The Cult of Liberty

The cult of equality is bad.

This cult is on full display in our schools, and it is bad enough.Teachers cannot tell their students what to do, because their thoughts and opinions are granted as much credence as the role of the teacher. Leveling that field will level the future that our students want, but will not be able to receive precisely because they are graduating with the false notion that everything is supposed to work out for them as they see fit.

Telling people that the goal of government and the proper role of mankind is to "beat down the mountains and bring up the valleys" for social and economic inequality ends up creating a world filled with widespread poverty, with an elite few commanding greater access to the resources.

However, the cult of liberty can also be damaging, one which tells people that "doing what you want" and making your own way in the world, irrespective of the values and wisdom of the ages.

Freedom ain't free, and freedom remains dumb to the degree that men and women do not know who they are.

Just as a painting without borders will fade into the wall on which it rests, so to human beings without a defining goal for their freedom will give in to the massive conformity of the crowd, of the popular opinion of men, or in the group which commandeers more power.

Man needs a voice, his own spirit, one which comes from Someone else.

When he had found this voice, when he knows who he is, and what he has, and what he is called to do, then his freedom has meaning, has purpose, had direction.

Otherwise, the ability to choose becomes an inability to choose, a world and a way fraught with doubt and worry, forever incapable of deciding which way to go, what to do, where to go.

"I" make decisions, but who am I? Where do these decisions come from, and where are the going?

The cult of liberty, which some would call "rugged individualism", has created the en masse conformity in which men and women still look to belong to something, seeking a system that will help them make sense of a chaotic world which does not regard them as the center of the  universe.

The cult of liberty is just as dangerous as the cult of equality, in large part because it creates the cult of equality, where men and women have become too afraid to stand on their own, because they have nothing to stand on but themselves.

Voice, Values, Vote

Indiana Congressman, short-term Presidential candidate, and now Governor of the Hoosier state, defined himself as follows:

"I am a Christian first, a conservative second, and a Republican third.

I break down these affiliations as follows: voice, values, and vote

Voice, or identity, comes first. Who we are defines and influences everything else in our lives. How we define ourselves also sets the tone for what we think and say.

From our voice, or core identity, then follows our values, or our views on human nature, the role of government, the rights and powers of those who lead us as well as those whom we know or command under our authority.

From voice and values comes our vote. Who we are, what we believe, affects whom we vote for, or how we vote in the first place.

With this paradigm outlined, I would write the following.

First, I am a child of God: Romans 8: 15; 1 John 4: 17 -- "Christian" gives off a standing in a church, or in an institution, which is not wrong, but the Spirit of adoption cannot be ignored.

Second, I am a classical liberal. I think of the Austrian Economists and free-market advocates like Milton Friedman as part of this milieu, along with many libertarian thinkers, but I am not a libertarian, since those values relate a political philosophy, but do not articulate a world view or a manifest understanding of human nature.

Third, I am a Republican, but I am more than willing to support an Independent or Democrat who espouses classical liberal views. To this day, the Republican Party, at least on its platform, better reflects views of free markets, free people, free enterprise. "Free" is the proper definition of "liberal", not "equal", as presented by Democratic Party leaders today.

Voice, values, vote -- people need to know who they are in truth, not based on the suppositions of the state nor the opinions of men. When they have their voice, established in something sure and stable

The Massachusetts GOP decided that a grassroots effort must include explaining who they are, and what they represent. Jeff Jacoby advised Bay State Republicans to assess why anyone should vote for a Republican. A positive image, with a positive platform, better articulates the voice of the party than being negative and attacking the other party.

Values -- here, the GOP is facing some struggles. The social issues like abortion, gay marriage, and gun control are raising more questions and conflicts than before. Do Republicans stick with the more conservative line of pro-life and pro-traditional marriage, or do they go with the flow of the more tolerant electorate, including the younger generation which has no qualms with "gay marriage" or with pro-choice stances on abortion?

Vote must come last. The Massachusetts GOP has learned this lesson already. Why vote for a political party if you do not know their voice or their values, or in the case of the disconnect between the National GOP and the New England GOP parties, if they do not have a clear voice on the issues, or if their values are in conflict with the national platform, or with the statewide attitudes of everyday voters?

Of course, this does not mean that Republicans should embrace liberal views on everything, or even anything. But who they are and what they believe must come through without hesitation or distraction.

Ryan Fattman of Sutton made his case, knocking on 5,000 doors, and he won his last election with 70% of the vote in deep blue Massachusetts. If he can succeed there, what's to stop California Republicans, or Delaware Republicans, or even Rhode Island Republicans from replicating the same.

Establish the voice, outline the values, and get out the vote.

Culture of Dependency = Culture of Poverty

I met a French man in the South Bay last week.

He shared with me that in his country, the government takes care of them, takes care of everything.

He repeated a phrase which I have heard President Obama and the Democratic Party repeat often:

"The rich need to pay their fair share."

I asked him his thoughts about that.

He told me that that's the way it should be. The rich should pay more.

I then asked him how he would respond if he had to pay 67 cents on every dollar in taxes.

He then changed the subject, arguing that those who earn less pay less in taxes, while those who earn more then pay more.

I fired back: "That's not fair!"

His response, justifying his point of view: "It's cultural."

Not to actor Gerard Depardieu, who has fled France with his millions, refusing to see sixty-seven cents of his every dollar taken away by the state. Not to former French President Nicholas Sarkozy or former actress Bridget Bardot, who are leaving France so that they do not have to pay horrendous taxes to pay for a welfare state which no one can afford.

Even a major labor leader in Franch, Laurence Parisot of MEDEF, has protested Socialist-Leftist President Francois Hollande's high taxes, since at least this one labor leader recognizes that raising exorbitant taxes on wealthy people pushes wealth out of trade and investment, and rich people either horde their wealth in trust funds or hide their wealth in untouchable off-shore bank accounts.

The issue is more than dollars and cents. The issue is human nature. Not cultural, but endemic to human nature untouched or unenlightened with the truth and consequences of poor choices. A society based on the few paying the way of the many creates a culture of sloth and waste, both of which are insulting and unfair to the very people whom the program is supposed to benefit: the poor.

Free Market economist Milton Friedman exposed "The Robin Hood Myth" and showed the state programs for what they really are: handouts for middle class bureaucrats. Government programs benefit middle income voters at the expense of the very poor and the very rich. Higher education is one example. Laws passed by a simple majority cover 51% of the people. The coalitions are connected with people who are higher on the economic and political spectrum. Who are the most effective at political activity -- middle class people who write for papers, who provide the candidates.

Citizens at the top have all the money, and the middle voters have not problem going after those who have the money, leave out the rich and the poor. Sometimes the rich make a coalition. State finance of higher education is sold on providing everyone an education. There is not program which has a regressive impact. Who go to school? Most people from middle-income earners. Who pays for these subsidies? The taxpayers, especially those who do not go to school. 50% of students come from the top of middle class.

Taxes are imposed on everyone to benefit one group -- the middle class. State programs tax everyone, but middle class voters reap most of the benefits. The entitlement state in this country serves primarily the middle class. They vote, and the politicians listen. Younger working class men enter working at 16, but they pay social security taxes right away. Middle income earners will start earning pay at 25, but they reap more in Social Security than working class types. What gives?

I submit also that welfare, bureaucracy, and more government benefits middle class types at the expense of the poor. All of those social workers, psychiatrists, doctors, social engineers, are all middle class types looking for a secure job and secure pension. Welfare recipients are treated like slaves, like animals who are so hopelessly incompetent, that they cannot make it in the real world. That is a horrid lie, disgraceful and unjust.

Welfare hurts people. Comedian Adam Carolla, who wrote a book about his childhood and "welfare reina" mother, he is also a heavy-hitting fiscal conservative, not afraid to call Obama's flubs "stupid comments".

Envy as economic policy creates poverty all over. In fact, "giving" people a handout is just subtle way of saying: "I want you poor and dependent."

No better source for saying so than actor-comedian Adam Carolla, a frequent guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live and Bill O'Reilly.

In his recent autobiography, Not Taco Bell Material, Adam Carolla relates how he was raised in a welfare family -- welfare, food stamps, and even a school lunch. He felt that his mother was "cut off at the knees". The government gave her enough to get by, but nothing else.

"Why don't you just get a job?" Adam asked one day, tired of the bad food and the poor quality life that he was suffering.

Mom's answer is a classic response from dependents:

"If I get a job, I will lose welfare."

Dependence is a subtle poison, one which denies wealth and prominence for people, who then become convinced that they cannot make it without someone making it for them, so that they can take it.

Carolla was convinced that she would have risen to the occasion, gotten a job, and made something of herself. Sadly, we will never find out what people are capable of as long as we are getting a stipend from the state.

What motivated Carolla to get out of the cycle of poverty and welfarism? He wanted a car. He wanted better than a life full of hard jobs.

Instead of getting stuck in envy, Adam Carolla got into gear to get something better, something that everyone can do. As long as Democrats insist on paying people just enough to get by, when they can prosper doing so much more, though, Dems and "Liberal Do-Gooders" end up impoverishing people".

Robert Sirico, a former socialist turned Catholic Priest who defends the morality of free markets, pushed the liberal-Democratic redistribution argument to the extreme. What will happen if we take all the wealth from the "Top 1%" and give into the poorest "10%"?

What will the bottom "10%" do with all of that money?

They will consume it. They will spend it, and there will be nothing to show for it.

A thriving economy requires makers and shakers, not takers and fakers. Taking from one group of people, and the other group faking the idea that they need it, just expands poverty.

What good is wealth taken from one to give to another, when all of that money goes into consumption only?

Indeed, a mentality of "pay fair share" dependence is cultural, which means that no one has to buy into it, be born into it, or be burdened with it. Thomas Sowell remarked that the vast majority of freed African-Americans could not read once they were freed from slavery, but in a generation, the literacy rate exploded to fifty percent of the population, despite racist Jim Crow laws and prohibitions against education black people

They did not need welfare then, but Democratic President Lyndon Baines Johnson felt otherwise:

"We'll have those niggers voting for us for 200 hundred years." -- Lyndon Baines Johnson.

This comment he made when expanding the welfare state, with minorities in mind, to create dependents, expand dependence, and maintain a dependable voting bloc of the Democratic Party.

Shame on them!

Consider once again:

Imagine if the state told you that you had to pay sixty-seven cents on every dollar you make in taxes? The French man I spoke with refused to answer this question. Will you?

A culture of dependence is a culture of poverty, a culture which we can choose to resist and rise above.

Why Republicans are Losing the Cultural War

Conservatism and tradition are important staples for people.

Conservatives, Republicans, and limited government types have been appealing to tradition and trade and other non-transient elements to make their case for maintaining marriage, for resisting abortion on demand, for defending gun ownership, or even for combating global warming.

Social issues have been defined by 'right and wrong".

The dynamic must oscillate between death and life, which right and wrong are supposed to define and drive people towards.

There is death, there is life.

But life must be perceived as greater than our thoughts and feeling, and truth as more important than what I think and feeling, more than what makes me feel good or comfort.

Man's greatest need is righteousness, not thoughts or feelings, not self or others.

Dennis Prager was right. Without God, without the revelation of the Word of God, right and wrong turn into the empty traditions of men based on which has lasted longer, or which one has  more adherents, or which one is backed with more firepower, or consequences for not believing.

Part of the reason why conservatives are having a hard time defending certain positions, in my opinion, is that they appeal to tradition, when traditions and traditional people, places, and things are falling apart all around them.

The traditions of the Roman Catholic Church have now given way to the power differentials of clericism. The traditions of the  Founding Fathers and the federal government have given way to the leanings of modern liberalism and the traditions of Big Government, which is supposed to get bigger.

What is lost in all of this wrangling, of course, is the pursuit of the truth.

Conservatism implies staying put, or conserving what is already in place.

We are not technological conservatives, though, otherwise, there would never be any advancement in our lives.

God Himself does not want us to be "conservative" or static in our understanding of Him:

"But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen." (2 Peter 3: 18)

Growing in grace and knowledge of the Lord means receiving more of His Truth, of Himself, in our lives.

The traditions of men are still those -- the traditions of men.

The truth, however, does not change, or it is no longer truth.

Either you believe it or you do not believe it.

It's just that simple.

We should always embrace change, change that bring us closer to a greater of God's grace and truth:

"17For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." (John 1: 17)

Grace and truth come together as one - no way to separate them. Impossible.

This grace is foreign to all too many people in the world.

The reasons why Republicans, why conservatives, why limited government types are losing the culture war is that truth without grace is not truth.

Tradition alone cannot justify saying "No!" to evil:

"11For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, 12Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;" (Titus 2: 11-12)

This is the grace that teaches us to say "Yes!" to His life in us, and no to sin and death, which includes the present, prevalent perversions of abortion on demand, or homosexual conduct, or even depriving men and women of their freedom to defend themselves or to work out their living instead of depending on the self-defeating handouts of another.

"Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free." (John 8: 32)

Bravo, Senator Graham (Block President Obama's Abortive Appointments)

When he was a Congressman, I applauded Lindsey Graham, because he led the fight to impeach President Clinton in 1998. He was one of the many stars of the show, willing to go the distance to remove from office a chief executive who had compromised his role by engaging in unseemly private conduct, then lying about it under oath to a grand jury.

In spite of the partisan result which acquitted the President, Lindsey Graham gained a lot of well-deserved notoriety, eventually winning the senate seat previously occupied by longest-term incumbent Strom Thurmond. The centenarian should never have stayed in office as long as he did. One good thing that Senator Graham did for us.

His record in Washington, however, started to worry some conservatives, and certainly a growing constituency of South Carolinians who expected their senator to represent their interests, not those of the Washington Beltway elite. He supported Bush's judicial nominees, but also President Obama's. He has joined the more centrist "Gang of Eight", which has pushed compromise without character in some cases. He voted to increase the debt ceiling, and he even signaled his willingness to renege on the Grover Norquist "No New Taxes" Pledge.

As Congressman Mick Mulvaney argued cogently shortly after rejecting the last-minute fiscal cliff deal, there is good compromise and there is bad compromise. When a prospective home buyer offers to purchase the home for one dollar, a reasonable response would be to slam the door in the person's face. All too often, more center-leaning Republicans like Senator Graham, along with his colleague from Arizona John McCain, have made compromise in itself the final goal, while ignoring or eliminating the long-term consequences of easy-breezy short-term deals. Why support liberal Supreme Court nominees just to get through business? Why add insult to injury to a party which now more than every needs unity, not disparity?

He successfully resisted the appointment of UN Ambassador Susan Rice to Secretary of State. Her lack of knowledge about coordinated attacks and memos demanding more support for Benghazi, and her garbled story about merely reading talking points exposed that Ms. Rice was either immoral or incompetent, unworthy of promotion. "Someone has got to start paying a price around here". Right on, Senator.

Unlike other Senators, Graham will not let go of the Libyan terrorist attack on the US consulate at Benghazi. He demanded information whether the President knew about General Dempsey acknowledged that there should have been "more boots on the ground" to make sure that that consulate. The diplomatic corps succumbed to the attack on September 11, 2012, even though the stationed officials asked for help. One plane was dispatched to the area in order to save the beleaguered staff in the area. The questions which trouble the Senator, and should concern us, stand on what did the President know, and could he (or should he) have done more.

Bravo, Senator Graham!

For the first time in years, Senator Graham is brandishing his judge advocate general bluster from his Congressional days. He pointedly hammered the former Senator from Nebraska, whom President Obama nominated for Secretary of Defense. Hagel's nomination spurred nothing but dissent from leading politicians, including Tom Coburn and a number of Jewish leaders, Democrat and Republican.

In the Armed Service Committee hearings to vet Hagel, Graham's first question asked for clarity about funding and the current war status of this country. Hagel offered that the United States spends five percent of the total budget on defense, although he waffled on that figure. As future leader of the Pentagon, his incertitude on costs was deafening. Graham then rolled out one of Hagel's more disturbing statements, including his indictment of the "Jewish Lobby intimidates a lot of people" in Washington. Graham demanded specifics about "who is intimidated" -- and Graham hammered the provocation of the statement, including the hollowness of the invective, since Hagel offered no evidence of such pressure from Israel on American foreign policy.

Hagel refused to sign a letter to the European Union which would designate that Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. Then again, Hagel prompted former President Bill Clinton to move on behalf of Jews in Russia. Hagel has already shown an inconsistent stance on the role of the Senate. Iranian Revolutionary Guard is a terrorist organization, but as a Senator he refused to sign a letter which would designate them as such, either

Graham properly demanded to know: 'Do you believe that the sum total of your votes suggests statements about Palestinians would send the worst possible signals to our friends and our enemies?"

Hagel shared unconvincingly that he was convinced that his record would not send a poor message. The South Carolina Senator pressed him to recast his votes. If there was a vote on the floor of the Senate to label the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization, would he vote “Yea”? Hagel “bageled” again, deferring to the President, the same President who refused to stand with Iranian protesters in 2009 and 2011.

The former Senator also refused to sign a letter expressing solidarity with Israel and disappointment with Yasser Arafat for his inaction during the 2000 Intifada. The US Senate wanted to send the message that the PLO terrorists were undermining peace, but Hagel refused to go along.

President Obama has also nominated Top Counter-Terrorism Advisor John Brennan to be director of the CIA, the same advisor who called jihad "Legitimate", the same advisor whom Graham suggested should resign because of his unserious disconnect with Islamic terrorism.

Lindsey Graham has pledged to hold both Brennan and Hagel until he gets answers from the President about the Benghazi attack on September 11, 2012.

Bravo, Senator Graham!

Benedict Has Had Enough

Pope Benedict XVI is stepping down as Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church.

His sudden decision to resign is understandable.

After eight years of battling secular attacks, pedophilia scandals, and a declining laity, the pope's 85 years were no longer up to the challenge.

I am just as mad at Pope John Paul II as I am with the leadership that demonstrated anything but in covering up and covering for the massive perversions which went unpunished in Catholic churches throughout the world. The United State was teh first battleground fo r esposing the corruption of clericism, and now Europe is ravaged with scandals breached for the public to report on. Soon enough, the massive violations of trust and sanctity will explode through the Third World, too, where African and Latin American priests are also well-known for having their own families on the side.

Pope John Paul II left a fractured religious community to his successor, and now the aged, transition figure cannot carry on his duties. Then again, his age and his arch-conservaigvism in teh face of a traending world signalled to the faithful as well as the skeptical that he would not leave a lasting legacy.

In a sense, Pope Benedict XVI was the "Mitt Romney" of Catholic Popes, yet unlike the Mormon from Massachusetts, Cardinal John Ratzinger did win the election.

Nichols on the End of USPS Saturday Service

John Nichols laments that the end of Saturday service from the United States Post Office is a threat to democracy. Arguing that marginal populations will lose their voting franchise following the discontinuing of Saturday service, Nichols ignores the more envelope-pushing reality: no matter who runs the program, no matter where the funding comes from, agencies and corporations cannot avoid supply and demand.

To permit the Post Office to continue at its current pace, without necessary pension and benefits reforms, or to continue to fund an institution which is losing revenue and relevance in the fact of technological innovations, is the greater threat to our nation’s democracy.  Private firms already deliver the mail, and they can process votes, too.

The United States Post Office is the epitome of government waste and insularity to invention and innovation. While liberal activists have repeatedly rung aloud that the postal service proves that government agencies can run effective business programs, the multi-billion dollar debts and deficits of the program, which has now forced postal workers not to ring twice on Saturdays, only proves once again that efficiency, productivity, and bureaucracy cannot be placed in the same package, nor deliver as a composite conglomerate.

Postal workers attacking colleagues was a sporadic tragedy. The timeless plight of dogs chasing and biting postal workers was serious. The inevitable decline of the United States Post Office, a government agency which faced no opposition nor realized any opportunity to improve, is a long-term inevitably, both timely and no laughing matter.

Kevin James, CA GOP, and "Gay Marriage"

I like Kevin James, the hilarious actor from “The King of Queens”. He also played an inept boyfriend in “Hitch”, then security guard in “Mall Cop.”

There is another Kevin James whom I want to like, lawyer, radio host and Los Angeles mayoral candidate.  He is openly gay. Unlike Seinfeld and friends, I believe that there is “something wrong with that”. The controversy surrounding James sexuality has deep implications for the Republican Party, the state, and the country, too. His campaign for LA Mayor is being touted as a turning point for the California Republican Party. Conservatives want to advance candidates who champion limited government, local control, lower taxes, less spending, and individual liberty. However, they are facing a growing tide of “demanded acceptance” for “gay marriage”. Former Presidential Candidate Newt Gingrich conceded that the Republican Party cannot win the battle over this issue. Larry Kotkin signaled without resignation that young Republicans are more accepting of gay marriage than old Democrats.

I am not so inclined. A British airline pilot enlightened me when he defined “marriage” as between one man and one woman, not out of offense or disgust, but because that is just the way it is: like “2 + 2 = 4”. Marriage by condition, by tradition, by definition is “one man and one woman.’” This position cannot be articulated based on tradition only, since traditions are subject to change, and for the better, sometimes.

Touching on the core issue, I have never once believed that homosexuality is a matter of identity, but rather a matter of choice, pure and simple. Tammy Bruce, the fiery openly-lesbian radio host who voted for Reagan both times, admits that she chooses to be lesbian. Conservative radio host Dennis Prager illustrated “gay as choice” when he discussed the prevalence of homosexuality among women who enter prison. Some female prisoners engage in sexual relationships with other inmates, but when they leave prison, they get married and have children.

I have encountered numerous individuals who lived a “gay lifestyle”, then abandoned it because of boredom and emptiness. One man acknowledged that his relationship with another man was “all pretend”.  In many lesbian couples, one woman is “more manly” than the other. An LA Weekly article called “Gay Happiness” reported that there is very little, mostly because a “gay relationship” centers around a sex act, nothing more. 

On average, homosexuals have a diminished lifespan (20%), and this statistic is born out in both accepting and condemning cultures, even after factoring out disease and dysfunction. Ancient historians, including Polybius, witnessed the implosion and demise of Greek city states because of the breakdown of proper sexual relationships.  Beyond Conservative Dinesh D’Souza’s declaration that “Men need women, not men!”, homosexuality, like any other deviant sexual conduct, damages the body, soul, and spirit. Looking past individual problems, if people endorse “gay marriage” (not “marriage equality”, since marriage has nothing to do with equality, but mutual, unified submission), where do we draw the line? How do we forbid a man from marrying a horse, a doorknob, or a minor?

Frankly, marriage should be a private matter; not even civil unions should exist. No pastor should appeal to a government authority to join anyone in marriage. “Tolerance” must be the word, then. Then again, gay political activists insist that they will not tolerate “tolerance”. They must be accepted as “gay”. I asked one activist to explain his “gay identity”. He sounded more confused than ever. Sex and sexuality is a choice, but the wisest choice is sex within the boundaries of marriage, between one man and one woman.

I am on record for supporting one gay candidate. In 2012, real estate agent Richard Tisei of Massachusetts, a state senate minority leader and openly gay Republican, had a sporting chance against fourteen-term and irrepressibly corrupt Democratic Congressman John Tierney. I even wrote a post to the Wrentham Patch (hometown for US Senator Scott Brown) entitled “Sixteen Trillion Reasons to Give Five Hundred Pennies to Richard Tisei.” Get rid of Tierney, rev up a conservative resurgence in the Northeast, and show the Bay State, New England, and the rest of the country that “The Republican Party can compete nationwide.”

Tisei was a “live and let live Republican”: pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, refused to sign the “Grover Norquist Tax Pledge”, with a respectable record of resisting taxes, spending, and waste. Offering himself up as an “unsullied” alternative to a troubled  incumbent, Tisei lost by one measly percentage point, depressed by the uninspiring leader of the GOP ticket. Then again, a campaign of “I’m gay and better than that guy” was probably not compelling enough, either.

As for Kevin James, the openly gay entertainment lawyer-radio host running for mayor of Los Angeles, I want to like the man. I could – maybe –  vote for the guy. But could I knock on doors or make phone calls for him? Would my vote endorse a lifestyle contrary to a person’s body, soul, and spirit? How “big” should the GOP tent be, then, without compromising the truth? These are questions which this California Republican faces “coming out” as “pro-life, pro-marriage”.

Al Franken: Not Good Enough

Al Franken was a smash-hit on Saturday Night Live.

The comedy-writer turned comedian turned out comedic gold as "Stuart Smalley", the sweater-wearing, perennially-smiling, Twelve Step advocate with his own limited cable TV show. "Stuart Smalley's" bleached hair, his breached mouth, and his wimpy, dimply face all made us cringe and crack up at the same time. His most common refrain, before during and after every "broadcast" is a refrain which refrains a man from disdaining himself:

"I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me!"

Unfortunately, Franken's caricatured Midwestern, folksy charm did not translate to liberal talk radio. Air America was Franken's brainchild, an alternative to the widespread conservative talk-show spectrum which still rules the airwaves. After a short period of time, the radio network went off the air. Already, Franken was getting used to not getting the positive affirmation which his "self-help" alter-ego so easily dispensed to ethereal viewers.

Having failed at broadcasting, Franken moved back to Minnesota in 2008 to run for the US Senate seat against Norm Coleman. Another New Yorker, Coleman the incumbent had replaced liberal Paul Wellstone in 2002, whose untimely death in a plane crash forced former US Senator, Vice President, and failed Presidential candidate Walter Mondale to resurrect his defeated political career for the Senate seat in 2002. Coleman won.

The Republicans would have ended up being the crucial forty-first vote to stop the Obama juggernaut in 2009 and beyond, if he had won against Franken. Perhaps Coleman will return to office in 2014, running against the current incumbent Franken, an opponent who should never have entered elected office in the first place. Until then, voters in Minnesota should review the former SNL alum's past six years, which still hover under the cloud of dubious election.

Taking a longer look at Franken's record, Minnesotans should be crying instead of laughing. Franken's final victory over Norm Coleman by less than one thousand votes gave Franken the Senate seat and the sixty-vote Democratic supermajority in the US Senate. Today, this country is suffering under Obamacare, Dodd-Frank, and wasted trillion-dollar deficits in part because of Franken, the crucial "cloture-clatching" vote in Washington D.C.'s upper chamber.

US Senator Al Franken has proven where he stands on the issues, yet he should not stand once again to represent the Great Lakes State.

He is not good enough: He never had any substantial legislative experience when he ran for office. He barely won the seat (already mentioned).

He is not smart enough: For a man who gets into petty tiffs on the floor of the US Senate, one would assume that Minnesota voters would expect something more from their junior senator.

And doggone it, fewer voters should like him. Granted, Slate Magazine records that Franken is positioned to win in 2014. Yet how does he justify the terrible leadership of President Obama, which has decimated the private sector with more laws, more regulations, and an unstable tax code laded down with Obamacare, which is already taxing Americans will diminishing access and increasing the costs of health care?

One constituent commented on a YouTube post:

I resent Franken being called the Senator from Minnesota! He's not from Minnesota, he does not represent us from Minnesota, and he cheated to get elected!!! He is an idiot moron, put in place by Obama, and his minions! 
  
Franken's latest mission has been to undo Citizens United, the Supreme Court ruling which permitted corporations to spend unlimited funding on political campaigns. Frankly, Franken's frank displeasure with the ruling obviates the facts. After nearly two billion dollars spent in the 2012 election, the country remains more sorely divided than ever. President Obama won by a lesser margin than in 2008, but Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who took in more money than Barack Obama, lost the election.

Looking backward to 2010 in California, wealthy businesswomen Meg Whitman and Carla Fiorina ran for statewide offices with their hefty war chests, yet they lost to their less-wealthy Democratic opponents by ten points. One year before that, New Jersey's Chris Christie coasted into the governor's mansion by four points in two-to-one Democratic state against an incumbent -- who outspent Christie and even counted in his endorsements frequent personal visits by President Barack Obama.

Not money, but the right candidate with the right mission wins elections. If anything, Citizens United has proven that money cannot by elections. So why is Franken wasting his and taxpayers' time trying to create a constitutional amendment striking down Citizens United?

Franken's time in the Saturday Night Live limelight was a brilliant period in his career. As for his term in office, he would be better off writing off the whole six years as an aberration, much like his failed books, short-lived television shows, and one-man radio stint.

Forget Franken for US Senate. He's not good enough. He's not smart enough, and if someone doesn't get him to a Twelve Step recovery program soon, the rest of the country will be drunk and passed out on the red ink of debt, deficits, and demented political dysfunction. Reason enough not to like him.

There is No Such Thing as a "One Night Stand"

I remember talking with one community college student a while back.

First, I shared with him what I had been learning about in the Gospel -- all my sins are forgiven, and God comes to live in me to a new, everlasting life.

He told me about a reported controversy in National Geographic. Supposedly, archaeologists and Coptic theologians had found a fragment of a "lost gospel" which described Jesus as a married man, and other unseemly ideas which do not run current with the Word of God.

I disputed these empty ideas right away, although I had to read up on the article for more information. I found out exactly what I expected. The "fragment" of parchment has a few scrawled sentences, none of which were connected to each other. The word "wife" does appear, but the rest of the words, even if they were placed side by side, could not communicate that Jesus was married to anyone.

Besides, Jesus already has a wife: The Body of Christ, His Church!

At any rate, one comment of his stuck with me while we were talking.

"I think that you should be able to sleep with someone before you are married!"

The issue of sex, its propriety, and its proper boundaries, has only gotten more skewed and confused, not less.

The Bible writes clearly about sexual immorality -- anything outside of one man and one woman married:

"Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid." (1 Corinthians 6: 15)

Paul's verse signals an unalterable reality: when a person has sex with another person, they are joined together for life. There is no "clean break", there is no such thing as a "one night stand".

When someone sleeps with another person, it's similar to gluing two pieces of paper together. After an hour, any attempt to separate the two pieces of paper creates a big  mess of ripped papers, with flecks of each piece stuck to the other. In effect, the person which one sleeps with never leaves the other. And that's not good. For this reasons, sexual abuse can be so traumatic.

Evangelist Billy Graham shared during one sermon that 75% of college students seek out a counselor after having sex with someone. An uneasy sense of shame persists with these young people, and they cannot explain why. Their parents never hear about it, to begin with, so the reproach of their parents is not the issue. This unchanging consequence of sex outside of marriage indicates the danger and the dysfunction of two people sleeping together before they are married.

Yet even the dangers of shame and regret, coupled with the risk of disease or pregnancy, are not enough to dissuade anyone from premarital sex.

Other concerns come from giving up oneself in an encounter with no safety nor security. An intimate relationship should not be fraught with anxiety or worried for future consequences. The man may look for other partners, while the woman wonders if he will remain with her, or wonders what he will do when he finds out that she is pregnant. One pastor pointed out that at best, two unmarried people share sex, but not love, joy, or anything else worthwhile. Another pastor taught that married believing couples are more "content" than unmarried couples.

I still remember one high school students, a "Casanova" type, so he styled himself. Since I am a French teacher, he wanted me to teach him  how to say to his girlfriend: "Let me take you to the bed." I looked at the guy, and thought to myself: "This guy would not last five minutes. She would be asleep before he got started." This element of  "adequacy" cannot be ignored, either. It takes a measure of "selflessness" to be adequate with a partner. Without the safety of marriage, one cannot help but be self-conscious. Where is the joy in all of that?

Once again, warning people of the dangers of premarital sex, or any other sexual perversion, does not dissuade individuals from sleeping with whomever whenever.

Let's consider the glorious admonition in the Word of God:

"Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well.

"Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets.

"Let them be only thine own, and not strangers' with thee.

"Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.

"Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.

"And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?" (Proverbs 5: 15-20)

"Why wilt thou?" It's foolish, empty, and downright stupid to give up oneself to a "stranger".

It's polluting, it's damaging, and it's depressing to give oneself so casually to another.

Besides, there is one example of a woman who had many partners, yet she still felt nothing but "fallen apart":

"There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink." (John 4: 7)

The scene from John Chapter 4: Jesus has sat down at the well of Sychar, or Shechem, and a Samaritan woman has come to draw water. The time is afternoon, not the customary time for anyone to draw water, but this Samaritan is no customary woman, either.

Jesus ministered to this woman, asking her for water. He offered living water which could spring up within her and grant eternal life. Initially, she thought that Jesus was talking about the water in the well, when He was speaking of the Holy Spirit. When Jesus asked her to call her husband, she responded:

"The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband:

"For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly." (John 4: 17-18)

This woman had been drinking from many cisterns, and she was lacking, depleted. Her waters had also been running in the streets, as well, since everyone in the town was aware of her reputation. For that reason she drew water in the afternoon: to avoid the shame and gossip of the other women.

There is no such thing as a one-night stand. The damage that one does to one's body, mind, and spirit cannot compare with the fleeting pleasure of giving one's body away to a stranger.

The Samaritan woman at the well had had five husbands, and she was living with a sixth man. There is no peace, no satisfaction, no delight in compromising or corrupting oneself so casually.