Report on Meeting w/ US Congressman Tim Walberg

This morning I, along with 40 or so other Charlotte citizens met w/ Congressman Tim Walberg who serves Congressional District #7 in Michigan. In a question and answer format I had a opportunity to politely but directly challenge the Congressman on his most recent vote in favor of raising the debt ceiling and expanding the US debt by at least 7 Trillion dollars to our debt over the next 10 years. We had a full and frank exchange of ideas where I reminded him that with the Republican passage of this debt ceiling the Republican promise to afford the Citizenry three days to review all legislation was violated. I told him I was disappointed in the Republicans and in him and asked him why those more fiscally conservative then him were wrong for voting against the debt ceiling increase. He explained that, “there were good conservatives on both sides,” while invoking a Thomas Sowell article to justify his vote.

I told him, Thomas Sowell being a conservative Economist, is no guarantee that Thomas Sowell is not in error on this. I left it alone after he insisted again that there were good conservatives on both sides. On the issue of Republicans breaking their 2010 campaign vow to never pass legislation without giving the citizenry three days to review the legislation Walberg responded in a two fold fashion.

First, Rep. Walberg said they had to break their word since they were up against the 02 August deadline. When reminded that the deadline was artificial Rep. Walberg insisted that it was not artificial. Informed citizens at the meeting knew that statement either reflected Congressman Walberg’s unfamiliarity with the facts on the ground or that this as dissimulation on the part of Congressman Walberg.

Second, Walberg said that we should be pleased that in seven months this was the first time the promise was broken. Apparently Congressman Walberg thinks that the citizenry should be happy when politicians only openly lie once in seven months. Keep in mind that these kinds of promises are only of any value when they are kept at the point that it is the most difficult to keep them. Any scofflaw can keep a promise when it is easy to keep.

From Congressman Walberg’s statement it seems that Republicans are thinking that stopping Obama in 2012 is the only thing that can be done to halt Obama now. They voted for raising the debt ceiling in the end because they were fearful that even if they were in the right in voting against the debt increase they would have been blamed, rightly or wrongly,for the debacle that may have ensued. In the end Boehner, Walberg and the Republicans caved because they believed that their re-election was more likely if they caved then if they refused to cave. In an attempt to win in the next election, which they think will be the silver bullet to stem Obamanomics they surrendered this time around.

I also asked Congressman Walberg to explain his statement that talk radio (he specifically mentioned Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Mark Levin) were giving out disinformation to their listeners on the budget and debt ceiling issue. When I pressed him to give some concrete examples he only mentioned how Sean Hannity allowed some caller to mis-characterize the legislative process that was being pursued. He also mentioned that Hannity had some conversation with Congressman Ryan where Congressman Ryan put him straight. From Congressman Walberg’s comments I didn’t get the idea that there was a great deal of love lost between the Republican leadership and talk radio hosts, even though Walberg insisted that while there was dis-information by these talk radio jocks he still loved them to death.

From other folks at the meeting I learned that in their private conversations with the Congressman that he believed “the do nothing plan” would have gotten us 10 Trillion in the hole, over 10 years. The do something plan (what they passed) gets that down to 8 Trillion. Rep. Walberg still believes in paying what we owe, so for him, default was not an option. That basically cripples the house from doing anything besides passing bills that they know will go nowhere, or bills that do what the Dems want. Apparently Rep. Walberg said that if he was given a Republican senate and president, and such a constituted House and Senate tried to pass a similar bill as was just passed, he’d vote against such a bill. He didn’t exactly want to go on record with a promise.

Of course such reasoning is really quite faulty. Rep. Walberg’s “do nothing” would have resulted only in temporary default. Informed readers know as well as I do that nobody was going to default. The threat of August 02 default was completely created out of thin air in order to create a crisis mentality that something had to be done.

Second, much of this debt is fiat debt — a indebtedness that has been created out of thin air by the powerful money interest. I have no compunction whatsoever with defaulting the Banksters who have created a system intended to keep us in ever increasing debt.

The problem with chaps like Rep. Walberg is that he just doesn’t seem to understand the game. Is he familiar with what lay behind the creation of the Fed? Is he familiar with why we have boom and bust cycles? Is he familiar with the fact that debt is money in our system? If you don’t understand matters like this on some level you really have no business being in Congress.

Right now I’m all for passing bills that are do nothing. A little sclerosis right now would be a great thing. Who cares if gridlock is the option to Socialism? Where are these guys heads at?

Third, who really believes that a Republican House, Senate and Presidency is going to undo these realities. The neo-cons are in control of the Republican party and their beef with the Democrats is only that the Democrats spend a little more money then the neo-cons would AND they spend it differently than they would. The neo-cons are not fiscal conservatives (or any other kind of conservative).

No meeting like this would be complete without histrionics of some sort. One of the women in attendance was quite shrill in her denunciation of Republicans. I quite agreed with the points the woman was making but she did herself no favors in that context by getting that exercised. It is my instinct that these Congressmen know how upset and angry people are. After all, they had a county Cop in attendance, with a sidearm in evidence.

I believe Congressman Tim Walberg to be a decent well intentioned human being. I am not convinced however that he really understands the background of the issues that are facing the country and without that fuller historical and ideological background I don’t think Congressman Walberg has the tools to be able to vote in an informed fashion. Combine that reality with the reality that almost all politicians vote in terms of the next election cycle and it makes it difficult to see how the US Federal Government ever ends up being constrained from its behemoth size.

Rev. McAtee contra Sen. Dick Durbin

“If we should default on our debt, terrible things will ensue.” But if “we continue to move toward more and more spending cuts, we will literally disadvantage the poor…”
about an hour ago and working families of America to the advantage of those who are well off.”

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois

1.) It is not a matter of “if” but only “when,” in terms of the issue of default. The longer we pile up the debt the worse the “when” is going to be when the “when” finally arrives. See,

http://lewrockwell.com/orig11/vega4.1.1.html

2.) We haven’t embraced any spending cuts. Only in the DC world with the way they do base line budgeting can anybody use the word “cut.” We are increasing our debt 7 trillion over ten years. When DC says “cut” they merely mean a decrease in the normal increase. They do not really mean decrease. See,

http://paul.senate.gov/?p=​press_release&id=280

3.) The poor are kept in their poverty through the subsidy of their behavior. We disadvantage and even create the poor through entitlement programs.

4.) The idea that wealth is a set amount so if some are advantaged others are disadvantaged is a Marxist myth. Durbin like all Democrats and most Republicans is a Marxist of one flavor or another.

Dickson on Calvinism and the Magistrate

“[W]e ought to pray for kings, and all in authority, that under them we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness, and in honesty, which end cannot be attained unless the civil magistrate bridle and tie up heretics, 1 Tim. 2.2. These words, in all godliness, concern religion, or the first table of the moral law, as the following word, honesty, or civility, hath a respect to the commands of the second table, and the duties which we owe to our neighbour and to one another. For true magistrates are keepers and defenders of both tables of the ten commandments.”

~ David Dickson

Gillespie on Calvinism and Heretics

‎”The third opinion (of Calvinism) is, that the Magistrate may and ought to exercise his coercive power, in suppressing and punishing Heretics and Sectaries, less or more, according as the nature and degree of the error, schism, obstinacy, and danger of seducing others, doth require. This as it was the judgment of the orthodox Ancients, (vide Optati opera, edit, Albaspin. pag. 204, 215.) so it is followed by our soundest Protestant Writers; most largely by Beza against Bellius and Monfortius, in a peculiar Treatise De Hareticis à Magistratu puniendis. And though Gerhard, Brochmand [de magist. polit. cap. 2. quæst. 3. dub 2.] and other Lutheran Writers, make a controversy where they need not, alleging that the Calvinists (so nicknamed) hold as the Papists do, that all Heretics without distinction are to be put to death: The truth is, they themselves say as much as either Calvin or Beza, or any other whom they take for adversaries in this Question, that is, that Heretics are to be punished by mulcts, imprisonments, banishments, and if they be gross idolaters or blasphemers, and seducers of others, then to be put to death. What is it else that Calvin teacheth, when he distinguisheth three kinds of errors: some to be tolerated with a spirit of meekness, and such as ought not to separate betwixt brethren: others not to be tolerated, but to be suppressed with a certain degree of severity: a third sort so abominable and pestiferous, that they are to be cut off by the highest punishments?”

~ George Gillespie

http://www.covenanter.org/GGillespie/wholesome_severity.html

Mohler On Institutuionalizing Homosexual Marriage … McAtee On Mohler

In this piece,

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304584004576416284144069702.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Dr. R. Albert Mohler does a good job laying out the problem with the tsunami of the hommosexual agenda that is washing across these united States.

However, I do have some observations on Mohler’s segment below,

(1)”In this most awkward cultural predicament, evangelicals must be excruciatingly clear that we do not speak about the sinfulness of homosexuality as if we have no sin. As a matter of fact, it is precisely because we have come to know ourselves as sinners and of our need for a savior that we have come to faith in Jesus Christ. Our greatest fear is not that homosexuality will be normalized and accepted, but that homosexuals will not come to know of their own need for Christ and the forgiveness of their sins….

(2) It is now abundantly clear that evangelicals have failed in so many ways to meet this challenge. We have often spoken about homosexuality in ways that are crude and simplistic. We have failed to take account of how tenaciously sexuality comes to define us as human beings. We have failed to see the challenge of homosexuality as a Gospel issue. We are the ones, after all, who are supposed to know that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only remedy for sin, starting with our own.

(3) We have demonstrated our own form of homophobia—not in the way that activists have used that word, but in the sense that we have been afraid to face this issue where it is most difficult . . . face to face.”

A.) In reference to sentence 1 of paragraph #(1)

All sins are equal in our culture today. This is why Dr. Mohler has to write this sentence, and it is why every time a Christian raises his voice against some public square sin the charge of “Hypocrisy” is leveled.

The conversation seems to go something like this,

Christian: “Homosexuality is evil.”

Public Response: “How dare you declaim against homosexuality when you are a sinner as well. We are all sinners and we need to keep that in mind before we go around faulting some people for the sins that are not ours. If we really took our sins seriously we would never speak against another persons sins.”

Yes, we are all sinners. And while all sins separate the one outside of Christ from God not all sins are equal in their malignity. Do we really believe that the sin of stealing a cookie from the cookie jar is the same in malignity as a College professor convincing a classroom that Government theft is righteous?

Yes Christians are sinners. Yes they need the Gospel of forgiveness preached to them because they are sinners. But the fact that Christians are sinners does not mean that Christians therefore can not raise their voice against malignant sins that destroy people and ruin civilizations.

B.) In reference to sentence #3 of paragraph (1),

1.) Mohler gives us a false dichotomy. It is our concern that Homosexuals will not come to know of their own need for Jesus Christ that drives our concern that homosexuality will be normalized and accepted. Is Dr. Mohler trying to divide the concern that homosexuals will not come to know of their own need for Jesus Christ from the concern that homosexuality will become normalized and accepted? I would insist that a love for the Lord Christ and for those living with the burden of homosexuality dictates that both concerns be present as mutually reinforcing truths in the Christian community.

C.) In reference to paragraph #(2)

As a thought experiment imagine paragraph #(2) in 25 years being slightly rewritten from some erstwhile, nationally known Evangelical.

“It is now abundantly clear that evangelicals have failed in so many ways to meet this challenge. We have often spoken about Bestiality in ways that are crude and simplistic. We have failed to take account of how tenaciously sexuality comes to define us as human beings. We have failed to see the challenge of Bestiality as a Gospel issue. We are the ones, after all, who are supposed to know that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only remedy for sin, starting with our own.”

I write the above paragraph for shock value. It is my hope that people will realize that the reason that that homosexuality was spoken of in crude and simplistic ways in the past was because people were, once upon a time, as appalled by it as they now are of the thought of coupling with farm animals. Surely we can understand why something this crude was spoken of in a crude and simplistic fashion. I think saying things “crude and simplistically” (Mohler’s phrase) also served to reinforce the taboo against homosexuality. In other words such disapproving shame type speech served the purpose of keeping homosexuality in the closet and away from our children and families. Now we speak all respectfully and with complexity on this issue and so the Homosexual is emboldened by this new found respect and the previous taboo is no longer taboo. Indeed, now we reserve our taboo reinforcing crude and simplistic language for those who believe that homosexuality is a perversion.

Secondly, I agree homosexuals need the Gospel. However, the Gospel begins with, “God is Transcendent and Holy and will not abide with wickedness.” Some would say, and Dr. Mohler is not one of these, that such a message is crude and simplistic.

Without going into all the details, without ever being homosexual I have seen the homosexual lifestyle up close. I have been to the gay bars. I have befriended the homosexual and have had them confide in me. It is a lifestyle of destruction and hatred. If it is cured it is only cured by regeneration accompanying someone compassionate enough to speak of the peril, both temporal and eternal, in which the homosexual finds themselves. The Love of Christ constrains us, with tears in our eyes, to command all men everywhere to repent.

D.) In reference to paragraph #(3)

But this can’t just be dealt with on an individual level, though I agree that it must start there. This has also now become a public policy issue to which Christians and Churches must speak. The Homosexual agenda is flooding our schools, it is now on the verge of normalizing homosexual “marriage.” It is an agenda that is anti-Christ to its core and is committed to perpetuating its strength through recruitment. We must shepherd the individual Christian homosexual who has this as a besetting sin they loathe but we also must speak publicly against the theology out of which homosexuality prospers — a Theology that hurts people that are created in the image of God.