i just saw one of the more asinine headlines on cnn while at the gym. (what are headlines called when they run across the bottom of the screen?) here's what it said:
"should swimming with sharks be banned?"
now, apart from being absolutely hilarious (should swallowing knives be banned? should eating chandeliers be banned? should sleeping on beds of nails be banned?), this question is apropos to the political discussion in which this nation is currently engaging. or, i should say, the utopian fantasy this that this nation is eagerly swallowing, hook, line, and sinker. and if we're going to understand where we're headed, we have to crack open this little chestnut.
what would make cnn think this question is even appropriate to ask? well, obviously, some idiot got ate. yes, the world is now one-sixth of the way to meeting its yearly quota of 1/1,000,000,000 of the world population
who die every year in shark attacks.
this guy was swimming in waters chummed with bloody fish parts and, lo and behold, a shark bit his leg off. our genius lawyer friend is fifty miles off the the sunshine state's coast. that's a one-hour hour boat ride, minimum. obviously, he buys his tickets before boarding the boat. let's put the time of purchase at least an hour before kick-off. i'm sure the crew and staff walks herr groh through a safety lecture including the same warning they post on their web page: Please be aware that these are not 'cage' dives, they are open water experiences. let's add a half-hour of pre-boarding time for the safety talk. finally, upon arriving at the diving site, it's likely that the crew chum the water while the divers assemble and safety-check their gear. you've got to let the chum dissipate a little so it doesn't get all over the divers, and so that the really big sharks can smell it and swim in. half-hour for that. finally, this guy watches crew divers jump in the water, the bloody water, without a cage. then he jumps in. no one pushes him. all told, our austrian friend has at least three hours to reconsider swimming unprotected with the meanest, dumbest and biggest carnivores in the ocean. and he decides to take the risk.
he decides to take the risk.
so, what grounds does the government have to ban an activity the risk of which the participant knowingly assumes?
first, protect the sharks. well, maybe. maybe the sharks are unhappy. i don't see how, what with the free meal and all. they're not getting killed. they are getting photographed, but scientists have conclusively proven that getting your picture taken does not rob you of your soul.
second, protect the diver. this is the tack that all such arguments take (e.g. the argument for universal health insurance); it's the most dangerous kind of argument and we don't seem to be getting it.
why do we need to protect the diver? because we feel bad for him, or because it costs the rest of us money? see, since we've decided to pay for everyone's healthcare (whether through private insurance or public, this sort of injury is covered: hospitals cannot turn people away who have sharkbites), we have to be able to say what sorts of risks they should be allowed to take. mark my words: the more control we give the government over healthcare, the more the nanny-statists will be able to tell us what we can and cannot do with our time (free or otherwise). no jaywalking. no trans-fats. no cholesterol. no smoking. wear your seatbelt. eat your vegetables. no swimming with sharks. no riding your bike without a helmet.
granted, many of the the things on that list are good things to do. smart for your body. but think: do we want the government telling us that we have to do them, under penalty of fines or jail time? well, it's going to happen. those of you who think the republicans want to take your liberties away to fight the war on terror (they do and it's bad) should stop to consider how your most-private liberties will be given up as you ask the government to take more and more control of your lives. as you ask the government to spend money on things, it will start to impose restrictions on spending and on behavior, just like a good parent. you will be told what kind of sex you can have. you will be told how many children you can bear. you will be told how many times you have to go to the doctor. you will be told what sort of vitamins you have to take. see, safety-nets affect risk-perception. people will do more risky things if they know they'll be cared for regardless. thus, the nanny draws lines.
in a world without universal healthcare, we currently have universal healthcare through tax-code enforcement and government entitlement programs, smokers might die earlier of lung cancer, people who swim with sharks might slowly bleed to death in the ocean, gastropods who gorge themselves on trans fats might trip their heart out at 30. in short, people would reap what they sow. but they would have the freedom to choose where to sow. (and the market and the world as God designed it would communicate risk so that people would probably engage in less risky behavior overall. water runs uphill. people by and large don't like to stick their hands into open fires.)
is that so bad? or do we want a big nanny to care for all our boo-boos? how many of your cherished freedoms are you willing to give up for socialized medicine?
all authority is God-appointed to bless or discipline God's people. we will need to honor whoever gets elected president. but will we be honoring a man who is appointed to discipline us or to bless us? who among the viable candidates is not an enemy of the church?
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Monday, February 25, 2008
how is this fearmongering?
wait, wait, wait. why would the obama campaign call the release of this 2006 photo "shameful offensive fear-mongering"? didn't obama put the costume on? fear-mongering to whom?
and what's the subtext of his campaign's statement? does obama think dressing up in head-scarves and robes is offensive? well, if he doesn't, why didn't he just put out a statement saying, "chill out, freaks. it's just a robe"? why remind people that they need to keep being afraid of sashes and walking sticks?
interesting. listen: if you're going to run for president, don't make a porno, hire illegals as maids, or dress up in ethnic clothing. otherwise, just come out, say you did it, and move on. that was obama's move on smoking weed.
a friend of mine summed up obama's brilliant, two-point change-the-world plan as follows: 1) i have a plan, 2) my plan will work. change you can believe in, indeed.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
i know the answer: MORE spending
here's an interesting site.
go ahead, run the numbers. the correlation between spending-per-student and graduation rates is 0.21. very weak.
get this: the correlation between public school per-student spending and SAT scores is stronger and...
NEGATIVE!
so i guess people who don't want to pour more money into public schools just don't care about kids, do they?
oh, no i did-int!
go ahead, run the numbers. the correlation between spending-per-student and graduation rates is 0.21. very weak.
get this: the correlation between public school per-student spending and SAT scores is stronger and...
NEGATIVE!
so i guess people who don't want to pour more money into public schools just don't care about kids, do they?
oh, no i did-int!
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
it's no secret
while this post will not focus on the socialist smokescreen of "progressive" taxation (as if stealing more from those with more makes usurious taxation appropriate or justified, anyway) i did just want to point out the idiocy behind one of our more-recent "save the poor" pieces of legislation boosted by the non-thinking emoticrats on the left and the right:
as you may know, bush recently signed into law the SCHIP bill, which extended a certain government health-insurance program supposedly aimed at low-income children. well, the dems got in a fuss because they said the bill was underfunded. they wanted to hike the tobacco tax to pay for the bill (earlier vetoed versions contained that provision).
hmm, that makes sense. we're going to pay for health insurance (not health care, that's a completely separate ball of wax) for the "poor" using a tax on a product used by four times more people living below the poverty level than those who have college educations. these folks, republicans and democrats, want to do away with private "insurance" (which we don't really have any more, more about that later) – in which a person pays for his own insurance – with public insurance, the thought being that poor people can't pay the cost of their own insurance. meanwhile, the SCHIP bill they pushed in '07 would have almost entirely funded the expanded SCHIP spending with taxes on those living below the poverty level. (that assumes, of course, that demand doesn't decrease with the imposition of additional taxes. if this bill were funded by a tobacco tax and then people stopped buying as much tobacco, i suppose we'd need to raise taxes again, maybe on high fructose corn syrup or trans fats. or just some other regulation to pound this pesky market into submission. and make water run uphill.)
make no mistake, america isn't robbing the rich to pay the poor anymore. they're robbing everyone. who they're paying is anyone's guess.
as you may know, bush recently signed into law the SCHIP bill, which extended a certain government health-insurance program supposedly aimed at low-income children. well, the dems got in a fuss because they said the bill was underfunded. they wanted to hike the tobacco tax to pay for the bill (earlier vetoed versions contained that provision).
hmm, that makes sense. we're going to pay for health insurance (not health care, that's a completely separate ball of wax) for the "poor" using a tax on a product used by four times more people living below the poverty level than those who have college educations. these folks, republicans and democrats, want to do away with private "insurance" (which we don't really have any more, more about that later) – in which a person pays for his own insurance – with public insurance, the thought being that poor people can't pay the cost of their own insurance. meanwhile, the SCHIP bill they pushed in '07 would have almost entirely funded the expanded SCHIP spending with taxes on those living below the poverty level. (that assumes, of course, that demand doesn't decrease with the imposition of additional taxes. if this bill were funded by a tobacco tax and then people stopped buying as much tobacco, i suppose we'd need to raise taxes again, maybe on high fructose corn syrup or trans fats. or just some other regulation to pound this pesky market into submission. and make water run uphill.)
make no mistake, america isn't robbing the rich to pay the poor anymore. they're robbing everyone. who they're paying is anyone's guess.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
do you want it, or don't you?
the law of God.
as a church, we are so far from espousing a fully-orbed, working understanding of the law. testifying to this is the unabated slaughter of 50 million children in the last three decades, the church's complete inability to stem the tide and its endless ceding to secular pressures on the issue (including the pressure to just drop it), not to mention that many christians are even now considering voting for candidates who support expanding access to and incidence of this horrible pagan practice. add to that the church's pitiful failure to field a candidate who promises to ban the murder of america's children, and you've got a big matzoh ball. the issue of abortion is apropos to discussion of the law of God; if we behaved like we believe that the law of God is an immutable law, that not a jot or tittle will be put aside until Christ's return, then we would take seriously its commandments, and we wouldn't talk of "rights," but rather of duties, which would drive us to action on behalf of the innocent. (suffice it to say, i do not consider the issue of correcting american-style "poverty" a greater issue than the murder of children. care for the unborn – the truly voiceless – is a paramount issue to wage correction. consider: would it offend you if i said that we shouldn't be murdering the poor wholesale at one-and-a-half million per year?)
and, really do we think that God will grant us success in correcting the "problem" of the "poor" if we continue butchering our children?
before i get too far afield – into questions of whether God rewards obedience and punishes disobedience – allow me this (controversial?) statement:
all you who call on Jesus Christ as your savior most certainly do not believe that you are free from the law of God.
now the law of God is a touchy subject, and some people who read this are going to want to accuse me of legalism and such. let me start by saying this: my justification and my hope come from Christ, in whom i believe through faith, which is a gift of God. there is nothing in me apart from Christ that warrants salvation. all my good works are enabled through the gift of faith by my covenantal union with him. i am obedient to my baptism, which was also pre-ordained by god and marks me as a christian, only by the grace of God. he alone makes me to continue in righteousness through obedience and he alone is sacrifice for my sins when i fail.
back to the conversation at hand: hasn't Christ's death freed us from the law of sin and death? didn't abraham's salvation come by faith, and not by law? didn't i die to the law? aren't we under grace, not law? yes, yes and yes. but all these statements flow from a presupposition that the law of God is still fully operative, in fact necessarily operative. (i might deal with what it means for the law to be fully operative in later posts and what that means for our "modern" culture – remember, to people 200 years hence, our modernism is their antiquity. for now, we'll focus on why you cannot believe the law is not operative.)
ask yourself: what do i mean when i say Jesus is my savior? you mean He died for your sins, right? well what the heck does dying for your sins have to do with his being your savior? and how can He die for your sins? well, He was sacrificed for your sins. okay, what does that have to do with being forgiven for sins? what i mean is, where do we come up with the idea that Christ's death has anything to do with our sins? what connects our sins with Christ's death?
the law! the hopeful message of God's grace (which alone addresses God's law).
the author of Hebrews, in one among many New Testament passages addressing the topic, illuminates the answer. in speaking to hebrew christians planning to return to Jerusalem prior to its destruction, to return to the old form of the law in its atoning sacrifices, encourages them thusly:
so he writes that Christ, under the terms of the sacrificial law, offered himself up as a sacrifice according to the pattern of old-covenant sacrifices. this is repeatedly affirmed by other authors and orators who refer to Christ as the "passover lamb." see, Christ is only our savior because of the law. only in the law does God establish how one atones for the sins of a people by the sacrifice of another.
furthermore, the priesthood of Christ is one that directly refers to the law. words like "priest" and "sacrifice" and "atone" and "curse" are meaningless apart from the law. the law is the tutor that taught us about Christ's office and accomplishments. it teaches us that there are priests, and that they make sacrifice for our sins, and that sacrifice atones for sins and lifts the curse of the law – but not the law itself. we only know to interpret Christ's death as sacrifice for the sins of his people because the old testament system taught us that that's how God works salvation. when we look at the law, we see grace, which is why the psalmist can sing of loving God's law.
consider this: if the law has been completely set aside, than how can Christ have died for our sins? yes, he could have died for the sins committed before he hung from the tree. but ours? if the death and resurrection of Christ abolished the law of God, then there is no sin to atone for. indeed, it must be that some law is still operative in some way, and it must apply somehow, despite that it is clear that we, the redeemed, are not under it nor does our righteousness come from obedience to the law (though, according to james, our obedience flows from our righteousness).
what law then? the law as expressed by Christ in the new testament? what's that law? "Obey my commands." and what are His commands? follow me here: Jesus is triune with God and the Holy Spirit. He is the incarnation of the old testament, law-giving God. what God commands, Jesus commands. nothing proceeds from the mouth of God that Jesus disagrees with.
all our claims of Christ flow from the law of God as expressed in the Old Testament. if you claim Christ as your savior, you are making a claim to God under the law, claiming that Christ died under the law now existing for your sins under the law now existing. you are pointing to Christ and telling God, "cursed is him who hangs on a tree." Deut. 21:23. He took the curse. because you are at one with Christ, you can be righteous, and you have the ability to please God by obeying His commands as expressed in the law.
to recap:
more on that later (maybe).
as a church, we are so far from espousing a fully-orbed, working understanding of the law. testifying to this is the unabated slaughter of 50 million children in the last three decades, the church's complete inability to stem the tide and its endless ceding to secular pressures on the issue (including the pressure to just drop it), not to mention that many christians are even now considering voting for candidates who support expanding access to and incidence of this horrible pagan practice. add to that the church's pitiful failure to field a candidate who promises to ban the murder of america's children, and you've got a big matzoh ball. the issue of abortion is apropos to discussion of the law of God; if we behaved like we believe that the law of God is an immutable law, that not a jot or tittle will be put aside until Christ's return, then we would take seriously its commandments, and we wouldn't talk of "rights," but rather of duties, which would drive us to action on behalf of the innocent. (suffice it to say, i do not consider the issue of correcting american-style "poverty" a greater issue than the murder of children. care for the unborn – the truly voiceless – is a paramount issue to wage correction. consider: would it offend you if i said that we shouldn't be murdering the poor wholesale at one-and-a-half million per year?)
and, really do we think that God will grant us success in correcting the "problem" of the "poor" if we continue butchering our children?
before i get too far afield – into questions of whether God rewards obedience and punishes disobedience – allow me this (controversial?) statement:
all you who call on Jesus Christ as your savior most certainly do not believe that you are free from the law of God.
now the law of God is a touchy subject, and some people who read this are going to want to accuse me of legalism and such. let me start by saying this: my justification and my hope come from Christ, in whom i believe through faith, which is a gift of God. there is nothing in me apart from Christ that warrants salvation. all my good works are enabled through the gift of faith by my covenantal union with him. i am obedient to my baptism, which was also pre-ordained by god and marks me as a christian, only by the grace of God. he alone makes me to continue in righteousness through obedience and he alone is sacrifice for my sins when i fail.
back to the conversation at hand: hasn't Christ's death freed us from the law of sin and death? didn't abraham's salvation come by faith, and not by law? didn't i die to the law? aren't we under grace, not law? yes, yes and yes. but all these statements flow from a presupposition that the law of God is still fully operative, in fact necessarily operative. (i might deal with what it means for the law to be fully operative in later posts and what that means for our "modern" culture – remember, to people 200 years hence, our modernism is their antiquity. for now, we'll focus on why you cannot believe the law is not operative.)
the law! the hopeful message of God's grace (which alone addresses God's law).
the author of Hebrews, in one among many New Testament passages addressing the topic, illuminates the answer. in speaking to hebrew christians planning to return to Jerusalem prior to its destruction, to return to the old form of the law in its atoning sacrifices, encourages them thusly:
For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself.Hebrews 7:26-27.
so he writes that Christ, under the terms of the sacrificial law, offered himself up as a sacrifice according to the pattern of old-covenant sacrifices. this is repeatedly affirmed by other authors and orators who refer to Christ as the "passover lamb." see, Christ is only our savior because of the law. only in the law does God establish how one atones for the sins of a people by the sacrifice of another.
furthermore, the priesthood of Christ is one that directly refers to the law. words like "priest" and "sacrifice" and "atone" and "curse" are meaningless apart from the law. the law is the tutor that taught us about Christ's office and accomplishments. it teaches us that there are priests, and that they make sacrifice for our sins, and that sacrifice atones for sins and lifts the curse of the law – but not the law itself. we only know to interpret Christ's death as sacrifice for the sins of his people because the old testament system taught us that that's how God works salvation. when we look at the law, we see grace, which is why the psalmist can sing of loving God's law.
consider this: if the law has been completely set aside, than how can Christ have died for our sins? yes, he could have died for the sins committed before he hung from the tree. but ours? if the death and resurrection of Christ abolished the law of God, then there is no sin to atone for. indeed, it must be that some law is still operative in some way, and it must apply somehow, despite that it is clear that we, the redeemed, are not under it nor does our righteousness come from obedience to the law (though, according to james, our obedience flows from our righteousness).
what law then? the law as expressed by Christ in the new testament? what's that law? "Obey my commands." and what are His commands? follow me here: Jesus is triune with God and the Holy Spirit. He is the incarnation of the old testament, law-giving God. what God commands, Jesus commands. nothing proceeds from the mouth of God that Jesus disagrees with.
all our claims of Christ flow from the law of God as expressed in the Old Testament. if you claim Christ as your savior, you are making a claim to God under the law, claiming that Christ died under the law now existing for your sins under the law now existing. you are pointing to Christ and telling God, "cursed is him who hangs on a tree." Deut. 21:23. He took the curse. because you are at one with Christ, you can be righteous, and you have the ability to please God by obeying His commands as expressed in the law.
to recap:
- we christians claim Christ as our savior.
- Christ is our savior because he died for the sins of his people.
- the law of God establishes the pattern of substitutionary atonement, that one can die for the sins of another. He established the law of grace.
- aaronic priests were unable to perfectly atone for the sins of the people (collectively and individually) because the law of grace requires atonement for the sacrifice-maker's sin as well. the law taught God's people, through pageantry and liturgical repetition of sacrifice and festival (the same liturgy as ours), how God was going to work his redemption of the world.
- Christ was able and did fulfill the law and the sacrifice required under the law.
- Christ is the perfection for us of every sacrifice required by the law.
- we present that sacrifice to God, appealing to the law of grace.
- thus, we claim right standing under the law based on Christ's obedience (active and passive).
more on that later (maybe).
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
consumer confusion
anybody else think it's a bit odd that we're told we need to fund social
security because americans can't be trusted to save for their futures,
but every time consumer spending is down we're all supposed to get
freaked out that the economy's taking a down-turn? (remember after 9-11 when bush told us to be patriotic americans and go shopping?) and every time the economy's "down," the politburo in dc pumps new dollars into the economy to increase consumer spending (bear in mind, the increase in dollars actually decreases the value of everybody's savings).
is that a good thing? a couple thoughts:
why is spending down? supply and demand: prices are too high; demand is too low. so either merchants hold on to their inventory until demand increases (which could put them out of business), or you slash prices (which could also put them out of business). since we have a total aversion in america to 1) consequences of our actions and 2) directly regulating prices (that would be socialism, ya pinko!) we just inflate demand by increasing "buying power," i.e., pour new money into the economy. "rebates" for all, including non-tax payers!
this market intervention empties inventories, and we all calm down because consumer spending is UP UP UP! and people are selling stuff! so what's the problem with that? first, because we don't let the market adjust, the prices stay high, and the ants who've had the foresight to save get screwed over by the grasshoppers. that's inflation. second, if you don't save today, you're going to spend less in the future, which means that we'll need another "economic stimulus" package so that merchants can clear their shelves then, which will mean that you'll save less then, and spend less in the future of that future, which means we'll need another stimulus package. it's turtles all the way down. and we're wall-papering our houses with $100 bills.
rrraugh! saving... good! spending... good! grog like peanuts!
security because americans can't be trusted to save for their futures,
but every time consumer spending is down we're all supposed to get
freaked out that the economy's taking a down-turn? (remember after 9-11 when bush told us to be patriotic americans and go shopping?) and every time the economy's "down," the politburo in dc pumps new dollars into the economy to increase consumer spending (bear in mind, the increase in dollars actually decreases the value of everybody's savings).
is that a good thing? a couple thoughts:
why is spending down? supply and demand: prices are too high; demand is too low. so either merchants hold on to their inventory until demand increases (which could put them out of business), or you slash prices (which could also put them out of business). since we have a total aversion in america to 1) consequences of our actions and 2) directly regulating prices (that would be socialism, ya pinko!) we just inflate demand by increasing "buying power," i.e., pour new money into the economy. "rebates" for all, including non-tax payers!
this market intervention empties inventories, and we all calm down because consumer spending is UP UP UP! and people are selling stuff! so what's the problem with that? first, because we don't let the market adjust, the prices stay high, and the ants who've had the foresight to save get screwed over by the grasshoppers. that's inflation. second, if you don't save today, you're going to spend less in the future, which means that we'll need another "economic stimulus" package so that merchants can clear their shelves then, which will mean that you'll save less then, and spend less in the future of that future, which means we'll need another stimulus package. it's turtles all the way down. and we're wall-papering our houses with $100 bills.
rrraugh! saving... good! spending... good! grog like peanuts!
the stupidest thing ever?
why is the scripture all the way up by the toe? unless you're wearing your birkenstocks, you only get the inspirational message at the heel. so if you're really discouraged, just take your shoes off and, oh!, there's a pithy feel-good quote waiting for you... on your stinky shoe insert.
get your retarded shoe inserts here: http://in-souls.com/.
get your retarded shoe inserts here: http://in-souls.com/.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
