The Question Religions Must Ask...or better...

The question religions must ask, or better still, the question people must ask about their religion is: What kind of God am I worshipping?

I bring this up because, apparently, Zarqawi has claimed that "God ordered us to attack the infidels by all means ... even if armed infidels and unintended victims - women and children - are killed together." Let's throw that little gem in with the people killed because someone allegedly flushed a copy of the Koran down a toilet (which would be a bad move to do with any holy book, but the flushing of some holy books are far more likely to get you killed than the flushing of others). Now... Is "Allah" not worth worshipping because people abuse His Good Name so? Is there even a slim chance that Zarqawi has the foggiest notion what "God" wants him to do?

In Islam, as in all religions, you have to ask yourself (and I mean YOURSELF, not someone else!!!) if the God being worshipped is a God worth worshipping. Not because He's scary. Is a God that makes you afraid worth worshipping? Would a God that didn't ask for your love of your FREE WILL and instead coerced it out of you with fear be worth worshipping? Probably not.

I think that if people look into their hearts, and even into their heads, truly using their intellect as well as their spiritual intuition, they'd come to the conclusion that the only God worth worshipping is a loving God. It's either a love exchange, or it's nothing. Like any love relationship, right? Simple.

If that is the case, then anyone who is portraying God in an UN-loving way, making God (Allah) seem scary or vengeful or even petty, is obviously not talking about God, they are projecting their own weakness (which begets a struggle for power) onto God. THAT God is a not-God.

This applies as well to Christianity as it does to Islam. It applies to any religion or God-centered belief system. Each individual must ask "What is God like? What is God like if God is worthy of MY love, and how would I hope God would view me and give me God's love?" Then, when people start projecting their own weaknesses, and struggles to compensate for those weaknesses (such as a quest for dominion over the lives of others), onto God, you can discern whether or not you should be rejecting that leadership. Be true to the God you know in your heart and mind, or the one worth being dedicated to knowing in your heart and your mind, not to some other person's vision.

If we all asked these questions, and came to these understandings for ourselves, people who are sullying God's name by projecting their own weaknesses onto Him would suddenly find themselves without followers.

From MSM to President Bush

While I have no authorization to do so, I thought I'd take a shot at writing an open letter to President Bush from the Mainstream Media, representing what it appears to me (as a media consumer) they have to say to him:

Dear President Bush,

You can not win with us. Our purpose is to make you look as bad as possible, as often as possible. We hate you. We can't put our finger on WHY, exactly. Perhaps it's because you keep proving us wrong and we can't stand that. It's not really because of the "stolen election" in 2000, because the truth is that when people went in there and did the counting every-which-way-from-Sunday, you won. But, you see, it's not what we wanted or what we predicted! We were wrong, and we hate that! We get you back for that one though! We let people proclaim that you were "appointed" not elected, or claim that you stole the election all day long and never bring up the fact that the counts done after the election result in you winning, and that no disenfranchisement was ever proven. Get it? We've hated you from the start.

Just so you know, it does not matter to us that fanatical Islamists want to kill innocent people in the U.S., we'll always give them the benefit of the doubt, and never will give it to you or to any aspect of your administration--including the military of which you are Commander in Chief. We will make a big deal out of Abu Graib, but won't report on the thousands of soldiers who reach out with their hearts to the Iraqi people (like the soldiers that provided 800 pairs of shoes to Iraqi kids when they noticed the kids didn't have shoes that fit). We will make your administration look as bad as possible to the Arab world, even if it hurts the country.

On that note, we will NEVER EVER acknowledge the fact that it is increasingly clear that you were absolutely right (see, there you go again, being right when we were all wrong... unforgivable BASTARD!!!) about spreading freedom and democracy in the Middle East and how that'll transform the region. We can't talk about all of the positive changes in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban. We'll make darned sure we keep hope alive for the terrorists there, though. (How brilliant was the undermining of your administration with that flushing the Koran at Gitmo story?) We'll keep giving the body count in Iraq, but won't ever talk about the positive things that have happened there, and how the people are taking to democracy. We'll talk about "insurgents" like they're a political movement, rather than just bastards that want to kill enough people to scare the survivors into becoming willing to give them absolute power. We won't mention how much farther ahead the Iraqis are now in terms of their infrastructure than they were under Saddam, and we certainly won't report on how much farther ahead they'd be if they weren't being undermined by the "insurgents".

We won't acknowledge that Arabs are starting to see that it is other Arabs that are holding them down, and that it is the Americans who are in there trying to help them have freedom and democracy. Yes... we know it's happening. But what we'll do is foment hatred, or make it look like the majority hates us...er... YOU. We can't let you be right about this one. No way.

We are also going to make it look like liberal thinking is mainstream thinking. We know that that was just disproven by an election (yeah... we saw how red even the blue states were when you look at the map county by county, not just state by state). Our plan is to make "conservatives" look like extremists... preferably mind-numbed religious zealots who can't REALLY think for themselves. Look how well we're doing with your judicial nominees! We parrot the democrat's talking points like they're the truth! People actually think your own guy (Gonzales) was calling Priscilla Owens an activist judge. We let that out-of-context quote fly from people's mouths unquestioned for weeks! You'd think we'd do a story about a judge's qualifications, their recommendations from different professional organizations, etc. No way! And let people find out that you actually nominated qualified judges and not radical reactionary conservatives?

Well... I could go on and on. The bottom line is, as I said, you can't win, buddy! It doesn't matter what you do. It could be because you keep proving us wrong... but if you say that to anyone, we'll deny it. See... we'll be trying to shape the reality in everyone's minds so that you look like you're wrong anyway. Yes... even when you being RIGHT is what's good for the country.

Disrespectfully submitted,

MSM

Why is there a Soc Sec debate?

I'm having a difficult time figuring out the opposition on the Social Security debate. I don't understand the opposition to the "privatization" aspect, and I certainly don't understand why there's a problem with "means testing".

As for privatization, it makes so much sense to me to have a portion (I'd make how big a portion optional, personally) of the social security tax invested in the market (in relatively safe broad based funds, not risked in individual stocks), and kept as a personal asset that can be passed to heirs that it blows my mind that anyone can argue against it. If we were talking about your 401K and your options were: A) Let the government invest the money, or B) You choose the funds, which would everyone take? Doesn't the FICA tax strike everyone as a complete rip off? It's this large portion of your paycheck (MATCHED by your employer!!! to make matter worse) that you get back after you retire, if you live so long. And people don't want at least a portion of that money, which they're going to take from you either way, in a fund that provides a far better return, and that can be passed to your heirs?

The only argument against doing it that's truthful is that it has the potential of making people less dependent on the government, which is... well... to some, a bad thing. Of course one argument is "Don't give that money to the greedy bastards on Wall Street." Right... don't give it to people whose job is to make money grow and create wealth as quickly as possible. Leave it with the government, which is so good at waste and inefficiency. If you have $1,000 and you have a choice of paying someone $100 of it to turn it into $2,000 in 5 years, or paying no one anything and having that same $1,000 turn into $1,100 in 5 years, which is the right choice? The arguments I've heard are so lame, and so dependent on people being ignorant, that it really makes me scratch my head in wonder. Truthfully, it's difficult to figure out what the "no privatization" people have as an agenda, except that it's NOT what's best for people who would like to build some wealth and not have to depend on the government for their retirement.

Now a Democrat has convinced Pres. Bush basically that means testing is a good idea. President Bush likes the idea, because it really makes sense. Some people can afford not to get paid their Social Security. If it's an insignificant portion of someone's retirement plans, that's the time to "stick it to the rich"! But, Dems are saying no. Wait... it's a Democrat's idea. Yes, but Bush put it forward.

So... what's going on here? Doesn't it seem that helping the little (working class) guy create a larger nest egg for retirement, and helping his heirs to have a leg up in the future, should be something the Democrats are all over? Why would they not want to help the working person create wealth for themselves? Clinton actually suggested it once... but, then again, they all forget that they voted for regime change in Iraq in 1998 too, after Clinton talked about Saddam's evil dictatorship and weapons of mass destruction. How can you be "standing on principle" when you're telling people that you're still going to levy a tax they can't avoid, and you're going to give them a paltry retirement income from it, rather than allowing that person to "own" a part of the money that's being confiscated, invest it in something that pays a reasonable return (and is ALWAYS safe when viewed over time), get more money in their retirement, and pass the remainder to their heirs? What's the "principle" in preferring the former scenario to the latter? Um... dependency? And why would any good Democrat be against "means testing" for getting benefits? Doesn't that really make sense too? I mean, yes, you're screwing people that paid into the system who aren't getting any of it back, but you've screwed them once by taking it in the first place, and they don't need it. You could even make it optional. Ask people in the top 1% of earners and I'll bet 98% would be happy not to bother taking their Social Security checks, particularly if someone gave them a choice so it was done by free will, rather than being just another confiscation.

What it seems like to me is that the good of the people is absolutely NOT being addressed by the Democrats in the debate. Once more, rhetoric is being substituted for substance, and a reliance on ignorance and the ability to inflame passions is the strategy of choice, rather than a having a serious discussion of the merits of different ideas. Have "truth" and "facts" become completely irrelevent concepts in politics? It seems so. I know the Republicans do it too, but when people are going around touting how evil and stupid Pres. Bush is because he wants to give people back a small portion of what's being confiscated from them in order to let them see if they can, from among a few relatively safe options, pick something to invest in that can bring them literally hundreds of thousands more dollars for their retirement, I have to believe it's farther out of hand on one side than the other.