Abortion and Riverboat Gambling

What an ironic analogy, considering the city I work in. Paul Gottfreid says it well:

Being against abortion is like being against river boat gambling as a corrupting human enterprise. It is a nice gesture on the part of politicians courting religiously earnest citizens but it is not a stand that requires any costly commitment from either national party. Like many of the members of the US Congress, anti-abortion politicians have treated their moral issue as a useful tool, one that can bring in votes from carefully targeted “conservative” blocs but not as anything for which one would go to the wall.

Reagan was never really against abortion. Neither were the Bush’s. Even when the Republicans controlled the Congress and the White House, they did nothing. Well, maybe I shouldn’t day nothing… they did increase funding for Planned Parenthood and made it legal for some babies to be killed cut up for cancer research. And their Judicial appointments? Big disappointment for all the Christians that were urged to vote Republican because of the chane to have a say in who sits on the Supreme Court. McCain looks like he will be worse than those that preceded him, and even more keen on bombing babies in other countries (and using depleted uranium on the survivors).

The game-plan is always the same, and we Christians are so stupid. We get all excited and focused on Clinton, Obama, or whoever the Democrat boogeyman of the election cycle is, and our minds go blank and we push the button for the Republican. We’re just really easy to manipulate. We get so outraged over Clinton’s escapades, Hillary’s healthcare plan, or Obama’s Get-Whitey campaign that we lose all sense of reason and don’t realize that the Republicans are just the same but less honest. And so conservatism has become merely a source of predictable funding for the God-hating liberal government we have today.

Be pro-life… and tell me who I can vote for! I’m open to writing in Jesus at this point.

HT: Polituema (Elihu)

That Pesky Thing We Call Consistency

I read a great quote from Pastor McAtee on how the Credo-Baptist position essentially views children as salvifically-unviable-fetuses:

Credo-baptists believe that soteric worth is tied up with moral agency. Such moral agency is dependent upon consciousness. For Credo-baptists, soteric rights presuppose interests, and creatures without a fairly advanced state of consciousness do not and can not have soteric interests. Hence, until such a time that a child is considered salvifically “viable” as witnessed by a advanced state of consciousness, the child is, salvifically speaking, not a person, but rather is a soteric fetus awaiting enough consciousness to be considered a candidate for soteriological personhood.

And ironically, the first commenter on Pastor McAtee’s post takes most Paedo-baptists to task with the same logic:

Insert Paedo into this article where it reads Credo and some would think that you had certainly made a mistake and truly meant Credo. However, many who would think you made that mistake apply this very reasoning to God’s Covenant children by rejecting them from Christ’s table “until such a time that a child is considered salvifically “viable” as witnessed by a advanced state of consciousness”.

And if you’d like to be entertained by hearing some Lutherans (Missouri Synod) discuss it, check this thread out. Pastor Weedon brings out a quote from Luther on 1 Corinthians which explains that the “examine himself” command doesn’t apply to children at all. Its quite telling that Pastor McCain jumps in immediately and begins repeating slogans and ad-hominems as if his life depended upon it. He knows exactly the threat that the quote presents to the anti-paedocommunion establishment, even if others don’t yet see it.

The Amish Have Doubled In The Past 16 Years

God is blessing the Amish in America, their population has nearly doubled since 1992, going from 125,000 to 231,000. (My own family has gone from 3 to 9 in that time, but hey – we’re in the prime of life!)

While a small part of the growth is due to conversions, other explanations include a high fertility rate and healthier children overall. Amish couples have an average of 5 children, and 80 percent of them grow up to practice the faith.

While Floyd secretly hopes that more of their children will become reformed, he can’t help admiring and applauding their retention rate. The study doesn’t break down the numbers by group, but the rate is in the range of 96% in the most conservative Amish groups, and far lower in the ones (New Order variety) that have adopted youth groups and done things “to keep the youth”.

Crazy Peak Oilers – Or Maybe Not So Crazy

In The American Conservative, Brian Kaller writes about the often-wrong presumption that peak-oilers have a Mad Max complex:

The simpler truth is that peak-oil converts are often young people reviving the personal habits and self-sufficient skills of their grandparents’ generation, thinking seriously about their tap water, transportation, income, food, heat, and electricity, and realizing how little would survive the end of fossil fuels. They anticipate that population trends, climate change, and other problems will compound the crisis, creating what Kunstler has called the Long Emergency. While others are preoccupied with the hot-button lifestyle issues of the moment, they are planting gardens, buying foreclosed farms, learning traditional crafts, taking crash courses in survival skills, and soberly preparing while silently counting down.

So, it sounds like they’re acting like Christians, then. Kaller argues that the future is Mayberry, not Mad Max – and I agree. That’s why we should be making compost.

Rod Dreher discusses the article at Crunchy Con. And check out Kaller’s blog, Restoring Mayberry.

Russia Attacks Georgia? Or Vice Versa?

Check out this interesting analysis (and history lesson) from Dmitry Orlov on what led to the current conflict between Russia and Georgia:

Shevardnadze slowly sank into a morass of corruption and national decay, until finally even the West decided that he smelled bad and unceremoniously replaced him with a shiny new face: the American-educated Mikhail Saakashvili. And this brings us to the current conflict, which he started. It is unclear why he decided to start it, but then his American education might offer a clue: the US doesn’t seem to need good reasons to start wars either.

It may be difficult for some people to grasp why it is that the Abkhaz or the Ossetians do not much fancy suddenly becoming Georgian, so let me offer you a precise analogy. Suppose Los Angeles, California, were to collapse as the USSR once did, and East L.A. quickly moved to declare its independence. Suppose, further, that the 88% of its population that is Hispanic/Latino voted that the other 12% were free to stay on as “guests,” provided they only spoke Spanish. The teaching of English were to be forbidden. After some bloody skirmishes, East L.A. split up into ethnic enclaves. Then some foreign government (say, Russian, or Chinese) stepped in and started shipping in weapons and providing training to the Latino faction, in support of their efforts to restore East L.A.’s “territorial integrity.” As a non-Hispanic resident of East L.A., would you then (1) run and hide, (2) stay and fight, or (3) pick up a copy of “Spanish for Dummies” and start cramming?

The Abkhaz and the South Ossetians have made their preference very clear by applying for and being issued with a Russian passport. That’s right, the majority of the present native population of these two “separatist enclaves” are bona fide citizens of the Russian Federation with all the privileges appertaining thereto. Lacking any other options, they are happy to accept protection from Russia, use Russian as their lingua franca, and fight for their right to be rid of Georgians once and for all. One of the privileges of being a Russian citizen at this stage, when Russia has recovered from its political and economic woes following the Soviet collapse, is that if some foreign entity comes and shells a settlement full of Russian citizens, you can be sure that Russia will open one amazingly huge can of whoop-ass on whoever it feels is responsible. Add to that the atrocities allegedly perpetrated by the Georgian forces, such as finishing off wounded Russian peacekeepers, and you can see why the normally shy and reticent Russian army might get behind the idea of making sure Georgia no longer poses a military threat to anyone. The Georgians have really done it to themselves this time, and we should all feel very sorry for them. They are not evil people, just incredibly misguided by their horrible national politicians. The West, and the US in particular, bear responsibility for enabling this bloodbath by providing them with arms, training, and encouraging them to fight for their “territorial integrity.”

Other interesting reads on the topic: Who’s Lincoln Here? and The Real Aggressor. Here’s some good questions from the latter article:

It’s too bad Obama is going along with the game plan, but then again, he was never good on the Russian question to begin with, so I can’t say I’m disappointed. South Ossetia is not now a part of “sovereign Georgian territory,” and it hasn’t been for nearly two decades, no matter what McCain and Obama would have us believe. If they, along with GWB, are going to stand by Saakashvili’s side as he mows down civilians and imposes martial law on a war-torn, dirt-poor, and much-abused people, then may they all be damned to hell – that is, if we can find a rung low enough for them.

It’s funny – if you like your humor black – but when Slobodan Milosevic was supposedly doing to Kosovo what Saakashvili is now doing to South Ossetia, the U.S. launched bombing raids and “liberated” the Kosovars from what we were told was to be a gruesome fate. There are many reasons to doubt that this attempted “genocide” ever took place, but given that something very bad was going on in the former Yugoslavia, one has to ask: why don’t the same standards apply to South Ossetia?

I’ll tell you why: because the victims, this time, are Russians, Slavs who haven’t achieved official victim status in the lexicon of Western “humanitarians.”

Imagine if, say, Colombia invaded Panama, and rained bombs down on the many U.S. citizens currently living there. Would the U.S. act to ensure their safety? You betcha! So somebody please tell me why Russia hasn’t the right to defend its own citizens, and even to deter and punish Georgian aggression.

Earth To Chuck Baldwin!

From If I Were President, by Chuck Baldwin, candidate of the Constitution Party:

…There is absolutely no reason for us to be dependent upon OPEC. There is enough gas and oil under the soil of Alaska (not to mention the Dakotas and the Gulf of Mexico) to meet the energy needs of the United States for the next 150-200 years. There is also no reason that gas should cost more than $1.50 a gallon (which is about what it was before Bush became President).

Th Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) has between 5.7 and 16 billion barrels of oil available, according to U.S. Geological Service estimates. Their estimated peak production of the region is 1.45 million barrells per day.

The Lower Tertiary Region of the Gulf of Mexico is estimated to have anywhere from 3 to 15 billion barrels of recoverable oil. A Chevron-led joint venture built the Jack-2 test well at over 28,000 feet deep, compared to the majority of offshore oil being drilled at less than 1,700 feet.

In 2007, the US consumed approximately 20.68 million barrels per day, over 7.5 billion barrels for the year. So, even with the most optimistic of estimates, these areas might have 31 billion barrels of recoverable oil. In American oil years, if we could suck it all out in demand it would cover our current needs (with zero demand growth, is it possible for a fiat-financed economy to survive at zero growth?) for about 4 years. But maximum production would actually be only about 2.5 million barrels per day – or 10% of our 2007 daily consumption levels. So the idea that we’d be “energy independent” if we drill in these areas falls flat on the numbers alone – even if production from other sources remains constant, which is unlikely. Likely any increase from ANWR and the gulf would just go towards replacing declines in current sources of supply.

But Chuck says there’s enough under Alaska to meet the energy needs of the US for the next 150 to 200 years. Right. Is he planning on following in the footsteps of Reagan, and hiring a psychic advisor for the White House, perhaps to divine the amounts and location of recoverable oil?

Aside from the inadequacy of supply, its also highly doubtful that these new domestic supplies would lower the cost of oil – in fact I think they would likely increase it. Drilling for oil has not gotten cheaper over the decades. It takes a lot of oil to produce the oil drilling equipment. The oil in the Gulf is far deeper than existing wells. It is also spread out over a vast area, it would take many many wells to extract it. Some of that oil will be located in numerous pockets too small to economically justify extracting.

Furthermore, how can Chuck assert that gas shold cost no more than $1.50 per gallon? We don’t need to analyze this in depth, one need only consider inflation to see that there indeed is a very good reason that gas costs more than 1.50 per gallon. The dollar is worth much less. Combine that with demand increasing faster than production, and you need more than platitudes and pie in the sky political slogans to explain why the price of gas shouldn’t be what it is today. The ANWR and offshore oil wouldn’t make a noticeable difference in the price, and might not be lower at all. It certainly wouldn’t make much of an impact in current US consumption let alone replace the increase in demand in growing markets, foreign as well as domestic. Of course, none of these new oil-pipedreams will come online until well after the end of the next President’s term(s) of office, so they can keep saying this stuff and blaming Big Oil, OPEC, and the Sierra Club for the high price of gas, and not have to face the facts.

We must begin drilling for the domestic oil that we know exists; we must build more refineries and nuclear power plants. There is no reason why the United States cannot be mostly energy independent. It is time we started putting the people and interests of the United States ahead of the CEOs and interests of international corporations.

The 800-pound gorilla here is this – Who is this “WE“? Typical conservative non-sequiter campaign garbage.

Chuck’s running with the Constitution Party, so I’m curious as to how he’s going to deliver on all his implied promises (gas at 1.50, domestically produced oil going to America only) within the constraints of the Constitution.

I am one of those that looks for a “third-party” candidate to support. My first vote for president was cast for Charles C. Collins. The most mainstream candidate I ever voted for in the presidential race was Pat Buchanan. The problem is, I’m looking for someone that makes sense, and doesn’t spout off nonsense. If they don’t know what they’re talking about, they need to hire someone that does. His inability to do that before going on record about energy policy makes me more than a bit concerned that he won’t do that when he needs to as President.

Chuck, here’s a tip from Floyd Turbeville, American. If you can’t afford to hire an energy advisor, try to befriend one, and have him help you revamp your energy strategy. Come up with something that doesn’t make the Constitution Party a laughingstock among people that can read and use a calculator.

Postmillennialists Make Better Compost

Yes, its true. Postmillennialists make better compost. Herrick Kimball explains why:

Early on, as I learned about the wonders of using compost in the garden, I was discouraged by the fact that it takes so long to make the stuff. It can take up to a year for a pile of organic materials (i.e. weeds, kitchen scraps, & animal manure) to decompose into compost.

Teenagers are not known for their patience, and my patience was especially short because my family attended a fundamentalist Baptist church.

I didn’t expect to be around in a year. I had read Hal Lindsey’s “The Late Great Planet Earth.” I had been to see that Billy Graham movie, A Thief in The Night. I listened to speakers proclaim that end times Bible prophecy was coming to pass. The rapture of the church was supposed to happen before the nation of Israel (founded in 1948) was a generation old (and a generation was defined as 30 years). Preachers assured their listeners that the Antichrist was in the wings, ready to assume his diabolical role in the Great Tribulation. There was a lot of speculation about exactly who the Antichrist might be. Henry Kissinger was a likely candidate.

I believed what the Biblical prognosticators prognosticated. Never would I have dreamed that I would remain here on this earth as long as I have. It’s a wonder I even took time to plant any seeds in the garden back then.

It is a wonder, logically speaking, but speaking from experience the dispensational baptist position is nothing if not a walking contradiction. Now if it were perfectly contradictory, everything would be good, because they’d act as if we should take care of the earth, plant gardens, build houses, and plan for the future. But it is the imperfection in the contradiction, due to some dispensational baptists actually acting like their doctrine is true, that causes the rub.

And that’s why Herrick says:

Postmillenialists are theologically predisposed to making better compost than their dispensationalist brethren. There is just no question about it.

People that believe that they and their descendants are going to be around awhile are going to be more likely to patiently work on things of lasting importance, things that take time, things that must be waited on. And how much moreso if we understand that we aren’t merely going to “be around”, but that God is actually using us and our children to build his kingdom!

Now in the interest of full disclosure, I’m not entirely certain I’m a postmillennialist. I might lean more toward the a-mil view. But regardless, I see things from the optimistic viewpoint that Jesus and the prophets both taught, that things will not grow progressively worse but that the kingdom of God will grow until it fills the earth. That is how we are to pray, and how we are to live. And making compost is a perfect picture of what that life looks like.

And A Positive Movie Review, For Balance

This one’s for Wall-E, from Elihu at Polituema:

Wall-E is nothing but a parable that paints in broad strokes. Its presentation of slothful humans who submit themselves to Buy-N-Large, a gigantic corporation, is what bothers global capitalists, but the movie doesn’t even go to the realm of environmentalist nonsense or anti-corporate Chomskyism. It does not denigrate machines, business, or the human will. Why else are two robots its stars? Why does Buy-N-Large’s spaceship work so well for so long?

Secondary to the movie’s courtship plot are several comments on present-day society. I came up with these, but you should add more if you’ve seen the movie:

1) People stare at screens all day long without having relationships with their neighbors, and this is not necessarily good.

2) We are all highly individualistic, and this is definitely not good.

3) Technology, while giving us great comfort, allows us to stare at screens and concentrate on ourselves. Again, not good.

4) We deny ourselves certain, healthy, rewarding experiences by trusting too much in labor-saving machines.

5) We buy too much junk at Buy-N-Large stores and stuff it in our houses, so that we need more items made by Buy-N-Large (i.e., a Wall-E) to clean it all up for us.

6) We don’t take care of our bodies, which for Christians are temples of the Holy Spirit, and so we become obese.

Hooray for all that.

Dark (K)Night Movie Review

In his typical fashion, Kunstler opines on the new Batman movie and what it says about us:

The most striking thing about the new Batman movie, now smashing the all-time box office records, is its emphasis on sado-masochism as the animating element in American culture these days. It must appeal to the many angry people in our land who want to hurt others, even while they themselves feel deserving of the grossest punishments. In other words, the picture reflects the extreme depravity of the current American sensibility. Seeing it all laid out there must be very validating to the emotionally confused audience, and hence pleasurable, in all its painfulness.

…By the way, forget about God here or anything that even remotely smacks of an oppositional notion to evil. All that’s back on the cutting room floor somewhere (if it even got that far). And I say this as a non-religious person. But the absence of any possible idea of redemption for the human spirit is impressive. In the world of “the Batman,” humanity at its very best is capable only of being confused about itself. This is perhaps an interesting new form of dramaturgy — instead of good-versus-evil you only get befuddlement-versus-evil. Goodness has lost its way in the dark night of the American psyche, as might be understandable considering the nation of louts, liars, grifters, bullies, meth freaks, harpies, and tattooed creeps we have become. The best we can bring to this predicament is the low-grade pop therapy that passes for thinking nowadays in educated circles. Any consideration of the heroic is off the menu here. We can’t ask that much of ourselves. It’s too difficult to imagine. Meanwhile, The People — that is, the citizens of Gotham City — literally banish even the possibility of heroism from town at the end of the movie — they take an axe to it! — perhaps indicating that they deserve whatever befalls them or, shall I say, “us.”

I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the review, having not seen the movie myself, but I found it interesting nonetheless and so I thought I’d post it to see what others thought about it. Also, is Kunstler off the mark because he’s not a Christian, or is he on the mark because he’s not encumbered with so much of the psuedo-Christian hubris that permeates modern Christendom? On other topics I often find the latter to be true with Kunstler. Its not that I trust his viewpoint, but I often trust him not to fall for the same fallacies I do, if that makes sense.

“wine that has been chemically treated to remove all alcohol”

Father Hollywood deconstructs a Lutheran communion invitation, and came across this absurd statement:

“A wine that has been chemically treated to remove all alcohol and sulfites is offered in clear glasses in the individual trays.”

This has to be a candidate for the real preachers of genius series.