29. July 2010 by admin.

It’s not uncommon to see a patriot mistreated over the issue of immigration, usually by people who consider themselves part of the human rights/anti-racism movement. But while “global human rights” sound a little bit larger and more glamorous a struggle than “American rights,” both the glamor and resulting anger toward patriots ensue from a major misunderstanding of the importance of citizenship. 

In a proper republic, citizenship extends rights to those who are legally obligated to make sacrifices. We all get the chance to vote, and usually to receive some sort of economic safety net, and be protected by the police and firefighters, and benefit from the infrastructure created through taxation. We have the right to a trial by jury, the right to keep and use weaponry, the right to pursue a job, and the right to reside within our limited territory. But these rights are only inherited by our citizenry because they were paid for with the blood, sweat, and tears of both our ancestors and us.  Read the rest of this entry »

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25. July 2010 by admin.

There are many ways Christians know Jesus is God, but few more powerful than the testimony of His character.

For instance, as human beings we’re more than aware of our dependence upon other things, most notably through consumption. The human machine was built as a dependent object, something not only needing basic necessities such as food, air, and water, but also personal necessities such as the need to be loved and adored, the need to feel safe, and the desire to accumulate resources for survival.  At the base of our chemical, social, and spiritual existence, we’re really just needy beings, and at the very base of our need lies a personal connection: the need to experience our Creator, to know His presence, to have His guidance.

The average person–maybe even every person–can’t really give every second of the day to someone else without taking something, whether it be time, resources, or appreciation, so when we see people who impoverish themselves in order to give, many people are struck with a sense of admiration; as though, despite what we may all wish about humanity, perhaps charitable behaviors in the extreme were unnatural.  Or to put it another way, we all understand there’s no such thing as true human altruism.  And to a degree, we’re right. Read the rest of this entry »

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24. July 2010 by admin.

It’s an understatement to say that I’ve undergone some major changes over the past few years.  In 2001, I had just gone from being a fat and nerdy Christian homeschooler to being a drug-addled ultra-liberal party-boy, shedding my video games for the pursuit of women and a reckless lifestyle.  But not long after that, after college, after all the glamor of hedonism began to wear off and I began to feel deep hangover within my soul, I began to slowly drift back into conservatism.  And after that, Christianity.  And boy, did I ever swing back hard.

I swung so far to the right, actually, that my college “friends” we pretty worried.  After the overwhelming majority of them left me, I was stuck with my new self, a radically different person, since the one who’d lived a short while ago was for the most part dead.  But nowadays, even after explaining who I was to many mainstream Christian conservatives who know me (and the Leftists who seem to think that as a straight-laced conservative, I have no clue about Noam Chomsky, or drugs, or homosexuals), I seem to get a uniform explanation about why I swung into radical, unapologetic Christian conservatism.  Read the rest of this entry »

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21. July 2010 by admin.

It seems that almost since the dawn of modern American liberalism, accusations of conservative racism have been flying, and conservatives have been ineffectively wasting their time trying to fight them. But regardless of how vigorously the movement tries to defend itself, it’s not ever going to clear its name. From a leftist point of view, any conservative movement is “racist” in deeply rooted principle. Even the TEA Party, a strictly constitutional and financial movement which has nothing to do with racial issues, finds itself under attack for many of the same issues that any other conservative movement embraces, since its ranks are publicly known to consist of those who consider themselves “very conservative.” Read the rest of this entry »

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18. July 2010 by admin.

One of the most important necessities of true justice is that we apply it equally.  But while most on planet earth would readily agree that granting two people different verdicts for the same crime would be corruption, trends in the United States show us that our society is moving away from an equality-based law-system to one which considers the status of people instead of their actions.

As examples, a couple of major stories have caught the eye of Leftist “human rights” organizations lately. The first one, involving a police officer and two jaywalkers, resulted in an unruly pedestrian attacking the officer, which resulted in the assailant being punched in the face. The second story involved a Mexican smuggler being shot after he and his friends were throwing rocks at our border patrol agents. Read the rest of this entry »

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10. July 2010 by admin.

Editor’s note: this article first appeared on American Thinker, and can be found here

I can still remember, sometime back in my hipster days a couple of years ago, near the dawn of my own conservatism, entering a bar which used to be my favorite and having something tweak my brain in the strangest way.  There I was, with my long hair, a beard, pants tighter than my own girlfriend’s, and a bright blue members only jacket, entering the well-known hipster bar (at the time, anyway) known as The Cha-Cha Lounge and seeing a sign which read something along the lines of “We will not allow any racism, sexism, or bigotry, so stay out if you like these.”  Like I said, not an exact quote, but the sign had been there for years, and it’s probably still there.

The thing that struck me so powerfully about the sign wasn’t that they were specifically prohibiting certain kinds of offensive judgments, however, but the fact that this bar–this bastion of sleazy, Leftist, Seattle hipsterism–was prohibiting racial and cultural judgment, even though it was widely known to house some of the most judgmental Seattleites the city could afford.  I’d find out just how judgmental they were when I returned after getting a cheap “civilian” haircut and some mainstream American Eagle jeans, and suddenly I could hear people whom I didn’t know telling others, right in front of me, how they’d just been to some terrible “bro” bar filled with guys like me.  So thanks for fighting racism, guys.  I’m totally drenched in love. Read the rest of this entry »

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15. June 2010 by admin.

Earlier this week, I was surprised to discover that the Mormon church was using its money to buy a billion dollar mall in Salt Lake City.  Shockingly, the New York Times reports “When completed in 2012, it will encompass 900,000 square feet of retailing, including an outdoor pedestrian shopping mall capped by 115 apartments; 1.6 million square feet of office space in eight buildings; a grocery store; and five residential towers with about 600 condominiums.”  Yee-ikes.

My first reaction was one of outrage, my belief being that this project utilizes funds from its parishioners, who should be guaranteed proper stewardship of church property (while Deseret News reports that the funds came from Property Reserve Inc, the church’s real estate arm).  After all, when you pay 10% of your wages for the purpose of helping your particular ministry, you want it to fund something… holy.   But this is beside the point, since I’m not even a Mormon, which means I can’t hold them to Christian administrative standards, although those standards will be questioned later.  While there are certainly moral issues involved here, this massive expenditure raises serious questions about the separation of church, business, and state, the practical nature of philanthropy, and the nature of conservative values. Read the rest of this entry »

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13. June 2010 by admin.

Here in the Pacific Northwest, many people say that drug abuse is a medical problem, which leads them to oppose the criminalization of drug use.  Their stances against criminalization can vary anywhere from fining people for possession (”high” standards), to providing users with needles and giving the addicts places to inject themselves (really really low standards).  Either way, their argument is the same: they say the physical act of taking drugs doesn’t directly harm another person, and drug addicts have a medical problem relating to urges.

To be fair, those supporting de-criminalization are correct: when a person has an overwhelming urge to take a substance, they’re dealing with a set of chemical circumstances and urges that the general public doesn’t, and those urges are caused by the use of drugs. But legalizers forget a few very important things about drug addiction; most notably that once a substance is consumed, the substance alters the user’s set of urges to something very different than what they had before, while at the same time lessening inhibitions. This should lead us to wonder: do we have to excuse those urges, too?  After all, if the urge to take a drug is only a medical problem, then the urges following drug abuse must also be medical, since the only difference between a sober person and a deranged addict is the chemical imbalance resulting from drug use. Read the rest of this entry »

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11. June 2010 by admin.

These last few weeks, as Israel has been receiving nearly universal condemnation for searching a potentially terrorist convoy, it may seem that Israel is more trouble than they’re worth.  After all, the entire world is watching their every move, and sometimes it can seem that the United States is placing itself in a perilous position by giving its support to the Jewish nation.

But the purpose of this article isn’t to convince you that Israel is perfect, or that people in Gaza have been living in comfortable conditions, or even that Helen Thomas is a scoundrel for saying the things she said.  This article is to show you what Israel is, why it deserves your respect, why you need to be on its side in terms of national defense, and what blessings the world has received through it.  This is a celebration of the miracle of Israel. Read the rest of this entry »

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10. June 2010 by admin.

I’m not exactly sure how to begin writing about this, but I had an experience that made me think I was going to die today.  As I was sitting in the break room at work, I had a very sharp, sudden pain in the left side of my chest, about where my heart is.  The first incident I took as a random occurrence, but upon my second breath I realized something was wrong.  Another sharp pain split my chest, and I began to wonder whether or not this was really… it.

There were a few things that popped into my head as it happened, the first two being “not here” and  “not now.”  I suppose everyone thinks this as their life is coming to a close, as they begin to realize how fragile they were the entire time, and how much they’d taken their strength–and every possible misconception of invincibility–for granted.  If there’s one thing we can be sure of, it’s that not everyone is fortunate enough to die in battle, or to die rescuing someone, or to die a martyr, or doing anything with any purpose at all.  Actually, quite a few people kick the bucket and don’t have enough time to realize they’re about to meet their maker, and even less are likely to find Him even if they did.  But for some of us, there’s enough time to ponder what they did–and didn’t–do with their time. Read the rest of this entry »

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6. June 2010 by admin.

Any way you look at it, Americans are overtaxed.  There’s a tax for gasoline, and a tax for buying a car.  There’s taxation when you get paid, and taxation when you spend.  If you own a corporation, you have to pay ridiculous amounts of money for being a corporation, and if you just own a business, you have to pay taxes for unemployment funds.  If you buy a home, there’s a tax, and if you just sit in your home, there’s another tax.  If you’re in Washington State, you have to pay extra taxes for buying liquor and cigarettes, and if you want a carbonated beverage, you have to pay a special tax for that, too.  And the taxes are for one purpose: to ensure that the things our government pays for are paid for.

Now, it’s fairly obvious to everyone that despite our massive amounts of taxation, we’re still not meeting our budgetary demands (Currently, we’re facing a yearly deficit of 1.5 trillion, on top of last year’s 1.4 trillion.  To put this in perspective, our Fortune 500 only has a yearly net income of 391 billion dollars).  And despite the fact that we can’t pay for everything we want, both parties keep promising tax breaks to specific people.  Republicans want to tax everyone less, Democrats claim to want less taxation for the poor (a bizarre statement, since most truly poor people pay nothing in federal income taxes), and both sides use these arguments against their opponents every time an election season comes around.  This is especially ironic, since our progressively mounting deficit is being met with a political demand: that the person receiving the majority’s vote never win on the promise to responsibly raise taxes across the board. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in politics, economy | Print | 3 Comments »

30. May 2010 by admin.

“The LORD abhors dishonest scales,
but accurate weights are his delight.” -Proverbs 11:1

“Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly.” -Leviticus 19:15

Americans tend to take a pretty strong stance against cruel and unusual punishment, having been a colony governed by barbaric England.   But it’s interesting to note that while our system of justice prohibits reckless physical revenge, those suffering at the hands of greedy lawyers can be subject to whatever economic penalty an empathetic judge or jury desires.

For instance, a woman filed a discrimination lawsuit against NASCAR, worth $225 million, and she got her money.  Lawyers can also prowl nursing homes looking for clients with vague stories about “abuse.”  Allbusiness.com reports that lawyers in Florida were able to find clients in nursing homes after an active search, and took home half of their clients’ individual $750,000 payouts.  A young woman’s family once sued Honda for $65 million after she drank herself into a stupor, backed her car into a lake, and drowned because she couldn’t unbuckle her seatbelt.  The jury awarded the money, although an appeals court (luckily) threw the case out later. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in philosophy, politics | Print | 1 Comment »

29. May 2010 by admin.

I have to admit a bit of bias before getting to the meat of the matter, here: I’ve always gotten along well with Asian students, particularly northern ones.  During my several years in California’s school system, I never once had a problem with a rude Asian student, never had one steal from me, never knew one who broke the law (although I’m sure they exist, somewhere), never was physically threatened by one, and never had one blame me for any of their shortcomings or demand a handout.  In short, I have no history of bad interactions with Asian students, and to be quite frank, it’s left me with a good impression of them.

So it should come as no surprise to my readers that I’m particularly angered by the UC system, as they’re purposely seeking to lower admissions standards to rid themselves of many of their Asian students.  Not only is this institutional envy shameful and socially dysgenic, but also a poor form of business.  Asians didn’t dominate the UC system by whining like other races, after all.  They became a large portion of the student body by having a superior work ethic and a culture geared toward academic success.  If success is a reason to bar anyone from a college system, you must be a Democrat.  Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in politics, cultural/racial | Print | 4 Comments »

24. May 2010 by admin.

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:

a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,

a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,

a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance, Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in politics | Print | 2 Comments »

14. May 2010 by admin.

Recently,  Nancy “Bibles” Pelosi told the Catholic clergy that amnesty legislation is “a manifestation of our living the Gospels.”   Now, to be fair, Nancy isn’t alone: many Christians today pursue a type of social justice that can result if someone takes Christ’s words out of context, and due to either laziness or outright disregard refuses to look at the big picture.  So what does the Bible actually say about immigration?

As Christians, all must admit that Pelosi is right about a couple of things.  First off, Jesus commanded us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, and that means treating them with generosity.  But while Jesus absolutely commanded us to love our neighbors as ourselves, and spoke positively about individuals belonging to unpopular minority groups to show that His teachings apply to everyone, Pelosi and liberal Christians forget that the Gospels aren’t Christ’s first message, and that Christ had already made specific statements about how to engage in government.  After all, His own personal style of government was given through Moses in the Old Testament. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in philosophy, cultural/racial | Print | 1 Comment »

25. April 2010 by admin.

Almost every American is aware that our prison system needs to be reformed, but it seems that nobody has a viable solution.  To understand the immensity of the problem we’re facing, consider these four major issues:

#1: Prisons are too expensive

In 2009, Reuters reported that imprisonment costs Americans $29,000 per prisoner (more than my wages last year), and 51.7 billion total on corrections (including local jails, probation, parole).

#2: High rates of recidivism

A 2002 Bureau of Justice Statistics study showed that after three years, 67.5% of prisoners were arrested after release, and 51.8% were back in prison.  So our prison system isn’t reforming the overwhelming majority of criminals.

#3: A criminal’s ability to blend in allows them to strike again, or to breed

Without a way to recognize criminals, they can strike again after leaving prison.  And they leave unfathered children all over our states, contributing to neighborhood poverty and crime. Read the rest of this entry »

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24. April 2010 by admin.

Editor’s note: Although I wrote this article, it borrows so heavily from the work of others that I can’t claim credit for it.  For a list of resources, videos, and organizations responsible for this and similar work, please see the end of the article. Thanks!

Almost every American today is aware that biological beings are constructed and maintained by using the language of DNA.  But how on earth did DNA come to exist in the first place? 

Let us consider for a moment that the theory of human evolution is true, and that–for some unknown reason–lightning hit a pool of primordial goo billions of years ago, leading some small portion of protein-saturated matter into surviving life.  In order for us to exist today, that living organism must have reproduced.  And if it needed to reproduce, it had to have some form of DNA/RNA.  Without DNA/RNA, the life form would be completely incapable of replication.

Now, what exactly are DNA and RNA? They are one-dimensional programming codes for three-dimensional beings.  By translating these one-dimensional codes, a living being is able to build–piece by piece, in sequential order–another living, functional organism.  And as one might imagine, without the ability to process DNA properly by copying it and reading it properly (a very complex process done by a series of complex machines), the next organism which it would have reproduced could not have been built. Read the rest of this entry »

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18. April 2010 by admin.

Editor’s note: when reading this article, rest assured that I am not pointing my finger at my readers while sitting on my high horse.  I specifically fail at more than a few of these “loser” categories (particularly in playing video games [although not in any extreme way], not keeping my mind pure, not working enough, cursing, and at one point in my life engaging in embarrassing metrosexuality).  If you read this article and think that you escaped judgment on everything mentioned below, you’re lying to yourself.  Every single man needs work, and this outlines the archetype for a good man.  Thanks for reading!

Where have all the real men gone?

For the past 50 years or so, real manhood has been disappearing, and the effects couldn’t be more clear: men are dropping out of school, leaving their families behind, and generally turning into the abominable video-game playing man-child.  The last twenty years have seen the metrosexual community gain a foothold in American society, the overtly-feminine readers of Men’s Health magazine focusing their lives not on inner strength, but on gaining abs or worse–shaving their chests more neatly.  And as the homosexual advocacy movement seeks to erase any and all boundaries for proper gender norms, turning what could have been Joe Dimaggios and John Waynes into Regis Philbins and Perez Hiltons, we have to wonder: can we please go back to having real men again? Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in philosophy, cultural/racial | Print | 2 Comments »

11. April 2010 by admin.

With welfare, traditional American ideas have generally differed in one of two ways: either the lazy and immoral poor must be able to leech the public treasury through a liberal system of welfare, or we must let the truly unfortunate fall through the cracks with a more libertarian approach.   Either way, the American public has been forced to deal with one of two evils.  And quite frankly, neither one is just.

But supposing we could devise a compromise between the two systems, in which the moral poor could receive a hand up without giving the immoral poor a hand-out, we could strike a deal which both Republicans and reasonable Democrats would appreciate.  The funny thing about this compromise is that, for Christian conservatives, the answer has been under our noses almost since the beginning of civilization. Read the rest of this entry »

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1. April 2010 by admin.

Seems strange to say, but the truth is that America could use a little more discrimination and failure.  

Now, before getting too far along, I should clarify something: by “discrimination” I do not mean racial prejudice, but rather the idea that the people of the United States must prefer some moral codes and behavioral trends over others. 

You see, the genius of America is that instead of having a short-sighted and often distanced leadership engaging in an oftentimes untrustworthy and corrupt discrimination, the economy, the neighborhood, and the government are intended to function with a kind of democratic discrimination.  This is something which an increasingly larger population of Americans seems to disagree about, but despite what some may say, the very value of discrimination is based upon three things which almost every sensible person agrees about: different societies with different worldviews will produce different behavioral results, the results will not be equally preferable, and people must necessarily be allowed to have preferences on those behavioral results.  It is completely impossible for a free country–or any country–to exist without these principles. Read the rest of this entry »

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29. March 2010 by admin.

Editor’s note: the end of this article contains implied use of vulgarities from other liberal writers who oppose American Clarity’s position. Tread carefully!

A short while ago, Don McLeroy and other Texas conservatives decided they’d had enough: liberal indoctrination of their children had been crossing boundaries for too many decades, teaching values which opposed the very foundations of conservatism.  And so one day, he and a band of other Texas school board members decided that Texas would be different.  They decided that Texas would spend class time talking about different aspects of American history than what had been considered adequate for decades.  Predictably, the backlash was vicious: the anger expressed by liberals has been predictably foul (by historical standards), and at times even terrifying.

So what exactly did McLeroy and his board do to cause all the rage?

In a short list from the liberal Huffinton Post, the Texan conservatives wanted to:

1) Teach about the values of the free market, and how America was intended to achieve economic success with less government intervention (see: The Wealth of Nations, written by an incredibly important historical figure whom liberals tend to forget, Adam Smith).

2) They didn’t want to spend as much time on one of our most humanistic (read: liberal) founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson, and instead decided to discuss the speeches of Jefferson Davis–The President of the Confederacy, an important person in American history–alongside those of Abraham Lincoln. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in cultural/racial | Print | 1 Comment »

28. March 2010 by admin.

Editor’s note: this Facebook discussion with a very intelligent evolutionist resulted after I created my sarcastic Facebook group (”Evolution affects my worldview on everything except racism and human rights”).  I felt that the conversation was too important to disregard, especially since it highlights critical arguments and topics regarding both evolution, intelligent design, and how racism is impacted by either philosophy.  I hope you enjoy this, and if  you decide to be persuaded by my side of the argument, feel free to join my group :)

Me: Just started my new group: “Evolution affects my worldview on everything except racism and human rights.”  Obviously I’m a Jesus guy, so don’t take this page seriously. Join it if you realize that evolution and human rights/racial equality are completely incompatible, and you’d like to make fun.  [Quote from group] “We also do not believe in social Darwinism, because every evolved monkey deserves a chance to feel good about themselves and have an education before they die a meaningless death on a rock which is flying in outer space. As such, we enjoy demonizing the rich for not sharing the wealth they accrued through superior adaption.”

Brad:  I guess for an evangelical Christian such as yourself, it would make a lot of sense to derive your worldview from your understanding of nature. Now, I’m not saying this approach is wrong, but without a good epistemic reason for doing so, it is not necessary. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in philosophy, Theology | Print | 1 Comment »

21. March 2010 by admin.

One of the Seattle’s silly quirks is that if you’re a conservative, people will often think you’re a libertarian, and libertarians oftentimes consider themselves to be conservatives.  From what I can tell, this confusion comes from Seattle’s (and the Left’s) strong record of vicious fighting against social conservatism, which makes conservatives terrified about taking social stances in public, which leads to something similar to libertarianism (as libertarianism is a combination between liberalism’s severely limited control upon sexual/substance morality and conservatism’s supposedly lax business standards).  But even beside differences in social liberalism, it’s easy to see that libertarianism and conservatism are irreconcilably different in too many ways to even consider them similar. 

Because of these differences and the fact that libertarianism seems to be gaining serious ground in the Republican party, our knowledge about the two governmental philosophies is absolutely essential: we must be clear about what we want, and what we mean when we use words like “conservative.”  So for my many wonderful libertarian friends who think they’re conservative, and my other friends who think I’m a libertarian, here is a quick primer on the philosophical differences between the two. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in philosophy, politics | Print | 2 Comments »

26. February 2010 by admin.

When Americans believed in Truth, they used to say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.  That is to say, just because a plan of action has a noble purpose doesn’t necessarily guarantee a noble outcome, kinda like the plan to save homeowners from the horrors of foreclosure.  While appearing as a noble goal upon first glance, after a deeper look at the policy is taken, whether due to miscalculation or corruption we find that the only people truly benefiting from his attempts are powerful bankers.

To clarify before making my point, having a banking system is healthy, but investment lending and consumptive lending are two completely different things.  While investment lending lends money for the purpose of potentially increasing the income of the borrower either through business or education, consumptive lending does not potentially increase the wealth of the borrower.  Borrowing money to go to school should result in a higher income for the borrower, after which he or she should be more financially secure than before.  On the other hand, consumptive lending for televisions has no effect upon the borrower’s income, while allowing him to buy something he couldn’t otherwise afford. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in politics, economy | Print | 1 Comment »

20. February 2010 by admin.

When I was a 19 year-old non-Christian, I argued that if the Bible was true, sin was God’s fault. At the time, it made sense to me that sin was a result of biochemical survival, in which an entire being’s existence is predicated upon—in theory—selfishness. Without the drive to eat and procreate and amass wealth for safety, the concept of sin seemed meaningless, and I was well aware that Adam and Eve had been eating in the Garden of Eden.

Of course, what eating implies is that the capability for sin already existed before Adam and Eve had eaten the forbidden fruit, since satiation and perfect circumstances prevented the need for selfishness. But when God expelled us from the Garden, that is when our real problems began, making the present-day human evils more His fault than anyone else’s. As a young socialist keen on the idea of crime reduction through government subsistence for all—an idea I now firmly reject—it seemed sensible enough to conclude that God had built us to fail, as though God should have built us differently so that sin wouldn’t have had to exist. Read the rest of this entry »

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11. February 2010 by admin.

Editor’s note: This article was written for a brother in Christ who’d brought this important topic up earlier.  Here’s to you, buddy. 

Oftentimes, those opposing an establishment of a so-called religiously-affiliated morality in government will argue that people who adopt and promote Christlike standards are the same kind of Pharisees who not only failed to meet God’s standards, but who ultimately killed Jesus.  Sometimes they’ll argue this point because they wish to engage in sinful behavior, and other times because they don’t believe enforcing religious morality is conducive to liberty, but the argument is always the same: people should keep their religious beliefs out of the legal system.

Either way, both parties agree on one point, which is the danger presented by a unified church/government structure like the historic Papacy or yesteryear’s Anglican church.  But whether or not the state formally declares a separation of church and state, there are only two realistic theological declarations a state can make regarding this issue.  The first is that God does exist and our entire existence is therefore predicated upon Him and His law.  The second is that He does not exist and our entire existence is futile, directionless, and entirely encapsulated in three concepts: pleasure, pain, and death.   It would be incredibly misleading to have a government which declares the sovereignty of God but does not enforce any of His principles, or a government which refuses to acknowledge His existence and yet takes stances only a theist can take. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Theology | Print | 1 Comment »

5. February 2010 by admin.

No American is actually a constitutionalist.

Although the kind of rights guaranteed by the federal government are hailed by both parties as essential, the truth is that they are absolutely impractical on a local level, almost everyone disagrees on their universal application, and both parties violate the constitution’s broad stance on many issues.  Conservatives, for instance, will say that freedom of speech is intended to protect political and religious speech, while Liberals say that freedom of speech is also intended for dirty language and suggestive themes on daytime television, but not “hate” speech. Both parties prosecute pedophiles for baiting children with words on the internet, you can’t yell “FIRE!” in a crowded theater or divulge your intent to kill someone, The FCC exists, it is illegal to disclose classified information, and we currently do not allow people to advertise for Christian roommates.  And even though most agree that infringement is absolutely necessary in the first five of these, these cases are all still unconstitutional infringements upon the first amendment. Read the rest of this entry »

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27. January 2010 by admin.

Christ is perfect, you are not.

Although easy to understand and easier to admit, the full reality of personal imperfection in the face of Christ’s perfection is incredibly difficult to live with.  In fact, as a young Christian, this is one of the most difficult and bothersome concepts to abide by, and oftentimes–if we’re being honest with ourselves–rather depressing.

For instance, in one of the Apostle Paul’s most terrifying writings, he states the following:  “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Theology | Print | 2 Comments »

23. January 2010 by admin.

Earlier this week, the US Supreme Court ruled that corporations have the right to constitutional liberties, since they are run by individuals with rights protected by the US constitution (most notably freedom of political speech and the right to organize their candidates for election).  The immediate response by left-wing news stations was one of horror and disgust, with the likes of Keith Olbermann even saying that–now that corporations have constitutional access to their own funding and consciences–every conceivable science-fiction political nightmare is now possible.  Here are fourteen of the horrors Keith described, ranging anywhere from hilarious to beneficial (the latter type being obvious for those who appreciate the laws of God, and at the very least frown upon the injustices of Marxism):

1) In ten years, every politician in the US would be a corporate prostitute

2) the existence of unions (editor’s note: the organizations responsible for both a) changes in the taxation of health care plans which taxed 40% for non-union members, and b) for the collapse of our auto and manufacturing industries) would be threatened

3) taxation would become flat, and government spending will decrease Read the rest of this entry »

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10. January 2010 by admin.

A short while ago, I found myself in a conversation with an organic soap-maker at the Pike Place Market.  To be fair, his soap was very high-quality stuff, but I found one serious problem with it: the soap was exorbitantly priced.  Since I was dealing with the soap-maker himself and had the option of purchasing a slightly lower quality soap in bulk for a far more affordable price (less than $5 a bar, thank goodness), haggling seemed my best option.  So haggle I did.

What I found was that the soap-maker couldn’t sell me on the quality of the bar at that price, and he knew this–as he didn’t put up much of a fight.  But what he then said to me has puzzled me ever since: the reason I should buy the soap, he said, was because he paid his soap-makers $18 an hour, which is more than I currently make at the moment.  Not sold on the idea, I smiled, declined, and took off.  I’d later go on to buy about 17 more bars for about three bucks more. Read the rest of this entry »

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