tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-76058792303100313912024-03-05T19:16:53.004-05:00a generic brand of thinkingSame great taste, without the silly sense of entitlement.generic Brandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11189402545943772384noreply@blogger.comBlogger142125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7605879230310031391.post-20214321508402442702021-01-20T21:27:00.004-05:002021-01-21T11:57:17.459-05:00Annual Florida Trip (2020 ed.) Travelogue<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">This is my long overdue travelogue from our annual road trip to Florida to visit my parents. In our first year of dating, when we began the road trip tradition (that is, the tradition of going on cross-country road trips together but not necessarily this Florida road trip), my wife and I wanted to have the journey be just as memorable as the destination. Because we both love food, we thought to focus the travel stops around local eateries rather than quick-stop fast food joints. If such dining establishments offered T-shirts or other wearable swag for purchase by which we could remember them, all the better. Thus follows a travelogue that is 70% food related, 6% gun related, and 24% random thoughts. (Seeing that at the time of publishing pandemic hysteria continues mostly unabated, I trust that, like with COVID-19 data, no one will check my numbers here.)</span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">------------------------------------------------</span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">Our journey, as always these days, began in Chicago, Illinois. When I say "Chicago" I mean <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38OOUDTsqM0" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">the heart of the city</a> and not the suburbs or collar counties or even central Illinois. The misery inflicted on the residents of Chicago is unique enough that those who reside outside the limits (reaches?) of City Hall should not be allowed to claim to come from here when speaking to non-Illinois residents. Thus, we left from Buckboldt Square micro-neighborhood, my amalgamation of the small area where our house is that is simultaneously <a href="https://theillpres.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/city_neighborhoods_old-map.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">claimed</a> and <a href="https://lucidrealty.com/images/Chicago_Neighborhoods.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">not claimed</a> by the [West] Bucktown, Humboldt Park, and Logan Square neighborhoods. We hopped on the I-90/94 Expressway heading "East" (South) and were lucky to get out of the city in about an hour. (Insert comment about how Chicagoans refer to the expressways by their deceased politicians' names. Oh, I'm sorry, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDoGqZUHVEI" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">I thought this was America!</a>)<br /></span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: small;">
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For our first stop, we found the <b>Zip & Sip in Vincennes, Indiana</b>. My wife saw fish sandwich on the online menu, so of course they didn't have it. She saw fried shrimp on the in-store menu, so of course they didn't have it. And as we left she wanted their knock-off blizzard, the "Wizzard", with Reeses Cup and Butterfinger, so of course they were out of both of those. I got a double cheeseburger that was nothing to write home about (probably Bubba Burger patties that may have been microwaved), but the fried mac and cheese bites were pretty tasty.
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</span><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">We drove through lots more flat, boring Indiana countryside before making it to Fort Campbell just on the Kentucky/Tennessee border. Stopped into Wal-Mart to get gas and use the restroom and let the girls stretch their legs, and it was an experience as Wal-Mart tends to be. The front Men's room was closed for cleaning, so I trekked to the one in the back of the store. As I walked through sections of the store I was amazed at how incredibly affordable so many products are. Wrangler jeans, a well known name brand, for under $20/pair. 50" flat screen TVs for under $400. It's a marvel that the store not only DOESN'T go out of business, but actually thrives with such prices. My sister-in-law insists that she heard Wal-Mart has some deal with electronics manufacturers to produce cheaper-made versions sent exclusively to the store, which is why the prices are so low. I just nodded along when she said that, because it sounds like typical anti-Wal-Mart bias. Any big box store makes its money by selling way more than a person intended to buy. The only way to beat Wal-Mart or Target or Costco, etc., is to make a list and stick to it. </span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">[<i>Note: It was obvious to me then but more obvious now, in 2021, that such big box stores also make their money by benefiting from the obscene amount of regulation that many times they help right (or lobby for). Wal-Mart and its ilk have stayed open and in business because they are "essential" stores offering "groceries" or other items, while smaller businesses that might compete with only one or two of Wal-Mart's areas are forced to close down for in-person shopping because of COVID-19 restrictions.</i>]<br /></span></div><span style="font-size: small;">
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I try not to judge other parents (a difficult task, to be sure). While leaving the restroom, however, there was a woman with two kids and the younger one's face was so grody and covered in old food and crusty snot. My wife has drilled into me to wipe Mabel's nose at the first sign of snot, so I'm probably more sensitive to it, but it was still shocking to see such apathy about a kid's appearance. Suffice it to say, the <a href="http://peopleofwalmart.com/">PeopleOfWalmart.com</a> website is not lacking for content, sadly.
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We stayed a day with my wife's friend and her family outside Clarksville, TN. The woman's husband is an attorney as well, but unfortunately the days we visited were midweek so he didn't have much free time for us to talk outside of dinner at <b>O'Charleys</b> the first night. (Love those hot buttery rolls! Not a euphemism, though our waitress did kind of look like Taylor Swift and comped us on Kids Eat Free AND free pie Wednesday, of which you're supposed to only get one or the other.) The friend and their six year old daughter are two sides of the same coin; they're like the living embodiment of the Warner Brothers singing frog. Lots of energy and singing and showmanship over the 36 hours we were with them, but it was a lot of fun and my deadpan humor was welcome.
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After leaving Clarksville, we drove along I-24 to Chattanooga. The few times I've passed through Chattanooga as an adult really leaves
me thinking that this is a place I could move to. Between the
picturesque location tucked into the Tennessee River Valley at the base
of Lookout Mountain, and its proximity to Nashville or Atlanta for
travel, it seems to have a lot to offer. For lunch we stopped at <b>St. Elmo's Deli & Grill</b>, where I ordered a club sandwich with side salad and my wife ordered the pimento grilled cheese with sweet potato tots. The food was excellent, though my wife could only finish half of her
sandwich because of how rich it was. The service was pleasantly
southern: that over-the-top hospitality that makes you feel
simultaneously like a member of the family and a foreign dignitary. </span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: small;">
</span><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-GWf7tBW-myobNS9mP-X4B6qr4IWMAz7QFKyH537CPvgHTtMAVAON_-U9P0ozpOga9H2oy88so1SO2zwSTCehq14mLdilBx_3HWz_Z_mZ4GZn7StxzX-dduDQWbr8ihAuMfrzboYocP8/s1600/St+Elmo+1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-GWf7tBW-myobNS9mP-X4B6qr4IWMAz7QFKyH537CPvgHTtMAVAON_-U9P0ozpOga9H2oy88so1SO2zwSTCehq14mLdilBx_3HWz_Z_mZ4GZn7StxzX-dduDQWbr8ihAuMfrzboYocP8/w400-h300/St+Elmo+1.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">St. Elmo's Deli and Grill: club sandwich with side salad</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</span><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ4-SIcK6Sr29c35LJl8iz_3pwDBFN2l-WQcmQARfVAeZyjvrobigUvyOrmfJinWIFCYsZOvXtfrCF1dgO37o-nxmzwjdofj_aCdS2vjdx6t7LfhIk0AWObLQvNNYtC8q2d3EXTxH7y9Q/s1600/St+Elmo+2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ4-SIcK6Sr29c35LJl8iz_3pwDBFN2l-WQcmQARfVAeZyjvrobigUvyOrmfJinWIFCYsZOvXtfrCF1dgO37o-nxmzwjdofj_aCdS2vjdx6t7LfhIk0AWObLQvNNYtC8q2d3EXTxH7y9Q/w400-h300/St+Elmo+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">St. Elmo's Deli and Grill: pimento grilled cheese and sweet potato tots</span><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: small;"></span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">We took a 45-minute detour to find Mabel Street in Chattanooga near the university, but it was worth it even if it put us into the heart of Atlanta during Friday night rush hour.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">Atlanta has probably the worst traffic structure I've ever driven in.
Chicago highways are always under construction, Miami has a mixture of
old people driving 35 mph and street racers going 140 mph on bikes, but
Atlanta's insane weaving of I-75 and I-85 and HOV lanes make the rest seem like the Golden Streets of Heaven. There's a reason the bypass is numbered I-285, because
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<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">For dinner, we stopped at <b>Gusto! in Atlanta</b>. It's an Atlanta-based chain with a handful of locations, so we felt we were still honoring our "eat local" mantra even though it is a chain restaurant. The style is
similar to a Naf Naf or Roti or Chipotle where you can build your own
meal based on a set menu of options. I thought the flavor combos set
it apart enough from those other Mediterranean restaurants and Tex-Mex options.
We seemed to be one of only a few people to dine in, but it was
Valentine's Day night and there was a steady stream of customers
while we waited. I heard they're opening two more locations soon, so I
think they're doing pretty well. </span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: small;">
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</span><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAZBgo9HOaOy0vHhdlZN2f1WBF-VlXYrKFjau9QzVy_dyhrn1Eq5LFaBAzuDPliB27HrhmeJRYTH5VrApQ50iG81l3LI6ZcvSgYZvljQYvfV2h4ofZbnqws4Sd289RKIeMAO5c6wpFBsU/s1600/Gusto.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAZBgo9HOaOy0vHhdlZN2f1WBF-VlXYrKFjau9QzVy_dyhrn1Eq5LFaBAzuDPliB27HrhmeJRYTH5VrApQ50iG81l3LI6ZcvSgYZvljQYvfV2h4ofZbnqws4Sd289RKIeMAO5c6wpFBsU/w400-h300/Gusto.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Gusto!: Chipotle mango chicken salad </span><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Finally made it down to Macon area for the night, and it was Mabel's first time in a hotel room. The Super 8 had a portable crib that kind of looked like a death trap, but we got it set up and <a href="https://grammarist.com/usage/jury-rig-jerry-rig-jerry-built/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">jury-rigged</a> a blanket over the alcove leading to the bathroom to provide some semblance of a blackout curtain for her. Plus, continental waffle breakfast in the morning!
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The next morning we would complete the southern leg of our journey. We stopped for lunch at <b>The Cuban Guy Grill, Lake City, Florida</b>. Despite its inauspicious appearance--a food truck outside a gas station--this had to be one of the best meals we had in our 3-4 days on the road. The black beans and yellow rice were savory and delectable. My wife ordered the devil crab sandwich, which was almost as big as her head, with double fried french fries. I ordered a Cubano (how could I not???) and Mabel shared a bit of everything.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: small;">
</span><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUTdi_vfs01uelpWxi_3AMnYQ4AIJPj78vsbaObIwuaG3i1LxYUVm2DujOvAKMBpRq7jpir1COBlIsv85FtLbhiO53xi0AHGH5qe6ZVnI1I1LATmoPLzCnIm7yU9BsRU_wE5G4SuRhc1g/s1600/Cuban+Guy+1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUTdi_vfs01uelpWxi_3AMnYQ4AIJPj78vsbaObIwuaG3i1LxYUVm2DujOvAKMBpRq7jpir1COBlIsv85FtLbhiO53xi0AHGH5qe6ZVnI1I1LATmoPLzCnIm7yU9BsRU_wE5G4SuRhc1g/w400-h225/Cuban+Guy+1.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The Cuban Guy Grill, Lake City, FL</span><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</span><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglgZ1td8-6TT9ELB154gLSAMmTNZ1aSw9AA6itsLE2KLzLDc0gO3iTKnw2wLBh-zGEZSstguVVPBJvwqydetfSiZT0edE0ZnWqrvvDxJlXgfWd0J5NY3uu6QF8mLv2OSEbMruZ6En6g1I/s1600/Cuban+Guy+2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="900" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglgZ1td8-6TT9ELB154gLSAMmTNZ1aSw9AA6itsLE2KLzLDc0gO3iTKnw2wLBh-zGEZSstguVVPBJvwqydetfSiZT0edE0ZnWqrvvDxJlXgfWd0J5NY3uu6QF8mLv2OSEbMruZ6En6g1I/w225-h400/Cuban+Guy+2.jpg" width="225" /></a></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Mrs. Brand and the devil crab sandwich</span><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</span><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">The Sunday following our arrival was my birthday. Happy Birthday to me! There was no better plan for a birthday that I could think of than what I ended up doing. The day started out with driving to my parents' church, Grace Bible Church in Titusville, FL. My dad recently closed his church down but fortunately they were able to get connected quickly with this church, where the pastor is a longtime friend (and former coworker at FedEx) of my dad's. The teaching is strong and grounded in the Bible, and staying after the service to speak with many of the attendees showed me that many are strong, mature Christians who have a deep understanding of God's Word. I'm grateful that God led them to such a wonderful community.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">
After church, my wife, mom, and Mabel all drove back to Orlando, while my dad and I stayed in Titusville to eat lunch from the <b>Publix deli</b>. I got the chicken tender sub, tossed in hot buffalo sauce with ranch, blue cheese crumbles, bacon, lettuce, tomatoes, and pickles. In the sub sandwich wars, battle lines have been drawn for less. I will just say that when in Florida (or The South near a Publix), you'd be doing yourself a disservice to not try this sandwich. We took our sandwiches to-go and ate them in the car outside the Police Hall of Fame shooting range, which was to be our next stop for the day.
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</span><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">I don't recall the exact year that my dad became a "gun nut", but for me it's definitely been in the past couple of years. [<i>Note: Upon completing </i>Unintended Consequences<i> by John Ross around Thanksgiving 2020, I am firmly in the "gun nut" camp myself. Combining this newfound passion with the debt freedom we now possess, the only question is when, not if, I purchase more guns.</i>] For our shooting pleasure, my dad brought a SIG P938 9mm, Glock 36 compact .45, Glock 19 compact 9mm, Rock Island 1911 MS .45, Rock Island 1911 FS .45, and his Colt Trooper MK III .357 Magnum. My dad prefers his Glocks, but I like the heft of the 1911s. And the Colt Trooper was just pure fun to shoot.<br /></span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: small;">
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After shooting, we drove back to Orlando and met some of my friends from college and their new baby at <b>Sonny's BBQ near Orlando International Airport</b> for dinner. My wife and daughter, as well as my mom met us there as well, as did my sister, brother in law, and niece who had arrived for a few days in the timeshare with us. Sonny's BBQ was a staple during my college years and the years immediately following while I still lived in Orlando. A group of us would get together every Friday for a ritual we aptly named "Sonny's Friday". (Many occasional participants would always ask us whether there was a special deal on Fridays. "No, just a group of friends going to get BBQ on a Friday night.") I ordered my standard all-you-can-eat sliced pork with garlic bread (Texas toast), mac and cheese, and baked beans. The key with Sonny's AYCE is to put in a reorder (at least of the meat)
as soon as the initial batch of food is delivered. That keeps a steady
supply of meat on one's plate, and reorders of sides can be added as
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</span><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">I also ordered a Sonny's red ale. Back in college the restaurant served alcohol at some locations, but never its own beer. In recent years they've partnered with Anheuser-Busch for a Sonny's-exclusive beer. Unfortunately, the waitress came by to tell us that they were out of baked beans, so I switched to crinkle cut fries with a side of ranch dressing to dip in. Two others had to adjust their order as well. A couple minutes later she said they were out of sweet potatoes, which affected another three people in our group. The sweet potatoes are delightfully fluffy, and melted cinnamon butter spread over the top takes it up another level, so it was disappointing to miss out on those also.
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Overall, it was a great birthday with family and friends: delicious food, wonderful conversation, fellowship and study of God's Word with other Christian brothers and sisters, and enjoying my second amendment-protected, God-given right to bear and fire some arms.
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</span><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">On President's Day we mostly took it easy. We went to one of the resort's pools for a couple of hours. Mabel hadn't been in the pool since we visited last year, and back then she just sat in the little inflatable raft my wife bought, looking super chill the whole time. So it was a lot of fun to see her excited about splashing and bouncing around in the water. She has a ways to go before she's competing for gold medals or anything, though. For lunch I heated up some leftover burnt ends and made a ham, turkey, and Swiss cheese sandwich, all Boars Head sliced products.
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For dinner that night we arranged a pasta bar: three types of pasta, three types of sauce, and both chicken and ground beef to add as topping. We ended the night playing Bananagrams and then Taboo, which despite being guys vs. girls ironically ended in a tie.
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On Tuesday we spent more time at the largest of the four pools in the resort. This pool area included a splash pad that the two girls could swim in. Of course my wife thought the water was TOO COLD, because it was a chilly 73 outside. Even so, we stuck it out and enjoyed the afternoon and some snocones before going back to the room for a taco bar: chicken fajitas, seasoned beef, or seasoned tilapia as the primary ingredients. We ended the night by playing a Bananagrams again and then watching <i>Yesterday</i>. </span></div><span style="font-size: small;">
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</span><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">My dad had to go back to work on Wednesday morning. It was also my sister's family's last day at the resort, so we once again spent time at the pool. We were back at the "warm one", much to my wife's satisfaction. </span></div><span style="font-size: small;">
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</span><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">My mom gave my wife and I a night out by putting Mabel to bed. Because our resort is so close to Disney and the myriad restaurant and entertainment options the parks offer, we had a variety of options available. We decided to eat at <b>Hemingway's in the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress Resort</b>. I ordered the Matador Burger, which consisted of a grilled beef tenderloin steak and lobster tail, horseradish cheddar cheese and toppings on a squid ink bun and truffle fries on the side. My wife ordered the Duval Street Shrimp Scampi: pappardelle pasta with jumbo tiger shrimp and fried green tomatoes in a white wine butter sauce.<br /></span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: small;">
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</span><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">Following dinner, we walked around the pool at the resort for a while and enjoyed the warm evening air. Well, warm for us coming from Chicago in February. The locals might have thought it was a bit brisk. From there, we drove a few miles to Universal CityWalk to walk around and see the shops, but mostly to buy some Cinnabon. Universal has built some new attractions since the last time I'd been there (having grown up not far from Orlando and matriculating at the University of Central Florida on the other side of the city), including a steampunk-like candy store and restaurant. It was fun to walk through, but the prices turned us off and cinnamon rolls were already calling to us.<br /></span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: small;"></span></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVIo5b-ewu839pWoKiLuFvOZhS35o42lYFHAFqdgxaLCfJ85Ro0bGVrSFJCcBymNmlXsUHFqcNVzpWYXYKqtV4HmXMjPKXwdgvvqYRdfISohU9bz1i3fJ_LzymcoSvlW5m3QTL0e_U5Ro/s1600/Cinnabon.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="900" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVIo5b-ewu839pWoKiLuFvOZhS35o42lYFHAFqdgxaLCfJ85Ro0bGVrSFJCcBymNmlXsUHFqcNVzpWYXYKqtV4HmXMjPKXwdgvvqYRdfISohU9bz1i3fJ_LzymcoSvlW5m3QTL0e_U5Ro/s320/Cinnabon.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cinnabon</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</span><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">Thursday was our last day at the pool, as Friday we were already planning on driving to Tampa to visit a friend, and the weather was dipping down into the high 50s/low 60s. We took full advantage and went in the morning and afternoon. Dinner was yellow rice and black beans, but my mom hadn't been able to get Cuban bread so we just used a baguette.We ended the night by watching the biopic <i>Harriet</i> on DVD. The resort has a DVD rental service with many favorites and also some new releases available for only $1. I was hoping to get <i>First Man</i>, the story of Neil Armstrong and his journey to the moon, but it was always checked out when I visited the resort office.<br /></span></div><span style="font-size: small;">
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</span><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">On Friday, we drove over to Tampa to my childhood friend Stephanie. I've known her for about 20 years, beginning with one of my dad's former churches and continuing through middle school when I rode in her mom's carpool. She invited us to the Florida Aquarium on her annual pass. We met her and her 13-month old son. We saw many incredible animals, but the highlight of the day (if not my adult life) was when a roseate spoonbill mistook my wife's ponytail for a bunch of weeds or grass and started chomping at her, causing my wife to scream in panic and abandon our child in the middle of the walkway. Everyone was fine, which is what made the whole thing so much funnier. </span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: small;">
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After the aquarium, we drove to <b>Coppertail Brewing Co. in Ybor City</b>. My friend's husband owns the brewery and gave us a tour before we sat down for lunch. I ordered a steak sandwich and 4 taster beers. My notes on each of the beers follows:</span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW0H9gOOCBR043Ns4sEzBOomFJ6usOAvRIAMnz5xMW1_BbSdWXjgcLRse6r8ILjNfsEbT7IlDLw6GwaW97QibGe6OAXvIUVanMXyED1XhFA57UeV3pcmb9S92cgDhDt1OHDyPbHjKtqvY/s1600/Coppertail+2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW0H9gOOCBR043Ns4sEzBOomFJ6usOAvRIAMnz5xMW1_BbSdWXjgcLRse6r8ILjNfsEbT7IlDLw6GwaW97QibGe6OAXvIUVanMXyED1XhFA57UeV3pcmb9S92cgDhDt1OHDyPbHjKtqvY/w400-h226/Coppertail+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Coppertail Brewing Co.: Florida Special (lager), </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Unholy (Belgian tripel), </span>Purple Drink (sour), Some Uh Dhss (saison)</span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: small;">Florida Special: easy drinker, like a session ale but it's a lager<br /></span></li><li><span style="font-size: small;">Unholy: dangerously smooth, with a good hop profile for a Belgian<br /></span></li><li><span style="font-size: small;">Purple Drink: I'm a big fan of sours, and this one delivered the punch<br /></span></li><li><span style="font-size: small;">Some Uh Dhss: the crispness of a farmhouse ale but the tart flavors of a sour<br /></span></li></ul></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">We also split buffalo cauliflower and a pretzel with beer cheese as an appetizer. The couple also generously sent me home with 3 packs of beer (and probably would have given me more). [<i>Note: With both delicious food and beer, I wish this brewery the best and am thrilled to see that they've managed to stay in business during the 2020 shutdowns.</i>]<br /></span></div><span style="font-size: small;">
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</span><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-size: small;">We drove back to Orlando and my mom cobbled together leftovers to make homemade nachos and cauliflower cheese soup. We also tried to rent <i>First Man</i> but it was unavailable again, so we settled for <i>MIB International</i>. Their both "space" movies, right? It was not a wise investment of our time. Chris Hemsworth gave a serviceable performance as the aloof and heroic Agent H, who cannot really remember why he is so highly praised but decides to play the part within Bureau anyway. Tessa Thompson, cast as new recruit Agent M, failed to deliver. I think the directors were hoping the two actors' collaboration on <i>Thor: Ragnarok</i> would give them something to build on here, but Thompson has all the on-screen charisma of a dead fish. She seems to be living the same pissed-off, drunk Valkyrie character from <i>Ragnarok</i> with nowhere near the same motivations for her character in this film.<br /></span><span style="font-size: small;">
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</span><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">We left early on Saturday to try to make it up to Atlanta by dinner. We wanted to meet my college friend and roommate in Lake City for brunch, but his fiancée was recovering from food poisoning and they couldn't make it. I will take him at his word and not assume it was a dodge to avoid driving an hour to meet us.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: small;">
</span><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">We stopped for lunch at the Georgia welcome center and had a picnic outside. It was chillier than we expected, so we didn't dawdle. We drove a few miles further and stopped at a $3 or less book store. We kept seeing the signs on the way down but didn't stop, so we decided to take advantage on the northern leg. The store actually seemed to be a primarily Christian publishing outlet or something, as there were hundreds of copies of the same 40-50 devotionals and Christian worldview books, though there were a few shelves for a more eclectic collection of books. My wife found quite a few children's books that were on our "to buy" list, and I found a photography on the Hebrides, which I've always wanted to visit since hearing <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvWTCpk3KeM" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Mendelssohn's ode to the island chains</a>, as well as a book about the life of Bill Murray to give to my friend for his birthday in April. [<i>Note: That day has long since come and gone without my being able to give him the gift. The best we could manage was a Zoom birthday call with about 15 of us who taught English in Japan together. Another fun occasion marred by COVID-19 hysteria.</i>] I saved a marker on Google maps so that we can try to visit the store again on future trips.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: small;">
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We drove on to Atlanta and passed by the Ron Clark Academy. Before I met my wife, I knew of Ron Clark (and barely, at that) from <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0473389/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">the biopic about him starring Matthew Perry</a>. The North Carolina-bred man graduated from college and, after teaching in North Carolina for a few years, moved to New York City to teach in a Harlem public school. He saw the difference that a passionate teacher can make in the lives of troubled students, and about ten years later he co-founded his school in Atlanta, Georgia. The school emphasizes an "all-in" mentality from the kids, the parents, the teachers, and even the community. Since meeting and then marrying my wife, who has had the good fortune of touring the school in person during a teacher training seminar and meeting the man himself, I have seen the effect that his ideas can have in a classroom of just a single teacher. So it's no wonder that having an entire school dedicated to that mindset has earned him spots on Oprah Winfrey's show and <i>New York Times</i>' bestseller list. Being a Saturday evening, though, we were afforded only a slow pass around the front entrance of the school before continuing further into the city to meet my wife's friend and former co-teacher at <b>Ponce City Market</b>. We walked down the Beltline to a skatepark and playground, then walked back to the market for dinner. I ordered broth-less ramen and a Sapporo. </span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: small;">
</span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI2P1gRWJewF70x_8yRuu55Wq6qpa1jvSsNcWGPpBjHJnFMkZTTgs0xgyW1Li3leVbc6HHeU_9jby6NcQ8O-9clbeuUnoatGLSkszlL3r-me_wIndfGpxYWf5tY2kUtgSw8Nioswzys8Q/s1600/Ramen.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="900" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI2P1gRWJewF70x_8yRuu55Wq6qpa1jvSsNcWGPpBjHJnFMkZTTgs0xgyW1Li3leVbc6HHeU_9jby6NcQ8O-9clbeuUnoatGLSkszlL3r-me_wIndfGpxYWf5tY2kUtgSw8Nioswzys8Q/w225-h400/Ramen.jpg" width="225" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Ton Ton: Invincible Dan Dan ramen</span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: small;"></span><span style="font-size: small;">We left Ponce City around 8:00 pm and hoped to escape the metropolitan area before stopping for the night. It was a real struggle to find a hotel that had a portable crib for us to use, but my wife eventually connected with a Quality Inn in Calhoun, GA. While on the phone with this establishment, my wife was told that the law requires every hotel to have a portable crib available, but I haven't stumbled across such a law in my cursory research on the issue. One also wonders about enforcement since so few places even understood my wife's request over the phone.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> The thought that a hotel wouldn't have one or two cribs available never even crossed our mind until that evening since we were so easily accommodated on the drive down.<br /></span><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;">
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The next day we were driving to my uncle's in Bowling Green, Kentucky. We made pretty good time, but had to stop for lunch outside a random gas station when Mabel started losing it. All was not lost, however, when the exit we fortuitously chose happened to be the same one where the historic distillery for George Dickel Tennessee Whiskey is located. I stopped in to see if they had some cool swag for my buddy who was a huge Dickel Rye fan (before he stopped drinking), but disappointingly learned that Dickel Rye is not made at the same distillery as Dickel Tennessee Whisky. Nevertheless, I still purchased an iron-on patch and maybe a T-shirt... can't remember now.<br /></span></div><span style="font-size: small;">
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</span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2y5TVkPyYOuqf5L_6iC-XS4UgCdF5nEwH32ywHTr-Q-I_6f9aNKPouAKmhVnJDLjl-YEzvLW3yKLKliTvC1kGxtXeN7LbFFrJ8U48tMvsq2ileO_BV6anfP6OLk8o6Lqo9TgasjV8Cc0/s1600/Dickel+1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="900" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2y5TVkPyYOuqf5L_6iC-XS4UgCdF5nEwH32ywHTr-Q-I_6f9aNKPouAKmhVnJDLjl-YEzvLW3yKLKliTvC1kGxtXeN7LbFFrJ8U48tMvsq2ileO_BV6anfP6OLk8o6Lqo9TgasjV8Cc0/w225-h400/Dickel+1.jpg" width="225" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The Man, The Myth, The Legend: George Dickel</span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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We continued unabated for the rest of the day's drive and made it to my uncle's house for the evening. T</span><span style="font-size: small;">he following morning we went out with him and his wife for breakfast and hoped to visit a new place that he'd heard about, but because it was Monday and many businesses take Mondays off after (presumably) the busy weekend, it was closed. So instead, we went to IHOP for the third year in a row. I think this is how most traditions start: not out of passion but rather complacency.</span><span style="font-size: small;">
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On the drive back to Chicago, we drove through Louisville and stopped at a park for a stretch break. Unfortunately, any time this little girl gets into a swing she's a bit of a drama queen when we have to take her back out of it. </span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: small;">
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As we were driving back toward the interstate, we passed the Louisville Slugger Field so I snapped a quick picture of that as well.</span></div><span style="font-size: small;">
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</span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYnw8kHOprvm0p355ONfJAUCUlRukLZLM6TCKYwewG-WOHdpFNPaeBUyvmPnZRY75upw8xP_YOnZBEl0TkqgWmwAGKwrAEbzGH0m-__pZX8eU3N3WBMDuq6nK7oQvl7SY4bbihwkhmZwg/s1600/Lil+Slugger.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYnw8kHOprvm0p355ONfJAUCUlRukLZLM6TCKYwewG-WOHdpFNPaeBUyvmPnZRY75upw8xP_YOnZBEl0TkqgWmwAGKwrAEbzGH0m-__pZX8eU3N3WBMDuq6nK7oQvl7SY4bbihwkhmZwg/w640-h360/Lil+Slugger.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Louisville Slugger Field</span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</span><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">For a late lunch/early dinner that afternoon, we chose <b>Shapiro's Delicatessen in Indianapolis, Indiana</b>. I ordered a corned beef sandwich on sourdough and the picture below lets you know that this was an <i>authentic</i> delicatessen. I think the extra -<i>catessen</i> to describe a restaurant can only be earned by places that stack the meat that high on the bread, and this place lived up to the hype. The homemade potato salad was top-class as well.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: small;">
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The trip was two weeks' vacation well-earned and well-received, and it's a fun drive through six states that also showcases a good deal of Americana. Although I certainly look forward to this year's trip (only a month away... I will try to be better about posting these in the future), I'm also worried for what this past year's unnecessary economic destruction has done to so many places we enjoy seeing and driving through. All we can do as a nation is persevere. And our family will continue to do what it can to support the idea of the American road trip.<br />
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</span>generic Brandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11189402545943772384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7605879230310031391.post-63076797926432294552021-01-14T13:00:00.008-05:002021-01-14T13:12:23.882-05:00Why I Left Facebook (For Good, This Time)<p>Many people cast the entirety of the blame for the deterioration of civil discourse at Trump's feet, because he was just so abrasive. I could see the writing on the (Facebook) wall well before he was elected, though. Maybe it's the degradation of churches and other organizations as pillars of the community where people would gather and interact over shared morals and beliefs. Perhaps it was decades of government schooling providing the bare minimum in education that established an American people incapable of critically assessing the veracity of claims. The underlying cause(s) can be debated at another time (hopefully); for now, we're stuck with an unthinking populace that accepts the narrative that best conforms to their worldview. <br /></p><p>We were treated to more than three years of Democrats complaining about a stolen election in 2016, including a two-year investigation into Russian interference that proved nothing. In the midst of this, social media company presidents and CEOs were called before Congress to testify about how their platforms might have contributed to the spread of "misinformation", which is funny Orwellian term that simply means "anything that those in power don't agree with". As a result, Facebook, Twitter, Google, and other companies with a massive market share over the dissemination of information in our over-connected society began to employ fact-checking on posts, and cracking down more seriously on problematic accounts that allegedly violated an ever-changing Terms of Service agreement. </p><p>In the past two years alone, these dogmatic employees of the Internet's Records Department of the Ministry of Truth diligently fact check and bury such stories as: </p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Any post that included the name of the <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/facebook-scrubbing-any-and-all-mentions-of-alleged-whistleblowers-name-from-the-platform" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">alleged Ukraine whistleblower Eric Ciaramella</a> used to justify the impeachment against President Trump;</li><li><a href="https://nypost.com/2020/02/22/dont-buy-chinas-story-the-coronavirus-may-have-leaked-from-a-lab/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">A <i>New York Post</i> op-ed on the Chinese Communist Party's complicity</a> in releasing Sars-COV-2 on the world; <br /></li><li><a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/ohio-mom-tasered-arrested-for-trespassing-after-not-wearing-a-mask-at-a-middle-school-football-game-2020-09-25" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">A woman tased for not wearing a mask at an outdoor high school football game</a> (fact-checkers claim she was tased for refusing to exit the stadium, where she was trespassing--<i>for refusing to wear a mask</i>);</li><li>A <i>New York Post</i> expose on Vice President Joe Biden and his son <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/10/14/facebook-twitter-block-the-post-from-posting/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Hunter Biden's relationship with Ukraine</a>;<br /></li><li>Dozens of articles, videos, and links to evidence suggesting fraud in the 2020 presidential election received "misinformation" and "manipulated media" flags ; and<br /></li><li>Myriad articles and videos related to the risks surrounding COVID-19 or the inefficacy of non-pharmaceutical interventions promulgated by state and local governments.</li></ul><p>Note that many of these issues were welcomed in the sphere of public discourse until they suddenly were not. Trump's dealings with Ukraine were the justification for his first impeachment, but Biden's dealings through his son were buried. The efficacy of mandatory mask-wearing and harsh lockdowns were the source of rigorous scientific study in years past, but everything prior to 2020 has been declared junk science. Now, following the events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, everything that happened throughout the summer of 2020, when cities were literally on fire (mine included), has been memory-holed in favor of a narrative that <i>right-wing extremists tried to overthrow the government</i>.</p><p></p><p>This <a href="https://onezero.medium.com/how-fake-news-is-still-fooling-facebooks-fact-checking-systems-fa8b0e0255b8" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Medium article talks about Facebook's efforts</a> in trying to fact-check users' postings. But my question is, why is it Facebook's responsibility to moderate its users interactions on the platform? In fact, so doing <i>should</i> open it up to liability under <a href="https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act</a>. Under that provision, "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider". According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation's primer on Section 230,</p><p></p><blockquote>This legal and policy framework has allowed for YouTube and Vimeo users
to upload their own videos, Amazon and Yelp to offer countless user
reviews, craigslist to host classified ads, and Facebook and Twitter to
offer social networking to hundreds of millions of Internet users. Given
the sheer size of user-generated websites (for example, Facebook alone
has more than 1 billion users, and YouTube users upload 100 hours of
video every minute), it would be infeasible for online intermediaries to
prevent objectionable content from cropping up on their site.</blockquote><p>And yet, following the 2016 election, Section 230 has been used to shield content <i>platforms</i> from liability when they moderate, block, or otherwise alter user-generated content. In other words, they have ceased being platforms and become publishers in those moments, and they do not apply this rigor neutrally or universally. Further, because "Big Tech" only instituted these policies in response to Congressional action following Trump's election in 2016, there is a legitimate argument that these <i>private</i> companies are still violating the First Amendment. <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/save-the-constitution-from-big-tech-11610387105" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">This <i>Wall Street Journal</i> opinion</a> (behind a paywall) provides some background on U.S. case law that could support such an argument:</p><p></p><p></p><blockquote><p>Section 230 is the carrot, and there’s also a stick: Congressional
Democrats have repeatedly made explicit threats to social-media giants
if they failed to censor speech those lawmakers disfavored. In April
2019, <b>Louisiana Rep. Cedric Richmond warned Facebook and Google that
they had “better” restrict</b> what he and his colleagues saw as harmful
content or face regulation: “We’re going to make it swift, we’re going
to make it strong, and we’re going to hold them very accountable.” <b>New
York Rep. Jerrold Nadler added: “Let’s see what happens by just
pressuring them.</b>”</p><p>Such
threats have worked. In September 2019, <b>the day before another
congressional grilling was to begin, Facebook announced</b> important new
restrictions on “hate speech.” It’s no accident that big tech took its
most aggressive steps against Mr. Trump just as Democrats were poised to
take control of the White House and Senate. <b>Prominent Democrats
promptly voiced approval of big tech’s actions</b>, which Connecticut Sen.
Richard Blumenthal expressly attributed to “a shift in the political
winds.” (emphasis added)<br /></p></blockquote><p>Now that I've laid out the 30,000-foot view of the landscape, let me explain how this affected my decision to leave Facebook. I was one of the early adopters of Facebook, back when a university email address was still a requirement to join. <br /></p><p>Twelve of my fifteen-plus years on the social networking site were enjoyable. I managed a few different Groups that were fun and full of laughs. I enjoyed sharing numerous inside jokes with friends, and there was even a time when I began a "Poke-for-prayers" campaign using Facebook's (formerly more prominent) "Poke" feature, which allowed a user to let another user know he or she was being thought about. Though
many may have disagreed with my takes on hot issues of the day and even some of my
noncontroversial positions, I often looked forward to seeing the
notification bell lit up and a post garner so many responses. The
"marketplace of ideas" seemed to be thriving.</p><p>Facebook has gone
through many changes over the years, and that has made it a bit
difficult to look up old posts. Although I have matured as a Christian
husband (and now father), which hopefully has been reflected in my
discourse in recent years, I would like to think that my ideas and arguments made over the last decade and a half have been intellectually consistent. At least the
occasional Facebook Memories highlights of old "debates" make me think I continue to argue for liberty and against government overreach.</p><p>For example, when I became politically aware in the second
term of George W. Bush's presidency I was introduced to libertarianism
through <u>Reason.com</u>'s blog, Hit&Run. The blog offered quick
snippets and myriad examples of government abuses and intrusions into
individuals' day-to-day lives. Coupling this exposure with my own
experiences in quasi-capitalist, quasi-socialist Japan, as well as the stories I heard from my dad operating his own vending machine business, it
became clear early in my adulthood that government can only ratchet one
way: toward increasing regulations that protect powerful interests.</p><p>Now,
many would think this provides a lot of common ground with people
across the political spectrum, or with those who are politically
apathetic. If we have identified the culprit, then we can work toward a
solution, right? Well, Barack Obama's presidency shattered any hope of
that possibility, as millions of his supporters suddenly forgot about
the antiwar positions they held during Bush's presidency. Similarly,
even the socialists who vehemently decry "money in politics" and
"powerful interest groups" had little to say when President Obama signed
his massive omnibus bailouts for favored industries or boosted
insurance company coffers by requiring millions of previously uninsured
(by choice) Americans to pony up and start contributing premiums. I was
in that latter camp for a number of years, where it simply didn't make
financial sense in my mid to late-20s to carry insurance for the 1-2
times per year I went to the doctor.</p><p>But after the 2016 election,
something "broke" in a lot of people. Reasoned discourse was no longer
tolerable, let alone encouraged. Emotions ruled the day. Even the
writers at Reason, where I had cut my political chops, had gone off the
deep end. Many declared ahead of the election that supporting Hillary
Clinton--a deeply-entrenched participant in the DC "swamp" that so many
admit exists--was far superior to the firebrand candidacy of
Donald Trump. </p><p>I tried to take a break at the onset of COVID-19, and it was actually nice. I knew that I would disagree with most of what was being posted. Too many people, in my opinion, have been overly supportive of government efforts to fundamentally alter our lives because of a virus that cannot be controlled. Yet as the lockdowns dragged on despite ever-increasing evidence that they do not work, I convinced myself that I could not stay silent. As many were expressing outrage toward "systemic racism" they believed existed in American institutions, I reactivated my Facebook account to try to be a voice of reason amidst all the chaos.</p><p>Boy, was that a miscalculation on my part! If I thought Trump's presidency broke some people's sanity, COVID-19 <i>shattered</i> it. Any attempt to point out that individuals should have the sole authority to assess risks for themselves without the government ordering them how to behave--after all, are we citizens or children??--was roundly shouted down as uncaring, unloving, and unAmerican. Because I've seen that <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/89-americans-wear-masks-public-coronavirus-pandemic-persists/story?id=71455062" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">mask-wearing compliance was over 85% in the country</a>, I posted a straw poll to ascertain people's reasons for doing so since <a href="http://www.upmc-biosecurity.org/website/resources/publications/2006/2006-09-15-diseasemitigationcontrolpandemicflu.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">prior to COVID-19 such non-pharmaceutical interventions were not proven effective</a>. The responses varied, but those who felt most justified in their moral superiority used it as an opportunity to say I was "spreading misinformation" and attack my sources. I should take this opportunity to mention that my sources were <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7191274/?fbclid=IwAR3ijK9JLi7IDQXDFBybgY9NXUumHNROj83Xl9TViUsQAG9LG97PcVaF5Wg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">systematic reviews of randomized control trials</a>, the gold standard for research, and <a href="https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/19-0994_article" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">the CDC's own website stating that masks add no significant protection</a>.</p><p>Debate is important and healthy for a just and fair society. An important element of debate, however, is intellectual honesty. When my Facebook acquaintances (I struggle to call many of them "friends" at this point) discount sources as not credible rather than address my central argument, and make moral accusations like "that's not very Christian of you", they display intellectual dishonesty and care only about winning the argument, or more accurately, claiming moral superiority for their position. This is not healthy debate; it's shouting down an opponent. And it shows that we're not a free society where ideas can be openly discussed no matter how controversial they might be.</p><p>In addition to the platform no longer meeting my desire for healthy debate, I could tell that it was tempting me to sin by lashing out in anger at comments that were angrily directed at me, or leading me to critique posts not directed at me for being wrong. If I wasn't giving way to anger I was seeking out conflict, both of which are called out as sinful works of the flesh (Gal. 5:19-21). Romans 12:1 instructs me to "present [my body] as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is [my] <i>reasonable</i> service" (KJV, emphasis added). Verse 2 warns that I should not "conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of [my] mind" (NIV). Both of these verses emphasize the importance of keeping <a href="https://biblehub.com/greek/3563.htm" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">the mind</a>, the reasoning faculty or intellect, <i>focused on</i> "the things of heaven, not the things of earth" (Col. 3:2 NLT). The sin nature relies on our emotions to dislodge us from framing our minds on the things of God--His character, promises for believers, or our position in the risen Christ--and the world system likewise tempts us through distraction and by fomenting conflict where there needn't be any. Whether intentionally designed to antagonize the sin nature or not, Facebook and other social media websites' algorithms operate to keep us engaged with their platforms.</p><p>Not everyone is susceptible to the same temptations, though everyone's sin nature does operate in the same manner. My wife, for example, can easily scroll through her Facebook feed for 30 minutes without raising an eyebrow or becoming annoyed at what other people are posting, as I might. She is still engaging, however, and at times unconsciously. So even where her emotions are kept in check, she can still be dislodged from the correct framing of her mind due to the distraction of social media. We both recognize that danger, and have taken steps to correct it. For me, that means leaving social media altogether.<br /></p><p></p><p></p><p>So I thank God for revealing through COVID-19, the BLM riots, and the 2020 presidential election the lies and manipulation as well as the distracting nature of both traditional news media and social media. I pray for my fellow citizens and especially that the leaders in my city, state, and country will repent of their unbelief and see the glory of an awesome and unchanging God. Through repentance they might see the folly of their ways and allow God's people to live quiet and peaceable lives (1 Tim. 2:1-2). Until then I find comfort in knowing that I have been chosen by a loving and gracious God to be with him in eternity (Rom. 8:18-30), and he gives me strength and encouragement through His Spirit and in the name of Jesus Christ (Col. 3:15-17, 2 Thess. 2:13-17).<br /></p><p>I do want to stay in touch with people. Feel free to reach out via Facebook messenger over the next month if you want to share contact information, and I hope to post more frequently here whenever particular thoughts come to me.<br /></p>generic Brandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11189402545943772384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7605879230310031391.post-65677582317975766072020-08-26T12:18:00.002-04:002020-08-26T12:18:37.999-04:00The Satanic Temple Doesn't Understand Religious Liberty<p> </p><div>If you made it past <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/satanic-temple-abortion-rights-supreme-court-1048833/" target="_blank">the headline</a>, then you're already invested in
the abortion argument.</div><div><br /></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, serif;">One of the overarching themes of the Supreme Court’s recent term was that it was surprisingly liberal on several major issues: upholding gay rights, striking down an abortion restriction, and rejecting the President’s request
to be immune from having to turn over his financial records. All of
this is true, but that doesn’t make this Court liberal. Rather, despite
these rulings, this is still a very conservative court. And one area this has been evident is religious freedom.</span></span></div></blockquote><div><br /></div><div>Don't
you see??? Upholding gay rights, striking down an abortion restriction,
and rejecting the President's request to avoid turning over financial
records means nothing for the Court's ideological makeup since a few
religious liberty cases were decided in favor of Christians! Nevermind
that all three of those "liberal" decisions were decided on very tenuous
grounds that ignore common law and common sense.</div><div><br /></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, serif;">Enter The</span> Satanic Temple. The Satanic Temple is a religion that believes in benevolence and empathy among all people, rejects tyrannical authority, and advocates for common sense and justice. For years now, The Satani<span style="font-family: times new roman, serif;">c Temple has fought to expand religious liberty notions that
the conservative Supreme Court has applied to Christians to apply to its
members as well.</span></span></div></blockquote><div><br /></div><div>Fair
enough. Though I think this is little more than a parody religion akin
to the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I take no issue with "expanding
religious liberty" beyond the narrow scope in SCOTUS decisions.</div><div><br /></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><div><span style="font-family: times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Particularly, The Satanic Temple has fought this battle over abortion. <b><a href="https://thesatanictemple.com/pages/about-us" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The third tenet</a> of the religion is “One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.”</b> Thus, The Satanic Temple claims that the obstacle course of abortion restrictions
that states impose on the procedure should not apply to its members
because doing so violates their sincerely-held religious beliefs. As the church’s reproductive rights spokeswoman puts it,
“No Christian would tolerate a law that insists state counseling is
necessary before someone can be baptized. Our members are justly
entitled to religious liberty in order to practice our rituals as well.” (emphasis added)<br /></span></span></div></blockquote><div><br /></div><div>And
here we have the flaw in the underlying premise. Abortion advocates
deny the will of the child to live, as does The Satanic Temple. "One's
body is inviolable, subject to one's own will alone, except when that
one is an unborn child, in which case its will is superseded by the
mother's will." With such a convoluted interpretation that deviates from
the plain meaning of the critical text, maybe The Satanic Temple really
is a religion.</div><div><br /></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, serif;">The Satanic Temple is trying to use these laws and this movement to
exempt its members from abortion laws. <b>The argument is the same as Hobby
Lobby’s</b>, though it’s about state abortion laws rather than federal
insurance laws. (emphasis added)<br /></span></span></div></blockquote><div><br /></div><div>The
exact same! One party wants to kill unborn children and the other wants
to avoid funding the killing of unborn children. Totes samesies!</div><div><br /></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><div><span style="font-family: times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In other words, The Satanic Temple is taking the Christian right’s
crusade for religious liberty seriously and saying that if it’s good for
Christianity, it has to be good for everyone. It’s only a matter of
time before the Supreme Court answers the question whether they actually
believe in religious liberty for all.</span></span></div></blockquote><div><br /></div><div>Again, this is where there is a massive disconnect. <i>Employment Division v. Smith</i>
was wrongly decided because despite what the SCOTUS declared, an
anti-peyote smoking law seems to pretty clearly target the Native
American tribes that were smoking peyote as part of religious
ceremonies. Who the hell else was really smoking peyote? But peyote
smoking does not harm other individuals, so the practice of this
activity should not have been restricted. Abortion very clearly harms
another party, and it is only through mendacity that someone can argue
that is not the case. Should a Molech-worshiping religion be allowed to
sacrifice children because of their religious liberty? Should a religion
devoted to the Third Reich be allowed to kill Jews because of their
religious liberty? It's an asinine argument to say that this is "just
like the Christian cases for religious liberty" when a central premise
of your argument ignores the infringement of another being's rights.</div><div><br /></div><div>Many
abortion advocates, and likely The Satanic Temple, like to argue that a
human fetus is "just a clump of cells" or even a parasite on the
mother. Scientific studies show that the relationship between mother and
child is actually more symbiotic: when one feels pain, the other does
as well, evidenced by a spike in heart rate. A tumor or other cancerous
growth may be made of human DNA, but a human fetus is made up of two
unique DNA: the mother's and the father's. A human fetus can only grow
into a human; it can't become an elephant, or a nematode, or a mushroom.
Could a fetus survive outside of the mother prior to the typical
21-week mark of viability? Probably not, but neither could any child
younger than 2, an invalid, a severely disabled person, or any number of
other human beings of whom we have no issue protecting their life.</div><div><br /></div>The
issue of abortion has always been one that is wrapped up in multiple
layers, and the legal one is often the least important. When does life
begin? At what point do rights attach to a human being? What
characteristics does a human being possess that distinguish it from all
other life? These ethical and moral questions are ignored by abortion
advocates who focus only agency before shifting to the legality of
abortion. And until they are willing to confront these hard questions,
they stand on very weak and shallow ground when it comes to religious
liberty.generic Brandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11189402545943772384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7605879230310031391.post-75518751350356632502020-03-30T11:30:00.001-04:002020-03-30T11:30:21.765-04:00Why I Left FacebookI think Facebook was a wonderful idea when it first started. It was sort of an online 6-degrees of Kevin Bacon that let people who didn't live near one another still share in each other's lives. Although I was not a "first generation" user, I was an early joiner in the era when one needed a university email address to register.<br />
<br />
As I see it now, though, this site (along with Twitter, Instagram, and plenty of other social media sites) has led to a devolution in civil conversation and conduct. People go off on rants because they can "hide" behind a digital avatar. I have been guilty of this on occasion. They respond to people they've never met (and even some they have!) with a vitriol and ferocity that they wouldn't unleash on their worst enemies in person. Even our statesmen and business executives sound off on social media because their message can reach the masses, but with little regard for the tone or veracity behind it.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, these tendencies have overflowed into everyday life. Rather than speak with someone who may be acting unprofessionally or in a rude manner, people whip out their cell phones to record the interaction so they can upload it to social media. Rather than seek after the truth, they wait for opportune "Gotcha!" moments that can be posted to millions of followers. And people swallow their objections in the moment so they can go online later and create a tall-tale version of what transpired. They post things that cannot be verified because it <i>sounds true</i>.<br />
<br />
After the 2016 election, Facebook began to crack down on so-called "fake news". But fake news on Facebook has been present from the beginning, at an individual level. The majority of people perfectly curate their life on these social media apps to present something that one would not see in the <i>offline world</i>. A family portrait hides the tension and instability underneath. A selfie of ripped abdominal muscles belies a person with an eating disorder.<br />
<br />
Of course, there has been a swing in the opposite direction to counteract all of the in-authenticity. Now the <i>cool</i> thing to do is <i>overshare</i> about one's life. The kids were acting unruly today? Here's a post of how much they drove mom crazy! Been too busy at work to clean up the apartment? Here's a picture of that messy apartment. Overwhelmed by relationship woes? Pour out your thoughts to a carefully curated group of friends who will provide the perfect amount of "You go, girl!"s and "You're beautiful!"s to provide the encouragement you need in this difficult time of life.<br />
<br />
Ultimately, Facebook just doesn't deliver on what it promises. It sucks away time and attention and gives back facsimiles of personality, thought, and the appearance of friendship. A good friendship will challenge a person to think about their beliefs and grow or mature in the way they handle life's struggles. Facebook encourages people to do "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0uYOOTz6kk" target="_blank">more together</a>" but instead it seems to drive society further apart. It creates bubbles of security from outside pressures and differing opinions. Do you think veganism is the best diet and lifestyle? There are Facebook groups for that. Want to be <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/262856644014/" target="_blank">an anarcho-communist-libertarian</a>? Somehow, there's a Facebook group for that contradiction. Believe that Jesus Christ was not the savior of all mankind but <a href="https://www.facebook.com/TheChristianLeft/" target="_blank">instead came primarily for social justice among the poor and oppressed</a>? Sadly, there's a group for that as well.<br />
<br />
And along the last note, I finally see Facebook for what it truly is. It is not a tool to be used for any particular good. Rather, it's a part of the corrupted world system that distracts and misleads and pulls me away from what is most important: the careful and faithful pursuit of Jesus Christ, the Word of God, the Living Water, and my Lord and Savior.generic Brandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11189402545943772384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7605879230310031391.post-50037897771870946372019-03-20T16:52:00.001-04:002020-08-25T22:29:24.167-04:00Christianity in the Marketplace: How to think about abortion in America<span style="font-weight: normal; text-align: justify;"><br />
<h4 style="text-align: justify;">This post will kick off a potential new series of posts in which I explore the juxtaposition of Christianity and responsible citizenship in the United States of America. Many of the posts will likely be pared down versions of discussions I have had on Facebook or other online fora, edited here for readability and flow.</h4><div style="font-weight: 400;"><br />
</div><div style="font-weight: 400;">As Christians, we should strive to live our lives according to God's written, spoken, and revealed (through his son, Jesus) word. I believe that if American citizens, as a whole, lived out the scriptures, much of the so-called problems we face would fall by the wayside. The church as a nation would stand like a city on a hillside, which is what many of the original settlers from Europe hoped for when they moved here for religious freedom.</div><div style="font-weight: 400;"><br />
</div><div style="font-weight: 400;">The founding fathers believed that for the freedom they were establishing to be protected, America needed to be a virtuous nation, and they also largely believed that religious practice inculcated virtue. That being said, America is by no means a Christian nation. America was not founded as a strictly Christian nation, and I certainly do not believe it resembles anything close to that now. Our country is much too materialistic and focused on the things of this world to be considered Christian (<i>contra</i> Col. 3:2).</div><div style="font-weight: 400;"><br />
</div><div style="font-weight: 400;">Because Jesus came and fulfilled God's promises in the covenantal law, we are not bound to the sin and death that the law reveals. Further, the only command God has ever given to a nation to act a certain way or in accordance with his will was that given to Israel. Jesus's arrival and perfect life on earth, death on the cross, burial, and resurrection not only eliminated all of the ceremonial barriers between God and his people, but also made it possible for us Gentiles to be reconciled to God. Jesus is the great high priest (Heb. 4:14-16), and he enables us to have a personal relationship with our father in heaven. All of that is to say, the Bible first reveals who God is, and then reveals who we are, and finally reveals who we can be if we have faith in Christ our redeemer.</div><div style="font-weight: 400;"><br />
</div><div style="font-weight: 400;">As <i>individual</i> Christians, we are tasked with living out Jesus's two greatest commandments, as instructed in Mark 12:28-34 (<i>see also</i> Mt. 22:34-40 and Lk. 10:25-37). The first (and often overlooked) commandment requires us to love—meaning sacrificially serve—God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength. Second, we are to love--sacrificially serve, but can also be read to mean "give the benefit of the doubt" or be charitable--our neighbor as ourselves. When a man in the Gospel of Luke asked Jesus who was his neighbor, Jesus responded with the parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk. 10:25-37), meaning it is not only those with whom we are friendly but also those with whom we would otherwise consider enemies, like the Judahites and Samaritans at the time.</div><div style="font-weight: 400;"><br />
</div><div style="font-weight: 400;">My views on economic or public policy are grounded first in the belief that God is sovereign over all things and that he has placed certain people in positions of authority over the rest of us. That is a difficult reality for me to accept a lot of times, especially when those in power so often act unjustly. But I may advocate for social or governmental change without resisting or defying the authority God has ordained, and so I pay taxes and obey the law to the extent that it does not cause me to violate my conscience. When I deviate from the preferred policy choices of many it is because I do not see how that which is proposed will bring about the desired results. Abortion takes a short view on the sanctity of life that God has created and also denies that he has the power to provide for a woman (or young family) who feels incapable of caring for that child. "Medicare for All" will not lower costs or improve outcomes for the vast majority of people. Gun control does not lower incidents of gun violence and instead infringes on individuals' right to self defense, as well as punish people who have not broken the law. This article will expand specifically on the topic of abortion.</div><div style="font-weight: 400;"><br />
</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><img alt="I suppose all thumb-sucking toddlers should be aborted, too?" height="271" src="https://images.emedicinehealth.com/images/slideshow/fetal_20_week_fetus_s7a.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">A human baby at 20 weeks, just before the 21-week cutoff for "viability"</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font-weight: 400;"><br />
</div><h4 style="text-align: justify;">The Dehumanizing Effect of Abortion</h4><div style="font-weight: 400;"><br />
</div><div style="font-weight: 400;"><div style="text-align: justify;">For starters, I believe that humans—image bearers of God—have an inalienable right to life. Our Creator endows us with this right (among others) because we reflect His image (Gen. 1:27; 1Co. 15:48-49). And because all humans bear the image of God, we do not have the right to unjustly kill another human being (Gen. 9:6 states, "Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made mankind"). The Bible <a href="http://jpfo.org/rabbi/6th-commandment.htm" target="_blank">calls such unjust killings—those committed with premeditation, criminal intent, or malice—murder</a>, and it thoroughly condemns it (Ex. 20:13; Mt. 15:19; 1Jo 3:12). Further, the Mosaic Law prescribes a judgment of death for the taking of another human life (Lev. 24:17). </div></div><div style="font-weight: 400;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div><div style="font-weight: 400;"><div style="text-align: justify;">However, not everyone throughout church history has taken the position that abortion is murder. There's evidence that the early church through St. Augustine believed in delayed ensoulment, in which the soul does not attach to the developing child until a certain point after conception. Thomas Aquinas and others also believed that life did not begin until "quickening", or the time a baby's movements in the womb are felt by the mother. Thus, they did not see abortion prior to quickening as murder (though Aquinas still believed it was a violation of natural law). </div></div><div style="font-weight: 400;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div><div style="font-weight: 400;"><div style="text-align: justify;">Though I unequivocally believe that abortion is the intentional taking of an innocent human life, and therefore a sin, Jesus’s death on the cross provides grace to cover the sin of any woman (or family) that would sacrifice the life of a child for personal or health reasons. Because grace covers the individual sin, however, does not mean that as a society we should advocate for the wholesale murder of human life. Sadly, that is a stance that we see all too often in our increasingly postmodern, post-Christian culture. <i>Teen Vogue</i>, a fashion magazine that targets teenage girls <a href="https://www.condenast.com/brands/teen-vogue/" target="_blank">markets itself</a> as the "young person's guide to saving the world," presumably while selling ad space for $3,000 outfits and handbags. But because of their far-reaching influence and social credit, they can push the Overton Window on abortion by publishing straw-man articles like "<a href="https://www.teenvogue.com/story/5-abortion-myths-and-the-truth-about-them" target="_blank">5 Abortion Myths and the Truth About Them</a>". Noticeably absent from the list is any attempt to mythicize the accusation that abortion is murder. Instead, to downplay the loss of life and reframe the issue, we see the abortion advocates claim that abortion is "<a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/new-pro-choice-group-vows-to-fight-for-reproductive-justice" target="_blank">reproductive justice</a>" (ironically, as it involves the termination of reproduction); a human baby is "a fetus"; and an embryo that contains human DNA and can only develop into a human being is "<a href="https://www.redstate.com/brandon_morse/2018/01/19/baby-not-parasite-guide-idiots/" target="_blank">a parasite</a>". The United States Senate <a href="https://www.sun-sentinel.com/opinion/fl-op-com-democrats-abortion-20190305-story.html" target="_blank">couldn't even get half a dozen Democrats to vote</a> to protect the babies that are born alive despite a failed abortion!</div></div><div style="font-weight: 400;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip2vyp_VYTexCX0z6KgZi1zovSe4eJe-Ypvpwc640pxmaV7aytQqRqM8idX7s2FnrlXtAPwWt0FrVOrBJA02y-T5Cp9jD9vDASvXYP3bYocUnY-d_jaYggDw25R5FNULWKEB9OeXJ98yM/s1600/Screen+Shot+2019-03-20+at+12.02.27.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="fetus = "feed us", us being the god of secular humanism" border="0" data-original-height="349" data-original-width="602" height="369" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip2vyp_VYTexCX0z6KgZi1zovSe4eJe-Ypvpwc640pxmaV7aytQqRqM8idX7s2FnrlXtAPwWt0FrVOrBJA02y-T5Cp9jD9vDASvXYP3bYocUnY-d_jaYggDw25R5FNULWKEB9OeXJ98yM/s640/Screen+Shot+2019-03-20+at+12.02.27.png" title="" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">"Fetus" literally means "unborn offspring", yet the pro-abortion side uses the term to sound more medical or scientific than "unborn child".</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font-weight: 400;"><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">A <a href="http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/nvp/media/shaw1.html" target="_blank"><i>Los Angeles Times</i> article</a> from almost 30 years ago details a study of "mainstream media" and its reporting on the abortion debate. Even back then, the media landscape skewed heavily in favor of pro-abortion over pro-life positions, even when it came to labeling the two sides. And by controlling the language used in the debate, or rather, allowing the pro-abortion side's preferred language to prevail, the cemented the shift toward a larger support for abortion rather than against it:</div></div><div style="font-weight: 400;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Because the media have generally, if implicitly, accepted the abortion-rights view that there is no human life to be "helped" before birth. That's why the media use the term "fetus" (the preferred term of abortion-rights advocates), rather than "baby" or "unborn child" or "pre-born child" (as abortion opponents prefer). Editors say "fetus" is medically correct, value-free and non-emotional. A "fetus" does not become a "baby" until it's born.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">By dehumanizing the living being growing and developing inside the mother's womb, the pro-abortion side has taken a great leap toward normalizing its preferred method of taking life. It further reframed the immorality of abortion when it stopped talking about whose rights were at stake (mother vs. child) and started a conversation about whose choice it should be (woman vs. government). By changing the language, they have changed society's entire moral value system. According to abortion advocates, this is not a question about life, but a question of privacy.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><br />
<h4>The Legal Thin Ice that Abortion Rests On</h4><div style="font-weight: 400;"><br />
</div><div style="font-weight: 400;">What is ironic about American support for abortion is that even its constitutional basis is suspect. When the pro-life side argues that a human child <i>in utero</i> deserves the same right to life as any other human being, the argument is grounded in the fundamental right to life. This right is embodied in the Declaration of Independence, the Magna Carta, and the Mosaic Law, just to name a few historic sources. The right to life is fundamental because without it, no other rights could spring forth. If we do not protect the sanctity of life, then how can we protect anything else?</div><div style="font-weight: 400;"><br />
</div><div style="font-weight: 400;">The "right" to an abortion, on the other hand, is grounded in a legal quagmire based on a fictional Constitutional provision. In <i>Roe v. Wade</i>, the Supreme Court created a "right" to abortion out of a "right to privacy" that is not based in any Constitutional provision. Of course, the rights held by the people extend beyond those enumerated in the Constitution, but if that were truly the case for abortion than it should have been grounded in the Ninth Amendment and not fabricated through the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process clause. The Due Process clause requires states to apply "due process" of the law before they may deprive an individual of life, liberty, or property. This requirement does not mean rights cannot be infringed; it simply means that the State must provide a fair process for implementing the infringement. However, abortion advocates insist that any infringement on having an abortion is too much (see discussion on <i style="font-weight: 400;">Planned Parenthood v. Casey</i> below).</div><div style="font-weight: 400;"><br />
</div><div style="font-weight: 400;">The reason that the Court in <i>Roe</i> had to conjure the "right" to an abortion seemingly out of thin air is because it is not a natural right. By its very nature, a natural (or negative) right, such as the right to life or the right to liberty, cannot infringe on another natural right. In declaring a "right" to an abortion, the Supreme Court pits the fundamental right to life against this arbitrarily created right. It gives a person the legal authority to terminate another life, something that has never been recognized in any other natural right. The fact that it has been declared constitutional has nothing to do with its morality, as I have repeatedly stated.</div><div style="font-weight: 400;"><br />
</div><div style="font-weight: 400;">Further decisions by the Supreme Court just added to the confusion. In <i><a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1991/91-744" target="_blank">Planned Parenthood v. Casey</a></i>, the Court took for granted the <i>Roe'</i>s conclusion that the "right" to an abortion was found in the due process clause, relying on the judicial principle of <i>stare decisis</i> (to stand by things decided) to leave the decision relatively untouched. <i>Stare decisis</i>, a rule that protects judicial precedent, is not in and of itself a legal argument or justification. It is simply a principle that governs the application of the common law system that our American courts operate under. This principle is the reason that <i>Plessy v. Ferguson</i> remained on the books for 60+ years, and why unjust rulings will not be re-examined. That pro-abortion advocates hinge their entire legal argument on such an untenable position is remarkably telling.</div><div style="font-weight: 400;"><br />
</div><div style="font-weight: 400;"><i>Casey</i> was a Pyrrhic victory for both sides: the pro-abortion side got a "win" but it came with restrictions on abortion under a new framework the Court imposed in the form of its "undue burden" test. The pro-life side lost the case since <i>Roe</i> was not overturned, but the Court largely limited 2nd and 3rd trimester abortions under a "viability" theory--the idea that a baby can live outside a mother's womb after a certain point. Once again, the Court inserted itself into a philosophical or moral argument, designating the point at which personhood (and thus the right to life) begins. (It should also be noted that the trimester framework that any pregnant family is aware of and tends to operate under is the result of the Court's decision.) When the Court divided a pregnancy into three trimester in <i>Roe</i>, it said that the a woman could terminate the pregnancy for essentially any reason up to the start of the second trimester. The third trimester has generally been off limits except to save the life of the mother.</div><div style="font-weight: 400;"><br />
</div><div>Additional cases since the <i style="font-weight: 400;">Casey</i> decision in 1992 have typically expanded on the undue burden test, noting this or that restriction on abortion as too burdensome on a woman's attempt to obtain an abortion. Obtaining parental consent for a minor's abortion was not considered an undue burden in <i style="font-weight: 400;">Casey</i> (affirmed in <i style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2005/04-1144" target="_blank">Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood</a></i>, although that wasn't the main issue), but spousal or partner consent <i style="font-weight: 400;">was</i> found to be an undue burden. Most recently, a Texas law that required abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital was declared an undue burden in <i style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2015/15-274" target="_blank">Whole Women's Health v. Hellerstedt</a></i> (2016). The underlying implication of the Supreme Court's undue burden test for abortion cases is that the child itself is a burden!</div><div style="font-weight: 400;"><br />
</div><h4 style="text-align: justify;">How Should Christians Think About Abortion?</h4><div style="font-weight: 400;"><br />
</div><div style="font-weight: 400;">A grown adult should have the authority to make personal choices about his or her life, but we shouldn't act as if that precludes consequences. Abortion advocates say that the government has no business in an individual’s sex life. I agree wholeheartedly! But when the natural consequence of unprotected sex results in human life, it should be the government’s role and responsibility to protect that life.</div><div style="font-weight: 400;"><br />
</div><div style="font-weight: 400;">God gave the Mosaic Law to the Israelites to protect them. Although the Law looks outdated by many of our modern standards, the restrictions on sexual immorality, against certain foods, and for the preservation of life served to enable the Israelites to prosper, were they actually to honor the Lord and live by his commands. Of course, Jesus Christ's death on the cross brought forth a new covenant (Lk. 22:20), and we are no longer bound by the Law. We live by faith that Christ's death reconciles us to God, and we walk by the fruit of the Spirit and not the desires of the flesh (Gal. 5:22-25). A person who walks by faith and in the Spirit "rejoice[s] in the Lord and delight[s] in his salvation" (Ps. 35:9). <i>Because</i> we are saved, obedience to the Lord's will should be our greatest desire. As David wrote in Psalm 19:7-9:</div><div style="font-weight: 400;"><br />
</div><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="font-weight: 400; text-align: start;">The <b>law of the Lord is perfect</b>,<br />
refreshing the soul.<br />
The <b>statutes of the Lord are trustworthy</b>,<br />
making wise the simple.<br />
The <b>precepts of the Lord are right</b>,<br />
giving joy to the heart.<br />
The <b>commands of the Lord are radiant</b>,<br />
giving light to the eyes.<br />
The <b>fear of the Lord is pure</b>,<br />
enduring forever.<br />
The <b>decrees of the Lord are firm</b>,<br />
and all of them are righteous.</blockquote><div style="font-weight: 400;"><br />
</div><div style="font-weight: 400;">God's laws are perfect, trustworthy, right, radiant, pure, and firm. Jesus is righteousness personified! How could we ever assume that our ways are better than his?! And yet, when it comes to abortion we assume that we know more than God because science has advanced to such a stage that we can see the inner workings of a human embryo and know "<a href="https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/politics/a19748134/what-is-abortion/" target="_blank">that medical evidence tells us</a> fetuses cannot live unsupported, even with a respirator before 21 weeks." Never mind that a human embryo has the DNA of a human; it can only be a human and nothing else. Psalm 139:13 and 16 say, "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. . . . Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be." God revealed the concepts of DNA and human development over three millennia before scientists would even begin to think about them! </div><div style="font-weight: 400;"><br />
</div><div style="font-weight: 400;">We cite scientific propositions as if they "perfect... trustworthy... right." <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19089-24-week-fetuses-cannot-feel-pain/" target="_blank">Did you know that</a> "fetuses under 24 weeks must be pain-free, because at that age the wiring doesn’t exist to send pain signals from nerves around the body to the cortex, the area of the brain where pain is experienced"? Apparently the ability to feel pain is the only thing that makes us human! But scientific discoveries have also revealed that <a href="https://embryology.med.unsw.edu.au/embryology/index.php/Timeline_human_development#Cardiovascular" target="_blank">human babies develop a heartbeat by day 23</a>, and a number of scientists and medical professionals agree that <a href="https://www.princeton.edu/~prolife/articles/embryoquotes2.html" target="_blank">human life begins with a single cell</a>: the fertilized egg. The throwaway line about inability to feel pain is irrelevant because no one is arguing that life begins when we feel pain.</div><div style="font-weight: 400;"><br />
</div><div style="font-weight: 400;">The difficulty with making abortion illegal is that it will almost undoubtedly result in criminal punishment for those who obtain or provide an abortion. The last thing a woman who is considering an abortion needs is the threat of prison or the death penalty looming over her. Such women (and their partners or families) need compassion and counsel when considering such drastic measures. The pro-abortion side argues that we overstate the seriousness of abortion, that <a href="http://healthland.time.com/2012/01/25/why-abortion-is-less-risky-than-childbirth/" target="_blank">it's actually safer than giving birth</a>. But notice the subtle shifting of the goalposts in their point: safer for whom?<br />
</div><div style="font-weight: 400;"><br />
</div><div style="font-weight: 400;">Even if the physical danger to women who have an abortion is minimal, the psychological and spiritual damage can be devastating. The way we think about life itself is changing, as the abortion industry "<a href="https://abort73.com/blog/the_psychology_of_abortion_regret/" target="_blank">introduced a perverse cost-benefit analysis</a> into our collective psyche—which seems to be leaking into other realms as well. The idea that each and every human being has intrinsic value is steadily being replaced by the notion that our human value is mainly utilitarian." How much longer until people in a coma are unpersoned because they can't feel pain? What about those who have severe mental or physical handicaps? As the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4135459/" target="_blank">modern eugenics movement ramps up</a>, will those with certain genetic characteristics (gay? brown-eyed? red-haired?) be cast aside as undesirable? A resounding no, I say! "Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him." (Ps. 127:3)<br />
</div><div style="font-weight: 400;"><br />
</div><div style="font-weight: 400;">Spiritually, we are elevating the idol of choice above the will of God. Who are <i>we</i>, the creation, to tell the Creator of all things that something is "unplanned" or unwanted? Rather than trust that God will use this pregnancy to grow us and draw us closer to him, we run from the consequences of our actions like Adam and Eve in the garden (Gen. 3:7-8). If we require strength to make it through nine months of pregnancy, God will grant us strength (Is. 40:29). If we need courage, he will encourage us (Dt. 31:6). Whatever we need, if we remain in him we need only ask and we shall receive (Jn. 15:7).</div><div style="font-weight: 400;"><br />
</div><div style="font-weight: 400;">As Christians, we have a choice to make. We can either stand for the sanctity of human life, walking beside those in pain and helping them realize God's plan for them; or we can follow the ways of the world, asserting that we know what's best and denying the Lord's power to transform our lives.</div><div style="font-weight: 400;"><br />
</div><div style="font-weight: 400;"><blockquote class="tr_bq">But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord. (Jos. 24:15)</blockquote></div></span><br />
generic Brandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11189402545943772384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7605879230310031391.post-77148344460536196972019-01-23T16:39:00.001-05:002019-01-23T17:40:44.407-05:00The Shutdown is About Spending, Not a Wall<div style="text-align: justify;">The shutdown is not the result of a border wall or no border wall. It is the result of decades' worth of reckless government spending and (thankfully!) appropriations laws that have sunset clauses in them and force Congress to reconvene and re-approve spending. If people lament the government shutdown, there's a simple solution to preventing one in the future: tell their congressperson to CUT SPENDING.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">We can grieve with those who are going without pay right now.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">We can show them some kindness and grace when they seek assistance.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">But what we cannot do is acquiesce to the federal government's dangerous, out-of-control spending. Our <a href="http://www.usdebtclock.org/">national debt sits at just under $22,000,000,000,000</a> and continues to climb. The average taxpayer debt is a whopping $179,500, <a href="https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-average-income-in-usa-family-household-history-3306189">over double</a> or <a href="https://wallethacks.com/average-median-income-in-america/">even three times</a> the median annual income for a family of four, depending on which measure you use. One recently elected congresswoman even <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/16/politics/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-40-trillion-cnntv/index.html">proposes an additional $40,000,000,000,000</a> (40 TRILLION) in federal spending to sprinkle the magic fairy dust known as "free healthcare" for all. This is sheer madness! </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg339gwPV8wyMWcke_NOkJN-aOUNHa8dBBLZISw9ZQ6X9_0xQNncjqK8nEIvCWexbzpzYcvsahh88_yiLZo5bgOqdoNbpKFZgAfMvCMzACfRUMTDS__U3XmehfslRW3v0SrGgVUa1iE2LA/s1600/Screen+Shot+2019-01-23+at+15.37.07.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="794" data-original-width="1381" height="364" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg339gwPV8wyMWcke_NOkJN-aOUNHa8dBBLZISw9ZQ6X9_0xQNncjqK8nEIvCWexbzpzYcvsahh88_yiLZo5bgOqdoNbpKFZgAfMvCMzACfRUMTDS__U3XmehfslRW3v0SrGgVUa1iE2LA/s640/Screen+Shot+2019-01-23+at+15.37.07.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Taken at 3:36 PM CT, January 23, 2019</td></tr>
</tbody></table></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">We've grown up all our lives hearing that "money doesn't grow on trees", but because the USD is a fiat currency backed by nothing but the federal government's IOUs, it can print bills at the Treasury as if money does grow on trees. "Monetizing debt", as the printing and circulation of many new bills is called, does not solve the problem of excessive debt and creates more problems by inflating the value of the currency so that it becomes worth less. Think Zimbabwe's introduction of 10 and 100 Trillion dollar notes.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Another version of this kind of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoy4_h7Pb3M">TOP. MEN.</a> thinking that we're so blessed to have in Washington results in "quantitative easing", which is a fancy way of saying <i>stimulus spending</i>. The key, as you'll notice, is that the word spending is in the proposed solution, so it becomes rather obvious that they don't seek to address the $22 trillion dollar elephant in the room. Besides government <a href="https://www.thebalance.com/auto-industry-bailout-gm-ford-chrysler-3305670" target="_blank">bailouts of failing companies</a> <a href="https://www.thebalance.com/what-was-the-bank-bailout-bill-3305675" target="_blank">and industries</a>, stimulus spending can take the form of direct transfers of wealth from one group to another. But every time, the government is borrowing money from the future to pay for things now.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I've made the mistake of thinking I could borrow my way out of debt. "Well, maybe if I refinance these credit cards onto a new credit card I can tackle the debt more efficiently..." But the root problem was my out-of-control spending. By God's grace, my wife and I have cut our expenses drastically and in the last 22 months have paid off over $100,000 in debt (largely my law school loans). And we've done this while maintaining charitable giving to our church and elsewhere at over 10% of our budget! It's not out of the realm of possibility to cut spending, but it does require sacrifice and patience.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">"But the government is not like a family!" <a href="https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/09/15/keynesianism-explained/" target="_blank">protest the Keynesian dolts</a>. "Different measures are necessary to correct this particular issue!"</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Well, I agree that the government is not like a family. For starters, it is not the government's role to provide parental guidance on issues of <a href="https://www.fda.gov/" target="_blank">what to eat</a>, <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/selected-industries/clothing-and-textiles" target="_blank">what to wear</a>, or <a href="https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories.html" target="_blank">where we can go</a>. Nor is it the government's responsibility to provide food, shelter, and education for its citizens. Perhaps if the American family began to do more of those things for itself, there would be less demand for the government to step into such a role.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">But I will vehemently disagree with the mindset that what works for individual families cannot work for a government. Contrary to popular opinion at the time, following the 2008 recession Iceland bucked all "too big to fail" theories and cut spending in order to address many of its systemic economic issues. 10 years later, Iceland has recovered nicely, <a href="https://seekingalpha.com/article/4073047-tiny-iceland-can-teach-greece-big-lesson" target="_blank">while countries like Greece that continued their spending sprees have not even begun to recover</a>. There was a bit of stimulus spending in Iceland, so it's far from the ideal in my opinion; but it's no coincidence that cutting spending and actually tackling its foreign debt head on has paid huge dividends for the small island nation.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">A final note regarding President Trump's tax cuts from last year: <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/12/18/18146253/tax-cuts-and-jobs-act-stock-market-economy" target="_blank">The chattering class hasn't stopped talking</a> about how the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/25/business/trump-corporate-tax-cut-deficit.html" target="_blank">tax cuts have added to the deficit</a>. There's nothing inherently wrong with tax cuts, though, which is nothing more than returning to the people the wealth that was generated by and belongs to them. The deficit problem stems from failing to cut spending to correspond with the reduction in tax revenue. This is what so many people miss, largely because they do not see wealth as a creation of the private sector but as something that <i>belongs to Uncle Sam</i> (and by extension as members of a privileged class of insiders, them).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">So please stop buying what the beltway media, Congress, and the Trump administration are selling: this shutdown is not about a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico. That's a convenient bargaining chip to gin up support among voter bases, but neither party nor their lapdogs in the media could care less what happens at the border if the coffers are reopened. If you have any question about the oligarchic collusion between the parties, read Walter Karp's eye-opening book <i><a href="https://smile.amazon.com/Indispensable-Enemies-Politics-Misrule-America/dp/1879957132/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1548278868&sr=8-1&keywords=walter+karp" target="_blank">Indispensable Enemies: The Politics of Misrule in America</a></i>. It's to their benefit for us to keep fighting each other over a border wall, <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=covington+catholic+nathan+phillips&safe=active&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS586US587&source=lnms&tbm=nws&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi_xrDn7YTgAhXnmq0KHStoD38Q_AUIDigB&biw=1311&bih=777" target="_blank">a "dust-up that wasn't" outside the Lincoln Memorial</a>, or any number of other culture clashes, so that behind the scenes they can continue to bankroll the military industrial complex, insurance companies, and other special industries.</div>generic Brandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11189402545943772384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7605879230310031391.post-15558543298505455212018-12-27T15:32:00.000-05:002018-12-27T15:42:18.393-05:00Was Jesus a Refugee? And If So, Does It Matter?<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">It seems this tired trope--Jesus, Mary, and Joseph were refugees, something something Trump is LITERALLY HITLER--has gotten dragged out more this year than in other years. Notably, our up-and-coming Congresswoman Emeritless, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, </span><a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/alezandria-ocasio-cortez-jesus-refugee-christmas_us_5c23a787e4b05c88b6fcfbe7?ncid=engmodushpmg00000003&fbclid=IwAR02OwXnvrSxxi4obUlDmkFDtkS3zDbMMQKro-WCe_DfQMZ2An_lAd4RCWA" style="border: 0px; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">tweeted out</a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> "Merry Christmas to everyone... (including refugee babies in mangers + their parents)".</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">(How funny, I thought it was just a couple weeks ago that she <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/12/10/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-reveals-jewish-ancestry-hanukkah-celebration/?utm_term=.771142dd6d1d" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">revealed she was actually Jewish</a> all this time, but here she is wishing a Merry Christmas. How queer...)</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">She is patently wrong in this tweet, as Joseph and Mary were returning to his hometown to report for the census, thus, they were legal residents of Judea. When people rightfully push back on her narrative (and some others, wrongfully), she tweets out a 2017 article by <i>America Magazine</i> to support her position: "<a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2017/12/27/were-jesus-mary-and-joseph-refugees-yes" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Were Jesus, Mary and Joseph refugees? Yes.</a>" Oh, well then... case settled, I guess, right?</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">Not exactly.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">In the second chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, we read the story of the “Flight into Egypt” in which, after the birth of Jesus and the visit from the Magi, an “angel of the Lord” comes to Joseph in a dream and warns him to leave Bethlehem for Egypt. Why? Because King Herod was planning to “seek out the child to destroy him.” Mary and Joseph do leave, along with Jesus, and, according to Matthew, make their way into Egypt. Afterward, King Herod slaughters all the male children in Bethlehem under two years of age.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">Agreed. Jesus was born in his homeland and the Magi (wise men) tipped off Mary and Joseph to King Herod's plans, so following the warning of the Lord's angel, they escape to Egypt. But there are some details missing in the above account that have to be filled in by the Gospel of Luke, chapter 2:</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">21 <b>On the eighth day</b>, when it was time to circumcise the child, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he was conceived.</span><br />
<span style="color: #cccccc;">22 <b>When the time came for the purification rites</b> required by the Law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">23 (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord”),</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">24 and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: “a pair of doves or two young pigeons.”</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">So we have at least eight days after Jesus's birth, and probably as many as 40 days after his birth (Leviticus 12:2-4: a woman must wait 33 days after circumcision of her son to be ceremonially clean to enter the sanctuary). We also see that Mary brought "a pair of doves or two young pigeons" as her sacrificial offering, meaning that Joseph was too poor to afford a lamb (Leviticus 12:8). This strongly implies that the Magi, with their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, had not yet visited the young couple. Further, Matthew 2:11 says that the Magi came to the "house", where they worshiped the new king. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that Jesus was still living in a stable by the time the Magi visited, despite myriad Nativity scenes to this day depicting such a scene.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">Next, using the UN High Commissioner on Refugees' <a href="https://www.unrefugees.org/refugee-facts/what-is-a-refugee/" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">definition of "refugee"</a> (is there a more legitimate definition than that?!), Ocasio-Cortez's super credible source says:</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">The Holy Family, as Matthew recounts the story, was fleeing because of a “well-founded fear of persecution” because of their “membership in a particular social group,” in this case people with young children living in Bethlehem. I am not sure how you could get any clearer than that.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">(emphasis added). But what does the Bible say? In Matthew 2:13-15, Scripture clearly states that Joseph and Mary fled to Egypt to hide (most likely to Egyptian-held Gaza) until after Herod's death, when they returned to their home country. So was this brief stint in Egypt enough time to warrant the designation of refugee upon Jesus and his earthly parents? Here, I think the better definition is the one for <i>internally displaced person</i>, found on the same page as <i>refugee</i>:</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">An internally displaced person, or IDP, is someone who has been <b>forced to flee their home but never cross an international border</b>. These individuals seek safety anywhere they can find it—in nearby towns, schools, settlements, internal camps, even forests and fields. IDPs, which include people displaced by internal strife and natural disasters, are the largest group that UNHCR assists. Unlike refugees, IDPs are not protected by international law or eligible to receive many types of aid because they are legally under the protection of their own government. (emphasis mine)</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">Obviously God does not need to make arbitrary distinctions between <i>refugees</i> and <i>internally displaced persons</i>, although He does draw a clear distinction between His followers' place in Heaven and their time here on earth ("I am a sojourner of this earth, hide not your commandments from me!" Psalm 119:19; "To God's elect, exiles scattered throughout the provinces..." 1 Peter 1:1). But because Egypt was under Roman rule at that time, I think it's disingenuous to say that Jesus fled Roman-held Judea to hide out in Roman-held Egypt. That would be akin to someone running away from Oregon to hide out in Georgia... hardly a "refugee" by the modern meaning or usage of the word. In fact, the author <i>concedes</i> this very point:</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">Did Joseph and Mary apply for official refugee status? Of course not. Those kinds of regulations were most likely not in effect. <b>There may not have even been any borders at the time</b>. . . . Egypt, which came under Roman control in 30 B.C., was outside the jurisdiction of Herod. Egypt had been the traditional place of <span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">refuge</span> for Jews both in biblical times and in the Maccabean era when the high priest Onias IV fled there. (emphasis added)</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">He admits that there were "no borders" and both places were under Roman control, and yet he doubles down in the very next sentence, saying "Thus, we see a family fleeing to a foreign country out of fear of persecution." So which is it? A foreign country, or a Roman territory?</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">So why does any of this matter? The simple answer is that it doesn't, and I freely admit that. We should love our neighbors as ourselves, and sometimes that means offering refuge to those who are suffering. But the stronger, more nuanced answer, is that if the political Left wants to use the Bible to justify their pet policies or accuse the Christians--not even the political Right--of being hypocrites, then they had better be prepared to have four (or more) fingers pointing back at them. After pointing out that Jesus was a refugee, the common tactic is to quote Matthew 25, Jesus's famous parable about the sheep and the goats:</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, <b>I was a stranger and you invited me in</b>,</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’" (emphasis added)</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">You see, Jesus calls blessed those who invited the stranger in, therefore, we must invite all refugees seeking asylum in, too. However, the Left always neglect to read the entire parable. In verse 40, Jesus continues,</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of <b>the least of these brothers and sisters of mine</b>, you did for me.’" (emphasis added).</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">Jesus says that those who helped "the least of these brothers and sisters of mine" helped him. Who are his brothers and sisters, then? Jesus's brothers and sisters are the children of God, "heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory." (Romans 8:17). "[To] all who did receive him, to those who believed in [Christ's] name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God." So if the Left wants to make the argument that we should accept all Coptic Christian refugees, or persecuted believers in China, then I think they'd have a lot more support (not that some of the Central Americans migrating up aren't Christian). Christians are called to love their neighbors, certainly, but this particular precept in Matthew applies to how Christians treat other Christians. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;">By using the Bible to justify their preferred policy position, the Left ultimately undermines their argument because they have an incomplete understanding of Scripture, let alone who God is. Their constant appeals to "helping the poor" sound noble--of course, history shows again and again that the steps that could alleviate the poor's status are maligned by the Left--but the Bible is meant for individual relationship with God, not a recipe book for a political caste to pick and choose from as they see fit. Given, I firmly believe that if everyone surrendered to the will of God and lived out the truths of the Bible, earth be a utopia, but Scripture also makes clear that just won't happen. "The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them." (Romans 1:18-19). The truth isn't just "out there", it's been fully revealed, yet people suppress and reject it for their own vainglory and power-seeking. </span></div>
generic Brandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11189402545943772384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7605879230310031391.post-21792908051486608772018-09-22T22:34:00.001-04:002018-09-22T22:34:43.123-04:00Justice and Mercy are the Path to Resolution in Kavanaugh Hearings<p dir="ltr">"He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." - Micah 6:8 NIV</p>
<p dir="ltr">In the midst of controversy over the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, we would do <u>well</u> to remember the prophet Micah's instruction to the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. God's chosen people had lost their way, holding up unrighteous men and women as pillars of society and worshipping the false gods of the Canaanite people. As we enter the third week of #ConfirmationGate, we resemble the lost and misguided nations of Israel more than the constitutional republic of America.</p>
<p dir="ltr">We are not seeking justice; if we were then accusations of wrongdoing would be made publicly and hearings would be held to derive the truth. Instead, we have secret accusations, public posturing, myriad denials, and the delay of hearings. Justice isn't in the punishment, but in the process: the Lord administers justice perfectly, for he "[does] not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great," but judges all fairly. We must strive to do the same. </p>
<p dir="ltr">Our society doesn't love mercy, for if we did, the sins of a person's distant past would not be drudged up to condemn him now. Likewise, we would not rush to condemn a woman's account of assault as false or malicious. This doesn't mean that "time heals all wounds." In fact, time has no such power. Only forgiveness, through the loving sacrifice of one's right to restitution, can heal those wounds. Instead, we have partisans drawing arbitrary lines in the sand that demand retribution for our enemies and absolution for ourselves.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Finally, we are most certainly not walking humbly with the Lord. If we were, then we would not create such high stakes for a Supreme Court nomination. We would not place our hopes in the outcome of judicial decisions or elections. And we would not drape ourselves in the faux patriotism of a flag or the cultural security blanket that our skin color provides.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Walking humbly with the Lord means recognizing that He is the creator and giver of all life. When we admit that God is <i>everything</i>, it resets our metric for what is important in life. We stop looking elsewhere for fulfillment and gratification. And because we bear His image, He is the source of all our dignity. We shouldn't need the approval of another, let alone the highest court in the land, to make us feel accepted. Finally, His faithfulness through the ages reveals that all hope resides in His promise of redemption, fulfilled through the life of Jesus Christ on earth, His death on the cross, and the resurrection.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with the Lord. This is what a hurting nation must do. </p>
generic Brandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11189402545943772384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7605879230310031391.post-67079284020787881922017-12-05T07:00:00.000-05:002017-12-05T07:00:45.466-05:00Rights vs. Privileges<div style="text-align: justify;">
In law school, my Constitutional Law professor asked us to define the word rights, as in "What are the rights we possess?". As an intellectual exercise, it is a worthwhile one, even if often times the courts and legislatures in our country fail to differentiate the two. Still, I think that the distinction is not only possible, but necessary. </div>
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Rights are God-given and inalienable. In other words, we are born with them (or some might even argue, conceived with them, but that's another topic for a different post) and they cannot be taken away from us. The Declaration of Independence recognized some of those rights--life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness--and the U.S. Constitution enumerates others. But neither of those documents grants us the rights that we possess by virtue of our birth on this earth.</div>
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Privileges, on the other hand, essentially amount to permissions granted to us by government. When the government affords us the ability or authority to do something, it can also take it away. Thus, when we receive our driver's license, we are subject to the whims of the state on whether we can keep it. </div>
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These two distinct concepts are often conflated intentionally to muddy the waters, but there's a simple way to differentiate between the two. A right is incapable of jutting up against another right. Privileges don't have that, ahem, privilege. To illustrate this point, consider the right to free speech. My right to speak extends as far as I can stretch it, up until the point where it would interfere with your right to speak. Thus, I cannot use my right to free speech to silence you, nor can you use your right to silence me. We can both speak at each other and not accomplish a whole lot, but we are both still free to speak.</div>
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On the other hand, a privilege that is often branded as a right is health care access, specifically to prescription birth control. When the Department of Health and Human Services provided an exemption to numerous companies that held sincere religious or moral objections to providing birth control for employees, <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2017/10/assessing_the_new_exemption_to_the_affordable_care_act_s_contraceptive_mandate.html">people shrieked at the shift in policy</a>. But as the government giveth, so the government taketh away. The very requirement that companies provide birth control to employees was a government privilege enacted through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare as it is more commonly known.</div>
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One of the high-minded debates that goes on in law schools and other academic circles, then, is what happens when rights run up against privileges? And today, in the case of Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the Supreme Court of the United States will hear those very arguments. This is "the gay wedding cake" case, as it's colloquially known. However, the stakes in this case make it abundantly clear: "<a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/opponents-lgbt-case-agree-wedding-cake-51506104">[it's] not about the cake.</a>"</div>
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This case pits the freedom of conscience embedded in our nation's founding against the government-granted dignity provided by anti-discrimination laws. For proof of the former, look no further than the thousands of people <a href="https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/">who fled England and Europe in pursuit of religious freedom</a> to found America. For the importance of the latter, we can look to the 1964 Civil Rights Act and cases like Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States. In other words, no matter the outcome of the case, this nation stands to lose a large part of its identity.</div>
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<a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/146092/masterpiece-cakeshop-isnt-free-speech-case">A lot of people say that we have to think and speak and act a certain way.</a> Whether it's <a href="https://gop.com/stand-for-anthem-petition/">believing that everyone stand for the national anthem</a>, or the idea that a bakery open to the public ought to bake a cake for same-sex ceremonies, the central theme appears to be that a person’s thoughts and opinions are no longer his own. To think differently is to be intolerant. <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/420094/left-and-discriminating-tolerance-fred-bauer">And tolerance above all else has become the end goal for many in society.</a> Nonconformity is the new pariah, and there are plenty of Joseph McCarthys out there to cast aspersions on those who will not tow the lion.</div>
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It's easy to say that Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips is wrong and is simply using religion to discriminate. But people with such a simplistic view of the situation do not understand the battle going on within Phillips's conscience when he has to tell a gay couple he cannot make a custom wedding cake for them. The Bible tells us that the two greatest commandments are to love God with all of our heart, mind, and soul, and to love our neighbor as ourself (Matthew 22:35-40; Mark 12:28-34). But the Bible also tells Christians to live apart from sinful desires and to put on our new selves in the image of God (Ephesians 4:17-24). And for many Christians, although same-sex marriage is now a legal reality in the United States, it is still a sin against God (1 Corinthians 6:9; 1 Timothy 1:9-11). Therefore, forcing someone to participate in a same-sex marriage ceremony by baking a cake--a symbolic and edible representation of the union--is to force that person into celebrating a sin, and thereby violate his or her conscience.</div>
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In the 1943 case West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, the Supreme Court ruled that schools cannot force students to pledge allegiance to the flag (much to the chagrin of many Republican politicians today, I'm sure). The Court's reasoning is something that can serve as a beacon of hope amidst this tidal wave of social tolerance washing over us:</div>
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If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us.</blockquote>
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Our dignity does not lie in the privileges granted to us by government, or on the misguided hope that we can have our cake and eat it too. Trusting in government to provide us with dignity will only set us up for a greater fall down the road, when it's no longer convenient for us to be dignified. Instead, we should find our sense of worth in the rights that God bestows on us from birth. Only when we recognize the value that He sees in us will we begin to see the value in each other, and that cannot be given to us by government.</div>
generic Brandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11189402545943772384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7605879230310031391.post-39238705943078858672017-12-03T22:43:00.000-05:002017-12-03T22:53:49.150-05:00A Pyrrhic Undefeated Season<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
My alma mater, the University of Central Florida, had an undefeated regular season, won its conference championship in double overtime, and sits at #12 in the CFP rankings. (<a href="http://www.sportingnews.com/ncaa-football/news/ucf-undefeated-season-four-team-field-imperfect-college-football-playoff-central-florida-american-aac-scott-frost/o6uoql6t16xh1n7gcwtlvlnkh">No love for a non-P5 team; bah-humbug!</a>) Amidst all of the celebrating, however, our head coach got plucked away by Nebraska, so a lot of alumni are lamenting that loss, while others are cursing him because of the unfortunate timing of the news of his departure dropping while we were still in playing Memphis.</div>
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But there's a far more shocking story to come out of UCF than the loss of our head coach and his staff. <a href="http://reason.com/blog/2017/12/02/a-college-football-player-lost-his-schol">Donald De La Haye lost his football scholarship</a> because the NCAA forced him into a take-it-or-leave-it situation: continue making YouTube videos that have generated some money for him, or play football. The option to do both was not on the table because it threatened the cartel the NCAA has over the monetization of its <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZB0qsJuRDo">slaves... er, student athletes</a>.</div>
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<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/7ZB0qsJuRDo/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7ZB0qsJuRDo?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
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So naturally, I posted that article to the Facebook page that discusses all things UCF athletics. And although there was some mild support for my post or sympathy for the player, most of the reactions fell in the range of "don't bring down our high" to "he traded his free speech for a scholarship"; as if a constitutionally protected freedom could be bartered in such a way. I believe that the university has not only the moral obligation to reinstate De La Haye's scholarship and stand up for him against the NCAA, but also a constitutional duty to do so as a public university. In Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969), the Supreme Court famously declared that students do not shed their right to freedom of speech simply because they have entered the schoolhouse doors. </div>
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Contract law contains the doctrine of "unconscionability." This doctrine allows courts to render a contract unenforceable because the terms of the contract so overwhelmingly favor one party over the other that it shocks the conscience. One of the key factors of unconscionability is whether one party had vastly superior bargaining position. UCF, acting as a proxy for the the NCAA's regulations, stood atop a mountain of bargaining power compared to De La Haye, a kid born in Costa Rica who was sending some of the revenue from his YouTube channel to help family there. The NCAA's restrictions on monetizing videos based on an athlete's "reputation, prestige, or ability" forced De La Haye to sign away his right to express himself in his role as a football player when he accepted a scholarship to play for UCF. Forcing De La Haye to sign away a constitutionally-protected right so he could receive a monetary stipend and tuition--things he earned by his athletic prowess--strikes me as a grossly unequal exchange. Meanwhile, UCF and the NCAA continue to make money off the blood, sweat, and backs of men and women in athletic programs around the country.</div>
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As it turns out, De La Haye decided to leave college football behind him and continue his endeavors with his YouTube channel, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4mLlRa_dezwvytudo9s1sw">Deestroying</a>. But it never should have come to him being forced to choose one over the other. Stories like his are the reason my university will never receive a dime from me. True story: I quit my Chicago-area alumni chapter board this past summer because the school forced me to contribute financially despite the hours I volunteered to promote its brand and image. And I told them that I have serious misgivings about donating money to a public university that does not value free speech.</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU-k-rPZImFmiSbs3ASqb4CCz1G39aIcBInHPT16OyMBnUjSeDos1UzlpfBD_OZVraggE48kX38vngPRDhwYpMSxVxWSaNirvz1RWmAB5b6xhhFO3k_Q_MNY_n3Br7aauuco_uV9cRbUE/s1600/Screen+Shot+2017-12-03+at+21.37.29.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU-k-rPZImFmiSbs3ASqb4CCz1G39aIcBInHPT16OyMBnUjSeDos1UzlpfBD_OZVraggE48kX38vngPRDhwYpMSxVxWSaNirvz1RWmAB5b6xhhFO3k_Q_MNY_n3Br7aauuco_uV9cRbUE/s400/Screen+Shot+2017-12-03+at+21.37.29.png" width="383" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not a dime. The only financial gift I've ever made to UCF, which the alumni association found "unacceptable." </td></tr>
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UCF's 1400 acre campus has only nine designated "Free Assembly Areas" that people must meet in if they want to hold political rallies or events (<a href="http://regulations.ucf.edu/chapter4/documents/4.0293UseofUnivFacCampusDemonstrationsFINALMay17.pdf">University Regulations, UCF-4.2093(12)</a>). The university has also codified into its campus regulations the constitutionally suspect "fighting words" doctrine (UCF-4.2093(6)(f)) as well as the heckler's veto (4.2093(8-9)). The former has been drastically limited by Supreme Court cases National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie (1977) and Snyder v. Phelps (2011), to the point the doctrine is almost meaningless. (Consider, for a moment, that the very statements Walter Chaplinsky yelled at his arresting police officer in the "fighting words" case were "You are . . . a damned Fascist," something we hear regularly these days.) And the heckler's veto has no place on a public university campus that <a href="http://creed.ucf.edu/">purports to value integrity, scholarship, and community</a>.</div>
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Overall, reading De La Haye's story yesterday amidst the conference championship left a sour taste in my mouth. Sure, the school will get some recognition for the victories its football team had this season. But in putting its fealty to the almighty NCAA above the rights of its students, I can't help but feel that this 12-0 season deserves an asterisk next to it.</div>
generic Brandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11189402545943772384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7605879230310031391.post-31700710980809709252017-10-13T18:41:00.000-04:002017-12-03T22:44:29.464-05:00The Responsibility of Democracy<div style="text-align: justify;">
It should go without saying that the president (or congressmen) should not threaten the speech rights of U.S. citizens, whether they be <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/22/politics/donald-trump-alabama-nfl/index.html">NFL players</a>, <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/11/media/trump-nbc-licenses-tweet/index.html" target="_blank">left-wing news organizations</a>, or <a href="https://hotair.com/archives/2017/08/24/pelosi-calls-banning-patriot-prayer-rally-public-park-cant-shout-wolf-crowded-theater/" target="_blank">right-wing speakers</a>. It should go without saying, and yet, depressingly, it needs to be said.</div>
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But government actors are not the only ones who bear the blame in the current devolution of civil discourse. We, the people, have fostered this cultural malaise by failing to hold our elected leaders accountable to their designated roles--i.e., upholding the Constitution--and instead demanding that they provide the cure to all of society's problems that the republic was never designed to fix.</div>
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Josh Barro's <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-politics-government-obamacare-policies-2017-10" target="_blank">piece in <i>Business Insider</i></a> makes the <i>bizarre</i> claim that government should actually try to, you know, govern. At least it only sounds bizarre when we are so accustomed to government standing <i>in loco parentis</i> for us. Barro says that voters brought this on themselves somewhat when they ignored legitimate questions of policy--think Trump's border wall--and turned them into identity crises. He goes on to propose that Making Politics Boring Again<sup><span style="font-size: xx-small;">TM </span></sup>could prove to get elected officials to focus on things they can actually fix rather than bogged down by those they cannot.</div>
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I followed Barro's premise for the first half or so of his piece, but I disagree with his assessment that the solution to mismanaged government is better (read: more!) government. Barro misinterprets a root cause of political unrest as a symptom. He fails to recognize that politicians are reflecting the rising culture wars not simply to appeal to voters, but because it removes the pressure of government from themselves. The political parties thrive when the citizenry becomes more polarized. It allows them to whip their bases up as a front while pulling strings together in the background.</div>
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Therefore, the solution is not to further involve government in settling our differences, but to take the role of responsibility upon ourselves to demand change from within. If you're mad that your neighbors don't like you because of your sexual orientation, take it up with your neighbor, <a href="https://www.aclu.org/cases/charlie-craig-and-david-mullins-v-masterpiece-cakeshop" target="_blank">not your state commissioners</a>. If you think the world is going to shit because no one believes in God or <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/13/politics/trump-values-voters-summit/index.html" target="_blank">says "Merry Christmas" anymore</a>, then pray for the world in your home and in your church; don't attempt to legislate morality. If you watch sports as an escape from reality and wish people would stop politicizing it, then <a href="https://www.inverse.com/article/33711-military-flyover-costs-fourth-of-july" target="_blank">stop celebrating the use and appearance of military force</a> in the form of pregame flyovers and paratrooper drops. And if you want to sell your message that #BlackLivesMatter and police violence must stop, then it's time to realize that police exist to enforce laws and <a href="https://blacklivesmatter.com/about/what-we-believe/" target="_blank">calling for more laws and regulations</a> only provides more avenues for violence.</div>
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The first three words of the Constitution tell each and every one of us who is in charge of this nation. It is not some man--or someday, woman--who sits in an oval office in a white house. It is not 535 men and women who pat themselves on the back about the monumental thousand-page laws they pass but cannot bother to read. It is not even nine men and women in black robes who have the lifetime responsibility of reading and interpreting those thousand-page laws.</div>
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No. The power did, does, and always will reside with <b><a href="http://constitutionus.com/" target="_blank">WE, THE PEOPLE</a></b>. In his famous "<a href="http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=3&psid=1199" target="_blank">Spirit of Liberty</a>" speech in 1944, Judge Learned Hand revealed the importance of remembering that liberty starts and ends with us, and if we do not have the courage to protect it, nothing else can or will:</div>
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I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts. These are false hopes, believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it . . . While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it.</div>
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Take up the mantle of liberty, friends. Do not let it die by the hands of those in power. Do not let them whittle down your resolve. Stand firm in knowing that the United States government derives its power from you, and therefore must answer to you. Resist oppression and abuse of power. Do all these things, and before the end is nigh, we might just save this country.</div>
generic Brandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11189402545943772384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7605879230310031391.post-34029389412110244262017-04-18T09:04:00.001-04:002017-04-18T09:04:55.556-04:00The Cost of Civilized Society<p dir="ltr"><i>Imagine this: you've worked hard the last two weeks and finally the moment arrives when you get paid for your efforts. You start to think about the things you'll do with your earnings. Sure, you have some bills to pay, but you worked a few extra hours, so maybe you'll make an extra payment on your mortgage, or maybe you'll treat yourself to a nice dinner or save some for that camping trip your friends are planning. </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Before you can barely walk out of the bank with your cashed earnings, someone approaches with a gun, demanding you give him money. "Don't worry," he assures you. After all, he's only asking for about a sixth of your paycheck, and better yet, he's going to do great things with it.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>First, he tells you, he's going to give about a third of the money he takes from you directly to your neighbor Paul, but not before funneling it through a convoluted system so that Paul actually receives less than the amount taken from you. You start to wonder why you can't just pay Paul directly, but your assailant tells you that Paul had to do the same thing when he was working, so it's only fair that he takes your money now. </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Next, he tells you that he's going to use a few dollars of what he takes to support local artists, television shows and businesses. Before you can object--because you already support these people on a semi-regular basis--the man holding you at gunpoint tells you that the support must come from him because these particular artists, television shows and businesses are critical to your very existence. He informs you that without his generosity, these artists, television shows and businesses may cease to exist. </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>You open your mouth to try to argue against his circular logic, when the man tells you that he's going to take the remaining money and attack some people you know in the next city over, Jordan and Georgia. He's going to hurl large bombs and send a bunch of his lackeys over to shoot at them. You ask why he is attacking them and the man says "they are a threat to your safety." </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>You find it hard to believe Jordan and Georgia want to harm you. Just last month you had them both over for dinner and everything was fine. The man has pulled out a small calculator and is punching in numbers. He finishes his calculations and shows you the total, demanding you pay him that amount immediately. You want to respond, object, do anything to stop him, but ultimately you hand over a sixth of your paycheck; after all, he's the one with the gun. </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>You ask the man what you did to deserve this, but he just laughs and says, "That's the cost of living in a civilized society."</i></p>
generic Brandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11189402545943772384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7605879230310031391.post-9931248153614788782017-01-27T15:57:00.001-05:002017-01-27T15:57:13.639-05:00Debate Comes in Threes: A Primer on Abortion, Climate Change, and Incitement<p dir="ltr">In the news this week arose three topics in particular that both sides speak about as if there only is one side to the argument. My goal is to address each as succinctly as possible and hopefully show why each topic is not as cut-and-dry as many assume. I admit that I am not immune from speaking in absolutes about these topics, but if we acknowledge the nuances that define the arguments, we can work towards greater liberty for all.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Some people may argue that I have simplified these topics too much. But if an argument cannot be boiled down to a core axiom, then the entire argument falls apart by relying on a faulty premise. If I have misstated the central tenet of any argument, however, please feel free to correct me so that the discussion can be advanced.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><b>FIRST:</b> <i>Abortion</i></p>
<p dir="ltr">This topic is one ripe for ideological differences, and it all comes down to a philosophical question: when does life begin, or better yet, when is a person a person?</p>
<p dir="ltr">The "pro-life" side provides a spectrum for when life begins, but it's all centered around protection of the unborn fetus. Whether "life begins at conception," life begins when there's a beating heart and other recognizable organs, or using some measure of viability--that is, the point at which a fetus could survive outside the mother--the pro-life side defends the right to life of this thing that cannot speak for itself.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The "pro-choice" side argues on behalf of the woman carrying this fetus to term. They, too, can fall along a spectrum--anywhere from saying the fetus is a part of the woman until birth, to the more extreme view that a fetus is a parasite living off the woman for nine months--but they come together to defend a woman's right to choose what she can do with her own body.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Because there is no empirical way to determine when a human being, fetus or no, obtains personhood--and thus, the rights to life and liberty that come with it--the debate often ends in a stalemate. Neither side is necessarily wrong; it just seems that they are talking past each other.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><b>SECOND:</b> <i>Climate Change</i></p>
<p dir="ltr">The debate on climate change is a bit more difficult to nail down, mostly because it seems the boundaries of the debate continue to shift. The two sides to this, as I see them, are those who believe that humans have a direct effect on the earth's climate and action must be taken to reduce that effect, and those who think action is unnecessary. The latter includes people who outright deny the existence of humanity's effect on the environment.</p>
<p dir="ltr">But make no mistake: this is a debate about action, and typically, government action. Excluding for the purposes of this discussion those who outright deny climate change--because I'd rather not get into Newton's Third Law--the debate appears to center around a question of degree. (No pun intended!) The earth's climate is changing, but is it changing at a rate or pace that requires drastic action?</p>
<p dir="ltr">The proponents of government intervention argue that it is, and if we want to preserve this earth for future generations we must take steps beyond simple precautions now. They point to changes in temperature, global weather phenomena, increased wildfires and flooding, among other measurable data points as evidence that the situation is getting worse.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Opponents argue that the temperature fluctuations and other phenomena are natural and outside the statistical margin of error, or observational error. In other words, if the earth has been around for millions or billions of years but we've only been taking accurate temperature readings for the last two hundred or so, the sample size is very small and the margin of error is higher.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Complicating this debate is an insistence by proponents that "the science is settled," an interesting way of concluding an argument when science is supposed to be a never-ending search for answers. Because a vast majority of climate scientists (somewhere around 97%) fall on the side of calling for immediate action, many believe the debate should be over. But the debate roars on in other forums--along with the remaining ~3% of scientists--over precisely how much action is needed and how to implement such actions.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><b>THIRD:</b> <i>Incitement</i></p>
<p dir="ltr">This is by far the area that interests me the most, so I will try my best to remain neutral in describing this debate. Two separate instances this week of a white nationalist, Richard Spencer, being punched by someone because of the message he promotes catapulted this topic into the news.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Free speech proponents argue that no matter Spencer's rhetoric, he should not be subjected to violent reactions. They take to heart Voltaire's directive: "I disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it." The principles of free speech embodied in the First Amendment apply to popular and unpopular speech alike.</p>
<p dir="ltr">In contrast, Spencer's opponents say that his ideas are violent and he is the initial aggressor because of his views on white supremacy and nationalism. Because Spencer advocates for the elimination of certain people from American society, he is inciting violence and poses a direct threat to people who belong to those threatened groups. Many point to the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Germany to justify the preemptive strike: if people fought back against Hitler's rhetoric sooner things might not have gone as far as they did.</p>
<p dir="ltr">This debate about incitement--and it's not just the one surrounding Spencer--is particularly interesting because the proponents and opponents can often switch sides depending on the identity of the speaker and his or her message. In 2015 and 2016, the Black Lives Matter movement marched and protested throughout the country. While most of the demonstrations were peaceful, a few erupted into riots. BLM opponents blamed the movement's rhetoric and anti-police sentiments for inciting violence.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><b>CONCLUSION</b></p>
<p dir="ltr">As a society we face many issues that will divide us morally, ideologically, and politically. When we are absolutely certain there is only one answer to our problems, we must be able to remove the blinders we put on and see things from the other side's perspective. Only after we explore the premises of both our own arguments and our opponents' can we understand how deep the problem runs. At that point, we can work towards a solution that expands everyone's liberty.</p>
generic Brandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11189402545943772384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7605879230310031391.post-17319604626925671372013-07-20T15:24:00.000-04:002013-07-20T15:24:04.707-04:00"Can We Hear the N-Word One Day and Not Get Upset?"I start this post by admitting that I will never know what it is like to be a black person. I was born white, I am white, and I will always be white. If that admission causes you to not want to read any further, that is on you. I do, however, know what it's like to be a human being, to be a part of the economy, of society. My skin color does not define who I am anymore than it defines the person to my left or to my right. A person is defined by his beliefs, by the way he lives and interacts with the world around him.<br />
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But growing up, I have often wondered why the word <i>nigger</i> is so taboo. It is, after all, just a word. While other words (e.g., <i>fuck</i>, <i>kike</i>, <i>cunt</i>, <i>Jap</i>) are considered--shall we say--less than ideal in the public forum, they are never met with the same amount of vitriol as when someone utters the word <i>nigger</i>.<br />
<br />
The word is not off limits to everyone; those within a group tend use it freely, or it's derivation <i>nigga</i>, as a term of endearment, while those without are immediately condemned for using said word, often regardless of the context. That's not to say that every time the word is used by a non-group member it is completely neutral, as Michael Richards and countless others have proven in the past. Still, we do not see a mass movement by all Buddhists to prevent non-Buddhists from saying <i>nirvana</i>. Perhaps an odd example, but it does illustrate that there is a group of insiders who have a better understanding of a word than those on the outside.<br />
<br />
There is a history of oppression with the word <i>nigger</i>, so it does make sense that there will be some who remain sensitive to hearing it said. But the outrage generated by the use of this one word has grown so great over the last 15 or 20 years that even similar sounding words with long-standing usage are becoming more or less taboo. In 1999, a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison was offended by her professor's use of the word <i>niggardly</i> (meaning extremely stingy or reluctant to give or spend) while discussing Chaucer. Chaucer, as in the author of <i>The Canterbury Tales</i>, who lived in the 14th century and used that and other words in their original meaning (I recall at least one classmate in English class who would involuntarily gag when reading across the word <i>cunt</i>) regularly.<br />
<br />
We are told that it is racist for a white person to say <i>nigger</i>. And yet it seems far more racist to automatically assume an entire group of people will be offended by a word's usage (and thereby banning it, censoring it, or casting out all who use it), then to actually just say or write <i>nigger</i>. In the former example, you are treating hundreds, thousands, maybe even millions of individuals as a uniform block who can only feel one way when they hear a word, and in the latter you--an individual--are interacting with other individuals and do not know how they will react. Much like a declaration that someone is renouncing their religion, or coming out of the closet, or starting a new career, there will be those who are shocked or bewildered by such news, those who are indifferent, and those who are pleased, among any number of additional reactions.<br />
<br />
Ultimately, the use of the word <i>nigger</i> boils down to whether one's right to free speech (highly valued in this country) overpowers one's perceived right to not be offended. The latter simply does not exist; for if it did, there would be no shortage of harassment lawsuits claiming so-and-so had offended such-and-such. Unfortunately, while the lawsuits are kept more or less in check, that does not mean that people are completely free to say what they would like. Some people still like to believe that their feelings are more important than open discussion or freedom of speech. Going back to the example of the use of the word <i>niggardly</i> at UW-Madison, that was the brunt of the argument made by the Amelia Rideau, the offended student. From <i><a href="http://reason.com/archives/1999/07/01/cracking-the-speech-code/3" target="_blank">Reason Magazine</a></i>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="line-height: 21.58333396911621px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">"I was in tears, shaking," [Rideau] told the faculty. "It's not up to the rest of the class to decide whether my feelings are valid." </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 21.58333396911621px;">Rideau's plea was a reality check. If the proper use of a Chaucerian term while teaching </span><em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; line-height: 21.58333396911621px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The Canterbury Tales</em><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 21.58333396911621px;"> could be construed as harassment of a student who did not know the word's spelling or meaning, then the code was teaching some interesting expectations indeed. Many "abolitionists," as they now were called, believe that Rideau's speech, widely reported, was the turning point, setting the stage both for greater attendance at the March meeting and for the final vote. John Sharpless, a history professor, asked, "What other words are to be purged from our language? </span><em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; line-height: 21.58333396911621px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Thespian</em><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 21.58333396911621px;">?"</span></blockquote>
Free speech is one of the foundations of liberty. This does not mean one is totally free from judgment, but it should mean that if we truly value free speech then we will not allow someone's thoughts or ideas to be suppressed just because they contain offensive language or words. Punishing someone for something they said is no different than punishing someone for the way they look, and isn't that the mentality that we have been trying to break away from as a country for the last 50 years?generic Brandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11189402545943772384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7605879230310031391.post-25884089026765321072012-11-11T06:00:00.000-05:002012-11-12T12:25:49.768-05:00Small Government Conservatism is Not Possible from Today's GOPThe Republican Party has some problems. For a political party that claims to be the party of smaller government, they sure have a funny way of showing it. First, they <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/10/29/gop-s-gary-johnson-and-buddy-roemer-shut-out-of-2012-debates.html">shut out the eventual Libertarian Party candidate from the GOP primary debates</a>, even though he had two terms' experience governing in a Democrat state where he balanced the budget without raising taxes. Then, Dr. No himself, the stalwart of Constitutional conservatism, <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-08-21/news/ct-met-kass-0821-20110821_1_ron-paul-straw-poll-media-coverage">is largely ignored by the media during his primary run</a>. Finally, they nominate for the presidential campaign <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/04/mitt-romney-individual-mandate_n_1649233.html">the man who laid the groundwork for Obamacare</a>.<br />
<br />
It's more than fair to say that Republicans care about reducing the size and scope of government about as much as a hoarder cares about a single dirty sock on the floor. So why do people <a href="http://cnsnews.com/news/article/wash-post-poll-large-majorities-want-smaller-federal-govt-say-govt-controls-too-much">who claim they want government to be smaller</a> continue to vote for candidates that show no loyalty to those same ends? A case of battered wife syndrome? or simply a fear that the "other party" is that much worse? As I have said before, a <a href="http://agenericbrand.blogspot.com/2012/11/ballot-reasoning-2012.html">vote for the "lesser of two evils" is still a vote for evil</a>.<br />
<br />
The major source of the problem as I see it stems from the belief that the GOP is the party for Christians. And it's easy to see why that is the perception. When your biggest social issue is abortion you kind of paint yourself into a corner. Now, abortion is a difficult issue to tackle (as a libertarian I find myself constantly falling on either side of the aisle due to the question of when life begins) that unfortunately tries to devolve into a simple black-and-white argument. But by no means should it come to define a political party's entire platform.<br />
<br />
Another huge pet cause of the modern GOP is American imperialism. While officially called "nation building" and "spreading democracy", America's current foreign policy amounts to nothing more than the Philippine-American War circa the age of aircraft carriers and drones.<br />
<br />
So we have the Christian moralists and the hawkish neo-conservatives trying to find common ground in a candidate. Unfortunately, neither of those things fit with a small-government mentality. It is impossible to force morality on people through legislation, and it is even more impossible to run a global war machine and keep a small budget.<br />
<br />
Over the coming years, so-called conservatives need to make a choice: will they be sincere in their pledge of wanting smaller government, will they continue to make decisions in the lives of others, or will they perpetuate a culture of war-making? I know what I will choose, and I have a few reasons why a lot more people should embrace the same.<br />
<br />
A lot of people like to say they have no interest in politics or government. (That's too bad, since the government takes a lot of interest in us.) Even so, interests seem to be piqued during election cycles. Going back the last few presidential elections, though, there hasn't been a lot of difference between the winning candidate and <i>the other</i> major party's platform. George Bush was the Republican candidate in 2000 and 2004, but he also brought us <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Child_Left_Behind_Act">an education boondoggle</a> and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-who-really-benefits-when-republicans-change-medicare-2012-9">the biggest healthcare spending increase since the 1960's.</a> Barack Obama wanted to end the War in Iraq <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/view_from_chicago/2012/10/obama_s_drone_war_is_probably_illegal_will_it_stop_.html">but began conflicts in numerous other countries</a>. He also has continued a policy of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Act">spying on American citizens</a>. Neither had a record that is worthy of defending, which is why our election cycles of late have focused on negative campaigning against the opposing candidates.<br />
<br />
It has always struck me as strange that people who proclaim the love of Christ would follow it up with bombing runs against foreigners and campaigns to make everyone righteous via government fiat. In my mind, Jesus would prefer people to follow him willingly. So it makes as little sense for the religious right to force people to live a certain way as it makes for progressives to force people to live a certain way.*<br />
<br />
The other thing about the GOP attempting to have a large social agenda is that it grows the size of government. If you try to make abortion illegal, every time someone would try to have one there would be a circus of bureaucracy trying to implement it. Was she raped? Fill out this form and take a test. Oh, she wasn't raped? You're under arrest and we're going to trial. Every step in the process amounts to more paperwork and more tax dollars being spent than are already in Planned Parenthood's coffers.<br />
<br />
If the religious right wants to make an impact in people's lives, they should lead by example. Preach smaller government while practicing private charity. Change people's lives through individual action, not threat of punishment. As the saying goes, you can catch more flies with honey than with governor (*or vinegar, even). We need to show that greater individual liberty is the way to bring about more positive changes in American lives.<br />
<br />
Many of the religious right like to say that this country was founded on Christian morals. I used to count myself among the group that believed that. But Christian morals no more belong to America than to England. One of the founding principles of this country is, <i>however</i>, freedom of religion. It is beneficial to society for people to live a moralistic life. But the highest moral we, as a country of dozens if not hundreds of religions, can live by is respecting everyone's God-given rights to life, liberty, and property.<br />
<br />
This same idea goes for our country abroad. Do we really think we are going to convert Muslims to democracy or even Christianity by bombing them, their parents, their children, their cousins <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wech_Baghtu_wedding_party_attack">at a wedding</a>? Our mission abroad, if anything, should be to protect only those American interests that are directly in danger. And long, drawn-out wars do nothing to protect American interests; in fact, they make us more vulnerable over the long term by spreading our forces thin. The United States are supposed to be the greatest military might in the world, but we sure don't act like it when we can't even "win" a war after ten years.<br />
<br />
Where does this entire post take us then? Only by pushing for candidates who truly believe in small government will we be able to roll back the government interventions into everyone's lives and start to make differences in individual lives. We cannot succumb to desires to control or manipulate the lives of others, for that is neither what Christ taught nor is it the foundation of this great nation.<br />
<br />
Before you move on from the 2012 presidential election and go the next three and a half to four years largely ignoring politics, let me leave you with two quotes:<br />
<blockquote>
"Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government."<br />
- <a href="http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/t/thomasjeff169576.html#AkS2UIgdBISgofQI.99">Thomas Jefferson</a><br />
<br />
"Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."
<br />
- <a href="http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/g/georgewash118164.html#g1yPy3IzrCVQZGJI.99">George Washington</a></blockquote>
Christians and small government conservatives have a decision to make moving forward. They can continue policies that limit the freedom of others, or they can practice what they preach. I choose the latter.<br />
<br />
*<em>updated on 11/12/12.</em>generic Brandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11189402545943772384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7605879230310031391.post-19308926809053774982012-11-04T19:33:00.000-05:002012-11-04T19:33:44.285-05:00Ballot Reasoning, 2012What does it mean to vote? A vote is your voice in the democratic system of government. It may not be a very loud voice in the grand scheme of things, but you show your opinion of government by voting a certain way. Do you approve of Candidate A? Vote for Candidate A. Do you disapprove of Candidate B? Vote for anybody but Candidate B.<br />
<br />
However, it is very disheartening this election cycle to see how many people are confused by the act of voting. This year, we have been assaulted by they news media telling us that <a href="http://rt.com/usa/news/ryan-vote-paul-obama-970/">there</a> <a href="http://azdailysun.com/news/opinion/mailbag/a-vote-for-johnson-is-a-vote-for-obama/article_74bce145-1286-5e01-bab5-6b296479608e.html">are</a> <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/25/politics/third-party-candidates/index.html">no other</a> <a href="http://thedailybanter.com/2012/10/a-vote-against-the-president-is-a-vote-for-mitt-romney/">candidates</a>. According to them, <a href="http://www.policymic.com/articles/18106/obama-vs-romney-the-one-question-that-both-candidates-need-to-answer-but-no-one-is-asking">only</a> <a href="http://www.latimes.com/features/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-nate-silver-versus-the-pundits-20121102,0,1129852.story">Barack Obama</a> and <a href="http://www.theledger.com/article/20121102/POLITICS/121109837">Mitt Romney</a> are running for the office of president.<br />
<br />
They want you to think that your vote <i>belongs</i> to either the Democrat candidate or the Republican candidate. Whether it was Ron Paul's efforts to claim the Republican nominations, or the general candidacies of <a href="http://www.garyjohnson2012.com/front">Gary Johnson</a>, <a href="http://www.jillstein.org/">Jill Stein</a>, <a href="http://www.goodeforpresident2012.com/">Virgil Goode</a>, <a href="http://www.voterocky.org/">Rocky Anderson</a>, or a handful of other candidates, including former TV mom Roseanne Barr, the majority of news sites have done everything within their power to control the narrative that this race comes down to just two people.<br />
<br />
"But a vote for a third party is a wasted vote," say <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/oct/31/third-party-votes-are-wasted/">millions of people</a>. But that is the quintessential definition of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question">begging the question</a>.<br />
<br />
Person A: "If you vote 3rd party you are wasting your vote."<br />
Person B: "Why are you wasting your vote?"<br />
Person A: "Because a 3rd party candidate will never win."<br />
Person B: "Why will a 3rd party candidate never win?"<br />
Person A: "Because if you vote for one you are wasting your vote."<br />
<br />
Millions of voters are trapped every year in this circular logic that there are only two people to choose between, and they often summarize their choice by saying they are voting for the "lesser of two evils." I say, "Why vote for evil at all?" Even in the few elections where there are only two candidates on the ballot (or even one unopposed candidate) you have the choice to choose no one and say "Piss off!" to a screwed up system. I encourage everyone who is fed up with elections full of perennially bad candidates to stand up and make a choice:
<br />
<blockquote>
<i>You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice</i><br />
<i>If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice</i><br />
<i>You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill</i><br />
<i>I will choose a path that's clear</i><br />
<i><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mEzgc_ne60">I will choose freewill</a></i></blockquote>
<br />
All right, on to the ballot picks! Here are the ballots that I have for district 43: <b><a href="http://www.ocfelections.com/OrangeVotes2010/httpdocs/ballots/Sample/SAMPLE_BALLOT43.pdf">1</a> <a href="http://www.ocfelections.com/OrangeVotes2010/httpdocs/ballots/Sample/SAMPLE_BALLOT2.pdf">2</a> <a href="http://www.ocfelections.com/OrangeVotes2010/httpdocs/ballots/Sample/SAMPLE_BALLOT3.pdf">3</a></b><br />
<br />
<b><u>PRESIDENT</u></b><br />
<i>Gary Johnson/James Gray (Libertarian party)</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
This campaign did not get a lot of love from the media, although they admittedly did get a little more notice than the Justice Party, Constitution Party, or Objectivist Party. There are a few things that I don't like from this campaign, namely the idea of a Fair Tax, like a national sales tax. The biggest problem with a Fair Tax at the moment is that the 16th Amendment still allows Congress to take a direct income tax from the citizens. Unless the 16th Amendment is constitutionally repealed there would be too much taxation power available to the federal government.<br />
<br />
Fortunately, I think the Fair Tax is more of a party platform, and not necessarily something that he would push for in office. It is great to have a candidate who has actual leadership experience to look to when evaluating them for president, and Johnson's two successful terms as governor of New Mexico were amazing from a small government standpoint. He vetoed over 700 bills and left office with a budget surplus, all while cutting taxes as well. Like I said, it's nice to have an actual record to look at, something 2008's Barack Obama didn't have and 2012's Obama <i>wished</i> he didn't.<br />
<br />
The two major party candidates are basically clones of each other. Everything has been pretty awful under Obama: the war on drugs continues with no improvements; the economy is still struggling and shows little signs of getting much better; we still have a ton of troops in the middle east and our citizens are being killed by enemy forces and this administration. All of that being said, Romney may only improve the economy a little, and even that is up for major debate. None of the other areas are in Romney's favor, and on some his rhetoric is making him sound worse (foreign policy).<br />
<br />
<b><u>UNITED STATES SENATOR</u></b><br />
<i><a href="http://www.floridaforbill.com/#!problems/cee5">Bill Gaylor (no party affiliation)</a></i><br />
<br />
I have been lambasted by advertisements in the central Florida area for both Connie Mack and Bill Nelson, the Republican and Democrat candidates, respectively. Bill Nelson wants to save Medicare and Social Security for grandma and grandpa. Connie Mack wants to save Social Security and Medicare for grandpa and grandma. Neither wants to admit that both programs are unsustainable as is, and have been declared as nothing more than another tax by the Supreme Court. So that means there is nothing <i>owed</i> to people who have been paying into it their whole lives; the money just goes into the general coffers as soon as it is deducted from our paychecks. In addition to that, Social Security is actual a terrible rate of return even if you want to be of the mindset that you are getting back what you put in. It is a direct "Rob Peter to pay Paul" tax.<br />
<br />
Gaylor looked like the candidate most in line with what I believe in, and I especially like the line about establishing a rule that a constitutional basis for a bill must be cited before it is considered. <a href="http://chrisborgia.com/">Chris Borgia</a> kind of turned me off with his "Score Voting" idea, although I have said that a single negative vote (with the person the closest to zero votes winning) would bet better than a single positive vote.<br />
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<b><u>U.S. REPRESENTATIVE DISTRICT 9, STATE SENATOR DISTRICT 14, STATE REPRESENTATIVE DISTRICT 50, PROPERTY APPRAISER, TAX COLLECTOR, SUPERVISOR OF ELECTIONS</u></b><br />
<i>No vote made for any candidate.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
For the first three races, there are only a two candidates running in each race: a Republican and a Democrat. For the three races concerning actual representation for government, I think it is wrong that there are no other candidates on the ballot. Not necessarily wrong as in "not right", but wrong as in "more candidates from more parties should be gunning for these positions". So it is a vote to abstain from endorsing either of these candidates and the parties that they represent.<br />
<br />
For the latter three categories, I think it is wrong (as in "not right") that these are even elected positions, and they certainly should not be positions held by partisan politics. So again I will choose not to endorse party affiliated candidates for posts that shouldn't even be subject to elections (and an argument could even be made that they should not be public offices in the case of property appraiser).<br />
<br />
<b><u>CLERK OF COURTS, SHERIFF</u></b><br />
<i>Write-in Aaron Brand</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
See the explanation for the last set of things, but I disagree with the notion of non-representation positions being subject to public election, as well as races being influenced by party affiliation. Therefore I am writing in my own name as I am confident that I could do a better job than any of those bozos. Plus, Lydia Gardner is running unopposed for Clerk of Courts which is baloney.<br />
<br />
<b><u>SUPREME COURT JUDGES</u></b><br />
<i>Vote "NO" to retain</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Judges should not get comfortable with the idea of tenure or a permanent position.<br />
<br />
<b><u>CIRCUIT JUDGE 9 in DISTRICT 7</u></b><br />
<i><a href="http://www.marques4judge.com/">Letty Marques</a></i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<b><u>FLORIDA STATE CONSTITUTION AMENDMENTS, CHARTER AMENDMENTS</u></b><br />
<i>"YES" on 1, "NO" on everything else</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Amendment 1 is basically just the state of Florida's swipe at Obamacare, but even so, I will take it. The amendment says that a person or company cannot be compelled by law to purchase, obtain, or offer medical coverage. This could actually end up being a step towards eliminating employer-based health insurance plans, which may in the end result in better policy options through increased competition in the insurance market.<br />
<br />
The NO vote on all other amendments comes from the idea that most actions will likely raise taxes. An exemption for veterans on their property taxes or a homestead exemption for non-homesteaded houses will likely just raise the amount of taxes other people have to pay. I do like that Amendment 4 attempts to keep property assessments valued at the just value and not an inflated value, but there are still ways for them to increase taxes and they limit the amount that taxes can be decreased.<br />
<br />
<b><u>SOMETHING TO CONSIDER</u></b><br />
Ultimately, a vote is a personal act. One's political persuasions can be made public if they choose, as I am doing now. However one votes though, it is not wasted if it is made with conviction. Make sure you are voting for causes and people you believe in, and not just "for evil".generic Brandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11189402545943772384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7605879230310031391.post-80279646641862472852012-05-17T08:30:00.000-04:002012-05-17T08:30:04.231-04:00What Does It Mean to Be Free?I think as a basis for freedom we can agree that both life and liberty constitute the foundation. For one cannot be free if he is enslaved to death or another man. Therefore self-ownership--to be the master of one's own domain--is essential to freedom. It is important to note that self-ownership means that the results of one's labor are his to do with as he wishes. So individual property is an equal tenet to the foundation of freedom.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But with this basic foundation, what creates the walls of Castle Freedom? When colonials were creating the form of government we now know in the United States today, they realized they were giving up part of their freedom voluntarily to "form a more perfect union". But in return, many states required certain protections for the many freedoms (they called them "rights") possessed besides those named within the Constitution. They drew up the Bill of Rights as a list of the rights which we keep and the government may not infringe upon. The ninth amendment is an especially important one for what it states:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."</blockquote>
This means that we may have many more rights than those expressed within the United States Constitution.<br />
<br />
But overall, it seems pretty straightforward, right? Freedom of speech means we have the right to speak and believe what we want and cannot be persecuted by the government for what we say. And yet throughout our history the federal government on down to local governments have passed laws infringing upon that right. Currently, hate crimes legislation is nothing more than punishing someone for their beliefs.<br />
<br />
Well, what about the right to keep and bear arms, our second amendment? Even leaving out the exception of catastrophic weaponry such as nuclear and chemical weapons, everything from handguns to automatic rifles have been heavily regulated and even outright banned in our country. Fortunately, a few key Supreme Court decisions (<i>District of Columbia v. Heller</i> and <i>McDonald v. Chicago</i>) have pushed back against government restrictions in recent years.<br />
<br />
At least we can freely associate with whomever we choose, correct? <i>Au contraire</i>, dear reader. Laws denying individuals the right to marry based on their skin color or sexual orientation have plagued our society, and prostitution--sex between consenting individuals based on the transaction of money--is outlawed in all but a few places in our country.<br />
<br />
So why is it that these freedoms and so many more are trampled upon on a daily basis? One possible reason is fear; people are afraid of what unchecked freedom may result in. They worry that if restrictions and regulations are not put in place, then people will abuse their freedoms. But to be free does not mean one is free from responsibility of his actions, but that he is free <i>to take</i> responsibility. A person who infringes on the most inherent rights of another (remember our foundation of life, liberty, and property) is held accountable for such. But my right to swing my arms ends just in front of your face, to paraphrase a common saying. So I am not entitled to use my freedom in such a way that in inhibits the freedoms of another person, and that is the crux of the issue.<br />
<br />
Many people assume that with the freedom of speech comes the freedom to not be offended. That, to some extent, is the basis for hate crimes laws--prosecuting individuals more heavily based on their thoughts about the victim's race, religion, sexual orientation, etc. It also seems to be the go-to defense of many people who hear something that they don't agree with, or that upsets them. But just as I have the freedom to speak my mind, you have the freedom to not listen.<br />
<br />
With the freedom of religion--the ability to worship who or what we believe in--comes the freedom <i>from</i> religion: no state-sanctioned or sponsored religion. The freedom to associate with whomever one wants does not mean that a person can be forced to associate with an individual with whom they do not want.<br />
<br />
Another reason society may be willing to place restrictions on freedom is due to a misplaced sense of justice. They rightly believe that all men (as in humanity) are <i>created</i> equally. However, in our society, some people are born into rich environments and some into poor. It is from there that they feel it is fair, equitable, just to provide assistance to individuals who were born into less-than-favorable circumstances. So they feel that taking the property (most often in the form of money) from wealthy individuals or organizations and giving it to the impoverished is justifiable.<br />
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An extension of the freedom of association is the freedom to voluntarily donate one's property (wealth) to an individual or organization of his choosing. The key, though, is that it is <i>voluntary</i>. It goes back to our main tenet of self-ownership. If a man does not have control over himself and his property then he is not free. To stake a claim on another man's property is to exert unjust power over him and ultimately, infringing on his freedoms.<br />
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We should strive to create a world and society that expand freedom for all, but not at the expense of taking freedoms from others. Even our forefathers made the mistake of establishing freedoms for some while denying them to others. But that does not negate the principles stated within the Bill of Rights. Freedom from coercion is what we should strive for. We must primarily recognize that our rights are not granted to us by government (for that which is given by man can be taken away), but we are endowed with them upon birth. And it is those freedoms that both make us human and make us equal.generic Brandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11189402545943772384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7605879230310031391.post-89434286744246278662012-05-10T08:30:00.000-04:002012-05-10T08:30:00.546-04:00Facebook Post Explained: Why Cops Are Whores<div>
In case you missed my post on Facebook, or are simply not friends with me, I posted in anger on my way to work shortly after receiving a ticket "The police are nothing but whores, and the state is their pimp, telling them who to fuck. My apologies to any actual whores though." I actually thought it was pretty clever, in spite of my incoherent rage at the time.
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The reason for the ticket: speeding. Now, if you subscribe to the same line of thinking as most people I know, you are probably saying, "If you weren't speeding, you wouldn't have been pulled over", or perhaps its cousin, "If you didn't do anything wrong, you wouldn't have been ticketed/arrested/<a href="http://www.theagitator.com/2012/05/09/i-just-start-smashing-his-face-to-hell/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+radleybalko+%28The+Agitator%29">beaten to death</a>". Well, we sort of have this idea of <i><a href="http://agenericbrand.blogspot.com/2011/07/defending-defenseless.html">presumed innocent until proven guilty</a></i> in this country, although that can sometimes be <a href="http://agenericbrand.blogspot.com/2010/10/congress-shall-make-no-law-respecting.html">misconstrued in today's media-obsessed world</a>.
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So before you write me off as some law-breaking, reckless-driving miscreant, at least hear my side of the story. It all started on the typical commute to work. I live off Curry Ford Road, so I usually jump on 417 Northbound and change over to 408 Westbound to head into downtown Orlando.
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZD4ak-LqBh2cKT9lvSR8Qk_giyki3y8ChtrShr_ISAXRIv3rg4IySIycrqsNUXuux9H2IXztdcAZPu_1faT0X7BvNtngz5WOS1jleCLLYi3yMpP2rwmz0oyxc9n1IDKDnzuL3oZ0StNk/s1600/15.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="A terrible glimpse into my everyday life." border="0" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZD4ak-LqBh2cKT9lvSR8Qk_giyki3y8ChtrShr_ISAXRIv3rg4IySIycrqsNUXuux9H2IXztdcAZPu_1faT0X7BvNtngz5WOS1jleCLLYi3yMpP2rwmz0oyxc9n1IDKDnzuL3oZ0StNk/s200/15.jpeg" title="" width="200" /></a></div>
As you can see from the picture, the 417-408 exchange is a complete mess right now with construction,
so any chance to advance forward looks like water after days in a desert. I merged on to 408 and saw a motorcycle a few vehicles behind me; I was unsure at that time whether it was a police bike or just a motorcyclist.
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I always make it a point to know where I am in relation to other drivers around me, and when there are motorcycles I am especially on edge because they can be a bit more unpredictable. So I clearly noted him merging into the right lane and then changing over to the left lane. As he pulled alongside me I finally saw that it was a state trooper's bike, but I did not let that deter me from driving as I was doing nothing wrong. I waited until there was space and changed over to the left lane myself, directly behind the officer.
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We continued along in the left lane as a third lane merged into 408 Westbound made up of cars that had been traveling southbound on 417. So now there were three lanes, and I was still behind the cop in the leftmost lane. This is all in the midst of construction and frequent uneven lanes, so as we passed the Goldenrod exit and 408 opens up to four lanes I took the opportunity to get out from behind the motorcycle cop and move to the second lane from the left. I stayed even with him and did not alter my speed in any noticeable way; I chose to move from behind him only because I do not feel comfortable driving behind motorcycles.
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We continued on in this fashion for another half-mile or so, and as I looked ahead I could see that my lane and the lane to the right of me were both becoming a bit more congested, but the left lane in which the cop still rode in was moving along at the same pace as us, if not a bit quicker further ahead. I pushed forward slightly so that I had room to change lanes before getting to the traffic in my lane, put on my turn signal, and changed over in front of the police officer.
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We go another couple of hundred feet, me in front of the officer, and then the lights come on. While I instantly feared it was for me, I started to look over to the right just to get out of the way. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw that he was indicating it was me who was getting pulled over, and he was telling me to pull off to the left.
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjtXkgcpzMzFceAqTmO3QSscurKJiLpAJwveY57cA9sHVZ7xHr3M8QOztPqtf52jrDsieBpcQK3qFc3PMJXAeii6u3lB4ZFrOHOW7FtcAtq3CgyG781KTiqQ88EvTAJh5hgiIZI0MBl5I/s1600/Picture+2.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="254" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjtXkgcpzMzFceAqTmO3QSscurKJiLpAJwveY57cA9sHVZ7xHr3M8QOztPqtf52jrDsieBpcQK3qFc3PMJXAeii6u3lB4ZFrOHOW7FtcAtq3CgyG781KTiqQ88EvTAJh5hgiIZI0MBl5I/s320/Picture+2.png" width="320" /></a>
So maybe a quarter mile before the express toll plaza I was forced to pull over onto the left shoulder of the road. The Google Streetview image on the left is a rough approximation of where I was pulled over, but there was far more traffic due to the rush hour crowd.
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He approached from the left hand side and asked for my driver's license. I asked him why I had been pulled over. He said that the speed limit is 55 mph and I had been speeding. I told him that I was going the same speed he had been going. He then said that I had passed him. I stated again that I was going the same speed he had been going, so I don't know how I could have been passing him. He fell back to saying, "the speed limit is 55 mph and you were going 70." There was no possibility of reasoning with this officer. When he asked about my driving record and I responded that I currently have a citation I have to pay (from losing traffic court on a previous speeding infraction hearing), I knew I was sunk.
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He was back at his motorcycle for some time, so there was no doubt in my mind that I was being cited yet again. When he came back he gave me the grandiose spiel that it seems all officers do: "You were really going 15 over which is $250 ticket, but I cut you some slack and dropped it to 9 over which is only a $129." I pleaded with him that if he was willing to reduce the citation on the spot, why couldn't he just let me off with a warning. He simply said he couldn't do that.
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It was at that moment that it was obvious to me that the police are nothing more than money collectors for the state. That he would pull me over during rush hour when I was going no slower or faster than anyone else on the road; force me on to the left shoulder from where it took me two or three full minutes to safely merge safely back into traffic; and write me up for a ticket that he should very well give himself as well--after all, I was matching his speed from the start--is a clear indication that the only thing that matters to state troopers like him are tickets, quotas, and fees.
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I will be fighting this ticket. I could have been going 70 miles <i>over</i> the speed limit and I would contest a ticket, because in this country it is still the state's burden to prove without a reasonable doubt that a crime has been committed. But even more than that, sometimes you just have to fight for what you believe in, and for me that means pushing back against an overbearing government who sees us as nothing more than pocketbooks for their regulatory schemes and spending fantasies.<br />
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If just one person who reads this starts scrutinizing the public officials around us more, then I will consider it a win, no matter what the outcome in the courtroom. You have to care for yourself and your loved ones, because the state couldn't give two shits about you. "All [they] wanna know is: where [their] money at?"</div>
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<br /></div>generic Brandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11189402545943772384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7605879230310031391.post-85148509297632995952011-08-16T22:26:00.004-04:002011-08-16T23:58:57.063-04:00"I'm Gonna Kill You!"Are threats permissible under freedom of speech? The law says they are not. Should they be, though?
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<br />Here is a quick anecdote to open up the debate. <i>An upset customer calls into work and is extremely unhappy with the service he has received. In the midst of his anger, he threatens to shoot up the whole company. His threat is taken literally, the police are called, and the man is investigated by the authorities. The police find a semi-automatic pistol and a rifle and confiscate both as evidence.</i>
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<br />Now, if someone makes a threat--especially against one's life--I think it should be taken seriously. But I don't think one should forfeit other rights they possess because a moment of anger overcame him. In the example above, should the man have to give up any guns he has because the language he used in the threat indicates he will use them? In America, we have the right to keep and bear arms. We also have the right to free speech. Is there a point at which one supersedes the other? If you use a gun to commit murder, that does not take away your right to free speech. So why should the reverse be true?
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<br />What if the threat did not involve the use of a weapon? Let's say our exemplar simply screams "I'm gonna kill you!" Is the threat treated the same way? Does the manner in which one threatens make a difference?
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<br />Here is another example, and this one is considered protected free speech under the 1st Amendment. <i>A group of anti-war protesters are holding a rally in the capital. The leader of the country continues to fight a war that many feel is unjust. Some of the protesters have pictures of the leader with slashes through them, and others burn effigies of the leader.</i>
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<br />The latter example is protected because a leader is considered a symbol of government. But in reality, what is the difference between an angry customer threatening the company he feels did a disservice to him and protesters acting out against a government of which they disapprove? I suppose it all just depends on the party being threatened.
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<br />I am more inclined to side with the 1st Amendment, which reads "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech". Call me a traditionalist, but prosecuting threats or the yelling of "FIRE!" in a crowded theater (as the other typically unprotected speech example goes) is an infringement of the 1st Amendment, which clearly states <b>NO LAW</b>. I hope that we never live in the world envisioned in the movie <i>Minority Report</i>, where people are prosecuted for future crimes. Wait until they act, then prosecute the individual.
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<br />Speech cannot be a crime.generic Brandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11189402545943772384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7605879230310031391.post-30509046979662597222011-07-05T18:45:00.002-04:002011-07-05T19:19:58.430-04:00Defending the DefenselessIt is a case like <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/05/us-crime-anthony-reaction-idUSTRE7646U820110705">Casey Anthony's</a> that really makes me want to become a criminal defense attorney. It's not because I get my kicks defending "murderers, rapists, and drug dealers." I want to do it because it's a thankless job that needs to be done.<br /><br />I count myself among the probably less than 1% of the population following this case since 2008 to believe that Casey was truly not guilty. And you know why that is? Because I still believe in our judicial system and that it is one of the best in the world. A lot of times people seem to take the phrase "innocent until proven guilty" for granted. Maybe you're accused of stealing a candy bar or cheating on your test. Maybe your sibling is crying that you hit them. But you stick to your guns in those instances and say, "Prove it!"<br /><br />Yet here we are, less than 6 hours after a verdict came back in one of the must publicized stories since at least <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Peterson">Scott Peterson</a>—if not OJ Simpson himself—and everyone I know is flipping out that justice hasn't been served. Hey, here's an uncanny thought. <i>Maybe she <b>DIDN'T</b> kill her daughter.</i><br /><br />Casey didn't "pull a fast one on the system". She didn't even "get away with murder". Because in the eyes of the law, she is innocent. She always has been. The burden is not on her attorney Jose Baez to prove her innocence. The burden of proof has and always will lie with the state, or specifically in this case the District Attorney's office, to prove her guilt. That is why we a jury of her peers must find her guilty "beyond a reasonable doubt". If even a hint of doubt creeps into a juror's mind, that should be enough to find her NOT GUILTY.<br /><br />Was Casey Anthony a bad mother? Yes, no arguments from me there. Was she a murderer? Fortunately that isn't our call to make.generic Brandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11189402545943772384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7605879230310031391.post-37200863005633873762011-02-11T14:45:00.003-05:002011-02-11T14:58:41.045-05:00Open Letter to U.S. Senators - PATRIOT Act ed.Dear Senator _________,<br /><br />As we now know, despite losing a measure for immediate passage the PATRIOT Act extension has been approved by a majority of representatives. I find it appalling not only that so many congressmen would vote to continue such a horrid infringement on the rights of U.S. citizens, but that this has gone on now for 9 years. Is there no one in our government who is willing to stand up for the rights of the citizens they were elected to serve?<br /><br />There is little to no evidence that our country is actually safer 9 years after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. However, there are ample amounts of evidence indicating that we are much less free now than we were 10 years ago. You have the power to change that. Vote NO on extending the PATRIOT Act provisions. Restore a small amount of liberty to the our nation.<br /><br />With the government continually expanding under the guise of service, Americans lose more and more freedom everyday. First it started with warrantless wiretaps granted by the initial PATRIOT Act. Then the Department of Homeland Security was unconstitutionally created to oversee something... to this day no one really knows what their purpose is other than to gobble up insane amounts of tax dollars and produce nothing but frustration and torment for the people they are supposedly protecting. The Travel Security Administration continues to make travel less secure, more difficult, and overall is a horribly run organization that provides no amount of "security."<br /><br />If you truly value the lives and rights of your constituents in Florida, you will vote NO on this bill when it comes to a vote in the Senate. Patrick Henry once famously said, "Give me liberty or give me death!" It has become obvious that Washington no longer wishes to give U.S. citizens back their liberty; I only hope that you do not then wish death upon us.<br /><br />I appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedule to consider what I had to say. I will anxiously await your reply.<br /><br />Thank you,<br /><br />Aaron Brand<br /><br /><i>[Feel free to use this letter, modify it, and send it to your Senator. It's time to get our freedom back!]</i>generic Brandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11189402545943772384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7605879230310031391.post-67324381221040414482011-02-11T00:00:00.000-05:002011-02-11T01:35:32.659-05:00Don't Talk to Cops!!!This may come as a surprise to everyone, but I don't exactly have a lot of respect for authority. To me, respect is something that has to be earned; it is not something I give because of the uniform you wear or the position you hold. Therefore, if I get pulled over or a police officer wants to "ask me a few questions" I am pretty hesitant to say anything. Because as we all know from any episode of <i>Law & Order</i>, <b>anything we say can and will be used against us in a court of law</b>.<br /><br />That isn't just a line that Dick Wolf created for his hit crime and justice series. What is typically referred to as "Miranda rights" or "Miranda warning" is actually something that all of us have always had since our Constitution was drafted. It is a stated reminder of one of our 5th Amendment rights, which reads:<br /><br /><blockquote><i>No person... shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law...</i></blockquote><br /><br />So if we've always had the "right to remain silent," then why do cops tell us that upon arrest? Well, they didn't always have to tell the person they were arresting. The Supreme Court case <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miranda_v._Arizona">Miranda v. Arizona</a></i> established that if a suspect was not told they have the right to an attorney any admission or evidence gathered in interrogation was not admissible in court. Therefore, the police are now required to read the Miranda warning when taking someone into custody.<br /><br />Some of you are probably saying, "Well, if I'm never taken into custody, I won't have to worry about anything." WRONG. The Miranda warning is <i>only</i> read to those in police custody. You can still easily waive your 5th Amendment rights in something as simple as a traffic stop, or as innocent as a neighborhood inquiry.<br /><br />Imagine you get pulled over. Perhaps you were speeding, perhaps not. The cop asks you if you know how fast you were going. To be safe, you reply "maybe a few miles over the speed limit" assuming the police don't care about anything 1-5 mph above the limit. Well, whether you were speeding or not, you've just admitted to the officer that you <i>were speeding</i> and can be held accountable for that.<br /><br />Scenario 2: some police officers are canvasing the neighborhood looking for a burglar. They say a witness spotted someone who looked like your roommate outside the burgled residence earlier that night. You roommate <i>was</i> out that night, although you have no idea where. Not answering is the best thing you can do. If you lie to cover for your roommate, you can be charged with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obstruction_of_justice">obstruction of justice</a>, which is essentially misleading a police investigation. However, obstruction of justice doesn't apply to NOT SAYING ANYTHING. If you stay silent, you are simply utilizing you 5th Amendment rights, even if you are not considered a suspect in the investigation. Because, as the warning states: <i>anything</i> you say <i>can be</i> used against you. You may unwittingly release some information that the police could use to charge you with something. So, better to lock up the trap and throw away the key.<br /><br />If the cops really need information out of you, they can lawfully obtain a subpoena for you to appear in court. You may still exercise your 5th amendment rights even in court if you are afraid you may incriminate yourself in some manner.<br /><br />The most important thing is to be aware of your rights and to not be afraid. Whether they are aware that they do so or not, police officers can intimidate people into giving up information that they otherwise wouldn't, simply because they wear a badge and carry a gun. You don't have to be an asshole (something I constantly have to bite my tongue about), but you also don't have to kowtow to authority.<br /><br />I strongly encourage you to watch <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc">this video</a>, entitled "Don't Talk To Police." It is about 50 minutes long, but it provides a very easy-to-understand and entertaining explanation of your 5th Amendment rights by a Regent University School of Law professor and surprisingly by a Virginia Beach police officer as well.generic Brandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11189402545943772384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7605879230310031391.post-44627033586942016532011-02-06T17:15:00.000-05:002011-02-06T17:15:00.500-05:00To Watch or Not To Watch (Super Bowl edition)There's an event going on tonight that over a hundred million people could watch. And before this highly publicized episode of <i>Glee</i>, a football game will be played as well. Hiyo!<br /><br />Truthfully though, Super Bowl XLV (45 for those playing at home) will be played tonight around 6:30 pm Eastern Standard Time. But is this game even worth watching? I mean, there have been 44 others before, and they're all pretty much the same, no?<br /><br />Let's weigh some pros and cons.<br /><br /><b>CONS</B><br /><br /><i><b>The Green Bay Packers are playing for the title</b></i><br />Let's be honest. The Green Bay Packers were the NFC favorites for this game since 3 years ago. It's obvious that there is no one within the league who is upset that the Packers are playing in the Super Bowl. And that in and of itself is enough reason to dismiss this game. Preseason favorites, especially ones who have had as many over-publicized injuries as Green Bay has, cannot be accepted as legitimate contenders, i.e. that they earned the spot simply through their own efforts. (Full disclosure: I am a Chicago Bears fan, but I also admit that the better team did win two weeks ago).<br /><br /><i><b>Joe Buck and Troy Aikman are doing the play-by-play</b></i><br />In a game as important as this--the nation's biggest sporting event--fans want to watch and listen to a game that pits the two best teams, and everything should stack up evenly. But Buck and Aikman's love of Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers can only be surpassed by their love for their own personalities. In Joe or Troy's eyes, Rodgers is never at fault for a mistake; it was either the offensive line, wide receivers, or coaches that did something wrong. And Rodgers is always the end-all-be-all for why the Packers win, even if a touchdown came by way of the defense.<br /><br /><i><b>The Pittsburgh Steelers are playing for a 7th Super Bowl title</b></i><br />Maybe it goes back to our break from England, but our country generally doesn't like long reigns, whether it is in sports, politics, or business. The Patriots became loathed by half of the country and loved by the other half when they won 3 championships earlier this century. There is no middle ground. The Steelers are on the verge of doing the same thing tonight. When the Steelers beat the Arizona Cardinals two years ago and moved into the sole ownership of most SB titles, people were thrilled that the Cardinals were competing for their first championship in franchise history. Same thing with the New Orleans Saints last year. But now we have the most dominant Super Bowl era franchise playing one of the most storied franchises in NFL history. Despite what the media is billing this game as, that sounds like "Old boys club" to me.<br /><br /><i><b>The bureaucracy of the NFL has gotten out of control this season</b></i><br />Whatever happened to letting the players play? Whether it was the week one call that overturned Calvin Johnson's "touchdown" or the crackdown on helmet to helmet hits, the league is turning fans off of the game by over-analyzing every play on the field. Much like in the world of business, too many regulations only hinder the system itself. When a quarterback can no longer be hit like any other player on the field, how is that any different than crony capitalism that hands out tax breaks only to certain government approved industries? I was upset to see the how often the referees involved themselves in the NFC Championship game, which included the longest rivalry in the NFL with two of the league's oldest teams. That was a game that should have been black and blue all over, but over and over again we were seeing nothing but yellow thrown.<br /><br /><i><b>My room really needs cleaning</b></i><br />This is obviously a subjective objection (subjection?) to watching the game. But I'm sure we all have something better we could be doing than spending an entire day watching a football game that doesn't concern 85% of us. At least during the season "your team" is playing just about every week. But now, when we are down to two teams, is it still worth watching when one of them is not the team we root for?<br /><br /><b>PROS</b><br /><br /><i><b>The Black Eyed Peas are playing the halftime show</b></i><br />This interests me quite a bit, actually. Ever since <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtiZdrJvZt4">Janet Jackson's boob fell out</a> 7 years ago during a halftime show presented by CBS, the Super Bowl halftime show has featured traditional (read: boring) musical acts. I'm not saying a show has to have half-naked women to be interesting (although that sometimes helps), but with the exception of Prince's penis-shaped guitar antics, there hasn't been anything that could constitute relevance to the halftime show in half a decade. The Black Eyed Peas have the potential to make this halftime show watchable again. With songs like "I Gotta Feeling", "Pump It", and "Let's Get It Started" (oh how I wish they would perform the unPC original version "Let's Get <i>Retarded</i>"... Damn you Sarah Palin!) the energy in Cowboys Stadium will be immense during halftime. Sure, everyone knows Tom Petty's songs, and The Boss is famous, or something. But those old farts are just that... old. The Black Eyed Peas have been around long enough to show they deserve to be performing on this stage, but at the same time can still attract an audience of future NFL viewers.<br /><br /><i><b>The commercials?</b></i><br />There is always that niche of viewers that "watch for the commercials." But like the halftime show, the commercial experience over the last seven or eight years has been pretty lackluster. We've seen the birth of the E-trade baby that now is played out. We've seen the Go Daddy Danica Patrick commercials that sucker countless Americans into "seeing the full unedited clip online." Commercials are commercials; is there really anything revolutionary in them? I suppose we'll have to give the cryptic "wait and see" answer.<br /><br /><i><b>In the end, football is still football</b></i><br />As I stated in far more words earlier, I can't <i>stand</i> the Packers. I have no qualms about saying I hope every one of their players suffers some sort of injury today. But I still hope both teams bring it, and that the outcome is decided by who moves the ball the best, and not by who pleads their case most eloquently (or emotionally) to the referees.generic Brandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11189402545943772384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7605879230310031391.post-76661001200587816302011-02-05T06:00:00.000-05:002011-02-05T06:00:03.813-05:00Above the Law(In my best movie voice-over guy voice)<br /><br /><i>Imagine a world where criminal acts run rampant; a world where the line between good and bad is blurred; a world where crime goes unpunished...<br /><br />There are those who stand in the way of justice, and no one can do a thing to stop them...</i><br /><br />Unfortunately, that isn't the lead-in for a new <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000219/#Actor">Steven Seagal</a> movie (although I really should do a Seagal marathon one of these days). That is actually the very real world we live in right now. And the "crimes" that go unpunished are committed every year by those sworn to protect and uphold the law.<br /><br />Now give me a second to explain. There aren't Orwellian armies of jack-booted thugs wiping the streets clean of jay-walkers or litterers. And we're not in a state of martial law, where curfews are enforced at the end of a M-16. But there are instances <a href="http://reason.com/archives/2011/01/24/a-beating-in-pittsburgh">reported daily</a> of police officers who <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lvy976QKuS4">abuse the authority</a> that a badge and a gun grant them; and examples of prosecutors and District Attorneys <a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_16399569?nclick_check=1">choosing not to charge</a> said officers.<br /><br />How can those who are supposed to "protect and <i>serve</i>" the community get away with criminal acts? The answer is something called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_immunity">qualified immunity</a>. The U.S. Supreme Court created the doctrine of qualified immunity to shield "government officials from liability for the violation of an individual's federal constitutional rights." This means that a police officer or other public official can not be responsible for infringing on someone's rights if it is not commonly known at the time that said action is unconstitutional.<br /><br />The present idea of qualified immunity was established in the case <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearson_v._Callahan"><i>Pearson v. Callahan</i></a>. The Supreme Court overturned a previous decision (<i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saucier_v._Katz">Saucier v. Katz</a></i>) that declared in cases of immunity a process must be followed: "first deciding the constitutionality and then deciding if the law had been unclear enough for officers not to be liable." Now, after the Pearson case, that two-step process was strictly advisory. If there is any doubt to the legality of a law at the time of breaking it, these special class of officials are not held liable the same way an average citizen would be.<br /><br />Qualifying immunity is most often seen in cases involving the 4th and 5th amendments. The 4th amendment deals with a person's right to be secure in their person and property against searches and seizures. The 5th amendment ensures that a person may not lay down evidence that would in turn implicate him in a crime, and that they cannot be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process.<br /><br />Take, for example, the <a href="http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/20110106grandpa_killed_in_drug_raid_officials_investigate_shooting_by_swat/srvc=home&position=3">murder of Eurie Stamps</a>. While serving a warrant on Stamps' residence for targets who Stamps was not, "a firearm was discharged by a SWAT team member and a round struck a resident," says a police report. If this was an encounter between two average citizens, a "discharged firearm" would be a <b>fired gun</b> and a "round [striking] a resident" would equate to <b>assault with a deadly weapon</b>, later to be manslaughter or even murder upon Stamps being killed.<br /><br />However, in this instance, none of the SWAT team members were brought up on weapons charges, nor will any likely be held accountable on criminal charges for Stamps' death. A man was killed, and for what? A poorly executed drug raid?<br /><br />While the job of a police officer can be a stressful and difficult job at times, the citizenry trusts that those who wear the badge are capable of handling the stress of the job for which they willingly apply. Nobody is putting the gun to one's head and forcing him to become a police officer. More accountability--remove sovereign immunity, equal if not stiffer penalties for laws broken by officers, penalties on prosecutors that don't charge officers--for the job would do nothing but help police officers. If a police officer is truly justified in the actions he or she takes, then there would be no problem in acquitting them of all charges. Perhaps these actions will help shape the strong arm of the law from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mjöllnir">Mjöllnir</a> to more of a carpenter's hammer.<br /><br />Despite our infatuation for heroes like Dirty Harry Callahan and Axel Foley, everyone (including "criminals") has rights that cannot be violated. The police enforce the law; they are not <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094602/"><i>above</i> the law</a>.generic Brandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11189402545943772384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7605879230310031391.post-40245123348851336732010-10-25T19:28:00.009-04:002010-10-25T23:49:59.135-04:00Election Day Picks Part BThis is where I lay out my November 2nd voting picks for Florida District 24 Titusville and why I will vote they way I am. <b>Bold</b> will indicate the ballot item and <i>italics</i> will be used for how I am voting. For electable positions I will only write the position and the candidate I support, and not necessarily every candidate listed on the ballot. For ballot initiatives I will write the text that appears on the ballot.<br /><br />This post will deal strictly with the ballot initiatives, and mostly the state-wide amendments. A good non-partisan website to look at for the amendments is <a href="http://www.collinscenter.org/page/FL_Amend_Home">Collins Center</a>. I am referencing all of my write-ups to this website. I encourage you to watch the 1-2 minute videos that summarize each of the amendments.<br /><br />If you have a question on how I would vote concerning something else on the ballot, feel free to ask.<br /><br /><b><a href="http://www.collinscenter.org/page/1cFLAmAmend1_MS">No.1 Constitutional Amendment</a><br />Repeal of Campain [sic] Financing Reform<br /><br />Proposing the repeal of the provision in the State Constitution that requires public financing of campaigns of candidates for elective statewide office who agree to campaign spending limits.</b><br /><i>YES</i><br /><br />Aside from the misspelled word, which hopefully is fixed on the official ballot--otherwise that could mean the REAL <i>Campaign</i> Finance Law won't be repealed--this is an easy pick for me. Campaign financing is a "noble" fix to what is really a non-problem. You see, for every big spending political juggernaut in Florida, there are plenty more little upstarts who just can't get their message out due to a lack of funds. The state of Florida will give these (typically third-party) politicians money to run their campaign. But of course there's a catch: you have to agree to certain spending limits on your campaign.<br /><br />So if someone uses the public funds to generate some grass-roots momentum, and then in turn begins to raise their own money, they are locked into certain spending limits because they took the public money. Campaign finance laws essentially come down to an infringement on freedom of speech, as odd as that may sound. Because you are given public funds, the government then tries to tell you how much money you can spend on what is essentially getting your message out (your speech).<br /><br />Repealing this law is a double whammy. It reduces government spending which would in turn eliminate the restrictions on campaign spending.<br /><br /><b><a href="http://www.collinscenter.org/page/1dFLAmAmend2_MS">No. 2 Constitutional Amendment</a><br />Homestead Ad Valorem Tax Credit for Deployed Military Personnel<br /><br />Proposing an amendment to the State Constitution to require the Legislature to provide an additional homestead property tax exemption by law for members of the United States military or military reserves, the United States Coast Guard or its reserves, or the Florida National Guard who receive a homestead exemption and were deployed in the previous year on active duty outside the continental United States, Alaska, or Hawaii in support of military operations designated by the Legislature. The exempt amount will be based upon the number of days in the previous calendar year that the person was deployed on active duty outside the continental United States, Alaska, or Hawaii in support of military operations designated by the Legislature. The amendment is scheduled to take effect January 1, 2011.</b><br /><i>NO</i><br /><br />Don't think that a NO vote here hurts the servicemen. They already receive at least one homestead property tax. This would just be an <i>additional</i> benefit to them. It can be hard to vote against something that seems to benefit our troops, who do so much for our country. But servicemen aren't the only ones working in this terrible economy, and they're also not the only ones who could use a tax break.<br /><br />I am very much against favoritism in legislation, and this amendment screams favoritism. If we make exceptions here, then it just opens the door for more exceptions down the road. Voting no won't take away anything from the people who have been stationed outside the U.S. It will just keep them from getting ANOTHER tax break.<br /><br /><b><a href="http://www.collinscenter.org/page/1fFLAmAmend4_MS">No. 4 Constitutional Amendment</a><br />Referenda Required for Adoption and Amendment of Local Government Comprehensive Land Use Plans<br /><br />Establishes that before a local government may adopt a new comprehensive land use plan, or amend a comprehensive land use plan, the proposed plan or amendment shall be subject to vote of the electors of the local government by referendum, following preparation by the local planning agency, consideration by the governing body and notice.</b><br /><i>NO</i><br /><br />This amendment is the brainchild of a group that wants to give power back to the people. They are tired of elected officials getting cozy with developers and abusing the system, resulting in increased cost, unmet time tables, and in severe cases seizure of private property. However, it is also an example of treating the symptoms instead of the cause.<br /><br />If the problem is crony capitalism (government in bed with businesses) then the solution should be a form of pushing competition. This can be done by creating a comprehensive bidding system, and if the winning bid goes over the budget they proposed then they are liable for all additional costs; the tax-payer should not be footing the bill.<br /><br />Government officials, love 'em or hate 'em, are elected to do these things so that we don't have to. Despite the noble intentions of the amendment's backers, a group called "Hometown Democracy," we put these people in positions of authority so that we don't have to go to the polls every time a change is made in a development plan. There's no definitive evidence on how much this amendment would cost/save taxpayers, but the way I see it is that additional ballot measures every voting cycle would inevitably result in the "need" to create a new bureaucratic office to handle these special elections.<br /><br />Proponents are for Amendment 4 because they claim it puts power back into the hands of the people. But in reality it substitutes one sort of cronyism for another: the developers are now unseated by the voter who may not like a tree in the park across the street being taken out to build a new public bathroom. Like I said before, the best way to protect against these abuses are to create a competitive market for developers and not lock a city into long contracts with a particular company.<br /><br /><b><a href="http://www.collinscenter.org/page/1gFLAmAmend5and6_MS">Nos. 5 and 6 Constitutional Amendments</a><br />Standards for Legislature to Follow in Legislative (5)/Congressional (6) Redistricting<br /><br />Legislative/Congressional districts or districting plans may not be drawn to favor or disfavor an incumbent or political party. Districts shall not be drawn to deny racial or language minorities the equal opportunity to participate in the political process and elect representatives of their choice. Districts must be contiguous. Unless otherwise required, districts must be compact, as equal in population as feasible, and where feasible must make use of existing city, county and geographical boundaries.</b><br /><i>YES</i><br /><br />Both of these are the saying the same thing, but one applies to redistricting for U.S. Congressional districts and the other to the Florida state legislature. Part of my confusion concerning Amendments 5 and 6 was that I already thought there was something that prevented gerrymandering, or the act of drawing district lines in odd shapes (like a salamander) to favor a certain political party.<br /><br />I have some misgivings about these amendments because of the emphasis that districts "shall not be drawn to deny racial or language minorities the equal opportunity to participate in the political process..." I didn't realize anyone <i>was</i> denying them the vote; as though we were living before the 1960s again. I think the concern is that in some districts with large minority populations, minority candidates or candidates favoring minority positions rarely run or are elected. There's no telling that with these amendments anything different will occur, though.<br /><br />The opponent's position, however, is even weaker. Despite Florida having more registered Democrats than Republicans, the state typically votes Republicans into office. Therefore, the Republicans usually get to redraw the district lines. Essentially the opposition point-of-view is "vote NO on 5 and 6 so we can keep favoring Republicans." If that's how you think, then by all means vote that way. But I think you should look at some of the current districts we have and see the ridiculous shapes that they claim are fairly distributed: <a href="http://www.flsenate.gov/data/legislators/senate/DistrictData/SD/SD27.pdf">District 27</a> stretches across the entire state, <a href="http://www.govtrack.us/congress/findyourreps.xpd?state=FL&district=11">District 11</a> includes only a tiny portion of south St. Petersburg, and <a href="http://www.govtrack.us/congress/findyourreps.xpd?state=FL&district=3">District 3</a> starts in Pine Hills, Orlando and goes north all the way to Jacksonville, taking a huge portion of central Florida with it.<br /><br /><b><a href="http://www.collinscenter.org/page/1iFLAmAmend8_MS">No. 8 Constitutional Amendment</a><br />Revision of the Class Size Requirement for Public Schools<br /><br />The Florida Constitution currently limits the maximum number of students assigned to each teacher in public school classrooms in the following grade groupings: for prekindergarten through grade 3, 18 students; for grades 4 through 8, 22 students; and for grades 9 through 12, 25 students. Under this amendment, the current limits on the maximum number of students assigned to each teacher in public school classrooms would become limits on the average number of students assigned per class to each teacher, by specified grade grouping, in each public school. This amendment also adopts new limits on the maximum number of students assigned to each teacher in an individual classroom as follows: for prekindergarten through grade 3, 21 students; for grades 4 through 8, 27 students; and for grades 9 through 12, 30 students. This amendment specifies that class size limits do not apply to virtual classes, requires the Legislature to provide sufficient funds to maintain the average number of students required by this amendment, and schedules these revisions to take effect upon approval by the electors of this state and to operate retroactively to the beginning of the 2010-2011 school year.</b><br /><i>YES</i><br /><br />I had to do a double-take on this one. My first instinct was "NO," because I thought smaller classes were more conducive to learning and I thought that if the school budget was having trouble meeting needs, cuts could be made in other areas. But it turns out that a Harvard study was done on Florida based on the 2002 law that mandated the smaller class sizes, and they found no discernible differences between scores prior to and scores after. Another thing is that the new amendment would change the class size maximum to the class size average in a school.<br /><br />So three classes at an elementary school, A, B, and C, under the current law have 17, 18, and 18 students respectively. Two new students transfer into the school and are put in class A, and one student transfers out of the school and class B. The current law would require a student to be moved from class A to class B to keep the maximum at 18 each. But the new amendment would allow things to remain as is because the <i>overall</i> average in the school is still 18 students in each class. The only problem that would arise is if the new maximum of 21 is breached, but then things are treated the same as before and a new teacher is hired and class is created.<br /><br />The other thing is that an estimated $18.7 billion have been spent trying to meet the class size requirements from the 2002 law. And schools are still not close to meeting the standards by the 2011 deadline. In addition, money is saved overall by not needing to build as many additional schools.<br /><br />The bottom line is the kids shouldn't suffer but neither should the taxpayer, which is exactly what's happening in this instance. Don't let teachers try to persuade you that it's "FOR TEH CHILDRENZ" and a vote for 8 is a vote against kids (although you're welcome to think that if you don't like kids). It's simply about trying to control government spending so that these kids will have a state to live in when they graduate.<br /><br /><b><a href="http://www.collinscenter.org/page/FLAmRDeficit_MS">Nonbinding Statewide Advisory Referendum</a><br /><br />In order to stop the uncontrolled growth of our national debt and prevent excessive borrowing by the federal government, which threatens our economy and national security, should the United States Constitution be amended to require a balanced federal budget without raising taxes?</b><br /><i>YES</i><br /><br />If a family has to live under a budget, why shouldn't the government? The thing about this ballot item is that it is only asking if there <i>should</i> be an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. So in other words a YES vote will only get the ball rolling. But I still think it's a push in the right direction. For the same reason's Proposition 19 in California is getting the discussion going on decriminalizing marijuana, this kind of vote will make people consider the unrestrained spending that Congress has been forcing on us for decades.<br /><br /><br />I hope my synopses help you decide one way or the other on how to vote on November 2nd. The most important part is that you take an interest in your community, your state, and your country and vote on what you think best benefits that which you hold dear. Let's hit the polls hard, people, and let the government know what is important to us.generic Brandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11189402545943772384noreply@blogger.com0