tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59589305892371318272024-03-13T14:33:04.686-07:00Notes by Trey BahmTreyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09652752504685454339noreply@blogger.comBlogger48125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5958930589237131827.post-70004427912758562852019-05-21T05:33:00.004-07:002019-05-29T10:34:15.581-07:00Austinville<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwEC21PX0ThjXkJbxEQIEduEtP3iyQTZh30Ts4XndTIfBxzgL-ymcnFnOnU7JJ7NnqDXJP_gXSlIEWsn15ZsBFtBAwYv3S-r7Q_1ICCG4Qdp8M33k63j9Iil7WC3tV6cbQ4t5z4Vw4R3o/s1600/MosesAustin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="550" data-original-width="426" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwEC21PX0ThjXkJbxEQIEduEtP3iyQTZh30Ts4XndTIfBxzgL-ymcnFnOnU7JJ7NnqDXJP_gXSlIEWsn15ZsBFtBAwYv3S-r7Q_1ICCG4Qdp8M33k63j9Iil7WC3tV6cbQ4t5z4Vw4R3o/s320/MosesAustin.jpg" title="Moses Austin" width="247" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Moses Austin (1761-1821)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><em>Museum of Fine Arts, Houston</em></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: "courier new"; font-size: large; line-height: 107%;">200</span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span>years ago, the fledgling United States
experienced the first of its trademark economic downturns linked to a market
crash of some type.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Back then, these
recessions were called “panics.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
Panic of 1819 was a phenomenon brought on by wild, unregulated lending toward
an equally insane land rush into the recent Louisiana Purchase.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 107%;">One of the self-inflicted victims of this Panic was a lead miner
who managed to acquire some old French claims not too far south of St.
Louis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He had emigrated to the west bank
of the Mississippi River from Virginia with his family, leaving behind a
previous mining settlement there he had named Austinville.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 107%;">Initially, Moses Austin made a small fortune in lead when
British demand for the weapons-grade metal rose while the former mother country
and her allies fought Napoleon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But then
the U.S. greedily declared war on Britain in 1812, and the crown quit buying
anything from its former colonies for almost three years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now with the land and banking crash of 1819,
an exhausted Austin found himself utterly broke.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But at age 59, he still thought of a way to
restore his fortune.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He would go to
Texas.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 107%;">It is a miracle in and of itself how Austin was able to obtain a
land grant from the Spanish authorities, but the latter entity saw colonization
as a means of trying to control their single biggest problem with Texas:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>illegal immigration – of Americans!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Austin’s grueling overland trip from
Missouri to San Antonio and back during winter destroyed what was left of the
man’s health.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On his deathbed, Austin
wrote a letter begging his reluctant son, an Arkansas lawyer named Stephen, to
carry on the project.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Stephen only made
the trip southwest after his mother, Mary, urged him to honor his father’s
wishes.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 107%;">And yet Stephen himself needed his own new start.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He came oh-so-close to a congressional
delegate seat in the newly formed Arkansas territory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A land dispute hit Stephen at about the same
time, with the result being the cancelation of a small judgeship he held.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Texas stood for the son of Moses Austin the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">promise</i> of a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">land</i> project integrating all his skills and interests – politics,
writing, mapmaking, cross-cultural diplomacy and the rule of law – together for
a good cause:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>lawful transformation of
the rich lowlands of the Brazos, Colorado and Lavaca Rivers into stable,
prosperous homes along its coast.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large; line-height: 107%;">10 </span><span style="line-height: 107%;">years ago, linked to yet another speculative crash,
the income of my tiny consulting business took an 84% nosedive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By the summer of 2009, I could no longer
afford to stay in my Mesquite, Texas apartment and staved off under-the-bridge homelessness
with the help of friends and housesitting gigs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>After a planned Labor Day weekend trip to see my folks down along the
Colorado River, I did not know where I would be sleeping once I returned to
North Texas.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 107%;">Due to events which occurred that weekend, I unexpectedly
returned to my hometown of Greenville after an eleven-year absence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was no longer broke; I was now broke with
three kids.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My sweet aunt, Donna
Stainback, and the kindest man I know, her son Tim, took away the homeless nightmares
by allowing me and my gang to use an available duplex they had.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The most generous man I know, Aunt Donna’s
other son, Kent, made sure I could get groceries for the place <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">among other things</i>.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 107%;">We still struggled for another year, as contracts were few.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My pickup got repo-ed in the dead of night,
and after scraping the money together to spring it, I had to find an unknown
reserve of charm to get the meanest junkyard secretary in the Metroplex to
process my paperwork in time to make a prior commitment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We were even robbed one day while I was
getting the kids from school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
thieves carried away what little we had left using my laundry basket.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 107%;">Then in August of 2010, an old friend of mine who happened to be
the local state senator, Bob Deuell, said he needed the basics done for his
reelection campaign that fall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I said I
had some flexibility in my schedule.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
instructed me to email his Chief of Staff in Austin, Don Forse, a list of the
duties I would perform in exchange for a contract lasting three months.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 107%;">I had $80 to my name and watched as it became 75 cents over a
matter of days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was so poor that I had
canceled our Internet and had to use the computers over at the Walworth
Harrison Public Library.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hurried in,
logged on, and sent Don an email listing everything Bob and I had
discussed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I even threw in some bonus
tasks to sweeten the deal.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 107%;">I concluded the email to Don with, “I know this isn’t your
problem, but if I could get the first contract payment by Wednesday (that would
be September 1, and I was writing on the prior Thursday), I would really
appreciate it.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I then clicked Send.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 107%;">I made the short drive from the library back to our duplex.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But before I could get out of the truck Bob
lit up my phone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Upon answering, he
insisted, “Come to the office in the morning and get a check!”</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 107%;">This moment is but one example from the past ten years of how
Providence – through so many exceptional people – has been overwhelming to
us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Us,” because the greatest gift
during this time came in 2011 when I met Cheryl.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps the biggest miracle of my life
occurred in 2013, when I actually made the right decision for a change and
asked her to marry me.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 107%;">Of course, this does not mean things went straight into
ever-after mode.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were at times
harrowing difficulties – one in particular that I don’t wish on my worst
enemy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But, always there was God’s grace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were the friends he gave us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were those who encouraged.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were those who provided us with faith
when ours was either weak or offline.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 107%;">Last summer, I was recruited by Don and another old – and I mean
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">old </i>– friend from my Hill days, Maj. Pete
“Suga” Phillips, USMC ret., to come work at the Texas General Land Office as
part of the Hurricane Harvey recovery effort.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>For the past ten months, I have been doing work in the 49-county storm-impacted
zone, assisting local elected officials and other groups with understanding the
state’s assistance programs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The main
territory I was assigned centered around my parents’ home in Columbus, along
the Colorado River.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 107%;">One day, after a meeting in Prairie View, I was cutting across
the country back toward Columbus when I approached the FM 1458 bridge across
the Brazos and into what remained of Austin’s original colony:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Austin County.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As I drove across and up onto the opposing
bank, there was San Felipe de Austin State Historical Site, where Stephen had built
his home and headquarters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s kind of
unimpressive as far as historical buildings go, but there’s this quaint peace
there if you step out on to it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s
a sense of, well, promise.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 107%;">This spring, the opportunity presented itself to completely
relocate to Austin the capital city and work on the storm recovery programs at
GLO headquarters, and Cheryl and I have made the decision to move.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I work around the corner from the map vault in
the Stephen F. Austin State Office Building.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I sit directly above the airtight library that preserves the 1859 land
patent of my first ancestor to come to Texas, a Prussian who built a
sawmill in Nacogdoches County shortly after the state was annexed by the U.S.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 107%;">A short drive – in the Texas sense – out to the west of Austin,
Cheryl’s mother lives on Hill Country ranchland purchased by her own German
ancestor four generations ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cheryl’s
brother lives nearby where he is the offensive line coach for the state
champion Mason Punchers.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 107%;">My sister, brother-in-law and their wonderful daughters have
been in town for seventeen years, where he is an architect on Congress Avenue
for the firm that designed the tony Domain commercial center.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mom and Dad are now only ninety minutes away
to the southeast, where Dr. Bahm continues his 45 years of treating anyone who
will “lie still.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My mother remains that
person who has always prayed faithfully for her children not just to grow
toward Christ, but at times just to come home and begin growing again.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 107%;">And so, there’s a sense in which Cheryl and I are coming
home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But not really.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Greenville is most assuredly the place that made
me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This includes my imagination-filled
childhood, my troubled post-college years prior to DC, and the past ten.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s been a place of joy and heartbreak, of frustration
and rest, of success and disappointment, of pain and healing.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 107%;">Foremost, it will always be a place where I experienced the
presence of Jesus through my friends.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That’s what I think of when I think of Greenville.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s what I’ll always think of, especially
of the past ten years – not years of panic, but ones that God made
rich with everyone he sent into our lives while we sojourned on the Blackland.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 107%;">Come see us in Austinville – all are welcome.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, almost all are welcome.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think the only people who’ve ever blocked
me on social media are already in the state capital.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s ok – I got here as soon as I could.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 107%;">God bless,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 107%;">Trey</span></div>
</div>
Treyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09652752504685454339noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5958930589237131827.post-58875484712441468402017-09-01T20:19:00.000-07:002017-09-02T08:06:06.076-07:00"The Rich Young Senator"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<img alt="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0757YWJ7R" border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbNT_nNTTUuj183kM7VN5yyMNssxOSiP8I93vJew4ldtcFOjg9KmjpysHai7CN-TPfneTGz64h-QxjRLbJ-q8a25-ZE2tLh9lPlFeQuCe8x8qAMElzUugZqrTPYGZAqNQdiRDT6JNgUQQ/s320/RYS+cover+final.jpg" title="" width="200" /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0757YWJ7R" target="_blank">Click here for your copy</a></div>
<br />
The point of departure for this one entered my head many, many years ago. I have a cousin who serves in ministry in North Dallas, and she once remarked to me that pretty much all of America’s churches – not just the high per capita ones – were filled with rich young rulers, referring to the common name for the original story in the gospels.<br />
<br />
The schoolteacher or middle manager may not think of themselves as wealthy, but we as American Christians do in fact behave this way. We definitely lay hold of our political rights this way. We have achieved such a level of ‘democratic’ wealth and spiritual/societal conscientiousness in our civilization, that we have adopted the attitude of a self-reliant, yes-I’m-doing-what-I’m-supposed-to, God-fearing lord or lady. My cousin went on to explain to me that this material-driven self-righteousness was the true scourge of the church in our country today, much more than anything like false teaching, addictions, etc.<br />
<br />
This conversation has stayed with me ever since.<br />
<br />
This fall will mark a loose anniversary I have in my mind of when I officially became politically active. It was this time of year in 1988. Another cousin had roped me into being a yard sign distributor for Republicans in my home of Hunt County, Texas, owing to the fact that I had a newly minted driver’s license and my parents’ giant ’84 Suburban. He himself was the official Hunt County coordinator for the George H.W. Bush campaign, and he moonlighted on Wednesday nights as our youth group leader.<br />
<br />
One Wednesday night, our regular youth time overlapped with a conference call he had with the state campaign director for Bush 41. My cousin brought in what was, at the time, a state-of-the-art desktop conference phone he had persuaded his dad, a propane retailer, to buy so that they could talk to all his drivers across East Texas at once. After a shortened youth group lesson, my cousin dialed in a number as a couple of us huddled around the speaker set up on a table in our pastor’s study. In a second, a 42-year-old George W. Bush came on the phone and gave a quick status report (I will admit that today I am older than this, but not by much). The future Bush 43 began ticking through a list of all the county coordinators in Texas working for his father’s campaign. Texas was still heavily Democratic then, and it was not a shoo-in for the Vice-President, especially with a popular U.S. Senator, Lloyd Bentsen, filling the other half of the Dukakis ticket.<br />
<br />
“How are ya, Tim?” asked Bush 43, like my cousin was close friend. My cousin was the only coordinator in that long list that was addressed by name. In that instant, I was hooked on politics. Even as a sixteen-year-old, I immediately thought, oh, that dude just has a list in front of him with my cousin’s name on it, and he’s just playing off it. But even that nascent cynicism could not the overcome the wildfire that was really ignited in my conscious. I fell in love with the idea that if you just showed up when a connection asked you to, the rich and powerful would know your name, and that <i>they might even listen to you if you stayed cool.</i><br />
<br />
Twenty-nine years later, I realize this has been my modus operandi for every political deed I’ve undertaken, whether I was helping a complete political rookie get elected to the school board or was trying to persuade John McCain to his face that consideration of his amendment to preserve trade with Vietnam was protected by the Senate rules, and that Trent Lott was not out to get him.<br />
<br />
I also realize now that I have been trying to be heard by the wrong people. I have a touch of lament that this has taken twenty-nine years, but, like my cynicism, that is not more powerful than heaven’s conviction. But if the Trump era has taught us anything, no matter how long he lasts, it is this: the <b>people</b> very much run the United States. It has <i>always</i> been this way. Sure, the engagement level of that leadership may seem to come in spurts – but our nation is absolutely ruled by the Social Security check, among others. We ourselves are the people who must listen to ourselves. That is the true power structure of all of us rich young rulers.<br />
<br />
What, then, of followers of Christ? Should we be ruling? That’s not what Jesus seemed to tell the young man in their encounter. Or was it?<br />
<br />
I hope this new little story will help us all think about this question a little more, and of course be entertained. It is all G-rated for the most part. But, there’s your money’s worth of violence (Also in high school, I spent too many weekends helping my orthopedist dad as his surgical tech not to sprinkle in a little gratuitous bloodshed here and there). There is a tiny flicker of profanity, but it will make sense for the character who utters it. I may be criticized for not allowing my inebriated journalist characters to use their normal barracks English, but I think the tale is otherwise plenty realistic.<br />
<br />
You can absolutely read this book on any device once you perform a simple download (if even necessary). You can read it on your handheld phone! Thanks for taking the risk and time.<br />
<br />
Enjoy the story.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Treyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09652752504685454339noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5958930589237131827.post-39595219309282346322017-08-23T19:54:00.002-07:002017-08-23T20:11:27.104-07:00RE: Confederate Monuments<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPLf-GgcHEAiyyb419f1hqU-xI2k9dzc5YBN7yXLiVMf9OxFLhS9wxpmBMtSDBgzmvIxy-n1K4AAkIW6vHvOlicuv8cb_U0GXZGNVSzEVuNvkpHNEm2RFOmA90ifJOBHe_PvywnSxFLDE/s1600/USD1236statudeAudieMurphyMuseum.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="900" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPLf-GgcHEAiyyb419f1hqU-xI2k9dzc5YBN7yXLiVMf9OxFLhS9wxpmBMtSDBgzmvIxy-n1K4AAkIW6vHvOlicuv8cb_U0GXZGNVSzEVuNvkpHNEm2RFOmA90ifJOBHe_PvywnSxFLDE/s320/USD1236statudeAudieMurphyMuseum.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The Confederate Soldier statue in Greenville, Texas</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have stated my views about the War Between the States and how to commemorate it before. Although <a href="http://www.texasgopvote.com/family/stars-bars-heroes-and-history-007559" target="_blank">that article</a> is more than two-and-a-half years old, my opinions are unchanged about this period in our history and the criticalness of remembering it and the people of it. If anything, my thoughts have become more ingrained, especially in the sense of how we should study the subject and arrive at informed opinions.<br />
<br />
What has changed is the wild-eyed Bastille-ism now affecting Confederate symbolism around the country. I stated in the article that basic recollection of the war and its memorials were soon to fall off a cliff of ignorance, but I meant that in terms of simply knowing key nouns by anyone under the age of 40. I did not predict the devilish glee a bunch of self-righteous revolutionary wannabees would be demonstrating around and toward various statues, etc. The racist socialists on the one side are, of course, repugnant by any measure. And the righteousness of the be-tolerant-or-die leftists to “stand up to white supremacy” and “right the wrongs of the past” is as hypocritical as their lack of direct involvement with the black community to start with.<br />
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In the face of this chaos, I will continue to be the voice of reason, no matter how weakly my voice may sound amidst the shrieking. Accordingly, I will lay out what I think is a sensible way to address Confederate monuments – a policy that may surprise some of my brothers in arms – but I must first correct some publicly disseminated ignorance.<br />
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The non-profit Texas Tribune <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2017/08/22/brief-aug-22-2017/" target="_blank">recently reported</a> on an estimated 180 Confederate-named locations in Texas. This list, as reported, used as its starting point a list compiled by the <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/20160421/whose-heritage-public-symbols-confederacy#findings" target="_blank">Southern Poverty Law Center</a>. Although some of their legal tactics against the KKK and Aryan groups have been effective, the Southern Poverty Law Center has its own questionable heritage, but that is another blog. Suffice it to say the SPLC is primarily a fundraising organization which, like many of them regardless of the cause, end up spending more money to raise it than they do in supporting their stated purpose.<br />
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In terms of the SPLC list, I have uncovered a blatant falsehood, which I think proves that anti-monument people aren’t really interested in facts or, worse, the decisions that some communities have already made on this issue. The error that the SPLC and, by extension, the Texas Tribune are making concerns a Confederate memorial in my own hometown of Greenville. The reference is to Smithsonian American Art Museum inventory record #<a href="https://siris-artinventories.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?&profile=ariall&source=~!siartinventories&uri=full=3100001~!335607~!0#focus" target="_blank">TX000782</a>, the Confederate Soldier statue commissioned by the United Daughters of the Confederacy Chapter 1236. The Smithsonian record is not up to date (but why should the SPLC or anyone else care about accuracy?).<br />
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This statue was first put up on the Greenville High School Wesley Street campus in 1926 (the GEUS Customer Center currently occupies this space, for those of you in/from G-town). The statue followed the high school when it moved to a new building built on Texas Street in 1951. Then, the marble sculpture of a simple CSA infantryman moved again to a new Junior High School on Stanford Street in the 1970s.<br />
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Due to it being a repeated target for vandalism, the statue was moved to its current resting place on the grounds of the <a href="http://www.cottonmuseum.com/" target="_blank">Audie Murphy American Cotton Museum</a> along I-30. Incidentally, I-30 is also named locally as the Martin Luther King, Jr., Freeway within the city limits. Why was the statue vandalized? Local race issues may have been a factor over the years, but more often than not it was simply teenage hooliganism. Regardless, there could be no better, safer place for it than its Blackland prairie spot between the Ende-Gillard House (also relocated to the museum grounds to protect it from vandals) and our town’s awesome bronze statue of Audie Murphy.<br />
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And this is a prime example of why so much ignorance persists when it comes to memorials. No one bothered to check on the true status of the statue before they pushed it on out as something that should be taken down (this is the push of the SPLC website; the Tribune may not overtly be advocating it, but their reliance on the SPLC for sourcing brings their objectivity into question). I hold these organizations responsible for these details. As researchers, they should have contacted the Smithsonian to verify that their survey was up-to-date; if they did, then the blame is on our esteemed national curation system. NOTE: I will be copying and pasting my blog address into the form the Tribune has provided for “monument reporting.”<br />
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And to further correct the constant ignorance that is being perpetuated on this issue, I will lay out what I think should be the solution. It’s very simple, and it’s an <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2017/08/21/lt-gov-dan-patrick-calls-ut-austin-removal-confederate-statue/" target="_blank">idea recently referred to by U.S. Senator Ted Cruz</a> as he referenced the monument situation at UT Austin: let the community decide. In other words, let’s try to go back to good ol’ fashioned local democracy and allow citizens to make their own choice. And it can be done through a public comment system, a city council agenda item, or even a full ballot referendum; just let the people – and not a liberal, Orwellian elite – decide for everyone else, which is the path we are on.<br />
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The irony is that by doing so, we would be returning to the original process that plunged the country into the Civil War in the first place and all its nightmare after effects: popular sovereignty. Abraham Lincoln split the country not because he was for or against slavery per se; he was, however, steadfastly against the people deciding about advancing slavery in new states, and this what drove the South to secede (in their racism, they wanted at least the option of extending human bondage all the way to the Pacific, as cotton could be grown in optimal conditions in Arizona).<br />
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True, much in terms of how America would view equality hung in the balance on these questions at the time, and I don’t want to minimize them. But a step in healing of all the bad decades to follow would be to allow communities to wrestle with these issues themselves, today, independent of any kind of dictum, be it a law or attitude.<br />
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But it can’t be done with apathetic and inaccurate information.<br />
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Treyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09652752504685454339noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5958930589237131827.post-55297969181864371522017-07-29T10:31:00.000-07:002017-07-29T10:36:49.609-07:00The Health Care Debate Gets Buried in the Swamp<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggbc2uZMn79kKZSCdvxHn5ct5Sn0Omvk-UMlgRgg9sEumYk8gU3lFj-gZeT6H7pDaCHtm6SlQYX4gX6B1demHpW4Lc0GIj9ei16yLKwH2MEg6mUSC5kGzQkVgsjRzMpfJLWMGQWv9-i_Q/s1600/McCainObamacare.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="970" height="148" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggbc2uZMn79kKZSCdvxHn5ct5Sn0Omvk-UMlgRgg9sEumYk8gU3lFj-gZeT6H7pDaCHtm6SlQYX4gX6B1demHpW4Lc0GIj9ei16yLKwH2MEg6mUSC5kGzQkVgsjRzMpfJLWMGQWv9-i_Q/s320/McCainObamacare.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Senator John McCain (Getty Images)</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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John McCain executed his sweet revenge on Donald Trump Thursday night by killing a shell health care bill written as part of the anti-Obamacare effort. So called “skinny repeal” was the cancellation of the medical device excise tax that was passed with the Affordable Care Act. In theory, all Republicans should express perfect unanimity over resecting a law that both puts a tax where there was none and stifles innovation in a technology field that makes lives better. But, a Senator from a state that is totally dependent on Medicaid (Murkowski - Alaska) and a Democrat in Republicans’ clothing (Collins – Maine) apparently thought hanging together wasn’t the way to go with Mitch McConnell’s current strategy.<br />
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As did John McCain. Two weeks ago, the Arizona Senator underwent a routine surgery in Phoenix to remove a blood clot from above his left eye. A pathology report of this clot revealed evidence of glioblastoma, which is an aggressive brain cancer. Why not slow down? was the gist of his speech in favor of moving ahead with debate earlier this week. Slowing down would also prolong his torture of our instant gratification President, a man who insulted the former Vietnam POW for being shot down and captured. When skinny-repeal died on the table, so did Trump’s campaign hype that the GOP would repeal Obamacare. I promise you, this was as much in the Senator’s mind when he cast his vote at midnight yesterday morning.<br />
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As tragic as McCain’s revenge vote was, the greater crime in the Obamacare repeal movement has been that Republicans generally aren’t being true to themselves - even the so-called "heroic" ones like Cruz, Lee, Paul, etc. This is because the President is not a true conservative, and cannot guide the members of the House and Senate accordingly. House Speaker Paul Ryan is the closest thing we have to a market-oriented health care policy wonk on the repeal effort, but he is trapped in being from a state/district that ultimately thinks it needs some type of guaranteed health coverage. As a result, his creativity is limited to inside-the-box thinking.<br />
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Republicans’ only hope at truly reforming health care, which Senator McCain yesterday claimed was his reasoning behind his no-vote (subliminal message: yeah, whatever), is to stop, yes, but more importantly, take a deep breath and remember their conservatism. Here are the key ideas to remember, in case their political egos have also put their ideology on life support:<br />
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<li>De-couple health insurance from employment. There are multiple ways to do this, including, if necessary, putting a 150% tax on corporations that offer it as part of a cafeteria plan, which will disincentivize. This is arguably the second-biggest factor as to why we have such high premiums and therefore a lack of coverage among those who are younger and poorer.<br /><br />I don’t have the space here to elaborate, but think of it as car insurance. Our car insurance is affordable because we have to go out in the marketplace and get it; most employers only offer modest discounts if it is any kind of work benefit. Health insurance is high because insurers know that big companies have the money to pay the premiums, hence the micro-inflation in prices.<br /></li>
<li>Raise the enrollment age of Medicare to 72. Americans, for the most part, are living longer because of better information about diet and exercise and market-led pharmaceutical therapies. They are also in the workforce longer. Put this population back into the larger coverage pool, and more payers will reduce premium prices.<br /></li>
<li>At the same time, take those more aged individuals with existing conditions and put them in either a regional or state-organized risk pool. Certainly, more work needs to be done with risk pools to make them function correctly, but this is what states are for. Let them use trial and error, if need be.<br /></li>
<li>Put a DNR on Medicaid – DO NOT EXPAND IT! Move all the poor people into some type of CHIP program, and get them to start paying SOMETHING. This <u>must </u>occur – there will be no modification of consumer behavior until they are putting money toward coverage of their families instead of into junk food and drugs.<br /><br />There needs to be a tax credit for long term care policies. The biggest cost to state Medicaid programs are nursing homes. If an employer wants to offer a low-cost benefit to its workers that’s health-related, make it this one! Long term care policies work and will force nursing homes to adapt to market forces instead of walking up and down the halls of state capitols with their hands out.</li>
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These are just some of the core principles that Republicans need to “slow down” with and use to grade every other idea they have. Of course, the Obamacare subsidies need a deep hole to be tossed into; it is this part of the ACA that many Republicans are hoping will tank the program. But this is a game of chicken that will result in band-aid spending ad nauseum courtesy of the Democrats. And obviously, the mandates of coverage must end – these are market perversions that will not make anyone “healthier.” But above all, there has to be a return to smart, principled thinking, not just this partisan, that’s-a-stupid-idea attitude.<br />
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If not, all we get it is revenge drama and the pettiness writ-large that is refilling the swamp faster than it can be drained.Treyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09652752504685454339noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5958930589237131827.post-14373137385054121452016-10-23T15:18:00.001-07:002016-10-23T15:32:05.369-07:00Hillary v. Trump: America Must Choose Between Mom and Dad<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiSf6UptpgIYiwrd2UGd_dotJsWojIoiZNmSI7lMF9VOMenakm5TZGr9aWZUd061dsygHGEZ9kiXWwfbsPNKoNIOmYpRZQ5l2IrG3dUkC4FiBhWk4Gnj497_SY123ANxmya18ipAnqiQU/s1600/laughCry.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiSf6UptpgIYiwrd2UGd_dotJsWojIoiZNmSI7lMF9VOMenakm5TZGr9aWZUd061dsygHGEZ9kiXWwfbsPNKoNIOmYpRZQ5l2IrG3dUkC4FiBhWk4Gnj497_SY123ANxmya18ipAnqiQU/s320/laughCry.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Early voting in Texas begins tomorrow. If there are any Republicans in the older
Metroplex suburbs, the rapidly changing Metro Austin area, or outlying wards of
Houston, chances are you have the privilege of finding an office not too far
down the ballot that is a simple, classic matchup between a sophisticated
conservative and a truly ignorant Democrat.
For the rest of us across the state, we must suffer from our success in
recent decades at hunting Ds to extinction.<o:p></o:p></div>
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And I do mean suffer, because all many of us Red people have
left upon which to train our sights is this blankety-blank Presidential
race. Hillary “Rodham-got-deleted”
Clinton versus Donald “Boy-named-Sue’em” Trump is like that troublesome pimple
that blemishes a perfectly scrubbed face – and that can’t be gotten rid of even
if we try to pop it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Election Day ’16, for the nation, will be a day of ecstatic
relief, no matter who is elected. For me
personally, I will glory in the liberation of my Facebook page from the dire,
apocalyptic finger-raising of all my Christian brothers and sisters from across
the political spectrum. I recognize my
jadedness – I have in fact embraced it many ages ago – and so I openly admit
I’ve spent much of the year laughing and snarking at what people have written,
posted and shared. I guess I feel I
should confess here and now the ridicule I’ve privately put on old
friends. I’ve watched good-hearted,
rational folks, some very dear, turn into hysterical, hyperventilating,
self-righteous lunatics these past several months as they’ve all picked their
various hills upon which to die. And yet
at times my scrambled-idealism would burst through and I would consider joining
different ones of them, depending upon who had the better cupcakes.<o:p></o:p></div>
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As Honest Abe said, “I laugh so that I must not cry.” And that’s the true nature of the relief we
will all experience some time the week of November 8 (I believe this year’s
Presidential race could tangle up into a Florida 2000-type situation). Week after next, we don’t have to make it ok
anymore. We can simply accept our
misery.<o:p></o:p></div>
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A new, shadowy life will set in. The judge’s gavel will fall, and the
visitation schedule will commence. One
parent will bear the day-to-day, cash-strapped responsibility of managing the
household while the other stews in bitterness and poisons us with it on the
weekends. We will resent the one who
tries to take care of us and become detached from the other who goes emotionally
adrift. Worst of all, we will be told we will be ok because
“children are resilient.” On SNL last
night, Tom Hanks – a mega-Hillary supporter – said as much in his opening
monologue.</div>
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This all sounds really gloomy, I know. But there is a silver-lining. Some have asked me, a failed political hack,
if I think this election will somehow “get it out of our system” – the “it”
being this scummy and covetous rage against the
Man/Establishment/Illuminati/Them. Well,
history is somewhat mixed in its record. I actually
think it will be cathartic for our country, though we will never be free of the
envy that spawns conspiracies.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I believe Election ’16 will be a cleansing because it has
forced many Americans to consider that their system of government may in fact have
become a graven image of sorts to them.
There’s an expectation we’ve had for far too long that whoever’s in the
White House, the Capitol, or state legislature should make us <i>feel good.</i> The way we say this is, “I feel good about
him/her being the X-representative” or “he/she is a true one-of-those, because I am
a true one-of-those.” Well, this year
we’ve gotten a set of candidates that can churn different sections of our
abdomens with gifted success. What does
this reflect? That we have made an
office holder’s ability to make us feel good our master – or mistress.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Abraham Lincoln also wrote, concerning democratic
principles, “As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master.” He put this on paper before the War and the 650,000+ Americans who would die as the result of his policies.</div>
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Can we find Lincoln's high-minded balance today? Instead of spending the rest of our
childhoods and adulthoods wishing things had been different, we can make a
decision, with God’s help, to become better parents - and citizens - ourselves. <o:p></o:p></div>
Treyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09652752504685454339noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5958930589237131827.post-14956934432818536622015-12-24T13:20:00.000-08:002015-12-24T13:20:25.246-08:00The Caliphate of Illinois<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpVMrfxT4Iu4Gx6AY7yD5PNms5OkyAoN-7R64BNRmTHp2QkGPyjpGg__jqzUzPtEGIi_Z5Wk-ZG9hXbUEUhFKeZ91otl4zrgZOqtP9-xQJKM_h_lDlJI8bvpJuZZBhi-Y26Cui8c65MLU/s1600/BlanchardHall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpVMrfxT4Iu4Gx6AY7yD5PNms5OkyAoN-7R64BNRmTHp2QkGPyjpGg__jqzUzPtEGIi_Z5Wk-ZG9hXbUEUhFKeZ91otl4zrgZOqtP9-xQJKM_h_lDlJI8bvpJuZZBhi-Y26Cui8c65MLU/s320/BlanchardHall.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Blanchard Hall at Wheaton College is named after the first President and houses both that office and the Political Science Department. It has always been rumored that the basement was a stop on the Underground Railroad.</i></span></div>
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There’s nothing like controversy over Islam to commemorate Christmas.</div>
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I have tried to avoid commenting about the situation involving Professor Larycia Hawkins, Ph.D. <gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="161246c1-7ffa-45b5-b31c-329475eb6f71" id="dbbb96e6-6e48-44b1-8317-f2af57df3645">up</gs> at my alma mater, Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. I have no inside knowledge of whatever communication may be occurring between all the parties involved. I do not know Dr. Hawkins at all, neither am I acquainted with the College President, Dr. Philip Ryken. I only know the Provost, Dr. Stan Jones, from hearing him lecture a few times during my years on campus in the early Nineties (Dr. Jones is a psychology professor; I pretty much only hung out in the History Department, with Student Government or over at Arena Theater). </div>
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What I am somewhat more aware of is the long progression of the small Wheaton College Political Science Department from a theory, international studies-oriented unit toward one that is more policy-oriented (this has become so in spite of the <a href="http://www.wheaton.edu/academics/departments/polsci" target="_blank">official department name)</a>. Much of this change was needed. For decades, Wheaton Poly Sci was kind of an unwanted step child that reflected the larger missions-oriented, evangelical view of politics generally, which was that it was a dirty business in which the Christian is not called to serve. For example, the department was forced to share office space with other small humanities divisions. More opinionated or activist professors found things awkward and tended not to stay long. But in the past dozen years or so, a younger breed of instructor has been hired and helped shepherd the student body to think more about the practical application of their principles in the public arena. This trajectory was aided by the rise of Wheaton alumnus, and the campus’ congressman, J. Dennis Hastert to the Speakership of the U.S. House.</div>
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<gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="ff4fbf15-d541-4aa8-b774-0da8e92dff45" id="7ee044e6-4d63-46ba-8502-1f331d7a2752">Yet like</gs> the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/28/politics/dennis-hastert-court-hearing/index.html" target="_blank">recent bizarre scandal involving the former Speaker</a>, the unseemly sludge of bad decisions made in the past has erupted from beneath the surface of the Chicago <gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="ff4fbf15-d541-4aa8-b774-0da8e92dff45" id="1e968bf0-a597-4801-bd25-12612cb52f6c">West</gs> Suburbs with the Hawkins case. The spillage has introduced toxins into the evangelical community on a national stage and is right square in the middle of the centuries-long War between the West and Islam, version 2.0.</div>
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I’m not going to comment on Dr. Hawkins and her views per <gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="ad8439bf-f214-4a7e-9949-1223b0863d53" id="a49c29bc-70bf-4d3f-aa8a-74ac51e0bf25">se</gs>, here. As I’ve read all the news articles and Facebook posts and considered what’s going on with her, the campus, liberation theology, universal salvation, etc., I’ve just gotten upset and unsettled and wrathful, and I am not going to write out of that place. I think it’s more important to explain why this has happened. The school leadership is to blame and is certainly guilty of high hypocrisy, but not for the reasons upon which leftist evangelicals and the secular media want to insist.</div>
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Twenty-four years ago in Jenks Hall I completed a political science course to satisfy my liberal arts requirement. The professor was a gifted communicator who truly understood her field, but she was new <gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="c789e0c6-e153-4b8e-a074-7103ab62b34e" id="a44228de-0be8-4b9d-9ebc-06490cc74d7a">both</gs> to being a full-time instructor and, by her own admission, the Christian faith. I will never forget a comment she made one day in class which was <gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="eddb8ab0-e79a-4dfb-ac31-80a6a74396a9" id="f5a24360-5361-490c-9c01-50f998631df4">telling</gs> to me about why she had been hired. I forget the general discussion, but she made the remark that her hiring committee, which consisted of both board members and faculty, called her a “neophyte” when it came to understanding the traditions and doctrine of conservative evangelical faith.</div>
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The professor didn’t seem to take umbrage at this <gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="8c3037a8-434f-4b0e-8ff1-f79d2eeffea8" id="e1c71292-4bed-4b2a-b244-97b1f254198a">label</gs>, and she was quite respectful of her new community of believers. She listened with fascination to her students when we would explain the political foundations and policy positions upon which we had been reared. But subsequent to her remark about being considered a neophyte, I found out one of her prominent qualifications was that she brought a feminist perspective to her academic work. For the Wheaton powers-that-were at the time, she filled the quota; her theological maturity was secondary to academic freedom and gender diversity.</div>
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This hire was made toward the end of a very centrist period in Wheaton’s history, during the presidency of J. Richard Chase – the only <gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="2754b087-0836-4581-9fe4-3a4452068fb6" id="ad43af95-d889-4b14-8c8e-7abba86cc94e">Wheaton President</gs> ever not to have had a Ph.D. <gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="42b585c3-b80b-42c1-a20f-3c06bf7abbf5" id="ed1bc80e-c269-481c-9d7f-1de1af7eaff6">in</gs> theology or Biblical studies (<gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="42b585c3-b80b-42c1-a20f-3c06bf7abbf5" id="643cb91c-be38-42e3-8ceb-08c446faa78b">his</gs> was in Speech and Rhetoric). The fact that two significantly more conservative former pastors have been hiring the faculty since then – Duane Litfin (came from the First Evangelical Church of Memphis) and Ryken (came from Tenth Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia) -- reveals just how much the Marxist-centered quest for multicultural diversity has infected American academia, statement of principles or no statement of principles.</div>
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The people teaching us after high school have become so conditioned by the multicultural mindset – it is seen throughout corporate America, to say nothing <gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="53b02740-4bca-4e8b-928c-509321c4cf11" id="bd94ee26-e8dc-4628-a4c4-23732afe5850">of both</gs> political parties (Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina reflect this in the GOP) – that it might be the left’s single greatest achievement today. Forget <gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="b72ea981-c4a1-4b75-89e8-ca62fe4ca62a" id="81aabe93-0dc1-4d6b-a0f6-1ac61fb03e89">untrinitarian</gs> monotheism, hijabs, <gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="b72ea981-c4a1-4b75-89e8-ca62fe4ca62a" id="71fcdc6b-8084-46c2-97f5-c74d22523938">burqas</gs> or beheadings; the intellect of our society has now become enslaved to a caliphate of thought.</div>
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Accordingly, Dr. Hawkins (hired in 2007) shouldn’t be blamed for the current controversy and standoff over her job, any more than the ocean should be impugned for being salty. Upholding theological truth, as well as just sticking <gs class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="5d9af6e4-b58e-4e92-b111-8a0fee8e0eaf" id="27eb74e6-54bc-4d54-a63d-4c107c7cb276">with</gs> plain ol’ principles, requires more than just an annual signature.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Merry Christmas.</div>
Treyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09652752504685454339noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5958930589237131827.post-50614361358060587852015-09-11T19:38:00.001-07:002015-09-12T10:45:03.929-07:00Elders on the Ridge<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPnqJt5B364fv2Esjrt0PE3j8KLbNzZY6JR7uiCOTyrLzAihLBwY0PMLgyDT4Vo2X3WyQJql1q2zIF_YVT6p1fsHLZ6HMYKmXP0bKSTtCzPDJkkksRFuuFn7Lc7n7WPJeuzciSsANkmPE/s1600/roger-williams-H.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="104" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPnqJt5B364fv2Esjrt0PE3j8KLbNzZY6JR7uiCOTyrLzAihLBwY0PMLgyDT4Vo2X3WyQJql1q2zIF_YVT6p1fsHLZ6HMYKmXP0bKSTtCzPDJkkksRFuuFn7Lc7n7WPJeuzciSsANkmPE/s320/roger-williams-H.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 18pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><em>Roger Williams arrives in Massachusetts Bay</em></span></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">NOTE TO READER:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This blog entry has a focus on events at Ridgecrest Baptist Church,
where I attend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you find internal
church politics boring…well…you don’t know what you’re missing.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My church family is scheduled to
vote on whether or not to amend our constitution for the purpose of creating
the office of elder.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This vote will
occur on September 20 during our business meeting.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I joined Ridgecrest six years ago
by letter when I moved back to town.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Although I had been active in an independent church with an elder
structure before leaving the Metroplex, I joined the Southern Baptist tradition
in 2000 by baptism at First Baptist Church of Alexandria, Virginia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Prior to this, I had always been involved in
a church with elders, principally in the Presbyterian tradition.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, by way of full disclosure, I
wholeheartedly endorse the amendment to Ridgecrest’s constitution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not only do I believe it will bring our
church family into fuller obedience to God’s word – </span><a href="http://ridgecrest.com/sermon_archive/i-timothy-31-7/" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">an exposition of which our pastor, Matt Beasley has carefully laid out</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> --</span></span><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> but such a change in structure
has many practical benefits that will make our local body of Christ
healthier.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>True, all elders are human,
but any possible negative consequences are outweighed by the positive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Ridgecrest amendment, in particular, is a
biblical complement to the great Baptist traditions of congregationalism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is because the amendment assigns elders specific
roles independent of the deacons, term limits them, and still requires the church
membership to approve motions.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Having said this, I realize the
e-word puts a bad taste in the mouths of many of my brothers and sisters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are basically two camps of
opposition:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>those who are opposed
because elders are not historically a part of the Baptist tradition; and those
who sympathize with this group. The basic
argument of this last group is itself sympathetic and understandable:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>why alienate anyone, especially our truly
elderly members who have been faithful for so long, and cut a rift in the unity
of the body?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Believe me, I get this.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My purpose in writing is to
respectfully ask my brothers and sisters to reconsider their position if in
fact they are in one of these camps.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
also want to try and move the rest of us up out of a touch of apathy that seems
to surround the topic.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I will attempt to do this, of
course, by giving a history lesson.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Why do Baptists not have elders,
given the overall unwavering commitment of the tradition to the teachings of
Scripture?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Further, why do many of us
harbor a quiet disdain toward the very idea of elders?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The answer, as is often the case, lies in the
denomination’s founding.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The founder of the Baptist church
as we know it in America today was the Puritan preacher Roger Williams (1603-1683).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is a compelling figure from any part of
American history, let alone the Colonial period.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was exceptionally articulate even in an
age of gifted preachers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was passionate
and persuasive, kind and charismatic.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But he was also contrarian and
often obnoxiously self-righteous.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a
time and place when Christian teaching emphasized the attributes of God and how
they manifested themselves in the pious life, Williams’ sermons regularly mixed
in social, political and anti-royal rhetoric rooted in opposition to most forms
of man-made authority.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He believed intensely
that God was the only real authority, and human beings accountable only to the
Lord through their own consciences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Williams’ sermons demanded this extreme, direct repentance, action and
justice in the face of illegitimate authority.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Although certainly devout and committed to Christ, Williams seemed to
elevate the right of an individual to his conscience over pursuing Christ-likeness
among brothers (James 5). <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A key reason for this was the
unique status of the church shortly after the first New England colonies were
founded.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rarely in Christian history has
Bible-based church governance been so closely intertwined with a civil
structure than it was in Puritan New England.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Ironically, the Puritans had left England, where religious dissent was
often met with being burnt at the stake, also with the hopes of finding “the
pure church” and establishing their famous “City on a Hill” (Matthew 5:14).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But their priorities were religious
freedom over individual conscience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
religious freedom was upheld by a community of believers while conscience was
called upon to be administered in accordance with Paul’s teachings on Christian
liberty (Romans 14).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>True, the Puritans
got a little crazy on a few things, but this basic idea of what a Christian community
should be was at the heart of their faith.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In a handful of separate colonies
across Massachusetts, the Puritans had moved away from the bishop-vestry style
of their own Anglican tradition and used the New Testament Elder-Deacon model to
govern both church and village.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Religious authority and civil government were one and the same in 17<span style="font-size: small;"><sup>th</sup>
Century Massachusetts under the Puritan elders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>You could be punished if your neighbor overheard you speaking abusively
toward your spouse within the confines of your own home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You could be put in stocks for leaving the
church service early…and they lasted three hours on a narrow wooden bench!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One Puritan man was even brought before the
church to be disciplined for “not fulfilling his husbandly duty.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His wife brought the charge.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Relative to the Puritan leadership
in Massachusetts, Williams would have been considered religiously “libertarian,”
or even liberal by today’s standards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Williams’ contrarian nature and his never-satisfied pursuit of what he
called “the pure church” put him at odds almost immediately upon arriving in
Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1631.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A
group of men governing not just doctrine but also the religious correctness and
everyday affairs of a community offended Williams’ radical views on the Lordship
of Christ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was the first American to
introduce and wrestle with the idea of separating church and state and what
that looks like.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Making things worse for the Puritan
elders was how Williams chose to approach the Indians of New England.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He did so with an open mind, unlike most of
the pastors of the region.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Williams,
along with more enlightened missionaries like John Eliot and the Mayhew family,
felt that the more effective means of evangelization of Native Americans was to
understand them culturally.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today,
modern missionaries would refer to these missionaries’ efforts as early forms
of contextualization.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At the time, the prevailing view of
most Christians was that the only sincere faith was one that at once rejected
an individual’s pagan ways and immediately embraced not just the Lord Jesus as
Savior but also European culture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
view was upheld, often in courts or court-like settings, by the Puritan elders.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Understandably, Williams and others
became indignant when many elders began to put up roadblocks to church
membership against the very Indians they had converted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it’s true that the things these Puritan
elders did were petty and reproachful to some of Scripture’s most basic
teachings, such as the doctrine of equality in Christ found in Galatians 3:28.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the case of some of John Eliot’s converts,
the Indian men went all the way in wearing English clothing and cutting their
hair, only to be told by the elders that they could not worship in the same
building as the white people.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Moreover, when many of these
Indians began to have land disputes with the ever-migrating colonists, things
wouldn’t go their way in the church/colonial courts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Often their lands got appropriated without
clear title or just compensation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Williams
began to speak out against the elders in these cases, and he began to lump the
Bible’s teaching about elders in with ideas about the establishment and
corruption.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Williams’ agitation resulted in his
expulsion from the colony by the Massachusetts leaders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unlike people like Eliot, Williams chose to
antagonize those in authority instead of work with them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He struggled with New Testament passages like
Romans 13 and 2 Peter 2.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By the time Williams
found safe haven among the Narragansett Indians in what would become Rhode
Island, the minister and his followers had decided that anything resembling a church
hierarchy was detrimental to God’s people.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Williams and others in the region,
notably Anne Hutchison in Connecticut (who had also been banned for crossing
the elders) hence promoted congregationalism as the purer model of church
governance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And because they also
rejected the infant baptism practiced by the Anglicans (Church of England) –
they thought it was too much like Roman Catholicism, which they truly HATED –
the more open, loosely structured tradition of the Baptist faith rooted in
believer’s baptism was born.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Over time, the self-governing sensibilities
and capabilities of Americans generally seemed to bless the Baptist church
structure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To this very day, many
Baptists seem to struggle in separating Pauls’ teaching on church governance from
our own sacrosanct views about democracy and self-governance.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All of this is to say that we might
resist the idea of elders in a Baptist church for some very understandable
cultural reasons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Roger Williams
should have been careful not to throw the baby out…well…with the holy water.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I hope my dear brothers and sisters
at Ridgecrest who I love with all my heart will consider my opinion as to what
might be animating any opposition to our upcoming amendment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have a dream that this blog post will set
off a vigorous and loving debate prior to the vote.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a time when God’s people are under
withering attacks corporately, when ministries within a church can become
personal carve-outs and when often the most basic tenets of God’s truth go
unfollowed, I believe an amendment like ours is that much more important to
strengthen us against the wolves.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thanks for reading.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
Treyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09652752504685454339noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5958930589237131827.post-71390571748170480652015-04-17T05:41:00.000-07:002015-04-17T05:41:46.444-07:00When Faith Reaches Its Limit<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL5zHCH6KMACQo-mLcozg4u3xYUpv0FMDPKosYhFVzk3YHo2pE_FqLppyrypJxov_nyKZbvrQw1_3kD3CS7TZzcoJgP0J7RkqNyD1kbQ5umvKCUAmQjoc1ZKfIfCRNHsJEjkiUZRwU2wk/s1600/canyon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL5zHCH6KMACQo-mLcozg4u3xYUpv0FMDPKosYhFVzk3YHo2pE_FqLppyrypJxov_nyKZbvrQw1_3kD3CS7TZzcoJgP0J7RkqNyD1kbQ5umvKCUAmQjoc1ZKfIfCRNHsJEjkiUZRwU2wk/s1600/canyon.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
Over the years, I have heard the difference between God and humans described repeatedly as a “gap” or “chasm.” The two best illustrations of this concept which come to mind are from David Gregory’s <i>Dinner with a Perfect Stranger </i>and C.S. Lewis’ <i>The Pilgrim’s Regress</i>.<br />
<br />
In Gregory’s punchy, one-sitting book, the guest who is eating at an Italian restaurant with the business-suit clad Lord Jesus has the gap between him and his host described as “a tear in the universe” similar to one discovered by the USS Enterprise in a <i>Star Trek</i> episode.<br />
<br />
In Lewis’ allegory, the first-person hero makes a journey through various theological concepts, all of which slake a thirst for truth but which ultimately fall short, literally, when he arrives at a massive, bottomless canyon that separates him from his desired goal. Nevertheless, he tries to make his way down the canyon walls, only to falter and become hopelessly stuck. At just the right moment, a character he refers to as “A Man” comes and lifts him up, not only from his perilous grip along the canyon wall, but also out and across the chasm.<br />
<br />
I think for all people just coming to faith, these pictures of their separation from God make perfect sense. But to the sojourning Christian, weary with one trial, test, hardship or even sin catastrophe after another, discovering yet another ravine ultimately makes no sense. Hitting that chasm, or seeming to circle around to the same gap, again and again make the faith of the journey seem absurd. Doubt sets in. Doubt takes hold.<br />
<br />
But the plain fact is that faith cannot get across the gap any more than the human will. Faith is, truly, a human act. It is something humans do. At most, God may give specific types of faith (including what the Reformers called miraculous “Saving Faith”), but it is incumbent on the human to yield to its saving power. Scripture likens faith to a soldier’s shield, which of course is designed for the specific purpose of combat and the will required for fighting.<br />
<br />
So what are we to think of the Christian soldier who arrives at a chasm in life only to realize he is woefully ill-equipped to cross it? What is she to do when it dawns on her that her faith has reached its limit, and the bitter thought of “why have I been lugging this useless thing around” is spoken into the mind?<br />
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Massive fault lines may rip across one’s path, shaking one’s faith into a crumbling theory that it might be good for something, but it sure doesn’t look like it right now. Crying out to God for help is reduced to a feeble technique rejected in a state of exhaustion. The heart one once had to trust has become a burnt out cinder of tension and pain that literally shrivels the shoulders forward, fearful of the next blow.<br />
<br />
Sometimes faith may seem as empty as the gap you’re staring into.<br />
<br />
Is there anything to meet the limit of faith? I have concluded there is truly nothing within a human heart when it finds itself staring into the canyon. But there is something outside it, yet it may surprise us when we realize what it is.<br />
<br />
Ironically, what meets us when faith hits its limit is the faith of others. This is the essence of any spiritual group. The faith of others that things will change or improve is what has been given to an individual whose faith may have become empty.<br />
<br />
It is the faith – not the sympathetic ear – of the friend who sits at Whataburger, fighting an illness himself, who asks how your kid is doing because he knows God will help the child. It is the faith of the aunt who has applied her faith in prayer for you, and is then simply happy to see you trudging into the worship center. It is the faith of the mother who can block out the temper tantrum of a 40-year-old and verbalize what God can do. A person’s connectedness to these resources of faith is a dependence that produces hope even if the pain makes things too cloudy to see God.<br />
<br />
Remember the pronoun that the gospel writer used in describing how Jesus healed the paralytic lowered through the roof: “And upon seeing their faith…” (Mk. 2:5). Jesus forgave the sins of the paralyzed man and ultimately healed him because of the faith of others. The man was paralyzed more than just in his limbs; he was also flat on his back in his heart.<br />
<br />
Faith, working through his friends, put him in front of a gospel that made him walk again.<br />
<br />
British author George MacDonald notes that in all of Jesus’ miracles, there is a moment where the recipient must act or respond to Jesus’ words in order for the healing to actually occur. In the case of the paralytic, he had to “get up, take up [his] pallet, and go home” (Mk. 2:11). And the man did so, to everyone’s astonishment.<br />
<br />
A deeper thought about overcoming this limit of faith is whether or not the commands of the Lord Jesus could even be disobeyed. Would the paralyzed man have been able to remain in his horizontal mire, his faith weakened that much or his will broken in hostile resistance? If God is God, can his commands even be disobeyed? I think the answer is no.<br />
<br />
I’m willing to take that on faith.<br />
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Treyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09652752504685454339noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5958930589237131827.post-72379148757008067842015-01-10T15:02:00.002-08:002015-01-10T15:14:44.702-08:00REVIEW of REBEL YELL: Stonewall Rebuilt<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>General T.J. "Stonewall" Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley, 1862</i></span></div>
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I finally got to read S.C. Gwynne’s long-awaited, much heralded <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Rebel-Yell-Violence-Redemption-Stonewall/dp/1451673280/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1420926771&sr=8-2&keywords=empire+of+the+summer+moon" target="_blank">Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson</a>.</i> Gwynne is a former news magazine editor and fellow Texan who first came to prominence in the popular history genre with his bestselling tome about Quanah Parker,<i> Empire of the Summer Moon</i>.<br />
<br />
<i>Rebel Yell</i> is an easy read, and I highly recommend it for anyone who doesn’t know a thing about Stonewall, or for anyone with an interest in the WBTS (War Between the States for us Southerners) who has perhaps struggled to understand the sequence of battles during the early war (pre-Gettysburg). Gwynne does the best job of any WBTS author I’ve read of laying out 1861-1863, and he does so in a way that is concurrent and complementary to the biographical thrust about Stonewall.<br />
<br />
If you’re a nerd about all the battle maneuvers and martial decisions, however, you may want to stick with some of Stonewall’s older chroniclers. Only once does Gwynne try in earnest to explore Stonewall’s military mind, and that in relation to his seemingly recalcitrant behavior during the Peninsula Campaign of the summer of 1862 when the general may have been afflicted with a virus of some kind. But to his credit, Gwynne sticks to his journalistic training by simply describing the General’s actions, as opposed to discovering the root of his military genius. This keeps the person of Stonewall compelling. And therein is what is probably the lasting significance of <i>Rebel Yell</i>; Gwynne restores Stonewall to his rightful place opposite Abraham Lincoln as the War’s two most important figures.<br />
<br />
The WBTS–Civil War is in its own category of popular history, like the Roman Empire, the Titanic or the Kennedy Assassination. Likewise, its actors are in their own peer group. Stonewall, Lincoln, Caesar, Hannibal, the great ship and Molly Brown, John Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald, rank among historical figures the same way Hank Williams towers over some honky tonk cover band.<br />
<br />
In the case of the WBTS, just who the lead players should be have been in a crisis of sorts for at least 25 years, owing in no small measure to Ken Burns’ famous documentary. For most of the nation’s history, the protagonist/antagonist, or viceversa, have pretty much always bee Lincoln vs. Lee. There was a Grant vs. Lee period that occurred for a while, mainly during WWII, but the whole understanding got thrown into chaos as a result of the Burns miniseries when writer Shelby Foote declared the two most important Civil War figures were Lincoln and Nathan Bedford Forrest.<br />
<br />
But the truth is that Stonewall was all that Forrest was (backwoods rags to riches, highly intelligent and intuitively bellicose) and <b>more</b>: he had a mystical union with God that very much reflected the fabric of the nation at the time (Forrest, by contrast was infamously profane during the war years). Gwynne devotes key pages to the collective impact of Stonewall’s death on the nation, both north and south, and how it was in many ways a reflection of grief for all Americans and their antebellum <i>Americanism</i> (Gwynne’s word).<br />
<br />
The principal reason Stonewall fell off his historiographical pedestal, starting in about the 1930s, was because he bore the prejudicial brunt of an increasingly secular age. He was viewed by many historians and the textbooks they wrote as a one-dimensional God freak who foolishly expressed the wrath of an Old Testament Yahweh. Then the Civil Rights era relegated Jackson to the sidelines in favor of Lee’s “gentler” Christianity. Gwynne corrects this myopia about Stonewall by giving perspective to his faith and by allowing the devout general some complexity, even if his love for Christ seems, in modern eyes, to contradict his ruthlessness and the slavery it defended.<br />
<br />
At the same time that he puts Stonewall’s faith in the right place, Gwynne also humanizes Jackson and gives the reader the best feel yet for the eccentric man’s true personality. The thing I appreciate most about the book is that Gwynne seems to have written in with the central question in his mind of “What was Jackson really like to be around?” This was an important duty for the author, as most of us WBTS nerds have been struggling with what we’ve all read about Stonewall versus Stephen Lang’s awkward portrayal of Jackson in Ron Maxwell’s 2003 <i>Gods and Generals</i>. Although Lang is a great actor, he just did not get Stonewall at all, and I’ve spent almost 12 years disabusing myself of some of those hokey scenes.<br />
<br />
So, download a copy of <i>Rebel Yell</i> if you like. I of course will continue on the march behind <a href="spotify:track:4CGAvBSRjLKVJ8brdmvGTn" target="_blank">Stonewall Jackson’s Way</a>.<br />
<br />Treyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09652752504685454339noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5958930589237131827.post-82057456148422738242014-12-20T15:18:00.000-08:002014-12-20T15:18:09.162-08:00The Drummer Man<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Bob, my wife Cheryl and me</span></i></div>
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Christmas comes. In some years for some officials, Black Peter brings the end of a political term.<br />
<br />
This year, my friend of 28 years and client of 4, Bob Deuell, got such a lump in his sock.<br />
<br />
This of course has been difficult for all of us. Even the most mercenary among the rapidly dispersing Team Deuell privately admit there will be aspects about our defeat last spring we will never get over. When we next meet up at CB’s, I’m sure we’ll still be wringing our hands about this or that part of the campaign.<br />
<br />
But it’s not just the agonizingly thin 740 vote stumble in March and then the 300 fail in May that are hard to get over. We have become mad that we can’t seem to get over it. The grief process seems disturbed and unnatural in its flow, and it bothers us. For me, my overdue thoughts here are meant to serve as a kind of analytical resolution.<br />
<br />
Bob lost because of two incidents related to fiscal matters. There were about a half-dozen policy positions that made our campaign difficult: they were twisted and lied about by others, cutting edge and hard to explain, or there was honest disagreement. All of these policy issues were plagued with their own intrinsic problems, and it’s fair enough to see how they would grind down support and harm a candidate’s brand. But they as a group were not what ultimately did Bob in. I place the blame on the government spending issue as the one category that was truly intractable. Here is why.<br />
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The first incident, during 2011, was a hectic moment in Austin when Bob was cornered by a <i>Texas Tribune </i>video crew during the 82nd Legislature’s grueling budget cut situation, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExePcsZLwbM" target="_blank">on camera</a> he said he was comfortable with spending the Rainy Day Fund and “other sources of revenue” to cover a big shortfall estimate. Although he was frank, this was off beat with his caucus.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, those opposing him were more frank. When the video went viral preceding the GOP Primary, it found some complementary white noise out in the election ether in the form of a single, dark money-funded Facebook ad created by Texans For Fiscal Responsibility, which was composed of a red grade F with a URL incorporating his senator title. This was the second incident.<br />
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The F grade was based on the TFR scorecard, although the ad did not burrow down on that contrived index. The simple, red F ad was seen by an estimated 10,000 new voters to the 2014 SD2 GOP Primary, on top of another 20,000 who only voted for the first time in 2012 – 30,000 voters who NEVER knew Deuell won his seat by beating a Democrat 12 years earlier (not even 50,000 people voted in the SD2 GOP Primary). As a result, the TEA Party candidate got 19,000 votes while the third man in the March race, a complete unknown, got a staggering 6200 votes in protest, or almost 13% of the total. Our internal polling gave the third man 4% max.<br />
<br />
But the true damage was done when the video and F ad had an impact on another 20,000 regular GOP Primary voters. According to a homemade, unscientific formula I created, I extrapolated that about 1000 or so otherwise loyal Bob Deuell voters switched and voted against him on March 4, specifically because of how they perceived him on fiscal matters, supported by the video and the F ad. Switching is a phenomenon that rarely happens in elections. <br />
<br />
This sub-set would have kept Bob in office against not one, but two opponents had they not switched in March. Most of this group came back to Bob on May 27, but by then it was too late, as runoffs are notorious for lack of turnout. NOTE: Our campaign was able to get back 73% of the March total for the runoff (the statewide return was only 56% - that entire 17% were almost all votes for Deuell).<br />
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Why did this group of 1000 or so switch? This subset are very conservative and conscientious citizens who knew Bob personally, but either they did not understand about state services, didn’t understand why Bob cared so much about them, or we did not get across why he did, and hence Bob’s positions on spending did not compute to them. Its members have said to me consistently that they “wanted to send Bob a message” that he was not being strong fiscally.<br />
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So why did Senator Deuell appear unconservative on fiscal policy to this group -- that is, advocate for increased revenues and spending the Rainy Day Fund? Because he didn’t think it was right for state services to be forced to endure cuts due to the 2011 shortfall (a shortfall <a href="http://www.texastribune.org/2013/01/11/comptroller-who-cried-shortfall/" target="_blank">we have since found out</a> was miscalculated by the Comptroller in the first place, which is a cryin’ shame).<br />
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Bob thought and felt this, and he lost.<br />
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Why does Bob think and feel this? Bob thinks and feels this way because he is against cuts to state services that try to help people, both the unfortunate and the freeloaders. Dr. Deuell experiences the practical effects of Medicaid and CHIP every day when he treats an indigent patient based on a predetermined formula -- time spent at a loss to him and his colleagues financially. He knows that public schools are in many cases a child’s only possible hope at bettering themselves. Are Medicaid and public schools the best use of taxpayer dollars in terms of assistance and betterment? Probably not. Are they the best alternative we have for the cost? Absolutely.<br />
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What’s truly lacking in today’s political discourse is a fundamental understanding of why we have public assistance. We see the problems caused by the abusers and the weak, but we do not consider why we are committing tax dollars to the effort in the first place, politics and history aside. Yes, it is pure socialism, but today’s public assistance infrastructure is not what it originally was in the 1960s and 70s. Team Deuell tried and failed to guide the debate about using tax dollars and public policy to help others, and to sketch Texas’ success in doing so in a marvelously lean manner for a state our size. An unwillingness to grapple with public assistance issues, the spending that goes with them, or to be hostile to them outright does not compute to Bob Deuell.<br />
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Bob wasn’t just practical about these issues. He thought about them and felt about them as an expression of his Christian duty.<br />
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Christmas comes. We sing familiar carols, including one composed in the 1950s, shortly after Dr. Deuell was born, about a boy drummer who offers his simple rhythm as a gift to the Lord Jesus, lying in the manger.<br />
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This is the legacy of Bob Deuell: a public servant who gave the best that he had in honor of his King – be that God’s son or the people.<br />
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There is no honor in a conservatism that silences our drummer men and women.<br />
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God bless Bob Deuell.Treyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09652752504685454339noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5958930589237131827.post-60323414825688161872014-11-28T08:31:00.002-08:002014-11-28T08:31:20.597-08:00Bernie Tiede and the Funniest Miscarriage of Justice in Texas History<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Like the rest of our state’s urbane filmgoers, I hooted and howled when my wife and I went to Uptown’s Magnolia Theater and saw Richard Linklater’s <i>Bernie</i>. The documentary-style black comedy was a limited release but became wildly popular across Texas on disc as it told a bizarre, under-the-radar true story from the 90s about Panola County mortician Bernie Tiede. Mr. Tiede was was sentenced in 1998 of murdering his wealthy companion, 81-year-old widow Marjorie Nugent and hiding her body in a chest freezer.<br />
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I hooted and howled in spite of the fact that I was close friends with the victim’s family.<br />
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And I hooted and howled <i>even though</i> I found out the Governor’s Film Office had subsidized Linklater’s struggling project, <i>even though</i> Jack Black and Matthew McConaughey had been attached to it. Based on existing provisions, the Film Office would have ended up giving the project an estimated $300,000 in taxpayer cash, not to mention additional sales tax exemptions provided by the Legislature.<br />
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Already filled with an uneasy shame over these facts, and because I had found myself laughing so hard at Linklater’s exploitation of my East Texas kinfolk (many of my ancestors and relatives are buried in Panola County; my mother was born in nearby Nacogdoches), I finally became sick when I heard last May that Mr. Tiede was going to get his sentencing reviewed and that he would be released from state prison where he was serving life.<br />
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The movie wasn’t funny any more. I felt like a sucker, once again, to Hollywood razzle dazzle and the unholy alliance of West Coast-Austin propaganda. Simultaneously, I began to privately agree with the vitriol of some in our Primary season this past spring that Texas was paying for things “we don’t want and don’t need.” I thought the film office might be one of these things.<br />
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The justification for Mr. Tiede’s release and review goes to a Texas statute that allows for a commuted sentence if things like childhood abuse are not initially reported in the defense, which it was not in the Tiede trial (as were other key facts about Mrs. Nugent’s victimization). Statute or not, the whole post-conviction appeal reeks of the same old tired, liberal, humanistic bromides that say “no one is really bad, they just had bad things happen to them as a child” and, “Aw shucks, Bernie wouldn’t have been driven to his crime of passion if he hadn’t been stuck in a such a sexually repressive situation.”<br />
<br />
What Linklater’s movie completely glossed over was the knowledge in the community of Carthage that Mr. Tiede had active male relationships on the down-low and that he was reportedly giving them gifts out of Nugent’s fortune. In no way was he this misunderstood, good-hearted, small town “closet homosexual” that McConaughey’s DA, Danny Buck Davidson, describes.<br />
<br />
Another key fact about the murder itself that is omitted in the film entirely was that Mrs. Nugent was shot – in the back – by Mr. Tiede as they were going to the bank to discuss financial discrepancies – discrepancies caused by Mr. Tiede!!! Motive, anyone? (According to DPS records, Mr. Tiede called the bank to cancel the appointment after the time of death). Mr. Tiede and Mrs. Nugent WERE NOT innocently going to the Mexican food restaurant where Bernie would have to suffer through Mrs. Nugent’s over-chewing of her frijoles.<br />
<br />
Earlier this week, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (which is Texas’ version of the Supreme Court for criminal cases) has ruled Mr. Tiede could have a new hearing about his sentencing. The real Panola County DA, Mr. Davidson, will then be able to decide if Mr. Teide must leave his movie-star release accommodations in Austin and return to prison, or if he can spend the rest of his life as the grand marshal of any number of gay pride parades.<br />
<br />
Close observers of the case believe Mr. Davidson, relishing his newfound fame portrayed by none other than McConaughey, will likely sentence Mr. Tiede to time served. Mr. Davidson just got reelected earlier this month, unopposed as a Republican. If ever any officeholder needed a TEA Party challenger, Mr. Davidson might be one if he chooses to let the sensibilities of Tinseltown betray his duty to the law and the Nugent family.<br />
<br />
But I think the real culprits in this case are those of us who took delight in the film and either failed to consider or flat-out ignored the human beings involved. Even the filmmakers try to put a fig leaf on this sentiment during the opening scene of the film where Jack Black, demonstrating the proper way to seal a corpse’s lips from an accidental post-death smile, remarks, “We wouldn’t want to turn someone’s tragedy into comedy.”<br />
<br />
But why would the filmmakers, enslaved to a liberal agenda, really want to cover their tracks at all? Could it because they were going to get taxpayer dollars for their project?<br />
<br />
Regardless, the whole movie and its aftermath might represent the funniest miscarriage of justice in Texas history. Funny because the joke is on all of us who bought a ticket or rented the Blu-ray.<br />
<br />Treyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09652752504685454339noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5958930589237131827.post-19285763865083998332014-08-07T08:30:00.000-07:002014-08-07T08:30:03.889-07:00The America First Virus
<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I am hereby making my break with Ann Coulter official.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I always only just tolerated her, because I’ve
always thought of her as one of those conservatives who was deeply insecure about
herself and just needed to be loud.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
as the result of her latest article attacking Dr. Kent Brantly for putting himself
in harm’s way in Liberia, I feel convicted that I should no longer expose
myself to her sanctimonious fits of rage in the name of conservatism.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But don’t misunderstand my break with Ms. Coulter as anything
personal against her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I also do not
consider her a sister in Christ, so I don’t feel Jesus’ guidance on how to
approach an offending member of the body applies here (<a href="http://www.anncoulter.com/" target="_blank">the article I’m referencing uses language that makes it clear she is outside the community ofbelievers</a>).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>YES, I am judging.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The break is really a need for me, as a
Christian whose journey has very much been one of leaving behind the heavy yoke
of legalism and embracing a spirit of sacrificial compassion, to don the
protective bio-suit from a more rampant disease infecting the church in the
United States.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This disease – like all viruses – has always persisted on the
countertops of our culture no matter how much disinfectant we may have at times
tried to apply to it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is the bug of
nativist, racist, and miserly ‘America First’ sentiment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This concept of “taking care of Americans
first,” or, as Ms. Coulter prioritized, “converting one Hollywood producer,” is
100% contradictory to the teachings of Scripture.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Ms. Coulter calls Dr. Brantly “idiotic” for going to Liberia and
belittles him for not considering the needs first of the sick in Zavala County,
Texas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She tries to ridicule his work
overseas and that of countless other American missions as vain “heroism.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the EXACT SAME bitter, selfish
attitude that has infested so much of the conservative movement today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is the same zombie-like animation that
drives so-called Christians onto overpasses in protest of accommodating these
Central American kids, gang members or not.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Christianity is call to complete and utter sacrifice on behalf
of the destitute – the sinner in his misery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We as Americans have a tendency to want to modify this call.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We believe we can address “root problems of
poverty.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We believe we can correct bad
behavior with rules or more border patrol guards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We believe we can motivate someone to change
by demonstrating perceived rewards.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Ms. Coulter specifically calls foolish the idea that a $2 million
plane flight home paid by a mission organization far exceeds any value Dr.
Brantly may have given on its behalf.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This is hardcore “economic Christianity,” where service on behalf of
Jesus is weighted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a disgusting
perversion of the cross.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In his powerful book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Insanity of God</i>, missionary Nik Ripken (a pseudonym he uses to protect
Christians he knows in hostile nations) asks hard, gut-wrenching questions
about how God works in countries that truly seem cut off from his grace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mr. Ripken saw this first hand as a relief
director in Somalia during the mid-Nineties, experiencing not only the abject
horror of life in that country after the world’s military and NGOs had abandoned
it, but also the tragic death of his son.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">After years of God’s work to rebuild his faith after leaving
Somalia, Mr. Ripken was able to recall how he discovered the presence of Christ
in a place given over to Satan and a deranged humanity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was walking through Mogadishu one day and
heard intensely beautiful singing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
zeroed in on the music and found a young woman leading a group of orphans in a
crumbling building.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The young woman had
lost her own children to starvation, but persisted in her love for Jesus by
ministering to some lost children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A disease can't kill you if you’re already sacrificing
yourself!</span></span></div>
Treyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09652752504685454339noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5958930589237131827.post-76695210053593665632014-07-31T15:23:00.000-07:002014-07-31T21:10:47.851-07:00In The BeginningThe 'more senior' members of the Bahm Family recently watched Darren Aronofsky's <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1959490/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">Noah</a></em> on Blu-Ray. I kept hearing mixed reviews and reactions to the movie, so I waited until its disc release when I could burn my rental store credits to see it for $1.25. Plus, I wanted to see it in a more open environment with my 'senior' children so that the 'senior' adults could dialogue with them a little better about it.<br />
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I was actually surprised at the pace and craftsmanship of the film. I was prepared for a sleep-rendering grind, something a'la the old Hollywood sand-and-sandal flops, but Aronofsky is a deft filmmaker. Crowe was very good, although I was a little worried when he started to sing a lullaby per my previous experience with him crooning during <em>Les Miz</em>. I was most concerned about the notorious "rock people" so many had ridiculed, especially having interpreted the legend of the Nephilim my own way in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Warrant-Principalities-Powers-Book-ebook/dp/B00BNIIGXQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1406843360&sr=8-1&keywords=the+warrant+trey+bahm" target="_blank"><em>The Warrant.</em></a> But Aronofsky's "Watchers" were ok to his story if clunky. I had already dismissed any literal adherence to the biblical account prior to the film (Noah and his family built the ark by themselves over a 120 year period, not ten with the help of the Watchers), so all the other plot devices didn't bother me. Nor was I bugged by any of the heavy environmentalism of the script and Crowe's Noah's redemption from its radical conclusion; I can see that type of political dogma coming like a huge tidal wave.<br />
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But for two days now, something else has been vexing me about the film, and I just now put my finger on it. In search of what might be troubling me, I did some web-surfing with my Google Ark last night. I already knew of Aronofsky's cryptic comment prior to the film's initial release that <em>Noah</em> was the "<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/11/darren-aronofsky-noah_n_4941318.html" target="_blank">least Biblical film ever made</a>." I was familiar with the Director's atheism. I was aware of the face-off between Hollywood and the evangelical community over marketing: the distributors desperately wanted the <em>Passion of the Christ </em>crowd segment to show up; evangelicals didn't want to help sell tickets by the inevitable and compulsory trashing of an unliteral interpretation, as happened with <em>The Last Temptation of the Christ</em>. I was tuned in to the loud debate and criticism of the film by young earth creationists. On the Internet, I found post-release condemnations that <em>Noah</em> was infused with Gnosticism, as well as wild, over-the-top claims that the movie was Illuminati-driven spirituality. But, none of these controversies were really what were bothering me.<br />
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I found the source of what had been bothering me when I looked up Clint Mansell's soundtrack on Spotify. The first score track is entitled, "In the Beginning There Was Nothing." This is the line Russell Crowe uses to begin telling the story of creation to his family inside the ark at sea.<br />
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Well, that's not what the Bible says. It says, "In the Beginning God created..." in Genesis and "In the Beginning was the Word" in John's gospel. There has never been <em>nothing</em>, in other words. And this is what bothers me the most about any work of art that purports a past point of nothingness: it is contradictory and hypocritical. It is pathetically dishonest, not to mention arrogant, for someone like this movie's creator to state that in fact, some time in the past, something was formed out of nothing. Darren Aronofsky didn't make his movie out of <em>nothing</em>!<br />
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Anyway, felt I needed to get this out. Now I can resume my blog again after my lengthy hiatus. I was busy trying to win an election, but fell short. Don't worry about me though; it was nothing.Treyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09652752504685454339noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5958930589237131827.post-68916418791240687812014-01-10T07:14:00.000-08:002014-01-10T09:32:30.714-08:00The Winter Play<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLM0TkBYQeKhtSEzB1tx0KCZn6lhquyut1egPtLsfArA5G61sg7P5iMhRjOb0GI3D2blGzAxd2nNSlV-AXa1ZYzgxZa2fB2KDetl0XOHC7HHtLA0GDmTt1NUvJvFzrUc1ARsAjwhG9jJg/s1600/WenceslasSquare.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLM0TkBYQeKhtSEzB1tx0KCZn6lhquyut1egPtLsfArA5G61sg7P5iMhRjOb0GI3D2blGzAxd2nNSlV-AXa1ZYzgxZa2fB2KDetl0XOHC7HHtLA0GDmTt1NUvJvFzrUc1ARsAjwhG9jJg/s1600/WenceslasSquare.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Wenceslas Square, Prauge, during the 1968 anti-Soviet uprising</span></i></div>
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First blog of 2014!</div>
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For the past several nights, my subconscious has been bubbling up old images and feelings of all the theater work I did in college. It finally hit me early this morning after another brainwave performance why this was.</div>
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Winter primary season is always my busiest time. One friend joked to me the other day, "Don't you only work two months every two years?" It is a very stressful, intense but productive time of packed days and late nights followed by heavy but short sleep. Joe Klein in <i>Primary Colors</i> describes these types of elections through one of the characters as there being "sleep, but no rest."</div>
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The workload and rhythms are strikingly similar to putting on a play. I talk about this in an interview I recently gave to a <a href="http://udcareersvcs.tumblr.com/post/66187501985/im-here-to-help-trey-bahm-talks-politics" target="_blank">career blog</a>. The muscle memory of my theater days has likely frothed back up due to a unique confluence of thoughts, themes, workload and...cold weather! In particular, the deja'vu of a play I ran the light board for during the winter of 1991 comes to mind, Larry Shue's<i> Wenceslas Square</i>.</div>
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Briefly, <i>Wenceslas Square</i> is a simple arc of scenes about a theater professor from Indiana who returns to Prague a few years after the 1968 uprising against the Soviet Union in the hopes of finishing a book about the city's vibrant, counter-establishment drama community that subtly led the protests against Moscow previously. Sadly, the professor goes about visiting his old, fellow dramatists only to discover they've either been forced into semi-exile or have become a part of the very propaganda-dishing establishment they tried to subvert. The story is a serene yet tragic examination not necessarily of just tyranny or revolution but of what fear does to people, and whether or not those with the strongest convictions really have the courage to change and sacrifice. The play ends with the professor and his student assistant sitting in the famous Square of Prague contemplating whether or not he still has something to write.</div>
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What makes the play great is its double-theme about dealing with government authority through story-telling. The actual Wenceslas Square in Prague is named for the early Medieval and canonized king named Wenceslas I, who is very much a Santa Claus-like figure. His legend is that he came down from his position and braved the harsh winter to help the poor, and that when his protege faltered in the weather, Wenceslas instructed him to follow by stepping exactly where he stepped in the snow. It's the old footsteps aphorism about being carried by God.</div>
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But whereas the fabled king was brave and undaunted in his mission, the professor in the play isn't so sure of himself, especially after he witnesses renewed communist oppression and the weakness of his once-admired friends. Most troubling to the professor was when he got accosted in a Prague alley by one of the old dramatists who has lost his mind. What seemed to shake the professor deepest was how the Madman's ideals drove him into insanity once the Soviets had denied him his outlet. It was this core fear that the professor had to confront.</div>
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It's also the subconscious fear that all of us who work in politics for the greater good and in defense of our freedom must deal with. Are we afraid of truly losing our liberty -- or of just losing our outlet? In my opinion, most of what animates our country's political discourse today - across the spectrum - is the latter. Many of us have decided that being heard is more important than what we say. I am certainly guilty of this. True liberty lies in the ability to recognize that freedom is a gift from God, empowered by God, and does not need anything external to thrive in a person's soul. True, speaking out is a natural fruit of this inner freedom, but not if the speaking out is driven by the same fear of losing the ability to do so. This is the freedom that I want to defend.</div>
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But the minute I drift into the dark side of defending form over content, I find myself in a nightmare of anxiety. Worse, if I am successful in defending that form over freedom by means of fear, I find myself in, to quote another playwright, "the winter of my discontent." And it didn't go well for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_III_(play)" target="_blank">that guy</a>.</div>
Treyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09652752504685454339noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5958930589237131827.post-39965629516652094012013-12-19T07:33:00.000-08:002013-12-20T06:33:39.508-08:00A Terrifying Reality<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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As far as it being quality television (an oxymoron, I know), <em>Duck Dynasty</em> is an amalgam of everything wrong with reality-format programming. This is precisely why Phil Robertson should be regarded as one crying in the wilderness.<br />
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Our culture is receiving its end-stage call to repentance.<br />
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The very first reality-based television show ever - MTV's <em>The Real World</em> which first aired more than 20 years ago - didn't build a mainstream audience mainly because the real world wasn't interested in a bunch of whiny young adults. But the real reason MTV's show didn't have a broad appeal was because it, initially, was too raw; in its early years <em>The Real World </em>was much more documentary-style and captured interpersonal drama simply as it happened.<br />
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Enter CBS' <em>Survivor</em> in 2000. The producers of this reality-style game show recognized that in order to be successful using such a format, they nevertheless had to insert a "script" of some kind. The average viewer may have thought she was witnessing the real reactions of spoiled Americans trying to make it on a deserted isle, but really they were watching spoiled Americans working their way through a maze built by Hollywood programmers. There is absolutely nothing true about how survivors or real housewives go about their lives in front of the camera; every second of screen time that makes the final cut fits a carefully controlled narrative conceived by the production team. Dramatic hook has to be created and delivered.<br />
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The narrative of <em>Duck Dynasty</em> is no different, and on this point it is actually a somewhat stale, contrived, warm-up-the-leftovers script where the Robertsons are actually in on the showmanship. The Robertsons are marketers, fundamentally, long before the A&E Network knocked on their trailer door; their sales credentials are as long as their hair. Willie and his family - especially Si! - are fully self-conscious of the fact that they are putting on a show. They relish in playing to type. And they are relishing all the way to the bank. The truth about the show is that the producers haven't even had to work that hard at sketching out scenarios for the Robertsons to play into, as they are very much actors ready to sell duck calls.<br />
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Which is why Phil, the patriarch and <a href="http://www.tvguide.com/News/Phil-Robertson-GQ-1074836.aspx" target="_blank">recent scorn of the gay community</a>, should be regarded as a 21st Century John the Baptist, anatomical comments and all. Who was John the Baptist? He had long hair and wore heavy, outdoor clothing (RealTree). He was the son of ancient Jewish society's elite (a successful American small businessman). He was loud and outspoken. The clean-cut men of Jerusalem came out to the Jordan to see the spectacle more than hear John's rough-hewn call to repentance. John the Baptist was not a wild, homeless outsider holding a hand-painted sign on the street corner; he was a hyperbole of the culture who dominated the ratings (if you are still bothered by Phil's crude references to female versus male anatomy; John the Baptist was no shrinking violet when it came to <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=mark%206:18&version=NKJV" target="_blank">calling sexual immorality</a> what it was).<br />
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John the Baptist got attention using the most basic, bottomed-out, almost stale program the culture offered - religion. He paved the way for Christ by making noise and by offering a sharp contrast between religion and faith. God is using the market-exploited and exploiting Robertsons to accomplish his judgment. John the Baptist drew people in then knocked them down with his condemnation of sin. His hearers either walked back to Jerusalem and its compromise with the Romans in the name of power, or they stayed and listened further.<br />
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Christ Jesus followed John and enacted judgment and grace simultaneously, as only God can. Part of the way the Lord did this was by meeting us, the couch potatoes, where we were. His baptism was an expression of obedience to the Father's will, but it was also a demonstration of his compassion to us very similar to his actual birth -- he was coming down to our level.<br />
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The terror of God's call to repentance on us, as the controversy over Phil Robertson shows, is that it is done in absolute passive-aggressive comfort. Phil's boom-lowering condemnation of sin based loosely on <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians+6:10&version=NKJV" target="_blank">1 Corinthians 6:10</a> was given initially to a magazine no one reads anymore - EXCEPT homosexual men! Then, in perfect modern media fashion, he was dismissed from the show, which suddenly made his comments NEWS! As they say in Hollywood, there's no such thing as bad publicity. Only a divine purpose could have orchestrated these events; other than the passion of his convictions, I do not believe Phil Robertson, his son or his agent were calculating enough to know who he was talking to, marketing acumen aside.<br />
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And so here we are, an entire society - but especially the conservative segment that largely comprises Duck Dynasty's viewership - being forced to broach the concept of sin. How odd. How uncomfortable.<br />
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How terrifying. And a silly man wearing camo has done this. <br />
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<br />Treyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09652752504685454339noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5958930589237131827.post-28888965837014187842013-10-16T09:56:00.000-07:002013-10-17T05:36:02.651-07:00A Brief, Pollyanna History of Texas Republicans<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">National headlines aside, the practical business of
campaign season is underway in Texas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So-called political insiders (of which I am one) are preparing campaigns
in anticipation of the primaries next March. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This used to be a very rote process by which
one could set his watch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, thirty
days before candidate filing even begins, debate – and, regrettably, acrimony –
has begun between the sub-factions within the Republican Party across the country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The noise percolates even in the absence of
candidates in some parts of the state.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>One Facebook post I recently saw made a broad, infantile call for ANYONE
to take on “establishment” officials, on the grounds that doing so will “make
them listen.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whatever.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span><br />
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</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I will admit that I struggle with resentment over
this acrimony.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I used to be a student of
it – an objective observer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
increasingly, I feel as though I and many others are the object of envy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have attempted to call these people out,
and I have been met not with any correction of the facts as I presented them,
but with a blanket attack that I was a liar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I have been active in Republican politics since I was 16 (that’s 25
years to those of you who don’t know I celebrated the 23<span style="font-size: small;"><sup>rd</sup>
anniversary of my 18<sup>th</sup> birthday last May).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have actually had the opportunity to
directly shape policy and “make a difference” at the highest levels of federal
and state government.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And yet, my
contributions are a pittance compared to the time, treasure and life others
have put in for many years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Worse, many
of the people attacking us have been working on behalf of conservative
principles for a sum total of 30 months.</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am proud to be a part of the establishment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am prouder still that my establishmentness
is rooted in a correct, holy understanding that our constitutions set forth an
incremental approach to change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am as
proud as the Constitution’s limits on my passion as I am my passion
itself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Still, I want to better
understand this hostility toward the establishment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My inner history nerd cries out to examine
its sources, causes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I guess I feel that
if I can better understand the fracture, I can be an agent of healing it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Call me Pollyanna, but that’s what goes on in
the ol’ squirrel cage between my ears.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have been spending the past several weeks wading
through David Halberstam’s 1994 tome, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Fifties</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I saw another recent social
media post stating that the national GOP has been in a civil war for the past
fifty years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Really, it’s been sixty
years, and Halberstam goes in depth in explaining the two basic camp’s
origins:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>northeastern interventionist-internationalist
vs. Midwestern libertarian/isolationist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This tension in the marriage only really appeared in the early 20<span style="font-size: small;"><sup>th</sup>
century with the arrival of Teddy Roosevelt – the northeastern variety is
probably the older spouse, dating back to the abolitionist, pro-government
origins of the GOP in the 1850s.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All of this makes for fascinating but lengthy,
somewhat dry storytelling (unless you’re a nerd, of course).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What I’m interested in is how this split
appears here in Texas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Besides that of
my personal, ethnic Texanism, this importance also comes from the academic
theory that however the Texas GOP evolves, so goes the rest of the
country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Texas is in many ways a
microcosm of the U.S. 125 years ago during the GOP’s greatest period of
hegemony.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are a place where resources
are abundant, where an immigrant workforce does the menial labor while a burgeoning
middle class devotes its time to rapid technological advancement, and where the
prevailing view is that government should work hard at getting out of the way.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But what makes the Texas GOP unique early in the 21<span style="font-size: small;"><sup>st</sup>
Century is just how the aforementioned spouses came to lead it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The traditional, pro-government, egalitarian,
pro-big business Republicanism of the northeast was a transplant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the party of George H.W. Bush who
heard about the crude oil plays of the Permian Basin after World War II and
struck out with elite, New England financial backing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The fortune he made enabled him to set up
shop in Houston and literally build the party from scratch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With the exception of maybe one R in North
Dallas or out in the Panhandle ranch country, THERE WERE NO REPUBLICANS in the state anywhere prior to about
1965.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a dirty word.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To be Republican meant you were a sherry-sipping
Episcopalian banker out to screw the hardscrabble, teetotaling Baptist Democrat
cotton farmer.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At the same time, however, the excesses of Lyndon
Johnson’s back-slapping, double-dealing socialism fomented a rift within his
party between those same frugally-minded cotton farmers and an Austin elite who
truly practiced what they preached when it came to thinking everyone should get
a check from the Treasury.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Great Society and Vietnam became Texans’ understanding of interventionism and
internationalism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The chief Texan critic of LBJ
was historian J. Evetts Haley.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Texan Looks at Lyndon:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A Study in Illegitmate Power</i>, gave voice
and cohesion to those Baptists who knew something was wrong with the President but felt
restrained by the group think to express it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Texan Looks at Lyndon </i>became
a kind of cherished, underground literature among respectable folks, and although Haley attempted campaigns
as a Democrat, his writings matched verbatim in places with the rhetoric of
Goldwater, Reagan, Buckley and Phyllis Schlafly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The conservative Republican movement in Texas
was born.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In time, George W. Bush, a Texan who nevertheless
held a Connecticut birth certificate, rose to transform the state into a
Republican monolith in one fell swoop.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But while he held deep convictions about social issues at odds with much
of his northeastern Republican pedigree, W nevertheless advocated
interventionism, ranging from ‘compassionate conservatism’ to Iraq.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Had he been successful in these policies, the
roughshod conservative wing might not be as noisy as it is today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Bush struggled, in spite of his
convictions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And today, what Texas
Republicans are left with are lost, confused movement-conservatives firing in
all directions and an establishment that is only seeing pitchforks.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How can the tension be resolved?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think basic principles of respect and honest
disagreement can aid in the healing process.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Unfortunately, the frustration and fear emanating from the national
situation under Obama has infected the two spouses in the Texas GOP.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The exact same tactics used to attack the
President’s policies are being turned on any Republican, usually an incumbent, “establishment”
officeholder, who is suspect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Complex
policies designed for complex situations are unwilling to be understood and are
lied about. This is the hallmark of liberals, as we saw last summer with HB2. (Ironically, that bill's complexity was somehow embraced by conservatives, but that's another subject).</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But I think the greater way to overcome the current
rift is to first realize that the pie of power and influence isn’t as small as many
act like it is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everyone has a voice
across a huge state Republican apparatus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Repeatedly, I come across grassroots-types who once felt “unheard," and they admit in so many words that is because they were lazy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They didn’t go to townhalls,
club meetings or rallies and interact with their elected officials.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead, they sat at home for years and only
listened to the evening news.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the day
they quit complaining and started dialoguing, they saw they could have it both
ways:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>principles and peace.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the information age, these same malcontents are
absolutely terrified of reading or considering a source that might present reality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know of community and party leaders who
will not follow the official communications of their representatives on
Twitter, but who instead take the emailed musings of some privately-funded
activist as gospel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many of these people
are afraid of consensus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They don’t want
to be confused with the facts, and they feel that to “come up with the best we
can” is the equivalent of walking outside in their underwear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>J.
Evetts Haley was one of the first to suggest LBJ had a vested interest in the
assassination of JFK; today, we prefer the dark narrative of Oliver Stone to
simple, boring reports from Speaker Boehner’s office about what’s gettable from
the White House.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">The good news is that we as Republicans have an
equally strong history of allowing our faith to guide us, dating all the way back
to abolishing slavery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Embedded in this
same faith is the ability to find humility.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>To paraphrase Pollyanna:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“We’re
not supposed to be glad we’re very rich, are we?"</span></div>
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<br />Treyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09652752504685454339noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5958930589237131827.post-59877571929785457142013-07-11T08:24:00.002-07:002013-07-11T08:24:45.193-07:00The Right to HealOurs is in no way a society of oppression. Our rights here are abundant and generously protected. The U.S. is so far removed from places like Sudan that we might as well be another planet. Neither are we anything at all like India, Saudi Arabia or Nigeria where millions scrape by in abject poverty while the elite give new meaning to the term “the 1%” and many must grimly face persecution of various sorts on a daily basis. Even compared to the more “liberal” countries where economic distress is ebbing, such as China, Indonesia or places in Latin America, our nation just doesn’t possess the man vs. man hardship that plagues the majority of the population. Regurgitate whatever you want from your pot-smoking, conscientious professor, we just don’t have these problems in any real sense.<br />
<br />There is no amount of inner city chaos you can show me in America that comes close to meeting any standard of true oppression; it’s even rare among criminals. There is no amount of turmoil among poor whites that rises to this level. Among Mexican immigrants in the U.S., both legal and not, anything resembling tyrannical depravation is temporal at worst.<br />
<br />All Americans have rich people problems.<br />
<br />At the top of the list of our rich people problems is the unwanted pregnancy (NOTE: there may be an “unplanned” pregnancy, but in the instant it’s unplanned it becomes either wanted or not). The unwanted pregnancy is a greater shackle on the American mindset than addiction, ignorance, lack of resources, family discord – everything. Why? Because the unwanted pregnancy, for either father or mother, represents a human being’s most uncontrollable experience.<br />
<br />The unwanted pregnancy offends a rich society’s ability to chart its own destiny. But more than this, the unwanted pregnancy is a divine affront to the human ego. Even Carl Sagan, the renowned atheistic scientist, admitted that sexual reproduction is counter-intuitive to a basic model of evolution, as one or both parents become virtually defenseless against the cold, hard world at some point in the process.<br />
<br />I know a young man who experienced this shaking fear once. Although an abortion was fairly distant from the mind of this young man and the mother, the affront hurtled the father’s ego into the stratosphere. As his ego was amputated from his sense of self, shame enshrouded him. He became a fully justifiable target of anger. Pain was in his handshake, in his presence; it ground up the hearts of those who loved him the most into hamburger. Alcohol became the only salve to his mangled dignity, which of course only made things worse, both in the near and long term.<br />
<br />There is an ego in our society – in each of us - that wants to protect itself with the logic of: it is wrong to bring an unwanted child into the cold, hard world. By this logic, the perceived oppression around the earth I discussed earlier becomes an excuse for the wealthy. There is no reason to terminate an unwanted pregnancy in the U.S. – NONE! For the same reason that we are a grand experiment in listening to our better angels, America possesses the resources for every life to live and excel.<br />
<br />Proponents of abortion try to point out that where there is limited access, there is greater poverty and backwardness, that wealthy societies honor and protect a woman’s right to abort. Well, the world’s most powerful economic engine, China, also performs the most “legal, safe” abortions (even state-paid and mandated). In the past 40 years, more than 335 million Chinese babies have been killed. By contrast, 50 million American children have been killed during the same time period. Put another way, if none of these abortions would have occurred, China’s population would be 25% larger, while the U.S. would be 16% bigger.<br />
<br />But the truth is that the mark of a wealthy, mature society is that it protects life. The best case in point is how even the most secular nations of Europe, like France and those of Scandinavia, all ban second and third trimester abortions.<br />
<br />But what about the health of the mother? Irrelevant and inconsequential. Pro-abortion advocates are eager to point to a dubious statistic based on a flawed, 75-year-old study which says 5,000 women died of unsafe abortions in America prior to Roe v. Wade. Do the math. Even if true (<a href="http://www.factcheck.org/society/abortion_distortions.html" target="_blank">which it isn’t</a>), that’s 200,000 women over 40 years. Even from a utilitarian standpoint, this is no comparison to what has been done to children in this country.<br />
<br />Putting a mother’s life over a child in this case is completely beside the point. Life must be protected using the maximum extent of the law. Is a troubled woman a murderer for the abortion her child? I would submit that she and the parties involved are guilty of a lesser category of manslaughter, because the circumstances of an unwanted pregnancy are complicated and often murky. The mother is NEVER the only party involved, obviously. It is unjust to single her out, even if she is or becomes pathological about obtaining abortions (the statistics on women who get multiple abortions after the first one will take your breath away).<br />
<br />Yet there is a deeper reason why life must be protected. The power to reproduce is the power to heal. A family, even in its loosest, most basic definition – a male and female who produce an infant – is 100% influenced by the father – and a heterosexual one at that. In the past 150 years or so, our society has over-emphasized the mother. But the presence or absence of the father completely determines the outcome of a family unit and the heart of a human being at all stages of life (the best that scholarly literature can say on the subject of donor inseminated children or the children of same-sex families is that the jury is still out).<br />
<br />The most lost, confused, afraid father has little chance of finding healing and redemption if his child is killed. The term, right to life, so often used in public policy debate is synonymous with the right to heal. Recapturing the father is the antidote to all of society’s ills, whether they be real or just rich people problems. When abortion advocates complain about patriarchy and demand their “rights,” what they are really crying out about is the pain they’ve experienced from bad, weak or misguided men. Good men can be agents of healing to this hostile spirit.<br />
<br />
The young man I mentioned earlier became a father of a son who will be entering high school in the fall. He is also the father of another son, a daughter, and two stepchildren. There have been many mistakes, but there have been far greater moments of victory. Not long ago, the oldest son said something very simple and profound to his father as he walked into church to help lead the youth group music. "I love you," said the 14-year-old.<br />
<br />For those of us involved in the public square, a fight comes along every now and then that reminds us of why we got involved in the first place. In Texas, we are poised to pass one of the toughest anti-abortion, pro-women’s health laws in the United States. HB2 is an elegant blend of law and grace, and it fits within the current Supreme Court interpretations of the aforementioned women’s rights. True, by next week abortion proponents will be rushing into a friendly federal courthouse for an injunction, which they will probably get. But with our system, this moment is one for which many of us will be held accountable one day in much different court. And outside the sphere of lawmaking, all of us will be held accountable for how we defend each other.<br />
<br />Please don’t infringe on my right to heal.<br />Treyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09652752504685454339noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5958930589237131827.post-46267364158620636572013-06-14T11:39:00.001-07:002013-06-14T15:30:19.768-07:00SuperneedI've been on radio blackout for a while. Why? Got married.<br />
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And what was the first birthday gift given to me by my wife? Walmart premiere passes for our new, 7-member family to <em>Man of Steel</em>. I also got a T-shirt with a super S emblazoned on it, which I of course wore to the event.<br />
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I believe in Superman.<br />
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So great is my faith, in fact, and semi-idolatrous, that we pulled the kids out of Baptist church camp 16 hours early so we could all make it to the premiere (WARNING: spoilers ahead). Which is why I must write on the ground as all <a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/superman_man_of_steel/reviews/?type=top_critics" target="_blank">the self-righteous heretics</a> out there cast stones at this marvelous, spell-binding new version of the comic book character franchise. Let he who is without sin leap over the nearest tall building with a single bound.<br />
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The summer night my parents, family and friends sat in the Rolling Hills Twin Cinema in Greenville, Texas to see the first Reeve version in 1978 impacted my soul with a force equivalent to that of <em>Episode IV</em> a year earlier. But <em>Superman: the Movie</em> was different. Although I would absorb more of Lucas' Expanded Universe over time, the visuality of Superman burned itself with heat vision into that kinetic part of my consciousness. Superman represented raw excitement. For years afterward, I ran around the house with long pieces of cloth tied around my neck, until I finally outgrew them for a driver's license. Whereas Star Wars may have conveyed information and meaning into my imagination, Superman supplied the energy.<br />
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So when the <a href="http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/wb/manofsteel/" target="_blank"><em>Man of Steel</em> trailers</a> began to hit, I - and I suspect many millions of others - felt a shudder that a Snyder-Nolan reboot of the character could in fact provide us all with the best of both worlds (to borrow a phrase from the new movie). After all, we were "just about American as you get" - we aren't from a galaxy far, far away. We crave meaning here, now. And the ability to whup our enemies via the Jetstream.<br />
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And Snyder, et.al., delivered.<br />
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The movie is just as strong as its hero. Acting, effects, writing, themes, etc. There is only one minor plot flaw in that Zod's world engine seemed to straddle Metropolis at random during terraforming. No real reason is given as to why he didn't choose Tokyo, Gotham or London, other than that it's a Superman movie. But this is easily forgivable. I have determined that all the roughest reviews thus far are coming from late middle-age critics at dead media who long for Reeves & Reeve's sap. The Superman of their youth is that brightly-colored, sugary character who first appeared in an actual Technicolor cape in the late 50s. Their "energy" is the pixie stick; mine is the PowerBar. Therefore, it follows that the Snyder-Nolan-Cavill version with gravitas (that is successfully achieved, <a href="http://movies.msn.com/movies/movie-critic-reviews/man-of-steel.2/" target="_blank">contrary to MSN</a>) is going to be rejected by these nostalgic wimps. I would also argue that the Snyder-Nolan version is more in keeping with the spirit of the Depression-World War II Superman.<br />
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Which brings me back to the religious nature of following our hero. Quite unlike the late 70s and early 80s when Superman was just for kicks, the coverage of <em>Man of Steel</em> has made many overt, direct references to the parallels between his origin story and that of the Lord Jesus Christ. As part of the Walmart premier night event, we were subjected to a cold-water featurette at the beginning. But one salvageable comment from it comes from Kevin Costner who says, "We all are looking for someone who can fix everything." Indeed.<br />
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One of the more well-crafted themes of the filmmakers, I think, is their stark portrayal of bureaucratic blockage, be it the Council of Kryptonian Elders, the U.S. Army or <em>The Daily Planet</em>. Laurence Fishburne's Perry White is a lawsuit-at-the-ready old media editor who congratulates himself for protecting the public from what he thinks they can't understand; Harry Lennix' General Swanwick is a jerk of an officer who could be a Zod-in-waiting. As the faces of control, all I could think about in these scenes was our President.<br />
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Superman and Lois Lane war against these bureaucracies as much as they do an extraterrestrial threat. In other words, they are trying to save mankind from the big outer space zap as well as from itself! Yet this is the craving we have as spiritual beings. This is why Superman has endured for 75 years as a superstory. Kudos to the storytellers here for highlighting our superneed. I, at least, believe I have a need.<br />
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<br />Treyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09652752504685454339noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5958930589237131827.post-61958866485718935372013-03-02T12:30:00.000-08:002017-09-01T20:20:47.786-07:00"The Warrant"After three years, I have finally published a new story. You can download it from Amazon either <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BNIIGXQ/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_alp_srImrb0043SCC" target="_blank">here</a> or from the link above. BUY IT! Nowhere else this weekend will you be more entertained for $2.99 than by "The Warrant."<br />
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If you read <a href="http://theprincessbook.com/" target="_blank"><em>The Princess</em></a>, you will notice a significant switch in the genre of fiction I've taken up. In trying to create new, interesting characters for another political story, a secondary person became more interesting to me. This character was a more spiritual, allegorical personality, and so from there I junked the basic, narrative fiction formula I was in and went fantasy/sci-fi. Moreover, the political genre is virutally dead - there is more apathy toward it than our actual elections! Just take a look in a Walmart bulk box to see it packed with Richard North Patterson hardbacks.<br />
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But after switching, I began to realize that the angel/demon genre I was in was only slightly less beleaguered. For good or ill, Frank Peretti defined the genre back in the late 80s with his <em>Present Darkness</em> series. His "behind the curtain" look at spiritual warfare was novel, sensational, and a landmark in Christian fiction. In fact, until Peretti, most of us thought Christian fiction something of a scientific impossibility, if not sinful dabbling. The genre then fell off for several years, both in the Christian and secular presses, only spawning grocery-rack-style romances with any note. Then recently, different authors, most very new, have tried to revive it a'la Twilight or Harry Potter, hoping angels/demons would provide a vehicle for the next big thing. And it goes without saying that post-Peretti, most of these genre pieces are syncretistic at best, rarely attempting to conform with any type of conservative theology or spiritual truth.<br />
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So, I became anxious during prewriting about whether or not I was in the right genre, or if the genre even held any promise to be interesting. But, I kept putting fingertips to keyboard, and one day last autumn the story you can read for $2.99 as an e-book exploded out of my mind and onto the computer screen. I am confident you will find it compelling, and I hope you enjoy it. It comes more out of the 11-year-old creative recess of my brain. Once when asked what qualified him to write children's stories as a bachelor, C.S. Lewis replied, "Not only do I know some children, but believe it or not, I used to be one." (paraphrase)<br />
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Tell your friends! "The Warrant" is a unique look at the spirit world all around us. I thought it was about time to write about it, since they are already looking at us.<br />
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<br />Treyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09652752504685454339noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5958930589237131827.post-78536840243078031752013-02-09T14:06:00.002-08:002013-02-09T17:14:36.325-08:0030th Anniversary of GCS FireThis weekend marks a defining event of my childhood. At some point during the night of February 9, 1983, a mentally ill African-American man with a history of arson smashed the window of the southeast classroom of Greenville Christian School. The school had been renting the education wing of the old Washington Street Baptist Church, located, of course, at the intersection of Washington and Wellington Streets in North Greenville. The young man had been arrested on suspected arson of the structure before, but his prior target had been the old sanctuary proper.<br />
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The window through which he chose to set the fire was hidden behind a large, untrimmed cedar tree. The campus had been plagued with burglaries and other damage during the school's entire occupancy, dating back to 1977. Many times, human feces could be found in piles of paper - or not - in front of doorways or other nooks along the building's exterior. This included underneath the cedar tree which provided cover for the troubled man's crime. North Greenville was then -- and still is -- an economically depressed section of a smallish southern city. Surrounding the campus were rotting frame houses with notorious occupants. Beer bottles in what was then a dry city were as common on the school grounds as the slap of a plastic jump rope.<br />
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To young Christian children, the regular mistreatment of our campus signaled nothing short of the assaults of Satan and his minions. The young man who lit the fire served as the epitome of the evil out to destroy us. He wasn't just a firebug; he was a diabolical mind under demonic torment. The fire itself was the catharsis of our war against the Prince of Darkness.<br />
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Using little more than matches, the arsonist lit his fire in some papers against the inside wall beneath the broken window. The flame then spread directly upward and ignited the composite drop ceiling of the classroom. An angel altered the Greenville Fire Department quickly as the flame burned slowly across the dense ceiling. This slow-burn gave the fire "plenty to feed on" which fortuitously prevented a conflagration. However, the burning composite produced thick, choking smoke which filled every single square inch of the education wing. It seemed also to have an adhesive property to it, as the ruthless cloud absolutely covered every surface it enveloped with a foul-smelling brown film.<br />
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The next morning, Thursday, February 10, my mother woke up my sister and I late with the news. Even though we knew Satan was out to get us, nothing gets a 5th grader out of bed faster than news that his school burned. I will admit I wanted to rush to campus and take in the awful shock of what I had just heard. Soon we were joined by other board members, including my dad, in inspecting the damage.<br />
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I was struck by the gallons upon gallons of water everywhere. At first, I thought the fire had burned the pipes and caused a massive leak, but it was quickly explained that the fire hoses caused this water damage. Again, the perverse side of me was a little disappointed that my classroom, which adjoined the one where the fire started, wasn't a charred cinder. But after seeing all the water damage, it was revealing to me how the cure seemed worse than the disaster.<br />
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But the damage to our school wasn't the defining moment I referred to earlier. Over the next seven days, including the weekend, the entire school family, as well as others in the community, got together to reopen. Southern Baptists, Independent Baptists, Catholics, Pentecostals, Charismatics, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Methodists and just good'ol run-of-the-mill evangelicals worked hard to relocate classes to a church, scrub that stinky film off desks, and re-inventory which learning materials were still usable. And all of this without a headmaster (what we called a principal), who had resigned only weeks earlier.<br />
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I spent the remainder of 5th Grade crammed next to my classmates in half of a mobile home. The following autumn, however, we moved into a new campus which is the school's current location. Years later I told this story to a pastor friend up in the Chicago suburbs, and he couldn't believe the body of Christ worked together in this way. Today, I'm still struck by the same effort of faith. It is my gold standard for how I measure a Christian community.<br />
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Psalm 126:5Treyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09652752504685454339noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5958930589237131827.post-4085506560003885782013-02-07T07:15:00.001-08:002013-02-09T08:28:07.963-08:00The Rove WarsEvery so often something happens in the political world for which I have an apt metaphor. Recently, the undulating blogosphere of conservatives and Republicans rioted with the <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/karl-roves-war-tea-party-143936566.html" target="_blank">news</a> that Karl Rove, former consultant and Deputy Chief of Staff to President George W. Bush, had formed another PAC with the intent to follow the William F. Buckley goal of "nominating the best conservative who can get elected." This news and the way it's been reported has been viewed as anti-TEA Party. Why am I compelled to relate a story like this allegorically? Because it is an opportunity to really examine why political people feel the way they do - what makes them tick - and to rebuke same with the heart of the matter before we pull the trigger in the circular firing squad we've formed.<br />
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Rove has assumed an odd place in our political culture -- even the popular culture at large, to some degree. The victorious political consultant who acheives celebrity in his own right is a new phenomenon in American society and history. Over the past 35 years or so, Americans have begun to assume, enabled by the media, that no candidate arrives in the White House without a savant genius directing his every move. The first person to acheive this notoriety was Hamilton Jordan, one of Jimmy Carter's lead consultants in the 1976 campaign. This is ironic, given how when Carter was inaugurated he did not even have a Chief of Staff for over two years. With the exception of Reagan (more on this in a minute), no recent President -- or serious nominee -- has seemed to ride into the White House without a Tonto. Bush 41 had Atwater. Clinton, Carville. Then Bush, Rove and Obama, Axelrod. But even some of the loser's consultants have parlayed their ineptitude into a decent paycheck: Howard Dean's Joe Trippi has become what might be the first free agent of the punditocracy, taking gigs with both MSNBC and Fox in recent years.<br />
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Rove, however, has risen beyond the Robin role (or Batman, depending on one's level of cynicism about the process) that our modern media now expect when covering a presidental race -- any race, really, by now. Among Republicans, Rove has taken on (or created) two roles for himself: the GOP punching bag and GOP high priest. He has become a kind of Republican patriarch we secretly feel the need to have in the absence of strong leadership (see previous paragraph, re: Reagan and keep reading).<br />
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The far right, TEA-party, same-old-angry-people who vote Republican have taken the Oliver Stone view of American politics: that there's always an unseen godfather pulling the strings with the goal of ruining the country. Because Rove understands the importance of PACs in federal elections and has worked hard to create them (not just his latest one in question, the Conservative Victory Project), many conservatives of the myopic variety have eagerly assigned Rove the role as Old Man Potter out to ruin Bedford Falls and vainly rename it. (NOTE: while Karl Rove works tediously to organize PACs in accordance with the law, the revitalized Obama Democratic Party has mastered the under-$200-donor loophole in the election code so as to obscure their contribution sources).<br />
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By contrast, mainstream GOPers (I refuse to use the disgusting misnomer recently created: "establishment") turn to Rove by default when beaten and discouraged because he was the last guy to direct a winning presidental candidate. Mainstream GOPers tend to include big donors who can support Rove's PACs. Hence, Rove is able to create PACs, which are active everywhere. But because Republicans struggled last fall, Rove and his PACs are now to blame. So goes the love-hate persona Rove has been elevated to on the GOP side.<br />
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The Party's Rove relationship is a lot like The Clone Wars of the Star Wars Expanded Universe. The Clone Wars were an interregnum period of manipulation and chaos during the rise of Emperor Palpatine. Unlike the universe according to Lucas, however, the Rove Wars are a reflection of the vacuum of leadership that currently plagues the GOP. To be sure, Rove himself has committed serious strategic missteps, especially in the areas of public policy (he alone is responsible for the spike in federal education spending; he also caused the defection of Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords in a 50-50 Senate back in 2001). But is he a Sith Lord? Of course not.<br />
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The Rove Wars are a reflection of a bad leadership model we have come to accept -- the one of Lone Ranger/Tonto or Batman/Robin -- which brings me back to President Reagan. I'm not sentamentalist, and I am not sure President Reagan would do as well in today's primary system. What I am sure of, however, is that Presdent Reagan - quite the contrary to how he's been portrayed - kept his consultants at the consultant level. Jim Baker, Michael Deaver, David Gergen -- all were talented men who took orders from a man with an exceptionally clear vision. No, Reagan wasn't a wonk. Yes, he could seem unempathetic -- a quality that is a must-have for today's candidate. But he knew what he knew and he willed it to be carried out. He didn't need someone to consult on agenda items that in some respects saved our country: growth-oriented tax policy, defense against a well-organized Communist empire, and the proper role of government.<br />
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When will the GOP find someone to bring balance to the Force? My ability to pick the next Jedi is muddled with my self-interest. But I do know this: hate, fear -- and I would add, envy -- these are the pathways to the Dark Side.Treyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09652752504685454339noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5958930589237131827.post-86828773490519978772013-01-22T07:40:00.002-08:002013-01-22T10:08:30.043-08:00Recent BirthdaysSaturday was Robert E. Lee's birthday, a commemorative date so forgotten that it's no longer worth the paper of the calendar it's printed on. Some states in the Deep South actually merged the date out of quiet protest with the Martin Luther King holiday they adopted during the 1980s and 90s. Texas didn't do this, as the state had already created a "Confederate Heroes Day" on January 19 forty years ago. While staff duties are cut back on this day at Texas agencies, state offices fully observe the federal King holiday every third Monday of January.<br />
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President Obama's 2nd Inaguration yesterday signaled more than just the deadness of a holiday like Lee's birthday. I don't know that I've ever heard an inaguration speech more agenda-oriented. He's allowed to do this, of course; I'm not faulting him for that. And there's part of me that would have wanted to work with him, but the President has proven completely unwilling to work with me. But again, I don't mean to single him out for this attitude. Ever since President Bush 41's infamous 1990 Budget Deal, the White House - every White House - has operated on a "we will take only what our power/majority will get" strategy. Clinton was the master at this, especially considering that of the entire past 20 years, he had the toughest opposition in Congress. Actions of honorable compromise and concession, which was the true legacy of General Lee, are as moribund as the commemoration of his birthday.<br />
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But there is another Civil War legacy that might be as dead as Lee's, and that is, ironically, the one of conciliation put forward by Abraham Lincoln. True, he took no prisoners in the pursuit of his agenda. But once vanquished, Lincoln held fervently to a spirit of forgiveness and compassion toward his enemies. Lee knew this, and it was one of the reasons Lee trusted Grant and the Commander-in-Chief to recieve a surrender.<br />
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President Obama and his supporters have yet to demonstrate this aspect of Lincoln's legacy. So hellbent have they been in executing <a href="http://inamerica.blogs.cnn.com/2013/01/21/obama-embraces-key-social-justice-movements-in-inaugural-address/" target="_blank">their plan of social justice</a>, no where yet do I see the slightest hint of openness toward their opponents. There is always time to change, but I am not holding my breath. I would gladly like to be counted among the loyal opposition if I knew the President would have me.<br />
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So in the spirit of Lee's conciliation, on this day I would like to lay out where and how I stand in relation to the President's agenda. I am not asking for anything at this point. I simply feel that an honest presentation of what most of last fall's losers really think and feel has not yet been presented. I will lay out just a few issues:<br />
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<ol>
<li><strong>Marriage for Homosexual Men and Women</strong> - I am not a homophobe. I am not terrified of gay men, nor do I fear gay people being around my children. If anything bothers me about the lesbians ahead of me in the Walmart check-out line, it's that they are arguing over the per pound price of pork chops and holding everyone up. I do, however, care about how civil institutions recognize the official pairing of gay people. I hold fervently to the idea that a state or local jurisdiction can and should decide this (the U.S. Constitution does not need to proscribe a definition of marriage or the right thereof any more than it should define the population value of a slave). I believe my community should be able to express my values about what I think marriage should be. My faith informs these values. Allowing a civil institution to bless the marriage of homosexual people is one step closer to forcing a religious institution to recognize such a marriage. To link "rights" with loving someone is absurd. Otherwise, I truly don't care how you live and how you love unless you are claiming the name of the Lord Jesus over your life and relationships, concerning which Christians have been given very clear instructions about how we are to reflect him.</li>
<li><strong>Budget and taxation issues - </strong>I believe a human being should be able to chart his or her own course in life. I hold dearly to God's Providence as the means to do this. Public policy can and should support this, but only to a modest degree. The problem is determining the modest degree, and deciding what boundaries to put on entitlements or "ladders of opportunity." 47% of our nation no longer sees public assistance as a safety net; the government is a big box retailer to almost all of these people, be they an immigrant, a single parent, a disability applicant, a veteran, a widower, a member of an ethnic minority intent on revenge, and even many professionals.</li>
<li><strong>The Second Amendment </strong>- It is true we no longer require a militia to defend our lands as was the case as recently as 150 years ago. Accordingly, full-auto firearms, grenades, mortars and SAMs should be restricted from public purchase. This is the extent to which the right to bear arms should be restricted without being infringed.</li>
<li><strong>Violence in media </strong>- a non-issue</li>
<li><strong>Climate Change</strong> - climate change has been proven to be a natural phenomenon as much an anthropogenic one. There is a case to be made that the global industrialization of the past 100 years has had an impact, but only a modest one. Do we cancel out fossil fuels until we better understand the human contribution? Of course not. The country's best scientists state there shouldn't be cause for alarm and there is no need for catastrophic predictions and poltical hysteria. America does not need to "lead" in this area.</li>
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I will admit that this short list is reactionary and defensive. I have complied it in response to the speech yesterday. Are the President and his supporters listening? I'll give them until Lincoln's birthday to answer.Treyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09652752504685454339noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5958930589237131827.post-18601580223910256232012-12-22T07:28:00.000-08:002012-12-22T07:29:14.553-08:00Can't Wait for Tomorrow to End, part II OR, It's OK, There's Enough Whipped Cream Left.Well, we have survived. Minor damage to the premesis, all repairable with a vacuum cleaner. <br />
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The End began yesterday. Just like a Hollywood disaster movie, the cataclysm started on the other end of the neighborhood and rolled this direction. Wind was displaced. Clanging sounds were heard. Dogs barked. Fence posts rattled. Trees bent and debris stirred along the streets.<br />
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Then they arrived, each one carrying packs of mischief draped from their 11-year-old frames. You've heard of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, these were the Seven Packmules of Judgment. The single most prevalent item in these bags of terror were Airsoft pellets. A Homeland Security warning was put out against such items; still, they found their way through security. Preppers, every last one of 'em. One even conveyed his private stash of Wavy Lays - now that's survivalism.<br />
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I thought we had dodged the worst of it for most of the evening. Our stockpile held out. The toilet didn't clog, although it appeared that one or two of the survivors made an unauthorized discharge of their poop chute in the executive washroom. But then, the unexpected. The Birthday Boy came screaming into headquarters that toilet paper was being flung at our walls. Upon inspection, a small gang of 6th grade females were seen fleeing in terror, their efforts completely busted. Some still carried the rolls in their hands; caught brown-handed, I guess you could say. Others stared, frozen. One was so bewildered that her shoes flew off.<br />
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Our only female, a 9-year-old, who was part of our group was seized with panic and excitement. She grabbed a broom and held it high against the assault team of other girls. "Let's get this party started!" she declared, shaking her hips.<br />
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Eventually, the zombies were chased off. Shoes were returned. The 911 call was rescinded. The National Guard stood down. Quiet was rediscovered. The leadership of the band of survivors prepared for rest.<br />
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Then the giant 14-year-old arrived, having temporarily joined another camp. He trudged into headquarters and collapsed on to the carpet. "Dad, you're carpet's so comfortable..." and trailed off to sleep. Not wanting to awake the monster, I left him as I was when I retired. Lights out, however, I could not fall asleep in spite of my exhaustion. His zombie force wheezed in and out of his greasy mouth and nose, making a maddening guttural sound. I decided I had to risk it. I gently roused the beast and directed him to the light, down the hall where other creatures of the night had gathered. There were no repercussions, fortunately.<br />
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The next thing I remember was looking at the clock and seeing 6 am. The sounds across the premesis were identical to those I heard the last time I saw the clock, when it read 11:42. I gave them an hour, and just as I predicted, Birthday Boy came in and asked when the pancakes would be ready. There was no, "I can't believe we survived the End of the World, Dad, I love you. Thanks for giving me NCAA 2013; we're gonna make it through this 'cause we're men." There was only, "Don't worry we have enough whip cream left for breakfast, so get up and start cooking."<br />
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Normalcy had returned. I have lived to tell this.<br />
<br />Treyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09652752504685454339noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5958930589237131827.post-27296572174600932782012-12-20T17:48:00.003-08:002012-12-20T17:52:42.311-08:00Can't Wait for Tomorrow to End, part IIt's finally here! The end of the world! Tomorrow, the foundation of my house will be shaken by 6th graders observing the birthday of one of their number. Added to the doom will be a giant, trudging 14-year-old capable of spewing attitude from his nostrils, and (more to the others) a pestilential little sister. I intend to survive this cataclysm by first hurling my stockpile of Newman's Own marinara at this horde. Then I will retreat to my bunker where everything I need to survive is in abundance: LOTR and Star Wars on Spotify, Sir Walter Raleigh in a pouch, and images of the patron saint of all good Calvinists who find themselves surrounded by struggle and conflict, Stonewall Jackson.<br />
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But in all seriousness, the question we should be asking as the world ends is not, Why God? but, Why can't I stop watching it? If the world is ending, why aren't I running my middle-aged buns off in the opposite direction? Why have I chosen to embrace it? Why am I rubbernecking at it as if Elvis just had a car wreck?<br />
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Why can't I turn off Fox News as they blather on about the fiscal cliff, which we were never going to avoid? Why do I keep wanting to strain apart the bewildering debate over the awful situation of a week ago, when there is no law that could have stopped it, nor will there ever be one to prevent a worse one from occuring? Why do I keep wanting to pour out my own bowls of judgment on every one who practices Islam and hates America? Why am I anxiously awaiting news that yet another celebrity or acquaintance or friend has crossed that last river this year? Why this gallows humor?<br />
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I think the answer has something to do with a secret desire that the world really would end. There, I admitted it! I am honest, while everyone else is just whistling in the Walmart aisle.<br />
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Bring it on! Apocalypse, you've messed with the wrong Yankee-educated Redneck.<br />
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That's all I've got for now. Tune in tomorrow, and I'll let you know what I saw when the world ended.<br />
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<br />Treyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09652752504685454339noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5958930589237131827.post-35880646633154610362012-12-04T07:09:00.001-08:002012-12-04T07:11:11.669-08:00All I Want for Christmas is a Creative RepublicanRepublicans have once again been steamrolled on messaging. The Obama Administration and the Democrats have sold the American public on returning to the Clinton-modified fiscal policies of the 1960s. For a party that ridiculed President Regan for his nostalgic rhetoric about America's past, the Democrats' crowing on about the good ol'days of LBJ-Clinton tax-and-spend policies is nauseatingly hypocritical. But to give the devil and his demons their due, the White House has successfully undermined the concern of the fiscal cliff and is now preparing the country for the good things that will happen once the rich start paying their fair share.<br />
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The President's finesse on the debate has been aided by an inability of the taxpaying public to understand what will happen. We will arrive at the fiscal cliff on January 1, we will feel the bump underneath our tires and we will keep going. It won't be until April 15, 2014 when we will all have to file at higher marginal rates along with reduced child tax credits, among other things, that we will wonder why there's no road beneath us. Until then, our vehicles will look like those wide shots of a stunt vehicle flying off a California ledge in slow motion. Obama is betting that to most Americans, paying a little more in marginal rates will be no different than paying a little more at the gas pump.<br />
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But what America and even many Republicans are failing to understand is that when federal revenues go full tilt starting next year, the expected contraction of the already anemic U.S. economy will be <em>by design</em>. Liberal economists <em>want</em> there to be a shrink to what they in their Bolshevik mentality see as a bourgeois "market culture run amok" (to borrow a phrase <em>Newsweek</em> once used to describe the 80s). It's the perfect storm - the Hurricane Sandy -- of central planning: prevent retailers from expanding so that consumers will quit being victimized, Chinese manufacturers will quit stealing our jobs, food processors will quit selling high fructose corn syrup, developers will quit getting rich, land will quit getting paved, cars won't have to drive as far to the mall and the environment will be protected. In the minds of liberal economists, they will kill multiple birds with one stone. They will one day congratulate themselves on getting the 47% to pay more (even though health care subsidies will go to them through the back door).<br />
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Any idea of growing the economy is irrelevant to these apparatchniks. It was during the election and during O's first term. And, so-called sustainable growth is viewed cyncially. Socialists believe that spending is always a given, that there will always be a baseline for private sector sales and the funds they transfer up the line to CEOs. They believe that corporations should retain most of the capital in an economy in an effort to control and minimize risk and waste -- venture capital they think should be coming to them and their efforts to control the unemployed through the welfare state. The horror of this situation is that innovation is choked. Warren Buffett, George Lucas, Craig Jelinek and everyone else who writes big checks to the DNC would be nowhere without the radical tax and spending changes of the 80s and 90s executed by Republicans. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/19/opinion/krugman-the-twinkie-manifesto.html?_r=0" target="_blank">Paul Krugman recently hummed</a> about how we now have better food than the Twinkie to get us through a 50s and 60s-style "fair" economy; where does he think our better food today came from?!?!<br />
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Which brings us back to where we conservatives have failed, why our message is weak and simply not being heard. We can't blame the news media - Fox News has made it their mission to hype up the fiscal cliff, but the number one news broadcaster is not breaking through. The failure came in September 2008 when John McCain waffled on his opposition to the bank bailouts. He had a chance, right after the GOP convention, to make himself look different than the status quo. Republicans in the House were backing him up. He buckled, along with a host of GOP Senators. Yes, there would have been serious economic consequences to allowing those banks to fail, but probably no worse than what has happened anyway. But more importantly, it would have defined the GOP as NOT the puppet of the rich, even if McCain would have lost. This label is what has wiped out our mainstream appeal. Attempting to fill the vacuum is the TEA Party, but their acerbic amateurism has only made Republicans more off-putting.<br />
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As a result, no one is listening to us anymore. Even when Senator McConnell put revenue increases on the table, the Obama Administration yawned and polished up their golf balls. The President believes that the rejection of Romney last month signaled a clear rejection of the economics which turned our nation around three decades ago. I think he believes correctly. I want a creative Republican for Christmas.Treyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09652752504685454339noreply@blogger.com0