Real Change

It is not surprising, but it is appalling that it seems that many Americans want the government to make them change their behavior. They complain about the high price of gasoline, and its effect on the economy, but they will cruise around on Friday night until the government tells them they can't.

They don't seem to understand that the reason gas prices are high is because, in spite of the prices, they keep buying gasoline. The best way to lower the price of gasoline, and the cost of living, would be to stop buying it. To complain about the chokehold Big Oil has on the economy, and to continue to buy excessively from Big Oil seems hypocritical.

It is understandable if a vehicle is necessary in one's work, or is necessary transportation to get to work, the grocery store, or even a bit of entertainment, that one would need to buy gasoline. But beyond that, it doesn't seem necessary to wait in line at Starbuck's or McDonalds with the engine running for twenty minutes when it would be cheaper to park the car, turn off the engine, and go inside. It doesn't seem necessary to drive up and down the main drag for half an hour while deciding where to eat or what show to watch, when plans could be made ahead of time.

As a frequent pedestrian, we see this kind of behavior constantly. The kind of behavior that tells us the economy must not be so bad after all, because people seem willing to pay the price no matter how high it gets.

The government can't change at this point. The folks on Capitol Hill know that if they give with one hand they have to take with the other. For instance, they can't outlaw buy only investments in oil futures, because that would upset the union pension plans, and most of our congresspersons depend on union support to stay in office. They know they can't suddenly press ethynol on the economy, because corn is used for many more things than fuel, and if corn were to reach $100 a bushel it would have a much more devestating effect on the economy than $100 a barrel oil.

Change needs to come from the individual. It needs to come from taking responsibility for one's actions, rather than expecting the government to fix things. The best we can expect from Washington DC, no matter who the next president is, is the same dance, different song.

Another Candidate

Posting for the heck of it

I haven't abandoned this blog, but I just haven't been excited about anything enough to do justice to what I feel is needed to be said. It isn't that there isn't anything to write about, just that there seems to be too much to write about, and not enough passion about it to finish what has been started. So, just to let folks know that Rev Jim is still alive and well, here is an endorsement, of sorts:

Could this be the end?

Is this the end of the Conservative branch of the Republican Party? Citing his love for his country and his party, Mitt Romney has "suspended" his candidacy for the nomination for the Republican Party Presidential race. This comes on the heels of declarations by several conservative pundits--most notably Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Anne Coulter, and James Dobson, that they would rather surrender the countries of Iraq and Afghanistan to Islamofascists than support front-runner John McCain. Laura Ingraham also stated that she cannot support McCain, but she stopped short of saying she would rather vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton, as Coulter has said she would.
Now these pundits will be the first to declare that they are not telling people how to vote; that they are merely expressing what they stand for and it is up to their listeners to agree or disagree with them. But we know some of their listeners and we know that some would go along with their political commentary no matter what they say.
Mitt Romney's admission of fear that a conservative-moderate rift within the Republican Party would hand the presidential election to the Democratic candidate is well founded. For those of us who remember the way the economy was during the Carter years, a new Democratic administration that embraces fiscal ideas similar to Carter's spells disaster.
Romney's assertation that he would rather step down than see surrender to the Islamofascists in the Middle and Near East made a strong statement relevent to those of us who are concerned about where we would draw the line of defense, the disasterous effects of a precipitous withdrawal. McCain, as we all know, was advocating a surge and counter-insurgency operations in Iraq long before General Petreaeus came into the picture. We now know that McCain was correct in that the counter-insurgency operations in Iraq have shown a fair amount of success, and promise even more. I have long said that the quickest way out of Iraq is to let the military finish the job, so in this sense I am a McCain supporter, and I applaud Romney in making this a major factor in his decision to step down.
A question that should be asked of the conservative faction is where were they when the time came to vote for Romney in the primary elections and caucuses? The number of voters who have turned out for the Democratic Party nominating process is twice that of those who felt it important enough to vote in the Republican Party process. If it is so important to these conservatives to have a candidate who represents their values, why didn't they get out to support the candidate they felt best represented those ideas? Only those who failed to vote can answer that question, but it seems as though they had already accepted defeat.
Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee are still actively campaigning in the race for the nomination, though neither of them is numerically viable at this point in the process. I agree with nearly everything Dr. Paul stands for, except that his ideas on foreign policy are a gross display of his naivete or outright ignorance of consensus reality. Even Hillary Clinton has suggested that she would leave a garrison in Iraq for technical support and military training, and Barack Obama has said that he would shift the majority of military force to Afghanistan and invade the "friendly" country of Pakistan if he felt it necessary. Although their ideas would cost more than any country could afford in the long run, they are still better than Dr Paul's theory that to shut America inside locked doors and ignore the rest of the world would immediately bring peace and prosperity. Still, his stand on Social Security, illegal immigration, supporting the Bush tax cuts, and ending government interference in the economy is worth consideration in building either the Republican or Libertarian party platform. Dr Paul's ideas on the economy would put much more in the pockets of Americans than any plan thought up by the majority of the other candidates from both the Democratic and Republican Parties.
What I really like about Governor Huckabee is his support of the Fair Tax Initiative. The Fair Tax Initiative abolishes the IRS and ends the confiscation of wages and earnings. This is essentially a federal sales tax that is truely voluntary--you only pay taxes on what you buy. Even those in the underground economy created by prohibition would pay taxes as opposed to the current system where their earnings are not reported and thus they do not pay taxes. Not having to pay taxes on your earnings is truly fair, it puts more money in the pockets of the consumer and encourages economic growth. McCain has indicated that he might be interested in the initiative.
Both Huckabee and Paul believe in the ability of the free market to come up with energy alternatives to replace petrofuels, while McCain stands for government controls to artificially influence the market toward alternative energy. McCain is known for stubbornly sticking to what he believes, but hopefully this is one issue he feels he should concede to the conservatives.
In fact, if Huckabee and Paul stay in the running long enough, their ideas would be given enough attention that they could become part of the Republican Party platform after the national convention. Then the Republicans could have a platform that could appeal to the conservatives and a candidate who would appeal to the moderates and independents, whose votes are always important in the general elections.
Personally, if I feel, come November, that John McCain has a chance of winning the presidential election, I will likely vote for him. However, if it seems that the Republicans are willing to hand the office of the President to the Democratic Party, I will, with clear conscience, vote Libertarian.I am certain that many independent voters will feel the same way, at least those who are genuinely concerned about the economy and the long term effects of a large scale growth of government as promised by the Democratic candidates. The whole idea of the Demopublican nominating system is to present the most electable candidate. The Republican party should understand this and follow the lead of Romney, if they are, in fact, concerned about their principles. Otherwise, in four years, the electorate will be so fed up with Demopublican politics, neither Republican nor Democratic candidates will have a base on which to ensure electability.

Another half-hearted attempt to explain myself

A commenter on this blog expressed curiosity of how I could reconcile being "Christ-oriented" with being a Phenominological Panthiest. It's actually easy for me to answer that. I believe in Christ as a philosophy, rather than as a religion, taking "religion" in the modern sense of organization and control. It is the teachings of Christ about the nature of the Spirit and mankind's relationship to God, that constitute my conviction, rather than the system of mandates and opinion set forth by "religion."
If you remove all the scriptures that make the foundation of Lucrecius of Antioch's church, and leave the scriptures that contain the teachings and the history of Jesus Christ (And why not? Lucrecius himself edited out many Gospels he felt weren't pertinent to his vision of the church), as Thomas Jefferson did for his own use, you have a concise record of Christ's answers to questions of the nature and relationship of God and Man, one that would cross reference well with the Tao tse Ching, and the teachings of the Buddha.
Jesus Christ teaches us that we simultaneously exist in three major realms, The Soul (The Father), the Holy Ghost (The Spirit), and the Son (The Material Body). He teaches us that what we do in one realm effects the other realms. He teaches us that we are capable of the same miracles that he performed, if we had Faith "but the size of a mustard seed."
And, He demonstrated "Salvation" by being crucified and returning to the material realm. It is with His Wisdom and Knowledge that we are made aware of our own immortality and of our true nature; that is, as Children of God, and as being in the Image of God.
In my personal reality, I believe that each individual exists in his or her own reality. If one believes in the tenets of modern religion or the edicts and dogma of a church, that is the real world in which that person exists. If a person believes that the Earth is only 5,000 years old, that is the reality of that person's world. If a person believes that God and Science are one and the same, that is yet another reality.
I hope I have satisfied your curiousity.

The Oligarchy of the United States of America

Our country has trapped itself in a rut. For too long it has accepted a two party system as politics as usual, and politics as usual has achieved little but to create problems in the name of politics.
Politicians have a way of perceiving a problem and presenting it to the public, to make them believe there is a problem. They then explain how they would solve the problem they created, usually by throwing money at it. This creates the additional problem of how to obtain the money with which to throw at the problem. That means more taxes, fees, or laws which enable the government which these politicians control to confiscate property that it may sell for more revenue. No government at any level will ever have enough money to keep itself growing in power and influence.
This is politics as usual under the two party system. Both parties have one thing in common--the belief that government should be operated from the top down, and that the general public and those who conduct commerce, should be controlled by that government. Both the Democratic and Republican parties believe that the Federal Government exists for the good of the people, and that the government will decide what is good for the people.
This has created an oligarchy--a government of the many ruled by the few. This is a far cry from the intent of the Constitution, that set up a Republic in which individual rights were not to be governed by laws that were outside the constitutionally established rights of the government. The Rule of Law, as applied by the Constitution meant that the weak would be protected from the strong, and that the individual right to person and property would be protected from trespass by others. The role of the Federal Government was basically to solve disputes in commerce between the states, and to protect the sovereignty of the United States and of each individual state. State law had precedence over Federal law, as the smaller government of the state was more able to meet the needs of its people. This was because each state was divided into representative districts, representing communities or small groups of small communities, comprised of individuals who would elect the person they felt would best represent them in the state assembly or legislature.
Each state's assembly or legislature would elect two senators to the Senate House of Congress of the United States, while Representatives to the House of Representatives of the Congress of the United States--the number of which depend on the population of the state, determining the number of federal districts--were elected by the voters in each district.
The President was elected by the voters in each state. Electors, also numbered according to population, would cast the actual ballot for the winner of the election in each state. This was done to offset a popular national vote that would give no voice to the states smaller in population.
This was by no means a "democracy" where each person gets one vote in all matters. Democracy's tend to destroy themselves, because there is no rule of law to protect the minorities, or to provide the system of checks and balances of a republic.
That is the basic idea of what we have for a government in the United States, but the major parties, the Democratic and the Republican, have hijacked this system to the point where they decide who the candidates for the Senate, the House, and the Presidency should be. They decide what issues are important to the voter, and what issues their party will represent, which usually has little relationship to what the voter thinks is important.
As we have seen in the current Congress, the members of each party represent the beliefs of their party rather than the beliefs of the individuals who elected them. That is to say, even if a representative drafts a bill that would benefit those who elected that person to office, and the person is a member of one party, the members of the other party would automatically strive to block it because it is contrary to the position of their party.
If one party thinks that commerce is important to the strength of the Republic, and the well being of the people, the other party will automatically oppose commerce. A very good illustration of this could be seen in a recent Democratic party debate, where one presidential nomination candidate criticised another candidate for being associated with Wal-Mart, thus identifying her as being in league with the opposing Republican Party. Why is this a bad thing? Don't the Democratic Party politicians believe in helping the poor? Hasn't Wal-Mart given hundreds of thousands of jobs to people who lived where there were no jobs for them? Hasn't Wal-Mart made goods available to people who could normally not afford those goods?
But that is wrong, according to the Democrats, because it is an individual corporation that is helping the poor, and the Democratic candidates should be against individual corporations because the Republicans support individual corporations. The Democratic candidates believe that helping the poor is a role that the Federal Government should be involved in.
The major parties have created two large voting blocks in which there is no gray area, only black and white. They strive to represent us by controlling how we behave in everything from what we eat to who we sleep with. Each block has it's own ideas of how and where to exert this control, but the bottom line is that they represent those ideas. We are being ruled by a few elitists who call themselves politicians, but they represent the political party to which they belong, not the views of those who elected them. If the voter doesn't agree with those views, they will tell the voter what they think he or she needs to know. The political parties can't control what we do unless they control what we think, so they make sure they tell us what to think. Whatever happened to the Republic?
It has been replaced by the Oligarchy,

Issues come to front at Iowa Caucus

One time underdog Mike Huckabee, and relative newcomer Barak Obama won their respective party's nomination for President in Iowa. What does this mean? Not much, and certainly not as much weight the news services put on it. The winning candidates may get more finance for their campaigns because of their victories, but in the overall view, Iowa doesn't represent the nation's views on the issues. In fact, the result of the caucus isn't even representative of how Iowa voters feel, as only 20% of Iowa voters participate in the caucuses.
Personally I don't care about the outcome in Iowa. I have little interest in any of the candidates running in either party. The best that can be said about them is that they are very good at talking around the issues. Surely they all have plans, but they refuse to explain how they can implement these plans as President, if, indeed, they find themselves in office.
According to the wonderful humor and satire site, The Onion the real issue is:

Poll: Bullshit Is Most Important Issue For 2008 Voters
If the video doesn't appear, please click here