What is Truth?

“What is truth?”. Pontius Pilate, Roman governor of Jerusalem in the first century AD, asked this question as he stared into the face of a prisoner brought before him on charges of sedition against the ruling religious leaders of his day. And while Pilate failed to grasp the truth, at the very least, he asked the question.

In today’s post-modern world the situation is much bleaker, particularly In the Western world, where we seem to make little inquiry as to what the truth of a matter is, any matter. Truth does not matter. Truth is relative and has become a commodity leveraged for its political or economic sway. Truth exists to whatever degree we manage to make it, market it and influence with it. Relativism has become so entrenched in the DNA of Western society that it is easy to believe that there is no such thing as truth in the absolute sense of the word; there's only 'your truth' and 'my truth' and 'their truth'.

But the ramifications of such reckless handling of so seeming a passive entity as truth are far reaching. Humans know that to craft a lie is to aim for deceiving someone, with a desired end result in view. Meanwhile, the truth, more often than not, sits mutely on the sidelines, awaiting discovery, always ready to be revealed, but rarely, if ever, the subject of the grandiose production that goes into the manufacture of the lie.

In 2007 the Kansas state school board was involved in a shooting match vis-à-vis the state’s science standards. During the debate Kansas became fruitful fodder for late night television hosts and scientific opinion journals alike. The world lined up courtside to denigrate or congratulate the wheat state, depending upon their personal worldview.

But the missing link in this debate would seem to be none other than Pilate's query, ‘What is the truth?’ Because in the end this debate was not about seeking and discovering the truth, but about promoting agendas and worldviews.

The science standards implemented in 2007 are a move away from broader inquiry and toward the narrower view of naturalism. Naturalism, commonly known as materialism, is a worldview in which everything can be explained in terms of natural causes. Physical matter, i.e. the atomic world, is presumed to be the only reality, so everything can in fact be explained in terms of matter and physical phenomena. By definition, Naturalism excludes any supernatural agent. It is not a stretch to say that naturalism is atheism, and the natural moral climate in the absence of God is moral relativism.

What is truth? The question is deep, and deserves much thought and reflection, and I will leave that part to you. But it is fair to state that those who genuinely seek The Truth have always fought uphill battles, have always encountered resistance. Because if someone is in the position of seeking the truth, than they are seeking something that is thought to be unknown at present, meaning they do not accept the prevailing wisdom or professional edict regarding the matter in question. Otherwise, why would they be seeking it? It would be plain as day and a known quantity. Galileo and Copernicus studied the heavens and arrived at a conclusion that rocked humanity’s belief about where the Earth sat relative to the sun and the remaining planets (hint: we are NOT the center of the universe), ending the 1000 year supremacy of the Ptolemaic premise that the Earth sits at the center of the solar system.

Newton pondered the fall of apples from a tree, and eventually uncovered the truth of one of the four fundamental forces of the universe, gravity. Yet today no one has seen gravity, held or smelled or heard gravity, let alone touched gravity, but no one denies it exists. Why? Because we see its effects all around us. Newtonian gravity is reliable and predictable… at least until we enter the world of quantum mechanics.

Van Leeuwenhoek refined the microscope of his day and discovered a world that had previously been invisible to humans. The twentieth century saw the invention of the electron microscope, enabling scientists to magnify objects otherwise invisible up to 2 million times, and alas, another previously unknown world was unveiled, a world where life's simplest manifestation, the single-celled microorganism, is found to be comprised of exceedingly complex molecular factories possessed of exquisite molecular-sized machinery.

The truth is always present, but it is not always detectable. And if the public education system teaches ‘truths’ that turn out not to be true at all, can such a belief system be undone spontaneously? Naturalism and evolutionary theory take on a worldview-shaping function, namely that there is no God; and worldviews shape values, and values shape people and their actions which in turn shape a society. What is reaped originates from what is sown.

If public policy is to be sculpted so as to forever eliminate anything that echoes even faintly of Judeo-Christian teachings, here are some further topics the school board may be forced to consider for removal: Love. Honesty. Honor. Kindness. Gentleness. Self control. Peace. Respect. Wisdom. Integrity. All of these concepts are taught extensively in the bible, from its beginning to its end. And all are taught as being traits of the God of the cosmos, traits which have been conveyed to humans as standards of behavior, rules for living, just as the atomic world is subjected to the laws of nature.

The bible instructs that murder is wrong, lying is wrong, abusive language is wrong, bigotry and prejudice are wrong, rape is wrong, battery is wrong, neglect is wrong. And yet, where there is a wrong, by definition must there not be a right, a quality that exists in opposition to these wrongs? But this quest is summarily absent from public discourse and education, precisely because it deviates from the underpinnings of scientific naturalism and its inherent atheism. Are we skewing the quest for knowledge away from the truth in our eagerness to presume against the existence of God? Why would anyone do that?

It is safe to say that as a society we covet the fruit of the bible, namely the decency and uprightness it prescribes, but we are loathe to attribute such traits to anything outside of the material world. Are we really so dull of mind that we never ponder what might lie beyond this veil of atoms which we have declared to be the sum of all reality? Who are the power brokers that have taken it upon themselves to dictate via the public education system that God is dead and the one who seeks Him is on a fool's errand? Who are you?

Lords of Deception

"Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them." Romans 1:28-32

I read this in my quiet time this morning. In a pretty unspiritual change of focus, my immediate thoughts went to politics, as in of the American variety, but also politics as a collective manifestation of the heart of man.
I dwell on politics too much. I don't deny it. My predilection, however, may be defensible, because politics in every nation on the planet is only minimally about taking up the torch of righteousness and justice for the governed, and is far more a malignant enterprise aimed at gobbling up power rightfully belonging to the people. Politics is just another manifestation of the lust for power inherent in the darker regions of the human heart. Check out J.R.R Tolkien;s Lord of the Rings Trilogy, and if you aren't up for slogging your way through the novels, the movies deliver stunning depiction of the complicated landscape that resides in the inner man.

America's political stage is overflowing with a cast of characters manifesting unashamedly the lust for power that Tolkien revealed. And make no mistake... power does not stand alone as a harmless choice that some make while others feign disinterest. Power does not exist in the absence of the powerless. To possess power in the sense we are discussing, the possessor must have an entity over which to lord this dominion. Without subjects, power cannot be precipitated. Power is very much like love, which exists only given the existence of a person or object to love, because that person or object precipitates the potential for love that resides in the human heart. Power is a verb, just as love is a verb. But whereas love seeks the good of the loved at the expense of self, power seeks the good of self at the expense of the other.

Power concentrated in the hands of a select few hundred people is not so very different from the power concentrated historically in the hands of the singular kings and dictators that have inhabited the world's stage over the centuries. It is still a concentration of power, and will lead to tyranny. Power must be distributed across the individuals making up the governed, or they will become the ruled.

And even knowing this, we in America speak soothingly to ourselves and say over and over, 'We live in a democracy (which isn't true at all). This is the will of the people at work.' And as we coo ourselves back into our disengaged stupor, the forces of darkness continue unabated, in fact, often to the applause and accolades of mindless television talk shows whose main duty seems to be to parrot back to the people a positive rationale for the theft of power being executed on the main stage. And well, golly shucks darn, if a Hollywood star or starlet embraces the power grab, its gotta be a good thing.... right?

So as a Christian, and to my Christian friends, I ask: what is expected of us, as Believers living in a fallen world destined for destruction? I know that God is the author of liberty, as he demonstrates by imparting and preserving free will in man. And again by His decree that Christ's sacrifice serve as atonement for our unrighteous state, thereby liberating us from the certainty of eternity in hell. And as the author of liberty, God surely does not wish to see his creation subjugated to the will of a handful of Utopian-eyed Statists whose only use for God is in the public square as a means to instituting Social Justice via a Social Gospel... does He? Such changes are not real if they do not flow from a changed heart, they are only symptomatic of a dogma turned policy turned coercive.

And why is it suddenly OK for politicians to coax through their agendas on the wings of 'What would Jesus do?', anyway? I thought we had to keep religion and politics segregated, lest the citizenry hear something that offends them unto the point of incomprehensible agony?
Like so many pawns are we, being drawn across a mammoth board following first this soothing promise and then that one, yielding up our inalienable rights to the seductive tune of the charmer who has neither the authority nor the capacity to deliver on these empty promises.

" 'Because they lead my people astray, saying, "Peace," when there is no peace, and because, when a flimsy wall is built, they cover it with whitewash, therefore tell those who cover it with whitewash that it is going to fall. Rain will come in torrents, and I will send hailstones hurtling down, and violent winds will burst forth. 12 When the wall collapses, will people not ask you, "Where is the whitewash you covered it with?" (Ezekiel 13:10-12)

"What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun." (Ecclesiastes 1:9)


Its your move.

Our Laughable Congress

Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert will testify at a Congressional hearing on immigration.

And still some people say there is no disconnect between Congress and the People? We are SO being herded by the media as to what message(s) we will hear. I wish the dome of the Capitol building could be inverted into a giant plunger and just purge every last representative from the congress and start over with farmers, plumbers, doctors, business people, but not one single lawyer or professor! Real life, and real life problems, requires real life experience, NOT the visions of intellectuals being imposed on the people via top=down policy making that ultimately disrupts the vital, natural interactions of we the people on the ground.

Constitution

The way I see it, the Founders constructed the Constitution of the United States as a means of putting a leash on government, and a hedge of protection around the individual liberties that are given to us by God. And I think I am not alone in this view. But a foundational element for the success of this arrangement was left unspoken, unwritten in any formal treatise regarding the fledgling government they were about to birth: just as the powers of government are tethered to a stake driven into the bedrock of the Constitution, so must the heart of the individual be tethered to God. If the people desire self-rule, they must endeavor to be the gate keepers of their own heart and to constrain the darkness that dwells therein. There is no action taken, no word spoken, that is not conceived first in the heart.

As Government has eliminated God from the public discourse, and dotingly shielded students from the dangers associated with even a cursory assent to the existence of God, it has cleverly created the need to expand its own powers. A government such as ours that develops a lust for power must necessarily push the citizenry toward an unfettered and equally lusty heart that cherishes and covets a selfish, unrestrained freedom over and above the nebulous energy force that maintains order in the human world: principle.

The Judge and the Critic

While it is surely true that God is the ultimate judge, I think that human beings have donned the mantle of the ultimate critic.

With the pure and Holy God of the cosmos, it is possible to confess our failures and experience immediate restoration into relationship with Him. But humans are possessed of some strange need to publically scrutinize the shortcomings of others.

Is there some other Accounts Payable ledger of which they are arbiters?

Through Jesus, I can please God.
But man is never satisfied.

Life's a Verb

If you live with the expectation that life owes you something, your disappointments will only be compounded.

If you live each day as if it is the greatest Gift ever handed to you, your joy will be boundless.

"Living" is definitely a verb, and Life surely has an Author.

On Appeasement

Want to know how well disarmament and appeasement of one's adversaries works out?

Ask an American Indian.

What is an Economy?

Ernst Haeckel coined the term Ecology drawing on the Greek root eco, “Oikos” - a home or place to live, and "logos", being logic or knowledge. Ecology is the 'study of the house', or of the environment in which a creature lives. Since all life is energy-driven, ecology essentially maps energy flow through an ecosystem.

"Economy" stems from the same Greek word oikos (home) , and nomy derived from nomos, a law or principle. In economics, the "management of the household" is under scrutiny. Household management encompasses a lot of things, but chief among them is providing for the household's residents the basic elements of survival, namely food and shelter, both derived from energy.

Interestingly enough, in both an ecosystem and an economic system, the plant is the foundational element upon which everything will be built, since it is the plant that converts raw energy into usable forms. In an ecosystem, members of the plant kingdom convert the sun's energy into the chemical energy that fosters the development of the food web. The plant is the producer, and in order for life to exist, an ecosystem must first have a population of producers (and a convertible energy source).

In an economy, the plant that forms the underpinnings of the system is the manufacturing plant. This plant converts raw , unusable materials, such as minerals, fibers and crops, into products usable by man, the primary participant in the economic system. The manufacturing plant, through its conversion of raw materials, becomes the producer element in an economy. These manufactured products are distributed not through the familiar hunter/gatherer method of the natural world, but through mutual agreements using an exchange unit known as currency. This currency circulates through the economy just as energy circulates through the ecosystem.

Among the many differences between the energy flow of an ecosystem and the currency flow in an economic system, one stands out: consciousness.
In an ecosystem, there is no conscious oversight of how and where the energy will flow. It is purely Darwinian, since by definition, the survival of the fittest distills down to 'a klutz and his energy are soon parted'.
In an economy, however, the whole process is very much a conscious endeavor, with forethought, sound judgment and knowledge being demanded of its participants; else 'a fool and his money are soon parted.'

Businesses in their natural state are built upon the natural flow of currency generated by the needs and abilities of the individuals with whom a business must interact, known as consumers (some of which also serve as lenders) and producers. This information is signaled to the business segment through product demand, savings rates, and unadulterated interest rates.
To centralize an economy is to direct artificially where the currency will flow. Using the ecosystem as a model, we understand that artificially directing the flow of energy will have disruptive consequences at various levels within that ecosystem. Segments that are suddenly cut off from the energy flow will unravel into ruin, while others that are flooded with energy will experience population booms and/or habitat destruction. (In an economic system we call these 'bubbles').

But what happens to an economy when its currency is suddenly rerouted for political reasons, specifically designed to benefit select elements within the economic system? We see the demise of certain affected economic engines and a cascade of economic contractions in certain related veins of the economy on the one hand, and conversely the formation of 'bubbles' in other segments. (I prefer to think of these as aneurysms... a catastrophic hemorrhage waiting to happen.) And when legislation becomes egregious to the point of making manufacturing an impossible task, the conversion of raw materials into usable products eventually ceases, (or goes overseas) and with it, the currency and the economy it nourished.

Put on your tin foil Sci=Fi hat for a moment, and imagine the consequences of an entity that masterminded a way to control the amount of the sun's energy reaching planet Earth. You don't even have to think very long to figure out two things: 1) This won't end well for the inhabitants, and 2) There will be an attempt made to 'improve' something, either the planet's inhabitants (ignorant benevolence) or the well-being of the controller and his cronies. The siren call of power is simply irresistible to conscious beings.

Socialism is the centralization of the means of both the production and distribution of an economy. It is not based on the realities dictated by the participants in the economic system. It is based on the utopian fantasies of those who believe they can consolidate and control this colossal power derived from the genius and work of hundreds of millions of living, breathing human beings.

And Socialism can only lead to Communism, because such access to power must be further constricted to an elite echelon subjugated to a single ruling authority, precisely because power is a two-edged sword, and its dangers multiply at every degree of concentration within the hands of a few as opposed to when it is dispersed across the hundreds of millions of autonomous, thinking individuals inhabiting a geopolitical confine. Communism has always resulted in economic failure, large scale human suffering, and worse, by vast numbers of the population, precisely because it is based on the dreams and visions of 'the visionaries' (aka intellectuals) and NOT on the real dynamics of people living at the community level.

True free market Capitalism is absolutely dependent upon unencumbered signaling between individual producers and individual consumers. But with the Federal Reserve manufacturing imaginary currency ('energy') for Congress to inject into the economic system to effect their own political agendas and play out their ideologies and fantasies, the U.S. economy has never been the house of cards that it is today.
But then I'm guessing you already knew that.

What is Morality?

OK... here's something that has been bugging me for awhile, and some comments from an atheist have just prompted me to write this down. Question: What is morality? Merriam-Webster online defines it thus:

a : a doctrine or system of moral conduct
b: plural : particular moral principles or rules of conduct
3 : conformity to ideals of right human conduct
4 : moral conduct : virtue.

I don't know about you, but I hate definitions that rely on usage of the root of the word in question. So, here is the definition of moral:

a : of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior : ethical
b : expressing or teaching a conception of right behavior
c : conforming to a standard of right behavior
d : sanctioned by or operative on one's conscience or ethical judgment
e : capable of right and wrong action.

Great. How do we define 'right' actions versus 'wrong' actions? Again, I go to Merriam-Webster for some clarification on what is 'right':

1 : RIGHTEOUS, UPRIGHT
2 : being in accordance with what is just, good, or proper
3 : conforming to facts or truth : CORRECT
4 : SUITABLE, APPROPRIATE
5 : STRAIGHT
6 : GENUINE, REAL

I note that the first word mentioned by way of defining 'right' is again a form of the word in question! So here we go with 'righteous':

Righteous: 1. acting in accord with divine or moral law : free from guilt or sin
2 a : morally right or justifiable b : arising from an outraged sense of justice or morality

So let me see how this might all work: morality is moral conduct, and what is moral can be determined according to an ethical or right standard, a righteous principle.

So in essence, acting in accordance with what is just, good or proper, also known as being righteous, or practicing right behavior, is to act in accordance with divine or moral law, according to Merriam-Webster.

That last phrase interests me. Which is it? Is our society's definition of morality based on divine law, or upon moral law? And can there be a moral law apart from a divine statute? Because if morality traces its existence back to divine law, how can the very same legislators, judges and other politicians who insist, loudly and at times passionately, on a separation of church and state, turn right around and insist heisting money and property from one group of people to give to another group of people is justifiable on moral grounds? I mean, aren't they sort of crucifying their own sacred cow?

(And if it helps, divine is defined as: a : of, relating to, or proceeding directly from God or a god b : being a deity)

A Minority of One

"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money." Alexis de Tocqueville

Want to catch a glimpse of the most endangered species on the planet? Easy enough: tonight while brushing your teeth, just lean in close to the mirror and gaze upon it. You are one of a kind, and the individual rights and liberties that are yours alone are being eclipsed and consumed by one of liberty's stealthiest, most insidious predators: Statism.

Statism is today's politically correct subspecies of collectivism. In statism the rights of the individual citizen are subordinated to the demands of the state, but always, of course, with the good of the group in view. So long as the matter in question can be argued from the standpoint of 'for the greater good', individual rights can and will be sacrificed. Ever ask yourself who gets to define 'greater' and 'good'?

Statism stands in direct opposition to the core principles which drove the Founders to write the Declaration of Independence and upon which they framed the Constitution. To understand why this is so, one question must be answered: Where do our rights come from? The Declaration of Independence leaves no room for equivocation on this subject. In the Founders' view there is a God, a supreme and transcendent God without whom we would not exist. The Founders held that the rights we as humans possess, as well as our individual liberty and value, are derived directly from God. One of the theological cornerstones illuminated in the Bible is that we are created by God in His image and for His pleasure. And while that image is quite tarnished in us, the implication is that we are endowed with the ability, like God, to love, to know the existence of right and wrong, to live life relationally, to love unconditionally, and to exercise our creative and intellectual inclinations in a manner that glorifies God and clarifies, rather than denigrates, the image of God as displayed through humanity.

Understanding the Founders' perspective, we arrive at the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, and it is not a complicated path. Clearly no ruler, foreign or domestic, has the authority to subdue or enslave us, not because we are citizens of the United States of America, but because we are human beings, beholden only to our Maker. Our value is not sourced from the ideologies we embrace or from our social standing, but comes solely from the One who created us. In this paradigm absolutes do exist and are upheld as such. Individual liberty is the only cornerstone upon which a Republic can stand.


On the other hand, when we dismiss the idea of God and ourselves as His workmanship, the perspective on 'rights' looks very different. Suddenly the rights we claim as our own are rendered into political commodities, subject to 'streamlining' by government in the best case scenario, or as has happened far too frequently in the history of human civilization, taken at gunpoint.

If the rights of the individual are not absolute, then they are presumed to be doled out by the state, and what the state giveth, the state can, and will, taketh away. Ultimately, absolutes are not recognized because the most basic unit of society is not recognized as having absolute rights. The cornerstone for government becomes a democracy, where the majority declares by consensus what is right and what is wrong. In this model, once the majority agrees that, say, stealing is OK, well then, stealing is OK, because the intent is no longer that the rights of the individual be protected, but that the will of the mob be executed.

Politicians empower themselves by acting as the gods of special interest groups, whose organizers are careful to couch their demands in the verbiage of 'rights', setting up the perfect opportunity for politicians to deprive some citizens of their individual liberties in order to 'make right' the perceived wrong. When the rights of the individual are recognized only in the context of a group affiliation, i.e. labor rights, race and gender rights, gay rights and so forth, the only outcome possible is the one we have achieved: Identity Politics, where a toxic body politic pits group against group like mud wrestling contestants vying for wee scraps of leverage while gloating politicians rake in their winnings measured in voting blocks.

Redistribution of wealth is merely the iconic tip of the iceberg, for what is really transpiring is a reallocation of rights: What one rightfully possesses as a result of his labors will be given to the one who has not earned it, yet this transaction is executed in the name of 'equality', and is based on the assumption that where inequalities in prosperity exist, liberty has been exploited by the one who has succeeded at the expense of the one who has not.

The thinking by the statist that his utopian dream can somehow be fulfilled by homogenizing living conditions through the redistribution of wealth completely disregards the nature of the inner man, wherein resides the wellspring of our humanness. It is in the heart where contentment and envy wrestle, love and hate square off, joy and despair are cultivated. And frankly, there is no political solution to the disposition of the human heart, but there are plenty who would tell you they have it. All they need is your vote and a little more cash.

Copyright 2009

The Reading List

OK...Myself and a friend have finally waded through Liberal Fascism, by Jonah Goldberg, and I can safely say it needs to be on your 'must read' list. Or if you happen to be staring down a long car ride of, say, about 15 hours, it is available in audio book format. The review on the simplyaudiobooks.com website reads:"In this angry, funny, smart, contentious book, Jonah Goldberg offers a startling new perspective on the theories and practices that define fascist politics..." which is a pretty accurate and succinct synopsis. However, I would add that Liberal Fascism is an indepth look at the history of the Progressive Movement in America, what they stand for, and against. More importantly, the Progressive Movement is in full blown resurrection mode, and inquiring minds will want to know the truth about this movement in order to contrast it with the founding principles that created our great Republic.

And if you are a bit fuzzy on those founding principles, another Must Read is The 5,000 Year Leap, by Cleon Skousen. Just read it. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw_0_5?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=5+000+year+leap&sprefix=5%2C000

Seize the Moment

An ill wind of historic proportions has hit our shores. Americans are fretful and apprehensive. Our citadel of financial security has been shown to be corruptible, as are many things, by dishonesty. And while a dedicated cadre continue their public disavowal of the “In God We Trust” motto on our currency, these days God seems less and less the long shot.

But the real dilemma is this: What value will we now place on our Republic as it was handed down to us from our Founders? We were bequeathed a nation in which we are free to pursue our dreams and to harness our talents, to work as hard as we want - or as little as we want. And when that hard work manifests itself in financial reward, then that is our due. It is not a shameful thing. In fact it has blessed humanity.

Since its inception our nation has exploded the frontiers of human accomplishment. In the span of less than 200 years we moved mankind beyond his 2000 year history of oceanic travel by sailing ships and into the world of air travel, space travel and moon walks. Human beings, either individually or collaboratively, are the spark of creativity that ignite the bonfires of achievement and propel civilization to new heights. Being free to excel and to benefit from our endeavors is at the heart of capitalism, but more importantly, at the heart of progress. Capitalism dovetails with our constitutionally protected rights in that the principled pursuit of one’s passions, talents and work ethic commingle to reward the individual and consequently humanity. On the contrary, not a single invention or technological advancement can be credited to a government, because government is in the business of control; it is the antithesis of the creative and industrious processes which generate real product, real change.

Today, because of free enterprise, we live awash in a sea of extravagance that our ancestors could not have imagined. We are each the beneficiary of the products and services created by others. Even among those we label as ‘disadvantaged’, the fruits of capitalism are at work enriching life, making necessary goods and services available to all, regardless of means. Recently Michelle Obama served meals at a soup kitchen window, ostensibly for the poor, and found herself being photographed with cell phone cameras by the kitchen’s clientele. The life of poverty in America, according to our government’s own data, includes car ownership, air conditioning, most household appliances, cable or satellite television, DVD or VCR and stereo equipment, and better than adequate nutrition.

There is a very real difference between poverty and envy, and it is malfeasance by government to provoke the latter, let alone use it as leverage to insist upon equal reward for unequal effort. And as enigmatic as it is to government, much of life’s reward comes not from the accumulation of material goods, but from endeavoring to progress as individuals; and there exists no prescribed route for this, though many in government strain to create one. To fixate on materialism as the measurement of equality is a surefire way to instill envy and foment dissatisfaction…which is, of course, an excellent strategy by which to set up salvation by government.

As the winds of crisis pound away at our resolve, if not our very roots, we find ourselves facing the prospect of genuine hardship. We simply must step back and examine the bigger picture. We are nearing a precipice which may claim the engine of our nation’s great success. Onerous debt will preclude economic growth and prosperity. Too much Funny Money and we will be living under inflation’s smothering cloak. The ‘solutions’ coming out of Washington seem to have one thing going for them: they increase the scope and power of government.

Our president continuously warns of catastrophic results if we do not yield to his will, and that of the Pelosi-Reid congress. A monstrous spending bill has slithered through Congress and now bears the president’s seal. Similar bills are promised, leaving the citizens of this nation with a brutish choice. We can sit mutely on the sidelines and allow Congress to saddle future generations with a debt that guarantees crushing taxation and conscription to a lifetime of shoveling earnings into Washington’s fiery fiscal furnace. Or, we can play the hand we’ve been dealt, trusting in, and exercising, our combined grit, resourcefulness and compassion to deal with what now comes our way.

The demise of Liberty is never more than a crisis away. Will this crisis make us, or break us? The choice is ours… but only for a moment.

What If I Don't Want You Improving My Life?

“Changing America.” “Improving the lives of Americans.” This would seem to be the flagship theme of this year’s Presidential election. Every candidate, Democrat or Republican, seems to have seized at least some splinter of this plank to fuel the fires at their respective campaign rallies. What’s frightening is that they actually seem to believe theirs is the right, power and ability to make improvements in your life and mine. What exactly did the Revolutionaries seek refuge from when they fought and died to expel the Crown from the Colonies? Did they do it simply to yield power to a new form of government that would likewise insert itself into their lives? I think not.

Getting inside the hearts and heads of our Founding Fathers is paramount to comprehending the essential nature of the Constitution they drafted, and what the Constitution is intended to do, and just as importantly, intended to avoid. Every U.S. citizen must have the understanding that the document the Founders labored over was not, and is not, a how-to manual for receiving and delegating power, nor is it a playbook for the disempowering of one’s political opposition. The Constitution of the United States, and the government it birthed, is the product of a group of people who knew first hand that a government must be intent on preserving the individual’s God-given rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, or become tyrannical. These men, and the citizenry and their posterity on whose behalf they labored, never again wanted to live under the yoke of monarchism or its offspring, tyranny. Prior to the drafting of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, and of the U.S. Constitution in 1787, sorrowful amounts of the blood of Colonists had been poured out in the endeavor to subdue and evict the Crown’s militia, so desperately did the colonists desire to be free of autocratic rule.

Before you vote this November, investing a bit of time in some eye-opening reading could cast a whole new light on the slate of candidates, and whether their goals are indeed worthy of the Constitution they will swear to uphold if elected.

First suggestion: Washington’s Crossing, by David Hackett Fischer. Fischer, an historian, draws heavily from preserved letters and diaries of soldiers of the Continental Army, of the British Army, as well as diaries of the mercenary forces (the Hessians) contracted by the King to help subdue the rebellious colonists. In this intimate revelation of our Revolutionary history we hear firsthand the privation and suffering and despair that at times overwhelmed Washington’s army - his men - to near dissolution at arguably the most critical juncture of the war. Consider the fortitude of these Continental soldiers clothed in threadbare garments, many even barefoot, as they traversed the iced banks of the Delaware River in the winter of 1776-77. In their wake they recorded upon the snow their own extraordinary signature to Freedom’s cause, inscribed with the blood that seeped from their frozen feet as they resolutely pressed on, ultimately, and thankfully, proving to be possessed of an indomitable spirit. Read this book carefully and as you read, consider the question, “What were these men fighting so desperately, and so passionately, for…or against?”


Secondly, read The 5,000 Year Leap, by W. Cleon Skousen. Like Fischer’s book, this text utilizes countless documents and personal correspondences written by various Founding Fathers, until piece by piece, in quilt-like fashion, we see the genius of the Constitution of the United States of America revealed.

Today it is far too common for U.S. citizens to point to the Constitution and make selfish declarations about ‘our rights’, and far too rare for us to give consideration to our selfless duty to defend the integrity of that Constitution, even if means personal sacrifice. Indeed the latter is today best understood, if not coveted, by those who wear the uniform of this nation’s military.

Read and contemplate. Before you mark your ballots this November, consider who you would most like to go about the business of ‘improving the lives of Americans’, i.e., of improving your life. Do you want the freedom to improve your life by whatever honorable means are at your disposal? Or would you leave that task, and the definition of ‘improvement’, to an elected official who knows not a single thing about you?

On America

America is an incredible country. In the history of the planet there has never been such a place, such a convergence of human spirit and will set free to sail the winds of chance and discovery and fortune.

The human mind is unrelenting in its creativity and objectivity: it is inherently curious and conveniently endowed with the capacity to ferret out answers to the questions posed by itself. Individually, we each possess these attributes in different qualities and quantities, and when we commingle in the free market system known as Capitalism, we erupt in a synergy that expands our species’ very notion of possibility, if not in fact reality.

As a capitalist free nation, American citizens are free to endeavor in legal enterprises and then be rewarded as the marketplace sees fit. But financial reward, materialism, should never be viewed as the enduring blessing of freedom. Because my passions and gifts differ from the mechanic’s whose differ from the surgeon’s whose differ from the teacher’s, we are each variously compensated by the marketplace. When the joy of living and of being an American is reduced to how much stuff we can acquire (viz a viz money), we have prostituted our joy and freedom, exchanging that which has intrinsic value for that which possesses only fleeting worth.

America is a sacred trust. For everyday Colonial farmers and merchants to have been compelled to engage in a war of impossible odds against the military might of the Crown belies the desperate political environ that had grown up around them. These Colonists were stirred to action while at the same time drawn inexorably toward the destiny that would become self-government. Today, like every day since the Colonists declared war against Britain, we personally experience freedom to pursue our own happiness because of the courage and dedication to principle to which the Revolutionaries had committed themselves.

What are the principles that motivate Americans today? How might those who brought America into nationhood view our performance as keepers of the trust they handed to us?

America derives its blessings from her moral grounding, the fruits of human ingenuity, and from certain provisions of the government for the general public, namely a national defense and an infrastructure that benefits the masses. The role of government in the United States of America is not, and shall never be, the intentional redistribution of wealth from one individual to another. The position of most liberal and even some moderate politicians today would be viewed by our Colonial predecessors as heretical, a dereliction of duty, an extinguishing of the sacred trust that is the heart of America.

Today America is synonymous with Freedom. Freedom to try, freedom to fail, freedom to succeed. But not the freedom to demand money from others simply based on disparity. Consider this: In academia the student is given the opportunity to perform to the best of his or her ability and to be rewarded with an education and a GPA that will serve them for years to come. But since not all students are equally intellectually endowed and/or motivated to excel academically, should we instead redistribute the wealth of the overachievers to the underachievers, handing over points and grades from the first group to the latter? The successful students’ A grades become C’s, and the failing students’ become C’s. Hardly a worthy objective or means.

Certainly we have among our citizenry those who need extra help and attention. People with physical or mental disabilities may be limited in their ability to participate in capitalism. And that is why the human spirit is also dressed in compassion. We help those who truly need a hand.

But we should never think it courageous or honorable or even acceptable to demand from others their rightfully acquired possessions. If it is not right for me to approach my wealthier neighbor and demand money from him, it is no more right for the government to do so in our stead.

Thanks, but no thanks.

Global Warming: A Tip for Mother Nature

I suspect that when the human race indeed becomes too much of 'an inconvenient truth' for the planet, Mother Nature will take her cue from us and simply abort us.

Problem solved.

Truth or Veneer?

A brief conversation with a friend this past week got me to thinking about truth.

What concerns me is that we may largely be a people who do not seek truth so much as solutions.

The topic of conversation was Intelligent Design and Darwinism. The University of Kansas has been hosting a weekly or monthly forum that regularly invites icons of either school of thought: Intelligent Design (ID) or Neo-Darwinism. At one such meeting the renowned atheist Richard Dawkins was the guest icon for Neo-Darwinism and he was by all accounts quite eloquent and passionate in both his grievances against ID and support for Neo-Darwinism and atheism.

Because we have become a culture of veneer values, I suspect we are too easily smitten by such polished speech. President George W. Bush has revealed this penchant of ours in its negative form. I don't suppose there's a single late night comedian that doesn't denigrate Bush at least twice per show for his substandard delivery of the English language.

But to what extent are content and delivery related? Has our appetite for Oscar Award entertainment so deadened our minds that we cannot listen to and evaluate spoken ideas that are having a bad hair day? Do we really prefer the silver-tongued orator whose content and logic are flawed over plain (or even stammering) speech that is sincerely spoken?

Do we value polish and veneer, or truth?

I fear our expectations have begun to mirror the Hollywood gauntlet: those who would be stars must be flawless. Doesn't matter that it takes self-starvation, enough silicone to heremetically seal two Boeing 757's, and an ego the size of a small country to create the myth. No, what seems to matter is that they give the appearance of being this deity of perfection, and what they really are or are not is of no consequence.

So knowing that everything that glitters isn't gold, what about us still allows us to give a pass to the smooth,impeccable and passionate delivery of a speech whose content is evasive and nonsensical? Is it that a finely constructed fortress of words appears beyond breach, so no countermeasures (i.e. THOUGHT) are deployed, leaving the message to stand as approved and accepted?

Or is it that the dissenters cannot find print space?

It is imperative that we never cease pursuing the truth.

If we expect to find something of value in this life, then we had best be in the market for Truth. And if Truth is what we hope to find, then learning to identify false logic and empty but intimidating rhetoric must become part and parcel of our thinking.

In a few short months the 2008 presidential candidates will begin to announce their candidacy. Americans will be inundated with plenty of ideologies and promises and plans, some served up with great panache by gifted orators, some by the not-so-gifted. But with any luck, U.S. Citizens will step out of their American Idol mindset and work very hard to dissect the promises, arguments and accusations that are about to be launched at them. We don't need a superstar. We need leaders who are not afraid to lead, leaders about whom it can be said, 'what you see is what you get.'

Wanting solutions can be very different from wanting the Truth.

Peace On Earth

We hear a lot about ‘peace’ these days. War tends to bring that concept right on around to the forefront of thought for many.

I’m just curious about one thing: What is peace?

Is peace the absence of war? If the conflagrations of war that presently smatter the globe were to be suddenly extinguished, would we, on that day and at that precise moment, have peace?

I think not.

I think we seek what we do not know nor understand. Because peace is first an internal human condition, the absence of conflict in a community, be it local or global, does not equate to peace in the hearts of men. Dissention and dissatisfaction seem to foment within humans, eventually erupting in confrontation. I will wager that to the majority of people, ‘peace’ is an expectation unwittingly placed on everyone other than themselves. Peace would mean everyone simultaneously and continually yielding on all fronts to everyone else. If you've lived in a family very long, you already know how hard it can be at times just to 'get along', but the deeper reality is inner dissention and dissatisfaction. The key is how those negative feelings are processed. We choose either to entreat one another, or to erupt at one another. The reason there is not Peace on Earth is because it is filled with human beings.

Peace seems to be a favorite poster child of Hollywood. Hollywood stars and starlets tend to be very vocal about the illegitimacy and immorality of war, about its negative consequences on innocents, about the upheaval and disruption it creates in the lives of the affected. All of this assumes that upheaval is not the norm, and that somewhere this ideal of peace as a normative and good state does exist. However they tend to distill peace down to the absence of war. Yet their own lives, like the life of every other human on the planet, manifests the seeds of conflict; there is no shortage among the Hollywood elite of broken vows, nasty divorces, and patently self-destructive behavior. Conflicts one and all, and thus by definition, without peace.

So Hollywood icons use their audience access to promote the higher good of peace. Yet what do we see coming out of Hollywood? Are we deluged with programs and films that extol virtue, honor and selflessness? Hardly. We find a deliberate attempt to evict innocence from humanity, starting with the youngest among us. A deliberate attempt to project what is neither the norm nor normal AS exactly that…normal and acceptable. Young people are assailed with a culture of self-centeredness and sex. Both are portrayed as the panacea that will give them ultimate equality and freedom, though with what and from what escapes me. Advertisers understand this predilection all too well, and absolutely capitalize on it when seducing the dollars out of naive youths around the world, though probably nowhere more than in the Western world.

Movies and television programs are filled with the macabre, the sadistic, the amoral and immoral. Perversion is pumped onto movie and television screens like barrels of oil bursting from the Persian Gulf. But where unrestrained consumption of oil is bad (we are told), unrestrained consumption of sex is good! We are told that there needs to be change, that Americans are too Puritanical.

This call for change amounts to an agenda, and agendas precipitate conflict. Today our country is divided largely along lines of conservative and liberal morals and values. Liberal morals preach a ‘do what you want as long as it doesn’t harm another person' perspective. Conservative morals ask, ‘is what you are doing the right thing?’ and also assumes that a higher standard of 'right' does in fact exist.

But peace really requires more than warlords and dictators laying aside their agendas. It requires individuals to put aside their own interests and pursuits, their own personal agendas, in the interest of helping others.

Rebellion is the forerunner of war, and rebellion is what resides in the hearts of men. Rebellion is the refusal to acknowledge certain laws and moral standards as legitimate, and purposing instead to replace them with relative standards, so that what is wrong today may in fact be right tomorrow.

It is as though we are first and foremost at war with ourselves. And that would explain the rest.

Evolving Kansas

In 1995 the official Position Statement of the American National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT) rendered the following explanation of life's origins: "The diversity of life on earth is the outcome of evolution: an unsupervised, impersonal, unpredictable and natural process of temporal descent with genetic modification that is affected by natural selection, chance, historical contingencies and changing environments"(emphasis mine).

This is also the pronouncement of atheism, which is simply 'non-belief' in anything supernatural; like science, if one of the five senses can't discern it, it cannot be. This is known as scientific naturalism and is identical to the mandates ordained by and for public education.

NABT removed the two words 'unsupervised' and 'impersonal' in 1997 after criticisms were raised by a philosopher and a religious scholar pointing out that those statements veer off into the realm of philosophy and are not scientifically provable. Those deletions subsequently led to a backlash from many in the scientific community who apparently have deeply held beliefs that evolution is indeed impersonal and unsupervised.

What is remarkable, however, is the unreserved honesty of the NABT's approach as revealed in their original definition of evolution. Few today will publicly profess evolution using its complete and accurate connotation, but instead take the tack of the NABT's revised statement of evolution, steering clear of the incendiary words 'unsupervised' and 'impersonal'. But unsupervised and impersonal are indeed what remain if scientific naturalism is the compass guiding the ship of discovery.

So what does any of this say about our origins as a species? Clearly it states that we are here only by some utterly freakish accident; an unplanned pregnancy of the universe, we might surmise. And then what have we done to God? Some evolutionists, and all institutions of public education, ardently declare that they are not out to depose God. But given evolution's basic assumptions of scientific naturalism and materialism, the only way God can exist is if we have made Him, i.e. he is nothing more than a construct of our own collective imaginations. (This would explain the effort in recent decades to reshape the God of the Bible into a more modern god fashioned after our own, ever changing, image.)

Darwinism has marshaled an implausible army of supporters over the past 145 years since Origin of Species was first published, and Darwinism's hegemony of the public's mind has gone unchallenged for decades. The popular media is in no way a minor player in this stunning rise from theory to undeniable, if not inscrutable 'fact'.

But science has marched on, and the modern discoveries in cell and molecular biology have thrown open the door on a previously unimagined landscape in the origins of life expedition. And things there are not at all as we had thought. Darwin himself had reservations about his theory given certain scenarios which have now become reality.

Science is to be, above all things, an expedition. Assumptions usually serve as the guardian of biases, and biases detract from objective thinking. Certainly thinking is what we must be about.

I am a theist. Not a deist; not an agnostic; not an atheist. I am not threatened by evolution, or by the exploration of its merits - and its shortcomings. I have been a student of science and particularly biology for decades; I am a life-long learner. And one of the things I continue to learn is that no matter how much knowledge we accumulate as a civilized world, it fades into infinitesimal minuteness in the face of what is unknown.

Learning occurs only in the arena of intellectual curiosity. Serving up the close-minded and improvable dogma of scientific naturalism is tantamount to indoctrination: Something - I believe - we frown on in this country.

Separation of Press and State

Who’s Minding the Press?

Our founding fathers very early on in the process of creating a free republic declared that the ‘press’ should be free, set apart from any government control - a sort of “Separation of Press and State”, if you will. The press is accountable to no empowered agency whose responsibility it is to monitor the activities of the press, and to no standard save its own. While ideologically sound, the reality is a victimization of fact and truth far beyond anyone’s imaginings, and with obvious and serious ramifications for the public that the press purports to serve and inform.

That the press (including it modernized brother, the electronic media) is a powerful instrument wielded to shape public opinion should never be doubted, nor can its effectiveness at doing so be overestimated. If the press were recognized as a political system, it would most nearly approximate a dictatorship. The citizenry have, in the written press, a limited, edited voice with which to address issues of public interest, but not matters directly related to the performance of the press itself. Public commentaries critical of the press are summarily excluded from publication/broadcast by that same press. Few individuals or groups have the resources to investigate the accuracy of the information disseminated by the press. And at any rate, the mainstream press is unlikely to print or broadcast allegations of subterfuge made against it.

Given that public opinion shapes public policy, and given the role of the press in shaping public opinion, a serious conflict of interest exists that will never be fully exposed under the current system of information dissemination that we have today in this country. The fox is carefully guarding the henhouse.

As citizens we fail in our duties when we allow the press to crank out doggedly biased information that goes unchallenged for the very fact of its bias. Listen carefully to the adjectives news broadcasters choose or the newspaper employs in its articles. An intentional, conscious effort is made to shape the viewers’ or readers’ perception of the facts. Equally important are the words that are left out of newspaper or television news broadcasts. Again I will say, the press is the most powerful instrument in human society, because it is the basis upon which public opinion is formed. Our own Revolutionary war was nearly a lost cause within a few short months of the Declaration of Independence precisely because the public’s opinion about the war was being purposefully manipulated by a non-sympathetic press to view it as a lost cause. The effect of this reporting crippled recruiting efforts by militia groups and the Continental Army as the ideal of freedom began to be painted as a cause beyond the reach of the Colonists. The hope and morale of the people faded. Had Thomas Paine not written a series of pamphlets, in particular one entitled The Crisis, that elucidated clearly the higher ideals at stake and the means –and cost - by which to effect them, America would doubtless be decades behind where it is today politically, socially, technologically and economically.

Words do matter because words convey ideas, and ideas shape actions. The English novelist Edward George Bulwer Lytton (1803-1873) was no fool when he wrote, “The pen is mightier than the sword.” When Michael Moore cried foul to the network news corporations about Disney Corporation’s refusal to buy and release his movie, Fahrenheit 911, the media’s presentation of the story left the unmistakable impression that Moore and his film had been suddenly jilted, skewered by the forked tongue of Censorship. The plain facts are that a full year prior to Moore’s film being ready for release he had been informed by Disney’s Miramax that they had no interest in the film, leaving him 12 months to market it elsewhere. The New York Times chastised Disney Corporation for this perceived ‘censorship’. Moore meanwhile harvested the energy falling out of the media tempest and sagely took his film to the Cannes Film Festival where the tidal wave of media-generated controversy landed it at the top. Thus making it a very tempting tidbit for a small UK company distribute on the energy of all the pre-release publicity. (The press performed this same function when it tried to squelch Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ by its continuous interviews with those claiming the film to be anti-Semitic.)

Michael Eisner, in response to the harsh criticism leveled at Disney by the Times, wrote the editors and let them know that just as the Times is not obligated to print every article or letter received by it, neither is Disney obligated to release every film that it is offered.

Or maybe you already knew all of that.

As a free and democratic society, we have a rich history of abhorring the political indoctrination of any people by any government. And yet we are subjected to it daily through the news media on which we depend to keep us informed.

The separation of Press and State is indeed a worthy and necessary breach. However, if the integrity of the mainstream media does not improve, and significantly so, the time may come when the press will have to disclose themselves as a political party, if not a branch of government, and surrender their press passes to those enlightened enough to want to pursue truth for the sake of truth and not with the intent of manipulating the perception of the citizenry.

At that point we will truly have a free press.