Post-Modern Baalism-Just a very old book with a shiny new cover

Matt Barber has written an excellent article at TownHall, The Gods of Liberalism, I recommend that you read it in its entirety. It inspired me to write this blog.



A new Congress with a larger number of Ds will convene in the first week of January, and a new President, Barack Hussein Obama (D) will be sworn into office on January 20th, 2009. This new Congress wants to move quickly with new legislation ready for the new President to sign on day one. Let me list the issues and their Baalist counterpart.



planned parenthood reproductive freedom=Baalist fertility worship

providing funding and clinics for abortions=Baalist child sacrifice via burnt offering

gay rights and comprehensive sex education=Baalist ritualistic promotion, practice, and celebration of both heterosexual and homosexual promiscuity

radical environmentalism for controlling climate change=Baalist pantheistic worship of "mother earth" (reverence of creation over the Creator).



Matt opines

In fact, today's liberalism is largely a sanitized retread of an antiquated mythology – one that significantly predates the only truly progressive movement: biblical Christianity.



Both Obama's social agenda and that of the 111th Congress are rife with unfettered pro-abortion, freedom-chilling, pro-homosexual and power-grabbing environmentalist objectives. The same kind of "hope, action and change," I suppose, that was swallowed up by the Baalist Canaanites of old.



So, today's liberalism is really just a very old book with a shiny new cover. A philosophy rooted in ancient pagan traditions, of which there is naught to be proud.

I agree with this opinion, but I would expand the net to include to include some radical libertarian anarchists who do not want to have any enforcement or laws. Yes I believe in small government, but not anarchy.

The First Christmas Tells Us When Life Begins

Andrew Tallman wrote an excellent column at TownHall, A Christmas View of Abortion. I encourage everyone to read it in its entirety. In one respect the title is misleading because the medical practice of abortion is not directly addressed anywhere in the Holy Bible. What the Gospel According to Luke does address directly in Chapter one is the recognition of life less than a week after conception.





Luke 1:3-4

3 It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus,




4 That thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed.

Unlike the other Gospel writers, Luke will tell us his story in the form we modern readers best comprehend: chronologically. This means we can rely heavily on the order of things in any of our conclusions.

Luke 1:5-7


5 There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judaea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abia: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth.





6 And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.





7 And they had no child, because that Elisabeth was barren, and they both were now well stricken in years.





Luke 1:13


13 But the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John.





Luke 1:24-27


24 And after those days his wife Elisabeth conceived, and hid herself five months, saying,





25 Thus hath the Lord dealt with me in the days wherein he looked on me, to take away my reproach among men.





26 And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth,





27 To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary.





Luke 1:30-31


30 And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God.





31 And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS.





Luke 1:35-44


35 And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.





36 And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren.





37 For with God nothing shall be impossible.





38 And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.





39 And Mary arose in those days, and went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Juda;





40 And entered into the house of Zacharias, and saluted Elisabeth.





41 And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost:





42 And she spake out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.





43 And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?





44 For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.





Luke 1:56-57

56 And Mary abode with her about three months, and returned to her own house.





57 Now Elisabeth's full time came that she should be delivered; and she brought forth a son.

Working solely with the calendar of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, Luke has told us that Jesus was a person with sufficient individual identity that His cousin could recognize him through the assistance of the Holy Spirit. He was only a few days old (perhaps not even implanted yet) when John recognizes Him. Mary certainly wouldn’t have even been able to know by ordinary means that she was pregnant yet.





So the pressing point of all this analysis is not that John (in his third trimester) was a person in the womb when he leapt for joy. The unavoidable and much more forceful point is that Jesus was in the very earliest portion of His first trimester when He was recognized by John as a person.



Andrew Tallman concludes his column with this final paragraph-

So as we prepare to celebrate Christmas and the birth of our Savior this year, I have a simple question. Since we now know that Jesus was somewhere between a few days and a few weeks gestation when he was recognized in scripture as a person, then who or what is it in the young woman’s womb today if not a person—and somebody’s grandchild?

I expect sometime in the afternoon of January 20th 2009 for President Obama to issue executive orders that will undo every obstacle and delay that are currently in place to reduce the number of abortions that are performed. This will all be legal, however in my reading again the account by St Luke of the First Christmas this will be morally wrong.

There Oughta Be A Law

from left: brother-in-law Konrad, half-sister Maya, niece Suhaila, Barack Obama, daughter Malia, wife Michelle, daughter Sasha




back row from left: Unknown, Barack Obama, half-brother Malik, unknown, half-brother Abo, half-brother Bernard. Front: Half-sister Auma, stepmother Kezia, stepgrandmother Sarah, unknown

On December 15th 2008 the formality of state electoral college voting occurred, and history was made in the USA. For the very first time the US voters have elected someone whose father WAS NEVER a US citizen. Barack H. Obama Sr. was a British subject at the time of the birth of Barack H. Obama Jr. He later became a citizen of Kenya when the British colony became an independent country, but he never became a US citizen. His mother remarried an Indonesian, Lolo Soetoro where she gave birth to a daughter, Maya. The only living relatives of Barack Obama who are US citizens are ones he either married or gave birth to.



An excellent blog has been written that makes a sound legal case for not taking up this question of Presidential eligibility by the Supremes. I agree that there is no definite law on the books to challenge the eligibility, but there oughta be a law.



The Sons of Liberty who fought and shed their blood for the creation of these United States of America have been slapped in the face. They never wanted the opportunity to exist for someone with foreign ties to be a US President. They did not anticipate a 'citizen of the world' being the American President.



I would like to see a U.S. law that clearly defines that anyone who at the time they announce their candidacy to become POTUS must have both a father and a mother at that time who are United States citizens. I am not a lawyer and certainly I am not an expert on U.S. Constitutional law, but I truly believe that a law such as I have described should be written.

Hey Barry, Think 'Aloha' NOT 'The Chicago Way'

Well Barack Obama has certainly moved with great speed to get a White House Staff and a Cabinet together as soon as possible. Definitely better management than Bill Clinton at this task, and the general opinion is the selections are pragmatists instead of idealogues. That is the good news for him.


Now for the bad news... When the human excrement hit the air circulator last week with the arrest of Illinois Gov. Blagojevich some of the selected Cabinet and Staff are now going to be not targets but subjects of interest in the case that Fitzgerald will be developing against the Illinois Governor. Those folks will be distracted from working for the President while they lawyer up and appear for special testimonies and appearances before a Grand Jury.


Let me name some names for you:


Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff


David Axelrod White House Senior Political Advisor


Valerie Jarrett Senior Advisor and Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Relations and Public Liaison


Desirée Rogers, Special Assistant to the President and White House Social Secretary


Michael Strautmanis Chief of Staff to the Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Relations and Public Liaison


Christina M. Tchen White House Director of Public Liaison


That is six of the thirty-four folks who have been officially announced as nominees. I think Barack is a cautious guy who could use this situation to pivot away from his political cronies in Illinois to the kinder gentler Island folks of Hawaii. On one hand this could be seen as political betrayal for Barack to turn his back on the people who nurtured him politically and got him into the Office of President. On the other hand Rush posits another idea about Barack and 'the Chicago Way.'

Now, Richard Daley somehow is magically escaping any discussion about anything that happened here, and anybody who knows Chicago politics knows that it all runs through Mayor Daley, and Mayor Daley and Blagojevich were not close. They were not good buddies. They have had their contretemps over the years. In fact, I actually think that one of the reasons that Barack Obama is president is that Richard Daley wanted him outta Illinois, because Richard Daley didn't want him staying there running for governor. Richard Daley didn't want to have to do battle with a messiah as governor of Illinois. So, they arrange for him to run for president. Lo and behold, he stuns everybody and wins!

A President needs to get away far away from Washington DC. We have had Presidents who took time away at their political base. JFK went to the Kennedy compound near Martha's Vineyard, MA, LBJ went to LBJ Ranch near Johnson City, TX, Nixon went to San Clemente, CA, Carter went to Plains, GA, Reagan went to Rancho Del Cielo near Santa Barbara, CA, and George W. Bush went to his ranch near Crawford, TX. There are also Presidents who did not have a political base that they would retire to such as George H.W. Bush going to Keenebunkport, ME, and Bill Clinton going to guest with whatever celebrity would put him up.


If I were Barry instead of going back to Chicago to hang out with Bill Ayres, Bernadine Dohrn, Tony Rezko, Jeremiah Wright, Father Michael Pfleger, and Emil Jones I'd enjoy a vacation in Hawaii. It will be interesting to see where he will go to get away from DC.

Henry Thoreau and Priming the Slump

Back in the 60s I thoroughly enjoyed reading Walden. I especially liked the way that he talked about marching to the beat of a different drum. I liked the idea about an individual being left alone. Young people love this kind of stuff.



As I grew older I have seen the growth of a fanatic environmental movement and Garry Trudeau cartoon strips about Walden that just seemed wrong to my memory of what Thoreau was all about. Thoreau was not about creating a political movement. Everything that he lived was about the individual instead of the country.



Here are some Henry Thoreau quotes:

There is no odor so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted. It is human, it is divine, carrion. If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life, as from that dry and parching wind of the African deserts called the simoom, which fills the mouth and nose and ears and eyes with dust till you are suffocated, for fear that I should get some of his good done to me some of its virus mingled with my blood. No in this case I would rather suffer evil the natural way. A man is not a good man to me because he will feed me if I should be starving, or warm me if I should be freezing, or pull me out of a ditch if I should ever fall into one. I can find you a Newfoundland dog that will do as much. Philanthropy is not love for one's fellow-man in the broadest sense.



There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve.



The fact which the politician faces is merely that there is less honor among thieves than was supposed, and not the fact that they are thieves.



I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.



The necessaries of life for man in this climate may, accurately enough, be distributed under the several heads of Food, Shelter, Clothing, and Fuel; for not till we have secured these are we prepared to entertain the true problems of life with freedom and a prospect of success.

I agree with the conclusions Ken Kifer reached about Henry Thoreau.

The purpose of Walden is to argue for, explain, and demonstrate Thoreau's philosophy of life, a philosophy that is practical and poetic, personal and universal. Thoreau developed his own sense of economics, an understanding that differs greatly from that of Karl Marx (communism) or that of Adam Smith (capitalism), an understanding that can free an individual from a life of toil and worry. But in addition, he developed a purpose for life, something that the communists and capitalists overlooked, a purpose more important than economics. Rather than seeing the acquisition of wealth as the goal for human existence, Thoreau saw the goal of life to be an exploration of the mind and of the magnificent world around us.



Ralph Waldo Emerson could shake his head at Thoreau's funeral and say, "I so much regret the loss of his rare powers of action, that I cannot help counting it a fault in him that he had no ambition. Wanting this [that is, lacking ambition] instead of engineering for all America, he was the captain of a huckleberry party. Pounding beans is good to the end of pounding empires one of these days; but if, at the end of years, it is still only beans!"



Emerson, considered the most brilliant thinker of his day, overestimated Thoreau's natural abilities, greatly underestimated Thoreau's accomplishments, and failed to see Thoreau's purpose. Thoreau was not interested in "engineering for all America." Instead of looking at just the problems of the 1850's, Thoreau based his philosophy on ageless truths from the past and looked into the future.

In today's world Henry Thoreau would not be able to live in a cabin at Walden Pond because he would violate rules and regulations and requirements from a big Federal government Dept. of Agriculture, Housing and Urban Development, and Energy Dept.



Last night I listened to Pat Buchanan rant about how the Toyota Republicans are killing the manufacturing base of the US economy. He said there are only four productive bases in an economy, (manufacturing, mining, agriculture, and factories), and killing off the Big 3 by not bailing them out is akin to destroying a large part of the manufacturing base. I agree with Pat on the four productive bases which closely resemble Thoreau's breakdown of the basic necessaries, but I disagree that heavy intervention by the US Federal Government is the right thing to do. I believe if the Government can get out of interfering so much with these productive bases to appease the powerful environmental lobby, then people are going to find a way to produce the products for an existing market.