While on the surface it sounds like a good idea to go after the assets of violent gang leaders, one has to ask will these actions confine themselves to actual street gangs?
For example, in the late 80's or early 90's, the RICO Act, a piece of legislation designed to attack the mafia was invoked against pro-life organizations.
Likewise, will gangs come to be defined as any organization at odds with prevailing government policy.
Furthermore, what is to stop the government from declaring that a particular area is so infected by pervasive gang activity that it can just move in and seize every single property or to manufacture false charges against the owner of a particular envied holding?
With as much animus as they already have against them, fanatics in the homeschool movement really ought to be cautious about alienating conservatives who would otherwise side with them.
If homeschoolers are going to chant the mantra of the state minding its own business over matters none of its concern, shouldn't the same apply to the church as well?
Didn't the supporters of the New Lord attempt to discredit Joe the Plumber, who merely asked a question and did not aspire to higher office, over a smaller tax bill?
Ironically, these same malcontents would probably have no problem with gays and supporters of the Palestinian Intafada marching down the parade route. Once again, it is proven that white folks have little place in tolerance, diversity, and multiculturalism.
While Mohlerians and Swansonites probably have little problem with this policy since they think you are a deviant if not married by the age of 23, what is to stop this policy from being expanded?
Defenders of it calling in to the Andy and Grandy Morning show on WMAL kept invoking the constiutional protections of free association; but what if someone did not want to live around Black folks or Mexicans?
Though one cannot endorse this woman's decision to live as a shacked up concubine, so long as she has the money to pay the rent and stays to herself, do we really want governing bodies of either a governmental or private variety policing our lives to such an extent?
Furthermore, if someone becomes widowed or is deserted by their spouse, does this mean they ought to lose their home as well?
In the 6/25/07 edition of U.S. News & World Report, New Age luminary Deepak Chopra was interviewed about his novel about Buddha interestingly titled "Buddha". Though many will no doubt fawn all over this narrative in search of some new spiritual insight or revelation in much the same way as they did with "The Da Vinci Code" these past few years, however, it seems some of the answers provided by this guru renowned by millions had as much thought put to them as the titling of this novel.
When asked what he thought the meaning of enlightenment was, Chopra responded, "The meaning here is that your real self is not a person, that there is no such thing as a separate self, that a person doesn't really exist...So enlightenment here means transcendence to that level of existence where the personal self becomes the universal self.”
If the separate self and the person does not exist, I wonder what Dr. Chopra would think if some tragedy befell his friends or family members? Is he simply going to brush it off by saying they did not exist anyway? If that is the case, I bet Mrs. Chopra and the children feel loved knowing that, in the eyes of dear old dad, out of sight will be out of mind.
With Christianity on the other hand, while the believer is admonished by I Thessalonians 4:13 not to mourn as the heathen as if there was no hope, the Christian legitimately pines for the departed loved one as one would for any friend or family member that has moved far away that you know you are probably not going to see for quite awhile but whom has nevertheless retained the same degree of distinct individuality as the day you met them.
Though Chopra has manipulated his followers into accepting his teachings and in the process made himself a very wealthy man (so much for desire causing suffering as basic Buddhism postulates), one can't help notice that Chopra doesn't exactly comport himself by the Eastern dictum that the self does not exist. For if the self does not exist, why has Chopra placed his name on the novel? And his photograph in the U.S. News & World Report profile is not of some disheveled lunatic consistently living out the implications of his worldview that appearance is just an allusion but rather of one who poses deliberately with his arm over his knee and his head cocked just so in a statement to the world that he is just a bit better than you.
More importantly, if a person doesn’t really exist since the individual is merely a “transient behavior of the total universe”, is Chopra going to forego the proceeds of what will probably be a bestseller and instead distribute the revenues to every person on the planet equally if “the universal self” and we are all the same person anyway? If Deepak Chopra doesn’t really exist, then why is the name slapped across his Center For Wellness?
But then again, such common sense and logic aren’t an integral part of Chopra’s worldview. When asked in the U.S. News & World Report interview if there is a fundamental tension between spirituality and religion, Chopra responded, “It [spirituality] has very little to do with religious dogma, ideology, or even self-righteous morality.”
Isn’t that itself a dogma? Are those that do not share in such metaphysical open-mindedness in the wrong? Doesn’t saying so imply a morality?
If ultimately morality does not really exist, on what grounds does Chopra have to complain should his publisher abscond with the proceeds of his novel? More importantly, if some horrible crime befell Mrs. Chopra and the kids, would such be wrong beyond the breaking of society’s arbitrarily derived laws?
That must really make his family feel special. Some might point out I already made that point. However, if you have no problems with the Eastern worldview espoused by this cultic guru, repetition and second go-arounds float your boat anyway.
One of the simple delights in the age of vehicular travel is coming across an empty parking space that still has time on the meter. Since the beast --- namely the municipalities obtaining revenue from the meter --- is still getting the amount of money it is due whether the spot is occupied by one or two cars in the purchased amount of time, one would think the taxmasters wouldn't care and simply let the lucky motorist enjoy one of the few pleasures remaining in our increasingly bleak and overcontrolled world.
However, it seems that technology is being used once more to tighten the noose of government around the neck of the law abiding citizen.
According to a Washington Post story titled “Meters Deny Parking Handouts“, a number of companies are developing devices sensitive enough to reset themselves once they detect that the space is no longer occupied. Instead of harassing motorists, perhaps these tech-heads should turn their sophisticated detection sensors towards securing America's border.
Especially revealing is the statist mentality of those supporting these Cylon parking meters (it's a wonder they don't have that little red light pulsating back and forth). The chief executive of IntelliPark (one of these companies out to get rich dreaming up new ways to further curtail human liberty) told the Washington Post, "You take away that free lunch, but on the other hand that's tax revenue."
If the primary concern here is that no one should get a "free lunch", wouldn't research efforts be better directed towards not developing a meter that resets itself as soon as a vehicle pulls away but rather makes change from the unused time?
"Why you skin-flint Conservative or tight-fisted Libertarian, how miserly of you to want back a few messily cents.” If we are to happily relinquish what is rightfully ours simply because it is just a few mere cents, just see what happens should you skimp on your IRS tax bill by the same amount.
If we are to view the motorist sneaking onto a spot where the meter has not yet run out of time as taking something out of the coffers of the state, why shouldn’t we cast the same glare of disapproval upon the state for pocketing a profit from time in which it’s space is not leased?
After all, to whom does the coinage for the unused time ultimately belong? For does it not actually belong to the original motorist that has since driven off?
Thus, it is the state (not the driver “sneaking” into the space) that is actually the small scale thief. Shouldn’t technology allow the original motorist to decide who gets to keep the change?
As I remeber John Warwick Montgomery remarking of Episcopal priests swallowing gold fish and parachuting off skyscrapers in the attempt to make the church relevant to the young: "If God's not dead, maybe He wishes he were."
Companies with dress codes should not permit this no matter how much it is justified in the name of religious freedom.
In response to the anti-Christmas crowd, it seems things may be veering too much in the opposite direction as well.
From at least 1994 when I remember writing my first column on the subject, despisers of the Almighty and liberals of the most spineless of stripes have conspired to undermine Christmas as a national celebration in the attempt to downplay and ultimately eliminate public recognition of God in general and His only begotten Son Jesus Christ in specific. These efforts have been so widespread that I was able to compile columns written about them over the years into a book titled "Yuletide Terror & Other Holiday Horrors".
Though the American people have been manipulated and their resistance worn down on a number of fronts to the point that they now let slide any number of outrages that would have caused considerable uproar in the past, for the most part citizens have been quite vocal about attempts by secular leftists to ban acknowledgement of the Christmas season. However, now that traditionalists have asserted the right to publicly affirm their god-given heritage, secularists are responding with alternative displays of their own promoting their own particular worldview.
Foremost among these is an ad campaign targeted at Washington, DC’s public transportation system. The posters sponsored by the American Humanist Association read, “Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness’ sake..” This simple question and accompanying reply are in need of a complex response.
For starters, whether we like it or not, if an atheist front group wants to pony up the cash, they have the same right to buy public advertising space like any other organization with too much money on its hands. Responses such as the one presented in a 11/17/08 USA Today article titled “Atheism: A Positive Pillar” where an Illinois state legislator told an atheist activist, “It’s dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists!...You have no right to be here! We believe in something. You believe in destroying.”
Such an attitude may itself be of a greater danger than the outright atheism. For it is wrong on a number of philosophical and apologetic grounds.
For starters, it is not really all that dangerous for children to know atheism exists. Granted, one might not want to, as in the example used by D. James Kennedy in a classic sermon, hand one’s child over to a thoroughgoing secularist who on the first day of kindergarten proceeds to indoctrinate the hapless pupil as to the alleged reasons why God does not exist and why Jesus Christ is not His Son.
However, part of protecting children is to warn them of the dangers out there bent on destroying them in body and soul. Thus, just as parents eventually one day have to have that discussion with their young ones about the existence of pedophiles and where to aim the kick should some sicko every try to rob the young ones of their innocence, parents also have the obligation to warn to warn that there are those out there that hate God so much that they’d like nothing more than to persuade you to give up your belief in Him as well.
The cause of Christ is not served by hiding these things from young minds and then finally exposing them to such apostasies upon adulthood. It’s challenging enough when you are taught about these things and then find your self surrounded by the products of an education system advocating such a viewpoint reeking of what you always heard pot smelled like and another hooligan wearing a t-shirt with decals of copulating skeletons as I remember the first day of college.
Secondly, lack of a belief in something is a belief about it. For too long, Christians and allied theists have played into the hands of atheists and agnostics by going along with the notion that those professing unbelief are objective and unfettered by preconceived epistemological commitments and that the believers are the ones holding onto bedrock dogmatic foundations. Many atheists are just as rabid in their assumptions as the most zealous of pulpit-pounding evangelists.
The anti-God Christmas placards intone the reader to "Just be good for goodness sake." But without God, can good truly exist? For if He does not, mankind is left with the alternatives of either nihilistic anarchy or regimented totalitarianism.
For example, if God does not exist, who is to say whatever the individual thinks or does is right or wrong? As has been said, in some cultures they are suppose to love their neighbors and in others they eat them. To the cannibal the adage is not so much finger licking good but rather good to lick fingers.
Furthermore, if God does not exist, on what grounds do the institutions of society such as the government have the right to tell you to do anything whatsoever? Without God and His revelation, the "IS" automatically becomes the "OUGHT" with rules and laws merely being those promulgations which keep the strongest in power.
But what about the individual, the timid may ask unsettled by the door that has been opened but too prideful to grasp Christ's outstretched hand. What about the individual?
If the individual is no better than all the other animals who are themselves just products of random chance, his welfare means nothing in comparison to the welfare and even the convenience of the larger group. Though it is a somewhat different philosophy, according to a Caryl Matrisciana column titled “An Enlightened Race?” New Agers who believe similarly to atheists that there are no absolutes rooted in the character of an eternal personal God don’t even want to say Hitler did anything wrong but rather merely things that were misguided at worst.
The New Atheists claim that the suspicions their worldview elicits are unfounded because as humanists they only have the betterment of the species in mind and that traditional religions are the ones responsible for the atrocities of history.
Margaret Downey of the Atheist Alliance International is quoted in the USA Today article as saying, "We atheists simply add an 'o' to our belief system --- we believe in good." However, that is in spite of rather than because of their unbelief.
If anything, what atheists exhibit when they manifest goodness is remaining Judeo-Christian moral capital. These individuals professing godlessness remain largely good because they have been acculturated in a milieu largely Biblical in its underlying ethical orientation.
However, as time marches on and these foundations are eroded as succeeding generations will become less familiar with this heritage. Future atheists will not be as eager to embrace the balanced approach to life we in the West have come to categorize as good.
Incidents where traditional forms of religion have been invoked to justify abridgements of individual liberty are horrifically tragic but because they betray the values espoused by the founders of these systems of belief. However, by default, that does not make those claiming to lack a religious faith are not necessarily more laid back in their approach to life and less prone to violence.
If anything, lack of divine restraints seems to send man's compulsion to prey (not pray) upon his fellow man into overdrive. One only need to look at the histories of regimes with an explicit antipathy towards the God of the Bible such as Soviet Russia, Red China, and Nazi Germany. And even in the United States where human dignity is for the most parts respected, numbers are appallingly high in terms of the millions slaughtered in the names of abortion and so-called “reproductive rights”, a charge led primarily by the godless along with the wishy-washy easily whipped up into a frenzied enthusiasm over the joys of baby-killing.
As commuters putter about this Christmas season and viewers watch the battle of the broadsides, there is more at stake than an esoteric debate as to the nature and origins of goodness. Both our very lives and our eternal destines could very well be on the line.
Halfwits thinking this incident was all fun and games should realize it was just not Bush that the shoe was hurled at but rather the entire United States.
Heathens around the world should be thankful that America is as restrained as it is and should ponder how a less-mercificul world power might have responded to this insult.
So since Albert Mohler only has two children, should his position as a seminary president be surrendered to someone with more children since by the argument presented in this column that individual has a greater or more sincere faith.
Or as usual, is this just a standard that gets imposed upon the believer in the pew and not the professional religionist?
By the end of the broadcast version of this commentary, Mohler lets it slip that missionary types are not to be held to this standard and that those with children understand God better.
Is not something like "for all debts public and private" stamped across U.S. moneyt?
Thus, any government agency should be compelled to accept payment in whatever form of legal tender the compliant citizen chooses to pay the penalty leveled against them with.
Each Thanksgiving, the President pardons a turkey --- an actual barnyard fowl and not a member of Congress. For the most part, the custom is itself harmless and mildly cute; however, should taxpaying citizens learn what is done with the turkey, they will likely end up with a case of indigestion.
According to a Fox News account, after the White House ceremony the turkey was to be flown first class to Disneyland in California. There the gobbling celebrity was to serve as the grand marshal of the park's Thanksgiving parade.
Many would dismiss this story as something not to get worked up over. Yet in this dawning era where we are constantly reminded how our very way of life must change or face collapse along various fronts, escorting a turkey to Disneyland in stratospheric luxury raises a number of questions.
First, is the turkey being sent there at taxpayer expense? If Disney wants the bird, that corporation is the party that should pick up the airfare.
Relatedly and even more importantly, shouldn't those that have set themselves up as our betters and the ones out to impose the new paradigms upon the rest of us have to live by their own standards?
For example, a letter to the editor published in the Prince George's Sentinel attempts to guilt-trip the reader into foregoing the turkey dinner by insinuating that this traditional culinary centerpiece is somehow bad for the environment. But what about the resources expended to get the turkey from Washington to California, and, even more importantly, what about the "carbon footprint" (the term used by beatniks of expanding girth like Al Gore to make themselves feel better about their own ostentatious consumption) left behind each year by the Disney corporation.
I for one have no problem with amusement parks and similar resorts. However, I am not the one haranguing the average American, who can hardly afford luxury vacations these days, into giving up one of the few remaining pleasures available, namely a reasonably priced turkey dinner.
Often, America’s Puritan and Separatist founders are depicted as absolutely joyless and not having much fun in their lives. And maybe so by out standards. However, these solemn patriarchs are party animals in comparison to the glum-faced busybodies out to control in the name of the environment all aspects of the food you consume from what can go into your mouth and, increasingly as in regards to proclamations regarding no flush toilets, what is to be done with it once it comes out.
