I’ve made reference on this blog to a trend that seems to be active in all the major faith traditions that fits into what I understand as a type of “revitalization”. This first came to my attention as we were approaching Y2K-remember? It was as though the leadership in all the major traditional faiths were trying to lead the faithful to prepare for the new century by renewing or re-capturing the original passion/vision of their particular organization.
When I read what my friend Tom Ascol wrote for a local Tampa area Christian newsletter, I thought to myself, here is a perfect example that this trend is heating up within the Southern Baptist Convention. I will post only part of the article here but encourage you to read the entire piece.
As president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, (President )Mohler gave an opening semester address to students today on “The Future of the SBC.” Comparing the SBC to General Motors, Mohler warned that if Southern Baptists are unwilling to reexamine their principles and priorities in order to become more faithful to the message and mission of Jesus Christ, they may well find themselves, like the giant auto maker, with a more glorious history than hopeful future.
At their annual meeting in June of this year, SBC President, Johnny Hunt, appointed a “Great Commission Task Force” to study the current state of the convention and bring back recommendations for next year’s meeting in Orlando. Many are already looking to that report as a harbinger for the kind of future that awaits Southern Baptists. As Mohler articulated the issue today, will Southern Baptists become more committed to Jesus Christ and his mission or continue to cling to old tribal and bureaucratic ways that served fairly well for most of the twentieth century?
To read full article, The Southern Baptist must change or die.
Daily Telegraph – RESIDENTS in poorer communities would be given vouchers to buy nutritious meals, while damaging levels of fat, sugar and salt in popular foods would be cut to make Australia healthier and leaner. Cigarette prices would also rise by about $5 a pack and some popular alcoholic drinks would be slugged with extra tax as part of a health blueprint to be unveiled by the Rudd Government. The Daily Telegraph can reveal that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s handpicked taskforce recommended a “health compact” between government and the $70 billion food sector aimed at improving the nutritional value of everyday supermarket items.
This is what you get when you embrace socialized health. If you look at the above, on the surface it’s a tax on fat, sugar, salt, booze etc. Now many would argue that these things are not as bad for you as it’s being made out to be, but for the sake of argument, let’s just assume that the government are right, that salt, sugar, fat etc are all bad for you. Well so what if they’re bad for your health, what business is it of the government what you eat and how it affects your health.
I’ll tell you why and how, because of socialized health. What you eat and how you live your life has to be the taxpayer’s business, the taxpayer is giving money to the government who in turn funds healthcare in this country with that money. If your neighbor was taking money from you every month, you would rightly want to know what he/she is spending it on, you are entitled to it. And if they are spending it on the wrong things, then you have a right to demand otherwise.
So in essence, your diet is my business and my drinking is yours. I don’t like this, but this is what we want, enough of us are not prepared to take responsibility for our own health, we insist that everyone else must share the costs so we must be pushed around and hectored by representatives of the government. Or in this case pay a tax of some sort for daring to eat fat, salt and sugar.
If we refuse to take responsibility, we must be stripped of our liberty, we have not earned it and we do not deserve it.
And those of you pondering the joys of socialized health, take a good look, this is what awaits you further down the track, not the utopia that the snake-oil salesman is promising now.
I sometimes wonder if I just need to stop reading the internet. Since I returned to the world of mass media (i.e. this morning) I have been made sequentially angry by 9 things, and was planning a fairly serious In Brief about them until the 10th thing came along and just overwhelmed my capacity to think for a while.
I haven’t seen anything like this in a while. In brief, the SciFi (or possibly SyFy? WTF?) channel got criticised for being behind the curve on presenting homosexuality in an appropriately neutral way. They Did the Right Thing ™ about this, and apparently outraged some idiots by responding appropriately and swiftly to having it pointed out that they’d been acting like bigoted fucks.
I’d never heard of John C. Wright before. Apparently he’s a DC lawyer, which makes him dangerous. From what he says, I suspect he may also be a Fundamentalist puritan; he certainly seems to have slept through the Enlightenment altogether. From an inauspicious beginning:
The head of Sci-Fi channel has contritely promised to include more homosex [sic] in future shows, and to do it nonchalantly, just as if this abomination is normal and natural and worthy of no comment. The shows will not actually come out and say sexual perversion has no bad side effects. They won’t actually lie and tell you homosex won’t destroy your life. But they will imply the lie.
… WTF? He goes on to explicitly equate homosexuality and consensual sado-masochism with…
Love affairs with corpses, small children, and farm animals will also be on display in a natural nonchalant fashion in the new raft of progressive shows
Consensual adult homosexuality is equivalent to incest, paedophilia, necrophilia and bestiality? Really, counselor?
Someone explain to me by what series of events persons with serious sexual-psychological malfunctions would somehow be awarded the status of moral arbiters, something like priests and confessors and sages
So, being gay is a “serious sexual-psychological malfunction”, is it? Er, I’m fairly sure that even your legendarily bigoted and socially conservative nation figured out this wasn’t true some 35 years ago.
Is an irrational lust and longing to mimic the mating act with a sex with which one cannot mate, at its root, any more or less disconnected to reality than an irrational fear and hatred of a Negro? How do we know race-hate is not genetic?
Oh, right, so in fact this is just a fundy rant; homosexuality is not genetive and it is therefore an abomination? Failure of logic, Mr. Wright. We’re already over-populated; sexualities which are not genetive are a survival trait right now. Much more importantly, even the bloody bonobo monkeys have figured out there’s more of the social to sex than there is of the conceptual (see what I did there?).
Others are better able to deconstruct this idiot than me. One of them is Hal Duncan, whose rebuttal is detailed, erudite and written in a fantastic parody of the pseudo-intellectual language employed by John C. Wright.
I regularly look at someone’s opinions and think, “Well, ok, you’ve not been exposed to some basic concepts here, so I can understand your philosophical delusion”. The child raised by evangelical fundamentalist parents, who has never been permitted access to non-Fundie television programming, pop music or books; this person is going to be a bit confused about homosexuality. They’re likely to believe it is something only men do, that gay men are 100% coherent with paedophilic men, and so on. Such a person may, if they employ their mind and gain access to real information rather than propagandist fantasies, be able to acquire an education. Someone may be able to teach them to think, some day.
John C. Wright is a lawyer, and as such a public figure. He works in DC, which last time I looked contained something like 1/10th of the total number of lawyers on the planet [1]. He must, by the nature of US legal training, have been exposed to real information about homosexuality; he must have received an education in ethics. No Washington lawyer can possibly have avoided contact with the basic doctrine of human equality.
Therefore, a man in Wright’s position who holds the view that homosexuality is a psychosis equivalent to paedophilia, parent/child incest and necrophilia, can only hold such opinions via a conscious act of will. This man has declared to the world “I am a practicing idiot: I am as bad as George W. Bush when it comes to ‘evidence-based’ reasoning. I am what is wrong with America, and I’m proud of it”.
[1] Circa 2000 I read that the US of A had perpetrated just over half of the species’ total lawyer problem. Given that about one fifth of the lawyers in America at that time worked in DC I arrived at the idea that Washington contains circa 10% of the world’s lawyers. This could have gone up or down during the Bush years without me noticing.
Introduction:
Federal debt is represented by paper money, which is used as a legal tender, even though the power of congress excludes all forms of money not coined. To ‘paper’ is to make by papering, just as to ‘coin’ to to make by coining. Government powers currently exercised, are being done by a usurpation of powers never delegated by those holding the power to do so. Usury and Usurp are both derived in the same way. Usury is the fee incentivizing the use of wealth through investment by loans. The higher the incentive is, the higher the hardship is for the source of income. The more the burden is spread, the better the returns should be, except when liquidity becomes clogged because of excessive bonus’. Real Estate used to be considered no risk loans, until speculation played a part, which is the only reason the United States can continue to operate. A hood to cover the robbers, as it were, Robin Hood. There are more poor people then there are rich, the level of burden is proportional to the number burdened. If every living person in the United States sent me $1, I would have nearly $300,000,000 which would go unnoticed or relatively inconsequential to each of the many contributors, and outrages is minimal from the many, compared to the outrage of one. When considering what the proper compensation should be for a employees, we should ask a simple question, if trapped on a deserted island, does the skillset being employed improve the conditions of being stranded?
Your actions in the public eye, determine the degree of speculation upon which your private actions are judged.
The End of Times is a time for reasoning, a time for judgement by the people of the evils committed against them by their governments. The length of time that has passed without Justice, is proportional to the amount of detriment that follows when awakening begins to unfold, as if interest accrued as compensation for the length of time the burden of loss affected them. This was horribly true with the Reign of Terror in france in the 18th Century.
When you rely on a legion of men, who, in ancient times, had an interests in controlling the passions of man, reasoning will get you nowhere, and liberty is lost. -Genemesis (Me)
Debt Oppression:
Basically, the federal government loans out this representation of debt, and requires that all incomes owe money to the federal government, apparently a charge on the right to work, which is no different than charging poll taxes. If government taxes an inalienable right, then they are tyrants, not supporters of our constitution. Every constituent part of our economy is taxed over and over again, which in itself creates the inflation and non-competitiveness we have in the marketplace. Corporate taxes are of this nature as well. It works out better for government when we’re exporting goods, because it acts as an export tax on all goods sold. This is why industries have gone overseas. As we get more expensive to run our government, the cost of those products increase drastically. This is only part of the economic manipulation that has been occuring, and since the Federal Reserves existance, which was intended to prevent certain less noticeable recessions, has caused even more dangerous and oppressive recessions & depressions the world has ever know. And we keep trying to recruit other nations to join in on our economic system, when doing so would rob them of their wealth, for the socialized risks the banks take on their behalf, but premised by self-interest.
Compensation Practices:
So you have paper handed to you for compensation of work completed. It’s value changes from day to day, usually decreasing as time goes on, making work you did yesterday, worth less. The perception of getting a raise is a false one. It’s a tool to prevent nationwide strikes, and party opposition. It supports the unfair business practices of corporations to avoid paying as much as possible so that they can profit more from keeping pay low, which though appears as if they are appreciated and deserving of pay increases, but instead the value of the employee doesn’t increase, the value of money decreases, creating that perception, and usually shows an increase in the cost of living over the adjustment made for inflation.
Law of Contracts:
Natural law requires that all contracts must be entered into with the consent of 2+ parties, whose obligations are equal to the benefits. Injustice occurs when the contract is breached by one party, after creating a burden upon which the other relied, or receiving the benefits without compensation that establish their obligations. In such a case, in order for justice to be served, it is required that restitution be made in order that expenses or losses that were incurred due to the breach of contract. The United States enters into an agreement upon issuance of money in the form of paper. The paper does not contain within the representation, any actual value. Coins, however, contain a value of the metal used in the value it represents. This makes a payment in coins, a debt paid in full having traded the value of of the trade, with it’s equal value represented in metals coined. Making an exchange of debt as legal tender, prevents the true value from being set. Inflation occurs so that people will perceive a value worth more than it does in reality. If debt had real value, then the notes on that debt would be a legal tender also, and merely handing them over as a payment for the debts you are owe by someone else, carries with it the burden of collecting. A person should be able to buy the same amount of copper contained in a penny, with a penny. The goal of any businessman, is to make demand exceed availability, thereby increasing the value of the commodity. When government is the consumer, supply and demand should not play a part in the price under any circumstances, especially when purchased with paper money. Acquiring metals and processing them for coining, acquires a specific value related to the metals represented and remain stable over time.
Deception Concept:
Politicians use many tools of deception in order to accomplish things that otherwise couldn’t be accomplished otherwise. One example is educational considerations. Teachers are used as a primary tool that people, more often than not, will invoke less opposition to tax increases. They usually contain provision to be reallocated for other purposes at the discretion of the legislative body. Since this is a tool, it seems logical now why there are so many departments that exist in the Federal Government, even though they have no authority delegated to it by the Constitution. Each state is governed by a single state government, not in a hierarchy of State and Substate as it may appear currently. It is not in any way the hierarchy that individual states, using charters to provide for county governments, which provide for city/village/town charters, and others. The Constitution of the states are independent, and not the result of acts by the Federal Constitution. Ignorance sanctions improper practices within government, setting precedent that makes the precedent equal to legal merely because nobody has spoken out, or put an end to such practice over a period of several years. Our Representation has departed from the local intersts, as the sentiments were of the King at the time independence was declared, the continuation of this perception to make laws over the will of the state, is contrary to the written will of the people.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, I don’t see why we have allowed it to go this far. We never have the federal government a power to borrow from the people, so they can profit off of what they borrow, as well as altering the value through inflation, and taxing a persons gross earnings held by him as unpaid debt of the government collecting the same to prevent inflation. It’s oppressive. And then realizing that they determine the wealth of a bank, which takes more then its fair share, because any money being printed extracts the paper currency through income taxes, reducing the affects of inflation. It allows bankers to give themselves millions of dollars at the cost of other holders of the same type of paper. If the system was properly conceived, then we’d have fewer criminals holding high positions of government, and no taxes on individuals for holding debt owed by the government, which will never repay the debt. Not as long as borrowing remains so profitable, and the majority of people pay for the right to be a creditor to the general government. If the people do not have the power to determine how much of their mortgage payment is a tax upon the bank for doing business with it, then there is no power at the federal level, since it would have had to have been delegated by the same people.
Disclaimer:
Started getting tired after sitting and writing for as long as I have, so I apologize if my editing/review process may have caused. Comments welcome, both positive and negative construction.
As I get more in to flowers, fabrics and collecting vintage bits and bobs I think of my Grandma a lot. Amazing vase finds always bring a whiff of her home to me.
A garden full of hectic hydrangeas, garden roses and asters welcomed and teatime with proper flowery teacups and an eccles cake warmed. Happy days.
Wonder what she’d make of my yen for glassware, a bristols cream sherry, how I like my cuppa yorkshire style, a daft collection of cakestands and being a florist now?
Till the mischief be grown general, and the ill designs of the rulers become visible, or their attempts sensible to the greater part, the people, who are more disposed to suffer than right themselves by resistance, are not apt to stir.
The examples of particular injustice, or oppression of here and there an unfortunate man, moves them not. But if they universally have a persuation, grounded upon manifest evidence,that designs are carrying on against their liberties, and the general course and tendency of things cannot but give them strong suspicions of the evil intention of their governors, who is to be blamed for it?
-John Locke, The Second Treatise of Civil Government
I really do have no clue who “Katie” is, but the gravity being associated with the announcement indicates that this particular chappy is famous. Here’s even a picture of him, looking as if he has bought some chips on a plastic thingy:-
Mine's a large one, squire!
The chips are the good bit: it shows just how against the prevailing grain of GramscoFabiaNazism that this Katie chap’s opinions about “healthy eating” are. This is good and right. He may go far in the libertarian movement yet.
But, sadly, Mr Katie clearly does not know either which sort of dress suits him, nor does he know when to stop applying the fake tanning lotions, or else he does not listen to his Gestapo-minders sufficiently closely.
Mr Katie is going to feature more on here I have decided. He is going to be used as a “do not end up like me” lesson for younger readers of this Classical liberal archive, of whatever sex. Even though he is about 90.
His legs aren’t that great either.
A libertarian society would probably have some of these men working in it. I do not complain. But they would probably earn less in an average lifetine of two years each, and would not be as universally-highly-regarded through the Wireless Tele Vision. They might earn something like an “average wage”, and would marry blameless and sensible platerers and brickies, and disappear harmlessly up their own chuffers.
Perhaps the problem with modern __/post-civilisation/__ celebrities is that the mechanism of the process of killing them for the crowd to attain their _/Aura/_ after their death is misunderstood and lost. I do not for one moment suggest that the killing of this man Katie for his “aura”, whatever it might consist of, should be done. But there clearly is something about the “aura” of these people, which makes it possible for GramscoStalinist administrations to use them to keep “the masses” in a state of consciousness that even Marx would have considered as “not sufficiently raised”.
What I also think is unfair is that this Katie man can eat his fatty unhealthy chips any time he likes, while ordinary poor children in “schools and hospitals” are bullied into not being allowed them.
