US Government To get Cash for Gold

Personally, I think we would be better served if they used Good Ole Tom...

When Right Wing Hate Mobs Attack!

Steven Crowder of PajamasTV infiltrates an angry mob in Texas:

Radio Preacher

Another neat video from Pastor Dennis:

Different Strings

This one is going to involve a bit of set up. As most anyone who reads this thing knows, its purpose is Liberty, which is meant in its broadest sense. The primary subject matter can be almost anything that strikes my fancy or amuses me, but usually centers around what I call the Three G's -- God, Games, and Government. They are all connected and in each I seek to advance human liberty.

Okay that being the case, people who read this blog also know that I play a game called Star Wars Galaxies, and I've posted a few times on it. It's an MMORPG, and those games are well, different. In those games you wear a second skin, so in some ways you become another being in another universe, and in another sense you simply are wearing a different skin with your own, or slightly modified for internet psyche shift, self inside doing cool stuff in another, fully graphically realized in pixels, reality.

In Star Wars Galaxies, the reality is Star Wars. It was the best game I have ever played. Partly because it was Star Wars, a story that has near religious significance to me; partly because of the incredible depth and breadth of the game, and while tremendously flawed, the flaws were forgivable by many people, due to the other amazing things about the game; and three, and perhaps the most important part, a community had developed in this environment, a virtual community of real people using a virtual reality to spend time together adventuring, crafting, buying and selling, partying, and of course fighting with all sorts of things including each other -- this community was a thing that well, whatever it was it was amazing.

Anyway one dark day, the 15th of November 2005, a date that shall be remembered in infamy to all players of the game.

That was the day that the producers of the game, Lucas Arts and Sony Online Entertainment, decided to change the game in such terrible, drastic way that an untold but very large amount, let's say at least 100,000 out of a possible 250,000 players quit the game en masse.

No one knows how many actually stopped subscribing, but at least that many people quit playing, and moved on to other games like WoW and City of Heroes, the two I tried and still play to this day.

This event pretty much propelled my internet writing habit as a rather passionate troll on the SWG Forum boards and others, passionately advocating that they roll back the publish, hoping that would bring the game and my friends back. I wasn't about to quit, nope, I was gonna stick this thing out because I still had friends who played, I am crazy stubborn about somethings, and well, I loved my characters and it was still Star Wars. I am still there and will continue to write about it when I feel like it.

Okay, now here is where we are going. I have, after getting involved in the online debate, made friends with people in the MMO industry and they have told me things, and lots has been made public, the only thing I can surely distill is this was decided by the suits against anyone closer to the scene's better judgment.

Those two suits are John Smedley and Jim Ward. They were the two who made the decision to destroy worlds.

Both had been declared enemy that dark day long ago in November. They F'ed up MY GAME, and for that they deserve a fate worse than, well...you know. Games are a sure sign that we are children of a very cool God since he made us able to build worlds in our minds we call our games. God, that's cool.

Anyone who destroys that must be declared anathema, and cast out. Of course that would make me a really bad Christian and although remain a really bad Christian, long ago I of course forgave them both.

But they are still technically my enemies in gaming. However, a while back Jim Ward quit the biz, and I prayed he didn't quit because he or a loved one was ill, and I must admit that yes, bad Christian that I am, that he somehow got canned for the NGE.

Nope. Turns out he was preparing to run for Congress.

And um. Seems he's at the very least, an economic conservative. So he is now, the enemy of my enemy.

Plus he said something I find VERY interesting:

"It's time politicians who just want to be politicians got out of the way and let people who have run businesses, created jobs and made decisions they've had to live with, go to Washington and straighten out this mess," according to the election site for Ward, who resigned from LucastArts early last year. "I've got that skill set along with the ability to make the right kind of change. I hope you'll agree."

...made decisions they've had to live with....? hmmmmm.

But I wouldn't even care if he meant that, not if I didn't actually agree with him on policy issues. But I checked out his website, cited in the kotaku article, and if he means what he says, I'm very interested in seeing what else he has to say:

I have over 25 years of business experience and I know that Arizona’s future depends on the right kind of change. Change that actually simplifies the ever-increasing complexity of our federal government, particularly our tax code. Change that limits the growing federal intrusion into our state, freeing us to be dynamic and innovative so that we can create solutions to our own problems without bureaucrats in Washington telling us what to do. Change that prevents government from coming between all of us and our freedoms so that we can build the best solutions for education on a local basis, determine the best options for our health care directly with our physician, maintain the right to cast a secret ballot in our own workplace and make fiscally responsible decisions so that we don’t mortgage the future of our children.

Okay, that sounds good. If it turns out he is truly a man who believes in economic liberty and states rights as implied above, I am going to have to support him. The enemy we both fight, if he is the real deal, is more important that any virtual reality I could take part in. It's the REAL game we play, and we must do such things when the Red Dragon of socialism stands before us, threatening to scorch and burn and devour everything beautiful about freedom, individuality, and loving thy neighbor as a joyful responsibility.

So as I thought about this, I am reminded about how we all, so different, sometimes simply not liking one another at all, or the things we have even done to each other, when something threatens us all, we must join together and fight the damn thing, and we can sort our shit out later.

Different Strings
by Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson

Who's come to slay the dragon?
Come to watch him fall?
Making arrows out of pointed words,
Giant killers at the call?
Too much fuss and bother,
Too much contradiction and confusion.
Peel away the mystery,
Here's a clue to some real motivation.

Chorus
All there really is,
The two of us
And we both know why we've come along.
Nothing to explain,
It's a part of us
To be found within a song.

What happened to our innocence,
Did it go out of style?
Along with our naivete
No longer a child.
Different eyes see different things,
Different hearts beat on different strings.
But there are times
For you and me, when all such things agree.

Is it totally evil of me to secretly hope he is a mad social conservative and thus, I have to STILL be against him?

Yeah. Damn.

On Health Care

Okay, now, I'm sure you all know that as a pretty hardcore libertarian, I am against the government providing health care. My reasoning is simple. I know there are many people who are uninsured, and many more who are under-insured. I know people are suffering out there, and this health care delivery system is a mess.

However, I do not believe government will solve the problem. I believe that experience with government has shown that government solutions do help some people, but almost always at a cost greater than the problem they solve, and always have unforeseen circumstances that in retrospect often make matters worse.

There are few exceptions to this general rule.

Also, I feel that since all wealth that the government gets it gets through forced confiscation, it is by its very nature a thing of evil, and yes I mean evil in the Biblical sense, as in Powers and Principalities and as believers we should be VERY wary of its use. Government is financed by legalizing theft. That should bother every Christian.

Remember all men are evil, to a some extent, and need redemption, so it makes sense that any political unit we would come up with would be at least a little bit evil. Government, however, even if evil, at this time in human history at least is an evil that we kinda can't live without in one manner or another.

Government is a little bit of evil to protect us from worse evil. If we did not have government, people not being ready for anarchocapitalism, that would lead to chaos.
This is why I agree with the sentiment expressed by Thomas Paine,

"Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one."

Amen.

Now that being the case, I think a fine metaphor is from the Magickal Arts, something I have had a bit of experience with. I think of it as summoning a demon that one must bind to one's bidding -- but it is NOT a good thing, not a thing that loves, but a thing you hire to use force against those who would use force against you. You must give it some power, but too much and it will begin to RULE YOU.

It's only a metaphor, I'm not saying anyone in Congress is demonic.

It's only a metaphor because thank God that our government is US -- at every level it's people.

However, it's a good one because would you let a DEMON take care of grandma? Even a bound one? Of course not. Okay I know arguing from metaphor is a crap argument -- I'm not making an argument here just providing you with how I feel and giving you a sense of my passion about the nature of government and how delicate a free society is.

I feel essentially that in that it is fed on evil, on legalized theft, and it is force -- nothing government does involves voluntary action, since these two things are true, I only want it used for those things that force is absolutely necessary.

That's not a whole lot. I end up with the basic libertarian/classical liberal few.

Police, Military, and the courts.

Maybe a few things that might be argued to be as natural monopolies, like the roads.

Not health care. Not a whole lot of other things either, and in health care, I would get the government OUT of it before I get the government more into it.

Okay, that's the beginning of my feelings about the nature and purpose of government and how it relates to health care.

To this someone may ask, well then how would you solve the problem of health care? Answer: I can't. Neither can the president. Neither can the congress. Neither can any government. It will, by its very nature, make matters worse. We haven't gotten here without government involved in health care more and more as it's gotten worse, and I see no evidence that even implies that government can alleviate any of the issues involving health care without either creating a monstrosity that will be worse than the mixed economy mess we have now, or even if it's not, it will inevitably create far worse problems in other areas.

However, this should never have BEEN a problem if we as Believers in a loving God were not falling down on the job. Why is anyone in need? What are we not doing for the people who need it?

It is time we seize this from the government and as a Church, in our synagogues, in our Mosques and around our Pagan circles, we must meet to care for people or we are liars in the eyes of Providence. To that end feel free to use me or hit my myspace page and we'll do what we can to help.

If we can't do it ourselves, we should give to organizations who will do it for us -- there are plenty of them. Their coffers should be overflowing if we are indeed a nation of God. We have been derelict in our duty and we have allowed a damned DEMON to take up the job for us. We should be ashamed of ourselves.

Funny Clip

Government Cheese

Been thinking about this song by The Rainmakers a lot lately. I wonder why...?

Government Cheese

Give a man a free house and he'll bust out the windows
Put his family on food stamps, now he's a big spender
no food on the table and the bills ain't paid
'Cause he spent it on cigarettes and P.G.A.
They'll turn us all into beggars 'cause they're easier to please
They're feeding our people that Government Cheese

Give a man a free lunch and he'll figure out a way
To steal more than he can eat 'cause he doesn't have to pay
Give a woman free kids and you'll find them in the dirt
Learning how to carry on the family line of work
It's the man in the White House, the man under the steeple
Passing out drugs to the American people
I don't believe in anything, nothing is free
They're feeding our people the Government Cheese

Decline and fall, fall down baby
Decline and fall, said fall way down now
Decline and fall, fall down little mama
Decline and fall, decline and fall

Give a man a free ticket on a dead end ride
And he'll climb in the back even though nobody's driving
Too Goddamn lazy to crawl out of the wreck
And he'll rot there while he waits for the welfare check
Going to hell in a handbag, can't you see
I ain't gonna eat no Government Cheese

Building a Unique and Historical Movement

I found this while I was just googling about and I thought it was interesting. It seems, in some ways, Christian Universalism reared it's lovely head twice in world history, and twice it helped usher in something beautiful:

Something similar has happened two times before in the history of Christianity. The first time was in the first three centuries of the Christian Era, when Messianic Jews and Greek philosophers came together to develop and articulate a new spiritual vision combining some of the best insights from the Hebraic and the Hellenistic traditions. The result was Alexandrian Christianity, a boldly Universalist Gospel that was taught by early saints and church fathers such as Origen, Clement of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa, and Macrina the Younger. This view of the Christian message was in fact the greatest, most widely accepted and respected form of Christianity in the ancient world, until the takeover of the church by Rome under the influence of Augustine's theology. The teachings of this school of thought centered on two basic principles: apokatastasis (universal salvation and restoration of all things) and theosis (divinization of human souls in the image of Christ). This was a serious, deeply spiritual and intellectually progressive Christian Universalism, articulated many centuries ago.

The second time something like this happened was in the 18th and 19th centuries, when the Universalist Church of America was formed and grew to become the seventh largest denomination in the United States at its peak. This new church developed out of a diverse mixture of people who fled religious persecution in Europe, such as Anabaptists, Quakers, Moravians, and other Pietists including some Anglicans and Methodists -- many of whom rejected the traditional doctrine of eternal hell which had been taught for many centuries by the Roman Catholic Church and by most Protestant churches. Progressive ministers and evangelists from these varied groups eventually coalesced around their radical belief in the salvation of all, creating a new religious movement. Some of the more noteworthy Universalist ministers of this era include George de Benneville, John Murray, and Elhanan Winchester. Many early American leaders were believers or had sympathies with this spiritual philosophy, including more than one of the founding fathers of the United States as well as President Abraham Lincoln.

Of course, we Christian Universalists and Inclusivists are working to bring about a new reformation today, with mixed success. Let us pray that if we do, we help to create something as beautiful as either the early Church, or the American Republic.

Source: The Christian Universalist Association

Brits to Put Cameras in Private Homes

This is some scary stuff. From Wired:

Britain To Put CCTV Cameras Inside Private Homes

* By Charlie Sorrel
* August 3, 2009

georgeorwellAs an ex-Brit, I’m well aware of the authorities’ love of surveillance and snooping, but even I, a pessimistic cynic, am amazed by the governments latest plan: to install Orwell’s telescreens in 20,000 homes.

£400 million ($668 million) will be spend on installing and monitoring CCTV cameras in the homes of private citizens. Why? To make sure the kids are doing their homework, going to bed early and eating their vegetables. The scheme has, astonishingly, already been running in 2,000 family homes. The government’s “children’s secretary” Ed Balls is behind the plan, which is aimed at problem, antisocial families. The idea is that, if a child has a more stable home life, he or she will be less likely to stray into crime and drugs.

It gets worse. The government is also maintaining a private army, incredibly not called “Thought Police”, which will “be sent round to carry out home checks,” according to the Sunday Express. And in a scheme which firmly cements the nation’s reputation as a “nanny state”, the kids and their families will be forced to sign “behavior contracts” which will “set out parents’ duties to ensure children behave and do their homework.”

And remember, this is the left-wing government. The Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling, batting for the conservatives, thinks these plans are “too little, and too late,” implying that even more obtrusive work needs to be done. Rumors that a new detention center, named Room 101, is being constructed inside the Ministry of Love are unconfirmed.

One more step on the road to EngSoc.

Of course of course, it's for their own good. It always is, isn't it? God save the
people of England.

Original Source: http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/115736/Sin-bins-for-worst-families


Thanks to Pamela Geller over at Atlas Shrugs for this bit of creepy info.

Update: Balls is denying it on Twitter:

http://twitter.com/edballsmp/status/3124025586

Obama Health Reform and Wait Times Visualization (In Lego!)

Another fun one from Political Math. He makes some corrections here, but it's still good: