political apologetics

Last night i watched some West Wing from the first season, which is something that i hadn't done in a very long time. i was shocked to discover that i had seen six out of the first eight episodes. i didn't think i started watching the show until the second or third season. i'm wondering if i caught reruns later on and didn't realize that it was the first season because Moira Kelly is only in half of the episodes.

i forgot how much i loved this show. i absolutely love CJ's klutziness and ineptitude with men (which is funny because Danny's throwing himself at her). i love Toby's crankiness and Sam and Josh's sarcasm. i love Leo's authority and quiet fortitude in the face of his divorce. i love that Donna wants to buy a dvd player, but can't because the administration doesn't "trust her to make a smart investment" so she keeps the change from Josh's lunch for the same reason. i love the chemistry between Jed and Abbey, how she didn't come in right away but was instantly the perfect first lady for the president that has the tendency to get pissed off at the wrong time for the right reasons. i love how this president is pro-life and has faith despite the fact that he's a Democrat (actually, his Catholicism is probably why he's a Democrat, i'm merely commenting on the fact that most in that party are not pro-life, though i am glad to say there are exceptions), that he's a complete nerd, that everyone in the office is brilliant, but makes mistakes like the rest of us.

At the moment, i am exhausted with politics. One of the things i dislike about the West Wing is the tendency for the characters to get conceited towards whoever they're talking to, with total disregard for the person's personal beliefs, because the former "knows" that he or she is smarter, and right. i will allow that very often this attitude turns around to bite them in the butt, but not always. i'm thinking of one time where the Prez and VP are having a fight because they both feel as if the other man is slighting them, not giving enough respect. Why do men have such conceit? Why do they have to strut and make themselves look stupid in attempt to achieve the opposite?

i will never vote any party line. If i was in Congress, i would vote my conscience. i'm not good at falling in line just to fulfill the wishes of someone with their own agenda for its own sake instead of primarily doing what's right for the country and its citizens. Which of course is why i'll never be in Congress, because our government apparently isn't run that way.

The most important issue to me with always be life. i feel bad for Michael J. Fox, i do, but i will never be able to justify using the helpless in an attempt to strengthen the strong, particularly when research with adult stem cells has proved to be more promising than fetal stem cells. i know it's not popular to be pro-life, because everyone wants to feel as if they have been empowered to make whatever choice they want in order to make themself feel better, stronger, etc., but that always needs to be prefaced with not harming anyone else... Which is why i do not understand the Libertarian line on being pro-choice: if hurting others does not apply to killing an innocent and helpless baby, then what does? Punishing someone else for your own mistakes is wrong (not that i consider a baby to be a mistake).

i believe in smaller government, because government has the tendency to take away freedoms, to attempt to control that which should be up to the individual, to become a nanny state that wants to take care of its people from cradle to grave. i believe in individuals empowering themselves, not having anyone tell them "this is how you must live your life because we say so." That isn't a life. i am against socialism 100% because it penalizes the successful for achieving success and says that the individual has no right to defend one's self from those that would seek to put him or her down and keep them there. i am for freedom and capitalism because other systems subvert the right to liberty and to pursue happiness. One's happiness should never depend on the government taking money away from one neighbor and give it to the neighbor who refuses to take part in the pursuit or is less able (taking care of those less able is a responsibility of the Church and charities).

i don't believe in evolution, and if i did then i would be for Survival of the Fittest in terms of man: we are at the top of the food chain. So it makes absolutely no sense for an evolutionist to believe in protecting the environment because we would only be doing what we had evolved to do. i don't believe in global warming, but i believe in conservation and protecting the environment as long as it is not at the loss of human life and livelihood (in other words, within reason). The Bible tells us that man is meant to subdue and protect the earth.

i believe in the Constitution, in what the Founding Fathers were trying to achieve, even as i acknowledge that there were some compromises made within its lines. The Declaration of Independence stated that all men are created equal, and it's horrible how America took advantage of Native Americans and slaves (no matter what their heritage), but i cannot change that. i cannot make any reparations, i can only fight against enslaving new peoples. Even as i am proud of my German heritage, i am aware that my American grandparents' distant cousins allowed (perhaps even caused) horrible things to happen. i cannot change that, either, i can only speak out against it happening in this country as well.

i have never wanted to live in the past before, but oh how i envy how our ancestors were able to travel to a new, untamed land, and form it with their hands into something better. There is no place left on this earth that hasn't been claimed, that cannot be worked by people of all races working to improve their lives while remaining mindful of their equality, own ability to overcome problem's that their peers may fail at, protect the land they have been given, and choose to help enable their neighbors when they are able. Despite my great love for this country, in some ways i am ready to abandon it, for fear of what it is pressing towards becoming. Obama is no Bartlet, and even as i hope for deliverance i live in fear.

i do not believe in world peace. i know that sounds horrible, but it's true. i'm no xenophobe, i want to travel around the world, i don't want to wage war, but praying for one world government, for world peace, is like begging God to enable the anti-Christ. Read your Bible, things are going to be horrific once this happens.

i am not British, but i have grown up reading their literature and learning about their history (more about their history than any other foreign country, at least). There is a chance that i have some Scottish blood in me, but i do not know that with complete certainty. When i say that i am a Conservative, i will not ever apologize for that, but that does not mean the same thing to the rest of the world, or even to many in this country, that it does to one who is conservative It is important to understand the process that brought our country to the point where, what once was an outrageous idea, is now the one that is set in stone and steeped in hundreds of years of history. i am definitely no expert in the matter, but i have a bit of an understanding that the Founding Fathers were intellectuals that knew what parts of Roman republicanism worked and incorporated that with aspects of British parliamentary practices. They knew that having a king can be just as dangerous as having a dictator, and had learned from earlier colonists that socialism was a good way to make colonies fail.

So they did the unthinkable and formed a government that limited the powers of the government and empowered the rights of the individual. This didn't work perfectly, because at first the federal government didn't have enough power, and slave owners had more rights than they should have, but even the authors of a noble experiment are fallible and likely to make mistakes. The question is whether or not we have learned from those mistakes. The ideals espoused by America's Founding Fathers are still considered to be extreme by people around the world, to be a beacon of hope to the people who believe in the same dream they did. i'm sure that many consider those ideals to be liberal (in the truest sense of the world), but over time these ideals stopped being strongly espoused by many in the Democrat party and became the protectorate of the then newly formed Republican party, that is to say Lincoln's party. We were liberal enough to change the Constitution to free the slaves but conservative enough to cling to the ideas in the Constitution that work. Now we are considered to just be backwards, when in reality we are still carrying the banner in an ongoing experiment.

i do not know much about the Progressives in this country, and most of my information on them is from Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, who i do not always agree with but acknowledge are smarter and better informed than i am (it helps to have a staff, i'm sure). But the Progressives, who are hiding behind the labels of liberal and Democrat, are really nothing of the sort. Democrats originally were called Democratic Republicans, and held to the same ideals now considered to be conservative (some still do, of course). The Democrat party has been hijacked by people who want us to believe that they are trying something new, a noble experiment where everyone is equal and everything will be sunshine and daisies. The trouble is that it's all a lie. They are only espousing socialism, Marxism, etc, they only want to take money from the rich and keep everyone poor in order to place themselves in power, and anyone who does not fall in line will be damned. i watched the Hiding Place last week, i saw a little of what the Nazis did to those who spoke up for those who did not have a voice. You can watch Schindler's List to see a bit of what happened to the people the Ten Booms were speaking up for.

i ask you, is that what anyone wants America to become? Do we want the people with large families to be arrested? The people who believe in the same God that the majority of our Founding Fathers did to be told that they cannot teach their own children what they believe? You laugh at me, but children are already being (essentially) brainwashed in public schools and there were hints of getting children to inform on their parents even a couple of decades ago (i'm sure it's worse now). Having a large family, something which was once normal (in Austen's day, a family of eight children was *small*), is now considered to be incredible, even crazy. Now we are told that our planet does not have enough resources to sustain us and that we are selfish to love our children while the rest of the world suffers (even as governments controlled by those with similar feelings to the Progressives keep those peoples controlled and held down).

It astounds me how many people are against the war in Iraq. Did it happen for the wrong reasons? Of course it did. Were there any nukes? No, but Hussein wanted us to think that there were, he thumbed his nose at us, and lied through his teeth. The truth is that he did have weapons that he wasn't meant to and the he was suppressing a people just as the Nazis suppressed the Jews and many Christians (those termed political prisoners). Why are we saying that it was a bad thing to overthrow a tyrant such as this? Why is it a horrible thing to rebuild a country that was ravaged by its own leader? Oh, i know, it's not our place to help them rebuild, what then should we say to Japan and every other country on this planet that owes the U.S. money because we helped them rebuild. Yes, we nuked Japan, we have waged war (and not always in ways that were right), but we always try to rebuild things better than before we came.

Is this news to anyone? America stopped socialism and communism in other countries, and struck blows to them elsewhere, all to be demonized for standing up for the principles we were founded upon. Tyranny is not as easy to get away with as it once was, though in my opinion it is still far too easy. Now the Progressives are here, ready to strike at the heart of those who have defended the weak, the poor, for so long, and helped them achieve greatness. What will happen to the world if we--the Beacon for freedom--should fall? Who will stand against oppression then? There will be no one, such will be the day that the anti-christ comes to power. The world will rejoice, the Christians will hopefully be raptured, and the Jews will go into hiding. Those who stand for freedom, for the radical ideas that were espoused by the Founding Fathers, will be mocked and killed. Right now, that time seems closer than ever.



ETA: i firmly uphold everyone's right to believe and say whatever they choose, but i will never remain silent to appease those who are ignorant or have ill will. i know that many disagree with me, i mean no hatred or disrespect, and am not seeking to start a fight, but hopefully gently inform. However, i am tired of being insulted every single day i sit in class because people around me don't believe that my opinion is as valid, or smart, as theirs. i love history, i love the USA, and i pray for its people, those who are content to be led into the darkness because they do not or cannot recognize it for what it is. This battle is not about what political party one belongs to, but whether we are willing to stand against, what history shows to be a brutal and would be just as much (if not more) so were such a regime to come to power in the United States.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
~ George Santayana

drained... and stuck in my head

Well there was finally an e-mail today from the people who organized the 9 12 Project meetup, and they have been working on a website, so that is a relief. There is so much i wanted to write about yesterday afternoon while i was at work, so much that i heard on the radio that i wanted to respond to. i hardly recognize this country anymore.

Today i am exhausted, and don't remember or care to write about any of it. i'm so ready for the weekend, but of course even the weekend doesn't bring any rest. i've been praying, but then that doesn't bring any answers either.

Lately i have been thinking about Brad. For a while there was nothing i could think of to endear myself to him, there was nothing that i liked about him anymore. Now i don't know, i hardly remember what it was like to talk to him face to face. We had a lot of problems, there were a lot of things that i didn't like about our relationship that i couldn't change, and i don't want to be in a relationship where i want to change the man i'm with. But i would be lying if i said that i never loved him, that i do not still love him. i've been listening to a lot of music from while we were together, right after we separated, and i can still feel that. To be perfectly honest i don't know what to do about it. A part of me wants to reconnect with him, to try to patch things up, because i still love him, but i have a feeling that it would never work. i don't think that he loves me, he is closed off. The way he treated me is not the way a person treats someone that they love.

i have been abandoned quite literally, first by him, now by my sister and online "friends." i feel like i am getting nowhere in WoW, the leaders of the guild never schedule raids when i can be online, i'm now working an extra day a week, so instead of things getting easier they're getting even harder. i cannot keep doing this, i cannot sustain this. i don't know what to choose for my research paper for American Lit, i don't know how to do all my homework while i'm working, i can't find time to get on WoW, i don't get enough sleep, i don't have the time or energy to run, my life is a mess.

Brad used me; whenever he got drunk he would get depressed and come unload on Megan or me. i'm not saying that i don't care about what he's going through, but in the same token i have never been allowed to share what my needs are because he would just shut me down and ignore me. Every time i hear about how he's doing, he's still acting childish, he still seems to want to use me instead of share a life or even friendship. i can dream of what could have been, but rationally i have no reason to believe that such a future is even possible.




i keep thinking about Evanescence's Lithium: she sings about trying not to forget how she found herself when she was in the dark, how she doesn't want to let go of that as she gets "healthy." A perfect picture of my relationship with Brad is their song "Call Me When You're Sober." But when i listen to Ingrid Michaelson's "Die Alone," the lyrics say "don't be a fool girl ~ tell him you love him ~ don't be a fool girl ~ you're not above him," and i'm wondering if i'm just being a fool, if i'm too proud to forgive him for how he hurt me. i want to forgive him, even though he did the unthinkable. i don't know if that says more about me in terms of mercy or pure desperation.

Then there's the song i heard on K-Love earlier this week: "why are you looking for love ~ why are you still searching as if I'm not enough ~ to where will you go child ~ tell me where will you run ~ to where will you run." It's hard for me to listen to the mockery contained in a lyric like that; i fully believe it even while it's not apparent or "true" in my own life. i don't know how to look for / run to God anymore, i don't know how to pray to Him, because i never get any response. i have to be honest in my prayers, or i get a niggling of guilt, and i would rather "cover my hand with my mouth" than continue begging Him to respond.

In spiritual terms, i am not running anywhere, i cannot even get off the ground. i alternate between prostrating myself on the ground before Him and trying to crawl in the direction i think He must be. But what do i know? When it's pitch black because you're blind and utterly silent because you're deaf and you're in the midst of sensory deprivation then what do you have to go on? Spiritually that is where i am, for all i know i am caged, or falling through an abyss, because i might as well be when He does not respond or lead. He doesn't fulfill the promises He gave in the Bible, but maybe i shouldn't assume that those promises are meant for me, maybe they are only meant for the people He gave them to. i don't dwell on these things, because i don't want to be angry at God, i don't want to be blasphemous in my truth, i don't have the luxury of collapsing under the burden i carry, with no relief in sight, and i don't have the luxury of sitting back and waiting for Him to rescue me. A part of me wonders what the point of waiting is after a decade, whether He ever will come back to me (i always have felt in a sense like this is a sick, twisted version of the prodigal son)... but then i have to remember that i'm nothing without Him, that i can't do this on my own, and that's the entire reason my entire life has been so bad for the past decade, where all my tries have failed.

So what's the point of trying at all? Of course, what am i going to do, wander around in the desert like John the Baptist or run from coast to coast like Forest Gump? i don't ignore my life like that. We are meant to strive, we are meant to pursue, if i cease to do that then i cease to be. i don't know if i have already been destroyed in the fire, that's the way it feels, as if i have been melted away with the dross, but i have to have faith that God knows what He's doing in my life.

"Anything is better than to be alone"... she sings about forgiveness. i came to that a long time ago, i'm not mad anymore. Yet coming to what seems like it would be a life-shattering and -changing choice has changed nothing at all. i'm still in the same place. i never reach decisions or realizations that change everything. And i wonder if it's as simple as in the song Lithium, if i can just choose to let go of the darkness, of course she also singing about only knowing herself in the dark. And a part of me would rather have the dark, and a place where i can be honest with myself, than all the superficial things that i am striving for. i'd rather have spiritual and emotional truth than an empty life that is "successful." i like myself the way i am, angry about corrupt politicians, striving to make myself a better person, desperately wanting to fly in the face of authority but restraining myself as to not offend.

It's so funny, i'm always trying not to offend other people and no one gives a care about offending me... they do it all the time unapologetically. People treat me like something stuck on the bottom of their shoe, are rude, and it's construed as my fault, my problem. i keep remembering what my mother told me as a child, that it's rude to tell someone that they're being rude... Why is that? Wouldn't it be better to be honest, to call them out on their utter b.s., than to put up with it?

Succumbing to politics because the example fits: on Boortz this morning was a former adviser of Margaret Thatcher's, Christopher Monckton. He was talking about Global Warming, how Al Gore won't respond to his challenge to a debate, how the thermometers that are monitoring the huge "rise" in temperatures are purposefully positioned next to manmade machines and urban developments that will artificially raise the temperature, how the scientists have manipulated the figures from decades ago in order to make their findings appear legit. These scientists are perpetrating a gigantic hoax for fame and glory. He has found 35 errors in An Inconvenient Truth. So, are Boortz and Monckton wrong to call these people liars? That's what they are, and so many people believe them.

i think that one of the biggest problems with out country right now is that the people who know the truth are silenced. It isn't socially acceptable to be the voice of dissent, to not be politically correct, and as a result so many people are simply ignorant of the truth. Take that video i posted yesterday: with everything that Congress has done in this year alone, how are we not marching to DC right now? It's insanity. We're letting them get away with things that are illegal. What are we going to do about it? Anyway, that's what i'be been trying to figure out.