in medias res

Well, 9 8 RINO’s have made it pretty clear today that the GOP is in lockstep with the Democrats. Neither are a friend to fiscal conservatism, the proper role of Government, nor the scientific method.

Here’s list of the 8 GOP turncoats who sold this country down the drain with a thinly disguised central planning bill:

• Mary Bono Mack (CA)
• Michael Castle (DE)
• Mark Kirk (IL)
• Leonard Lance (NJ)
• Frank LoBiondo (NJ)
• John McHugh (NY)
• Dave Reichert (WA)
• Chris Smith (NJ)

Obama is a downright liar in saying that 95% of Americans will not see “one penny” of their taxes increased. He takes a very narrow view of “taxes” in this regard because it fits the narrative, it’s far more convenient. By “taxes” here, he clearly means only Federal income taxes. When he’s talking about the hard-working, middle class’s tax burden, he includes other non-income tax withholdings like Social Security and Medicare. It’s not that I don’t think these aren’t undue, burdensome taxes on individuals, but I think we should see some consistency here. And if those are taxes, then surely we should see as a tax an increase of $1,300 per household passed to them from the higher cost of energy that this bill introduces. Only a few years in, that’s exactly what households in Britain are enjoying.

Though we were promised the most transparent, open Congress and Administration in history, we’ve seen nearly the exact opposite. One could hardly argue the point given that we’ve seen sweeping legislation after sweeping legislation come through at the eleventh hour unread, undebated, and without presentation to Americans. It’s clear why: these are horrible bills that cannot stand up under the sunshine of public scrutiny. I’m getting tired of every piece of garbage legislation that comes through with Obama’s declaration of “fierce moral urgency” attached to it. Guess what? The world isn’t simply going to collapse if Congress takes the time to read the legislation it passes. TARP. The Stimulus. The Car Bailout. When will Americans stand up and shout, “NO! We’re not going to be bullied into this anymore! The fear-mongering stops NOW!” Legislation passed without deliberation by our representatives is fraud, plain and simple.

And this laundry list of fraud and abuses goes before we’ve even discussed this point: the whole Climate Change agenda is based on a completely ridiculous premise! It’s bad science! Carbon Dioxide is a pollutant? Does anyone really believe this? If so, I kindly ask you to save the planet: stop breathing now. We need to stop letting our politicians set the scientific agenda based on a wildly popular, wholly fallacious movie starring the most boring narrator in the world as Fear-monger #1.

Not only is carbon dioxide never been substantially tied to the cause of warming, it may be a sign of a healthier, more moderate climate. As in, effect, not cause. You see, the conclusions drawn from the statistically inaccurate hockeystick graph make an argument  based on the correlation proves causation fallacy. Al Gore and politically-invested scientists took a look at that graph and concluded that because carbon dioxide levels rose with the temperature, they must have caused it!!! Too bad that’s a terrible argument. We see that all the chatter about global warming climate change is really far more religious and far less scientific. We’re not allowed to debate it, apparently. The debate is over. There’s a consensus, I swear. Now just vote on it and shut up.

The true Gospel is a unique, life-altering thing. It is not merely some philosophical angle to which a person might direct his attention for a time. Not at all a high moral standard to which we must strive for redemption; this is just a new, impossible law. No, the Gospel is the truth of a doomed humanity, a God who requires perfection, and the reconciliation of two such disparate conditions that this very perfection-requiring God Himself has given each of us. (I have only far too recently realized that the often used analogy of a drowning man in woefully insufficient here. We are not merely drowning. We are not a man adrift to whom must be thrown a life preserver. In this imperfect analogy, it is much more like we are cold and dead on the sea floor, requiring something extraordinary enough to both retrieve us and bring us to life.) The “good news” of the Gospel is that God has come into time and space to take upon Himself, in our stead, the punishment that His very nature requires of us, justifying us in His presence.

What we see in the Gospel presented is the truth of God revealed, a man’s acceptance in faith of that now startlingly undeniable truth, and Christ’s free justification of that man. What follows is God’s transformative work of remaking that man with new desires, a new purpose, and a new mind. Can a person accept the Gospel and be left unchanged? I do not think this is possible. It is only since Christ yanked me from my depravity that I have experienced the inner struggle of desires and behavior that Paul refers to in Romans 7. I have never, since my conversion, not believed the Gospel; I have just spent my most painful hours actively ignoring it and wishing it weren’t so.

Another bit of comic genius from Iowahawk.

Well today turned out to be one that revolved around food and politics. At the same time. I was pleased to have lunch with a new libertarian friend of mine, Adam. (A new friend. I don’t know how long he’s been a libertarian.) I always enjoys those one-on-ones. The lunch begins without any sort of agenda, and an hour and a half later you find your conversation miles from its origination. Of course the hot topics right now among libertarians and conservatives involved state sovereignty resolutions, gun rights bills passed by the states, the tea parties, and things like the Bill of Federalism. Adam read the bill for the first time at the table and was completely enthralled with it. He brings up a strong, significant objection to it though: if we call a constitutional convention, does that not open the whole constitution up for modification? We’re apparently only a few states’ requests away from actually having a constitutional convention. (As I understand it, unless a state recalls its request, that request stands permanently. Thus, all requests for a constitutional convention since our nation’s founding have tallied up to almost meet the threshold.) And since most state legislatures, who would appoint the delegates, are left leaning… that could open us up to some disastrous modifications to the Constitution. Yikes. I’ll be interested to see what professor Barnett says in response to this.

Then tonight I met with Ken Marrero of Blue Collar Muse and several other bloggers to have dinner with state Senator Ken Yager from the 12th district which is a chunk of East Tennessee (back where I come from). It was quite informative, but even better was the opportunity to form a relationship with one of the folks who represents Tennesseans. He certainly seems to hold the constrained world view, and regardless of where I might disagree with him, this means I know we’re forming our opinions based on the same basic understanding of the world.

I also met Jarod Scott, a younger fella with some political aspirations for 2010. I’m not sure how much he’s publicly announced, so I’ll keep mum for now. But I like him.

I’ll write more on things like this later, but I wanted to take a light dip in the pool of political commentary before jumping back in. I’ve been so busy with the tea party efforts in middle tennessee lately, specifically with helping start up the non-profit Tennessee Tea Party, I haven’t had time to really ponder and pen my usual political drivel. Have no fear; I’m sure I’ll be back to churning out the same old useless garbage in no time.

Yesterday at work, word spread like wildfire that Oprah has just given everyone in America free chicken. FREE CHICKEN! Woooo!

One of the girls at work got particularly excited and keep telling everyone, “Oprah dot com slash KFC!”

I called some friends, and several of us made plans to hit up the nearest KFC. It was across town, but that’s no matter. FREE CHICKEN!

After a 15 minute car ride, including the interstate, we walked into the restaurant. There was a little bit of a line, but only 4 people ahead of us.

Ten minutes later? Still 4 people. We start murmuring. “What’s going on here?”

I craned my neck around to see what was going on, and the employees looked like they weren’t aware of the economy and that they should be glad to have a job. What the heck… FREE CHICKEN!

Forty-five minutes later, we’re finally at the front of the line. Of course, the girl taking the orders is also the girl filling the orders. With gusto? Not at all. Apparently everyone else is on break. And staring at me.

At this point, I’m engaging in some serious people-watching of the employees. Then my attention turns to the manager, and she appears poised to break down and sob at any moment. Apparently she finds no pride in being a General Manager of a restaurant.

It was right smack in the middle of my sympathy that the GM then took her hand and transferred to it the excess snot from her nose.

Ohhhhh! So that’s why I haven’t been to KFC in years!

“Hey, so… the general manager just snotted her hand and didn’t wash. You two want to go somewhere else and get food?” Blank stares from the whole line. Mission accomplished. (It was the KFC at 5802 Charlotte Avenue in Nashville, just in case you’re wondering where you should never go for chicken, free or otherwise.)

Apparently my horrible experience with KFC and Coupon-gate (I’m the first, woo!) isn’t isolated, though I think the New Yorkers staging a sit-in and demanding free chicken probably took it too far. What sort of world are those folks living in that a franchise refusing to honor a coupon deserves the same treatment that folks a generation ago gave the lunch counters to achieve civil rights?

Something written so well to describe something written even better still should not be “improved” upon with my arrogant words. Therefore, I bring you the words of Joshua from The Only Willing Move:

I’m always on the lookout for neat aphorisms that nicely encapsulate important points of Libertarian thought. This is because I think Libertarianism argues from a weak position in modern society. There aren’t very many of us to begin with, and our views are rarely, if ever, given a fair hearing in the public forum, so anything that can get the point across sucintly is helpful.

Today I came across a true gem - from hacker Eric S. Raymond via the EconTalk Podcast.

Love doesn’t scale.

…

We classical liberals get a bad rap for being heartless - but it’s just because we understand this and everyone else doesn’t. Washington doesn’t love me, Washington can’t love me, Washington shouldn’t love me, and you know what? I don’t even want it to try. I don’t give two figs about any politician’s professed “concern” for “the people” or any of that jazz because I know that love doesn’t work that way. It’s piss poor motivation for keeping the trains running.

Original Post Removed.

My intention with posting my resignation letter was to be completely forthright and transparent, the kind of thing we demand from our Government. Given that this may appear otherwise, I’ve removed this, and I’m going to retire for a few days to be with family and friends. God bless.

…the biggest welfare recipients are using our own money to lobby us for more. According to the Associated Press, “The top 10 recipients of the government’s $700 billion financial bailout spent about $9.5 million on federal lobbying during the first three months of the year.” Lead among them is GM, which burned through $2.8 million in lobbying in the first quarter alone. 

More here.

Are we really that surprised, honestly? How long have us free marketeers been saying, “If you reward something, you’ll get more of it.” GM and the others did their cost-benefit analysis, and they rationally figured that their most profitable venture was lobbying Congress. So they did more of it. And they’ll continue to do so.

So bend over, America.

And, I wondered, how could I have spent decades thinking that I thought everything was always wrong at the same time that I thought I thought that people were basically good at heart? Which was it? I began to question what I actually thought and found that I do not think that people are basically good at heart; indeed, that view of human nature has both prompted and informed my writing for the last 40 years. I think that people, in circumstances of stress, can behave like swine, and that this, indeed, is not only a fit subject, but the only subject, of drama.

I’d observed that lust, greed, envy, sloth, and their pals are giving the world a good run for its money, but that nonetheless, people in general seem to get from day to day; and that we in the United States get from day to day under rather wonderful and privileged circumstances—that we are not and never have been the villains that some of the world and some of our citizens make us out to be, but that we are a confection of normal (greedy, lustful, duplicitous, corrupt, inspired—in short, human) individuals living under a spectacularly effective compact called the Constitution, and lucky to get it.

Fantastic article on David Mamet’s conversion from accepting what’s been fed to him all the way to a thinking, informed conservative position. Amazing how that happens, isn’t it? (Notice how he’s speaking to the constrained view versus the unconstrained view.)

Dang it Janeane, you’re right. That whole thing last week was just about a bunch of white rednecks hatin’ on the coolest President ever just cuz he’s a black man: