A post at Sojourners

Jim Wallis posted over at Sojourners about libertarians. There are more strawmen than a county of corn patches, so I couldn't help but post. In case they delete or reject my comment, here it is in its entirety:

I managed to have a very nice post. Unfortunately, disqus proceeded to eat it.

Mr. Wallis, you commit the same error you claim to detest in the Christian right: you are defining the True Christian.

I am a Christian, and I am a Libertarian. God does not compel giving by the sword; the Law showed us that that doesn't work. We are instead to give freely, of our own will. Government does not ask; it takes.

If the church cannot meet God's will, then the church is in sin. God no more needs a government to feed His people than he needs it to convert the sinner.

There is no racism or hypocrisy in pointing out that the government is broke. The federal government will borrow 1 trillion USD this year. Illinois can't pay its bills at all; California is next. Social Security will spend more this year than it draws in, and Medicare is only solvent on paper because it systematically abuses and underpays doctors in the system. If we do not default on the US sovereign debt before then, the US will need 100% of our GDP just to service the debt before my children grow old.

Moreover, the government is inefficient. The government has around 70% overhead rates (for every .30 going to the poor, the government spends around .70 to do so). Good charities manage 10% overhead or less (.1 overhead for every .9 spent), and any charity with more than 25% overhead is probably a scam.

Facts aren't racist or classist. They are still the facts.

The libertarian doesn't favor the strong; the libertarian KNOWS that the strong regularly abuse the weak, and they usually use the government to do so. To paraphrase Lewis, at least give me a petty tyrant. He will sleep or might grow lazy. God save us from the righteous tyrant; he will never sleep for fear of someone harming themselves.

We have a government of righteous tyrants, afraid that one type of "marriage" will corrupt me, or that my incandescent lights will ruin the world. Neither "side" has the least compunction from using the same means; they just argue over goals.

The Libertarian believes in the law of unintended consequences. Pass a minimum wage law, and fewer people get jobs. Regulate companies, and they can't compete with their foreign competitors. The government that has the power to take over GM is the same government with the power to shoot the workers (coal miners and railroad workers of the 1800s). The government that can force a waiter to serve a black man is the same government that can force a waiter to not serve a Christian, or a Jew, etc.

I do not believe that Government is evil; it is worldly and flawed. The Mosaic Law failed when it attempted to impose charity just as it failed when it tried to impose Godly behavior. Our brethren who want to outlaw sin are just as flawed as those who want to outlaw poverty.

As for racism: Mr. Wallis, might I suggest you attend a Tea Party rally? Or perhaps look at the pictures from the right-wing nut job blogs. The people showing you the lilly-white pictures have an agenda to keep them looking that way.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Shame on Congress

There is absolutely no excuse for giving a foreign head of state the bully pulpit of a joint session of Congress to criticize the legal, legitimate actions of a sovereign state of the Union. Anyone who attended needs to be thrown out of office, now.

Rand Paul takes the Nomination

Dave Wiegel on Twitter:

Boone County 100% counted -- Rand wins it 67-31. Again, TREY GRAYSON LIVES THERE. #kysen #randslide

That is very hard on a candidate. That said, Greyson was incredibly gracious, and I will remember that later. I would love to see him run against Bashear.

Hat tip Vodkapundit.

For my nephew

I want to be counted among the Sheepdogs

I know a lot of people have linked Dave Grossman's article On Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs. I'm not sure who gave me the original link, but the version on Mr. Grossman's site is better than the rest.

I printed off a copy for Number One Son and Little Miss to read. It sums up the true warrior mentality better than any other article I've ever read.

Voting for Skip Horine for Mayor

I have no idea how competent he is, but he can't be any worse than Newberry, Jim Gray, or Theresa Isaac (WHY is she running again?). Therefore, I'll vote for Skip Horine Tuesday.

Gun Control

Gun control is hitting what you aim at.

That's 20 out of 20 from 7 yards. No, it's not 20 holes, I count 17 distinct holes but I know all 20 hit the paper there (the target is BIG). If it were up to the gun, that spread would have been a 1-2" circle around the X; the distribution is solely the fault of the shooter....

The sad part is that a lot of people testing for concealed carry in Kentucky can't hit that well to that close.

A habit to break

Work requires I carry a pager, since I don't get called enough to justify a cell phone (a good problem for a system administrator to have). I had been carrying it on my right side, but of late I've switched it to the left.

Over the last couple of days, I've been going into gun stores, to find and then take a CCDW (concealed-carry) class. Until I went in, I didn't realize that I have a bad habit: resting my hand on top of my pager. Normally, this wouldn't be a big deal, except for being around people who have to watch for concealed weapons in hip carry configurations. Putting my hand down there makes gun shop owners more nervous than cats in the dog pound....

To be fair, I stayed nervous the entire time I was in the store. It was unnerving to hear autoloaders having their actions worked that much, with my back to the action.

It's too good to not copy

As a multitude of sites have pointed out, Gizmoto has gotten their mitts on an alleged prototype of the iPhone 4G. I have no great opinion of its quality, since I won't be able to buy it until I can afford to pay cash for one and hook it up to my T-Mobile to Go account.

However, John Gruber at Daring Fireball has gotten super-secret pictures of Steve Job's office today, after hearing about the release:

(Thanks to skarpi at http://www.flickr.com/photos/skarpi/4527797541/ for making the picture available on the Internet. I didn't copy the picture, only made a link back to it.)

Thank you UK

There will be a lot of people who think Kentucky let them down. I am disappointed, but for the guys. I wanted them cutting the nets down, but West Virginia beat us, fair and square.

Thank you Mr. Wall. If you go pro (and I think you should), you've given us a wonderful year. Mr. Cousins, if you don't go pro (and you should not), remember how bad it felt on the bench, and make sure this summer that you don't go back.

Thank you Mr. Patterson for sticking through Unmentionable Coach #2, and giving us three wonderful years. I'd love to see another year, but you've earned your NBA money. If you go, you go with our thanks.

Never, ever give up.

Keep fighting, even when it looks like you're done.

A comment at Vox Popoli

Since at least one person over at Vox Popoli liked this comment to Vox's post to MH, I'll preserve it here as well. Nothing is original to me; I just retyped it.

MH: 3/16/10 1:15 PM:
I just want to thank everybody for all the wonderful references, I will most certainly check some of them out.

I have tried to read the bible many times, and find it utterly unreadable. The God described in that book in as far as I could ever get through it is an incredibly vindictive and cruel entity. And its full of things that just seem preposterous to me to the point where I can't take it seriously enough to finish the book.

This is interesting, as I've found much of the Bible the most readable book out there. Job and Ecclesiastes helped me through a depressive high school term, and Revelation is the ultimate combination of "Cheer up! The worst is yet to come!" and "Guess what: we win." I challenge you to read Revelation 21 (the descent of the New Jerusalem from heaven to the new Earth) without wanting to see that city, even a little bit.

My number one piece of advise for "new" Bible readers is to ditch the King James Version. The best thing I ever found was a New International Version bible at summer camp. Find an NIV Bible or an English Standard Version bible with wonderful notes. The Quest Bible is an excellent choice.

Second, throw away your notions of God as the eternal grandfather/Santa Claus and as the punisher. The God of the Bible is both Just and Love, and He is not concerned that we can't understand how He balances out those natures.

When I hear about God being vindictive, most people are usually talking about the conquering of Canaan. At the very first blush, it does sound cruel. Kill everyone, burn the cities, etc. However, if you read just a little bit more, you realize that it's not that simple. God behaves in predictable patterns:

* God decides to set a time limit on a sinful people. Over 430 years before Joshua, God tells Abraham that the people of Canaan's time is limited. A few cities get destroyed soon afterwards (from the author's point of view, the absolute worst). The rest get extra time to repent, until the Israelites show up.

* God warns people. Rahab knew God's name, and knew that God was giving the land to Israel. Jonah went to Ninevah to warn the people there that they were under God's judgement. The two angels warned Lot's household to leave Sodom.

* God provides an "out" for the good guys. Ninevah repented and was spared. Rahab and her household became part of Israel. Sodom would have been spared for the sake of 10 good people. (As an aside there, Lot had as many people with him as Abraham did, and Abraham had an army. When Lot went into Sodom, he took hundreds of servants with him. Abraham was sure that at least 10 of the people he sent with Lot would still be righteous. He was wrong.) An entire city was spared just because Lot whined he couldn't walk to the mountains, solely for Abraham's sake.

* God judges individually and collectively. You are responsible for your own sins, but you are also responsible for the sins of your group if you don't act. Rahab rejects her community, and is absolved of both their sins and hers. Lot's wife self-identifies with Sodom, and is punished for its sins, despite being of an otherwise righteous household. If you are "innocent" but won't get out of a sinful people, then you are under judgement.

* God sets your lifespan. This is a hard thought to make sink in, but it is a very Tanach-based Jewish thought: God gives life, and takes it away. God cannot commit murder because He gave the life in the first place, and can set the boundaries as He pleases. If God says "this person's life is over", then that's it.

"What about the innocents/children?" I've heard several arguments that are probably true (Israel didn't have the resources to feed tons of orphans, etc.), but there is a moral judgement hiding in the question. Morally, the real accusation here is "these children deserved to keep living, and it's murder for God to take their life". This is really begging the question. God gave these children their life, and He can decide how long they live.

Morally, either they are innocent at death or they aren't. If they are innocent, then their death is inconvenient but temporary. If they aren't innocent, then they are morally condemned anyway. (I include this not for infants, but those who want to define "children" to include clearly self-aware ages as high as 18 or 21.)

God is not capricious or bloodthirsty, but patient and merciful (the real "God changed His mind" verses always involve God choosing mercy over judgement). He sent Jesus to die on a cross because He wants all of us to live.

They was robbed!

I didn't get to watch CBS's selection committee, so I only now realized that Florida got into the tournament, but Mississippi State didn't. That isn't fair. I am a fan of Billy Donovan, and originally hoped that he would get the job instead of both Billy Gillespie and Calipari. However, Florida consistently underachieved this year, while Mississippi State played people really, really hard, especially UK.

Coach Cal was right; if UK is second in the country, then Mississippi State deserves to at least be in the big dance. They were robbed.

My tax dollars at work

We didn't get any bills or Netflix envelopes yesterday, so the mail sat on the counter until this evening. After opening the Netflix envelopes (gotta find out what happened after the 4th season of CSI: Miami), I checked the rest out. There, in white "US Official Business only" glory, was a letter. From the Census Bureau. Telling me that I was going to get my census forms next week, and that I needed to fill them out.

The Census Bureau spent about a dollar printing a custom letter for my address, stuffing it into an envelope, and mailing it, just to tell me that my census form was coming soon. Wow, that's 100 million tax dollars down the drain. Thanks, China, for funding that.

That said, I certainly support the "I am an American" racial choice, and will be checking it for the entire Packrat family. I can't tell which racial groups are in my family, why should the government care?

South Carolina played a good game tonight

I just wonder why Patrick Patterson and John Wall didn't show up for the game.

Disagreeing with Scalia

In general, I am a big fan of justices Thomas and Scalia. I think they are the two most libertarian on a court packed with statists. Both still aren't far enough, but the current trend in anti-government Constitutional thinking derives straight from Scalia.

That is why I am particularly upset at Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. As I've gone along, I've grown to appreciate Vox Day's opinion that corporations should not have their "legal personhood" fiction, and that legal entities have no rights, much less First Amendment rights.

I wish Scalia had gone down that path here.

I'm done with Dickie V.

Several years ago, Dick Vitale did an interview about his career. He made me feel sorry for him by saying how he just loved basketball, and wanted everyone else to love it too, and he couldn't understand why people didn't like him. I felt really sorry for him.

Today, I turned him off. The sound, at least. I am watching the UK game on espn360.com, and the sound is off. I just can't take it any more.

A committed Relationship

OK, I can be a very dense man. Just ask Milady. I often don't understand things.

I am very confused by the term "committed relationship". It seems that Peter Orszag was in a committed relationship with woman number 2. He wasn't committed enough to marry her (the jury's out on whether it was mutual or not), and wasn't committed enough to stay with her after she's pregnant. He's already in yet another "committed" relationship with his new fiance, a couple of months out.

I see no commitment here. He stayed as long as he was getting something out of it, and then left. I would prefer the honesty of "it was only about the sex and food" than "we are in a committed relationship".

Of course, he could be using an alternate definition of committed: "To place officially in confinement or custody, as in a mental health facility". That would work with Michael Savage's theory that current liberalism is a mental illness.

Snowshine

I attended the University of Kentucky as an undergraduate. Being a night owl, I tended to be on campus in a computer lab or visiting the Tolly-Ho or Perkins for late-night food.

A cloudy night after a snow storm was extra special. I would bundle myself up as possible, and then wander around campus. At 2AM, the air would be completely crisp and clear. It looked like every photon of light had to have bounced up and down at least 20 times before stopping. I know it was a trick of the eyes, but it looked brighter and crisper than a clear, sunny day. A snowy night in the country is nice, but you have to have the solid light pollution of a city to pull this one off. One of the terms I used was "snowshine".

Tonight, it's snowshining again. I can't walk on campus or down our street - I'm too cold, and I've got to get in bed to meet tomorrow's responsibilities. But, for 10 or 15 minutes, I can look out the front window and be amazed at God's blessings yet again.

WBCOOP 2010

Right after Christmas, I realized that I hadn't seen PokerStars mentioning the Blogger tournaments. I was afraid I'd missed them. No, they are just running late.

Registration code: 843197