Peace and love and Battlestar Galactica

NOTE: this entry contains spoilers about the end of Battlestar Galactica.

Over the last week I have watched the last eight episodes of Battlestar Galactica, the TV series that ended March 20. The episodes have been sitting unwatched on my DVR all this time. Partly that has been because I have not been watching all that much TV, having trouble focusing to watch much, but I have stirred myself to watch them in order to clear room on the hard drive. Another reason has been that I missed recording the second of the last ten episodes ("A Disquiet Follows My Soul"). That kind of stalled me out since I hated missing part of the story.

One other thing has been lurking...I felt incomplete. Cheryl and I watched the first two seasons together. It was one of our shows. When the third season started I recorded the episodes but could not watch them for some time because Cheryl was not there to watch them with me. When I finally did watch them it was often difficult; I found myself missing her even more, and talking to her when interesting things happened. There were other shows that could give me some trouble like that--sometimes Criminal Minds, The Closer, Monk, or NCIS (the first two with interesting things that I know she would have liked, the latter two because of character developments that I know we would have discussed, as well as because of characters who had lost a wife)--but none as bad as BSG. BSG had all those interesting plot twists, character developments...and the urgency...the depth and breadth of human experience. To watch it has been like a roller coaster ride. When you ride a great roller coaster with your best friend, when you go back and ride it alone the experience is almost indescribably diminished.

As I have watched these last episodes this week, ending with the last two hours tonight, I have still felt some of that diminishment, but I have been able enjoy them, relish them. Still I have missed Cheryl, but I have not felt so incomplete, so unhealed. And the end...the end with the laughter and the tears...was appropriate in its bittersweetness. The loss and the pain, the fresh start, the surprises, the completion and the open endedness, the love and the happiness. I got Helo and Sharon, Baltar (a Baltar who discovered courage, sacrifice, and love) and Caprica Six, an end to the war, Galactica winning her last fight, and more. I might have preferred a few things different--another miracle for Laura so she and Bill could be together, Lee and Kara together, the ships not destroyed, maybe not have it be our earth and the survivors spread out, but rather someplace new and a continuation of civilization. It was okay, though, it all worked...it was fitting...it was bittersweet. And now it is over, and I can close that chapter, let it go, and move on.

Don't believe everything that you read or hear, Part 1

"Former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge says he successfully countered an effort by senior Bush administration officials to raise the nation's terror alert level in the days before the 2004 presidential vote." Ridge says this in his new book. However, the woman who chaired the meeting at which this was said to have happened tells a somewhat different, and more believable, story: Frances Townsend: Tom Ridge has it wrong.

Why do I believe her? First off, as Ms. Townsend points out, raising the threat level probably would have been perceived as political, producing a negative effect, rather than positive, for Bush. People realized this, making it a non-issue for those in the meeting. Someone in the comments to the later news article misunderstands what Townsend said in the interview, saying that she contradicted herself about politics being discussed in the meeting. First she said, "Not only do I not think that it – that politics played any part in it at all – it was never discussed.... There was no discussion of politics whatsoever." Later she says, "not only was there no discussion in those meetings, the discussions on the margins...there was concern if the intelligence supported raising the threat level it might actually be to the detriment of President Bush because people might perceive it being political."This last was incorrectly interpreted as taking place in the meeting in question, but any discussion of politics was between participants in a series of meetings outside of those meetings. If Ridge was right, and there were politics involved in what the threat level was set at, it would have influenced it to be lower, not higher.

Second, I don't see what Ms. Townsend has to gain by disputing this claim by Tom Ridge. Ridge, on the other hand, has a book to sell, and possibly a reputation for independence to support.

Third, I can see a scenario where politics was involved, but politics between departments, not involving the electorate. Or, I could see it as professional caution or paranoia, since the two that wanted to raise the threat level--Ashcroft and Rumsfeld--were quite likely to be blamed if something did happen and the threat level had not been raised.

Fourth, Bush has been blamed for so many things that it is easy to blame him or something and be believed. One of the best ways to be listened to is to blame Bush for something. The press automatically assumes Bush was wrong and the person laying the blame is a hero. And all the brainless ones out there follow right along....

Health-care struggle is about freedom

In Health-care struggle is about freedom Star Parker brings up some worthwhile objections to the socialist leadership and their claims:

...Mr. Obama [has] reduced his opposition to liars.

And why, according to the president, are dissenters supposedly making all this stuff up? Because, he told his audience, they want to "discourage people from meeting … a core ethical and moral obligation ... that we look out for one another … that I am my brother's keeper. …"

So those whose fight for individual freedom are immoral and our moral champions are those who want to extend the heavy hand of government.

Forgive me if sermons about morality are a little hard to swallow from a man who supports partial-birth abortion, who just announced his intent to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act.

[...]

About 100,000 Americans participate in private, voluntary Christian communities, which take care of their own health care independent of government and insurance companies. They are called health-care sharing ministries.

[...]

These ministries share pooled funds of around $80 million annually to take care of each other, driven only by guidelines of biblical principles to "Bear one another's burden, and thus fulfill the law of Christ."

[...]

Health-care sharing ministries is one particularly beautiful example of how faithful Americans take care of themselves when allowed to be free. But there are many others.

[...]

But, Barack Obama and congressional Democrats have slammed the door on all this. They only want to hear about more government. Not less.

The problem isn't that dissenting Americans are immoral. It's that Democrat leadership has a problem with individual freedom.

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It is also ironic that the ones that are often saying that the govt should not legislate morality are now saying that we need socialized medicine because it is the moral thing to do. On top of that, here they are involving religion. It is disgusting how they holler about separation of church and state when the church would interfere with their plans, but when they can use religion to advance their plans there they are. (Why do people let them get away with it?) This time, however, it is appropriate that religious leaders are involved, because this health-care issue involves the issue of freedom of religion.

How is this so? First, as others have mentioned, there is the issue of abortion. God abhors shedding innocent blood (Prov 6:16-19). He hates it so much that a nation that practices this will be judged harshly (Is 59 & Jer 22, for example). If an unborn human being is not an innocent human being, I don't know what is. The socialists claim that abortion will not be a part of there plan, but don't believe it. That claim flies in the face of their own statements in other venues, their reluctance to specifically prohibit it, and the record of their past actions. Anyone who believes that access abortion services should be a right is sooner or later going to make that part of nationalized medicine. Doing so forces on us all the blood-guilt of ending innocent life, and violates one of the core precepts of Christianity and Judaism, if not other religions.

This also violates the principles of our Founding Fathers who, I feel, made pretty clear the order of priority for such things. "Life Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness," were not put in that order because it sounded best, but because they must come in that order. Without life there can not be liberty, nor can there be the pursuit of happiness. Without liberty there can not be the pursuit of happiness. So logic supports the order. But I digress.

Second, the Word of God says pure religion is taking care of those in need.

But if a widow has children or grandchildren, these should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God. (1 Tim 5:4)

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. (James 1:27)

Please pay attention to who is to look after those who are in need. The word "oneself" denotes that individuals are to do these things. While I will not deny that there is a societal onus in the Bible, it is an onus on the individuals of society to choose to act morally. If my ability to choose to act morally is taken away from me, then my ability to practice my religion is taken away from me. If the Federal govt takes my money from me for the purpose of caring for others, and then takes care of them so that they do not have need, then I no longer am able to choose to act in this way and my ability to practice my religion is limited.

Why is it important, though, for people to do this individually? Some reasons:

1. The ultimate purpose of Christianity is for people to be like Christ. Christ cared for others, and did so individually, as well as in groups.
2. Caring for others individually develops compassion, one of God's essential characteristics, and something that He desires to see in us.
3. People are better and more effectively served, cared for, and loved individually and by people who want to do so, rather than just for a paycheck or because they have to.
4. Freedom is an essential value of both Christianity and our Founding Fathers. Freedom is inherently individual. The Soviet Union may have been sovereign, and therefore "free," but no one ever truthfully described the Soviet Union as the "land of the free." The United States, however, where people were individually free could (at least at one time) accurately be described as the "land of the free."
5. Individually caring for others, even in such a way as the health-care sharing ministries, develops relationships, which in turn enriches people. The more connected, internally, any organization (including nations) is the stronger that organization is.

One further way nationalized health-care impinges on my religious liberty is that it reduces my ability to help others. It would do this because of the higher taxes. The more we pay in taxes, the less we have to use to help others. If it is not clear to you that taxes will go up in order to pay for this, then you are either not paying attention, are under-educated (try reading this book: Economics in One Lesson to start off with), or are blind. And this is not just going to individually decrease our ability to help others, it will also decrease our ability as a nation to help others. Because government run help to those in need are inherently less efficient than private organizations (see here for an explanation, or google it), there will be fewer of the same resources going to the people who actually need it.

I agree whole-heartedly with Star Parker that this is a struggle for freedom, and this includes freedom of religion, among others.

Btw, if you have not ever heard of health-care sharing ministries before, maybe you should check them out.

Why the Eighteenth Amendment?

Why does the Eighteenth Amendment exist? And no, I am not referring in any way to the numbering: it is obvious that the next amendment to the U.S. Constitution after the Seventeenth would be the Eighteenth what ever it was about. What I am asking is, why was the prohibition of alcoholic beverages an amendment, making it part of the highest law of the land? Why didn't the temperance folks just get Congress to pass a law prohibiting the manufacture, sale, transportaion, importation, and exportation of alcohol?

Reading several articles about prohibition on the web did not answer this question. I believe, though, that the answer is evident if one reads the U.S. Constitution and thinks about it: Prohibiting the manufacture, sale, transportaion, importation, and exportation of anything was not a power given Congress! It would seem that Congress, recognizing that fact, did the only thing that they could do to satisfy their constituents, which was to propose an amendment to the Constitution granting that power. This was then followed by the legislatures of 36 states ratifying the amendment so that they, too, could satisfy their constituents.

Unfortunately the understanding of the U.S. Constitution on the part of Senators and Congressmen since has gone down hill more and more. This has resulted in Social Security, Medicare, drug restrictions and prohibitions, and many other laws that exceed the authority of the Federal Government. These things should rightfully be the province of the governments of the several states. This includes health care. Our leaders had enough intelligence, wisdom, education, and integrity to do things right in 1917, it is a shame that they do not now.