“Truth” and “Right”

Recently I was talking to a person who did not agree with me on a particular circumstance. As the discussion progressed the person said to me, “Well the behavior I am witnessing here is not very Christian-like. I mean, didn’t Jesus say, ‘Love thy neighbor’? The behavior I am seeing in this situation doesn’t sound like love at all.” The person in question professed some understanding of the Christian faith.

Now before I progress much further in need to say I am a Christian. Without going through the catechism of understanding and faith, I believe in all that Jesus Christ through the Church teaches. Ok there are grounds right there for tons of discussion. But skip those discussions for now.

Getting back to the conversation, I answered the concern the person raised in the following way:

First, while it is true that Jesus said, “Love thy neighbor” (Old Testament Leviticus 18:19, Jesus Christ 5 times in the Gospels, St. Paul twice in the epistles and St. James in his letter) that was not all that Jesus said. To focus on and set the context properly, look at the Gospels of St. Matthew, St. Mark and St. Luke where the quote comes from. A lawyer questioned Jesus, trying and tempting him, saying, “Master, which is the great commandment in the law?” The intention was to snare Jesus in his answer.

And Jesus answered, “You all must love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, You all must love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” This is the quote in context.

Before Jesus Christ said, love your neighbor, He said, “Love God,” and in that instruction, He had some parameters. There is an unmistakable order to Jesus Christ’s answer. It was not incidental and was not accidental. It was intentional. And this is not just theological badminton.

Jesus says there is an order to what you do. First, love God, with everything you are. Out of that you can do the rest. With that love of God first and foremost in place you can love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus did not say, first love your neighbor with all sacrifice and adoration due to God, then go and love God. Nope. He started from loving God to loving your neighbor. And the love of your neighbor had parameters as well. Love your neighbor as yourself.

I remember a book that made the rounds when I was in grade school. It was a book called, “I Am Third” and was marketed as the memoir of Gale Sayers, one of the best running backs in the history of the NCAA and pro football. It was also the story of his friendship with Brian Piccolo as I recall being told. The meaning of the title was from what Sayers called his credo, "The Lord is first, my friends and family are second, and I am third."

Well, Gale Sayers’ neighbor would come in third with him. In my case, me and my neighbor are further down.

In my life, God is first, my wife second (per St. Paul’s instruction to love my wife as Christ loves the Chruch), my family third, my Church forth, some specific people are fifth and sixth, and I am seventh. My neighbor might be getting short shrift. But the idea is that I do not hold my neighbor higher than I hold God, or several other relationships I put first in my life.

When I finished my explanation, the person I was having the discussion with seemed to doubt the legitimacy of my argument. They seemed to think that my neighbor had a right to a higher level of consideration. Indeed, I was almost accused of misunderstanding my Christian calling, of cutting my neighbor a raw deal. After all, it was reasoned, didn’t the world understand best what was meant by ‘Love thy Neighbor’? This whole application of the Bible, the Gospels and what Jesus Christ had actually said couldn’t possibly be applied to your neighbor’s expectations of your actions. What if they were not Christian?

The discussion kind of fell apart as the other person was very certain that ‘neighbors’ have exceptional rights, and that God would understand. After all, God would expect a Christian to adhere to those exceptional rights. “You know, kind of like a sacrifice or bearing your cross,” the person with whom I have been speaking, explained to me.

The issue is that the world has already fit Christianity, Jesus Christ and God into the smallness of their own interpretation. This type of thought goes along with, “God doesn’t really care if a baby is aborted, so long as we are living the best life we can.” Or, “You can’t really expect everyone to believe in (fill in the blank), as we have learned so much as human beings since the time of Jesus.” Have you ever heard those arguments?

It is almost as if I am being told, “It really doesn’t matter what the Bible, or the Gospels, or the Church says, we have already decided what it all means.” As I have been told in the past, “If you are going to take all of that stuff literally, you will be a fanatic, not a reasonable person.” Then I ask, by way of a reasoning comparison, what about a Muslim who prays five times a day? “Well,” I am told, “they really believe that. It is cool that they are so committed.” But when the conviction is on the part of a believer in the Christian faith, when the commitment being discussed is attached to a Christian, well then we have an ignorant, backwards, closed minded idiot, not capable of understanding Darwin.

And the comparative facts don’t enter into the argument. In fact, ‘facts’ have very little to do with the whole thing. The media, the press, and the world look on and participate in missing the facts and frustrating understanding. It is like they don’t really care what the truth is. They care about how the story sounds.

It is that same world and media that looks on this situation and seems to be saying, “Hey, we know what’s right and what’s wrong. We know what is proper. Don’t try to reason past us.”

If two kids in public high school decide to pray out loud before they eat in the cafeteria, it is the same ‘world and media’ that will jump to its feet in active protest partially quoting Thomas Jefferson out of context to bring to bare the impenetrable wall separating church and STATE. But if I make an observation concerning “state-run-schools” I am instantly branded and cast as an extremist for using inflammatory language by inferring that the schools are “STATE-run”. The same STATE that keeps the prayer from happening in schools becomes the offensive issue when you point out that the STATE runs the publicly funded schools.

The ‘world and media’ have no shame in this hypocrisy of reasoning. The ‘world and media’ do not strain themselves to use the terms, “right and wrong” when the identical arguments are used to point out that the term ‘STATE’ used in the misquote of Thomas Jefferson and the misunderstanding of the impenetrable wall was the means by which I say our education system is a, “STATE run institution”.

The “world and the media” don’t care that what Jefferson was talking about was the prevention of the Government from infringing on the practice of individuals of faith as opposed to protecting the Government from churches.

But its ok, the world and the media “knows what’s right and what’s wrong!” That attitude calls for judgment. And not the judgment of man. Rather the judgment that passes man. Oh, part of that judgment will be by the people of the world who still reason. They will judge the media. The rest of the judgment will come from He who judges all.

The first judgment is underway. Have you seen subscription rates and failures of certain ‘newspapers’ and network television ‘news’ broadcasts? The judgment is in your ratings and your readership, oh media. The second judgment is yet to come.

Or, wait a minute, maybe we could give the media a great big bail out, like a TARP for newspapers and news organizations on TV that aren’t doing well, because the public has judged.

Just as a closing thought, here’s something I once read:

At the other end of the room, a group was listening to Balph Eubank. He sat upright on the edge of an armchair, in order to counteract the appearance of his face and figure, which had a tendency to spread if relaxed.

"The literature of the past," said Balph Eubank, "was a shallow fraud. It whitewashed life in order to please the money tycoons whom it served. Morality, free will, achievement, happy endings, and man as some sort of heroic being—all that stuff is laughable to us. Our age has given depth to literature for the first time, by exposing the real essence of life,"

A very young girl in a white evening gown asked timidly, "What is the real essence of life, Mr. Eubank?"

"Suffering," said Balph Eubank. "Defeat and suffering."

"But . . . but why? People are happy . . . sometimes . . . aren't they?"

"That is a delusion of those whose emotions are superficial."

The girl blushed. A wealthy woman who had inherited an oil refinery, asked guiltily, "What should we do to raise the people's literary taste, Mr. Eubank?"

"That is a great social problem," said Balph Eubank. He was described as the literary leader of the age, but had never written a book that sold more
than three thousand copies. "Personally, I believe that an Equalization of Opportunity Bill applying to literature would be the solution."

"Oh, do you approve of that Bill for industry? I'm not sure I know what to think of it."

"Certainly, I approve of it. Our culture has sunk into a bog of materialism. Men have lost all spiritual values in their pursuit of material production and technological trickery. They're too comfortable. They will return to a nobler life if we teach them to bear privations. So we ought to place a limit upon their material greed."

"I hadn't thought of it that way," said the woman apologetically.

"But how are you going to work an Equalization of Opportunity Bill for literature, Ralph?" asked Mort Liddy. "That's a new one on me."

"My name is Balph," said Eubank angrily. "And it's a new one on you because it's my own idea."

"Okay, okay, I'm not quarreling, am I? I'm just asking." Mort Liddy smiled. He spent most of his time smiling nervously. He was a composer who wrote old-fashioned scores for motion pictures, and modern symphonies for sparse audiences.

"It would work very simply," said Balph Eubank. "There should be a law limiting the sale of any book to ten thousand copies. This would throw the literary market open to new talent, fresh ideas and non-commercial writing. If people were forbidden to buy a million copies of the same piece of trash, they would be forced to buy better books."

"You've got something there," said Mort Liddy. "But wouldn't it be kinda tough on the writers' bank accounts?"

"So much the better. Only those whose motive is not money-making should be allowed to write."

"But, Mr. Eubank," asked the young girl in the white dress, "what if more than ten thousand people want to buy a certain book?"

"Ten thousand readers is enough for any book."

"That's not what I mean. I mean, what if they want it?"

"That is irrelevant."

"But if a book has a good story which—"

"Plot is a primitive vulgarity in literature," said Balph Eubank contemptuously.
Dr. Pritchett, on his way across the room to the bar, stopped to say, "Quite so. Just as logic is a primitive vulgarity in philosophy."

"Just as melody is a primitive vulgarity in music," said Mort Liddy.”[1]

This bit of fun was written by Ayn Rand, in a “tongue and cheek” send up of where things might progress from her perspective in 1957. Seemed funny then, not so funny now. Could have been written for the Media today I guess. Ah, forget judgment. Hand me your wallet.

_____________________________________________________________
[1] Rand, Ayn. Atlas Shrugged, “The Non-Commercial”, New York, NY, Signet, September 1996.

You People Waste My Money - #1 7-1-09

You people waste my money!!! –




Everyone has experienced this, unless you have never used a drive through, take out or fast food.

You go to some place to get some food because it’s close or convenient. You know, it’s on the way. It may be that you have come to this place because you actually like the food so much, that you went out of the way to get there. So you wait in line, you plan what you are going to get, you finally get to the front and you place your order. You willingly pay the price and wait for your food. At last, you are given the bag with your order. But of course you are in a hurry and you have to leave and get back to do something, and you really don’t get to check out your order until you get to your destination and you finally get to open the bag.

And when you do, it’s all wrong. It has happened to everyone. I have even been with someone who got an order so wrong, that had they eaten it as prepared they would have had a very violent allergic reaction. But my whole point in this story is the idea that sometimes our time and our money is wasted. Maybe you have the time to go back to the fast food store and get your order corrected. But if you can invest this effort, nothing will return the time it takes to do so. This is the cost of an honest mistake.

Maybe your circumstance doesn’t allow the opportunity to retrace your steps. Do you throw away edible food that does not match your tastes, or change the food yourself by picking out or scraping off the offending ingredient? Not exactly satisfying but at least you get to eat, and the money you spent and the time you invested has some return. Maybe its mushrooms, melted in the cheese and steak, and just one will risk your life. You might find someone else to eat the food. In this case it’s a waste of time and money so far as your meal is considered. The worst case would be if you had to throw away the food, wasted and without fulfilling the purpose of having a meal. Wasted time, wasted money, wasted resources.

In this entire scenario, we are willing participants. We choose to go where we went. There is a chance that we can go back to the food store and inform the folks who do the work there that there was a mistake and allow them to offer a solution to this situation. We choose to be involved in this situation. We have the option to be involved in the possible solution, even and including not going back to that fast food restaurant and thereby voting with our dollars.

Of course, I have not discussed any aspect of the frustration and anger that such a scenario might just cause. And in all of this, we have assumed that there is no malice or intent on the part of the purveyor of fine fast food. That is, they did not actually mess up my order on purpose. Mistakes do happen. And the fast food joint would usually feel bad and offer some form of restitution for the mistake. I think we all understand this situation and have experienced some aspect of this story. Now, pickup the experience with all of its parts and apply it to our City, County, State and Federal Government.

Come with me as we walk through this comparison.

Begin with the idea of choice. I am constantly being bathed with the concept that we are a society of choices. In shadow of that perspective, I have no choice in my taxes, none at all. I work to earn money. My income comes from the money I earn by exchanging major portions of my life, talent and energy, with a marketplace. I can never have back the minutes I spend to create this income. I trade that part of my life. That income, the money I am paid, represents a part of my life. That time of my life that I will never have back to use in another way, to spend with friends, family or investing in my ability to possibly increase how I trade my time for income. From that income the Federal and State government takes a portion, without regard as to what I may actually “owe” in taxes for any given year.

Follow me with this for a minute. At the end of the year, I have made some total amount of money. That amount might be a modest hill or massive heap. The government then comes out, weighs the gold, and says I owe them some amount of money based on a percentage of that total amount I made. Almost everyone I know, regardless of their ‘social status’ pays something. But unlike the way I describe it here, without permission, without consideration of what that amount might be, the government “takes” your money, in advance of the debt, and holds it from 15 to 3 months before it is due. There is the first consideration.

Going beyond this first issue, look at what happens with your money, you are compelled to give to the government. We live in a Republic, a representational form of government, in the greatest country in the history of the world. However, in the midst of this greatness, stands a huge septic tank of injustice, criminal neglect and shameful waste.

We hear about the programs that waste money. We hear jokes about $50 hammers and $1000 toilets. Then we go on about our business. In our busy lives that keeps us spinning, we file these oddities away as some strange, funny and singular quirky news item. But look at it from this perspective. The news reports on a group called “Citizens Against Government Waste” where the top Tax Wasting projects are documented and discussed. The list is compiled after the submission of the 2009 Appropriations Bill, and before it was passed. They documented 19.6 Billion Dollars in wasted spending and ear marks. No one in Washington stopped the bill from passing. The current administration tried to make a big deal out of cutting 100 Million from the budget, while the 19.5 Billion that would have remained sailed out of our pockets and into the great black whole of waste. And that is just the waste that is easy to track.

If our nation’s population between the ages of 15 and 64 are eligible to pay taxes number approximately 206 Million, that is a waste from every American in this tax paying group of approximately $100.00 per person wasted. Add on to that the wasted time in investigations for political agendas (steroid use in sports for one), over seas trips to confirm that a natural disaster is bad, or our money spent on the UN who then uses the money to help the world hate the US. That $100.00 starting point is a drop in a large empty bucket that when you add it up you can out strip a nice monthly wage for most people. All on the back of your tax dollars. And the folks who are paid by those tax dollars, the leaders who are supposed to be representing us, only listen when the polls say we might just vote them out of office and make them loose their government pensions and perks, also funded by the Tax Payer!

The instances where I have a choice in how my tax dollars are spent are so removed from the decisions of how much of my income is confiscated before I even owe a dime, makes the entire discussion an ever increasing frustration of extortion approaching theft. I think of the words from the Declaration of Independence and wonder that we as citizens are, “more disposed to suffer , while evils are sufferable…” But where do the ‘evils’ become insufferable?

I am almost sick to death. I am so tiered of hearing people who are paid by me, with money taken from each and everyone of my paychecks, waste so much time doing absolutely nothing. I mean nothing at all of any value. They waste the money they take from me, without any accounting that is real, or any concern about the fact that they are living off of me and what I do to make money for my family. I am sick of paying money to people and getting nothing at all in return, except the demand for more money.

Before you jump to any conclusions, I pay my taxes every year. I learned that lesson early on. I am not a nut case who thinks that there should be no government at all. I actually read the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights and the other amendments, and believed that was how things are. I have read so much American History and Political and Economic teachings that the books fill my front room. And from that, and reality from where I sit, there is a big disconnect!

I am a nut case for thinking these documents have any meaning. I am a nut case for thinking the governments of my City, my State and my Country work for me and my fellow citizens as opposed to the other way around. In that regard I am nuts. But more than that, I am sick of these people wasting my money. Wasting my life and robbing my family of its sustenance.

I could go on with examples of the current events of the world to illustrate my point, but that can wait until my next commentary. Think of TARP, Stimulus Bill #1 and Stimulus Bill #2 and the meddling of the Federal Government in hundreds of matters where they don’t belong. But there will be time in the future to ‘discuss’ all of these and other issues.

I am not using my real name in publishing these thoughts and considerations. Consider me a Pamphleteer in the nature of our Revolutionary forefathers. Though I am not as august a person by any account, I am a citizen and I have been educated in spite of the Schooling I have received. My opinions are expressed to see if there is an echo or an answer. I am not ready to risk my family in this fight until I know others are ready to risk their sacred honors sharing the like precious faith of those that founded this Country by the Grace of God. If you agree, post back and I will answer. I do not know everything, but I know what I know.

You People Waste My Money - #2 9-1-09

It has been written,
“We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are
Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men,
deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
that whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these ends,
it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it,
and to institute new Government,
laying its foundations on such principles and organizing its powers in such forms,
as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations,” of one branch of government against all others, pursing the designs of absolute power and approaching despotism and radical revolution it is the Right, it is the Duty of the Governed,
“to throw off such Government and to provide new Guards for,” ours and our children’s future security.

Our Founding Fathers said that, “the Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of Patriots and Tyrants.” (T.J.)

In a democratic republic, those who ‘run for public office’ are servants of the people who consent to be governed by these ‘would be’ servants. Servants who are given power, given in trust. Those who would govern enter into a sacred trust, purchased with the blood of past patriots, men and women who served their country, “who struggled to consecrate,” this land and our government with their, “last full measure of devotion.”

By our power to vote, our sacred right, privilege and responsibility, we call those who are elected into account, to answer for what they have done and left undone. In the end, they are servants of the Public Trust, a covenant, where the servant answers to the People they Serve! They work for us or they cheat the trust they are given.

In a democratic, representative republic, the, “people should not be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people.” Interesting idea from a strange little movie. Could have been a slogan from a pamphlet.

If a ‘public servant’ is not ‘representing’ the will of the people, they should ‘fear’ unemployment. They should fear that they will be dismissed from office and have to reenter the Private Sector. Of course many find jobs funded by the public trust, our taxes, and don’t really ‘fear’ unemployment at all. But the idea is that these servants are paid and receive all manner of benefits at the public expense, from the people’s life blood, our money ‘taken’ as taxes! They should and do work for us!
But then, there are hosts and hosts of others that have never been elected! Never examined or approved by the People. They are employed by the Government, without the consideration of the election that governs the ‘service term’ of ‘public servants’. They are paid from our taxes, from our blood and money. They are not subject to public consideration. They are paid members of the government who will not change from election to election, from administration to administration, from vote to vote.

The whole portion of the government, spanning all three branches of government are consistent, unchanged, the same from year to year. This ‘second government’ is never subject to any referendum of the People who they serve, in as much as they work for the Government, which works for us. This is the Government Bureaucracy. In its own way it is a living being with its own sense of survival. One of its first directives is self-preservation as opposed to a primary consideration of ‘serving’ the public interest. Not to lump every ‘civil servant’ into one category, but in a government system that is rife with waste, who looks over the every person’s function in the great system, this monster, the Government Bureaucracy. In business, when it does not make business sense, a position is changed or eliminated and the health and value of business and the investors is considered in balance with the person who fills the position. In Government, who decides when a position is no longer necessary and worth the tax dollars paid for the position? Who evaluates the answer to this question?

And so a whole, permanent part of our Federal Government sustains itself with our tax dollars, without giving and account of being accountable to the ‘People’ they ‘should’ serve. Or are they serving ‘The Government’?

In either respect, this is just one reason to fear our government. And now, the executive branch has decided to expand this un-accounted ‘fourth’ branch of government with a new breed of bureaucrats called “Czars”. Not the first time the term has been used. But in the current administration we have more than 30 at last count. Paid from the public coffers, with agendas that are not subject to public referendum. And what do these ‘Czars’ do? Do they have some sort of charter, public ‘job description’? And who holds these ‘Czars’ accountable to their charter or job description? Who ‘checks’ their credentials and qualifications? Someone, some other ‘Czar” in the executive branch? Who?

Looking at the current and recently resigned Czars, are the implied answers to the previous questions comforting or concerning to ‘We the People’? Can we remind ourselves for a quick second, what were the qualifications or credentials of Van Jones? What are the qualifications and agenda for Mr. Sunstein? What are the credentials of the others? I don’t just mean where they went to school. Aren’t there clearance flags that have to be passed to have access to the place of the White House? How many plans do they have, how many private agendas not subject to public referendum are being carried out? Who will assess the work that comes from these efforts, the progress and results? We are a Government of laws, a republic. Who will assess the results and appropriateness of the results to your Government’s interests? To the interests of the People who have given this government ‘power’?

“People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.” But what if their power is beyond the people’s ability to, “throw off such Government and provide new guards for,” our security? Are we giving away our Liberty, our unalienable rights? Will our posterity recall that we gave all away in a democratic election? I did not vote for this and none of this was on the ballot!