingrich for President. 

In a recent web-column for The Detroit News economist Thomas Sowell talks about the need for a man of action to lead this country:

 Many Americans are already saying that they can hardly recognize the country they grew up in. We have already started down the path that has led Western European nations to the brink of financial disaster. … 

While the televised debates are what gave Newt Gingrich’s candidacy a big boost, concrete accomplishments when in office are the real test. Gingrich engineered the first Republican takeover of the House of Representatives in 40 years — followed by the first balanced budget in 40 years. The media called it “the Clinton surplus” but all spending bills start in the House of Representatives, and Gingrich was Speaker of the House.…

In a world where we can make our choices only among the alternatives actually available, the question is whether Newt Gingrich is better than Barack Obama — and better than Mitt Romney.

Romney is a smooth talker, but what did he actually accomplish as governor of Massachusetts, compared to what Gingrich accomplished as Speaker of the House? When you don’t accomplish much, you don’t ruffle many feathers. But is that what we want?

Can you name one important positive thing that Romney accomplished as governor of Massachusetts? Can anyone? Does a candidate who represents the bland leading the bland increase the chances of victory in November 2012? A lot of candidates like that have lost, from Thomas E. Dewey to John McCain.

Illinois must vote for Newt in the Illinois primary on March 24, 2012.  We need a man of action who has a sincere appreciation of American history, the Constitution, American values and actual success with the political process.  I encourage you to vote for the Statesman Newt Gingrich to be the GOP nominee for president. Let’s stop the pious baloney.

Filed under Life As I See It, Political Commentary, Politics, short piece, Writing Tagged with , , ,

European Vacation Part III

January 7, 2012 Leave a comment

I have an answer for those who would like to see America become like Europe:  take a slow boat to Europe.

 If you are young and hold a useless degree (liberal arts, gender studies, “identity” studies, African-American studies, etc) and are jobless in spite of Obama’s Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 than take your worthless piece of paper and flee to the cafes of Paris or Rome.  Spend your Recovery summers and winters, springs and autumns in Europe.  Become one of Europe’s intellectual elites. Better yet, become the vagabond that you have always dreamed of becoming– just you, nature and Kumbaya.  Become the insipid whiner who decries American liberty for having too much opportunity and too much choice and not enough government programs making choices for you.

 If you are seeking European style health care then the perfect answer for you would be to relocate yourself and your citizenship to a European country.  After all, America, having paid for the defense of Europe during WWII to the tune of 80 plus billion dollars and with thousands of American lives, allowed European nations to turn their swords into plowshares, their guns into socialized medicine. America effectively paid for the implementation of Germany’s health care system. And, doesn’t America still have a military base in Germany protecting German interests as well as American interests, freeing up German defense dollars for healthcare?

 Socialist Europe is held up as a model of “just behavior”; but the Left forgets that for seventy-five years America defended Europe from the Communist threat, and bore the cost, which would have bankrupted Europe, and which, in the event, bankrupted Communism.  The Left looks at the peace of Europe since World War II and forgets that it was not only ensured, but created by American military strength and determination (and funded by the Marshall plan, which is to say, by a surplus of American industrial wealth.) And now the Left has elected a President who thinks it good to go to Europe and apologize for our “arrogance”, who proclaims the benefits of appeasement both at home and around the world.[1]

 Coming out of a decisive victory made possible by America, the Marshall plan funneled huge amounts of money into the rebuilding of European nations devastated by the Third Reich. America paid a steep price to free Europe from her enemies. Europe responded by turning inward and to pampering herself with socialized health care.  The facts now reveal, though, that under European style socialized health care you will get a small bang for your Euro in Europe, unless of course you are really looking for legalized drugs.

 And, if you are looking for top-down centralized government and the chance to really all-out criticize and complain about America then Europe is the place for you. Over there, in the Elysian Fields where there is “blessed” life after life in your despised America, you can rail against the Yanks for being so greedy, so selfish, so uncaring, so hard-working and so American.  Forget about WWII. Forget about the fact that America is the most charitable nation on earth (a common good interventionism) and a strong defender of liberty against totalitarianism. And forget, too, that millions of people left their homelands for the chance at American prosperity and for the freedoms of speech, religion and choice.

I believe the incredible wealth of this country will allow it to survive quite awhile on its hundred years of production and upon its natural resources and historic culture of productivity.

But the Change which Obama’s rhetoric referred to preceded and will follow him, accelerated by him and his policies, accepted by a drugged populace and supine press.  It is the unfortunate descent of a productive nation into socialism, which, as I understand it, is robbing Peter to pay Paul.  I don’t think it’s any more complex than that.[2]

 In Europe, give in to your to your passions and to your righteous anger.  Go riot in the French streets about banal differences in French cinema. Find your mojo among the militant Left Euro-Sophists. Stir your Café Americano pensively, smoke your Marlboros and sit around in distressed blue jeans chatting smugly with others of your herd about your almost extinct planet and the need to create a global warming franchise like Al Gore has done.  You have earned it.

  A vagabond status of passive living is so incredibly ‘60s.  Peace and love baby.  Go for it.  Experience the experience. Become one with the world. Find yourself.  COEXIST with yourself in Europe and please leave America to the Americans.

 If you are looking for “Hope” and “Change” look no farther: America’s promise of liberty, opportunity and choice is filled with “Hope”.  To be sure, American hope is born out of character which is born out of perseverance through trial, through hard work and yes, through suffering and not out of European-like nanny state programs which enable sloth, intemperance, envy and even despair.

 “Change” comes when you begin to fully appropriate America’s “Hope.”  “Change,” thus, begins and ends with you, right here, right now.  Or, board the next boat to parts unknown.

[1] David Mamet, The Secret Knowledge: On Dismantling of American Culture (New York:  Penguin Books:  Sentinel, 2011, http://davidmamet.com/) 44.

[2] Ibid, 64

Filed under essay, Life As I See It, Political Commentary, Politics, Progressivism, social commentary, Writing Tagged with , , , ,

← Older posts

Newer posts →