Raging Against the Machine?

I posed this question on (inyour)Facebook the other day.

“Obama professes to be a born again believer. Giving him the benefit of the doubt that this is true, how should that affect our attitudes and actions towards him and what he does as a fellow believer? Or to pose it another way, is it possible to rage against the machine without raging against the Creator who placed the machine there?”

Unsurprisingly, I have an opinion on the matter. We first know from Romans 13:1-7 that God has divinely appointed governments and rulers for His purpose and that we are to obey them (Here are the first two verses)

“1 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.”

That is a fairly significant warning in verse 2. The one who resists the will of the authorities is actually resiting God! Consider the context of the people Paul was writing to in Romans, the Jewish people were dispersed from their home land with a foreign power in charge, Paul had recently gone on his mission to kill all the believers, and every time Paul turned around he was being violently attacked by the religious leaders of the day; both pagan and Jewish.

God was certainly not blind to these facts nor was He forgetful of them when He, working through Paul, penned these words for our benefit. This raises a whole host of questions worth considering such as “From a Religious perspective should the colonists rebelled?” or the question I seek to answer here, “Are we sinning when we attack Obama/Leaders in Congress?”

Long story short? It depends. See we have a unique situation in the way our government has been established. Our government revolves around the reality that “we the people” are in charge... more or less by proxy of the fact that we get to elect those who are in charge. One of the founding principals of our government is that we can call out the foibles of our leaders and indeed we are encouraged to do so! (which is a beef I have with Obama, the man believes himself to be foible-less a perfect man in all his does, but that's neither here nor there)

However, this is not some carte blanche invitation to rip into our leaders. I don't think it is appropriate to say any leader is in place as a punishment, nor do I think it's right to go around screaming hate at our leaders the way democrats did under Bush and now Republicans like Glen Beck and Mark Levin do under Obama. Scriptures give us instructions on how we are to deal with confronting someone in 1 Timothy 5:1&2

“1 Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father. Treat younger men like brothers, 2 older women like mothers, younger women like sisters, in all purity.”

So yes, it is appropriate for us to call out our leaders when there is hypocrisy in their statements, it is appropriate to quote what they say and discuss the what the Bible has to say about those statements, it is even appropriate for us, working within the confines of the due process of our government, to remove a corrupt politician from office. What I fail to see, however, is scriptural support for tearing into a politician with no other purpose than to make them loose face or even for two politicians to engage in a smear campaign on each other. Where's the Christ like love in that?

Raging Against the Machine?

Obama and 9/11

For months now, I’ve been wondering what Obama will do for his first 9/11 in office. My wondering revolved largely around the fact that he is 1) trying to distance himself from the previous administration even though he’s handling the war identically to Bush and 2) he has set himself up as a very pro-Islamic/pro-Arabic president and I was wondering how he was going to handle the day where Americans remember the single greatest (radical) Islamic attack since the crusades.

For those who haven’t seen it, here' is Obama’s speech made this morning.

I found a couple points of interests (including his copious use of scriptures, albeit misquoted and abused, right after saying we weren’t a Christian nation, the way he never really mentioned the attack itself, just referenced to things around it, and his redefinition of the war as fighting Al-Qaeda rather than terrorists).

But most interesting to me is the fact that he is attempting to redefine this whole day. The way he’s trying to coerce us into forgetting that we, as a nation, must remain vigilant. And I don’t mean vigilant against Islam or Arabics, that would foolish and racist. I mean vigilant against those who would seek to do us harm regardless of if they’re a terrorist who believes it is the only way to assure salvation, or some guy out in West Texas who follows the original teachings of Joseph Smith to the point of sexually abusing young women, or even if it is the wholesale slaughter of our children via abortion.

People may disagree about that last one, but the point is today is supposed to be a day of remembrance for vigilance. A day were we recall what happens when we get too lackadaisical, when we ignore the warning signs and fail to co-operate with one another.

Instead Obama wants us to toss aside the remembrance of what happened here. Oh, he talks about that “barbaric event” when he starts to discuss Afghanistan, but as long as the focus is on the US, it’s darkened skies, and falling planes. And I think that’s wrong. I think what he’s doing is insulting. 8 years ago today terrorist hijacked 3 planes. Two of them were rammed into the World Trade Center and violently butchered almost 3,000 people. The third plane did not fall from the sky is was forced into the ground when the passengers rose up and valiantly defended our country.

I think it’s great that Obama wants a day of service. That’s a wonderful idea to promote community and cohesiveness across America. I think him making that day of service to be today is insulting and an attempt to erase what happened here 8 years ago a silent memory. It would have been like FDR making December 7 national boating day. Sorry Obama, but you made yet another poor choice. With any luck the next individual will repeal this farce you tried to make out of today.

Obama and 9/11

Wow, 4 updates in a row?

I know, I bet you’re all wishing Amy would come back (or at least you will by the time you get to the end of this post which somehow became a lot more political than it was meant to be)! But I have two things to mention today.  The first is I had an interesting experience today in the computer lab I work in.  A young black lady came in for some help (I use the word black because I find the term African-American to be offensive for 3rd+ generation black people.  The term almost implies as if they are somehow less American than I am, that they are first African, and then American.  The phrase also implies that only black people live there which is equally false.  So now that you know why I use the word “black” instead of “African-American” I hope you won’t find it offensive).  And I notice that she’s wearing this shirt that has a dramatic picture of Obama and Martin Luther King.

I must admit I was stuck with the irony of the shirt.  As I’ve mentioned before (or at least as I think I have) I have a great deal of respect for MLK and the fact that he desired genuine equality for all people regardless of skin color.  That he desired a future where his children and my children would not be judge based on the color of their skin, and as a victim of racism, I find his ideals inspiring.

So it is that I find the fact that anyone would commend the election of 2008 as shinning beacon of race neutrality ironic at best, and hypocritical at worse.

According to CNN 95% of Black people in America voted for Obama.  While historically Black people have voted Democratic ever since President Lyndon B. Johnson pushed through the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and no Republican supported the measure, 95% is still an unprecedented high since 1968.

More than that, further research has shown that while white voters remained stagnant and with only a slight sway in favor of Obama, all other racial groups made a radical transition, one that would supersede natural political transition from one group to another following the end of an unpopular election. 

Additionally, polling said racial groups revels a complete lack of knowledge in what policies Obama actually stood for.  When a policy McCain supported was attributed to Obama they would adamantly support it and when a policy Obama was support was attributed to McCain they would say something like “that’s exactly why I couldn’t vote for him!”

This election was painfully racist!  Which is why I find it ironic/hypocritical of people to pair up Obama with MLK.  Honestly, I think MLK would be heart broken to see people throw away their votes because of the color of a man’s skin.

I must again state the fact that while I have no problem with a black person being President, I am not a supporter of Obama largely in part to his stance on abortion and his appropriation of tax payers money to support non-essential things to low income families such as digital TV tuners and abortion as well as a great deal of his other policies.  See that?  That’s judging based on policies not race ;)

The second thing that happened today was as I was leaving the kitchen and heading for my room my eyes fell on a curious little panel on the wall about 7 feet up.  On the bottom it read “Fire Alarm Device Do Not Paint”.  While that alone is kinda interesting what really caught my eye was this:

Maybe you’ll notice what I did from a different angel.

That’s dust.  A LOT of dust.  So much dust that if this were any kind of detection unit, it would be useless.  But you have to admit it matches EVERY LAST AIR VENT in the apartment

I’m not sure what that stuff is, but it doesn’t come off when you dust it.  Look at the whole picture:

   How… how does an air vent even get like this?  Is my health at risk?

Wow, 4 updates in a row?

How I wish I were joking

Barak Obama has had a lot of dark secrets that has cropped up in the course of this election time. From being a secret Muslim, to belonging to a church run by a crazy lunatic (is it redundant to use crazy to modify the word lunatic?), to some of the more recent, he's not eligible to be president because he is not a natural born citizen (the Supreme Court is refusing to take the case for reasons they won't tellm, which you gotta admit regardless of the validity of the situtation, that seems underhanded of them, I think they've expanded their power a little beyond what they were supposed to).

However, the most recent, and by far the most pathetic controversy in the Obama camp? Whether or not he uses Microsoft's Zune MP3 player instead of the Apple iPod.

I wish I were joking. His campaign team has lunched a slew of releases stating emphatically that he is an iPod users and it must have been one of his SS men, or perhaps a daughter (who got it from where?) who was using it.

But why all the fuss? Because of the response, people are litterally saying they have no faith in Obama to run America because he owns a Zune! Come on guys! Wasn't the fact that this guy's policies are the same things Clinton did that set up the Bank crash a bigger worry? Or what about the fact that the guy has a remarably undisguished career? Or, I dunno, what about the fact that any white guy who had the credenticals and plans Obama had never would have even been elected to represent the democratic ticket let alone won the presidency race? I kinda count those things as a little more solid ground for lossing faith in someone.

It's a brave new world President-hopefuls, make sure to be a good little consumer lemming and bring your iPod.

How I wish I were joking

The end of an era

Last night two things of sorrow note took place. If you don't like long political rhetoric, you might as well skip on to the second thing, it's down a little ways and the paragraph is started out bold. The first, and more widely known, was that America elected it's first black president. The sorrow of this situation is not that he's black, but that his election was due largely to the fact that he was black. I can think of no greater racism than to vote for someone based on the color of their skin, regardless of how that swings your vote. What makes this even more sad is that Obama is not particularly impressive as an individual. The things he was saying and the stances he was making would not have won him the democrat ticket let alone the presidency had he been white.

About a month ago I made two speculations. The first was that I was quiet convinced that Obama would only loose if the democrat vote was split by a surge of write ins for Hilary. The second was that the greatest support for Obama would come not from higher age groups (indeed those are split more or less 50-50 with most of Senator Obama's votes coming from minority or African-American based populaces), but rather from those who are in the 18-21 age range. Those people who 4 years ago were 14-17 and have for the past four years seen nothing but South Park, Family Guy, and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart representations of President Bush. For four years this age demographic's mind has been utterly poisoned with the presentation of a man (and by extension political party) that is impossibly dumb. So it is no surprise that this age range DID vote overwhelming in favor of Obama. To be perfelect blunt, the democrat party could have nominated a block of cheese and gotten an equally strong turn out.

I now make three suppositions.
1) Obama on the whole is a political pansy. (That's not the supposition part, that's a statement of fact based on looking at his political career, a completely lackluster record until his campaign for presidency when people suddenly began to sing his praise despite any evidence to support such praise.) Therefore I will be so bold to venture that the true power of the next 4-8 years will not be the president but rather the party leader in Congress.
2) Due largely to the efforts of the current administration to control the weak economy left by Clinton and the his foolish law that made it illegal for a bank to not give a loan based on credit history, Obama's term in office will be fondly remembered as a good time for America, but the person who inherits the Presidency from him will be faced with a second even more disastrous economic crisis than we are currently in.
3) For the next several elections it will be impossible for a non-minority to gain Presidency. Now, I must stress again that I have no issue with an African-American, Latino, or Asian being President, my qualm lies in them becoming President because of their ethnicity, furthermore I am equally opposed to a Caucasian becoming President only because his opponent was not Caucasian.

However, none of this is why it is the end of an era for me. For the second thing of sorrow that occurred last night was the death of Michael Crichton known for such books as "Jurassic Park, Lost World, Sphere, Prey, Congo, et el" and movies by the same title as well as "Twister". Michael Crichton has been a long time favored author of mine whose works I have long read and collected.

While it is certainly sorrowful that his life (of 66 years) came to an end last night due to cancer. The truly sad thing for me is his undeniably hostile (or at best indifferent) view of God. Indeed, it's hard to find a science fiction write who believes in God. It's almost a statement of pure contradiction in fact! After all, every sci fi writer believes on some level that man is inherently good and has the power within himself for self-improvement; that the notion of a high (non-alien) being is completely ludicrous. So it was that last night, to my sorrow, Michael Crichton joined the ranks of my other adored sci fi writers such as Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov in coming to know the pure horror of the wrath of God poured out on those who reject Christ's purifying work on our behalf.

The end of an era