Pragmatism... not Idealism

No. Seriously folks, I think they really love each other.

I've changed my political views quite a bit this semester. It may not seem like it since I haven't been ranting as much on this blog, but I've moderated them a good deal. I came up with a justification for God's ordaination of government and that's really helped me develop, I think. I don't know why it took so long for the connection to hit me. My main debate was over whether the government was a necessary or unceccesary evil. The Bible does ordain government and yet the very nature of a government seem to conflict with scriptural teachings (thou shalt not steal, etc.) So I began wondering why God would allow such an evil to exist and endorse it. Then it hit me: theodicy. So now I have a justification for the government: it's God's institute for justice on earth. Therefore it should promote justice as much as humanly possible.

So now that that issue is clear enough in my mind, I think I'm ready for a return to normalcy. But what's strange is that I'm finding myself to be less conservative on economic issues and more liberal on social issues. Of course for you all, my more liberal economic tendencies are still pretty extreme, but with our econ department, I'm reaching heretical levels.

The Draft? You have to be kidding.

Chuck Hagel: ""Why shouldn't we ask all of our citizens to bear some responsibility and pay some price?" Hagel said, arguing that restoring compulsory military service would force "our citizens to understand the intensity and depth of challenges we face."

I'm not sure whether to be scared or to just laugh. I guess by all our citizens he means all our male citizens between 18 and 25 years of age. Cumpulsory service would force our citizens to understand the intensity and depth of challenges we face? Yeah, and then they'd realize that the war was a load of crap. If Americans really think that we're going to get out of Iraq anytime soon, they're stupid.

And it will "spread the burden more equitably among various social strata?" So it's better if we spread the crap around? This war is beginning to look like such a quagmire: extending troop deployment times, the flareup in violence. and this.

People are starting to realize that the US's unilateral war against Iraq wasn't the best idea, and that we couldn't go it alone. The situation there seems pretty hopeless. With the huge power vacuum that exists there now, i don't see how the country will avoid years and years of civil war.

A swearword is an obscene or blasphemous word, and obscenity is determined by society. So if a word is used frequently by most members of society reguardless of socio-economic background, can it still be considered a swearword?

I remember when certain words elicited major responses. I remember the first time I said the F-word. My sister was telling me to do something and I got angry. For some reason I decided to make up a word that sounded like duck (I used to make up big words when I was young to try to sound like I was smart). Perhaps I had heard the word before then, but to be honest, I had no idea the word had any meaning attached to it when i said it. I figured my sister would think it was jibberish or something. Boy was I wrong. She didn't buy the whole "making it up" thing either so I told her I had heard one of the kids on the bus say it to get her off my back.

That word, amongst many others, seems to have no shock value attached to them. I can play songs that say damn and hell in them during my radio show. People use these words all the time and so I submit that they are no longer swearwords at all. I think we need to re-evaluate what a swear word even is. It used to be that words of a religious nature were taboo, then sexual references replaced them. Now it seems like discriminatory words are what society really shuns.

Of course a good counter argument could be made, but this isn't one of them.

I've long lived with the assumption that the UN is just a useless organization, a drain on the finances of the US. It probably is, but it does offer one important service: it makes unilateral action on the part of member nations more difficult to pursue. How can we believe that one point of view as encompassed by x leader is a correct interpretation or action. None of our traditional allies in the Vietnam War supported us. Few of our traditional allies supported us in Gulf War II. Robert McNamara said "If we can't persuade nations with comparable values of the merit of out cause, we'd better re-examine our reasoning." Damn* right.

I've become increasingly convinced that anyone who offers simple arguments about whether or not we should involve ourselves in some foreign affair probably has no clue what he or she is talking about and should be ignored. This goes for everyone, regardless of political ideology. Libertarians are especially guilty of this. They use an ideology based essentially on property rights and try to postulate everything from there, even foreign policy (i.e., the idea that we can't become involved in conflicts unless we are attacked). I just don't buy it. Is it immoral if you know Jews are being slaughtered in Germany and you have the power to stop the mass injustices being committed and you don’t? Was it immoral for the United States to not intervene in Rwanda? In situations like these I think I would defer to common sense, that it would be wrong to do nothing. Yeah, it's inconsistent, but I I'm not so presumptious as to think that there is a political ideology out there that can guide every state action.

*Damn isn't a swear word anymore so i can use it

Why is it that everything from India is so cool?

I know the whole hip-hop love affair with india has been going on for a while so the popularity of things Indian will soon be cliche, but India is just cool. I really like cheesy (Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge- it had such a fun soundtrack) Bollywood movies and not so cheesy ones (Bombay) for that matter. They're just so much fun.

Pan'jabi also has the Indian coolness factor going for him. It's not too often that I really like a hip-hop song, but "Mundian to Bach KE" got some booty shaking out of me. Part of it sounded strangely like the theme song to Knight Rider, which only increased the coolness factor by ten.

Philly trip pt. 2

On Monday I went to a Salvation Army warehouse and sorted through Christmas stockings. Apparently people give a bunch of stockings to Salvo a few days before Christmas and they don't have enought time to turn around a redistribute them to needy children. Instead they store the extras in a warehouse and give them out the next year.

One problem though. People like to give children candy and that candy taste too good after one year. Also, warehouses are full of mice and those little mice like eating candy. So basically we went through the stockings taking out all the candy and mouse turds we could find.

One perk of the job was that we could keep all the candy we found. Most of the candy was really bad, but not all of it. For those of you out there who don't know me especially well, I have a really big sweet tooth. I felt like Templeton when he visited the fair in Charlotte's Web.

Some of the people got the children some really crappy presents. For example, one poor child got Old Yeller for Christmas. Now the kid can be even more depressed on Christmas. Not only are his parents too poor to buy him good presents, he has to watch some boy shoot his dog. One person tried to give some kid a huge easter bunny that obviouslly came from the dollar store and nothing else. Some people tried to give just educational materials like pencils and pens (the uncool kind), counting cards, grammar cards, etc. Other kids would get CD players, Harry Potter books and other sweet presents, so my cohorts and I decided to turn into flaming liberals for the day and do a little wealth redistribution.

We spent our last work day in Philly at a woman's shelter doing maitenance and carrying clothing donations up and down stairs all day (not exactly interesting).

Philly = interesting trip

I didn't go there expecting much mind you, but during my ICO trip there I was offered a job, probably ate mouse poo, fell in love with scrubs, fell asleep during two bible studies, a church service and a national championship game, invented a new sport (jRoball) and learned why Chinese people eat so much dang rice.

Let me start of by saying Philly is soooo (to the 19th power) much better than Pittsburgh and Cleveland. Let's face it, the Midwest has no character. None. Cleveland has the Browns and Pittsburgh has Iron City Beer (which tastes horrible from what I hear).

Pittsburgh has a bunch of boring historical crap, an awesome art museum, sixth street, a trillion good record stores, several great concert venues that bring in some great entertainers, boat row, a sweet river front, and other stuff i can't think of right now.

Here's the breakdown of the trip:
Sunday: Church Service (i just couldn't stay awake during the cantata). Afterwards my group leader decided to go to the crappiest area of Philly possible (Kensington avenue) and we did street evangelism. Actually we just went around talking to people and tried to bring up spiritual issues. It was cold and rainy outside and the only people who were out were those who didn't have a choice and those who needed to conduct business.

I stopped to talk to this one guy and he didn't seem to eager to talk to a complete stranger. Another fella came over and asked me if I needed work. Then he asked my buddy if he needed anything. After looking at the dumbfounded looks on our faces, the guy said "You're from the Church, aren't you?" Apparently getting a job in the underground economy isn't as hard as I thought. Perhaps my dream of a consulting firm for underground businesses is possible (they could use productivity gains too).

Meet Weston Callahan Arthur. I'm not sure, but I think Nathan (below) could take him in a fight.

Look at Nathan. The kid has a glare that makes Clint Eastwood's look tame. I'm over 23 times his size and I'm afraid to mess with him.