Loss of Freedom

This is crazy. I just heard about a couple of people who were at a public transportation station in Chicago, minding their own business. Suddenly the police came and detained them, just because they had their cameras out. Apparently the police called and checked with the federal homeland security whatever, and threatened to confiscate their film. Finally, they let them go, but they said they were registered on the list, and were told that it was illegal to take a picture of anything related to transportation, planes, trains, bridges, etc.!

I find this crazy. Sounds more like a story one would’ve heard from the “eastern block” or U.S.S.R. back in a day, but it was here in America in the past couple of days. It seems to me that terrorists Continue reading →

Ron Paul

I think I’ve found my favorite congressman:

Just a few days after the presidential election, U.S. Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) — the only libertarian in Congress — rose to the House floor to deliver a stinging critique of the Bush administration’s war policy, assaults on civil liberties, and massive increases in the size and cost of government.

During the wide-ranging speech, Congressman Paul — a devout Christian who opposes abortion —urged the millions of pro-life Christian conservative voters who voted for Bush to abandon support for the Iraq war and related military globalism.

Said Paul:

“It’s clear the Christian conservative turnout was critical to the President’s re-election. Though many may well have voted for the Continue reading →

Glorifying War

Last weekend I was over in Ohio with some friends, and we ended up going to the air force museum in our free time. Typical of guys, they were quite interested in all the planes and thought it was really cool. I however was actually kind of freaked out by the place. A photo section got me to thinking about how we, often in movies and more so in recruitment ads, glorify war in many ways, making soldiers out to be heroes, etc. They had there a large section on world war II. I lead me to think that it was the darkest time in modern history. Some of the world’s greatest races, Germans, Italians, and Japanese, used their great power to end up killing millions, decimating cities, and oppressing everyone. I think now that I find the whole thought Continue reading →

America for Freedom and Democracy?

I think it’s interesting how we in America talk so much about freedom and democracy, and yet were becoming more socialistic in the sense that we have a plethora of laws that spell out exactly what we can, can’t and must do.

I think it’s interesting how we in America talk so much about freedom and democracy, and yet there are many people around the world that are personally affected by what we do, who have no vote or say in who is making our decisions.

It’s not because of our freedoms that some people hate us. It’s because we continually mettle in the affairs of others, trying to control the world and change it to benefit us, but saying we’re doing it because of some moral calling.

Note: I’m not anti-America, but if we want to Continue reading →

Movie Review: Saved!

I went to see Saved! the other day with some friends, and I actually really liked it. It was better than I thought it was going to be from some of the comments I had heard. It actually seemed pretty much right on to me. Many people probably think this is a movie made by non christians to make fun of christians, but that’s not the sense I got at all. Sure there’s some poking fun at christians, but it’s a kind of a laughing at our idiosyncrasies rather than malicious humor. I think there had to be someone with some “inside experience” in order to have done such a good job with the tricky subject matter. I also think that christians are the ones that this movie is directed towards. Just as a joke about a scientist would most likely be lost to Continue reading →

Church and Politics Question

Question posed by Shane Fuller, one of the ministers at College Park: “Do we vote for the person who claims to be a born again christian, or do we vote for the person who is most likely to help the poor and under-privileged?”

Tax Reform

Monday night I went to a tax reform debate. Though I believe more were invited, there were three people on the panel of experts. Two were pro “tax reform” and one was not. Tax reform in this context means a proposed federal sales tax replacing income and corporate taxes. I was aware of this idea from the past, however not very familiar with it.

If you look at the economy as being circular, then the same amount of money is removed from the economy by taxing no matter where you take it from. The difference at that point is the efficiency of the means of collecting tax. While it seems that a sales tax might be more efficient to manage, I had not been convinced that the benefit out weighed the challenge of changing the way things are done Continue reading →

Disturbing Indictment

Woman refuses C-section, is charged when baby stillborn

Interestingly enough, this story disturbs me, but not for the reason you might think. Actually, the brief quote that ends the article describes my fear. It is quite ironic that it is permissible to “abort” an unborn child, but a crime when one of the babies dies naturally, simply because medical action could have been taken, that may have helped. Why it concerns me is this, in the case of an abortion, a person actively goes and decides to terminate the pregnancy. They go out of their way, and use their time and money to make this happen. In this case, a woman simply didn’t want a c-section. While I support life, and it seems that in this case the woman probably should have chose Continue reading →

Movie Review: The Passion of the Christ

I went to see the movie, “The Passion of the Christ” last night, and felt that I wanted to post my thoughts. Especially in the last few weeks, momentum has really built for this movie. Many people have been talking about it, and the hype has grown to the point that it is expected to be one of the top Wednesday opening movies ever (measured by gross income). Of course, this is quite interesting considering the controversial subject matter (being religious in nature) and the fact that it wasn’t produced by one of the major Hollywood studios. Beyond that, the entire movie is spoken in foreign languages: Latin, Aramaic, and Hebrew. But people have been saying some interesting things about this film, such as, “This was not simply a movie; it Continue reading →