God
Taking a brief hiatus
25/August/2010 09:52 Filed in: Weekly
Column
There will be no column this week, for we are
taking a brief hiatus to get a little perspective
on the way forward. There seems to be bad news
everywhere, especially with the economy. The
popular prescribed ways forward all rely on some
sort of miraculous improvement of past human
failures.
The president made the Ground Zero mosque a national issue that has only intensified, bringing into question even Obama’s Christian confession. Historic Christianity is about the completed work of Jesus Christ and not about liberation theology, social justice, and especially about some heretical concept of collective salvation.
Wonder Springs exists as a virtual reality alternative to a real Death Valley. To the best of my knowledge, Glenn Beck is the only person, with a broad based secular following, who has proclaimed America’s problems to be faith based. But it also follows that way too many people think the solution to the country’s and world’s problems stem from human enlightenment and not with God. In that darkness the economic bottom is still a long steady decline away, made bearable only by the grace and mercy of the Almighty.
Because our angst is a God induced redux of the Divine Providence of the founding of the United States, solutions will come as we look to God created natural laws and common grace. The problem is that nobody is actually willing to look at those natural laws as they might relate to human institutions. Therefore what play these principles get in the media either relates to self centered individualism, or described by the Social Darwinist elites, as primitive, knuckle dragging, myths of the religious stupid folk.
These last few weeks have been as financially stressful as I can remember in over twenty years. The ability to increase the Wonder Springs influence demands some changes not only financially but they also relate to location. All of this demands resources that are not now apparent other than a miracle from God. So until our next installment we shall try to live expectantly in that hope.
The president made the Ground Zero mosque a national issue that has only intensified, bringing into question even Obama’s Christian confession. Historic Christianity is about the completed work of Jesus Christ and not about liberation theology, social justice, and especially about some heretical concept of collective salvation.
Wonder Springs exists as a virtual reality alternative to a real Death Valley. To the best of my knowledge, Glenn Beck is the only person, with a broad based secular following, who has proclaimed America’s problems to be faith based. But it also follows that way too many people think the solution to the country’s and world’s problems stem from human enlightenment and not with God. In that darkness the economic bottom is still a long steady decline away, made bearable only by the grace and mercy of the Almighty.
Because our angst is a God induced redux of the Divine Providence of the founding of the United States, solutions will come as we look to God created natural laws and common grace. The problem is that nobody is actually willing to look at those natural laws as they might relate to human institutions. Therefore what play these principles get in the media either relates to self centered individualism, or described by the Social Darwinist elites, as primitive, knuckle dragging, myths of the religious stupid folk.
These last few weeks have been as financially stressful as I can remember in over twenty years. The ability to increase the Wonder Springs influence demands some changes not only financially but they also relate to location. All of this demands resources that are not now apparent other than a miracle from God. So until our next installment we shall try to live expectantly in that hope.
A Redux Independent
18/August/2010 08:10 Filed in: Weekly
Column
Things are currently happening in America, that
aren’t supposed to happen. At least that is what we
have been told for at least a generation. We have
been given the story line, if we just do our job,
make reasonable expenditures to keep the economy
moving, and pay our taxes, tomorrow will be better
than today. That reality was said to be true not
only for us, but also our children and
grandchildren.
That reality has changed, and in our gut, we believe that it will be a long time, if ever, before we will be able to accept again as truth, that desire for security. The question then forms in our minds, “Were we lied to, or were our leaders just stupid?”
For the most part, I think the truth is that most of our leaders were just as ignorant as we were. Probably because they were so immersed in the political culture, they were even more enthusiastic. Sadly they also believed that what they were doing was responsible for our successes and hence, just as we did, never really looked beyond the security of their comfort zones.
Now the tendency is to look to those from the immediate past, blame them for the present, and make some boastful predictions that the future will make us more secure. All we need to do is to have hope that this will become true. However hope and faith are not forces, but realistic beliefs in external factors that will bring about our desires. During this last generation, but always present in the human psyche, we have replaced God as that redemptive ability, with our human governance and our materialism.
Coping with these changes I am in the process of redefining a lot of things in my life, and trying to figure out how I can adapt and provide positive guidance to others. In our sound bite — talking points world, one needs to have a handle that fits. Some concise description that you can defend, both in the sound bite world, but also, if need be, as the depth of your being. The descriptive term I finally have settled on is a Redux Independent.
Read More...
That reality has changed, and in our gut, we believe that it will be a long time, if ever, before we will be able to accept again as truth, that desire for security. The question then forms in our minds, “Were we lied to, or were our leaders just stupid?”
For the most part, I think the truth is that most of our leaders were just as ignorant as we were. Probably because they were so immersed in the political culture, they were even more enthusiastic. Sadly they also believed that what they were doing was responsible for our successes and hence, just as we did, never really looked beyond the security of their comfort zones.
Now the tendency is to look to those from the immediate past, blame them for the present, and make some boastful predictions that the future will make us more secure. All we need to do is to have hope that this will become true. However hope and faith are not forces, but realistic beliefs in external factors that will bring about our desires. During this last generation, but always present in the human psyche, we have replaced God as that redemptive ability, with our human governance and our materialism.
Coping with these changes I am in the process of redefining a lot of things in my life, and trying to figure out how I can adapt and provide positive guidance to others. In our sound bite — talking points world, one needs to have a handle that fits. Some concise description that you can defend, both in the sound bite world, but also, if need be, as the depth of your being. The descriptive term I finally have settled on is a Redux Independent.
Read More...
Persons with common sense need not apply
11/August/2010 10:16 Filed in: Weekly
Column
Our new Wonder
Springs Intelligence email address just
received a memo from an undisclosed source that
said that there is going to be a Top Secret shakeup
of all federal government agencies and departments.
This will include the White House and Defense
Department, as well as Congress and the Federal
Reserve. Accompanying this Top Secret document was
a draft of a help wanted advertisement that will
run later this month in leading newspapers and
other established media outlets.
Uncle Sam needs your help! As you know things are not going like we hoped here at zenith of human enlightenment, so we are going to reorganize the totality of the Federal Government to better serve the needs of the American People. In that illumination we are currently seeking the smartest and the brightest from across the nation to help us create this positive change. Accepted applicants must demonstrate that the potential hireling be a team player with unquestioning loyalty to failed ideas of the progressive era. Formal education from the top universities is required, as well as extensive professorial experience at the same — a definite plus. Those hired will not have any tangible human leadership skills, but possess oratory skills to pontificate about things they know nothing about ad infinitum-nauseam. Special Note: Those persons with possessing something once called common sense — need not apply. Except for that Your United States Government is an equal opportunity employer.
Hallelujah! Soon, very soon we are going to change the country and the world. Now there will be those detractors out there that say this employment opportunity will not exist once the Republicans take back both the house and the senate in the November midterm elections. However our anonymous Top Secret source has indicated that this employment advertisement passed muster with the Republican Party establishment, which signifies the whole of the nation’s political class are on board with this extensive governmental restructuring.
Of course the management here at Wonder Springs is concerned that nothing at all will change due to this restructuring of the status quo, we question if fact this restructuring is nothing but a form of a noise generating attempt to keep the American people in their current mushroom status. (Maintain the people in the dark and feed them horse manure.)
Thankfully for over a year now we have heard the president say that we are “back from the brink” economically. So the major question that no one seems to be asking, “Are we still just peering into the chasm or have we changed directions and headed what looks to be a endless barren plateau?”
Read More...
Uncle Sam needs your help! As you know things are not going like we hoped here at zenith of human enlightenment, so we are going to reorganize the totality of the Federal Government to better serve the needs of the American People. In that illumination we are currently seeking the smartest and the brightest from across the nation to help us create this positive change. Accepted applicants must demonstrate that the potential hireling be a team player with unquestioning loyalty to failed ideas of the progressive era. Formal education from the top universities is required, as well as extensive professorial experience at the same — a definite plus. Those hired will not have any tangible human leadership skills, but possess oratory skills to pontificate about things they know nothing about ad infinitum-nauseam. Special Note: Those persons with possessing something once called common sense — need not apply. Except for that Your United States Government is an equal opportunity employer.
Hallelujah! Soon, very soon we are going to change the country and the world. Now there will be those detractors out there that say this employment opportunity will not exist once the Republicans take back both the house and the senate in the November midterm elections. However our anonymous Top Secret source has indicated that this employment advertisement passed muster with the Republican Party establishment, which signifies the whole of the nation’s political class are on board with this extensive governmental restructuring.
Of course the management here at Wonder Springs is concerned that nothing at all will change due to this restructuring of the status quo, we question if fact this restructuring is nothing but a form of a noise generating attempt to keep the American people in their current mushroom status. (Maintain the people in the dark and feed them horse manure.)
Thankfully for over a year now we have heard the president say that we are “back from the brink” economically. So the major question that no one seems to be asking, “Are we still just peering into the chasm or have we changed directions and headed what looks to be a endless barren plateau?”
Read More...
Special Report: Super-Bug Stupidity
We
have all heard of the Super-Bugs, or drug resistant
germs, living in hospitals and other medical
facilities that have mutated or evolved to such a
point that our antibiotics are unable to control
their populations. The fizzled pandemic of swine,
or H1N1 flu was thought to be potentially a
Super-Bug virus that could devastate human
populations around the world.
There is so much to worry about in today’s world we really don’t have time to worry about these Super-Bugs germs unless we are in a medical facility where their threat is imminent. But if we broaden our perspective just a little we can use these Super-Bugs as a model, or an illustration, of what the social diseases that are infecting our world, creating the unfolding chaos we see virtually everywhere today.
Think for a moment about the American Congress as a Super-Bug. How about George W. Bush’s worldview as a Super-Bug, or Barack Obama’s Chicago political operations? If you ask their supporters without adding the complete context of what is really happening, they would probably say, “Cool we need more of that!”
Of course if everyone thinks what they believe, is far more Super-Bug than anyone else’s Super-Bug, you end up with chaos and the whole system collapses. This is the Cloward and Piven strategy that no one in the general population had heard of until Glenn Beck so kindly brought it to our attention. The real problem is however, you don’t need to be a Super-Bug to collapse the system, all you really need to do is to withhold the medicine and the epidemic will take care of itself. That is provided you have created the proper simple or monoculture environment.
The major strategic problem is not collapsing the system, but rebuilding a new economic, or human ecosystem on the ashes of the old. Super-Bugs don’t have the genetic code to pull it off. They can’t make it work in a natural world full of virtually unlimited human diversity. Of course we are not talking about true genetics, but really just environmental conditions, such as in a clean environment such as a hospital, a university, or a political body that allows this Super Bug intellectual cancer to exist in the first place.
Read More...
There is so much to worry about in today’s world we really don’t have time to worry about these Super-Bugs germs unless we are in a medical facility where their threat is imminent. But if we broaden our perspective just a little we can use these Super-Bugs as a model, or an illustration, of what the social diseases that are infecting our world, creating the unfolding chaos we see virtually everywhere today.
Think for a moment about the American Congress as a Super-Bug. How about George W. Bush’s worldview as a Super-Bug, or Barack Obama’s Chicago political operations? If you ask their supporters without adding the complete context of what is really happening, they would probably say, “Cool we need more of that!”
Of course if everyone thinks what they believe, is far more Super-Bug than anyone else’s Super-Bug, you end up with chaos and the whole system collapses. This is the Cloward and Piven strategy that no one in the general population had heard of until Glenn Beck so kindly brought it to our attention. The real problem is however, you don’t need to be a Super-Bug to collapse the system, all you really need to do is to withhold the medicine and the epidemic will take care of itself. That is provided you have created the proper simple or monoculture environment.
The major strategic problem is not collapsing the system, but rebuilding a new economic, or human ecosystem on the ashes of the old. Super-Bugs don’t have the genetic code to pull it off. They can’t make it work in a natural world full of virtually unlimited human diversity. Of course we are not talking about true genetics, but really just environmental conditions, such as in a clean environment such as a hospital, a university, or a political body that allows this Super Bug intellectual cancer to exist in the first place.
Read More...
Wonder Springs
04/August/2010 09:00 Filed in: Weekly
Column
Today I am going to
tell you what is wrong with this country, and the
world for that matter. Then I am going to tell you
again, and then perhaps again in another way, and
then we will be done.
We humans everywhere have lost our sense of wonder. If the rest of the animals on this earth, perhaps the plants too, could, or can wonder, they would wonder what is wrong with the human species, they have lost their sense of wonder about everything, about life.
Truly we bitch and moan, belittle and bloviate, prophesy and procrastinate, worry and fret, whine and are stubbornly unhappy about a whole world of trivial things. Things, things everywhere, so much so that thing obsession has become both our religion and our way of life. To make matters worse we no longer have the time to wonder why things seem so wrong, when we hoped that things would be so right.
The good news is that wonder springs from the totally mundane. But the thing we need to learn again is that wonder is only possible because of the existence of the transcendent. We have become so materially blessed that we really are of no earthly good. In the process we have become so self centered that we have lost our sense of faith in anything we cannot physically touch. Oue recent problems stem from the reality that we are limited beings and just can’t touch an infinite world without some help and we are too insecure to even know were to ask for help.
We can be thankful however that wonder springs from death and the impossible.
And God said, “I wonder what kind of world those humans will create if I make them in my image?”
Read More...
We humans everywhere have lost our sense of wonder. If the rest of the animals on this earth, perhaps the plants too, could, or can wonder, they would wonder what is wrong with the human species, they have lost their sense of wonder about everything, about life.
Truly we bitch and moan, belittle and bloviate, prophesy and procrastinate, worry and fret, whine and are stubbornly unhappy about a whole world of trivial things. Things, things everywhere, so much so that thing obsession has become both our religion and our way of life. To make matters worse we no longer have the time to wonder why things seem so wrong, when we hoped that things would be so right.
The good news is that wonder springs from the totally mundane. But the thing we need to learn again is that wonder is only possible because of the existence of the transcendent. We have become so materially blessed that we really are of no earthly good. In the process we have become so self centered that we have lost our sense of faith in anything we cannot physically touch. Oue recent problems stem from the reality that we are limited beings and just can’t touch an infinite world without some help and we are too insecure to even know were to ask for help.
We can be thankful however that wonder springs from death and the impossible.
And God said, “I wonder what kind of world those humans will create if I make them in my image?”
Read More...
The jobless times that vex the jobless soul
28/July/2010 09:14 Filed in: Weekly
Column
Welcome to jobless times that vex the jobless soul.
Welcome to the new decade of the early twenty-first century, where the future is based on hope. The hope that Christmas past will again invigorate Christmas present, or the hope that Christmas future cannot come too soon. Hope, hope everywhere and none of it changes reality, for we have no concept of reality, other than the future hopefully repeats or improves upon the past.
Japan has had a lost decade for the last couple, because their economy has developed permanent stagnation. So the country that just some twenty to thirty years ago was the business model for the world, now is just another economic player in a global community of lethargic materialism.
Europe for its part has done better than Japan, but it is sort of a unified Europe after all. But in the context of world economics, it seems that the proper concept is “Been there, done that, and got the shirt.” They seem however beginning to realize that loving one another, while better than war, still doesn’t necessarily make for a happy family.
Here in the United States we have recently made hope our God. Well if not really a god, hope in change seems to be a figment of perverse imagination, really creates nothing but more regulations, present deficits, and a future of higher taxes, coupled with either deflation or inflation.
The past is where we feel the most comfortable, so if we all hope together that past-future will evolve right before our eyes. Can I get a witness?
Read More...
Welcome to the new decade of the early twenty-first century, where the future is based on hope. The hope that Christmas past will again invigorate Christmas present, or the hope that Christmas future cannot come too soon. Hope, hope everywhere and none of it changes reality, for we have no concept of reality, other than the future hopefully repeats or improves upon the past.
Japan has had a lost decade for the last couple, because their economy has developed permanent stagnation. So the country that just some twenty to thirty years ago was the business model for the world, now is just another economic player in a global community of lethargic materialism.
Europe for its part has done better than Japan, but it is sort of a unified Europe after all. But in the context of world economics, it seems that the proper concept is “Been there, done that, and got the shirt.” They seem however beginning to realize that loving one another, while better than war, still doesn’t necessarily make for a happy family.
Here in the United States we have recently made hope our God. Well if not really a god, hope in change seems to be a figment of perverse imagination, really creates nothing but more regulations, present deficits, and a future of higher taxes, coupled with either deflation or inflation.
The past is where we feel the most comfortable, so if we all hope together that past-future will evolve right before our eyes. Can I get a witness?
Read More...
Special Report: Times That Try Men’s Souls
These are the
times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and
the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink
from the service of his country; but he that stands
it now deserves the love and thanks of man and
woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered;
yet we have this consolation with us - that the
harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.
What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: It
is dearness only that gives everything its value.
Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its
goods; and it would be strange indeed if so
celestial an article as freedom should not be
highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her
tyranny, has declared that she has a right not only
to tax but "to bind us in all cases whatsoever,"
and if being bound in that manner is not slavery,
then is there not such a thing as slavery upon
earth. Even the expression is impious, for so
unlimited a power can belong only to
God. Thomas Paine –
1776
Who would have thought two short years ago that the American people would be discussing revolutions in a somewhat serious context. The two revolutions most discussed are the American Revolution of which Founding Father, Thomas Paine gave us the above quotation from his pamphlets “The Crisis Papers.” The other revolution in this country relates to the Vietnam War, the last period of critical social distress. The important reference from that era that related directly to today is, “You Don’t Need a Weatherman To Know Which Way the Wind Blows.”
Adding to the national angst is the reality of actual wars. The Iraq War is in the process of hopefully winding down to a successful nation building operation. The War in Afghanistan is quite different. Iraq was a real nation in the twentieth century definition, at least since the end of WWII. The same cannot be said for Afghanistan, which is more akin to a historic tribal region, not successfully colonized by any western culture in its history.
Under the auspices of the War on Terror and after a traditional military invasion of Iraq the United States, became involved in a counterinsurgency to root out Al Qaeda, other foreign insurgents, and quench the historic conflict between Sunni and Shia Muslims.
In Iraq and Iran the Shia are the majority of the population. In Afghanistan the numbers are reversed and the Taliban are essentially the Sunni insurgents to which the United States and a number of NATO allies, through the escalation of the Obama Administration, are now attempting to develop a successful counterinsurgency nation-building exercise.
Read More...
Who would have thought two short years ago that the American people would be discussing revolutions in a somewhat serious context. The two revolutions most discussed are the American Revolution of which Founding Father, Thomas Paine gave us the above quotation from his pamphlets “The Crisis Papers.” The other revolution in this country relates to the Vietnam War, the last period of critical social distress. The important reference from that era that related directly to today is, “You Don’t Need a Weatherman To Know Which Way the Wind Blows.”
Adding to the national angst is the reality of actual wars. The Iraq War is in the process of hopefully winding down to a successful nation building operation. The War in Afghanistan is quite different. Iraq was a real nation in the twentieth century definition, at least since the end of WWII. The same cannot be said for Afghanistan, which is more akin to a historic tribal region, not successfully colonized by any western culture in its history.
Under the auspices of the War on Terror and after a traditional military invasion of Iraq the United States, became involved in a counterinsurgency to root out Al Qaeda, other foreign insurgents, and quench the historic conflict between Sunni and Shia Muslims.
In Iraq and Iran the Shia are the majority of the population. In Afghanistan the numbers are reversed and the Taliban are essentially the Sunni insurgents to which the United States and a number of NATO allies, through the escalation of the Obama Administration, are now attempting to develop a successful counterinsurgency nation-building exercise.
Read More...
Natural Law and Christianity
19/July/2010 12:30 Filed in: Oikos
Thoughts | Web News
Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and
to God the things that are God’s.
Mark
12:17, Matthew 22:21, Luke 20:25 ESV
Many years ago I was a team leader of a small group from our church that went out Monday evenings to call on visitors from our Sunday service. As we parked outside a small apartment in north Seattle, I couldn’t help making a stupid remark about the name of the person we were about to visit. Even with my ignorance, the visit turned out to be quite productive and the young woman became an active member of the congregation.
She moved away a year or so later and within a few years she returned for a visit. Through the course of events I learned at the very instant I was making a spontaneous remark that could be considered flippant, inside her apartment things were quite serious. Her remarks were much more prayerful, which went something like: “God I would like to believe you are real, but I am having a very difficult time. If you don’t show me some sign of your reality, I have no reason now to live and before morning I fear I will use this gun to commit suicide.” At that time, we a small group of, in the larger context, complete fools rang her doorbell.
When I learned the true events of that evening not only was I humbled, but I realized in our lost and dying world just how thoughtless is much of what Christianity and the church says and does. Put in the broader context of recent world events, the problems of the recent Great Recession, were not caused by the greedy money grubbers on Wall Street, financial institutions, and real estate, they knew no better, they were just sinners sinning.
The real problem that caused the current mess, was that Christians, as individuals and in community as the church, played religious games, and sought political power, while the world, as it should be, crumbled. The church of Jesus Christ has one calling, to proclaim the Good News of the redemption of the world found in Jesus Christ alone. Instead of proclaiming the gospel, and being the leaders of the common community, the church has attempted to become so earthly relevant that its of no earthly good. Instead of being a restraining force of evil, to use the words of Revelation 3, the post modern church has become tepid.
As I was watching Glenn Beck one day last week, he and Stephen Broden, a church pastor from Texas were talking about this very subject, when Glenn interjected a comment about church leaders needing to protect their nonprofit status. It was just a few, off the cuff words, and the conversation moved on. Those nonprofit status words however have stuck with me since that time and are the founding principle for this message today. Read More...
Many years ago I was a team leader of a small group from our church that went out Monday evenings to call on visitors from our Sunday service. As we parked outside a small apartment in north Seattle, I couldn’t help making a stupid remark about the name of the person we were about to visit. Even with my ignorance, the visit turned out to be quite productive and the young woman became an active member of the congregation.
She moved away a year or so later and within a few years she returned for a visit. Through the course of events I learned at the very instant I was making a spontaneous remark that could be considered flippant, inside her apartment things were quite serious. Her remarks were much more prayerful, which went something like: “God I would like to believe you are real, but I am having a very difficult time. If you don’t show me some sign of your reality, I have no reason now to live and before morning I fear I will use this gun to commit suicide.” At that time, we a small group of, in the larger context, complete fools rang her doorbell.
When I learned the true events of that evening not only was I humbled, but I realized in our lost and dying world just how thoughtless is much of what Christianity and the church says and does. Put in the broader context of recent world events, the problems of the recent Great Recession, were not caused by the greedy money grubbers on Wall Street, financial institutions, and real estate, they knew no better, they were just sinners sinning.
The real problem that caused the current mess, was that Christians, as individuals and in community as the church, played religious games, and sought political power, while the world, as it should be, crumbled. The church of Jesus Christ has one calling, to proclaim the Good News of the redemption of the world found in Jesus Christ alone. Instead of proclaiming the gospel, and being the leaders of the common community, the church has attempted to become so earthly relevant that its of no earthly good. Instead of being a restraining force of evil, to use the words of Revelation 3, the post modern church has become tepid.
As I was watching Glenn Beck one day last week, he and Stephen Broden, a church pastor from Texas were talking about this very subject, when Glenn interjected a comment about church leaders needing to protect their nonprofit status. It was just a few, off the cuff words, and the conversation moved on. Those nonprofit status words however have stuck with me since that time and are the founding principle for this message today. Read More...
Change without direction
One score months ago
the voters of America brought forth a new
presidential administration on this continent. The
stated goal of the election was to issue in a new
age of change we can believe in. That presupposes
either one of two alternatives. At that time number
one was, we were having change we didn’t want to
believe in, or two we didn’t want any change from
our vision of what we were told was a future of
human engineered eternal prosperity.
It seems in the intervening period that all change has accelerated rapidly and those changes are beyond anything we can believe in and furthermore most of the stupendous changes are only exacerbating previous problems.
For as long as I can remember American presidents have turned out worse than my predilections. My worries about George W. Bush was that he would be beholden to what we have recently publicly defined as crony capitalists to the default of other values of not only governance but also personal responsibility. So I voted for the guy twice, my public reason was we share the same initials, but the secret reason was I thought that both Al Gore and John Kerry were truly without hope for being effective leaders. But most liberal juice drinkers don’t like any reality with their cocktail, so voicing the truth really wasn’t worth the return of stressful noise.
So my more than worst fears of George W. Bush turned out to be true. Those fears manifested themselves in the financial meltdown which began in late 2007 and continues to this day. Essentially what we saw under the Bush administration was the continuance of debt financed consumption based upon real estate. Those inflated values are still highly leveraged over the current wealth of most of the folks, but that is another topic for another time.
So those twenty months ago, Barack Obama was elected president. I didn’t vote for the man, not because I am a racist, but I thought he lacked experience to handle the tough job of being president. I wasn’t all that keen on John McCain either, especially during the campaign where it seemed that his goal was to be the Republican nominee rather than getting elected. Perhaps during the campaign McCain was able to get a glimpse of future trouble and decided either he was not up to the task, or was aware that current American problems are beyond the pale of human leadership. That surely was not something that Barack Obama would ever discern.
Read More...
It seems in the intervening period that all change has accelerated rapidly and those changes are beyond anything we can believe in and furthermore most of the stupendous changes are only exacerbating previous problems.
For as long as I can remember American presidents have turned out worse than my predilections. My worries about George W. Bush was that he would be beholden to what we have recently publicly defined as crony capitalists to the default of other values of not only governance but also personal responsibility. So I voted for the guy twice, my public reason was we share the same initials, but the secret reason was I thought that both Al Gore and John Kerry were truly without hope for being effective leaders. But most liberal juice drinkers don’t like any reality with their cocktail, so voicing the truth really wasn’t worth the return of stressful noise.
So my more than worst fears of George W. Bush turned out to be true. Those fears manifested themselves in the financial meltdown which began in late 2007 and continues to this day. Essentially what we saw under the Bush administration was the continuance of debt financed consumption based upon real estate. Those inflated values are still highly leveraged over the current wealth of most of the folks, but that is another topic for another time.
So those twenty months ago, Barack Obama was elected president. I didn’t vote for the man, not because I am a racist, but I thought he lacked experience to handle the tough job of being president. I wasn’t all that keen on John McCain either, especially during the campaign where it seemed that his goal was to be the Republican nominee rather than getting elected. Perhaps during the campaign McCain was able to get a glimpse of future trouble and decided either he was not up to the task, or was aware that current American problems are beyond the pale of human leadership. That surely was not something that Barack Obama would ever discern.
Read More...
Freedom from My Own Bondage
04/July/2010 07:00 Filed in: Oikos
Thoughts | Web News
Two hundred and
thirty-four years ago today, the seed of the United
States of America was sown when our founders signed
the Declaration of Independence. The national
holiday still continues to be celebrated as the
concept of individual freedom.
Those who give speeches today will phrase their remarks along two philosophical paradigms. The first is, “I am free because I can do what I want.” The other is, “I am free because I am protected from the tyranny of others.” Both of those concepts are present in the Declaration of Independence, but today we have pretty much redefined those freedom concepts in terms of selfish materialism.
As a founding principle, personal freedom was defined basically as I am free to be what I was created to be and no wrongly appropriated divine right of some foreign authority has any jurisdiction on my ability to pursue that goal. Today we have dumbed-down that concept to mean I am free to what makes me feel good about myself and I should receive external rewards to help me achieve those ends.
Those rewards might be a trophy, or pay just for showing up on a somewhat regular basis, or receiving a right to something such as healthcare, a pension, or other security, simply because I did nothing or very little to deserve those rewards. In other words, I have substituted my personal divine will, into, and over the lives of others.
However there is another underlying principle within the American Declaration that was part of the founding genre that we no longer are willing to understand. The principle came from a natural or common understanding of the human condition that resurfaced during the Reformation and that principle was and understanding of the human will to sin. Martin Luther’s most famous written work is entitled, “The Bondage of the Will.”
What we are no longer willing to believe is that the greatest freedom a human being can obtain in this life is to be free from the bondage to my own selfish desires. That is the central theme of historic Christianity. Succinctly stated, that means the sinless life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the propitiatory and justifying sacrifice that absolutely provides the freedom for me to pursue the eternal personality I was created by God to be.
In the broadest concept possible, we all seek security to the maximum extent. The external imputed righteousness of Christ gives me eternal security and in the process allows me to accept temporal security in this life on a more transient basis. In other words, I don’t need to secure my own security and future, because I know the source of my security and know He directs my future.
Over the last few weeks I have heard again in various forums that the decline in American excellence began when we took the Ten Commandments and prayer out of our schools. I have a good friend that states the school decline was just the simple result of taking the Ten Commandments and true prayer out of our churches — years earlier.
What this really means is we like to blame all the problems we face today on those bad guys, the greedy, the selfish, the exploiters, the them. Who is never blamed in the American religion is the church that has become a cloister of the Pharisees. As such, not only has that been responsible for the faux creation of a political righteousness, it has also created physical divide between the enlightened Christians in contrast with the enlightened sinful heathens.
Instead of stating, “There by the grace of God, go I.” the proper response should be, “There by the grace of God alone, can I find true freedom from my personal bondage.” That is a much different and more humble message, than, “I don’t, do this and that, because I can,” but rather, “Any ability I have to do anything other than the wickedly perverse, is nothing but a gift of God’s grace.”
On this Independence Day, this Sunday, what this means is that the focus should be on the redemption and justification found in Jesus Christ alone, and not the national debt, socialism, and a whole host of good or bad things. If the focus of Christians is on Christ alone, then God will provide the power to change the culture, just as he did during the Reformation.
That Reformation time was not without turmoil, it was truly a revolution of human understanding. The same can be said of the American revolution. The result of the American revolution was freedom from the bondage of the culture to a foreign monarch, but the more profound result was the freedom of the individual to more deeply appreciate the gift of life provided to all from the God of nature, who is the same eternal personality as the God of the Bible.
So today, most people in America will celebrate the concept to be free to do what we want to do. The really blessed will be those who understand that true freedom, is to not be in bondage to your personal desires, but rather to make your life a gift to others, by God’s grace.
Those who give speeches today will phrase their remarks along two philosophical paradigms. The first is, “I am free because I can do what I want.” The other is, “I am free because I am protected from the tyranny of others.” Both of those concepts are present in the Declaration of Independence, but today we have pretty much redefined those freedom concepts in terms of selfish materialism.
As a founding principle, personal freedom was defined basically as I am free to be what I was created to be and no wrongly appropriated divine right of some foreign authority has any jurisdiction on my ability to pursue that goal. Today we have dumbed-down that concept to mean I am free to what makes me feel good about myself and I should receive external rewards to help me achieve those ends.
Those rewards might be a trophy, or pay just for showing up on a somewhat regular basis, or receiving a right to something such as healthcare, a pension, or other security, simply because I did nothing or very little to deserve those rewards. In other words, I have substituted my personal divine will, into, and over the lives of others.
However there is another underlying principle within the American Declaration that was part of the founding genre that we no longer are willing to understand. The principle came from a natural or common understanding of the human condition that resurfaced during the Reformation and that principle was and understanding of the human will to sin. Martin Luther’s most famous written work is entitled, “The Bondage of the Will.”
What we are no longer willing to believe is that the greatest freedom a human being can obtain in this life is to be free from the bondage to my own selfish desires. That is the central theme of historic Christianity. Succinctly stated, that means the sinless life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the propitiatory and justifying sacrifice that absolutely provides the freedom for me to pursue the eternal personality I was created by God to be.
In the broadest concept possible, we all seek security to the maximum extent. The external imputed righteousness of Christ gives me eternal security and in the process allows me to accept temporal security in this life on a more transient basis. In other words, I don’t need to secure my own security and future, because I know the source of my security and know He directs my future.
Over the last few weeks I have heard again in various forums that the decline in American excellence began when we took the Ten Commandments and prayer out of our schools. I have a good friend that states the school decline was just the simple result of taking the Ten Commandments and true prayer out of our churches — years earlier.
What this really means is we like to blame all the problems we face today on those bad guys, the greedy, the selfish, the exploiters, the them. Who is never blamed in the American religion is the church that has become a cloister of the Pharisees. As such, not only has that been responsible for the faux creation of a political righteousness, it has also created physical divide between the enlightened Christians in contrast with the enlightened sinful heathens.
Instead of stating, “There by the grace of God, go I.” the proper response should be, “There by the grace of God alone, can I find true freedom from my personal bondage.” That is a much different and more humble message, than, “I don’t, do this and that, because I can,” but rather, “Any ability I have to do anything other than the wickedly perverse, is nothing but a gift of God’s grace.”
On this Independence Day, this Sunday, what this means is that the focus should be on the redemption and justification found in Jesus Christ alone, and not the national debt, socialism, and a whole host of good or bad things. If the focus of Christians is on Christ alone, then God will provide the power to change the culture, just as he did during the Reformation.
That Reformation time was not without turmoil, it was truly a revolution of human understanding. The same can be said of the American revolution. The result of the American revolution was freedom from the bondage of the culture to a foreign monarch, but the more profound result was the freedom of the individual to more deeply appreciate the gift of life provided to all from the God of nature, who is the same eternal personality as the God of the Bible.
So today, most people in America will celebrate the concept to be free to do what we want to do. The really blessed will be those who understand that true freedom, is to not be in bondage to your personal desires, but rather to make your life a gift to others, by God’s grace.
Redux Rendezvous I
26/May/2010 08:00 Filed in: Weekly
Column
In Monday’s,
“The Wealth Creation — Tax & Debt
Redistribution Continuum” we offered the
thesis that wealth creation was an inalienable
right given to humanity by the Creator. We, who
have been blessed to be immigrant citizens to these
shores, also have the benefit of a codified
structure for national development, outlined in the
Declaration of Independence and our Constitution.
For a broader context we also posted this article
under the blog tabs at Deep Woods
Moola and The Creation
Leadership Center.
As a founding right, given to us by God, wealth creation belongs to the individual in the literal sense. We proposed that not only was wealth creation an inalienable right it is also a fundamental right of all Americans. Upon further reflection, it is not really a stretch at all to state that the wealth creation right, is essentially the Absolute inalienable fundamental right of all Americans, for the concepts of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness all flow through this highest of all birthrights.
We further proposed that new wealth is basically an ex nihilo creation in the mind of an individual that combines the energetics of faith with the information of the enterprise to form a wealth seed. Through the introduction of equity liquidity, meaning a total commitment, not just debt involvement, this seed can sprout and become a viable product, service, profession, or vocation.
Taxes and debt can serve as means to grow the germinated seed, either directly or indirectly, but contrary to what has been promoted through a half century of a diseased American Federalism, debt and taxes can only redistribute present and future wealth through money, they cannot create fundamental new wealth.
This wealth creation reality is part of the general revelation of God in nature; hence its status as the Absolute inalienable right, but it is also part of the specific revelation the Bible. Monday we used the Apostle Paul’s constructs of Faith, Hope, and Charity, found in 1 Corinthians 13. In the legal definition of a corporation, since it is a creation of man’s laws, it does not live outside of the legal code; therefore it has no real life, no soul, or true creative ability, except what is given it, through legal precedent. Only a real person in the natural sense, can plant the wealth seed in faith, hoping for a growing wealth producing plant, relying only on charity of others should the opportunity fail.
Read More...
As a founding right, given to us by God, wealth creation belongs to the individual in the literal sense. We proposed that not only was wealth creation an inalienable right it is also a fundamental right of all Americans. Upon further reflection, it is not really a stretch at all to state that the wealth creation right, is essentially the Absolute inalienable fundamental right of all Americans, for the concepts of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness all flow through this highest of all birthrights.
We further proposed that new wealth is basically an ex nihilo creation in the mind of an individual that combines the energetics of faith with the information of the enterprise to form a wealth seed. Through the introduction of equity liquidity, meaning a total commitment, not just debt involvement, this seed can sprout and become a viable product, service, profession, or vocation.
Taxes and debt can serve as means to grow the germinated seed, either directly or indirectly, but contrary to what has been promoted through a half century of a diseased American Federalism, debt and taxes can only redistribute present and future wealth through money, they cannot create fundamental new wealth.
This wealth creation reality is part of the general revelation of God in nature; hence its status as the Absolute inalienable right, but it is also part of the specific revelation the Bible. Monday we used the Apostle Paul’s constructs of Faith, Hope, and Charity, found in 1 Corinthians 13. In the legal definition of a corporation, since it is a creation of man’s laws, it does not live outside of the legal code; therefore it has no real life, no soul, or true creative ability, except what is given it, through legal precedent. Only a real person in the natural sense, can plant the wealth seed in faith, hoping for a growing wealth producing plant, relying only on charity of others should the opportunity fail.
Read More...
The Wealth Creation — Tax & Debt Redistribution Continuum
Give
me that old fashioned (like last year), change we
can believe in. Last Tuesday’s primary elections
signaled, throw out all the bums, and let us choose
the less — most desirable between who is left. The
grizzly bears moved back to a very realistic
position on Wall Street. The Senate finally passed
a financial reform bill which will help the 2 Big 2
Fail, sort of, not change a whole lot and provide
bennies for some others to continue to over
leverage our worthless money supply. On Sunday we
heard from the Feds, that if BP continues to miss
the deadlines on stopping the Gulf oil spill that
they are going to take over. That will surely help,
I’m sure?
Through it all Americans continue to learn about, and demand a redux of our founding constitutional principles, but all the pundits, spinners, commentators, and politicians think this will help them, when in reality the issue really is much more complex than can be articulated in a brief media story. Furthermore even if they could, their spin is so dumbed down and politically correct, that it could be shown that they would be quickly eliminated from the TV show, and then must announce that they are not smarter than a fifth grader.
So in the finest efforts of the Texas Board of Education’s textbook curriculum revisions, let us develop some context of what is really happening.
Way back in Colonial days, the people of the revolutionary era were very religious and in the process of writing a formal constitution they did a miraculous job of creating a secular government based on Absolute Christian religious principles.
Today we live in a very secular world and what we are trying to do is to take secular principles and redux them to Absolutes that will provide security in a rapidly changing world. In simple terms, back then most were committed to their religion, and a very few were secular. Now most are very secular, and a very few are committed to religion. Read More...
Through it all Americans continue to learn about, and demand a redux of our founding constitutional principles, but all the pundits, spinners, commentators, and politicians think this will help them, when in reality the issue really is much more complex than can be articulated in a brief media story. Furthermore even if they could, their spin is so dumbed down and politically correct, that it could be shown that they would be quickly eliminated from the TV show, and then must announce that they are not smarter than a fifth grader.
So in the finest efforts of the Texas Board of Education’s textbook curriculum revisions, let us develop some context of what is really happening.
Way back in Colonial days, the people of the revolutionary era were very religious and in the process of writing a formal constitution they did a miraculous job of creating a secular government based on Absolute Christian religious principles.
Today we live in a very secular world and what we are trying to do is to take secular principles and redux them to Absolutes that will provide security in a rapidly changing world. In simple terms, back then most were committed to their religion, and a very few were secular. Now most are very secular, and a very few are committed to religion. Read More...
Redux Christianity
19/May/2010 13:45 Filed in: Weekly
Column
Beginning with the Absolute that there is a God and
at specific times and places, working through human
personalities created in His image, stupendous
changes are created in both nature and human
civilizations to redux the past into the future.
Absolutes are defined as truth residing outside the auspices of human understanding. Another way to describe an Absolute is that it is a natural law in which we humans can only apprehend, but cannot change in the sense of its universal application. The reason we must resort to the use of the term Absolute is that the old term of truth has been so distorted and made politically correct that it no longer really defines anything but a spin of a faux reality.
The term Absolute, as a modern philosophical construct, became popular through the ministry and the writings of Francis Schaeffer. While produced in the turmoil of the 1970s, Schaeffer’s most famous work, “How Should We Then Live” is a video series that essentially dramatizes the cultural changes we now are having a very difficult time believing.
In our enlightened world, the reality of Absolutes causes all sorts of angst. How can we be continually evolving onward and upward when there already exists a standard that makes our best efforts seem moronic in their best spin?
So we see a contrast between the things of God and the things of man. As we have pointed out in previous weeks, Godly change works from the Universal to the individual. Human change begins with the individual to form a collective, to be administered by the more highly evolved above us.
Read More...
Absolutes are defined as truth residing outside the auspices of human understanding. Another way to describe an Absolute is that it is a natural law in which we humans can only apprehend, but cannot change in the sense of its universal application. The reason we must resort to the use of the term Absolute is that the old term of truth has been so distorted and made politically correct that it no longer really defines anything but a spin of a faux reality.
The term Absolute, as a modern philosophical construct, became popular through the ministry and the writings of Francis Schaeffer. While produced in the turmoil of the 1970s, Schaeffer’s most famous work, “How Should We Then Live” is a video series that essentially dramatizes the cultural changes we now are having a very difficult time believing.
In our enlightened world, the reality of Absolutes causes all sorts of angst. How can we be continually evolving onward and upward when there already exists a standard that makes our best efforts seem moronic in their best spin?
So we see a contrast between the things of God and the things of man. As we have pointed out in previous weeks, Godly change works from the Universal to the individual. Human change begins with the individual to form a collective, to be administered by the more highly evolved above us.
Read More...
The Christian Diaspora
05/May/2010 10:35 Filed in: Weekly
Column
Last week we wrote about those awful sinners that
control, or seek to control the land, the Social
Darwinists. Those really bad guys are really bad,
because they only think of themselves and that is
because they haven’t asked Jesus into their heart.
I once attended a church where the young pastor in a Sunday sermon brought up the reality that sinners — sin! The reaction from the congregation was one of almost dumbfounded amazement. He pointed out that sin was their job description. “It can’t be true, people need Jesus, but to call them sinners is almost un-American.”
In this particular denomination the world is made up of three classes of people, the saints, the carnal Christians, and the people who need Jesus. Not a sinner in the group! In Bible days within the Jews, they had three similar groups, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the gentiles or the goyim.
The interesting thing about the financial crisis was it was brought about by sinners — sinning. It was their job description. We called them last week Social Darwinists, but why are most Americans so dumbfounded that the greedy elitists were doing just what comes naturally?
But what is even more amazing, is that people think that with a massive set of regulations passed by Congress, signed by the President, and codified through reams of bureaucratic regulations, this is somehow going to curb the abuses.
We are nearing the point where we will reach the cross over where if we had let the too big to fail — fail, would be bypassed by real bankruptcies and the new growth of a financial spring, but that is a missed opportunity, a road not taken. This was a political decision based pretty much upon the basis of short-term political expediency. Now again short term political expediency (that must be complete before the fall elections) again is called upon to make a long-term decision on how to regulate the unregulated.
None of this understands the basic tenant that common sense easily comprehends; a big bungling bureaucratic government dinosaur cannot catch a fleet footed competent individual, unless the individual makes a really stupid mistake. So why try? Read More...
I once attended a church where the young pastor in a Sunday sermon brought up the reality that sinners — sin! The reaction from the congregation was one of almost dumbfounded amazement. He pointed out that sin was their job description. “It can’t be true, people need Jesus, but to call them sinners is almost un-American.”
In this particular denomination the world is made up of three classes of people, the saints, the carnal Christians, and the people who need Jesus. Not a sinner in the group! In Bible days within the Jews, they had three similar groups, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the gentiles or the goyim.
The interesting thing about the financial crisis was it was brought about by sinners — sinning. It was their job description. We called them last week Social Darwinists, but why are most Americans so dumbfounded that the greedy elitists were doing just what comes naturally?
But what is even more amazing, is that people think that with a massive set of regulations passed by Congress, signed by the President, and codified through reams of bureaucratic regulations, this is somehow going to curb the abuses.
We are nearing the point where we will reach the cross over where if we had let the too big to fail — fail, would be bypassed by real bankruptcies and the new growth of a financial spring, but that is a missed opportunity, a road not taken. This was a political decision based pretty much upon the basis of short-term political expediency. Now again short term political expediency (that must be complete before the fall elections) again is called upon to make a long-term decision on how to regulate the unregulated.
None of this understands the basic tenant that common sense easily comprehends; a big bungling bureaucratic government dinosaur cannot catch a fleet footed competent individual, unless the individual makes a really stupid mistake. So why try? Read More...
The Wizard of Oz in America’s Struggles
03/May/2010 10:51 Filed in: Special
Report | Week in
Review
Two
weeks from today, 18 May 2010 will hallmark the
110th anniversary of the publishing of the
children’s book
“The Wonderful Wizard of OZ.”
For
most of that interlude American adults have tried
to move to OZ, simply because it was a fantasyland
as far from the reality of Kansas as they could
get. So today, as with real children, they are mad,
because the Wizards of Washington and the Wizards
of Wall Street haven’t the ability to maintain that
fable.
In that context, the Tea Parties, the protesters of Arizona’s new enforcement of immigration laws, and the whining and moaning about the evils of Wall Street, do really little but unmask the reality that all our hoped or hyped wizards are really just men, many times small men, not related to their physical size, who try to maintain at great expense the fantasized illusion of their wizardry they eagerly promote.
I have to give credit for this new found insight into the illusion of America to none other than Glenn Beck. So with deference to Shakespeare, let me set the stage. On Saturday afternoon I returned after a short hiatus to Spokane. This trip, which may become an annual affair, was to commemorate 30 April, which in Washington State is the date that the first half of the year’s property taxes are due. This year for reasons external to this reporting this was a significant and memorable event.
So later that evening I began to catch up on programs recorded on my DVR. On the Thursday show Beck was spun very tight because he believed that all those liberal Progressives seemed out to get him, and furthermore they were trying to turn the United States into a series of Emerald Cities through Cap and Trade. To which my first and continued response is, “Duh?”
Read More...
In that context, the Tea Parties, the protesters of Arizona’s new enforcement of immigration laws, and the whining and moaning about the evils of Wall Street, do really little but unmask the reality that all our hoped or hyped wizards are really just men, many times small men, not related to their physical size, who try to maintain at great expense the fantasized illusion of their wizardry they eagerly promote.
I have to give credit for this new found insight into the illusion of America to none other than Glenn Beck. So with deference to Shakespeare, let me set the stage. On Saturday afternoon I returned after a short hiatus to Spokane. This trip, which may become an annual affair, was to commemorate 30 April, which in Washington State is the date that the first half of the year’s property taxes are due. This year for reasons external to this reporting this was a significant and memorable event.
So later that evening I began to catch up on programs recorded on my DVR. On the Thursday show Beck was spun very tight because he believed that all those liberal Progressives seemed out to get him, and furthermore they were trying to turn the United States into a series of Emerald Cities through Cap and Trade. To which my first and continued response is, “Duh?”
Read More...
The Social Darwinism Conundrum
28/April/2010 11:27 Filed in: Weekly
Column
How many times in these United States have you gone
to visit someone and were admonished at the front
door, “We don’t allow the discussion of politics or
religion in this house!”
Even if it is an unspoken rule, the lack of discourse of both politics and religion and how they are related, dare I a say as a civil discussion, is what has gotten America into our current position.
Just mention Sarah Palin and a volcano of anger or praise erupts almost instantaneously and soon volcanic ash threatens to block out the sun. If someone doesn’t change the subject pretty soon, air traffic will have to be diverted around the area.
Underlying all this joy and mirth is the clashing of worldviews.
One view believes that there is a God, who created everything not all that long ago, and mankind was created in the image of God.
The scientific worldview does not believe in god, maybe aliens, but nothing exists but the natural material reality that evolved by quantum leaps of intellectual complexity over millions and billions of years.
A third worldview states that they believe in God but are agnostic on how it all came to be and where we are going, because they just have enough trouble dealing with daily life.
The forth group believes essentially that they are the zenith of evolution, and because of their superior intellect, the rest of us should acquiesce to their understanding of how it all works, and likewise thank and serve them for being so very magnanimous. These are the Social Darwinists, who now are the dominant religion in America, but as we will see as we continue, are facing a conundrum of epic proportions, that will very soon lead to a battle to the finish among the members. The survival of progressive evolution is at stake and to victor belong not only the spoils, but the vanquished will be eliminated from the gene pool.
So if you happen to be in one of the first three religious groups, for the time being, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, sit back, relax, turn on your television, open a cool one of your choice, and watch the battle unfold.
Well just between you and me, the battle has been rigged, because both of the participants have already been found to have fatal weaknesses, but that does not mean that this sport will not be worth watching.
So let the battle begin!
Read More...
Even if it is an unspoken rule, the lack of discourse of both politics and religion and how they are related, dare I a say as a civil discussion, is what has gotten America into our current position.
Just mention Sarah Palin and a volcano of anger or praise erupts almost instantaneously and soon volcanic ash threatens to block out the sun. If someone doesn’t change the subject pretty soon, air traffic will have to be diverted around the area.
Underlying all this joy and mirth is the clashing of worldviews.
One view believes that there is a God, who created everything not all that long ago, and mankind was created in the image of God.
The scientific worldview does not believe in god, maybe aliens, but nothing exists but the natural material reality that evolved by quantum leaps of intellectual complexity over millions and billions of years.
A third worldview states that they believe in God but are agnostic on how it all came to be and where we are going, because they just have enough trouble dealing with daily life.
The forth group believes essentially that they are the zenith of evolution, and because of their superior intellect, the rest of us should acquiesce to their understanding of how it all works, and likewise thank and serve them for being so very magnanimous. These are the Social Darwinists, who now are the dominant religion in America, but as we will see as we continue, are facing a conundrum of epic proportions, that will very soon lead to a battle to the finish among the members. The survival of progressive evolution is at stake and to victor belong not only the spoils, but the vanquished will be eliminated from the gene pool.
So if you happen to be in one of the first three religious groups, for the time being, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, sit back, relax, turn on your television, open a cool one of your choice, and watch the battle unfold.
Well just between you and me, the battle has been rigged, because both of the participants have already been found to have fatal weaknesses, but that does not mean that this sport will not be worth watching.
So let the battle begin!
Read More...
States Rights as Natural as Wildness
26/April/2010 14:31 Filed in: Special
Report | Week in
Review
The
United States of America used to be understood by
the slogan, “Out of many — one.” It is now becoming
better defined as, “Out of many — chaos.”
This evolution has taken place most dramatically in the last fifty years, but those chaotic roots run deep for at least the last century.
In January, when we began the “Why Me? A Novel — Novel of Historic Apprehension” it looked like there was a window in America’s trek to Gomorrah, in which we could develop a little historic context about how we got here and where we were headed, regardless of the desires of mice and men. It looks like the mice are holding up quite well in contrast to the best intentions of American leadership, but a couple realities did begin to be seen as “Why Me?” progressed, which show as early buds of the coming American political spring.
During those four months it was easy to anticipate the passage of Obamacare, but the firestorm of issues related to the individual mandate for people to purchase insurance, angered individuals, but also set off a spring burn of protests at the state level. Who would have thought at the beginning of the year that about a third of the states would begin to act like real sovereign states. All this time we thought they were extinct, except for collecting taxes and creating arcane regulations. We will here attempt to put some natural spring into these new found rumblings. We will look at the heavy lifting of what is just beginning under the Washington guise of “Financial Reform” in our Wednesday article.
I would suppose one could make the case that the concept of state dependency began during the Great Depression and the New Deal that followed. But the way the history has hyped that period among all the enlightenment progressive spin, it makes it impossible to find the states at all. Those who are yet still alive and actually went through that period were too young understand the context.
However using estimated dates beginning with the Civil Rights Movement: 1955-1968; the Viet Nam War Protests: 1965-1975; and the Environmental Movement: 1962-1981; we essentially saw urban intellectual evolution commandeer all aspects of American unity and those who disagreed with their worldview were vilified as: racists, warmongers, and primitive knuckle draggers.
This as continued to evolve until today, we have the Lame Stream Media basically becoming propaganda asylums, and fair and balanced reporting, sponsoring battling pundit promotions. What is lost in all this is the fact that human beings were generally created to like one another and to help one another succeed. In that respect to believe that a bloated Federal government can fix societies ills is truly insanity.
Read More...
This evolution has taken place most dramatically in the last fifty years, but those chaotic roots run deep for at least the last century.
In January, when we began the “Why Me? A Novel — Novel of Historic Apprehension” it looked like there was a window in America’s trek to Gomorrah, in which we could develop a little historic context about how we got here and where we were headed, regardless of the desires of mice and men. It looks like the mice are holding up quite well in contrast to the best intentions of American leadership, but a couple realities did begin to be seen as “Why Me?” progressed, which show as early buds of the coming American political spring.
During those four months it was easy to anticipate the passage of Obamacare, but the firestorm of issues related to the individual mandate for people to purchase insurance, angered individuals, but also set off a spring burn of protests at the state level. Who would have thought at the beginning of the year that about a third of the states would begin to act like real sovereign states. All this time we thought they were extinct, except for collecting taxes and creating arcane regulations. We will here attempt to put some natural spring into these new found rumblings. We will look at the heavy lifting of what is just beginning under the Washington guise of “Financial Reform” in our Wednesday article.
I would suppose one could make the case that the concept of state dependency began during the Great Depression and the New Deal that followed. But the way the history has hyped that period among all the enlightenment progressive spin, it makes it impossible to find the states at all. Those who are yet still alive and actually went through that period were too young understand the context.
However using estimated dates beginning with the Civil Rights Movement: 1955-1968; the Viet Nam War Protests: 1965-1975; and the Environmental Movement: 1962-1981; we essentially saw urban intellectual evolution commandeer all aspects of American unity and those who disagreed with their worldview were vilified as: racists, warmongers, and primitive knuckle draggers.
This as continued to evolve until today, we have the Lame Stream Media basically becoming propaganda asylums, and fair and balanced reporting, sponsoring battling pundit promotions. What is lost in all this is the fact that human beings were generally created to like one another and to help one another succeed. In that respect to believe that a bloated Federal government can fix societies ills is truly insanity.
Read More...
Why Me? Divine Providence
07/April/2010 12:08 Filed in: Weekly
Column
Last week we closed the
Sheep to Wolves article with the signature
paragraph of the Declaration of Independence.
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
If you would like to know the succinct answer on why the United States finds itself in its present predicament, a new version of those thoughts would go somewhat as follows:
With a firm reliance on the my personal virtue of unfettered greed, I will do whatever necessary to get ahead according to my definition of success, giving no thought at all to the pain and suffering I might cause other people, or the world in which I live.
Furthermore, to accomplish my goals as rapidly as possible, with the least personal risk, I will work for a large global corporation, institution, or government that shares my values.
Turn on the television to the lame stream media and you will hear that capitalism no longer works, so we need to replace it with diverse government programs that will solve capitalism’s problems.
These pundits have a religious bias that they alone think that they can fix something broken, with something better in their own eyes. When in reality their solution is worse than the broken predecessor. Welcome to the world of ObamaCare.
Turn on Fox News and you will hear pundits say that the solution is to get back to the messiah-ship of Ronald Reagan and that the free markets of personal and corporate greed will solve all the problems that the progressive bureaucratic regulators are using to try to keep us all from getting rich by the principles of trickle down economics.
The fact of the matter, little money and virtually no real wealth trickles down to the folks, through either big government, or big business, or big labor. Furthermore if any of them can figure out a way to get some of the little they let go of, back, they will do that with as much conniving as possible.
Read More...
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
If you would like to know the succinct answer on why the United States finds itself in its present predicament, a new version of those thoughts would go somewhat as follows:
With a firm reliance on the my personal virtue of unfettered greed, I will do whatever necessary to get ahead according to my definition of success, giving no thought at all to the pain and suffering I might cause other people, or the world in which I live.
Furthermore, to accomplish my goals as rapidly as possible, with the least personal risk, I will work for a large global corporation, institution, or government that shares my values.
Turn on the television to the lame stream media and you will hear that capitalism no longer works, so we need to replace it with diverse government programs that will solve capitalism’s problems.
These pundits have a religious bias that they alone think that they can fix something broken, with something better in their own eyes. When in reality their solution is worse than the broken predecessor. Welcome to the world of ObamaCare.
Turn on Fox News and you will hear pundits say that the solution is to get back to the messiah-ship of Ronald Reagan and that the free markets of personal and corporate greed will solve all the problems that the progressive bureaucratic regulators are using to try to keep us all from getting rich by the principles of trickle down economics.
The fact of the matter, little money and virtually no real wealth trickles down to the folks, through either big government, or big business, or big labor. Furthermore if any of them can figure out a way to get some of the little they let go of, back, they will do that with as much conniving as possible.
Read More...
Why Me? Priggish Blathering Compost
17/March/2010 13:49 Filed in: Weekly
Column
We have reached the point in this expose´ of the
self where history is about to catch up with the
present. In that illumination we will soon be able
to understand the context that makes us right,
meaning correct, and everyone else is not so smart.
We base our enlightened understanding on our
evolving change we can believe in, never venturing
outside our comfort zone, because that is our
right, essentially because we are so very cool.
Last week we looked at how New England Calvinism pushed a number of new religious leaders out of the Calvinist box, and the changes they rent we still see among us today. Many Americans and people around the world, still find those rejected box outers to be our prophets and patron saints, even though we would never be so outwardly religious. Religion after all is really not something, we, the enlightened, need because it is so primitive and dare we say, priggish. Thanks to our lucky stars we will never be that way.
We work very hard for our money, even though it never really increases our wealth, and we never have the time to really question who we really are, or where we are going. Again thanks to our lucky stars, for if we had the time to reflect, we might not like the reflection.
However if you look at that out of the box history from two hundred years ago, today really isn’t that different. Just like back then all of life was and is about the present material. You go to church and for the most part they teach you how to be healthy, wealthy, and wise. They seem to talk about God, but no one seems to know God.
You go to the outdoor store and they show you all the neat stuff you need to bring with you when you go to the wilderness, so you can make it just like home. While the wild is somewhat free, the stuff you need to get you there and keep you comfortable surely isn’t. So you need your full time vocation to support your part time advocation.
Is this all there is? Those with the most toys are subservient to their idols’ wishes — no demands. So when you come right down to the nitty-gritty, nuts and bolts, the problems we face today is that we are both natural and transcendent personalities in a totally common or natural world.
Read More...
Last week we looked at how New England Calvinism pushed a number of new religious leaders out of the Calvinist box, and the changes they rent we still see among us today. Many Americans and people around the world, still find those rejected box outers to be our prophets and patron saints, even though we would never be so outwardly religious. Religion after all is really not something, we, the enlightened, need because it is so primitive and dare we say, priggish. Thanks to our lucky stars we will never be that way.
We work very hard for our money, even though it never really increases our wealth, and we never have the time to really question who we really are, or where we are going. Again thanks to our lucky stars, for if we had the time to reflect, we might not like the reflection.
However if you look at that out of the box history from two hundred years ago, today really isn’t that different. Just like back then all of life was and is about the present material. You go to church and for the most part they teach you how to be healthy, wealthy, and wise. They seem to talk about God, but no one seems to know God.
You go to the outdoor store and they show you all the neat stuff you need to bring with you when you go to the wilderness, so you can make it just like home. While the wild is somewhat free, the stuff you need to get you there and keep you comfortable surely isn’t. So you need your full time vocation to support your part time advocation.
Is this all there is? Those with the most toys are subservient to their idols’ wishes — no demands. So when you come right down to the nitty-gritty, nuts and bolts, the problems we face today is that we are both natural and transcendent personalities in a totally common or natural world.
Read More...
Why Me? Outside the Box
10/March/2010 11:45 Filed in: Weekly
Column
The United States and the world today are facing
“Outside the Box” stresses. It has been a long time
since the stupendous changes of economics and
politics have not only forced people to look
outside their comforts and securities for
solutions, but also to examine the basic paradigms
on which their perceived security is based.
In previous articles we have stated that in western culture about every five hundred years a major reboot of the way we do things occurs. This turmoil creates the fertile soil for new developments that redefine our individuality and communities in ways that were unknown before the plowing or tilling began.
Beginning with the absolute understanding that humanity is a creation of God, and was indeed a creation in the image of God, it logically follows that this five hundred year upheaval, forces us again to look beyond the temporal world and refocus upon the transcendent nature of common life. That understanding then brings about the incorporation of that transcendence into the religions of mankind.
While all religions including evolutionary materialism are exclusive in their worldviews, stresses develop that quickly become fault lines between the reformers and the establishments they are attempting to reform. Within Christianity the last time this occurred was in the Protestant Reformation.
That Reformation led to an era known as the Enlightenment where those new religious views received a more common application. At the time when the human development and religious fervor were properly understood within the broader culture, time was right for the miracle that became the American Revolution and the founding of the United States of America as a constitutional republic.
Notice all the “re” words that accompanied the changes from subjugation by divine right of kings into a worldview that valued individual liberty above all else. It then attempted to formulate a minimal governmental structure in which all humans would have the opportunity to pursue happiness, without class distinction.
Read More...
In previous articles we have stated that in western culture about every five hundred years a major reboot of the way we do things occurs. This turmoil creates the fertile soil for new developments that redefine our individuality and communities in ways that were unknown before the plowing or tilling began.
Beginning with the absolute understanding that humanity is a creation of God, and was indeed a creation in the image of God, it logically follows that this five hundred year upheaval, forces us again to look beyond the temporal world and refocus upon the transcendent nature of common life. That understanding then brings about the incorporation of that transcendence into the religions of mankind.
While all religions including evolutionary materialism are exclusive in their worldviews, stresses develop that quickly become fault lines between the reformers and the establishments they are attempting to reform. Within Christianity the last time this occurred was in the Protestant Reformation.
That Reformation led to an era known as the Enlightenment where those new religious views received a more common application. At the time when the human development and religious fervor were properly understood within the broader culture, time was right for the miracle that became the American Revolution and the founding of the United States of America as a constitutional republic.
Notice all the “re” words that accompanied the changes from subjugation by divine right of kings into a worldview that valued individual liberty above all else. It then attempted to formulate a minimal governmental structure in which all humans would have the opportunity to pursue happiness, without class distinction.
Read More...
Why Me? The American Miracle
03/March/2010 09:35 Filed in: Weekly
Column
There is a historical interest article beginning to
make its rounds this week delineating a comparison
between the ship survivors on the Titanic and the
Lusitania. Probably the most interesting in the
free literature is the
Discovery article, but for those with ten
dollars to spare you can get the original from the
National Academy of Sciences.
So far, we might conclude the ships of nation states around the world are economically in a potentially perilous position of sinking. From our leadership we hear that such a catastrophe is impossible. So too were the passengers on the Titanic until that pesky natural iceberg forever altered their reality. Then just three years later, no one on the Lusitania believed that a man caused disaster, the small German u-boat torpedo, could sink the ship in just 18 minutes.
The problem with political leadership is that they have a vested interest in projecting the past into a rosy future. If our ship had a hole in it, we have now by our own ingenuity and skills fixed the problem and we are again full speed ahead. Of course if some might ask the question, “Where are we going?” they are met with scorn and ridicule for being a conspiracy theorist, or a primitive common human, not highly evolved to understand the pleasures of a fantastic ocean voyage.
At Wonder Springs we speak a lot about the world being afloat on an ocean of non-energetic debt money. Just as in the “Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner,” there is money, money everywhere, but none of it can you drink. Of course we are told that if we just have hope, someday a few drops of good money will trickle down to us, but just as with seawater, it is undrinkable and the salinity is such that it can’t be used to grow anything, or abstractly create wealth.
Read More...
So far, we might conclude the ships of nation states around the world are economically in a potentially perilous position of sinking. From our leadership we hear that such a catastrophe is impossible. So too were the passengers on the Titanic until that pesky natural iceberg forever altered their reality. Then just three years later, no one on the Lusitania believed that a man caused disaster, the small German u-boat torpedo, could sink the ship in just 18 minutes.
The problem with political leadership is that they have a vested interest in projecting the past into a rosy future. If our ship had a hole in it, we have now by our own ingenuity and skills fixed the problem and we are again full speed ahead. Of course if some might ask the question, “Where are we going?” they are met with scorn and ridicule for being a conspiracy theorist, or a primitive common human, not highly evolved to understand the pleasures of a fantastic ocean voyage.
At Wonder Springs we speak a lot about the world being afloat on an ocean of non-energetic debt money. Just as in the “Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner,” there is money, money everywhere, but none of it can you drink. Of course we are told that if we just have hope, someday a few drops of good money will trickle down to us, but just as with seawater, it is undrinkable and the salinity is such that it can’t be used to grow anything, or abstractly create wealth.
Read More...