Friday, June 18, 2010

Warnings to the Tea Party

There is a conservative political movement afoot, whose favorite form of demonstration is the "Tea Party." This is very positive in many ways. I am glad to see so many people with courage to stand up to the government and stand against tyranny.
However, what many (most?) of these people are overlooking is the fact that it was George Bush, both I and II, who took away so many of our freedoms in the name of fighting terrorism.
I will quote here from The Wanderer, June 17, 2010 edition:
"Tea Partiers have unfortunately been fed a line of hokum by politicians aided and abetted by the mainstream media. They fail to understand that it is precisely the interventionist defense and foreign policies that are driving the bad things they see in government...The federal government is twice as big as it was in 2001 and there has been the creation of major new bureaucracies at the Department of Homeland Security and the office of the director of National Intelligence...The Tea Partiers should understand that terrorists will only tear down the United States if we Americans help them to do so. Irrational fear of a small group of men hiding in a cave in Asia is what drives larger government, the infringement of civil liberties, and more taxes and regulation...So how can the Tea Party turn things around? It can only do so by realizing that the first thing that must be done ...is for the United States to end its wars overseas and dramatically scale back on its international commitments."
"The Bush war policies have given President Obama too much unchecked power..."
by Phil Giraldi of the American Conservative.

Saturday, June 5, 2010

A Jansenist/Calvinist sermon

Borrowed from "The Virginian," by Owen Wister.

"The cowboys were told that not only they could do no good, but that if they did contrive to, it would not help them. Nay, more, not only honest deeds availed them nothing, but even if they accepted this especial creed which was being explained to them as necessary for salvation, still it might not save them. Their sin was indeed the cause of their damnation, yet, keeping from sin, they might nevertheless be lost. It had all been settled for them not only before they were born, but before Adam was shaped. Having told them this, he invited them to glorify the Creator of the scheme. Even if damned, they must praise the person who had made them expressly for damnation."