Category: Culture

Below is duplicated an e-mail I received from a very intelligent and young professional woman who claims Christ as her savior. All of her education has been spent in State sponsored schools.

Below I interact with her response to my challenging her on her intent to vote for Obama. The conversation came in the context of challenging her on abortion.

Believe it or not, abortion is not the only murder that America condones.

What other murder does America condone? Are you thinking of the death penalty?

Still, even if America does condone other murder why would the existence of murder in other areas justify voting for someone who advocates murder in the one area of policy where more legalized murders happen by far then in any other area?

You really need to explain your reasoning here if only for your own clarity.

Personally, I value the ability of a person to choose what they would do rather then legislate morality that would not accomplish the goal of turning people toward Jesus– which is what will really affect change.

I agree that what really will affect change is seeing people converted by the Gospel. But such a agreement between us here does not mean that we vote for those who will implement policy completely contrary to God’s revealed word. God’s Word teaches, “Thou Shalt Not Murder.” How do you justify voting for somebody who so completely murders as Obama?

Second, it is not possible to not legislate morality. All legislation is, by definition, a legislation of morality. If people decide not to legislate against a certain behavior they are pronouncing it moral. If people decide to legislate against a certain behavior then they are pronouncing its opposite behavior is moral. All legislation is, by definition, a legislation of morality.

If you were to be consistent on this score you would have to oppose any laws forbidding murder or kidnapping or pedophilia because it is legislating morality. Do you oppose such laws? And if you do not oppose those laws which legislate morality why do you oppose legislation against abortion? Laws against murder, kidnapping and pedophilia do not turn people toward Jesus and yet if I were to guess you would think it insane if legislators suddenly started saying, “We value the ability of a person to choose what they would do rather then legislate morality that would not accomplish the goal of turning people toward Jesus– which is what will really affect change.”

It’s not only about abortion. It is also about alleviating … read more poverty, about standing up for the rights of people in America who do without healthcare, who have to choose between heating their homes or paying their rent or for gasoline to go to work. I believe it is the job of the government to provide basic services like healthcare and subsidized education because those things are a right, not a privilege.

It’s not only about the slaughter of 1.3 million people every year? I bet that each one of the slaughtered 1.3 million people would beg to differ with your analysis.

Second, health care is no more a right then owning a three bedroom house in the suburbs. Show me in the Constitution or in the Bible where health care is a human right. Now, certainly we need to do all we can to make health care affordable but socializing health care will make quality health care more difficult to obtain for non poor people while doing nothing to improve the lot of poor people. Your good intentions are getting in the way of reality.

Third, you are completely entitled to believe that it is the role of the Government to serve as the Nanny but it would be nice if people like you could show where in the constitution that right comes from. Further, it would be nice if people of your persuasion could realize that nothing is ever free. It would be nice if you realized that for every freebie the government gives away somebody else working a real job has to pay for it. It would be nice if your realized that every dollar you advocate being stolen in order that people may have their “rights” satisfied is a dollar that somebody else doesn’t have to satisfy some of the things they might think are rights.

Fourth, your reasoning does not hold. If it is wrong to legislate morality because the legislating of it won’t turn people to Jesus then why are you advocating that legislators should legislate freebies for people. Certainly, you can’t believe that the morality legislation that you are supporting is going to turn them to Jesus. In case you are the statistics 40 years after the great society are very against you.

Finally, I hope you realize that what you’ve said is that making sure that people can live off of other people’s hard work is more important then making sure that 1.3 individuals are not slaughtered annually.

It is about paying down the national debt so that my children and grandchildren will not have to pay for the mistakes of this administration.

I agree that the Bush administration has been horrid, but the national debt cannot be uniquely laid at his feet. Such a policy goes back 70 years and it is a policy that both parties have pursued with vigor. Indeed, I agree with you so much that I am not voting for either of the major parties.

There will always be a divide between what I believe and what exists because we live in a fallen world. As it is, I vote Obama.

Yes, there will always be a divide and as long as you remain disobedient to Christ by voting for child killers the divide will never get any smaller. The fact that we live in a fallen world gives you no excuse to perpetuate that fallen(ness).

below is a link that you may choose to ignore on the issue of abortion. It is written by a Princeton academic.

http://theologica.blogspot.com/2008/10/robert-p-george-voting-for-most-extreme.html

Whenever two irreconcilable agents are forced together something has to give.

In the twentieth century with the advent of Roosevelt and the new Deal America has tried to create a politico-economic system that attempted to force together irreconcilable elements. Whereas free market capitalism was the American ideal, with the passing of the New Deal legislation we tried to combine command and control socialism elements with our existing free market. Similarly, in the political realm with the New Deal, an intensification of the motif of centralization in the State was injected into a system that had originally been premised upon the idea of decentralized and diffused governmental authority. If we were to speak in macro terms our system was premised on maximum individual freedom, but in the 20th century we sought to combine the polar opposite of government guaranteed security that was itself premised upon a statist collectivism.

Because of the combination of these irreconcilable agents contradictions were created in our politico-economic system that had to resolve themselves in one consistent direction or the other. In other words a tension was placed into our system that couldn’t be maintained over the long term.

As the years of the twentieth century unraveled the anti-thesis’ involved in our system increasingly unwound themselves away from free market economics, decentralized and diffused governmental authority, and maximum individual freedom and increasingly embraced command and control economics, centralized governmental authority, and collectivized governmental provided security. With every lunge away from the former set and towards the latter set the contradictions of the system have worked themselves out towards a consistency that any system demands.

I think now we are nearing a point where the contradictions will be completely eliminated. We are nearing a time when the final vestiges of our old system will be finally washed clean. Maximum individual freedom will be fully replaced by collectivized government security. Free market capitalism will be fully replaced by command and control socialism. Decentralized and diffused governmental authority will be fully replaced by the centralized state.

The evidence that we are moving to an explicit command and control socialist economy is seen in today’s report that the Government is considering taking ownership stakes in certain U.S. banks as an option for dealing with a severe global credit crisis. Now, this would make explicit was has been implicit for some time but it would officially mark the end of free market banking. John McCain would move us away from free markets by having the State become owners of American homes, thus eliminating the free market mortgage industry.

It hardly seems to be the case that we need any more evidence that we have moved to an explicitly centralized Government system or that maximum individual freedom has become obsolete in the face of collectivized security as provided by the State. Even now, the State is taking it upon itself to make secure the unwise investments of countless Americans by a collectivized arrangement whereby the taxpayers bail out certain segments of the investment losers.

What we can look for in the near future, if God doesn’t grant Reformation and Renewal, is increasingly more statist collectivization that provides security at the cost of individual freedom, even more socialist command and control economics at the cost of free markets, and even more centralization at the cost of decentralized and diffused governments.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy09UpI60F8

I’ve closely observed political campaigns since the 1972 campaign. I’ve never seen anything that even comes close to what is on display in those links. In my reading, I’ve only heard of it in totalitarian regimes. As popular as Reagan was, nobody taught children to sing praises to the great leader, and nobody taught youth to turn Reagan into some kind of deity in a militaristic context.

Combine one part crisis, plus one part overwhelming ignorance, plus one part Messiah complex in a leader, plus a large heaping dose of people unwilling to fight back, plus a long tradition of ignoring the law of the land (Constitution) and you have all the makings for tyranny.

After the initial melt down the Government tried to sell the bailout as a investment whereby the Feds could make money on the 700 Billion dollar loan.

Even if the Gov’t made a profit they’d find some dumbass new entitlement in order to fritter away whatever profit they might gain from it.

These people are monumentally stupid. It’s painful and embarrassing to hear many of these “Leaders” speak from the floor. You want to grab a pitchfork and storm the Bastille. Well trained 15 year-olds could out think these morons.

And one more thing …

Never was it more clearly seen that ideas have consequences then this whole fiasco. All of this was set up by the irrational push of egalitarianism. We must put minorities who can’t afford homes into homes they can’t pay for (sub-prime mortgages).

For the Democrats it was just a more sophisticated way to shake down whitey. It was reparations dressed up as a three bedroom house and a two car garage.

For the Republicans, led by Rove and Bush it was a decision to try and make the minorities instantly equal and instantly Republican and so they did all they could to illegitimately jam them in those houses theorizing that home ownership turns one into a voting Republican.

These people belong in the kind of pit that they threw Edmund Dantes in.

To expect these idiots to fix the situation is like giving a license and a bottle to the Captain of the Exxon Valdez while telling him to have another go at that harbor.