After quite a hiatus....

So with the rise of micro-blogging sites like Twitter and Facebook, and the abandonment of the original blogging media by every person I know, I have not touched my blog in many, many moons. But I was just contemplating this, and I need a place to write it down...

I was talking with my pastor about making disciples. I have thought about this and looked at some references about this. About what 'making' a 'disciple' really means. I have, up until now, thought of discipling as the process of teaching and helping someone become more like Jesus. However, 'disciple' simply means 'student'. Webster puts as 'a follower who has learned to believe in the truth of the doctrine of his teacher.' If I disciple someone, am I not teaching them to be like me? Am I not pouring old wine from an old wineskin? We are not called to disciple all nations, but to *make* disciples of all nations. A slight difference, but makes a big impact. It means that it's not my task to teach others how to live, but to introduce them to the Teacher. To bear witness to the truth, so that others will accept the Truth. The first and only instruction at the School of Me is to look to Jesus. Everything else is Christianity is just group study.

Hopefully I will expound on this and other subjects soon.

Montesque and Government

I just finished listening to an RC Sproul message. He was discussing politcal systems of all things. Actually, I think he started on the 18th century enlightenment, but started discussing Montesque's calssifications of politcal systems. Apperently, Montesque defined three classifications for forms of government and identified the key component within the society, within the culture, that allows and enables that form to survive. The three that Montesque defined, as explained by RC Sproul, are Monarchy, Dictatorship, and Democratic and the key attributes of these forms are Honor, Fear, and Civic Virtue, respectively. He also theorized that whenever any of these systems fail, they will be raplaced by one of the other two. Let me explore these further.

Monarchy requires a strong leader that is able to capture the loyalty or his subjects. This requires that the subjects have the honor to ascribe loyalty to those who are due it. This is similiar to the 'political' system of the family. The parents are due loyalty and obedience, not only because of their greater experience and knowledge, but also for the practical reason that the parents provide to the family. This requires that the children have the honor to recognize the place of the parents in the family. The problem with Monarchy as a political system today is that I do not believe a person can maintain the respect and loyalty of any sizable group of people for any length of time. In ages past, monarchs were considered better than their subjects, but the egalitarian ideals, combined with a information infrastructure that allows anyone to learn anything about just about anyone else, the concept is not possible.

Second on the list is Dictatorship. It seems fairly simple that a dictatorship requires fear within the populous. In any governmental system that is not a military occupation, the real power lies with the people. The general populous will always outnumber the leaders and the leaders will rely on the people to produce. The only way for an individual, or a small group of leaders, to rule a population without popular support is to invoke fear in the people. Without fear, the dictator is quickly replaced by a popular leader.

And lastly, the Deomcracy is dependant on civic virtue, on the idea of the rule of law. Although civic virtue is more than just observance of the law. Civic virtue to belief in something bigger than yourself. Civic virtue is respecting the rule of law because everyone recognizes that is better for everyone to follow the law.

Now this is the most interesting to me. You see, classifying political systems this way and listing the requirements for each begs a question in my mind; What about a society that lacks all three? I daresay that while a culture can have more than one of the three requirements (honor, fear, and civic virtue), a culture cannot have none of the three for long. Specifically, when a people lose honor, which is the basic ability to respect others at least as much as themselves, and civic virture, i.e. the rule of law, fear will flurish

I was going somewhere with this. Honest, I was. But it seems to have gotten lost in the transcription. Perhaps I will continue this later.

In general, I am proud to live in the country that I do. This are the things are shake that position:

1. The American electorate seems to have collectively sold-out to the promise of comfort and relief that I believe is a path toward socialism.

2. The idea of states rights and many other provisions of the Constitution have been completely abandoned.

3. Eli Stone and Pushing Daisies have both been cancelled by ABC.

4. Paul Blart, Mall Cop raked in over $30 million, which was more than any other movie last weekend.

5. Al Franken may be the junior senator from Minnesota... and Amy Klobachar is the senior senator.

Wow. So it's been a while. I guess it's appropriate that this post is on Inauguration Day when my last post was the day after the election. But before I discuss the inauguration itself, there has been a transtion-related point that I want to make.

Obama ran on a platform of "Change". At times it seemed that every other word out of Obama's mouth was "Change", almost like the word "smurfy" to the little blue guys. However, when we look at Obama's selection for his staff and cabinet, I don't see alot of change... We have former President Clinton's wife as Secertary of State, one of former President Clinton's chief political advisors as Chief of Staff, former President Clinton's Energy Secertary as Seceratary of Commerce (until he withdrew his name due to scandal), and former President Clinton's Deputy Attorney General as Attorney General.

In addition, Barack may have differentiated himself from the Democratic field of presidential nominees during the primary season, but he certainly seems willing to lean on their experience once he is in office. Four of the eight losers in the race for the Democratic nomination were selected to be members of the administration in cabinet-level or higher positions. It seems to me that the "change" that Obama is delivering is simply a change back to Democratic Party control and not the brave new world that Obama has spoken of.

However...

Watching the Inaugural Address that Obama delivered this morning, I saw very clearly what he has that the Bush Administration has lacked, in fact, has sought, without success, for 8 years. Barack Obama right now has a majority mandate from the people. Bush has followed the polls and sought public approval for years. Probably ever since Gore v. Bush determined him the winner in 2000. It appears that he has acted out of fear of what the public would think of him and his policies. Every decision was spun right out of the gate to try to appeal to the majority of people, to appeal, even, to Bush's political adversaries. This apperance of compromise has been clothed in "bipartisanship", but succeed only in disappointing allies and emboldening enemies.

Barack Obama, on the other hand, seems to have a swagger, a confidence that Bush has lacked. I believe this comes mainly as a knowledge that he is the first black president of the United States. It may also come from favorable press coverage. The results of the election, while unquestionably naming Barack the winner, were not so heavily weighed to give the appearance of major consensus; 47.1% of the country wanted someone else to be president. But, however it happened, Obama enjoys that luxury now. I'm interested to see how long he can hold onto it. And what he does with it while he has it.

Point of Interest: Barack Obama won with 52.9% of the popular vote. The last President to garner a greater percentage of the popular vote was W's dad, Bush 41, 20 years ago.

My Thoughts the morning after Election Day '08

- A very solid race run by the Obama team. I think it was handicapped by the media to make Obama a clear favorite, but he did want he needed to do, ran a clean campaign, and I have never denied that he can deliver a speech.

- Still "concerned" about his ideas. I am hopeful that a struggling economy forces him to abandon some of his more extreme campaign promises (i.e. universal healthcare, wealth redistribution, confiscatory capital gains taxes).

- This election was bought. Not only did Barack Obama outspend his opponent by at least 3-to-2, and I believe some reports say it's closer to 2-1, but he also bribed 95% of the American people with promises of tax cuts. Now I'm all for tax cuts, but Obama is not going to pay for these tax cuts by reducing government spending, or by stimulating growth in the economy, but by increasing the taxes on the other 5%. That's the worst form of demagoguery.

- I'm glad that we have our first black president. I wish it were someone I agreed with more. I hope this means that we can move past race in future elections.

- On that note, I congratulate Mr. Obama on not playing the "Race Card", and likewise for Mr. McCain. The only references to Mr.Obama's race came from the extremes on either side. Oh, and the fawning by the media in the hours after the election was called for Mr. Obama.

- George Bush will be demonized for years for having lost this election for Republicans across the nation. And history will have a much more sympathic veiw of Bush 43's Administration.

- Michelle Bachman for Senate in '12. 'nuff said.

- I wonder what Sarah Palin's next step is. I suspect she will run for President in 2012, and it will be intersting to see how she handles the primaries.

- Speaking of Caribou Barbie... I hope it as obvious to everyone else that the charges against her in "Troopergate" were strictly political in nature. The investigation was not started until she was already selected as McCain's running mate and she was exonerated mere hours before the election. I hope the individuals behind such blantant political slander are called to answer for what they have done.

Stupid line of the day for Election Day 2008:
Taken from MSNBC.com

In 2004, for instance, exit poll interviews found that 36 percent of
self-identified gun owners said they voted for Democratic presidential candidate
John Kerry, but 63 percent of gun owners said they voted for President Bush.

This seems like a recurring trend. It is odd, but in most races with 2 major candidates, the percentage of voters voting for Candidate A plus the percentage of voters voting for Candidate B equals something close to 100%. Very strange. I think we may need to comission an 18-month research study to delve into the phenomenon a little more.

Warning: Political Content ahead. Read at your own risk.

So I just read an interesting editorial over at Washington Times by Andrew Breitbart.

I think Mr. Breitbart has some very good comments. Myself, I think it's a travesity that the current ecomonic crisis is being pinned on "Bush's economic policies". I think some democrats are exagerating the power of the President to affect a world economy, both in the past and in the future. (That thought, BTW, is why I am merely "highly concerned" and not "Katie, bar the door" freaked out at the impending doom ...er... Obama administration)

What piqued my interest, however, is this comment.

If Barack Obama is elected the next president of the United States on Tuesday, I
hope the Republican Party and conservatives take the higher road. The republic
cannot handle another four years of undeclared civil war while we have real
enemies out there to fight.

While this is true and necessary, why is it that the conservatives are the ones that need to "take the high road"? I think the answer is two-fold. First, for whatever reason, the majority of media (and by media, I mean network and cable TV news, newspapers/magizines, and TV and movie actors, writers and directors) are biased toward the Democratic wing of the government (and the left-wing of the Democratic party). For more information on that, please read this also interesting column. Because of this, the democratic party has a monopoly on framing the debate. The question isn't "Did the President's ecomonic policies contribute to this current economic crisis?" or even "Did John McCain's ecomonic initiatives attempt to prevent this crisis?". The debate has been framed as "How will the next President's policies be different from the failed, evil, silly, *Insert derogatory adjective here* Bush policies?"

Second, the conservative side is represented by Talk Radio. It could be argued that Talk Radio had flourished because of the bias in the media. On the other hand, it could also be argued that the media has turned harder left to counter Talk Radio. Talk Radio started out great, and still has a lot of good providers. There is definitely a market for conservative comments and observations. However, it's success has also led to the negatives. Some personalities have over inflated egos, probably because they see themselves as right and everyone else in the media is wrong, which has a grain of truth in it. People like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck have sought to create cults of personality and mutual admiration societies where those who agree are accepted and those who don't are branded idiots or worse. Their commentary has devolved to a constant hum that only serves to annoy those across the aisle. The idea that conservative ideals can stand alone intellectually if they are just explained is lost in a chorus of Ditto-Heads and fanboys.

Of course, the alternative is for the Republicans to back off and let Obama and Co work the country into a crippling decade-long depression. But I beleive the GOP has too much integrity for that. Besides, if the Dem's get their 60 seats in the Senate, it won't matter what the Republicans do, will it?