Cal Thomas on Episcopals and Baptists

I just read this opinion piece written by Cal Thomas about a week ago and thought it worth linking here on this blog.

Here is an excerpt:

"Inclusivity has nothing to do with the foundational truths set forth in Scripture. The church, which belongs to no denomination, but to its Founding Father and His Son, is about exclusivity for those who deny the faith. The church is inclusive only for those who are adopted by faith into G0d's family. There are more biblical references to this than there is room to cite here, but for the Episcopal leadership, biblical references no longer have the power to persuade, much less compel them to conform. That's because Episcopal leadership has denied the teachings of Scripture in favor of, well, inclusivity, a word that appears nowhere in Scripture. Even if it did, Episcopal heretics — for that is what they are — would choose another word to make them feel more comfortable, since accommodation with the world seems to be a more important objective than the favor of G0d."

And here is the link to the article: link

The Frightening Thing About Health Care Reform

One of the things that frightens me most about this heatlh care "reform" that Obama and Washington are trying to shove down our collective throats is the rumor I've been hearing that my tax dollars will be used to pay for abortions.

If true, this would be abhorrent and unconscionable. I would have to seriously consider civil disobedience. They cannot compel a citizen to financially support something that his conscience and religious conviction abhors.

Can they?

The Dennis Miller Radio Show

My friend, Tom Sawyer, listens to the Dennis Miller Radio Show every day. Our local station only carries the first two hours, but Tom is faithful to it. Myself, I go back and forth between Dennis and Glenn Beck. Dennis is cool and laid back, Glenn is crazy and on the edge. I'm with whichever one fits my mood at the time.

A couple of days ago, Tom posted something about the Dennis Miller radio show on his blog and so the next morning I was over there at that station listening whereas I might not have been otherwise.

In the second hour, Dennis had, as his guest, Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina. Senator DeMint has recently published a book entitled Saving Freedom: We Can Stop America's Slide Into Socialism. He and Dennis had a great conversation in which Dennis, who is moderately conservative but radically funny, expressed the opinion that he thought Republicans went a bit far when they accused Democrats of being the enemies of liberty. In Dennis's opinion, this came off as a bit shrill. He asked DeMint for some examples of how Democrats sought to take away liberties. The examples DeMint gave were all economic examples. Dennis then wondered out loud if perhaps it would be better if Republicans were more specific in their criticisms by toning down the rhetoric to just "fiscal liberties." Wouldn't it be better, and more accurate, to say that Democrats were seeking to take away "fiscal liberties"?

Then, Dennis opined that he was a reasonable guy, and that, as a reasonable guy, he didn't mind giving up a portion of his income to help the down-and-out. DeMint's reply to that was great. He told Dennis that in his (Demint's) opinion, Dennis could do more to help the needy if he (Dennis) could keep his own money and distribute it himself rather than sending it to Washington.

(I wholeheartedly agree with Senator DeMint.

And, before I forget, let me add that it was primarily "fiscal liberty" over which the Revolutionary War was fought. All that soaring rhetoric about liberty which emanated from the pens and political stumps of our founders was first and foremost about "fiscal liberty." But I digress.)

That's when Miller ended the conversation by noting that he would be glad to disperse that money himself, but that he would have a hard time doing it from behind prison bars, which is exactly where he would be if he did not send his money to Washington.

Commercial break.

That's when I decided to call . . . and got through. Yes, I was shocked at how easy it was. The call screener asked me my name, where I was from, and what I wanted to say to Dennis. Two minutes later I was on the air.

Eat your heart out Tom Sawyer.

I was probably the worst caller of the day because I was so nervous. I tried to point out to Dennis that the good Senator DeMint and he had hit right on the crux of the issue with the whole "do what you want with your own money/but you can't do that from prison" exchange. This is what tyranny is, it is telling people that you (the government) know better what to do with a given individual's money than that individual and that if that you are going to take that individual's money (which represents his hands, his mind, his time, his risk, his work, his very worth) by threat of the sword and do better things with it than he can. The individual no longer works for himself and his own and his God. He now works for government so government can distribute to the collective. By-bye liberty.

I didn't do very well at expressing that on the radio, but I did pay Dennis a couple of compliments and he was able to turn them into very funny lines. I had an adrenaline rush for about two more hours and my wife was very, very impressed with me. I will certainly try calling again and maybe next time I'll do better.

Government and Tyranny

A cyber-friend who goes by the handle of One Salient Oversight has done me the kindness of answering one of my posts here in the comments section of that post. Since he is quite possibly my only reader at this point, and since my response to his comment became quite lengthy, I have opted to bring it out here to the front page. OSO is an Aussie, a nice guy, and a guy who knows how to disagree graciously. I hope I can return his graciousness and that we can both profit from our discussion.

OSO is a big-government liberal and our disagreement concerns the nature and purpose of government.

First let me quote him, then I'll respond.

OSO wrote: One counter-argument from the top of my head concerns sin. Sin affects both the individual and the community. To argue that the Biblical direction is more individualistic is to argue that the sins of the many outweigh the sins of the few (in a per capita sense). I would argue that sin affects both equally.

That's not my argument. My argument is that because of our sin nature, power tends to corrupt. I firmly believe the maxim: "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Though there are exceptions to the rule, history is replete with individuals who sought power for power's sake so that they could use it to tyrannize others. Give sinful man that much control over others and he tends to abuse it.

Think about it this way. Government is only necessary because of sin. Before sin, there was no need for the ten commandments. Man had God's law written on his heart, he obeyed willingly. When men sin government becomes necessary in order to execute justice and this is government's primary purpose.

The founders of our country believed this for they wrote about a Creator who had endowed us with certain unalienable rights and then they went on to delineate government's responsibility in protecting those rights. Government is about protecting the individual's liberty so that he may live free and be judged by God for how he lived in that final day. Every man's life is his own and he is responsible to God for how he lived it. It is imperative, therefore, that he be free to live that life as his conscience dictates and be judged by the just judge of the universe in that final day.

But, I've strayed. The point is that because of sin, men who have power tend to be corrupted by it. Governments, in reality, serve to perpetuate their own power and increase it. Governments never naturally shrink, they naturally grow.

Why is it that you think that you know better how others ought to live their lives than they do? And if you do, what gives you the right to enforce your viewpoint on them? You can, and should, seek to persuade men. You can, and should, take moral stands and proclaim truth and righteousness. But when do you get the right to enforce your viewpoint on another via the sword?

It is Charles Spurgeon who is credited with saying "A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still." This is why the marriage of church and state is a great evil. It does not make Christians of men, it only makes hypocrites and increases rebellion. Men who are born of God worship him freely.

We have every right to persuade men to come to Christ. We have no right to enforce our theological viewpoint on them. By the same token, we have every right to persuade men to give to the poor, but we have no right to reach into their pocket, take their hard-earned money, and give it to someone who has not earned it. If your name is not Government, that is called robbery and will get you in jail. Why do we think a crime can be made into a virtue by majority vote?



If I have money beyond what I need for my family, money I have earned by my labor and God's grace, and God gives me opportunity to give to another who is in need, and I do so, that is a virtuous act. God is glorified in that. But if I then go to my neighbor and by threat of physical violence compel him to give of his means to help someone else's need I have committed a grievous sin, a crime. But this is what socialist government does.

If I don't pay my taxes the government will put me in jail. But what does the government do with my money? It redistributes it to others. Gone is any virtue in my giving . . . because I was forced. Gone is any choice I had in where and how and to whom I should be charitable. Gone is my expendable income and any opportunity I might have to actually help others whom God might send across my path.

And what right do others have to tell me what to do with my money anyway? More to the point, what right does any given majority have to enforce its viewpoint on any particular individual on how he ought to use his money to help others? This is tyranny. It is the opposite of liberty.

Here's what the majority should do. It should seek to peaceably persuade others to commit acts of virtue freely, after having practiced those virtues themselves. Gone is the greedy, corrupt, wasteful, power-mongering middle-man called government. Intact is liberty. Intact is genuine charity. Intact is justice. Socialism destroys all three.

I have rambled on so far that I have forgotten my original point, but I think it was this: men are by nature corrupt, therefore their power over others should be very limited and very local and they should be held very accountable for their use of that power. The larger and more centralized a government is, the less it can be held accountable and under control.

Corporations Don't Pay Taxes

It's one in a long line of stupid, leftist, class warfare mantras often repeated by leftist, socialist politicians along with their leftist, socialist propagandists in the main-stream media. It usually goes something like this: "We're going to make those big corporations pay their fair share. It's about time somebody stood up to big tobacco, oil, pharmaceuticals, fill in your favorite villainous capitalistic enterprise here."



And people buy it.

My friend Tom Sawyer at The River is a lot less charitable to Democrat voters than I am. He thinks they are all stupid. While I don't agree, I have to admit that the fact that this little ploy always seems to work makes me wonder if Tom is right.

Corporations don't pay taxes.

I know, I know, I know. You point out to me that they collect and pay sales tax. Yes, they do. They also are responsible to pay a lot of other taxes in the form of fees and regulatory sanctions most of which we don't even know about.

I know.

But I'm still telling you that corporations don't pay taxes. Now, think with me for a minute.

One, corporations are not amorphous, impersonal entities. Corporations are owned by individuals. A tax on a corporation is a tax on the individuals who are shareholders in that corporation. Some of them are businessmen. Many of them are simply people who have retirement money wrapped up in mutual funds. They are teachers, doctors, factory workers, small business owners, salesmen, tradesmen, you-name-it. Average Joes. Raising taxes on a corporation is raising taxes on average Joe.

Two, a tax on a corporation doesn't just affect the shareholders, it affects the employees. Money that could have been used to give pay raises, bonuses, vacation pay, health benefits, you name it, to employees must now be diverted to the government. Hit the corporation with new taxes and you are just taking money away from the people who work for that corporation.

But number three is the real kicker. I really want you to pay attention to number three.

Three, when you tax a business, that business simply passes the tax burden on to the consumer in the form of cost increases. This is such a no-brainer I don't know why I even have to post about it. When the federal government taxes "Big Oil", "Big Oil" just raises prices at the pump and guess who has to pay those tax increases on "Big Oil"? Yep. You do.



When you voted for a Democrat so he could make "Big Oil" pay its fair share you really socked it to "Big Oil" didn't you.

Big Government Liberal?

A cyber-friend of mine posted an interesting piece on one of his blogs a few months back and since I am way out of the loop I just read it a few minutes ago. This friend is politically on the left while at the same time he has an evangelical faith. Those of you out there who are secularists might not be able to grasp that one, specifically those of you who think the term 'evangelical' is a political rather than a theological term. I'm not sure how this anomaly occurs (that of being an evangelical and a leftist) but I am almost certain it has to do with some sort of regressive genes and perhaps if our good friend Richard Dawkins were here he could explain how it might be a positive step in the evolutionary process.

(smile)

Anyway, here is what my friend One Salient Oversight wrote (I blanked out specific names of specific individuals because they were unimportant to the discussion at hand):

"I am not saying that my political stance is the way to go. One of the basic reasons of the disagreement between (...) and I is over politics. (...) is the small government is the only solution type. I am far more leftist in that regard and think largish government supported by higher taxes is a good thing. If that was all it was then I would have no problem with (...)'s politics. The problem with (...) is that he has taken on small government as being biblically taught. (...) therefore not only thinks that his political position is right, but also biblically mandated. That is where (...) and I differ. While I have leftist beliefs that I think are great there is no way I would argue that my position is biblical because neither position is backed up in scripture. Political ideology is one area that the Bible is broadly silent on and which therefore gives believers freedom to choose. (...) has taken an area of life that Christians are allowed liberty to choose in and turned it into a black/white biblical/unbiblical issue. Many of my disagreements with him have been about this very thing. I will expand this idea as I post about it."

First, let me say that I don't go to (...)'s blog, don't read what he writes at other blogs, frankly have never found him that compelling when I did read him (once upon a time), and have no desire to defend anything he has written. But what my friend OSO says in the quotation above intrigues me and I want to address some of it. Here goes:

"I am not saying that my political stance is the way to go. One of the basic reasons of the disagreement between (...) and I is over politics. (...) is the small government is the only solution type.

I, too, am a small-government-type. I don't arrive at that position by way of pragmatism, however, although I could. I arrive at it by way of principle. I believe small, decentralized government is the only way to go and that large central government is, by nature of the beast, always bad. Not that the concept is inherently bad, but that it always turns out bad due to the nature of the individuals who people it.

OSO goes on:

"I am far more leftist in that regard and think largish government supported by higher taxes is a good thing.

I find this interesting how we have almost come full circle on this left/right thing. Back in Thomas Jefferson's day he was considered a radical leftist because he championed the individual over government and thought big government was equal to tyranny. He is/was a classical liberal. Today, his position is held by no one on the American left. Modern liberals champion big government while individual liberty and Jeffersonian democracy were best represented in this last century by the Republican conservative Ronald Reagan. So in a weird twist of irony I am a classical liberal, aka conservative, while the big government conservative types of Jefferson's day find their ideology represented today on the American left.

OSO continues:

"If that was all it was then I would have no problem with (...)'s politics. The problem with (...) is that he has taken on small government as being biblically taught. (...) therefore not only thinks that his political position is right, but also biblically mandated. That is where (...) and I differ. While I have leftist beliefs that I think are great there is no way I would argue that my position is biblical because neither position is backed up in scripture. Political ideology is one area that the Bible is broadly silent on and which therefore gives believers freedom to choose. (...) has taken an area of life that Christians are allowed liberty to choose in and turned it into a black/white biblical/unbiblical issue. Many of my disagreements with him have been about this very thing."

Again, I have no desire to either learn or defend the positions of the individual cited above. But I think it is necessary to point out that I believe that a biblical world-view, consistently applied, will lead one to a position of favoring individual liberty to a large extent over big government. Government was instituted by God and some government will always be necessary. How much government is the question at stake and I do believe that my position is more theologically sound than that of One Salient Oversight. I would like the opportunity to expound upon that over time. I am sure that he will afford me that opportunity as well as give me the grace of responding thoughtfully to what I write.

And, I guess that means I am blogging again--but only sporadically.

Edmund Morris and Theodore Roosevelt

You may have heard of Edmund Morris. He was the official biographer of Ronald Reagan, hired by Ron and Nancy after writing the Pullitzer Prize winning The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. His eventual biography of Reagan, Dutch, was a controversial, some say reprehensible, flop. He was criticized by liberals and conservatives alike and himself confessed that he never really understood Reagan at all--this after having spent fourteen years with him and having complete access to all his papers, files, and correspondence. His style was a self-described post-modern new style of biography where he made up a fictional narrator (himself) and apparently made up a lot of other stuff too. In short, the book was horrid. Others have done much better with Reagan's life and presidency.

Yeah, that Edmund Morris.

I absolutely loved The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt and hope that some of you might read it too. You will fall in love with Teddy's character as the quintessential American and gain an appreciation for him even when rolling your eyes at some of his ideas and actions. The book paints a stunning portrait, stroke by stroke, of TR the man. While reading I wondered if TR wasn't a bit manic, but those eccentricities which led me to think that are also the bits that endeared me to him. Roosevelt comes off as a compelling contradiction, being on one hand an intellectual snob and on the other a leader and companion of the "rough riders."

I am now a few chapters into Theodore Rex, published twenty-two years after the first, but it feels like I have picked right up where I left off. The Rise gives us the story of TR from birth until right before his ascension to the presidency in 1901. Rex chronicles his two terms as President. If anything, the writing style has improved in the sequel (I wish I could write that well) and, though my reading time is limited these days, I plan to finish off its 600+ pages by Christmas. There is a planned third volume which will complete the "trilogy" and I hope Mr. Morris is working on it.