Spamming Facebook

Breaker, breaker Fb. Anybody got a copy on me? Over.

Almost half a century ago, when I got into the then new Citizens' Band radio fad, there were rules governing the establishment of what was called a "station." As I recall, I had to read and swear compliance with a set of operational standards. These included stating my call sign (KJB6733) at the beginning and end of each transmission. I was supposed to limit my transmissions to a few minutes. Stations were not allowed to have more than four watts of power. And one more rule which brings me to my subject of the day: I was not supposed to "broadcast," which means sending a transmission with no intended receiver.

When people started violating these rules, boosting their power and talking endlessly to no one in particular, CB radio lost its usefulness for the average citizen. The airwaves became electronically cluttered with indecipherable noise being generated by illegal stations to the point where usable reception was limited to little more than a mile. Before the rules were smashed, send-and-receive transmissions of over twenty miles were not unusual.

My dear reader may be wondering what in Heaven's name this has to do with Facebook. Just this: Fb is now becoming so cluttered with trivial "broadcasts" by my "friends" that it has become practically unusable. One may argue that this situation is a result of my choice of friends. This would be correct in part. Someone else may wish to point out that I have the option of un-friending anyone who clutters my wall or at the very least, hiding their posts. That is also true. Sadly this places the burden of creating a usable tool entirely in my hands.

I say sadly because my hidden friends may occasionally write something I want to read, and it should not be my sole responsibility to police the medium. If there were a set of rules, Facebook etiquette say, we could all take part in keeping our walls clear for useful posting. Were that the case, I would be able to take note of the significant happenings in my friends' lives without having to wade through fathoms of frivolity to get the news. If people posted only truly meaningful or entertaining information, Fb would be far more useful. I say this as a member with less than two hundred friends. I cannot imagine what it is like for those with more.

This situation is nearly a direct parallel to spamming in email. I am not referring to the commercial practice of broadcasting advertising through email. I am calling spam those ridiculous forwards that some people cannot help but forward no matter how trivial or outlandish they may be. If I read one more time how rich we would all be if only the government had given the stimulus dollars directly to us, I will scream. (Do the math people; it's hundreds, not tens of thousands each.) Nor is my opinion of my contacts improved when they forward mail which ends with near death threats if I refuse to follow suit and spam my entire contact list.

The question may have arisen in someone's mind asking what this post is doing under my blog title. It should be obvious: believers are called to join in fellowship (koinonia) with one another. Facebook is a great place to do this. I could do a better job of laughing when you laugh and crying when you cry if I could get to those posts more easily. I have been known to stop at a post and utter a little prayer when the Spirit leads me. That is the body in action in cyberspace. That's Y2Kristian. 10-4?

Please post a comment or "like" this on Fb if you agree.

Guilty Until Proven Innocent

I am saddened by the untimely death of anyone. When a child's life ends abruptly it seems especially sad. When that child's end is brought by violence at the hands of another human being, "senseless" is the only word that seems to fit. Not without reason, the people around the lost child often react in ways that are equally senseless. Grief clouds judgment; pain blurs clarity, but the opportunists who gather around these incidents have no such excuse for their behavior.

The February shooting in Florida of Trayvon Martin by the Neighborhood Watch person, George Zimmerman, exploded onto the national scene weeks after it happened. CNN appears to be the first national news outlet to carry the story. It is unclear how they picked it up, but its rise from their March 12 opening is meteoric. Within days everyone from the Black Panthers to the President was talking about the case. It is no surprise that Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton hitched their wagons to this star. Their willingness to capitalize on someone else's sorrow knows no bounds.

I do not wish to diminish the tragic nature of Trayvon's death, but the rush to judgment and cries of racism without the first shred of clear evidence leads to the realization that the young black man was only the first victim in this sad tale. It is also ironic that the media by and large initially identified the shooter strangely as a "white Hispanic." Since these two terms usually define mutually exclusive racial categories, one must wonder why they were paired in this case. They had the effect of moving Attorney General Eric Holder to suggest the Feds may investigate the incident as a "hate crime," a category I dislike. Are not all unlawful killings evidence of hate?

The irony multiplies. A little research reveals that Zimmerman has long been active in anti-discrimination cases against blacks. People who have known him for some time report that he is the last person they would imagine commiting a racially inspired act of violence. He was raised in a multi-racial home, and although his name might suggest otherwise, he does have Hispanic blood. None of this makes the news, but the unusual appelation "white Hispanic" does.

The worst of it was trumpeted not surprisingly by Al Sharpton just the other day. The Reverend called for the strictest punishment possible for George Zimmerman. I am not surprised that Sharpton would say something like this; what surprises me is that so many people seem to agree. Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty? There is way too much uncertainty about the facts of the shooting, too many conflicting witness statements, judges recusing, attorneys quitting, police chiefs stepping down to move to the sentencing issue. George Zimmerman must be given the trial he deserves; that it will be a fair trial is made less likely by all the irresponsible meddling and calculated machinations of self-serving outsiders.

Missing Santorum

I watched a few minutes of Sean Hannity's interview with Mitt Romney last night. Both men made me uncomfortable: Hannity because of his irritating answer within a question interview style and Romney because of his same answer no matter what the question attitude. Hannity's practiced transparency and the candidate's polished obscurity were in dazzling display. Winston Churchill's comment about Russia sounds eerily like the Republican presumed nominee: "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma."

Santorum was not at all like that. You knew what you had with Rick. You felt comfortable calling him Rick, even though you didn't know him. He wore his positions like a sweater vest, right there for all to see, in style or not. He sometimes stumbled or gaffed because he said what he meant and meant what he said. He really didn't care about the unemployment number, for example. He knew, as does anyone who cares to look closely, that the unemployment numbers are not a true measure of our economic condition. Beyond that, he knew that unemployment is a symptom of a deeper problem anyway.

Unfortunately, all that depth, that nuance as some like to call it, does not play well as a sound bite. Precious little in life is simple enough to play in ten or even thirty seconds. Bumper stickers and political slogans are catchy, but they often hide more than they reveal. Remember hope and change? How's that working out for us, really? In truth, this election, perhaps more than most, does boil down to the question of change, and I don't mean a simple change in the resident of the White House.

Barak Obama and those Democrats who follow him (not all do, by the way) want a fundamental change in the way America works. They want a society where the government assures equal outcomes for all citizens. Politically speaking, this has always been called socialism. It is not politically correct to call the President or his policies socialist, but that is what they are. The move to national health care is only the most obvious example of this policy. Banking, energy production and manufacturing all have felt the heavy hand of socialistic change dragging them away from the free market model of economics.

Rick Santorum's popularity was greatest among people who know what it means to make their own way. He understood that the only thing most people need to get ahead is for government to get out of the way. Romney talks like that most of the time, but then you look at his record, especially MassCare. He once openly called MassCare a model for a national health care system. Now he has walked back from that to appease the majority of Republicans who disdain the very thought of nationalizing any facet of the American economy, least of all health care.

America was founded to be a place where equal opportunity was provided for all, not equal outcomes. All men are created equal and endowed by their creator with the right to pursue, not the right to obtain, says the Bible and accordingly says the Declaration of Independence. So little does our current President respect those documents that he can't even cite the correct one when he does give a nod. This is no surprise since he also appears clueless about the check and balance system intended by the three branch government in which he participates. November will be interesting: two slick talkers with far different visions for America, but not a sweater vest on either one. I miss Rick already.

Ignorance Is Not Bliss

I was having breakfast with a friend this week when the subject of President Obama’s unscripted comments about the Supreme Court came up. If you are not a political junkie, you may not have heard what the President said at a news conference Monday last. In the interest of fairness, I will quote his remarks in full.

In answer to a reporter Obama said, “Ultimately, I’m confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress. And I'd just remind conservative commentators that for years what we’ve heard is, the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint -- that an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law. Well, this is a good example. And I’m pretty confident that this Court will recognize that and not take that step.”

The next time I need a definition for the word “disingenuous” I will drag this out. It would also make a pretty good sample of political irony. It is inconceivable to me that our President does not realize how completely phony his judgment sounds. I know this same argument was used in 2000 when the Supremes stole the presidency from Al Gore, but other than that, it is always the progressives on the courts who are overturning laws passed democratically.

Then there is the Presidential audacity to say the health care reform law was “passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.” Perhaps he meant to say by a Democrat majority, which is quite different from calling it democratically elected majority. Surely he cannot have forgotten the outrage across the country, the birth of the Tea Party, the groundswell of democratic electors who opposed the measure.

Maybe President Obama is actually ignorant of the proper role of the Court in a three branch system, as astounding as that seems given his training as a lawyer. Ed Rogers, a conservative blogger at the Washington Post (yes, they have one) wrote in response: “ His [Obama’s] comments indicate that he still grapples with how to handle the presidency and that we’re still witnessing the on-the-job training required when you elect a part-time state senator and a “community organizer” as president of the United States.” I wonder if the President is not in training, but rather is trying to remake the government in his image. I wonder if the balance of powers  so wisely instituted by the founders is an impediment to his agenda, so he seeks to demolish it. It is the check and balance system which has kept human deviousness (aka sin) from destroying what we have.

I am quite sure President Obama is not ignorant; I think he knows exactly what he is doing. If he succeeds, it will be because we the people are ignorant. We are ignorant of the real beauty of constitutional government and what its loss will mean to those who love what America has been for two hundred plus years. At breakfast my friend suggested we need to stop harping about all this founding fathers stuff and make the argument more relevant; people do not care about constitutionality any more, he said. I say just the opposite; we need to re-educate people about how unique our Constitution is; we need to make people understand why the founding fathers are still relevant to today. Failing that, I fear we will end up with Obama’s vision of a changed America. Not a change for the better in my humble opinion.

Having a Gay Old Time

I was pleasantly surprised recently to find that an overwhelming majority of my Composition students agreed with a peer's proposal that abortion rights should be severely curtailed because abortion is murder. I allow the students to choose the topic for their final essay, and it has not been uncommon for abortion to appear among their choices. The significance of yesterday's discussion was the number of these late generation Y'ers who did not believe abortion is just a clinical process some women are justified in choosing. I expected them to be fully marinated in the feminist soup of women's rights, but found them to be delightedly pro-life.

A couple years ago, Gallup reported that Americans were more pro-life than pro-choice. The margin in that poll was 51% lifers to 42% choicers. It marked the first time pro-lifers came out ahead, and the trend seems to be steady. A more recent poll measured the gap by party and then further by religious tendencies and showed a remarkable correlation. We are doing a good job refuting the feminist argument within a significant slice of the population.

There is another topic that always comes up for discussion with my students: gay marriage. In this case conservatives appear to be losing the battle. Gallup released a poll last year trumpeting "For First Time, Majority of Americans Favor Legal Gay Marriage." 53% to 45% Americans favor same-sex marriage with the same rights as "traditional" marriage. Granted, the results show that most of the increase in favorable positions came from Democrats and Independents; Republican opinion has remained virtually unchanged.

Back to my admittedly biased classroom; I did not poll them, but I sensed that if I had, most would have favored allowing gay marriage. Those who did speak agreed with the three students who proposed that gay marriage should be legal in all 50 states. And why not? "Love is love," as one proposal put it, and the benefits of marriage should not be denied to anyone who professes love for another regardless of gender. The other two proposals were based on the perceived discrimination against same-sex couples. This line of reasoning also garnered acceptance in the classroom. I asked if marriage rights should be granted to a man and his daughter or a man and his beloved sheep. The response (after extreme expressions of distaste) was resoundingly negative. I suggested that a man may love his daughter/sheep or whatever enough to want to marry her/it; doesn't the law discriminate against him as well. The silence was deafening, but they looked like I had fed them lemons.

So where are believers in this debate? We cannot quote Leviticus or Romans to argue against gay marriage in a pluralistic republic. Regardless, I believe there are still sound arguments against a homosexual lifestyle which do not rest on Biblical injunction.  I believe we should plot a course similar to the one Right to Life took with its sonogram displays. If we show people the real consequences of their choices, they can make better decisions. A fascinating article by the Family Research Council details the multitude of health issues present in the homosexual population. The most poignant is the undeniable fact that life expectancy is cut short by twenty years on average. Let's trumpet that from our billboards.

The Apostle Paul said that he would be willing to use any means necessary to win the lost to Christ. Let's use the same reasoning to influence behavior. With national health care looming on the horizon, there is a golden opportunity to use the liberals' arguments against them. If smoking is bad because it raises health costs and shortens life span, let's put homosexuality in the same category. The straight majority should not be expected to pay the exorbitant costs of treatment for aids or STI'S brought on by lifestyle choices. (This argument works even if Obamacare is repealed because we all pay for this kind of thing one way or another.)

Believers should lobby their local school boards to stop presenting the homosexual lifestyle as merely an alternative without consequences. Faced with information like that presented in the FRC article, I believe many could be convinced to change the policy of tolerance and open acceptance of homosexuality to one of warning and dissuasion. Homosexual behavior is a choice; report after report after report refutes the idea that it is genetic or otherwise biologically caused. If there are people who are genuinely confused about their gender identity, we owe the whole truth to them. Homosexuality is a deadly lifestyle, not because Leviticus says so but because science says so. It wouldn't be the first time science and the Bible were in agreement.

What Price Peace?

When I first heard the statement, it shocked me. After a moment's thought, it frightened me. An apologist for the welfare state opined on Fox News this morning that we have to continue the unemployment benefit extensions and the expansion of food stamps so that we don't end up with riots like Greece. Really? Americans will turn to violent revolt if we don't give them what they want. Has it really come to that?

As Rome slouched toward collapse twenty centuries ago, one contemporary commentator moaned that her citizens were being bribed with "bread and circuses." The comment I heard this morning sounds eerily similar. In her column posted last year on the Bloomberg web site, "The Danger of Living on Bread and Circuses,"  Alice Schroeder said, "Drowning a country in vicarious debauchery may be a lousy way to sustain a civilization. Still, there is something to be said for Half Pint Brawlers and its ilk. TV-watching keeps people at home, instead of marching in the streets."

There must be other less costly, more righteous ways to keep people from "marching in the streets." Certainly there are better ways to spend one's time than watching anything television has to offer. In fact, I suspect that modern entertainment does more to incite marching in the streets than to curtail it. The glorification of wealth, power and sex which dominates all forms of entertainment only whets the appetite of already hungry people.

A 2009 study cited by Schroeder claimed that people over 15 spent 58% of their leisure time in front of either a TV or a computer. My guess is that the majority of those TV hours were not on the History Channel and the Internet time was not spent taking free online college courses. Entertainment, games and social networking consume vast quantities of most Americans' time. Given such a diet filled with "vicarious debauchery," it is not surprising that a mood of unrest might be abroad among the people.

And so because my conservative values preclude any thought of censorship of the circuses, I can only agitate for self-discipline. I struggle with it myself, but I recommend the Apostle Paul's attitude of being content no matter the circumstances. I wonder if I am being utterly foolish to think that the only healthy way to keep Americans from marching in the streets is to encourage healthy habits at home: reading the Bible instead of watching WWF Smackdown; playing Monopoly instead of Grand Theft Auto; taking an invigorating walk through the nature center instead of spending an inebriating evening at the sports bar.

God help me; I think I may have turned into a crazy old geezer. Now I am frightened again; this time I fear that a conservative, biblical lifestyle, which is the answer to almost all society's problems, begins to sound ridiculous. Maybe we had better increase the food stamps.

Character Counts

A story on Fox this morning asks if watching what students do outside of school is reaching beyond the schools' legitimate interests. Todd Hess, the head of the Indiana principals' association explained the rationale behind the law which grants schools permission to consider student behavior outside of school. He said relevant behaviors would have to cause "interference with school purposes" or be necessary to "protect those that [sic] are in the school."  Cyber bullying was cited as an example of a behavior which might cross over from outside to inside school. The interviewer asked whether drinking or drug use might come under scrutiny by the school. Hess remarked that those activities were illegal, leaving the impression that other agencies (the police?) were responsible to monitor them.

It is unclear what the producers at Fox were pushing in this piece, but the headline over the video on the web site asks if the Indiana law is overreaching. Usually when media types ask questions like that, they are answering in the affirmative even if they don't say it explicitly. I have to ask myself why a conservative outlet like Fox would be asking such a question. I wonder if they were just trying to look "fair and balanced" by presenting the law as overreaching, or whether there is a drift among the east coast conservatives driven by the raging tide of political correctness.

It is clear why progressives would be opposed to such a policy. A law that allows school officials to consider private behavior infringes on privacy rights. Progressives are all about protecting those rights and even making some up where necessary: privacy rights like the privacy of the womb which allows a mother to snuff out the life of the little person growing there; privacy rights like those enjoined by President Clinton when his amorous affairs were being investigated; privacy rights like those granted to prisoners which afford them amenities generally associated with luxury hotels. It may even be this kind of thinking that causes the main stream media to overlook the extravagant getaways of the first family and cabinet level tax cheats and congressional nest featherers.

But in virtually every instance of see-no-evil ignorance of private behavior, someone in the public sphere is being affected. Returning to the academic setting, it is plain that situations which begin off campus infect the atmosphere on campus necessarily. The Facebook bully creates a dynamic that affects in-school relationships. When Johnny gets drunk on Friday night, he will often take his school buddies with him when he misses the curve at high speed and destroys their lives. The entire campus will be affected the next Monday. When Susie has unprotected sex (perhaps with a drunken Johnny,) her pregnancy cannot be separated from her school experience. In most cases, she will be separated from her school.

While they claim to be defenders of individual freedom, progressives don't really like freedom because free people seldom conform to the progressive agenda. Free people will drive SUV's and use 100 watt incandescent bulbs. Free people will reject the government subsidized electric car and CFL light bulb. Ignore for the moment that the politically correct choices will cost many multiples of the item they replace. When the government decides what is best for its citizens, the government must mandate much of what would otherwise be private choice. This situation puts the lie to the entire choice argument.

And choice is what makes us what we are. Barring divine intervention, humans are nothing more than the cumulative result of the choices made from day to day. Therefore, character is the result of choices made on campus and off. Kudos to Indiana for writing into law a common sense principle for principals. This suggests to me that someone in Indiana has decided that character building is an important part of the education process. Or maybe I am too optimistic; maybe it just means that they were taking another step towards governing every action so that their Utopian society can finally emerge. I hope it is the former.