Reagan and the Matrix

I had a inspiration the other day. Perhaps Reagan wasn't inspiring a new hope of a re-vitalized Constitutionally governed America, as much as he was waking up a fatal burn victim from a drug induced coma. Now that there are so many of us who have been "woken up," are we just going to be tortured in pain as we watch our country fall, unable to do anything about it, but completely conscious of the reality of the situation?

Have we been "unplugged" from the Matrix, just to find that there is no Hover ship waiting to take us to Zion? We sit now in our pods in the reactor, watching helplessly at our fellow man enslaved and sleeping away. We had taken over our "tower" in the Reactor, and fought off the agents bravely, but now it belongs in the Matrix once again, a part of the rest of the System of the World.

But thank God I'm a Christian, and even if all that is true, there's a real Zion out there, the original Zion, not some Sci-fi or cultist knock-off. Thank God I believe the return of the real Messiah is at hand, and there will be a final justice to this world, a final reckoning, and not the sad excuse we call Social Justice.

Now back to figuring out how to live in this world until that Last Day.

My Incredibly Thoughtful Reaction to the 2008 Election

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Render Under to Ceasar

“Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and unto God what is God’s.” – Jesus Christ

This verse seems to be used constantly to berate Christians into not only paying their taxes but to also try and make them feel good about paying their taxes, since it was Jesus who said it. There are so many things wrong with both of those assertions, it’s hard to know where to begin.

Let’s start with the case of one Christian arguing to another Christian that they should not mind higher taxes, or progressive taxes, according to this verse. Specifically, they are arguing that we should vote for a political candidate who plans to do just that. They actually want the higher taxes on rich people, and the rich people should not mind, because we should “render unto Caesar.”

The first thing we should consider here, is who is who in this little mini-parable. It seems that the first Christian wants to be Caesar, or at least support the rise of a Caesar, to whom we all should then be obligated to give money to. I didn’t read anything in the parable or its context to suggest that Caesar was a good guy in all of this, that it was a good thing for him to be collecting taxes. Caesar (pick one) was the guy who burned Christians at his parties as human candles, to save even more of the taxes he collected for more important things, like exotic lions to eat more Christians at the Circus Maximus.

Jesus wasn’t saying we should vote for Caesar so we can pay him taxes, he was saying that when the evil, murdering, thuggish, tyrant Romans came looking for their blood money, you should pay them what they want instead of stabbing them in the eye and crying ‘Revolution!’ Why? Ah, now the important part.

Render unto God what is God’s. That’s the real crux of this verse. That’s where the Jews who were trying to trip up Jesus got tripped up themselves. They were arguing to keep, deservedly so, the fruits of their labors from Caesar. But Jesus said to give to God what is God’s. What is God’s? Everything. Which Christians can say that some part of their lives is their own and not God’s? Specifically though, I think he was talking about our hearts. That is, don’t worry about your money, it’s not important compared to the spiritual connection with God, and the state of your heart. It’s nothing squared, so let Caesar have his bits of metal that will rust, that will fade and disappear. I’m the Son of the God of the Universe, I don’t need “taxes,” I want your heart and soul, bought and paid for with my blood.

I don’t even think Jesus was saying “revolution” was out of the question, but that’s another topic for another day. The important thing was that the Jews were consumed with the occupation of their lands by the Romans, when they should have been consumed with the renewing of their hearts and minds through communion with the Most High God.

In summary, this verse says nothing to me about the actual morality of taxation. For a discussion of the morality of taxation, see “The Morality of Taxation.”

Caveats

First Caveat (in no particular order of priority):

Caveats are my way of listing out a bunch of things that apply to all my articles. In programming parlance it would be a header file. I guess in writing terminology it is a preface.

Second Caveat

I will respect other's political opinions as I want others to respect my opinions. (Note the similarity to the Golden Rule, that's the sixth commandment on that set of stone tablets). Just because I have arrived a certain conclusions leading me to certain convictions, leading me to certain moral and political positions, doesn't mean that everyone else has, and I respect that. If I take moral position on a subject that you are on the opposite side of, I'm not calling you immoral, I'm not judging you. This is just ideas, not a sentence from a court. If you feel judged, then you're judging yourself, I don't need to do it!

Third Caveat

I'm always working on my thoughts and ideas. My posted, published items, even one's I consider "finished," are snap shots of my thought process. They are a condensed form of the much purer, more complex, are probably more accurate model of the world that resides in the my head. There is always error in translation, and I am translating ideas from my head to the page.

Fourth Caveat

There is error inherent in my thought process, and indeed in anyone's thought process. This is because what we think of as the world is in fact a model of the world constructed in our minds through use of our senses. Models are inherently flawed, in that they interpolate and extrapolate new data using a smaller amount of observed data. You can never know what the true data is that you created, you can only at best bound the error in your model.

Fifth Caveat

My editing skills are poor. I will always strive to improve them, but this was not a subject I focused on in High School or College, relying instead on intuition (too much, always too much), and spell checking. Consistency and all the other hall marks of an excellent command of the English language are desired by me, though may often be lacking.

Piecemeal Politics

I'm just too much of a perfectionist to lay out all my ideas in one position paper, so I'm just going to start dumping it all out in little bite sized pieces. Hopefully that will keep me from becoming too wordy as well.

First Piece: CAVEATS! These are my caveats to everything else I have to say, which I can conveniently refer back to when I most need them (until I get so many that I can't remember them, or keep track of them).

Paper says Socialism code word for Black

Original Lucianne.com Article

David Horowitz did a good job of explaining how the communists wanted to use the race tensions in America as a wedge to help destroy the country.

The idea was to pick a cause that American culture was vulnerable on morally, and exploit it. By siding on the moral high ground and equating the cause with Socialism/Communism, they could both insulate themselves from criticism, and have a natural constituency for their movement.

Race just happened to be a convenient vehicle, and has worked fairly well for them. It's the gift that keeps on giving.

-Harald Bluetooth

What if the Spanish Civil War came to America?

Here's an interesting hypothetical: What if you were stuck in the middle of the Spanish Civil War, with the Communists on one side, and the Fascists on the other? What would you do? Would you pick a side? Hide, and wait till it was over? Start a new faction and fight both sides? Or maybe try to flee to America?

Now, take the first scenario one step further. What if you were in America and the "Spanish" Civil War broke out around you? What would you do then?

My Letter to the McCain Campaign

Dear McCain Campaign,

I wanted to voice my opinion / concern over this Bailout Bill. Please Do NOT support this. You have got to know that D.C. is selling us down the river here. Stand up, be a Maverick, and shut this thing down. And if you don't, I think Sarah should quit right now, and not be sullied by this whole business. We should not have a bill that goes forward unless it prevents the lending practices that got us here. We (conservatives, Republicans) are willing to talk bailout but not until we are SURE that this isn't happening again. Remember the Immigration Battle? Same thing. Build the Wall first, then talk about Amnesty. My friend, this is AMNESTY and then some. I think I'd rather have the immigration bill over this.

Sincerely,
(redacted)

Crying at the Debate & A new D&D Class

A friend pointed out to me recently that she's glad she doesn't have to worry about Palin crying during the Vice Presidential debate. In fact, I think we should all be worried that Biden might start to cry.

Also, I'm creating a new D&D Class: The Palindin: A righteous warrior who will defend Sarah Palin to the last breath. :)

McCain - Palin Campaign Advice

Obama says he won't be bullied by Sarah Palin. Palin / McCain should be responding with:

"Oh, I'm sorry, am I being to harsh with you? Do you want me to back off a bit? Would that be okay dear? Well, what are you going to do when you get to OFFICE? Are you going to start whining about being bullied by Russia? You should be saying, 'I welcome this fight, because when I win, it will make my position stronger and my win that much more important.' But, you didn't say that, I said it, and now all you've said is that some mythical school yard bully is picking on you.

Come back after you've had your lunch money stolen and I'll go and beat the bully up and get it back for you."

To Vote or Not to Vote, 2008

There’s a raging debate in conservative circles about whether we should vote in this election or not. The No Vote proponents argue that we’ve voted against our principles long enough, and it’s time to stand up for ourselves, let the other side win this one, hope that everything blows up on, and then hope that there’s anything or anyone left to pick up and put back together after they’re through (including us). I think they’re using the wrong model.

I suggest the following analogy: We’re all driving in a car, and all the voters have their hands on the wheel. There’s a bunch of crazy people pulling the wheel to try and get into the left lane, and a bunch of more rational people trying to pull the car into the right lane. Now, the conservatives are generally out there yelling that we not even on the right road. But we’re all still in the car! I’m not going to sit in the car in the back seat yelling we’re on the wrong road, while everyone else is fighting over the wheel. I’m also not going to hope that all the people fighting for the wheel pull our car into a ditch, and hope that when we fly out the windshield that I’m still alive and can crawl back to the car to turn it around. Rather, I’m going to pull that wheel as hard as I can, all the while yelling that we’re not on the right road. Eventually, we may lose the struggle and end up in the left lane, with some oncoming traffic. I’m hoping there’s time to let go of the wheel and jump out the door before it hits us.

Basically, if we can’t turn the car around, and take a different road, then we need a new car. But frankly, cars in this analogy are darned expensive and there’s not many out there. So again, while I'm in this car-of-state, I'm not going to let go of the wheel. And the moment I do, I'd better be prepared to jump out of the car.

Keeping the fires lit

Just keeping the fire going. I'm nearly done with Idea Manager 0.0, which I can use to create all my posts "offline," and so retain control of the source documents.

Book shows life after the oil runs out
Associated Press, by Michael Hill
Original Article

This is so stupid. First of all, Oil doesn't run out it is constantly replenishing, as we are now just learning. Second of all, we can do almost everything we do now with Oil, it would just take longer, be more expensive, etc. We would hardly be reduced to cave men running around abandoned cities, though it makes for great Science Fiction!

Basically we can refute this with one phrase: "Nuclear Power."

-HaraldBluetooth

The Looming Republican Civil War

I'm still not doing this the right way, posting from my own personal database of thoughts and ideas, but I can't resist not posting a couple of items:

1. I believe the reason John McCain is getting the Republican nomination is entirely due to his service as Veteran of the armed forces. Every Republican nominee since 1948 has had that distinction.

2. There is a civil war going on in the Republican party. Conservatives are being asked, indirectly and subtly, to choose sides. On one side, go with the consensus candidate who has cared far less about conservatives and Republicans than we are being asked to care about him. On the other side, abandoning the Republican party for a write in, or even voting for the Democratic candidate to ensure John McCain is not the nominee.

These are very interesting and tumultuous times, and I haven't decided which side I am on.

Idea Manager Update 1

My idea manager is progressing. I've started collecting rough ideas already, using a rudimentary scheme. What I really need now is a nice software implementation, probably using the open-office database application. I can't get too far ahead of myself or I'll never be able to type in all the ideas I'm coming up with. They're overflowing!

Idea Manager

I have an idea. Actually, it's the first idea. Namely a scheme to organize all other ideas. I intend to use this idea to store everything I write. Then, I will transfer those thoughts and ideas to my blog. If I respond to a blog, it will be in my list of ideas first.

First Post

Just a practice post, to get something out there. I actually had a blog, but I guess since I didn't touch it in a couple of years they took it down. Just another reason I need to try and keep my main blog / thoughts on my own machine, and link to them from this site.