American Idols

Passion. No, feeling. That is the root cause of our present situation. We care too much about the lives of other people - and for saying it I am thought a heartless person.

I do care about people, I am concerned when I see a person consumed by consumerism and lost in the information age. I try to help who I can, and support others who do the same. Where I absolutely must draw the line is when it comes to bringing in the big "G" word -- Government.

Government has become a religion in this country. It grows out of chaos and conflict. Whether it is actual war, or a pervieved threat, like German and Japanese Americans, Blacks and their civil rights, whites and their cultural imperialism.

Everywhere today, and all through modern history there has and is a "war" being fought. Whether its soldiers, Mother Nature, black youth, unborn babies, gays, illegal immigrants, drugs being killed off or attacked, there is always someone somewhere telling us we need to fight the good fight and vote "X" for president.

I'm about sick of having to choose between poor and mediocre, knowing that half the country isn't going to like the decision any of us made. I see bumbper stickers that say "Don't blame me, I voted for Kerry." Whether reaslizing it or not, people who have those stickers and think like that are blaming half the country for whatever problems they are going through.

The problem is not with the other half of the country... its with the whole country. If we seriously believe that Democrats can do a better job if given the chance, or that Republicans will clean this place up once the Clintons are out of the White House, we have another thing coming.

Straight up: Americans worship the political system because we have faith it will one day work if we keep the present course. Americans worship at the alter of the Executive Branch, placing out hope and faith in the Office of the President to save this nation from itself (or rather the other half of the country which we dont consider to be part of the "itself" we need saving from).

Finally, we have committed idolatry and unfaithfulness in the eyes of the One True God for believing anyone but He could save any one of us or an entire nation from itself.

Should racism, sexism, and all forms of discrimination against people because of their differences end in this country, yes. Should people give 10% or more of their gross salaries before taxes to the benefit of society, yes. Should people stop having abortions and divorces, prefering to have children with a spouse and keep him or her and raise the child into a productive, and moral member of society, yes. Should debt be hard to get into, and easy to get out of, yes.

Should it be the responsibility of a government that changes leadership every 2 and 4 years, and which employs over 1 million people in a bureaucracy that is impersonal and slow to change? No.

This is the problem with our candidates. It is the problem with us. We want to hear someone say they can fix all these things, because we want them fixed... but had we ever stopped to think whether or not we were asking the right people to solve the problem we might have realized that all the politicians cared about was how many votes and dollars could be won by saying exactly what we want to hear.

"You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand {generations} of those who love me and keep my commandments."

Primary Conflicts

There is an issue of fairness that I am becoming much more interested in since the 2008 election year. This has been an interesting year because the American people have become more educated about the process by which our states nominate presidential candidates by party. Along with the scrutiny of the myriad of candidates running for the White House has come a focus on this process, and I am sure for the benefit of the public.

Democrats in Florida, American citizens, have been punished by the Democratic National Committee, a private association, for the decision of their state legislature to hold the Democratic Primary election on a date that did not suit the DNC. The legality of this is questionable; a civil organization having sway over the decisions of a government body - I don't care what laws are in place. This scenario is also not fair since the Florida House of Representatives has 78 Republicans and 42 Democrats, and the Florida Senate has 26 Republicans and 14 Democrats. In essence the Republicans made the decision on the date of the primary, and the DNC has barred Democratic delegates to the Democratic National Convention.

It is ethically and constitutionally questionable for the DNC to demand that the Florida legislature direct the State Department of Florida, Division of Elections, to organize elections in any other way than Florida sees fit. It does not matter that the leaders of the DNC are members of Congress and other powerful elected officials in the country. The use of their offices to intimidate state legislatures is a conflict of interest that deserves legal attention.

Besides this point alone, the decision by the DNC is plainly unfair. You cannot punish the delegates and voters in Florida because of something their state legislature did when controlled by a Republican majority. The process by which primary dates are decided and the question of authority and the local autonomy of states is an important one as we consider the greater impact on the electoral process.

Speaking of the electoral process, it is imperative that the electoral process be preserved, yet we must make it a fair process in the sense that states and the citizens of those states are not deprived of their rights to vote and have their vote count.

Character Debate

There are two main ways to judge a political candidate; on his or her record and platform, also known as "by the issues," or on character. Most people come up with their own system that combines these two methods in some way, but one will usually tip the scale more than the other.

I would like to challenge the voting by issues method since there one very important flaw, being that politicians will say anything to get elected, and we don't always know why someone takes a certain position.

Character is much more an important virtue that a person's position in the Iraq War, abortion, the environment. When I voted for Senator Bill Nelson (D) of Florida in 2006, I did so because of one thing I saw on a televised debate. He and his opponent Katherine Harris were debating the issues important to Florida and the nation. I know Nelson not to be a real activist in Congress so when I saw Harris verbally beating him with a stick for being just another Democrat aligned with his party bloc I knew how wrong she was. But it was the post-debate that decided my vote. When all was said and done and the candidates had ended their show, I got to see the real candidates. Thanks to the miracle that is local television the cameras were still rolling and I saw Nelson immediately walk over to the edge of the stage and greet those who came. Harris just stormed off, stage left. When it was apparent her absence was odd, she returned and greeted others as well.

Presidential elections are no different. When it comes to voting for someone, find out why they vote the way they do. Hillary Clinton votes for bills and hopes they won't pass. President Bush is the decider, having no time for debate - he knows what's best. I heard someone say that Ron Paul was in favor of abortions, but we live in a world where you can only be in favor of or opposed to abortions. Dr. Paul would rather see the federal government take no position on that issue, because when you have such a contentious issue like that, it is better to leave the decision up to the states, and even then if it is so contentious, leave it up to the counties and cities.

I am not trying to campaign for Ron Paul, but as someone with character he makes a good example. His position on the preemptive war strategy, or Bush Doctrine, is that this nation has no right to violate Just War Theory laid out by St. Augustine because it serves our national interests. An unruly empire behaves such a way.

When deciding who to vote for this year, consider the person's morals, values, and character. Do they have an overriding belief system or philosophy to government, or even religious convictions that guide every decision they make? Or do they change positions with the political winds? If you are not sure, research, if you still aren't sure they may be such shallow people they don't have any character. If your candidate is someone who you could have a debate with when you ask them, "why," then you might have someone good. Even if you disagree with them on a few important points, remember, they are the kind of person who will engage in debate once they enter office. Not like the current president who listens to no one and draws his own road map in the sand.

The "Clintons"

In the press and on the news you will hear about the uncharted waters of this election year. The Democratic Party has some symbolically new faces in the race for president. The first woman, the first black person with a real chance at winning.

The women's vote is essential, so they say, because these two firsts are actually rivals for their party's nomination. Single women now outnumber married women. A fact which, while not celebrated, is nevertheless treated like a mile stone towards progress. This is another fact I think ironic because it originates from the very people who profess to be women's rights advocates, but who subconsciously presume that all married women are intellectual slaves to their husbands and will therefore vote how they are told.

From this camp of women's rights experts and other political analysts the talk centers around Hillary Clinton's, excuse me, Hillary Rodham Clinton's presentation of herself in relation to President William Jefferson Clinton, I mean her husband Bill.

First of all, I have to say that women voting for a woman just because of gender is a continuation of the same kind of divisive politics this country has succumbed to and will ultimately lead to what we see in parliamentary nations around the world where coalition governments are organized and dissolved with the changing of the winds. The same goes for ethnicity and race and even political party.

Spectators are concerned because they are not sure how women will respond to Hillary placing her husband on an equal plain with herself in her campaign. They say, "Why shouldn't Bill help out, all the other candidates wives are campaigning for them?" What should give all of the women's rights people pause is that Bill is not just Hillary's husband, he is a President of the United States of America. He has persuasive power like you wouldn't believe. Would any other woman in this country have a shot at the White House if her husband had been a nobody beforehand?

The fact that Hillary Clinton would be polling below the margin of error without her husband having been President should give us all pause. And consider what agenda the Clintons really have. The Obama campaign has hit the nail right on the head, and traditional Clinton supporters are not going to like it, because guess what, they are really Bill Clinton supporters, not Hillary supporters. Obama needs to call 'em like he sees 'em and take on Bill. It is the only way he is going to overcome Hillary as soon as Super Tuesday is over and the Republicans start beating down the war path in her direction. The Clintons won't be able to sustain attacks from both sides like that.

This is your 11th hour wake up call.

There is a book I want to recommend called "Revolution in World Missions" (2003 ed.) which God is certainly speaking to me through.

The author calls Christians in the United States and other western nations to account because of our acceptance of materialism and postmodernism. In fact he doesn't just say we have accepted it, he says a lot of Christians serve both God and made, worshiping idols, because we believe in these other philosophies and worldviews as we believe in God - we are practitioners of the Social Gospel.

K. P. Yohannan correctly diagnoses our spiritual illness as idolatry and rightly prescribes that we turn back to the Gospel of Jesus Christ crucified for the forgiveness of sins. We have strayed from the true Gospel and adopted the Social Gospel that claims government can solve all of our problems so long as it provides social programs (for Democrats) or leaves us alone and gives us tax breaks (for Republicans). Capitalism is the answer to our every need because the laws of supply and demand will provide for every need of the consumer if the free market economy is left alone. Socialism will provide for every need of the less fortunate who fall through the cracks of the capitalist machine. And communism will make us all equal.

Yohannan calls me back to the foundations of my faith in God, to question all the philosophies of which a degree in Political Science has bestowed upon me. He alludes this idolatry of materialism and postmodernism to the Tower of Babel. And are we not trying to create a utopia where man-made solutions are the prayer and hope of the people? Instead Yohannan calls the Western Church to throw out such teachings and come back to the truth about hell and eternal damnation for those who do not believe in the saving blood of Jesus Christ. Without the true Gospel all peoples are lost to hell, even the hell on earth we try to overcome.

So, do you live in the shadow of hell and death? If you don't, how then can you fear no evil, how can His rod and His staff comfort you - are you even aware that you need protection? I am regularly reminded of sin and hell, and the need for my own salvation. Praise Jesus for it! I am moved to great sadness for those who die without Christ as their savior for they have no one to stand between them and God in judgement, no one to say he or she belongs to Me and "I have known him/her."

Every single person you walk past, drive by, stand or sit next to today will one day face that very same situation, as will you. Your living in the presence of hell and death is essential to their salvation. (I almost typed "Your loving..." but isn't it just the same?) If you don't love those around you with the kind of Love God has for you, enough that he would DIE a most horrible death, innocent, and for no other reason than to be with you for all eternity... if you don't LIVE in the light of that truth how will others be saved from hell? I know I certainly need to live more like that.

Christians and Political Partisanship

There are several issues that have a lot in common with each other. The Global Slave Trade, the heavy debts of African, Latin American, and South East Asian nations, Immigration, the Iraq War, and the 2008 presidential elections. The one thing that each of these issues have in common is the value we place on the quality of life for every single person.

When I say "we" I refer to Christians (those who truly are followers of Christ, and those who associate themselves with the label, or pretend, and therefore deceive others, leading them astray). If you follow logical thinking and believe Jesus Christ was a loving, peace seeking man you will be convinced of the truth of his teachings. But only until you understand the significance of what he did as the divine Son of God - sacrificing himself as a blameless atonement for the sins of the world will you see through the rhetoric of partisanship, Democratic and Republican politics.

I am always amazed by Christians who praise God for saving them from hell and judgement on Sunday and on Monday seek blood in Iraq. Now, I do not mean to say we should pull out or stay in, or whatever. But when a man says that the Iraq War is an unjust war, that Christians are supposed to be peace seekers and only willing to commit to the Augustinian guidelines for a just war after all other options to prevent war have been exhausted... when Christians scoff and boo and the idea of such an "unpatriotic" idea I seriously question their commitment to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I question how they can honestly call themselves evangelical, or even fundamental Christians (when you look up the definition of those words you strip off the connotations which have been attached to them).

When true Christians truly concern themsleves with being Salt and Light in this world and seek the righteousness of justice for all people they will immediately cast off what it means to be a Democrat or a Republican, finding that neither party comes close to the truth, and neither can be seen as the savior of the Christian voting block.

Would Christ not condemn a President or Congress for their strong arm tactics which keep billions of people impoverished around the world because of a fiscal foreign policy which emboldens the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to force Third World governments to accept unfair economic policies? I have heard people say that Africans do not know how to govern themselves, and jungle wars will be the future of this continent. Latin Americans are always loyal to radical communist dictators and military generals - they refuse to choose democracy and capitalism, in fact some are hotile to free enterprise and human rights. The only answer is to help these people by trying to govern them as much as possible from Washington.

Terrorists have emerged over the last 30 years and are now bent on destroying the United States, the most noble, peace loving, human rights oriented nation on earth. They hate us because we are free! I ask you, in all of history what nation has ever been attacked ONLY because they lived as free people? I can think of none. Do not deceive yourself into thinking the United States is an innocent nation, nor that Congress and the President are above corruption.

I don't mean to say all this to slander my country. I love this country. I love our Constitution and honest hard working and good hearted people I know in this country. However, I don't allow myself to think the good deeds and hard work of myself and my community are replicated in the Federal Government. I mean sure, a few good people are in government, but if they were all good people we wouldn't have scandal after scandal.

What I want my fellow Christians to realize is that if they are serious about their faith in Jesus Christ and his redemption, peace, and restorative work on this planet we have got to overcome the falsehoods, deceptions, brainwashing, and lies we have allowed oursleves to beleive and act upon.

Why do millions of people migrate and immigrate to and from countries every year? Basically its because they can't live a quality life in their home country. All people want the same basics of a quality life: employment, food, rest, medical care, education and a future for their children. People will sell their possessions and even themselves for even a glimmer of hope for social mobility. Unfortunately 27 million people have been trapped in slavery in our modern world. Extreem poverty has caused parents to sell their children, young single mothers to trust strangers to take them hundreds of miles in hopes of a job, only to be fooled and sold into slavery. Whole families have sold their life's possessions at a chance of stowing away in shipping containers and trucks comeing into the Unites States, hoping for a better life here in our country. Thousands have died when their "guides" abandoned them in port or a trucking depot when the authorities got too hot on the trail. Nearly 250,000 people are currently enslved int he U.S. because their "guides" turned out to be slave drivers, telling them they must work to pay off the cost of getting them into the country.

I'm not asking you to change your opinion about what is right when it comes to debts that are owed to the U.S. by the governments of other countries, or that illegal immigration should not be considered illegal. I am asking you to expand your mind to see why people want to come here, and how those nations incurred those debts in the first place. Did the United States strong arm its way into the internal politics of nations during the Cold War? Did we not overthrow the democratic government of Iran and install the Shah? How many military dictators has the U.S. supported in Latin America? Why did the U.S. support aparthied in South Africa? Billions of dollars went to these nations and to the dictators we put in power, when these nations defaulted on theor loans and failed to pay us back they accumulated monstrous fees and interest rates, plunging them further into debt, and subject to our will so long as we continued to offer minimal debt relief as long as they did our bidding. And we listen to religious leaders who call for the assasination of world leaders who try and throw the United States out of their country, or heaven forbid try and get American companies to pay taxes for being in their country. Leaders are threatened with economic sanctions when they dare to presume to treat the U.S. as an equal in trade negotiations and treaties.

If Christians in the U.S. were truely interested in the quality of life for all people, we would make sure our government, our financial institutions like the World Bank and IMF all dealt fairly with other nations. Trade agreements that force nations to do what we want and/or make it easy or manditory that American jobs be sent over seas are neither fair, free, nor trade.

I encourage you to learn more about these issues, and write actual snail mail letters to your Congressmen.

Find your Representative by entering your zip code in the top left corner, click here.

Find your Senator in the top right corner, click here.

How to write a letter to your Congressman, click here.

Learn more about debt cancellation for the Thrid World.

Learn more about modern day slavery.

The Housing Market and Federal Interest Rates

The housing market is in trouble, and it does threaten to seriously hurt the rest of our economy. Listening to National Public Radio today I heard that people's spending habits are affected by the value of their home. In other words, if you have a house worth $300,000 and you only make $55,000 a year you tend to spend outside of your salary range. Now, this is disturbing all by itself, but the fact is that home appraisals are falling and freezing. Home sales are slowing dramatically, and it has become a buyers market. When it is a sellers market home values rise and people make lots of money on the sale of their homes. Not only are home sales going to continue to go down, but they are going to go down even more because home construction has almost stopped. The natural slowing down rate is going to get worse as the new homes that were going to be on the market do not go on the market because they were never built in the first place.

This is going to have an immediate effect on all industries that make the raw materials for homes. Lumber, electrical, stoneware, ceramics, chemicals. Tens of thousands of immigrant workers are going to seek work elsewhere, fewer jobs are going to be available for ALL people living in this country, and people are going to stop spending as much as economic conditions restrict and businesses respond by getting rid of or reducing bonuses. Management is going to get laid off.

The only thing that can make this housing market turn around is the Federal Reserve Bank lowering interest rates (actually they should have never raised them in the first place, and certainly not as high as they are). The unfortunate thing is that the Fed is a private bank, a company. They have no accountability to the public, to which they have so much control over. How then can they be made to stop the deterioration of the housing market?

Maybe the best way would be to return the control of our currency and its value to the U.S. Congress - as it is stated in the Constitution.

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States; To borrow money on the credit of the United States; To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes; To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States; To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

Does anyone want to write a letter to your Senators and Congresperson? What should we say in a letter? I would recommend a letter because having experieince with this, and working in a Florida State senator's office I know that letters are given more wieght than emails.