Privatized Profit, Socialized Loss

I am an entrepreneur and big believer in capitalism (with oversight). Of course, Reagan, W, and McCain believe that oversight is a terrible thing because then all their major campaign contributors can't pull off stunts like this

Who care about cutting spending a few million dollars here or there when we will spend over one trillion dollars in Iraq and another trillion in bail outs for wall street.

Where have all the fiscal conservatives gone?

The Ultimate Faith-Based Initiative.

I belong to a fringe sect of Christianity.  It's clearly outside of mainstream Christianity, and while it agrees with the four founding principles of fundamentalism (try Googling them if you're curious), it's diametrically opposed to what the public face of Christianity has become. My small band believes in a faith that starts on the inside (the soul), and that behaviors, right or wrong, are an outward projection of what's going on inside.  I call it "inside out" Christianity.  My group of wingnuts finds many biblical references that support this not-so-widely-held set of beliefs.  A few quick ones:

• Salvation by faith and not works ..  "...that whosoever believes in him shall have everlasting..."
  
• The woman at the synagogue whose penny offering (all she had) was the greater gift.
  
• Valuing he who prays in the quiet upper room over the proud man who prays loudly in public.  Could this be characterized as "listen to the still small voice, not the shrill Fall(well) voice"
  

Jesus had only a few conflicts during his earthly life.  The most significant was a running disagreement with a group whose Judaism was "outside-in", insisting that salvation required specific outward behaviors (and its complement, prohibitions against others), that somehow percolate into the soul, saving it.  The ultimate expression of this errant (to us, but not to most of today's politically active Christians) "outside in" philosophy is to harness political processes and the power of government to enforce outside behaviors when guilt trips alone fail.  It is what ultimately allowed the Pharisees to kill him.  When Jesus said "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's", he wasn't only talking about paying taxes, he was reinforcing that a true faith is beyond the reach of governments.   "Mine is a not a kingdom of this earth" was telling us all that government is beyond the reach of true religion.    

Perhaps this is what the founders of our country realized when they separated church and state.   They realized that true faith is difficult, challenging, introspective work, and that compulsory acts, enforced behaviors, edicts from this religious leader or that, and using government powers to enforce beliefs is counter to true faith, and is ultimately only a lazy alternative to genuine soul-by-soul missionary work.  They realized that outside-in Christianity is a stumbling block to the faith of others (Google what happens to those who put stumbling blocks in the path of their Christian brothers).

Perhaps the ultimate "Judeo-Christian value" upon which our country was founded is to keep religious zealotry out of the political arena altogether.

FPT

Sarah Palin

An excerpt from an interview in Reason magazine with an Alaska Democrat about Sarah Palin.

I don't know if this will hurt or help her with this group.  I suspect it will cut both ways:

Q: I was just talking to someone who claimed to have knowledge of Alaska to some degree, and they say where Sarah Palin comes from it's the equivalent of Humboldt or Chico in California, like, of course, you know, she'd have a Girls Gone Wild phase, and smoking pot. Is this just wishcasting, or what can you tell us about her geographical background?

A: So the Mat-Su Valley, you know, Matanuska-Susitna Valley, otherwise known as Upper Wingnuttia, is full of right-wing libertarian militia fundamendalist Christian gun-toting, pot-growing dope-heads.

Q: Awesome.

A: Yeah. If Jerry Falwell rolled his own, you would have the Mat-Su Valley. I live in South Anchorage, and my raspberry plants, courtesy of 22 hours of daylight in the summer, grow eight and a half foot high. That's a raspberry bush. Can you imagine what a single pot plant would turn into? [...]

--DB