Christianity, Charity, and Government

It always befuddles me to listen to a Christian chastise me when I state that the government has no responsibility to assist the poor. It is as if the person thinks I'm no Christian at all or better yet that the person thinks himself a better one.

When did I ever state that there is no responsibility to assist the poor at all? I never said such a thing. In fact, I think individuals hold the entire responsibility for serving the indigent and that government usurped that responsibility when the populace grew lazy.

I think Christians who have a progovernment stance ought to consider the foundation of their own argument. Jesus Christ stated that we need to give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to give to God what belongs to God. When did Jesus ever tell a beggar to go ask the king for food? Any of the thousands he fed with a few loaves?

If you consider yourself a Christian, don't be lazy. Don't stop helping the poor at the ballot box as that is far from your duty. You are called to serve, not to appoint others to do the dirty work for you--not to pay taxes and consider it done.

We need to wake up. It is not the job of government to serve the needs of the population. It is the job of Christians, so gird up and do it.

My Thoughts on Torture....

I don't know if the torture report from the Senate reports facts or opinion, but I'm going to give mine. People should not be tortured. Period. Anybody who thinks we should has seen too many movies and read too many books. If you grew up when I did, you saw plenty of movies with Chuck Norris in POW camps, and we villainized the North Vietnamese for torturing our prisoners. It isn't wrong for someone to do it to us but right for us to do it to others. Congratulations, if the report is true, we became the enemy.

I also do not approve of the way the report was handled, especially not if the CIA simply followed the orders of the President. It is a great example of what happens when you have weak leadership at the helm, willing to listen to whatever he is told will work. We went through eight years of Bush and now eight years of Obama. Do the math. Sixteen years without a decent leader, and many people actually blame Congress. Blame it for what? If you want to blame Congress, blame it for being too complicit with the plans of a President instead of acting independently as it is able to do within the framework of the Constitution.

The job of Congress is not to work for, or even with, the President, nor is it the President's job to tell Congress what to do. This is a fault of our two party system. When one party controls both branches, you get exactly what I just described: the President becomes the de facto head of Congress, and you get crap like Obamacare. Great job America, way to read your Civics textbooks. The only way you get true government oversight in this pathetic two party system is to have each branch controlled by a different party.

Dear geniuses, the government was designed to be gridlocked with each branch jealously guarding its own authority and privilege. That's what prevents overreach. What's so difficult to understand about that?

Why I'll never compromise.

Gun owners know that any give on our part always results in take by the other part. It is one reason why I, personally, will never consider any restriction, reasonable or not, upon my ownership rights.

All too often, in states such as New York, California, et al, what started as a small restriction under the auspices of public safety converted into a gun grab by those most ignorant of what legal gun ownership really entails.

Law abiding gun owners are not criminals, and criminals do not buy guns legally. Just like anything bought illegally, there will always be a source. Even the military has weapons stolen from it.

Laws meant to prevent criminals from buying guns actually have the opposite effect of preventing normal people from exercising their rights as free individuals.

Crime prevention is not law enforcement and is the reason why police cannot arrest anyone until a crime has been committed. Crime prevention starts with you. You cannot reply upon your legislator or your neighborhood cop to do it for you.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/11/14/buffalo-police-search-for-firearms-at-home-after-funerals/?intcmp=obnetwork

To my disadoring fans (disgruntled followers, LOL)

Regardless of how you interpret what I write, I can tell you who I am and what I mean.  I'm a civil libertarian if you need a title, and I believe in freedom.

I believe that both sides of what you consider the political spectrum: the left and the right, sold themselves to corporate interests.  The left goes a bit further in my view to restrict personal liberty which is contraindicative of how they sell themselves to the general public.  The left forces me to pay into a collective and gives my wages to people who have not earned it, able bodied people.  I have no problem with disabled and mentally incompetent people receiving public assistance.  The left wants to restrict my speech, my freedom of religion, my freedom of association, and my ability to protect myself.

Political speak and the spectrum as we know it is completely wrong.  I believe in limited government, and I cannot understand why other people do not.

Did anyone actually expect the USA to last forever?

Just a thought, but does anyone actually expect the USA to last forever? If so, it would be the first in the history of the world to do so. If not, what's next?

You don't have to be a prepper to be a realist, and the country is fundamentally different from what it was in 1776.  Back then, people despised and mistrusted government, but nowadays they want to know why their check is late.

Lastly, and quite frankly, I don't want to share a country with a bunch of neoSocialists. I'd rather throw down and get it over with.

President Bush Warns What Would Happen if the U.S. Withdrew from Iraq To...

I may not have been a Bush fan, but he called it. Obama did exactly what Bush warned not to do. An amateur would understand that troops will be necessary in Iraq for the long term, and I was no proponent of the Gulf War. For it or against it, we did it, and the difficult part is to stay the course. Instead of shoring up the gains, Obama did the expedient and politically popular action which was to bring the troops home. In the short run, it proved beneficial to his popularity, but now we see the results of poll chasing: Americans beheaded on social media. Who brought the popcorn?

To make matters worse, he doubled down on Bush's failed incursion by doing worse in Libya, and as if Libya weren't enough, Obama has steadily chipped away at the stability of Syria by funding and supporting the Free Syrian Army. As instability reigns, what was our reward: a murdered ambassador, a very strong ISIS, and horror flicks fit for Faces of Death. Yes, that's our President, who after spiking the football immediately following Bin Laden's death, surrendered our very security in order to win an election and to pursue his bent ideological beliefs.

Are we better off now than we were six years ago. My business is not, and our national security is not. Al Quaeda is on the rebound, and ISIS sprouted death and destruction. No doubt, Obama supporters can make a million excuses, but that's what they are, excuses. Bush messed up by invading Iraq in the first place, but Obama made it worse by shirking our national duty to fix what we broke. He created hotbeds of unrest and instability by deliberately and willingly unseating Quaddafi and then attempting to do the same with Assad. NONE of these actions, BY EITHER PRESIDENT were in our best interest, but instead of doing the right thing, this president did the politically expedient action and set us on a course for long term failure, thus ensuring that the thousands of Americans who died during the war did so in vain.

Obama is a feckless bastardization of what a leader should be and ought to be. He ought to consider resigning, but he's too arrogant to do so. Over the next two years, you will see worse actions than this, and within the next six years, you will see a terrorist attack to rival that of September 11. Just wait.

The downfall of government

We're kidding ourselves. Political systems are inherently flawed by the designs of people who are forever influenced by money and relationships. People will always seek to exert their will upon others, and to that end, the offices people hold will forever be corrupt.