More Thoughts on Catholicism...

I've been surprised to receive very little criticism or concern about my recent conversion to Rome. In some ways, I'm happy about it because I was bracing for impact that a lot of people would feel I had lost my way. In other ways, though, I almost wanted a good fight, partly to force me to reevaluate my decision. One of the biggest criticisms I have heard, however, is that Catholics have too many rituals, many of which the stereotypical Catholic performs habitually and places little thought into. An example is making the sign of the cross before and after prayers, which even I admit is often done more through a sense of obligation and habit than through a thoughtful and meaningful intention. In addressing that, I would first say that I don't disagree at all...all too often, Catholics do things that they've been taught to do for years and if you observe them, you can often tell they're putting no thought into it. What I would disagree with, however, is the idea that, because so often these rituals are performed haphazardly, they should be abolished and abhorred entirely. It is an unfortunate reality that people, as we live in banishment from Eden and inhabit a corrupt flesh, often forget the meaning behind what they do. But the ideas themselves about these types of rituals I find completely sound. My ideal solution to the problem of people forgetting the meaning when things become routine is not to abolish the practice altogether, but rather to encourage and remind people to carefully consider what they do when it comes to worshiping God and to ask his mercy for those times we fall short. Yes, many people who have been Catholics their entire lives put no thought into making the sign of the cross when they're "supposed" to at mass or during prayer. But that doesn't make the practice flawed. The idea of the rituals so often criticized by Protestants is to bring the ENTIRE person into the worship experience. Protestants and Catholics alike understand that they bring their hearts and minds into worship, but what I appreciate about the Catholics is they ask, "why stop there?...we have more than a mind and a heart, but also a physical body, so why not bring that into worship as well?". In other words, since God has blessed us with bodies and five physical senses, why not use those gifts and give them back to God in the same way we show our appreciation for the gift of wealth by giving back a meager 10%? During the Mass, the body and all five senses are utilized along with the mind, heart and spirit to attempt to give God worship that encompasses all that we are and have, and this also benefits the worshiper by taking everything they have, including the physical body, and using it to praise God. That's why the Catholics often place emphasis on beautiful church buildings, stained glass, alters, and priestly garments, to allow the sense of sight to see beauty and to see something different and more special than what you see otherwise. And they burn incense to include the sense of smell and allow that to be a gift to God. Hearing is incited through music in all churches, but in Rome, bells, liturgy and other mediums are employed. Taste is especially emphasized in the celebration of the Lord's Supper at every mass and touch is employed by dipping our hands into water as we enter Mass to remind us of baptismal waters, and by making the sign of the cross. And the body as a whole is engaged when we bow before God at the beginning of Mass and during the Celebration of the Eucharist. It is a wonderful experience to worship God with the ENTIRE person - mind, heart, spirit, and body. Again, it is unfortunate that the nature of humanity takes these well-intended worship mediums and reduces them to mere habit. But the antidote to this is not to abolish or discard the rituals themselves, but to fight all the more for them and remind others why they are so meaningful. I'm not saying at all that such practices are required by God, but I feel I have been blessed and have benefited by involving these worship practices in my life. My hope is not that everyone will agree they should do the same things, but to understand they are not merely rituals that draw worship away from God - they are the opposite when employed properly and bring the entire person God created back to his praise.

Scripture's role in my conversion to Catholicism

Something to clarify about my last post…I began by stating my change to Catholicism started, for better or worse, through feeling. My intention was to go on to explain how thought, study and prayer merged with that over time and led me to combined conclusion that I felt God was calling me to this, but it was also a feeling I was able to back up objectively from what I had learned over the last couple of years. A major part of what I learned has to do with my view of sacred scripture. I’ve always studied the Bible but I’m understanding it in a way I never did before. One of my biggest flaws in younger years was to play the “proof-text” game, where I had studied just enough to accumulate a little knowledge, but, as is common to youth, became arrogant about what I knew and would find little passages here and there in the Bible I could use to support my arguments. There are multiple problems with that view of scripture; I learned someone with an opposing view could often enough play the same game with their own proof-texts and we’d reach a stalemate. Scripture is not meant to be used as a tool to help us win verbal arguments about theological discussion, nor is it always to be taken a passage at a time. I have increasingly learned scripture has to be taken as a whole – it is one work, written by multiple authors over multiple centuries, and yet miraculously connected with all the historical events telling the same story. The important thing here is that there is no such thing as a simple narrative in scripture. Of course all the old testament is a narrative of the history of mankind and the nation of Israel, but it is also much more – every event, down to the tiniest details, all point to the events that unfolded in the new testament and the coming of the new covenant. The OT points to the NT; the NT reflects the OT. Some examples are more obvious, like the institution of the Passover where the slaves spread the blood of a lamb over their households to be saved from death (and as an aside, when considering the Catholic view that the communion meal actually becomes the body and blood of Christ, remember that after spreading the lamb’s blood on their doorposts in Egypt, they were specifically instructed to consume the lamb). Other examples might not be so obvious; consider how in Genesis, it mentions that a man shall leave his father and mother and be united to his wife. This could be considered an awkward text since Adam and Eve had no father and mother in the same way we do, but it points more to Christ, leaving behind his Father when he resigned his divinity to become human, and his mother Mary at his young death, to ultimately be united to his bride, the church. In some cases of finding parallels like this, it can be easy to ask, “am I reading way too much into this?” That’s a fair question but my point here is simply to express that my understanding of scripture has changed dramatically as I see so much of the old testament coming to life in a way I never understood before. The book of Esther, I used to think, was a charming story of a woman of courage. Now I look at it also as a foreshadowing of Mary’s place in the Kingdom – certainly not the king but an advocate for the people that has the King’s ear. I’m not gonna break into the Mary or Eucharist or any other debates in this post. I just thought it was important to communicate my understanding of the scripture because so much of my conversion to Catholicism is founded on this understanding. The Roman Catholic church’s doctrines and traditions are rooted in viewing scripture in this way and their arguments make more sense than any other church’s arguments I’ve ever heard. Even the boring stuff in Leviticus that goes on and on with rules that seem pointless now make so much more sense. The scripture as a whole is truly a work of divine art.

Religious Thoughts

Hello all! It's been a while since I've written and after another busy semester of grad school, I apologize to the Taylors for not replying to your last response which indicated your response in itself was a desire to see more writing from me. Your comments were right on and I appreciate them, especially your comment on the first of my political questions. But at the moment, I feel obliged to move to religion since I have recently converted to Roman Catholicism, a move I would have never DREAMED of making even just a year ago. So I feel some dialogue is warranted. Like, for starters, why did I do such a crazy thing? The simple answer is, for better or worse, FEELING. I say that with emphasis because anyone that knows me knows that I'm not one to rely on emotions or whimsical ideas to guide my decision making. I was most recently a product of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC), who value intellect and mind to guide their faith. But when I moved to Alaska and they had no OPC, I was forced to find another church community to worship with. And even before I moved, I had a desire to try out the Catholic church, even though when I expressed this desire at my OPC going away party, it was received with something less than enthusiasm. Because of that fact and my desire to respect the knowledge of my elders, I made the local Lutheran church in Seward my "official" church home, but I also discovered the Saturday afternoon Mass at Sacred Heard Catholic Church and went to that too. While I have a special place in my heart for both, I admit that by the end of my time in Seward, I was much more interested in the Catholic church than the Lutheran, even though most of my acquaintances were from the latter. When I arrived in Oxford, Ohio on a Friday, my intense desire was to go to the local Catholic church that Sunday, but because of an awkward scheduling dilemma typical of college towns, I had missed the only Mass that day at 8am. So I went to the Presbyterian service and, while it was fine, I spent the next week feeling empty having missed Mass. The next Sunday all I could think about was getting to Mass and when I got there, I felt revived and restored. I wanted to go nowhere else until I communicated through email to my elders from the old OPC in Chattanooga that I had fallen in love with the Catholic church. They were not amused. They told me the Mass was offensive to God because it celebrated the daily re-sacrifice of Christ, instead of viewing his sacrifice as sufficiently once-and-for-all (I have later learned that the Mass celebrates OUR DAILY CELEBRATION of His ONCE-AND-FOR-ALL sacrifice). In any event, respecting their advice, I decided to boycott Catholicism until I could get to the bottom of this. That lasted one week. I skipped Mass the following Sunday and went to the local Lutheran church instead. I was bored to tears. I sat my butt in a pew almost the whole time. I felt deprived that I couldn't kneel before my Almighty, or make the sign of the cross that symbolized our Family, etc. I was troubled about what to do; on the one hand, brought up to rely on intellectualism and not feeling, I thought I would have to suck it up and get re-used to Protestant worship. On the other hand, I couldn't deny the strong feeling of sincere and reverent worship I had been offering to God at the Mass. In the name of humility, I wanted to respect the advice of my OPC elders to reject Catholicism, but I spoke to a friend who rhetorically asked, "What would have happened if Martin Luther had listened to his elders?" I prayed a lot and decided to resume attending St. Mary Church, where I had met wonderful friends and encountered unexpected faith. At the start of the 2008 school year in August, a good friend invited me to attend RCIA classes (Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults, the adult join-the-Catholic-church class). That year-long class is for adults to join the Catholic church and when I was invited, I told her I had significant doctrinal issues with the Catholic church and had no intention or desire of joining; while I loved the church and its reverent worship style, there were a few doctrinal issues that my conscience would not allow me to accept (all the typical Protestant concerns like the "worship" of Mary and transubstantiation). But she told me I could attend the classes just to learn, as a student, and being that I am a college student anyway, why not? So I started attending and learning a lot, still with no intention of joining. But around March, we were due for one of our rites for initiation into the Church, where we were to gather at an assembly of the Archbishop and begin our "final descent" into communion with the Catholic church. I had a tough decision to make. I had never intended to join, but yet I had been through the class for all this time and was offered the chance to move forward with full communion and membership. I thought to myself, "what does it matter if I actually 'join'? Why can't I just keep attending without officially joining the church?" But I also respected the human institution of official union ceremonies, much the same way a guy and a girl can simply elope and claim to have marriage, but there is still value in going forth with an official ceremony with witnesses to make it more official. So I decided to meet with our Priest, Father Jeff, who had attended all our RCIA classes. When I told him I wanted to meet, I explained my situation, that I liked worshipping in the Catholic church but that I had some serious doctrinal problems in a few areas. He was more than happy to welcome me to a meeting. To put it mildly, I was BEOYND impressed with my conversation with him, and with his wisdom. I guess I had a stereotype feeling that Catholics, while definitely believers, were very ignorant and lethargic with their faith, but Father Jeff destroyed that stereotype by presenting wise theological answers to my questions that were beyond anything I expected. I won't go into the details here (although for those curious I'll be happy to explain the intricacies of our conservation), but suffice to say, by the end of our discussion, he had more than adequately responded to all the typical protestant complaints I brought about things like the veneration of Mary, etc. But even more powerful than that was his overall conclusion to me, that the study and debate of doctrinal issues was important, but even more important was our faith and our family. He told me that I was welcome to have plenty of disagreements with the Catholic Church's doctrines, but as long as I accepted Christ as our Savior and acknowledged myself and all other humans as flawed creatures in need of deliverance, I was welcome. His almost-exact words which impressed me so much were, "None of us agree on all things about our faith, but our primary goal is to embark on a journey to become more Christ-like every day, and if you want to join us on this journey, flawed as we may be, you are more than welcome." I was speechless. This guy has a masters degree in both chemistry and theology...in other words, he's pretty smart. And yet his humility stood in stark contrast to the genuine but overly-sure-of-themselves theology I had experienced at my former Presbyterian church. In short, I was sold. I did spend some time praying and talking to friends after this conversation but in the end, I decided that despite any doctrinal disagreements, I had found a church that humbly and genuinely welcomed me to join them on a journey to be united with Christ in his ever-approaching Kingdom ("may your Kingdom come"). As I mentioned earlier, this whole thing started as a result of FEELING; I felt irritation that there was so much disagreement amongst believers and I wanted to defy that by showing that I could worship in any Christ-honoring church, and that petty bickering over doctrines, even as "radical" as those of the Catholic church, cannot be more important than love and union amongst God's believers. But, while I still believe that furiously, I now even am considering and beginning to believe many of the Catholic beliefs I once considered ridiculous. My aforementioned friend who invited me to participate in the RCIA became my sponsor. Through several great debates and conversations with her, I concluded the Catholics were right-on in some of their ideas that I had previously denied, including their appreciation of the family relationship and how contraception worked against that sacred union where the love of two people was so powerful, it produces an offspring (the TWO become ONE), and our united Family, which should stick together, and not split, even when disagreements occur. So that's the story. Though this post is obnoxiously long, it doesn't come close to fully explaining the reasons why I found it important to convert to Roman Catholicism. But I hope it at least explains my mentality and I'm happy to discuss in much more detail to anyone who is curious. Peace out.

Political Thoughts...

I have no framework of an idea on this post. Just two things I felt like posting nonetheless that I hope makes people think. Firstly, a quote from Rush Limbaugh, like him or hate him...

"I have a question for you Obama voters: Is this what you voted for? The Dow closed at 9625 on Election Day, the Day of Hope. Since then it's down a third, $3 trillion in wealth. A record 31.8 million Americans are on food stamps, up 700,000 in one month. Unemployment jumped to 8.1% in February. Is this what you voted for?"

Secondly, a question that lays at the very foundation of the debate between liberalism and conservatism...

Even in the name of "social justice," charity, love, or whatever you wanna call it - can we really, if we are honest with ourselves, claim that government reallocation of wealth to the poor is a moral act?

The Perfect Storm Has Rained on Bush

Everybody hates George W. Bush, right? We need only a few examples of his disastrous presidency to explain why...Katrina, the economy, the failure to find WMD's in Iraq. But was Bush really so bad or did a few factors all come together to make him one of histories biggest scapegoats? I have noticed a few things that have been unfolding in a holistic way to make me seriously doubt that Bush has been as bad as most people say he was. Firstly, about Iraq, it seems to be commonly forgotten that everyone, including Hillary Clinton (though she denied it later), John Kerry, and others, agreed Iraq had WMD's and we had to take care of that situation. Of course it's fairly easy for other politicians, like Clinton, to weasel their way out of it later, but Bush, at the top, has no such option. He was stuck with the dunce cap for that even though almost the entire congress, and public for that matter, agreed with it at the time. I also feel like we've reached an unfortunate milestone in our nation's development. It's not at all uncommon, throughout history, that a nation slowly but surely advances from conservatism toward liberalism. We have read about it in Israel's past and we've certainly seen the same thing unfold in many European nations. One of the distinguishing components of liberalism as a political system is the people in that system rely on the government for their wellbeing. In America, this has traditionally been the opposite of our mindset...we've intentionally established a system where the government plays a minimal role in our lives. The three branches of government were intentionally created for the explicit purpose of making sure no one ever received too much power (that absolute power corrupts absolutely was discovered years ago). But it seems inevitably, as liberalism advances in a culture, the people become increasingly dependent on the government and I believe the switch in American mentality has occurred during Bush's presidency. I believe during the last 8 years, we toggled just over the boundary line of more people than not wanting the government to provide them with better lives. This is, psychologically speaking, somewhat predictable for the human being. The more we bask in luxury from generation to generation, the more we forget that this all comes at a price of sacrifice and hard work. People increasingly want benefits without hard work and many politicians are willing to provide it if it means extra votes next election day (of course those of us who are informed know that the government never provides anything...we as the taxpayers are doing all the providing). So I think when the economy went down (can anyone say liberalism, Bill Clinton or affirmative action?) and we got into war and a few unpleasant things happened that never happened under Clinton because he was too cowardly to deal with anything, many got their panties in a wad and missed the better life that used to come to them through no efforts of their own and that's another reason why Bush is made out as a villain. And this leads into the next point...now that people have had a taste of a good life with minimal sacrifice, they have started to accept nothing less. This is a reasonable trend in advanced cultures...the more advanced you get, the less you have to work, and the less you have to work, the more time you have for filling your head with thoughts of vanity, entertainment, and lose all touch with what it means to have to fight to survive. In New Orleans, there were many people that believed they had a RIGHT to government assistance. That taxpayers had an OBLIGATION to support them. I'm all for charity, but it's just that...CHARITY. I have no obligation to help anyone. As soon as people get into the mindset that they SHOULD be supported, they can never survive another day on their own. Finally, I think we've also crossed a threshold where pop culture means more to us than knowledge. We, as a nation, receive more of our "news" from David Letterman and Oprah and Greenday than we do from actual education and history. And because all Hollywood is sucking Obama's you-know-what, too many people blindly assume that's good. I'm a student in Environmental Science...if I listened to everything I "learned" in class, I'd think Bush was the anti-Christ. Apparently, his entire 8 years were a ploy to fill the center of the earth with nukes and blow the whole thing up. Luckily, I'm smarter than that but sadly, too many people aren't. For the masses, when they hear something often enough, even if it's from an unreliable source like U2, you start to believe. So poor Bush. With good intentions, he has become the epitome of everything that is wrong with America. I predict time will some day show that it is in fact the vilifying of Bush and the accompanying acceptance of liberalism that will tell the story of our demise. It's not without reason scripture refers to people as sheep.

Obama is Cold

I have limited time tonight but wanted to copy down a great segment of the Rush show. It's been revealed that the lord, the most merciful, Barack Obama, who once said in a rally speech, "I am my brother's keeper...I am my sister's keeper" referring to how he'll "take care" of us helpless US citizens, has both a brother living in a hut in poverty in Nairobe and an aunt, who he praises in his book that made him millions, living in the slums of Boston. I ask, my faithful readers, what kind of compassion is that? He says he's concerned about the poor helpless widow working two jobs or the fat family from his infomercial last night complaining because they have to ration snack foods? He doesn't even care about his own family! Ya know why? Because he wants you and me to take care of his family. He'll tax what we earn and give it out as welfare to his beloved aunt who lives in the Boston projects. Anyway, here's the Rush transcript, immediately following an Obama sound bite where Obama said, "McCain and Palin call me socialistic; since when did they make a virtue out of selfishness?"
RUSH: A virtue out of selfishness? Lookit. We're not talking charity here, Senator Obama. When you use the government to take what people have produced, that's thug behaviour. When you force the long arm of government into people's bank accounts, that's not charity. And what is this virtue of selfishness? Sir, if there's anybody selfish in this race, it's you. Your aunt lives in a slum in boston. Your brother lives in a hut in Kenya. Hut sweet hut. Slum sweet slum. Selfish!

Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely

That statement can't be iterated enough. Since I'm knowledgeable and educated about the issues, I always choose to vote for those who will fight for conservative ideologies. That's not because my preacher tells me to or because I like the way candidates speak, it's because history, economics, philosophy, and psychology tell us conservative ideas are so much stronger and create the greatest good for the greatest number. So every election year, I go on my rant about these things and try to make my points. But this year is different from any other. Algore, the haughty John Kerry, and others have been liberal democrats whose ideologies I simply refute. Obama represents something I've never seen, though. I alluded in my last post to the pigs from Animal Farm but that's no longer a joke. In all seriousness, Obama is one of the pigs. I'm more disturbed now than ever about him. He has chosen for his entire political career to pal around with a riff-raff of capitalist haters, palestinian terrorists and bigots (and I can document every bit of that). There are recordings and videos of him all over the place saying crazy things like how it's sad that America today so closely resembles Nazi Germany and how the Constitution is fatally flawed. I think he has painted a picture that we're in a terrible position and he is the only one who can save us (he is, after all, the most merciful, the lord Barack Obama). That's not a disrespect to God, by the way, I'm mocking Obama because his bigot paster called him the messiah. I think he's out to assume a power like no US president has ever had. He's endorsed by Hugo Chavez, Fidell Castro, Iran's parliament, and Hamas. He's an Animal Farm pig. He will assume power and not want to give it up. This election year, forget all the other issues. This guy is the closest thing to a dictator we've ever had. We MUST keep him from having power. I don't have time to go more into it, but for any who haven't watched the new star wars movies, it's definitely worth a watch. The movies are all about a senator slowly but surely climbing the political ranks, scaring the people, getting himself elected as chancellor because he has good charisma, and ultimately, in the midst of a war, convincing the republic to vote him emergency empirical power, saying it's for their own safety that he, with sadness, assumes such power. The crowd cheers and applauds and celebrates as their new emperor stands before them. After becoming emperor, of course, he never gave it up. I'm not really saying that kind of extreme thing will happen, but I think Obama is trying to take us in similar directions. In the third movie, when all this finally comes to culmination, another senator says it best..."So this is how liberty dies...to thunderous applause."

Psychological Destruction

Election years are often full of concrete issues that really only scratch the surface, so let's go deeper into the driving forces of what liberalism does to a state of mind over time. Perhaps this will help explain why I believe so passionately in conservatism. It's not about abortion, lower taxes and immigration. I mean those things are definitely important, but the real driving forces are at the level of the psyche. I mentioned in the post "Conservatism 101" some of the reasons I can't support liberal ideas of Robin Hood tax policies, mainly that they don't work and it's unethical. Tip of the iceberg. The real issue here is about dignity and personal responsibility. Liberals pride themselves on being the party that cares about the little guy and is full of compassion, while accusing conservatives of being racist rich white guys that only care about their own greed. Liberals then promise if they're in power, they'll raise the taxes on the rich and "spread the wealth around." This might seem noble. After all, no one likes poverty. But this isn't Sherwood Forest. The problem with that mentality is that it breeds dependency. This is especially true with race issues. How long have liberals basically spread the message that, "you can't get out of your rut on your own because America is full of greedy white guys so let us do it for you. We'll give you some handouts." For that, the liberals get a lot of the black vote and the people get very meager handouts pried out of the hands of the people who actually earned the money. The handouts are not enough to help the receivers, though, so they remain poor. Then liberals preach the message again. "Why are you poor? Because America is racist and white folks are greedy." This trend continues and people are ultimately taught to believe that their poverty and difficult state of life is due to circumstances they can't control. They come to believe they can't help themselves even if they try because "the man" and "the system" are against them. Yes, in some cases, racism really does play a negative factor in this country. But while liberals are busy telling them, "it's not your fault" and "you can't help yourself," I'd rather get out the message that yes, you CAN help yourself. That's the principle the whole country is built on. Look at what Dr. King for this country. He didn't allow himself to be full of feelings of helplessness. He instead had the balls and the confidence to do something positive with his life even though, in his time, the country actually was against him. People can help themselves in this country, and for their own state of mind, self-sufficiency is the only way to go. But if you surround yourself with CNN or (P)MSNBC and constantly hear this negativity, you believe otherwise. If you go to churches led by bigots like Jeremiah Wright, who teaches little more than hate and rage, you believe otherwise. If you buy the lie that your circumstances are everyone else's fault but your own, you believe otherwise. That's why it's important to get away from these gloom-and-doomers and surround yourself with positive people. We all need help sometimes, but many poor people, especially black people, have gotten locked into a state of dependency by being taught their entire lives that they're not capable of helping themselves. They're taught that only Democrats can help them. After years and years of voting for Democrats, however, their situation only gets worse. FDR's New Deal didn't work, Johnson's Great Society didn't work and no handouts that take away a person's self-dignity are going to help. That's why conservatives are the truly compassionate. It was stated brilliantly by Rush this week...conservatives measure compassion not by how many people they give handouts to, but by how many people no longer need handouts at all. We tell people they CAN take care of themselves. They can be dignified productive members of society and become self-sufficient, living lives freed of the shackles of dependency. I believe this is the last thing liberals want them to understand. Like the pigs in Animal Farm, their whole success depends upon creating dependency. They scare us into thinking we can't get along without their help then keep propagating that lie until we know longer remember the truth that we DON'T need them wiping our butts for us. I realise this is a serious charge, but I would encourage anyone reading this to at least consider the possibility: Why has the black population continued to meet with little success in this country when other minorities have been doing well? Because liberals teaching hate and rage and helplessness have destroyed the black family. And now they claim they're the only ones that can help them, by giving handouts to the very people they have caused to be non self-sufficient. This liberal lie works because with the human psyche, it's the easy way out for people to be negative and blame their problems on others and hang their heads in defeat, doing none of the hard work of turning their lives around. It's easy to listen to bigots like Wright and Jesse Jackson who say it's not your fault because it makes you feel like you have an excuse for failure. The liberals have utilised this human trait to their advantage and it sickens me.

Obama Keeps Denying Ties

It seems every time I turn on the news, Barack Obama is having to defend himself against ties to a new shady character. First it was the biggot pastor of his church of 20 years, "Rev." Jeremiah Wright, a man who apparently uses the pulpit to spread racism, saying America is against black people and decreeing, therefore, "God damn America" to thunderous applause from the congregation. 20 years of going to this church and Obama apparently never heard anything he didn't like. But in an amazing coincidence, as soon as he runs for president and Wright's numbskullery becomes public knowledge, Obama suddenly hears the racism of Wright and denounces him. Next it was his ties to the liberal scum who have put us in a financial wreck by promoting affirmative action and giving outlandish mortgage loans to people who couldn't pay them back, all in the name of "trying to help the poor." There's a reason that form of "helping" the poor doesn't work and now we all see why. Of course the ones primarily responsible aren't man enough to admit it, but those who keep up know it was Franklin Raines (former CEO canned for embezzlement), Barnie Frank (ultra-liberal from New England who lies through his teeth about being responsible for this), Chris Dodd (another congressman) and Bill Clinton, who himself called out the other 3 but won't admit anything himself, even though this link http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DE7DB153EF933A0575AC0A96F958260 provides proof that he was just as involved in lowering restrictions on what it took to get huge loans. Obama of course is tied to these idiots as well but as always has to deny it. After that, it was the domestic terrorist William Ayers who, with the group "Wesather Underground" bombed federal buildings and even a government official's home in the 1960's. News once again got out that Obama was buddies with him and Obama had to, once again, try to deny it, saying, "well, I didn't know at the time he had done this stuff." I doubt it...Obama read the man's entire book that he wrote in the '90's, giving it a great review, and appeared with him on stage at one point giving a joint speech with him. Does anyone really believe that in all that, he never caught wind of the fact that this guy had committed such crimes? Most recently, it's ACORN. He's trying to say he wasn't really involved with them. Well, as an attorney, he defended them in a lawsuit against Illinois. He has also spoken for them at least once at a meeting or rally or something like that and has been a guest trainer for some of their training programs. He has also been quoted as saying to ACORN at a speech, "I've been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career." (Summer 2008). The very latest I have now heard is people signing a petition in defense of William "The Domestic Terrorist" Ayers. Included in the list of petitioners is the infamous University of Colorado - Boulder professor Ward Churchill who made news after he taught his students that Sept. 11 victims were Nazis and was ultimately fired for plagiarism. Wow...how can I get on this petition of honourable men? Anyway, the point is, another signer is another professor, Rashid Khalidi, who is a university professor but also was a part of an organisation the US government labeled as a known terrorist organisation (the group is called the Palestinian Liberation Organisation). And guess who is buddies with him? You guessed it...Obama has reminisced about the guy's wife's good cooking and offered tribute to him at a farewell dinner (http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/10/22/academics-sign-pro-ayers-petition/) but now tries to say he never really liked him and the two were never close. Now, any of these Obama denials of knowing and liking all these scum bags might be true...who am I to say? I just can't help but notice the unusually large amount of shady characters that he has ties to. I mean who cares whether he was best friends with these people or not...the point is that with every new day, we learn of a new corrupt organisation or shady fellow that Obama has willingly associated himself with in the past and now has to defend himself. I'm getting tired of hearing it. At some point, whether we believe him or not, we have to realise that he knows a hell of a lot more sleezebags than any of us do and there is plenty of evidence that he not only knows these sleazebags but has willingly associated himself with them on multiple occasions. The election is close, peeps. McCain is not the perfect answer. No one is. But if you're planning to vote for Obama, you better seriously question your conscience on it. I've tried to get the word out about who he really is since the mainstream media won't do it. He's a shady, corrupt guy from the Windy City who just happens to speak very eloquently. I hope that latter point won't lead anyone to vote for him in spite of all the other evidence.

Still Proud to be Conservative

I'm a knock-off of John McCain, or at least I was. As an adademic and someone who loves intellectual discussions and productive debates, I've always tried to be very careful when approaching political issues. I want to assure the other person that I'm objective and neutral and open-minded. That I respect their ideas and opinions on these issues. I have always thought that's the best way to approach the situation. But the more this election year moves on, the more I move away from that kind of thinking. For one thing, I've learned that the average human being is little more than a hungry wolf who can and will walk all over and abuse anyone showing signs of weakness or submission. I've learned that for all I give, for all the times I keep my mouth shut in the name of preserving the peace, for all I try to put myself in the shoes of liberals to understand them better, there is only one result...they get more and more arrogant and mocking and disrespectful toward me and my viewpoints. They don't realise that I'm choosing to be soft and take it easy on them. They develop the false idea I don't really have a stance or that I don't really know what I'm talking about. Quite the illusion. I predict about 75% of the time I'm in a political discussion with people, I know more than they do. Yet, since the average person knows nothing of humility or wisdom, they naturally seize the offensive and try to tell me where I'm wrong while I, the one who actually knows more, take the low road and let them speak. Well lately I'm just pissed off and irritable enough to officially put an end to all this. I've tried to be patient and respectful to liberals and that time is over. They're going to the polls, knowing next to nothing about how economics works or what their candidate stands for, and they're gonna cast votes for a candidate who will play the same old Robin-Hood tax policies as all other democrats do...taking away money from hard working people, productive businesses and those not afraid to take risks and giving it to people who don't work and don't take risks and don't help the economy. I will hurt from this, as will everyone else. It's funny, I thought Obama claimed to be all about change? High taxes, especially on oil companies, appealing to poor people by giving them the warm fuzzies while he's actually got nothing of substance, accusing businesses of being big meanies, outrageous promises like how we'll be energy independent in 10 years (what??????!!!!!), raising my taxes even though I should be in about the lowest bracket in the country, fighting for the atrocity of abortion while calling it the "ethical" thing to do? Where the *$%& is the change? Doesn't anyone notice this? There's nothing new here! And why McCain doesn't jump on this is beyond my capacity. Another thing that makes me unashamedly proud to be conservative is, once again, the supporters of the liberals bring shame to themselves and the entire party. Madonna, as she's launching a new tour, says Palin isn't welcome to attend. In what universe is that acceptable? If a Republican entertainer (like they exist) said that about Obama, the news media would be all over it! PLUS, the entertainer would forever be billed as a racist. But as long as it's directed against Palin, it's OK. We've learned a valuable truth lately...there is no such thing as feminism. We've all been duped into thinking feminists are trying to empower women but these very people HATE Sarah Palin like nothing I've ever seen. It never was about feminism, it was about liberalism. Now I admit, this is not Obama's fault, but the fact is the Democrat party, much more prevalently than the other side, is constantly characterised by double standards, childish behaviour, and hypocracy. I'll take on anyone any day that disagrees with that. I compare myself to McCain because we're both too nice, too eager to see the other side's view point, too eager to give and give and give, too eager to get trampled over by wolves. I'm glad I've realised this. I hope McCain realises it too, like now, in time to save his campaign. And anyone who votes for Obama better be ready for a well-thought-out answer as to why you voted to raise my taxes and increase the government's authority over my liberties in the name of "social programs" that have failed miserably, from FDR's New Deal to Johnson's Great Society. Failure after failure after failure, just like communism. And yet more than half the nation is ready to walk right back into it again.

Addendum

There are many reasons to pray. Asking God for things we want is only one reason, but I erroneously used the word "prayer" in my last post. I should specify I'm talking about PETITION here, not prayer all together. So the question becomes, "Why Petition?"

Why Pray?

As I've experienced loneliness on and off over the last number of years, I've questioned more and more what is the purpose of praying? Growing up, I never questioned this, no doubt due to the fact that I had a more blessed upbringing, free of pain and hardship, than I could have ever imagined. When things went great, I thanked God for them and assumed he had granted my prayer requests. For those prayers he didn't grant, I praised him anyway, as prescribed by Scripture, thinking his denial would work out for my good. Now I'm not saying those ideas are wrong, but I've learned that a heavy dose of pain is a substantial force against a man's faith. In the last few years, in bitterness, frustration, and confusion, I've been unable to hold to that old attitude of mine and it's made me ponder the purpose of prayer all together. The Scripture, especially in the NT, goes on and on and on about the importance of praying constantly. It tells us to approach God humbly yet boldly and present our needs to him and to be persistent. I note on the latter point that I never cared for the idea of persistence and it was likely that point that was the catalyst in making me start questioning things. I mean, why should I have to be persistent? Doesn't that seem like a game? It seems more logical to me that a person comes before God and begs his help and God either says, "I am willing" or, "No, my grace is sufficient for you." But why the "game" of making us ask and ask and ask (be aware, I'm not trying to be demeaning or disrespectful to God; I'm just addressing philosophical ideas and asking questions about what I've experienced in life.) Aside from it seeming like a game, and almost patronising, I also don't care for the parable in Scripture that talks about being persistent. It's the only time, to my memory, God compares himself to a villain. He says, in this regard, that he's like an unrighteous judge. A widow goes to him begging for mercy and he has no interest in helping her, but since she bugs the crap of him, he finally helps her just to shut her up. Again, that just doesn't set well with me. That kind of comparison of how God responds to our desperate requests does not give me images of him being a refuge I can run to when I'm weak. To carry this even deeper, what happens when one does follow that prescription and is persistent for years and years and years and still doesn't see God's help? I've been praying for help with my loneliness for quite a long long time. And I'm not narrow-minded either. I pray for provision of an appropriate companion, or for the ability to go on alone, or for the faith to deal with the pain, or for some other option I haven't considered, yet the roller coaster of pain rolls right on as if I never spoke a word to God. I don't consider my request to be something out of selfish want either. Admittedly that's part of it, but it's also not like asking God for a hot new sports car. The need for companionship was built into us by him and there many other reasons why this is an important thing, even including needing the support of a helper to serve God better in a difficult life (I truly believe a married couple is worth more than the sum of the two individuals in serving God). I could certainly use some help with problems I've been unable to conquer. Yet still, every prayer I've prayed, through tears and grieving, has been denied as I've watched every one I know move on to companionship, leaving me feeling more alone than ever. But I digress...my point is NOT to complain about my love life but to question: why do we pray? I've spent, cummulatively, so many hours in prayer over this, it's unfathomable. And at least up to this point, it seems every one of them has proven to be a complete waste of time. Another major moment in my life that led to this is when my grandfather was dying in the hospital. I volunteered to stay up with him all night while my folks got some much-needed sleep. I won't get into the strange events of the evening, but in summary, my grandfather was afflicted by some unknown "suffering" that had him constantly looking down at his legs saying, "get away from me" and "leave me alone." I would go to the nurses' station for help and they would brush me off. I'd try to talk to my granddad and he'd say he was suffering and I didn't know what to do. I prayed and prayed and prayed in desperation, even taking trips down to the chapel every so often to kneel before God and beg for help, but it never came. For hours this went on, and I was completely alone. God was no where. And I finally, of course, lost it and broke down. I would say my relationship with God was never the same again after that night. I have never had as much trust in prayer since these events. Obviously, I want to be restored to the level of faith I used to have and I strive toward that, but I can't ignore the things I've seen either. Way too many times I've needed God badly and he has not come, so to this day, I have to struggle to force myself to pray. So why do I bother to force it if it's unproductive? The only answer I have is that I pray because Scripture tells me to. I hope that humble belief in Scripture, with no other evidence that prayer is worth anything, will be pleasing to God because at the moment, it's all I have to offer. I still petition but I long for my younger days when it made more sense to me to do so. It's hard to hold on to God's promises when they seem to abandon you. Perhaps the Teacher was right..."I consider the dead who have already died to be more fortunate than the living who are still alive. But better than both are those who have never been, who have never had to see the evil that occurs on the earth." In the mean time, I'll keep doing my best to pray as Scripture commands and trying to trust that there is a higher purpose for it. I look forward to the day this difficult life is past and we all have eternity to look forward to together. Unfortunately, to get to that point, there is a very difficult life ahead. And it looks like, for the moment, I'll have to keep facing that difficult life alone. Bummer.

Conservatism 101

In light of financial issues, a good question was brought to me a few days ago about how a Christian like myself, who tries to show love and sacrifice of himself to give to others, could vote for conservatives, who, as the argument goes, promote greed and making the rich richer. The idea was I should be voting for liberals because they try to help the poor more. I thought it was a just question and a chance for me to remember myself why I vote the way I do. (It should be noted that the argument that conservatives don't care about the poor is false, but it is a line the democrats have successfully used for years and lots of people eat it up.) There are two main reasons I feel convicted to vote against liberal ideas of "helping the poor". First is an issue of ethics. I hate it that some people are poor and have a hard time making it and I'm all for programs to try to help that situation, but I don't think that makes it ethical for government to make arbitrary decisions of who has more than they need and demand that rich people cough up their earned money so it can be redistributed. That kind of thinking is contrary to the foundations of liberty and independence the country is founded on and again is extremely unethical. They can't play their own personal Robin Hood. And let me stress since this is touchy...it's not that I want people to stay poor. I hope the rich will choose to be very generous in giving to those who have less. But in the end, it is just that...it is their CHOICE. Forcing people into charity sounds awfully socialist to me. And that leads into the second reason I vote conservative on economic issues relating to social status. The second point is no form of socialism has ever worked throughout history, so why should it work now? No, I'm not calling liberals socialists or communists, but their ideas of wealth redistribution with central government control is actually getting pretty close to some aspects of socialism. And it has never ever ever worked. There's a reason for that. Theoretically and on paper, communism as a system is brilliant. But in practice it fails because the model doesn't account for humanity, which makes all the difference. Factors like reduced desire to work hard, lack of independence and personal dignity, and the inevitable corruption that accompanies absolute power name a few human components that have always made the system come crashing down, and I don't see liberal ideas of social equality (the nice term they use for stealing from the rich and giving to the poor) to be immune to those destructive forces. When the settlers of this country fled England and started things here, they intentionally and explicitly set up a system different from what they had come from, a system where the free market ruled and the government stayed out of the way. What was the result? We shot to the world power in a scant century and have been there ever since. So why liberals want to revert to the old way is beyond me. A strong free market and strong business sector doesn't eliminate the potential for poverty...neither does wealth redistribution in any form. But it does work out for the greatest good for the greatest numbers. I'll be back with more brilliance soon.

Uplifting Thoughts

Since I've done nothing but rant and complain of late, I thought I'd take a day off from my duty of identifying BS and talk about something more pleasant. The Ike storm system moved through today bringing high winds; as a result a lot of beautiful old trees came down and the whole town is without power and internet, save for a small portion of campus where my office happens to be. Hence my ability to post a blog. But following a day of destruction, I attended my normal 9:30pm mass which was done out of necessity by candlelight. This was not only a beautiful and welcomed deviation from the norm, but, especially fitting, we had a guest speaker discussing mission work he had done in Trinidad and Haiti where the people have so little. It was ironic that such a talk came on a night when we all were remembering how to live without basic electricity and internet. It was a sobering yet great talk. I'm glad we have that kind of thing from time to time to remind us of our blessings and of the needs that God has given us arms and feet to go out and fill.

ABC Elevates Itself to My Hitlist

Never fear, fine readers...I'll continue to expose CNN for it's reporting malpractice. We'll just have added fun now as ABC will join them in receiving a well-needed dose of my wrath. Most of you (I say that as if I have a multitude of readers) probably know ABC's Charlie Gibson interviewed Sarah Palin recently. In a stunt truly worthy of the CNN Award for Insatiable Dishonesty, they edited the film to remove some of what she said in response to certain questions, thus changing the entire meaning of her answers for the global audience. Cheers to Gibson and his cronies for yet another example of why I have been forced out of retirement to start writing again. The good thing about all this is that it gives me confidence to see how badly the media is trying to tear her down. I figure if they didn't consider her a threat, they wouldn't waste their time. If that's an accurate assumption then it stands to reason that they're morbidly afraid of her based on how hard they're trying to beat her up with lies. And it makes me a bigger and bigger fan by the day. The more jerks like Gibson, Barbara Wa-Wa, and Hollywood dislike her, the more reason I have to assume she's great. Indeed, a political philosophy where one simply votes for a candidate those personalities despise would be quite a sound philosophy. So I beg the Hollywood celebutards, mainstream media and extremist bloggers to keep up the good work. I know it's making me a bigger Palin fan all the time and by the looks of the recent polls, I'm not alone in being affected that way. School has definitely gotten busy of late, but you can count on me to keep calling out the mainstream media for all their BS and giving you a more accurate side. The key point you should take from all this is that no matter what you read, no matter what the headline says, no matter how negative it sounds, you must question it and dig deeper. I've always accused the mainstream media of being biased and fudging some facts, but I've never known them to be this malicious. You're being blatantly lied to, peeps, so don't tolerate it. Take a stand and fight those who apparently think we're all blind followers of their false reality. You should all be offended. I certainly am. Dan Rather and others have actually lost their jobs from going too far with the bias and crossing that threshold from simply skewing information to completely lying. But the message didn't seem to stick because they're up to even worse tricks. We have to fight it and call them out.

A Nice Column

School duties have picked up quickly so I'll let someone else do my important work for me...this guy wrote a good short piece about the treatment of Palin, focusing on the corrupt media's reporting.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,420161,00.html

Snap!

It's late but I just heard a new Palin quote I had to share: "Just last night, Senator Obama finally broke and brought himself to admit what all the rest of us have known for quite some time, and that's thanks to the skill and valor of our troops, the surge in Iraq has succeeded. Senator Obama said, 'the surge succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.' 'I think,' said Senator Obama, 'that the surge succeeded in ways nobody anticipated.' I guess when you turn out to be profoundly wrong on a vital national security issue, maybe it's comforting to pretend that everyone else was wrong too." Wow. My friends, I don't mind admitting that my Alaskan bias is in full effect as long as you don't mind admitting that Sarah Palin is the real deal, not afraid of the arrogant Obama and ready to make it clear how wrong he is. I love it that Obama thought he was the young change the nation needed (arrogance in full effect) and here comes the obscure, unknown Palin annihilating his fortress of confidence and undeserved assuredness. Leno had a great joke tonight that isn't too terribly far from the truth: "A lot of Republicans aren't too [excited] about McCain's speech last night, in fact, Sarah Palin is thinking of dropping him from the ticket." Ya know, even if we (conservative thinkers) lose this election, it's nice to know we'll go down with pride. I have no problem losing with my support going to McCain and especially Palin. And be assured...even if they lose this one, the liberals and the corrupt are afraid of her. Why else would the media be assaulting her? If she's no threat, she'd be a wast of their time to focus on. And yet she's been assaulted like no one I've ever seen. She's a force and they know it and they'll have to contend with her again no matter what. Rock on. In fairness, we do have to see how this "abuse of power" accusation goes. I'm humble enough to jump off the ship if she turns out to be frauding us all. For now, however, I don't expect that and I think we've got a great future with her. And even if this probe turns out bad for her, I dare say she still seems more realistic than most other DC personalities.

Teleprompter

Did anyone know Sarah Palin's teleprompter broke during her speech Wednesday? I check CNN.com regularly throughout the day as well as some other news sources occasionally and never saw anything about this. Nor did I hear anything on (P)MSNBC or CSPAN which I saw a little of today. Nothing at all. And yet it happened. The fantastic speech she gave is now even better because apparently the prompter wasn't stopping (or the operator wasn't stopping it) when the audience applauded so after a while, she was way behind and did the whole thing by memory. Who knew? I never noticed it from her behaviour and she never complained about it. I learned of it from Rush and Leno, during a standup joke on his show tonight, confirmed it. I did hear reports on CNN about how her speech was written for her, blah blah blah. As if that's not standard practice. But they didn't bother to report that she did the speech more on her own than Obama or anyone else who also had their speech written for them AND a perfectly operating teleprompter. Once again, our fine companions in the media show how dishonourable they are and continue to erode the scant confidence I have left in them. My warning to all: question EVERYTHING. Everyone out there has an agenda, even me. We all have our biases that are hard to overcome. Some are ethical and acknowledge this, like myself. Others, like the media, are beyond unethical to the point of scandalous. But I will give kudos to Anderson Cooper from CNN. Apparently, when Campbell Brown (a fellow CNN reporter with him no less) asked him if he thought it was responsible for Palin to run for this office when she has 5 kids, he responded, "It's funny, I don't remember anyone asking Obama that." I'm always happy to give praise to a liberal media type when it is deserved, and he earned it with that. Good for him. Unfortunately, the fact that he holds a CNN microphone still has him on my blacklist. One more note, Palin made a funny comment during her speech saying she thought the former AK governor's private jet was over the top and a taxpayer burden, so she "put it on eBay." The media (you guessed it, CNN) now reports she did PUT it on eBay but it didn't sell and she had to sell it another way. OK, so MAYBE Palin fudged a fact there. I think, however, there was no deception intended at all...the logistics of how the jet was sold were irrelevant, the point is she did it and the eBay comment she made was not like a grandiose lie, it was just a humorous pop-culture line that elicited a number of laughs. They took a light hearted comment she made and are trying to make it sound like she's lying. But they won't report that she was completely on her own without a teleprompter. Scandalous. And one more note (really this time): Us Weekly magazine has a cover with Pain's picture and the caption, "Children, Lies, Scandal." The actual article when you read it inside links the lies and scandal part to bad things being projected AT her so it's actually a not-so-bad article about her. But the cover, it seems, is an intentional misrepresentation intended to catch the attention of supermarket check out line people who will read only that, associating her face with the words lies and scandal, people who will not actually read the article. Us Weekly is published by none other than the owner of Rolling Stone, one of the most liberal extremists out there. McCain and Palin have to fight not only Obama's campaign, but the media, Hollywood, and hippie protestors. That Bush won twice in a row against those odds is an accomplishment and McCain doesn't quite have the charisma of Bush. Let's hope Palin can help in that arena. I'll end on a couple of good comments from Rush about McCain's speech and Obama: "...the performance aspect might have been low, but the words were penetrating and they were from the heart and they were from the soul." "I don't think Obama thinks he needs to grow. Obama's it in his mind and in the minds of his supporters."

Protestors at McCain's Speech

This just in - John McCain is neither as good looking (few are) nor as interesting to listen to as Sarah Palin. His speech started quite slow but I was impressed by the end. Instead of making a series of promises, he gave a speech that showed he knows how to love and care about others over himself. He sold me with it much more than Obama's promises that he would provide us pretty much everything under the sun. But lately this has not been a blog of praise but rather a rant and while I don't consider myself a pessimist, I must take upon myself, once again, the unpleasant duty of pointing out ridiculousness. I'm not too keen on labels as I think labels too often stick us in a box and influence our thoughts through biases and feelings that we have to be a certain way to fit the label we've assigned ourselves. In other words, it can be an imprisonment that blinds us from objective thought. As such, I try not to ever call myself a Republican (for that matter, I generally even try to avoid referring to myself as a Christian, a term that has less and less objective meaning). But no matter how hard I try to avoid labeling myself a Republican, I'm always faced with a new reason why I should wear that title with pride. Tonight a shameful display was put on by liberal protestors of McCain...again. Outside, they had to be tear gassed because they were creating trouble, blocking streets, kicking police officers, etc. Inside, it seemed even worse. McCain's speech was interrupted multiple times as people yelled things and tried to get on stage to do who knows what. A particular organised group is wearing pink clothing with spray painted messages. I remember something like 5 different times the speech was interrupted tonight. Now I realise there are plenty of lunatics and weirdos that call themselves Republicans, just as there are plenty that are staunch Democrats. I don't pretend my side is without them. But I also never saw it from Republicans. Not once in Denver at the DNC did I see coverage of any rowdy protesting. Again, not once. Maybe I missed it, but as I watched it about as much as the RNC, it seems an unlikely coincidence that I saw it so much in Minnesota and not at all in Colorado. There are two possible explanations for this. Firstly, perhaps the one-sided media was not interested in letting anyone know that Democrats were being heckled and protested. This can't explain everything, however, because during McCain's speech, it was unavoidable. He had to completely stop multiple times. That's not something even the media can hide, and they're good at hiding news when they want to. So the only explanation I can think of is perhaps Republican leaning people are just a classier bunch. "Whoa, Jonathan," you say. "That's out of line to say such a thing." Perhaps. But, as I've mentioned the last few days, I'm done being nice, humble, and respectful to absurdity. I'm ready to call this crap out for what it is and, stereotyping as it might be, it seems a feasible explanation in my opinion, and very fitting with historical left extremists. Case in point, I just read a story about how hippie Miami students in the 70's protested the war by setting buildings on fire. What? That's not even close to consistent with a message of peace. Obviously, not all, or even most, Democrats are like this. And maybe it's not fair for me to make such a stereotype. But the point is this: When I see yahoos behaving with no respect or temperance and realise that they're all Obama supporters, it makes me very happy to know that I am not voting for the candidate that motivates them. My mind will now have a permanent association between disrespectful protestors and Obama supporters. I'm glad no one will be able to make an association like that with me because Republicans simply didn't do it in Denver. Call me unfair or biased if you want, but that's the fact. At least so far in this election, one side appears to be much classier and I'm happy to be a part of that side.

She Nailed It.

I've attempted the last couple of days to express my displeasure with unethical actions by the media, and quite right...there can not possibly be enough criticism for their one-sided atrocious attacks on Sarah Palin's family. I have by no means, however, intended to express any leaning toward one side of our dual party system or the other, although I admit it's probably hard to separate me from the cause of McCain and Palin just as it's difficult to tell the difference between the national media and Barack Obama's campaign. So since I'm exposed, I'll report that my former governor (of a way-too-short 8 months) did indeed knock it out of the park tonight with her speech. I couldn't have asked for a better combination of attacks, humour, charm, family and qualifications. I'm thrilled for her and since I firmly believe in the fundamental ideologies of conservatism (by the way, don't necessarily confuse that with republicanism - for anyone curious about the difference, I'll be happy to elaborate), I will continue to firmly support her and McCain. And if that team is unsuccessful in November, I'll go down swinging with pride, because I believe despite the outcome, the right decisions have been made in the selection of these two, especially Palin. She was great when I lived in Alaska and I think she'll be great in the White House. I'll end by quoting one of my favourite lines from the night: "Al Qaeda terrorists want to inflict pain on the United States and [Obama] is concerned about reading them their rights." I'll be back soon with more brilliant commentary and insightful analysis and I welcome any comments or points of debate. Let's get a productive intellectual discussion going.