The Rusted Musket

Of course Muslims can build a mosque at ground zero if it tickles their fancy, but in lieu of what happened just down the block doesn’t it kinda feel like a bad joke? Like in the same way a Japanese water park a ship or two over from the remains of the USS Arizona would be?

I don’t believe this is me spewing some sort of anti Muslim cyber bigotry, I’m more inclined to think it’s just some form of common sense pointing out some nonsensical-ness, like calling out a friend who accidentally walks out the door wearing two different patterns of plaid.

For instance, would it be cool if a fringe Christian group flew a plane into, and totally destroyed the Mosque of the Prophet, and then built a church by its remains a few years later? That would seem kinda tasteless, or lacking in style, wouldn’t it? Oh well…

I was laying on my belly under the shady tree by the volleyball pits; it was Bible camp week. Spread out in front of me, at the edge of my trusty Mexico blanket, sat two items. A folded up Anglican version of the Apostles’ Creed and GK Chesterton’s Orthodoxy. The Apostles’ Creed was necessary in order that I might understand Orthodoxy, for, as Chesterton put it, “When the word “orthodoxy” is used here it means the Apostle’s Creed, as understood by all who call themselves Christians… until a very short time ago.” ¹

So, a book called Orthodoxy, an Apostles’ Creed, blue sky’s in front, and volleyball pits behind. This is how I entered chapter one…

According to Chesterton, the Maniac is the type who needs all the answers, who puts fairy tales in there proper place, who, instead of floating easily “on the infinite sea” seeks to cross it and make it finite. ² This is the man who sees an unreasonable universe and tries to make it wholly reasonable, which of course it never is. The Maniac tries to fit the heavens into their head and can’t. The land of the maniac is not Narnia, Hogwarts, Middle Earth or Dagobah.

This isn’t to say that reason is bad, it isn’t, Chesterton merely warns against reason divorced from its dancing partner; mystery. For when “you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity.” ³ A normal life demands the abnormalities of imagination, of this I try my best to indulge. For instance, I trend towards these fantastical images as my computers desktop background, stuff like orange hued skies with bending trees or little Gorp’s investigating flowers; I love these things, they speak the language of mystery and can be trusted to lead the way to truth and sanity.

Why after all, the universal imagination, the vivid dreams of other lands if we’re just “leaves inevitably folding on an utterly unconscious tree,” if we’re just following the “blind destiny of matter.” ⁴

Image Credit: daewoniii

As a student of the Western Empire there’s a natural infinity I have for individualism, especially the rugged kind; and Indiana Jones fedora’s. A problem occurs however when I try to combine this individualism with my life in Christ. For they are in fact, incompatible. As much as I love rugged individualism I have to admit, Christ doesn’t talk about it, rather, he talks about membership.

Did you know that membership is a uniquely Christian word, one that Christian’s made up to best explain what was going on? Member, in the Greek, means organ, and this membership is what the Christian is called to, not solitary individualism, or collectivism I might add. We are not just another “specimen of some kind of things as X and Y and Z,” we are a body, where the parts are not interchangeable and also dependent on the other. Lewis explains it as if each person is almost a species in himself. He continues by using a metaphor of family, “The mother is not simply a different person from the daughter; she is a different kind of person. The grownup brother is not simply one unit in the class of children; he is a separate estate of the realm. The father and grandfather are almost as different as the cat and the dog. If you subtract any one member, you have not simply reduced the family in number; you have inflicted an injury on its structure. It’s unity is a unity of unlikes, almost of incommensurables.” ¹ (incommensurable means almost impossible to measure or compare)

Unity compels us, and is compelling to us. As a boy I had my mom read the Wind in the Willows again and again, not because the pictures were awesome, which of course they were, rather, the Rat, Mole, and Badger working together “in harmonious union, which we know intuitively to be our true refuge both from solitude and from the collective” ² made me feel good. Of course, as a boy I couldn’t have articulated myself like Lewis did, but the seemingly incompatible group that conquers insurmountable odds in Wind in the Willows resonated within my little chest. Just like the Star Wars crew, or the Lord of the Rings party would as I grew older. All of these seemingly incompatible groups that conquer insurmountable odds pointing to what could only be fully fleshed out in Christian membership.

It simply won’t work any other way, a christian Achilles, or replacing name with number…

My John Marston’s awesome. He wears the Legend of the West outfit, uses dead eye to shoot dudes off horses, and once killed a grizzly with nothing but his bowie knife. His long arm of the law is the double action revolver.

Red Dead Redemption’s redeeming features are sweeping vistas, a good cowboy storyline, dialog that’s never a bore (at least when Marston’s doing the talking), and assorted moments of pure cowboy bliss, such as storming the mansion in Tumbleweed. Also, I just can’t tell you how much fun riding a virtual horse is, that is, until you accidentally shoot it in the back of the head while riding during multiplayer. Honorable mention goes to the audio, I once was playing during a thunderstorm with my surround sound on and couldn’t tell the difference between the thunderclaps in my living room and those outside.

Still, let it be known, in my opinion the games not worth paying full retail. But I suppose if you haven’t much going on this summer it’s not a bad one to pick up.

The things I didn’t like about the game are as follows.

There was a stiffness, a general clunkiness of 3rd person movement that annoyed. All I want to do is walk up the stairs, in between the railings, to the front door, before the rancher’s daughter gets shot darn it. Then there was the default snails pace walk speed which guarantees you’ll never want to walk. And the multiplayer, I just don’t think it’s great. The open roam will see you recycling the same six gang hideouts again and again. I mean, I can only do Pike’s Basin or Fort Mercer so many times. I suppose there is a lot to do if you get a posse going on, like taking on other posse units that are sharing your free roam session, maybe I lack the creativity to exploit that which is actually awesome. The team based games are great, okay, and terrible all at the same time. Some guys rock your socks off and usually have their friends with them, which makes for backing out of games to find a different server an often occurrence because the skill level match maker is on vacation (yes, I had some very rough rounds last night, hence my vitriol).

In conclusion I foresee myself playing Red Dead Redemption for another week or so, enjoying it, and reselling it on Ebay for something respectable before the price starts nosediving towards the thirty dollar mark, which, by the time of this article, hasn’t happened yet. Which goes to show there might still be room in this semi auto world for a six gun man, at least, for a little while longer…

I highly recommend this article by The Onion. Normally I don’t take what they say too seriously, but this article has a lot of satirical truth in it. Basically it is talking about how the governmental official don’t trust the citizens that elected them, which is a spin on citizens not trusting the politicians in office.

Its so interesting because its so true. Congress is at a rock bottom approval rate and has been for years, they don’t get a whole lot done and what they do get done is not what people want. They don’t listen to the citizens and just work their own agenda. I rarely hear of someone who likes a politician that is in office, they may agree on some points and disagree on others, but there is rarely that connection, or trust of the official. But maybe the flip is also true, citizens of this nation are a very fickle bunch who want handouts but aren’t willing to pay for them. They want the government to fix all their problems and they want to blame someone when something goes wrong. Its the blame game, I’m sure you played it as a kid. You never say its your fault, you always blame someone else. The sad truth is that most problems our country is facing is the result of collective consent.

For instance, kids doing badly in school is generally two fold. Our school system is broke because it never should have been in the government’s hands in the first place and the government poisons everything it touches, but the other big problem is that parents aren’t involved anymore. People who really shouldn’t have had kids did and they don’t give them the proper attention and care. Who’s fault is it then? The government and their screwed up system, or the parents of their lack of attention? Both I’m sure.

Or how about health care. Why is it so expensive? Well surely some of it has to do with doctors needing very expensive malpractice insurance because people are suing and getting crazy amounts of money way over what they should. Yes the doctor screwed up, yes they should pay for it, but to the tune of millions? I don’t think so. There are many other instances, like people not taking their antibiotics properly causing it to be less effective and requiring more, or different meds. People going in and tying up doctors time for stupid things.

Anyway, the article is very interesting and true in a kind of backwards, kind of way…

Image from The Onion

Cinco de Mayo usually means I’ll go to lunch for taco’s, a burrito, maybe even an enchilada. But if you’re a kid attending a predominately Hispanic public school whilst donning your favorite American flag tshirt, hi-top shoes, or bandanna on Cinco de Mayo, you’ll be sent home. The message, it’s okay to wear patriotic gear, just not on Cinco de Mayo.

Ponder this with me.

By law, every public school must have an American flag flying outside the building. I wonder, did they also take down that flag as the flag wearing students walked to their parents cars?

The Wall Street Journal has a article aptly named: “Hi. My Name Is America, and I’m a Deficit Addict.”

It is a very interesting article and well worth the read. The author starts off by saying that the deficit (and Federal debt in general) is something that everyone talks about but nobody does anything about. How true is that? Its like this story I heard about some fishermen.

There was a group of fishermen who bought all the latest gear, read all the articles and magazines about fishing, and talked endlessly about fishing. But they never actually went fishing. The government (meaning politicians that are running it), and maybe even American citizens, are like those fishermen. They are afraid of change and afraid of failure. Instead of being a hero and hated (yes both) for fixing the problem they leave everything at the status quo. What will it take to finally make them realize that they are killing this country? We simply can’t afford trillion dollar deficits or we are going to implode.

I got dreams about what would be the ideal solution; such as cutting social security, medicare, department of education and all the other unconstitutional, practically worthless departments that have sprung up. Having actual fiscal oversight and a government website that details every penny spent, who spent it and who approved it.
But I’m a realist, I know that those kinds of changes would to very difficult to make period let alone all at once so then what could be done?

First off do away with our current tax system and adopt the Fair Tax
I wrote a bit about this in my last post about the Greek deficit but the gist is that all federal taxes would be done away with and replaced by a national sales tax. Not a VAT tax (which is a politicians dream tax as they can raise taxes without the general public knowing).

A important thing to note is that businesses wouldn’t pay the usage tax for buying wholesale items from other businesses. So if I make hats the cotton I but from another company has absolutely no taxes added. Why is this good you might ask? Because that tax saving will be passed on to the consumer, just like tax increases are. If you tax a company 10% you can be sure that they will raise their prices by 10%, if you lower taxes by 10% then assuming there is healthy competition, prices will drop by 10%. This would be a enormous and positive change reducing the red tape and some of the frustrating aspects of owning your own business.

The sales tax would be high, probably around 23%, but everything would be cheaper because the businesses that are paying 15% FICA taxes wouldn’t be paying that anymore, so there is a 15% decrease in price off the bat. But it gets better, the several hundred billion dollar tax industry would go away (including many IRS areas), yes lots of jobs would be lost, but doing away with our current form of taxes would be a economic stimulus that you could only dream of.

This tax is the most fair and transparent type of tax out there. It would also be hard to circumvent and easy to collect. Imagine not having to file tax returns every year and actually getting your full paycheck. Heck businesses could raise your salary by 10% just because of tax savings. It is a fair tax because the people that spend money are the ones that pay taxes. Think of all the people that live paycheck to paycheck because they spend all their money. Wouldn’t this type of system be a great incentive to start saving more money? Paying bills? Paying down credit card and student loan debt?

Next point would be to examine federal employee’s pay (and benefits) as compared to the private industry and get it inline. Federal employees are paid on average 20% more than private employees and that is not counting benefits which are generally 2-4 times better for federal employees.

Next all the social services that are offered need to be examined. Medicare is so expensive because it is corrupt and the medical industry wastes so much money. Obamacare didn’t do anything to address costs and so those are likely to just go up. We need to repeal that legislation and put in its place some guidelines to reduce medical costs such as tort reform for malpractice lawsuits, reducing the cases where money is spent on needless tests and examinations, etc… Social security needs to go away. The government can’t be trusted with our retirement money as they love to just squander it away. So anyone currently receiving benefits or close to receiving them gets them, but then no more. Put that money back into citizen’s pockets and trust that they can  take care of themselves.

Fiscal responsibility needs to be mandated somehow. I’ve heard people mentioning a constitutional amendment to limit government spending to a percentage of the GDP and although that sounds good on paper the problem is that I imagine the government would always be at that level, but still that would be better than adding debt every year.

There are many other things that can be done, such as figuring out a way to reduce military expenditure, paying down the debt to reduce interest etc… But what I’ve written is a good guideline. It won’t happen all at once, but if drastic reforms don’t take place then we are in a sorry state.

In the year 1940, C.S. Lewis gave a lecture to Oxford Universities Pacifist society entitled “Why I am not a Pacifist.” This lecture produced thoughts ranging from how we decide what is good and evil, the non strength of speculative generalizations, and if you can “do simply good to simply Man.” ¹ It was for me, a fantastic mental journey, and if the reader finds in themselves a desire to know more about Lewis’s argument, I suggest they read the lecture in full, because, the item I’m most interested in sharing today, is just a small little bit Lewis offers up at the end concerning what we can and cannot influence.

Pacifism, Lewis felt, was a movement too grand to be practical as a life goal. A tension exists, if you will, between what one can influence and what one cannot, this and each outcomes actual fruition. For instance, suppose there is a Dentist who spends all his time pontificating about the need to rid the world of tooth aches. This Dentist, in truth, could do more for ridding the world of tooth aches by actually pulling one aching tooth than he could in a year of just talking about it. Lewis felt “the best results are obtained by people who work quietly at limited objectives, such as the abolition of the slave trade, or prison reform, or factory acts, or tuberculosis, not by those who think they can achieve universal justice, or health, or peace.” ² On a personal level, I see how I tend to mirror the Dentist mentioned earlier in my desire to protest macro events, universal happenings, instead of events I can touch with my own two hands. Lewis felt this was where the substantial lay, the limited objective, the art of life where one tackles “each immediate evil as well as we can.” To this I would like to add, perhaps starting in our own hearts…

The awesome Tax Foundation recently published a “Facts & Figures Handbook” which I’ve attached below.

I highly encourage everyone to read it, or at least glance through it. Some things such as cigarette and “spirits” tax were very interesting. For example in Washington state there is a $26 tax per gallon of hard liquor, whereas Wyoming and New Hampshire have none. Its a lot cheaper to smoke in South Carolina than it is in Rhode Island as there is only $0.07 tax on the former and $3.46 on the latter (that is per 20 pack). Gas tax is highest in Cali and cheapest in Alaska. Contrary to what you may think Alaska has the highest Per Capita debt and Tennessee the lowest with California in the middle of the pack. Shows you what a better run government with less crappy programs can do…

Anywho, check out the file. It is well worth reading. Just make sure to look at the whole tax burden picture.

Facts and Figures

Suppose your job is student loans, you’re employed at a small fry lending institution, or perhaps a larger lender like Great Lakes. Either way, you’d better start looking for a new job because tucked into the Health care bill was another bill installing the Federal Government’s Department of Education as sole originator and collector of student loans; a 100 billion dollar business annually, making it one of our largest banks! Ironically, until last week the government run Direct Loan programs role, upon creation, was as a second fiddle of sorts to private lenders like the Federal Family Education Loan Program, or, FFELP, which had been in existence since 1966. Now, through legislative fiat, the second fiddle is big fiddle, just one more thing the private sector couldn’t be trusted with.

In all fairness, the Direct Loan people say we’ll be saving money by cutting out middle men, ie. the banks, and streamlining the whole receiving and paying affair, making the system more convenient. But does convenience make what was done here right? The way I’m seeing it, government now collects the interest monies private lenders used to. Even better, the Government can loan money at lower rates than the private sector but still choose to run their rates at private sector levels. Can you say profit margin! Can you say advantage! Those cheeky fellows!

Actually, that sounds like a pretty dirty trick played by the Gov on the private sector now doesn’t it?

Image Credit: whitehouse.gov