Lack of Hatred

I can't believe it took me this long to realize this. I must be going senile. Perhaps I can blame this 'failing' on my pregnancy. Then again, as I haven't specifically seen anyone else writing about it, perhaps we have all simply fallen into a certain level of taking things for granted.

This morning I was getting ready for the day while talking to my husband, who was also getting ready for his day, and it occurred to me to wonder about the community response to President Obama rescinding the Mexico City Policy. This policy, for those of you either hiding under a rock or not involved in the abortion debate, prevented the U.S. from funding abortions overseas. This is a definite blow for those on the pro-life side, and so controversial among many Christian and/or conservative groups that he even signed it secretly and off-camera.

So I sat down to chat with a friend of mine. "Hey, you hear more from the mainstream media than I do," I typed. "Over this past week, have there been an upswing of stories about pro-life violence against pro-choice groups/people/abortion clinics/abortion doctors? White powder sent to clinics, people trying to enter a clinic being knocked down and beaten, things like that?"

"Not that I've heard of," he answered.

I told him that it was interesting, but also what I'd expected to hear. He wanted to know why, and I pointed out that the Mexico City Policy had been rescinded a few days ago. "So?" he responded.

"That's the second interesting thing I noticed," I typed.

See, when the gay activists don't get their way, they go on a rampage. They threaten, they cause violence, and they not only boycott places, but they prevent other patrons from entering. Interestingly, nobody's surprised when they react this way, and I have heard more than once the phrase "I can understand their anger." However, when pro-lifers don't get their way, nobody goes on a rampage, and nobody is surprised.

The same thing happens when Christians are marginalized in the media. When Muslims are marginalized, the protests invariably start. Places are set on fire, people are injured or killed, guns fired, knives used... it's not a pretty picture. Parts of Europe refuse to even criticize Islam anymore for fear of seeing death and destruction. However, people are allowed to speak downright blasphemously about Christianity without fear, because Christians do not respond with violence, and nobody wonders why.

In many cases, groups that used to claim their way as the peaceful solution are bullying their way into society merely by making people afraid of the violence that they'll visit upon us if they are not given their way. Meanwhile, the groups marginalized in society as mean and violent and evil are simply remaining civil... and what's more, nobody's surprised by it!

Obama wants us to be Boxer

Obama's inauguration speech was very interesting. At first, it appeared to travel in two different directions, conservative and liberal. It took me several hours and the memory of a quite memorable animated version of Orwell's Animal Farm to realize that he was, in fact, driving in the same direction the entire time.

Conservatives value and wish to reward hard work and responsibility. On the surface, Obama appears to agree with them. Watch for the reasons he gives to work hard, however, and who he hopes will benefit! That is where you will find the difference between the conservative and Boxer.

Who is Boxer? Boxer is the Animal Farm version of the working class, a draft horse who puts his all into his duties, doing everything he can. Uncomplaining, he does not take advantage of the perks of socialism, like the pigs do. His loyalty never wavers, and he trusts his new leaders even when their planned retirement for him is not a good rest, but the knacker's wagon. (In other words, for those of you who don't read British books regularly, the butcher.)

Let's take a look at Obama's speech. We already know the parts in which he mentions the importance of hard work, responsibility, and tough choices. Let us now examine for what or whom we are to sacrifice:

But those values upon which our success depends — hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism — these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility — a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

And earlier:

To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect.

When speaking of the military, what does he praise?

We honor them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service; a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves.

Yes, after years of trying to feed us falsehood-by-simplification, claiming that the extremism of liberalism is socialism and the extremism of conservatism is fascism, we now have someone telling us that the reason why we must work hard and be responsible is to benefit the Nation first and the entire world second. He is now able to spout fascism, and it is likely that few people will take this for what it is, because we've had repeated to us over and over that only Right-Wingers can be fascists.

That isn't to say that socialism was not a theme in his speech, however. Consider his goal for government:

We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age.

And again, you notice government's role in the everyday lives of its citizens:

The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified.

Lest you continue to question whether or not he is truly speaking of conservative responsibility or a new era of socialism, I point you towards his own websites detailing his own plans for America. Would you hear it only in his speech, and nowhere else? Try this piece:

Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control — and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart — not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.

Though many will try to tell you that his speech is a mixture of conservativism and liberalism, in actual fact his speech is a mixture of facism and socialism. We are to be hard-working and responsible to support the government, and the government is to provide for us. But how can he believe that this will work? It failed on Plymouth Rock. It failed in Russia. It failed in Italy. It is failing in China. Everywhere this has been tried, it has failed. He actually anticipates that question and answers it, also in his speech:

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them — that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply.

That's right, he is speaking fascism and socialism, and he knows it. He cannot deny it, only attempt to cloak it and confuse the issue. But in the end, he is doing two things: he is asking us all to be Boxer, and he is claiming that This Time It Will Work.

Focusing on the wrong end

I keep hearing it from the Republican so-called leadership who are hijacking the party into moderate materialism... "We need to focus on the financial conservatism and jettison the social conservatives... so that we can reach more people." They have their tactic completely and totally backwards. If anything, we need to do completely the opposite. I'd go so far as to say that if I had to choose between social or financial conservatism, I would choose social.

Did anybody reading this also read George Orwell's Animal Farm? I recommend it. Right now I am thinking of a specific character in the story, a pig named Snowflake. In the story, the farmer is chased from the farm and the pigs set up a socialist government that turns brutally totalitarian by the end. Snowflake, chased off and killed eventually by the power-seizing Napoleon, is a 'gentler dictator' and genuinely works towards the good of the other animals. He may be an economic liberal, but he acts as a social conservative, and does not seem to govern his own life by the mantra that you do what you can to secure your own power and satisfy your own pleasure. He is not a moral relativist.

I will never truly believe that socialism is the best way for a country to operate, but I would rather have a good dictator than a society left adrift and manipulated by evil men. Even government-mandated programs for the poor is better than a set of undisciplined rich men who sneer at and oppress those beneath their income levels. Indeed, in a morally-corrupt culture, a firmer hand is needed. Liberty is for adults, not children.

If we truly work for the good of our society, we must focus on morality, even above freedom. If our sons and daughters are not raised in such a way as to be willing to give up power voluntarily, what will it matter when we send them into public office with their heads full of capitalism? We will end up with tyranny of a different sort.

Those who prize economic conservatism above social conservatism will create a land so undisciplined and brutal that socialism will be needed eventually just to hold man's passions in check. Those who prize social conservatism will create a land in which government power holds no fear for the citizens and can be lowered over time by those who have not grown to love power.

We are headed for a time of increases socialism under Obama, but we can still train ourselves and teach our children to be people of moral standing, who not only understand, but feel that lying, cheating, and stealing is plainly wrong. That is the only way we will continue to be worthy of the economic conservatism we so badly want back!

The path to bankruptcy

I bet most people who read this have heard all about the big automakers crying for bailouts from the U.S. government. I bet a lot of you have read about the reasons for many their troubles. Just in case, let me summarize a big one for you here:

Although workers in companies like Toyota actually earn a higher salary on average, the worker cost to the company is nearly half that of the Big Three. People have been claiming that the Big Three pay out $75/hr per worker rather than $35-40/hr like the others do. Now, Factcheck has claimed that number is false, but even in their explanation, they acknowledge it's importance. The $75/hour is not valid for any single Joe you might point out in their company. However, when you tally up all the workers, all the retirees, and all the unemployed of the business, and divide the costs among only those who are actually working for their salary, $75/hr per worker is what you get.

Generous union contracts include, among other things, 100% salary in retirement for life, company health insurance for retirees for life, and full 100% salary for the unemployed in the business while allowing those unemployed to refuse new positions that have opened up within the company meanwhile. How many of those unemployed do you think have snapped up the first position that opened up for them? As noted above, the other automakers pay their working people more, but the companies in trouble are paying huge numbers of people to do absolutely nothing.

Now, apparently, Obama has decided that this is the best way for the U.S. government to operate. From Reuters:

Proposals included extending unemployment compensation to part-time workers, subsidizing employers who must continue health insurance benefits temporarily for laid-off and retired employees and allowing workers who lose jobs that did not include insurance to apply for Medicaid, the Times said. ...Citing Obama advisers, the newspaper said the package, which could face resistance from Republicans and conservative Democrats, would cost at least $775 billion.

"This has really forced people to think outside the box," the Times quoted a House Appropriations Committee aide as saying, "because this is more money than anybody expected to be spending."[emphases mine]

Yes, you've heard it right. Paying heavily for people who aren't working has been crippling our auto manufacturers, so why not do it in the government, too? Why on earth would Obama do something like this during an economic crisis when we've got such recent evidence of it's total failure to maintain a cost-effective company?

Well, to understand that, you've got to remember what his goal is, what the Liberal goal is, being entirely antithetical to the Conservative goal. His goal is to promote dependence on the government. What matters to the liberals is not that this course of action sunk the Big Automakers. What matters to them is that it brought the Big Automakers to the Big Government looking for help. That's the goal.

So in that sense, the failure of the automakers signals success for Obama's goals rather than failure. It worked with the automakers. Will it work with the rest of us? It looks like he wants to find out.

The most dangerous word in politics

There's a word I would like to strike from political language today and for the rest of this year. Unfortunately, with Obama's presidency, I suspect this word will only gain strength and importance far beyond it's merit. This single word is what's wrong with our political system, our economic system, and our societal morality. The word is entitlement.

We are, in fact, entitled to nothing. We are born naked, and survive though the love and instinct of fellow men and women. We take nothing when we die. Pure nature scoffs at entitlement. Not even predators have a right to long life, much less the prey. If we live from the prey and avoid or kill the predators, still nothing we can gather is utterly safe from disastrous storms. A volcanic eruption or an earthquake can level the proudest building in seconds, leaving us, yet again, with nothing. Natural law promises... nothing.

All that we have is what we are allowed to have, what we are given, by God. The main overreaching reason why God gives us things is because of His overwhelming love for us. We are not entitled to it. God owes us nothing. We do not deserve anything God gives us. We can't even keep up our end of the easiest bargain, the lightest burden. Despite this, God has chosen to bind Himself with promises toward our greater good.

The increasing shift to government programs replacing charitable interests have helped to foster a spirit of entitlement among the citizens of this country. Poorer members of society who used to accept what people were willing to give them with a grateful heart now demand what they feel they deserve for no reason at all beyond having been born.

Don't get too confused here in attempts to ream me out for insensitivity. I would prefer that every single person in this world, in the spirit of human dignity and humble appreciation for God's gifts to us, found what aid was necessary in keeping themselves clothed, fed, and sheltered. We are called to generosity and charity, remembering where we would be if not for God's grace. But neither they nor we are entitled to a single thing.

Hard work is honorable and required of Christians, but even it is no absolute guarantee of success, nor a reason to demand that the world responds favorably to you. You can do everything right, and there is still no guarantee. A simple fire set by an irresponsible idiot can destroy an entire lifetime of fortune, and the flames do not care how or when you acquired it. Again, I am not decrying hard work or responsibility. I am just reminding all of us that we are not entitled to anything.

For this reason, I object to government social programs of every sort. I believe charity to be the best replacement, a process by which people are bound together with gratitude and humility, rather than being split apart by entitlement and resentment; of the rich for having their hard-earned goods forcibly taken, and of the poor for the rich not having given them everything they feel they deserve simply for existing.