Furniture From FEMA
Mark Moore (click "comments" below for article).
posted by Mark Moore (Moderator) at Sunday, October 16, 2005
Sunday, October 16, 2005
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18 Comments:
I guess it is no secret now. FEMA is buying new furniture for the evacuees from New Orleans. Barbara Bush has been attacked for saying words to the effect that in some cases it may be the best furniture they have ever had.
I checked on the quality of the furniture. Except for the mattresses, the quality is pretty good. Everyone I talked to about this thinks it is wonderful that the federal government is taking money and buying people furniture. I don't.
I don't see anywhere in the Constitution where it is one of the delegated powers of the Federal Government to buy people furniture for any reason. Now there are floods in New Jersey. Are the taxpayers going to buy them new furniture too? What about people who loses their furniture because of a fire? What about somone whose plumbing breaks? What about people who have never had new furniture? Shouldn't they get it over folks who already have money in the bank to buy their own furniture? Why is the federal government only buying furniture for one group of needy Americans and not others?
Perhaps the standard is that new furniture is to be purchased only for those involved in a disaster that gets big media coverage. That way politicians can leap in front of the cameras and show how compassionate they are- with your money. Acutally, it is your children's money, because we are adding all this "generosity" to the national debt. It will have to be repaid some day.
Mark me down as opposed to phoney, feel-good compassion that is separated from reason, justice, and the legitamacy of Constitutional authority.
Mark,
You are right and your analysis is correct, but do you really believe that your method and presentation of this information by a public official would advance your cause?
Is there another way to frame this debate? Can you think of a way to address this issue in a way and at at time where the inherent emotional factor does not work against what you are doing?
Presenting this information in this way and at this time is just throwing pearls to pigs.
Pearl Harbor was bombed in 1941, we didn't strategically seek ultimate defeat of Japan until after Germany was defeated.
Be wise as a serpent, my friend, and pick your battles wisely. Set forth a strategic plan of defeating liberalism and follow it, not by rushing off to fight some skirmish of lesser consequence. Aren't some battles more effective now, and others better left for another day when we are in a stronger position to fight them?
Jim Holt's campaign contributions are evidence (sadly) that most Christian conservatives are not willing to fight hard and personally sacrifice. Therefore, the ones like Jim will have to start fighting smart, he personally can only fight so hard.
If every one of Jim Holt's hardcore supporters would get a part-time job, they could easily generate the maximum campaign contribution, then maybe he would have time to deal with more issues like this.
Of course there is the possiblity that his supporters are a bunch of pretend Christians that honor the Lord with there lips, but their hearts are far away from the Lord. Isaiah 29:23
Another possibility is that there is something about Jim that does not motivate true Christians to give sacrificially. I figure the former possibility is the more likely.
If Holt does not win the Lt. Governor's race, it will be because of lazy, lukewarm Christians ... more than it is because of the candidate himself. Granted, he is a flawed human being ... as we all are. But the glaring flaw is the apathetic tightwad Christians who sit back and complain, but never actually put something on the line for what they claim to believe. Do you think these people would really be Christians if it were as difficult in the U.S. as it is in some countries? I doubt it.
Chuck Banks will be the next Lt. Governor candidate for the Republican Party. Who's fault will that be? You can blame the Republican leadership if you want to (I don't), but the fact remains it that most Christian's have done nothing but complain for others to do what they should be doing.
Let's keep the blame where it rightfully goes...with us.
Dead on, Mark Moore, as usual! The people of New Orleans elect bums for their mayors, and the people of Lousiana elect a cream puff for their governor. For years they've been laughing in the face of near-miss hurricanes and spending appropriated monies for anything but rainy day defenses, but now they want to finger-point.
Hey, that's okay, because the rest of the nation will bail them out. Absolutely no responsibility! It seems not to matter what we do in this country anymore, for big government will step in like a grotesque and out-of-control Robin Hood, steal the peasants' money, and cover the sins of the people with the greenback. Bush and the other bureaucratic Robin Hoods are little better than looters waiting for a national tragedy to steal more money (and freedoms) from the unsuspecting and naturally generous American public.
This is not the country of self-reliance and responsibility that I grew up learning about. It has been taken over by an out-of-control government that will fall under its own over-extended weight, and take us down along with it.
The real cultural crisis today is this: Christian culture is destroying Christianity. Today’s Christian culture can be defined as the vast network of people: political candidates and parties, ministries, businesses, bookstores, magazines, musicians, and TV & radio programs. All of whom claim to be followers of Jesus Christ today. While individual differences certainly exist among them, a consistent pattern is easily detected: The culture it represents is indistinguishable from the world it seeks “to save.” At its very core it is worldly. Today’s Christian culture so resembles the world, that standing against the world, in opposition to its culture would amount to standing against itself. Yet that is the state of things. And, what is most tragic, it has borne a multitude of misled, deluded “disciples” who are scripturally illiterate and spiritually dull. How has this happened? It is really quite simple: in an effort to be influential, Christian’s have been trying to buy their own legitimacy from the surrounding culture by compromising the Christian world and life view. Rather than sustaining a moral and intellectual antithesis to that culture, they have bought into it; almost completely. The result is a cascade of compromise on almost every front:
• compromising Scripture’s unique authority
• compromising the biblical gospel
• compromising the call to Christian discipleship
• compromising the nature of true spirituality
• compromising the New Testament order of fellowship
• compromising the ethics of the Kingdom of God
Ironically, this has not been lost on the surrounding culture Christian’s sought to influence in the first place. So what must be done about it? As Christians, we must turn from this posture of compromise and affirm the distinctive Christian world and life view set forth in Scripture. At its core Christianity is a countercultural, revolutionary movement. As such, “Christian culture” ought to stand against the corrupt culture of the world as “salt and light” (Matt 5:13-16). This will only be accomplished when today’s
Christian culture begins to engage the truth seriously, practice the truth without compromise, and demonstrate the truth in real terms. We must bring a clear, well-defined, content-rich Christian message back into the orbit of our Christian culture, placing an emphasis on what is true as over against what is not true. The key here is antithesis. If a statement is true, its opposite is not true. We must act upon, witness, and proclaim this fact: what is contrary to God’s revealed propositional truth is not true, whether it is couched in New Age terms or traditional Christian terms with altogether new meanings. All the areas of our life, especially as we participate in Christian fellowship, must be affected. The early church allowed itself to be condemned, both by the secular and religious authorities. They said, “We must preach, we must witness publicly; we must obey God rather than man.”
Nice quote: Who wrote that?
Francis Schaeffer? Os Guinness? Hank Hanegraaff?
Oh, I remember now... it was Rob Schapfler. What an unfortunate figure. That text is from "Manifesto for the Emerging Christian Counterculture."
Great content and intent, too bad the writer (Rob) himself slipped off into the very postmodernism / relativism that he fought against and has taken so many Christians down it's sink hole.
I wish ol' Rob could get his act together and come back and use his gifts for the Christian Counterculture again.
I admire the lofty level of debate tonight.
As for another way to frame the debate, I can't think of a better one that what we are doing. I think it corresponds to the Bibical pattern. If you would like to lay out another course of action, that does not involve acquiescence, then I would love to hear it.
"By definition, Bible-believing liberals consider themselves conservative..." "They are completely unaware that they have started thinking and speaking like old-line liberals. When it is pointed out to them, they are incredulous and usually offended. They fail to see that, just like the old-line liberals, they have allowed the culture to call the shots in their church's teaching and practice. Most evangelicals consider themselves loyal footsoldiers in the culture war. However, while they have fought the culture's influence in society, they have surrendered to it in their churches."
Christians who want to conserve traditional values might start by conserving their churches.
http://www.worldmag.com/geneedwardveith/veith.cfm?id=18065
How about starting with the most harsh rhetoric against church? Why not start undoing the theological liberalism (political liberalism is the symptom, theological liberalism is the disease) that destroyed Christianity in America? Why not look back and finally heed the warnings that J. Gresham Machen wrote about in "Christianity & Liberalism"?
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0802811213/qid=1129615592/sr=8-3/ref=pd_bbs_3/103-4965950-0498242?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
If the church got back to what was taught and believed in America before the late 1800s and early 1900s, the political battle will follow. We need to spend more time reading and understanding giants like C.H. Spurgeon, George Whitfield, and Jonathan Edwards.
http://www.spurgeon.org/mainpage.htm
http://www.jonathanedwards.com/
http://www.pioneernet.net/rbrannan/whitefield/
We need to restore the doctrines and practices of our founding fathers, who were Puritans and Stalwarts of the faith:
http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/puritans.htm
From the end of the Puritan era until today, there has been a steady succession of faithful voices proclaiming the truth of Scripture and calling the Church back to the faith of our fathers. These are a few of my favorites.
http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/stalwrts.htm
I guess what I am trying to say is said best here:
"Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine"
(2 Timothy 4:2).
Mark, we need to be more diligent in our "longsuffering" with our corrupt culture and much more mindful of our own "doctrine."
But of course, I am sure that you will be "incredulous and offended" by the doctrines and teachings of our Puritan heritage, and so goes the culture. We are called to be "in" the world but not "of" it. Instead, what I see of most of those like you (perhaps I am wrong, and I pray that I am) is that you seek to be "out" of the world but still are "of" it.
I can't understand what point you are attempting to make well enough to be offended yet. Why don't you give a specific example of a doctrine that you feel I need to be more mindful of? I would appreciate it if you labored to be concise.
No specifics? Look, I like my church. I think they do a lot right. No fellowship will be perfect that has me as a member, but they do a good job.
I DO condemn liberal groups that try to pass themselves off as Christian Churches. The "Reverend" Lowell Grisham at Fayetteville's Episcopal "Church" comes to mind. But I don't dispute with them in their sanctuary because I AM NOT THERE. When they bring their twisted values out into the public arena, I DO contend with them there.
Mark,
I agree, I was abit obscure. Not intentionally... it was more a stream of consciousness post that lacked order and organization.
The point of the post is that reforming society will not take place by political force but by the renewing of the hearts and minds of those who already consider themselves Evangelical Christians and being effective missionaries in the surrounding culture.
Repairing our political woes cannot ultimately happen until we again start emphasizing correct fundamental doctrine in our churches and practicing proper church discipline and excommunication.
I am perplexed that Christians who say that (most of) the founding fathers (obvious exceptions not wihstanding) of this nation understood what God intended for civil government and put those beliefs into our founding documents, but do not even know what doctrines those founding fathers held as a majority opinion. Obviously they were doing something right theologically, what was it?
Do most Christians know what the overwhelming majority of the founders believed? Why do we know very little about our Puritan heritage except for the distortions and villianous portrayals by the liberal theologians in the 1800s onward?
The theological liberals won the culture battle during the late 1800s and early 1900s, and many of our so-called conservative churches do not know that these liberals were the source of foundational heterodoxy and sometimes heresy now incorporated into conservative churchs.
Many of our conservative churches are built upon foundations of liberal ideologies rather than sound doctrine. One of these ideologies is the rejection of "doctrine" itself, which inevitable leads to relativism and pluralism. Why is "doctrine" such a dirty word for Christians when it is so emphasized by Scripture?
My questions about are not meant as merely rhetorical, I would sincerely appreciate your opinion in answer.
radar4077,
You asked:
Why do political debates allways turn into religious ones?
All "law" is the implementation of someone's or some collective's opinion about morality and justice. Therefore, there is no escaping the fact that politics and religion are inextricably mixed. In my opinion there is not a person on this planet that is not "religious" (in that they consciously or unconsciously adhere to some "world view" or life philosophy.) and therefore they bring this, baggage if you will, to any decisions they make about morality and justice implemented by the laws of the governing authorities.
Nonetheless, your point is well taken and for the most part what I was discussing is a debate within "the church" and not in the political arena. I somewhat agree with you that some things are best fought over, not in the halls of power, but rather in the halls of worship.
The answer to your question about what the founders had right was layed out in Francis Shaffer's "A Christian Manifesto". Specifically the balance they had between form and freedom. They wanted a theocracy from the bottom up, not the top down. By that I mean that they knew a virtuous population was the best defense against oppressive big government.
They also understood the Bibical idea that man is not inherently good, but has a wicked carnal nature. Power must be divided into a series of checks and balances to prevent misuse of government power.
As for the other two bolded questions, I think many christians do not understand what the founders believed, but that more are every day. As for the fear of having "doctrine", I blame the cultures obsession with "tolerence" bleeding over into the pulpits. Docrtines draw distinct lines, lines between right and wrong that can hinder all-important "church growth".
radar4077,
You are so hosed up in your response it is nearly impossible to properly respond. First, the founders of this country were Puritan, primarily reformed congregationalists. Your assertion that they were predominately freemasons, deists, syncretist...whatever, only demonstrates your ignorance. You must have went to public school and were properly indoctrinated. I acknowledged the infrequent, yet notable exceptions, that you somehow WANT to be the founders MAJORITY opinion. The exceptions you love are really just a very very very small but talented minority. Fortunately, you are either misled or deceitful... our founders were undeniably what would today be called fundamentalist evangelical Christians.
You make an _assertion_ that I am incorrect that all judgements about morality or justice are inherently religious, but make no basis for this charge. You claim that, "Every time a judge, part of our political system, sentences a criminal, he exercises human morality and human justice not religious morality and justice. You are confounding the two."
The question then goes to this: What is human morality, what is human justice, if you do not accept that man is created in the image of God? If you don't, then you are reduced to pure animalistic determinism. Darwin, baby... survival of the fittest. Whatever maximizes my own chance for survival and reproduction is GOOD, whatever doesn't is bad.
Of course, you and I will not agree upon the premises and, as I have experienced time and time again, you will eventually devolve into making circular, or worse... irrational arguments, without logical rigor.
To debate with you for any other purpose but to be polite and pray of the outside possibility that the Lord may speak to you through my words is really quite pointless.
That fact alone demonstrates the point I was making to Mark Moore, the modern culture's worldview is so foriegn from the true Christian that real...meaningful conversation is impossible without a very longsuffering and weary ministry to that culture. Pearls to Pigs, if you will.
Mark,
What you say about the "Christian Manifesto" is interesting in this context and the point I was making above. Consider the second paragraph in Shaffer's CM:
[Christians in this country] have very gradually become disturbed over permissiveness, pornography, the public schools, the breakdown of the family, and finally abortion. But they have not seen this as a totality - each thing being a part, a symptom, of a much larger problem. The have failed to see that all of this has come about due to a shift in world view - that is, through a fundamental change in the overall way people think and view the world and life as a whole. This shift have been away from a world view that was at least vaguely Christian in people's memory (even if they were not individually Christian) toward something completely different - toword a world view based upon the idea that the final reality is impersonal mater or energy shaped into its present form by impersonal chance. They have not seen that this world view has taken the place of the one that had previously dominated Northern Europe and the U.S.
These these two world views stand as totals in complete antithesis to each other in content and also in their natural results - including socialogical and governmental results, AND SPECIFICALLY
Great little book, same goes for "Escape from Reason."
You said:
They also understood the Bibical idea that man is not inherently good, but has a wicked carnal nature.
Ding ding ding, you get a prize! Out of that humility comes our recognition of God's absolute and majestic soveriegnty! And by the same token, we are then able to really understand the meaning of GRACE and MERCY.
radar4077,
First, I will ignore your logical fallacy of argument from authority based upon your education. While almost (but not quite) as lettered as you, I do not value formal education as highly as you seem to value it. More often, I have found that the more formal education one has, the more likely the person is to have been indoctrinated by revisionist history and brainwashed by liberal theology. I know I was/am. Nonetheless, I congratulate you on your accomplishments and encourage any of our readers to pursue an education with equal diligence as you must have. But as a caution, I have found errors in my formal education that have made me skeptical about what I THINK I know until I have reviewed it against primarily the Scriptures and secondarily against great theologians whom I have since found trustworthy to His inerrant Word.
Second, I acknowledged that there are INFREQUENT, yet NOTABLE, exceptions about the beliefs of the founding fathers. Still, the MAJORITY was what would today be considered fundamentalist evangelical Chrisitians. I am sure you will demand more proof, as you should, than I have time to research and offer at this time. Therefore, unfortunately, I will just have to pray that our conversations will continue regularly over the next several months or years. Until then, you (if you wish) may find much of the basis for my opinion in the writings of Daniel L. Dreisbach and others in his citations.
To wit, of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence, only 9 were Free Masons. Of the 55 delgates (39 signatory) to the Constitutional Convention, 13 were Free Masons.
Nonetheless, I now have some unease about Free Masonry. Unfortunately, I know very little about them so my concerns are not founded on anything but a general unease. For example, look how they have utterly dominated the appointments to the US Supreme Court:
Austin, Stephen F. - "Father" of Texas.
Baldwin, Henry - Supreme Court Justice.
Beard, Daniel Carter - Founder Boy Scouts.
Black, Hugo L. - Supreme Court Justice 1937-1971.
Blair, Jr., John - Supreme Court Justice.
Blatchford, Samuel - Supreme Court Justice.
Bowie, James - Texas Patriot at the Battle of the Alamo.
BuBois, W.E.B. - Educator and Scholar.
Buchanan, James - Fifteenth President of the United States.
Burnett, David G. - First President of the Republic of Texas.
Burton, Harold H. - Supreme Court Justice 1945-1958.
Byrnes, James F. - Supreme Court Justice 1941 and Secretary of State 1945.
Catton, John - Supreme Court Justice.
Clark, Thomas C. - Supreme Court Justice.
Clarke, John H. - Supreme Court Justice 1949-1967.
Crockett, David - Texas Patriot at the Battle of the Alamo.
Cushing, William - Supreme Court Justice.
Devanter, Willis Van - Supreme Court Justice.
Douglas, William O. - Supreme Court Justice 1939-1975.
Ellsworth, Oliver - Supreme Court Justice 1796-1799.
Ervin Jr, Samual J. - Headed "Watergate" Committee.
Field, Stephen J. - Supreme Court Justice 1863-1897.
Ford, Gerald R. - Thirty-eighth President of the U.S.
Franklin, Benjamin - American Revolutionary, Philosopher, Diplomat and Inventor. 1 of 13 Masonic signers of Constitution of the U.S.
Garfield, James A. - President of the U.S.
Hancock, John - 1 of 9 Masonic signers of Declaration of Independence.
Harding, Warren G. - Twenty-ninth President of the United States.
Harlan, John M. - Supreme Court Justice 1877-1911.
Henry, Patrick - Patriot.
Houston, Sam - Second and Fourth President of the Republic of Texas.
Jackson, Andrew - Seventh President of the United States.
Jackson, Reverend Jesse - Minister.
Jackson, Robert H. - Supreme Court Justice 1941-1945.
Johnson, Andrew - Seventeenth President of the United States.
Jones, Anson - Fifth President of the Republic of Texas.
Key, Francis Scott - Wrote the American National Anthem.
La Guardia, Fiorella H. - Mayor of New York in the 1930's and 40's.
Lamar, Joseph E. - Supreme Court Justice.
Lamar, Mirabeau B. - Third President of the Republic of Texas.
MacArthur, General Douglas - American Commander in World War II.
McClellan, General George B. - Two term Governor of New Jersey.
Marshall, John - Chief Justice of The United State's Supreme Court 1801 - 1835.
Marshall, Thurgood - Supreme Court Justice.
Mathews, Stanley - Supreme Court Justice.
McKinley, William - Twenty-fifth President of the United States.
Minton, Sherman - Supreme Court Justice.
Monroe, James - Fifth President of the United States.
Moody, William H. - Supreme Court Justice.
Nelson, Samuel - Supreme Court Justice.
Newton, Joseph Fort - Christian Minister.
Nunn, Sam - United States Senator.
Otis, James - Coined the Phrase, "Taxation without Representation is Tyranny."
Paterson, William - Supreme Court Justice.
Peale, Norman Vincent - Founder of "Guidepost" and Minister
Pershing, John Joseph - Decorated American Soldier in World War II.
Pitney, Mahlon - Supreme Court Justice.
Polk, James Knox - Eleventh President of the United States.
Reed, Stanley F. - Supreme Court Justice 1938-1957.
Revere, Paul - American Patriot.
Roosevelt, Franklin D. - Thirty-second President of the United States.
Roosevelt, Theodore - Twenty-sixth President of the United States.
Rutledge, Wiley B. - Supreme Court Justice.
Stewart, Potter - Supreme Court Justice 1958-1981.
Swayne, Noah H. - Supreme Court Justice
Taft, William Howard - Twenty-seventh President of the United States.
Todd, Thomas - Supreme Court Justice.
Travis, Colonel William B. - Texas Patriot at the Battle of the Alamo.
Trimble, Robert - Supreme Court Justice.
Truman, Harry S. - Thirty-third President of the United States.
Vinson, Frederick M. - Supreme Court Justice 1946-1953.
Wallace, George C. - Presidential Candidate
Warren, Earl - Supreme Court Justice 1969-1986.
Washington, Booker T - Educator and Author.
Woodbury, Levi - Supreme Court Justice.
Woods, William B. - Supreme Court Justice.
Mark, can you shed some light on any problems with Free Masonry? I have always thought they were just a dorky secret club. There are a great many that APPEAR to be normal Christians, I had heard nothing threatening until tonight when I discovered that stuff about the number of Supreme Court judges have been Free Masons. Is this a kooky conspiracy theory or is there something more I don't know?
Radar,
There is much more I would like to address in your posts that I disagree with, but for now I am exhausted and it will have to wait. I fully realize that you deserve better and more fully developed reasoning and research, unfortunately, I am just too tired. Please forgive. For now, grab your teddy and be sure to let us know about the incoming choppers.
I don't know much about them. I don't want the majority of Supreme Court justices to come from ANY single secret organization.
I have known a couple that were pretty sleazy. I think they were just using it to make money- and as a substitute for church to fill the inner need to be a part of something bigger than yourself. Of course, I have met some who use "Christianity" the same way.
The short anwser is I just don't know.
I can only judge the Founders by their public deeds and statements. With a couple of possible improtant exceptions, these were overwhelmingly Christian.
radar,
You wrote:
I took offense at the word IGNORANCE and PEARLS TO PIGS. This simply muddies the waters in any intellectual conversation: smearing someone is easy to do; responding to arguments is a little bit harder.
Offense was not intended. The point perhaps should have been made in a different way. Let me try wording it this way: If a culture (or a person) rejects the value of logical premise / conclusion argumentation by which deductive (or inductive) absolute truths can be established and agreed upon, then it is a waste of time in making the argument because it will degenerate into illogic and relativism, solving nothing. In otherwords, when opposed by irrationality, reason is futile.
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