Not sure who you are gonna vote for?
From Kottke
Archive for the 'Statecraft' Category
I was pondering war and Jesus tonight. I asked myself if Jesus would support the war in Iraq or any war for that matter. I don’t know. I don’t think so. Love your enemies definitely doesn’t sound like his hat in the ring. Blessed are the peacemakers, do to others as you would have them do to you…here’s a good one:
Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, Let me take the speck out of your eye, when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
Add in his love for the downtrodden and disdain for his local bureaucracy and it seems like Jesus would most definitely be against war.
How can we marry this image of God with the one we get in the old testament? A God who seemingly supported war and violence against his enemies and those of his people.
So we are left with a good question:
Does God changes his mind?
It’s not unprecedented, but it makes it hard to believe in an infallible God.
Let’s take a look at our current war for a second without getting too political. Simplifying it, republicans support the war (or at least did initially) and democrats don’t (or didn’t). Now, I won’t say ALL Christians are republicans but that is the traditional party affiliation (for some good and bad reasons), so I understand why Christians politically supported the war because they were supporting the consensus of one our their social groups, but what if they really thought about it…
I don’t think we can be social or religious Jesus followers but not political ones. Heart, Soul, Mind, Strength…he pretty much covered everything.
What do you guys think?
If you haven’t heard Chocolate Rain yet, than your not cool on the internets. It is by far the reason our society will fall. We are Rome and Youtube is the gladiator games. The barbarians (terrorists) will sack us in our weakly guarded territories (South Dakota) and the empire will fall.*
The below is a parody of Chocolate Rain by Chad Vader:
*It’s also been said Youtube is just like metaphorically driving behind a big red suburban.
From the New Yorker:
III. How College Kids Imagine the United States Government
THE PRESENT DAY
—Did you hear the news, Mr. President? The students at the University of Pittsfield are walking out of their classes, in protest over the war.
—(spits out coffee) Wha— What did you say?
—Apparently, students are standing up in the middle of lectures and walking right out of the building.
—But students love lectures. If they’re willing to give those up, they must really be serious about this peace thing! How did you hear about this protest?
—The White House hears about every protest, no matter how small.
—Oh, right, I remember.
—You haven’t heard the half of it, Mr. President. The leader of the group says that if you don’t stop the war today they’re going to . . . to . . . I’m sorry, I can’t say it out loud. It’s just too terrifying.
—Say it, damn it! I’m the President!
—All right! If you don’t stop the war . . . they’re going to stop going to school for the remainder of the week.
—Send the troops home.
—But, Mr. President! Shouldn’t we talk about this?
—Send the troops home.
THE NINETEEN-SIXTIES
—Mr. President! Did you hear about Woodstock?
—Woo— Woodstock? What in God’s name is that?
—Apparently, young people hate the war so much they’re willing to participate in a musical sex festival as a protest against it.
—Oh, my God. They must really be serious about this whole thing.
—That’s not all. Some of them are threatening to join communes: places where they make their own clothing . . . and beat on drums.
—Stop the war.
—But, Mr. President!
—Stop all American wars!
—(sighs) Very well, sir. I’ll go tell the generals.
—Wow. It’s a good thing those kids decided to go hear music.
South Korea is assembling a panel of five to set ground rules for how humans and robots will interact in the future. The panel will call itself the “fellowship” and consists of two hobbits, a dwarf, an elf, and a ranger. According to the BBC News, the koreans aren’t the only ones looking ahead to THE FUTURE (said with echo):
Other bodies are also thinking about the robotic future. Last year a UK government study predicted that in the next 50 years robots could demand the same rights as human beings.
I’ve read that report. A policeman with a general distrust of robots had to investigate a crime committed by one. He ends up becoming friends with it and the robot helps him solve the crime. Waaaiitt….That’s a movie staring Will Smith.
The rules that are being used to form the basis of South Korea law are the same used by THE FUTURE in iROBOT (not the vacuum, although I’ve never trusted those little devils):
- A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
- A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
- A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law
The problem with us talking about intelligent robots who can make their own decisions and then assigning laws to them is that all types of creation are subject to their rescpective creators. Humans can’t keep the above rules, can you imagine how screwed up something we made would be?
This is old news, but I came across it again yesterday and it made me think of a passage from the old testament my little brother sent me. It’s pretty scathing AND….wait for it…
It’s not talking about “sinners”. It’s towards the church (at that time the Jews).
10“Listen to my Message,
you Sodom-schooled leaders.
Receive God’s revelation,
you Gomorrah-schooled people.
11“Why this frenzy of sacrifices?”
GOD’s asking.
“Don’t you think I’ve had my fill of burnt sacrifices,
rams and plump grain-fed calves?
Don’t you think I’ve had my fill
of blood from bulls, lambs, and goats?
12When you come before me,
who ever gave you the idea of acting like this,
Running here and there, doing this and that–
all this sheer commotion in the place provided for worship?
13“Quit your worship charades.
I can’t stand your trivial religious games:
Monthly conferences, weekly Sabbaths, special meetings–
meetings, meetings, meetings–I can’t stand one more!
14Meetings for this, meetings for that. I hate them!
You’ve worn me out!
I’m sick of your religion, religion, religion,
while you go right on sinning.
15When you put on your next prayer-performance,
I’ll be looking the other way.
No matter how long or loud or often you pray,
I’ll not be listening.
And do you know why? Because you’ve been tearing
people to pieces, and your hands are bloody.
16Go home and wash up.
Clean up your act.
Sweep your lives clean of your evildoings
so I don’t have to look at them any longer.
Say no to wrong.
17Learn to do good.
Work for justice.
Help the down–and-out.
Stand up for the homeless.
Go to bat for the defenseless.
Isiah 1:1-17 (The Message)
This made we want to throw up…on myself. Not really, a nacho cheese chalupa makes me wanna throw up. This just makes me mad.
We have to face the ugly monster that is US politics early enough, some baby shouldn’t be poisoned with it. I’m not saying this because it’s a democratic book. I would be mad if I saw Why Daddy is a Republican. (Though I will take this opportunity to take a cheapshot at democrats…here it comes) Wouldn’t it be funny if the book was really about what today’s democratic party is for? A few, more apt, titles I came up with:
Why Mommy voted to kill your potential friends
Why Mommy wants you to pay taxes on your inheritance when she dies
or
Why Mommy wants to protect murderers
I guess the democratic rebuttal is that republicans have the same book they read to their children…only with a cooler name.
The Bible.
I was watching tv this evening when one of two million political commercials came on. The commercial is the voice-over of a mother talking about how she knows her daughter would tell her about getting pregnant and having an abortion, but she is concerned about girls who live in abusive homes that would be endangered by being forced to get parental permission to have an abortion.
I literally yelled out loud when I saw this. What utter manipulative bullcrap! We don’t want to get a girl beat up so let her kill the baby without talking to anyone about it.
And as you would expect the commercial was paid for by Planned Parenthood.
Everyone should be registered to vote as we have an upcoming election and while sometimes we get so fed up with the politics of politics (and the corruption), not voting won’t fix that. The problem is that it takes a lot of time to be knowledgeable about the candidates and issues at hand. That is why we simply chose to vote down party lines or even simply on looks. And that is why we have crooks and rapists in congress (also because all human beings are essentially civilized barbarians).
Well there is a partial answer to the problem. At washingtonwatch.com you can read up on all the bills congress is voting on and see their significance in very simple american terms…no not freedom…money. Each bill is labeled by the cost or savings per family. If you want to read further you can find out which way your representatives voted and a simple description of the bill. If you really want to dig deep you can read the bill itself.
There are a lot of reasons why I hate the internet (I have to blog for you wolves everyday), but washingtonwatch is a bright spot.
