On this, the 232nd anniversary of our independence, it is useful to reflect on what it means to be an American. Far too many of those in America, native-born and immigrants, focus solely on that last part: the pursuit of happiness. And, if one merely looks at the millions of (mostly) illegal immigrants, it is clear that their concept of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” is pretty much constrained by the notion that they will keep themselves alive if they have the liberty to accumulate “property” in the form of wages earned from menial labor.

No one can possibly wish a man ill who is merely trying to better himself economically and provide for his family. But let us never confuse this kind of “liberty” with the true meaning of that word in the American context. It is freedom of conscience, freedom from government interferance, the freedom to think, assemble, worship, speak, vote, and write as one will. With constraints, of course, an ordered liberty, needed so that my “liberty” does not deprive you of yours.

That so many immigrants come here for economic gain is not on its face a bad thing, and it is a testament to our success as a nation. It is, however, not a sufficient thing, and we ought never to think it so. America is based on the very idea of freedom, not on any particular ethnicity or social class. That freedom, which is granted by Almighty God, belongs to each and every man, woman, and child in equal measure.

That freedom does not guarantee that all will reap equal rewards in their individual “pursuit of happiness.” It does mean that all have the same chance to do so. Or should have; we fought a bloody civil war, and continue to contest with each other on its full implementation to this very minute. Equality of opportunity is the theory, and I maintain we’ve done better than any other nation in history to achieve this as a reality.

To those who think that the pursuit of happiness is a sufficient rendering of the American idea, think again. Millions may flock to our shores because of the chance to make a few dollars, the chance to better themselves economically. But the true meaning was set by the Puritans and others who fled Old Europe in search of freedom of conscience, a freedom basically lacking in most of the Old World. In more recent times, there may be millions of illegal Mexican farm workers here only to make money. They are more than balanced by the Vietnamese boat people, Laotians, Cambodians, and Cubans, to name but a few, who risked their very lives fleeing tyranny for the chance to breath free air.

The lesson? Not to deny that we are a land of great economic opportunity, a land where the “pursuit of happiness” is built in to our very Declaration of Independence. But the truth is that we are not free because we are prosperous. We are prosperous because we are free.

The Acolytes of Environmental Doom must be pleased. $4 a gallon gasoline has the automakers scrambling to produce hybrids and purely electric cars. One such concept, much seen being touted in major circulation magazines, is the Chevy Volt.

Yippee skippy. Can’t tell you how enthused I am about this, especially the notion that this limited-range car requires 6 hours of charging to go 40 miles. Hard cheese if you need to drive more than that. But hey, who would need to go that far? That’s just crazy talk…

As for price, the Wired article linked above has it as $35,000. If you want such a silly accoutrement as windshield wipers. But that was all the way back in the dark ages of February 2008, when gas was a mere $3.

For a more complete rundown on the idiocy of GM, consider this from today’s Wall Street Journal:

GM’s leaders are not nuts, and yet to pour hundreds of millions into a race to launch an electric car, the Chevy Volt, guaranteed to lose money on every unit sold, begins to seem a peculiar strategy for a company in dire liquidity straits.

With each hectic advance in the development process, the expected sticker price to consumers has gone up. Reportedly, off-the-shelf electrical fixtures, such as headlights and taillights, won’t suffice because they draw too much power. At last leakage, GM is saying now the Volt may need a sticker price of $45,000.

At best, the Volt will be an affluent family’s third car. It will have to be plugged in for six hours a day – i.e., it will be a car for a suburbanite with a sizeable garage wired for power. It won’t be a car for a city dweller who parks on the street or in a public lot. It will travel 40 miles on a six-hour charge. After that, a small gas motor will kick in to recharge the battery while you drive. Some reports claim the Volt will get 50 mpg in this mode, but that’s hallucinatory: If using a gasoline engine to power an electric motor were so efficient, the streets would be full of such vehicles. (Our guess: The car will be lucky to get 15 mpg under gasoline power.)

The General has been building crappy cars for decades. My 1970 Pontiac was sufficient to convince me to never, ever, buy anything made by GM. Since that GM P.o.S. I’ve mostly bought Hondas and Subarus. Never looked back — they were better when new, ran better, and did not require the tender loving car that my Pontiac, and Chevys before that needed just to motorvate down the road.

So, let’s review the bidding. You can, today, buy a nicely-equipped Honda Fit that gets close to 40 mpg on the highway for $15K or so. And, if you really wanted a larger car, about the size of the Chevy Volt, there’s always the totally-reliable Civic. Yours for under $20K, again, very nicely equipped.

So, how ’bout that Volt. Can’t get you where you might want to go; you’ll need a private garage to plug it in at least six hours after each use; probably performs like an asthmatic, elderly dwarf on its mini-gas engine. What’s not to love for three times the cost of a Honda Fit?

Perhaps the Journal’s author erred when he wrote “GM’s leaders are not nuts.” Maybe, but surely they don’t know much about those of us who actually buy and drive cars. I’d say they have a strong corporate death wish. Which the market appears about ready to grant them: GM’s shares are now at about $10. About the same as they were during the late 1950s, half a century ago.

Except that $10 per share today would be more like $1.50 per share in the mid-1950s. Way to go, General. You’ve found a way to destroy your company. We’ll miss ye. Not.

The spineless one is Barack Hussein Obama, who will say and do anything to please the people he happens to be in front of at the moment. The immediate subject is gay marriage. I’m against it, because the term has no meaning: marriage is between one man and one woman. Period.

However, my position has nothing to do with BHO’s lack of spine. If he were in favor of gay marriage, then he and John McCain could have a substantive debate on the topic. Or not, since Obama is a coward in such matters and won’t debate without so many preconditions that he might as well be meeting with the leader of Iran. Oh, right, wrong example…no preconditions for dictators.

Via NRO’s Campaign Spot, the two opposing sides of the issue, both from BHO:

1. Letter to a gay group: Finally, I want to congratulate all of you who have shown your love for each other by getting married these last few weeks.
2. March 2, 2008 Town Hall Meeting: “I don’t believe in gay marriage”

He could get out of this with some classic Clinton fast talking: it depends on what “believe” means…This is classic Obama. You are left with not knowing what, exactly, he supports. Flip-flops? Worse. No spine.

Richard Cohen has brewed up the perfect liberal storm about the moral equivalence of Christianity and Islam. That’s not his stated purpose in his column today, of course. And, to the uninformed reader, he’s simply making political points against John McCain. And in the process, doing great violence to the truth.

Where to begin? Cohen does so with Billy and Franklin Graham, who he accuses of anti-Semitism and islamophobia:

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Franklin Graham called Islam a “very evil and wicked religion.” As preachers are wont to do, he amplified his remarks to include “mainstream” Islam, alleging that the Koran preaches violence. He is known throughout the Muslim world for these remarks and therefore is hardly a figure a presidential candidate should visit.

…In Franklin Graham’s case, his piety excuses his ignorance and intolerance — his slap at a worldwide religion of almost 2 billion because of the horrendous acts of a few. (emphasis added)

Love that “alleging that the Koran preaches violence.” Because that’s exactly what it does. And Cohen trots out the atheist-liberal canard about the Crusades. Who really gives a fuzzy white’s ass what Muslims think about the Crusades? They were undertaken because of continued Muslim expansion at the point of the sword.

Sorry about the inconvenient truth, Cohen, but Islam is a very evil and wicked religion. It is violent; it has been violent since its beginnings 1400 years ago. It exhorts its believers to kill the infidel, if it can not first force them to submit (the literal meaning of “Islam.”)

As for the Catholic massacres of Hugenots? True; evil. These were done in violation of our Scriptures. And they were done in the name of preserving the power of a human institution, the Roman Catholic Church. By and for men; not by and for God.

That’s the difference, Mr. Cohen. Our religion requires that we turn the other cheek, pray for our enemies. We fail. We are human. Their religion, Islam, requires the opposite — thay the force their enemies, the “infidels” to submit, convert, or be killed.

One last point — “the horrendous acts of a few [Muslims]” have been widely supported, and, more importantly, not resisted, by those 2 billion. What kind of an evil and wicked faith is it that allows murder in its name, and then does nothing about it?

Christians act to prevent murder. Muslims stand idly by, or send money to help the terrorists.

Watch out — ABC may be on the verge of becoming a fair-and-balanced news outlet. From this posting with the headline “McCain, Obama Seek to Show Commander-in-Chief Potential”:

It’s a contest of contrasts, pitting McCain — the experienced foreign policy hawk — against a relative newcomer who hopes to restore America’s influence and image abroad.

I’d quibble with the adjective “relative” applied to “newcomer.” Barack Hussein Obama is a newbie, period. Zero relevant experience.

Sleazing around Chicago with Tony Rezko and palling around with Jeremiah God-Damn-America Wright isn’t quite relevant. As for how BHO demonstrates his foreign policy bona fides? From ABC:

“Think about our relations with countries elsewhere in the world,” Obama told the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials on Saturday. “Do you know that our entire foreign aid budget to Latin America is approximately one week’s spending in Iraq?”

Can you spell “irrelevant,” BHO?

What follows was originally posted here over three years ago. It strikes me as a good prediction of the kinds of decisions we would see under President Barack Hussein Obama.

The conditions in Cuba have, we are told, loosed up somewhat. But not nearly enough; dissident Cuban patriots are still rotting in Castro’s gulag. Except it’s now Raoul’s, not Fidel’s gulag.

The original post, scarily imaginable under an Obama administration:

This was the moment in time when all doubts about the Clinton administration should have been put to rest. A SWAT-team assault was made on a home in Miami by federal agents. What was the target of the assault? A narco-terrorist ring? Islamic terrorists? Crime syndicate? Could have been, but wasn’t. The target? One six-year old Cuban boy, Elian Gonzalez.

This was Clinton and his evil (not too strong a word) attorney general, Janet Reno, as moral ciphers. Elian was snatched away from the freedom of living with his Miami relatives, and forcibly deported to live with Fidel. As with much else in this nation, no action is without its follow-on litigation, and the Elian Gonzalez case is no exception. The victims of the assault by our federales are suing (story here). The problem, of course, is not the method by which young Elian was taken. It is the very fact that the United States of America used its armed might, in the form of federal law enforcement agents, to deprive a young boy of the chance to grow up in freedom.

The arguments at the time focused around Elian’s father, still in Cuba, as having a stronger claim than his more-distant relations in Miami. The Clintonistas, of course, sided with Fidel, who has made great propoganda hay from this, and since the kidnapping, has used Elian as a stage prop in his failed people’s republic. No true American would have done this. Liberty must be counted to be as strong a tug on the bonds of affection as the love of any parent.

To think otherwise is to join with the worst kind of multicultural, morally blank relativists, who see no difference between a harsh and evil communist dictatorship, and the freedom of the United States. Of course, perhaps under the Clinton administration, the United States was not quite as free as it should be. You shall never hear such thoughts from our Fidel-loving left wing, however.

Shame on Bill Clinton for letting this happen. The only hope is that Elian Gonzalez will recover, along with all of the Cuban people, when Fidel finally passes from the scene. Today would not be too soon.

Is Barack Hussein Obama a Muslim? Not any more. Daniel Pipes’ analysis makes it clear that while he might have had a Muslim upbringing, he is not today a Muslim. Given Obama’s full name; given his Muslim family; given his attendance at mosque and madrassa, it’s easy to understand how such a rumor might have been started.

In a typical “Elect Obama” “news” story, the Washington Post has a front-page article on those flag-waving knuckle-dragging clingy, bitter folks in Findlay, Ohio. The article notes that “polling that shows about one in 10 Americans thinks Obama is Muslim.” The ever-vigilant Post, stamping out any rumor that might be harmful to St. Barack of Obama, has this paean to the Great One:

…the truth: Sen. Barack Obama, born in Hawaii, is a Christian family man with a track record of public service.

Ah, but what those Ohio primitives insist on believing is also cataloged:

But on the Internet, in his grocery store, at his neighbor’s house, at his son’s auto shop, Peterman has also absorbed another version of the Democratic candidate’s background, one that is entirely false: Barack Obama, born in Africa, is a possibly gay Muslim racist who refuses to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

Well, the “gay” part is new to me, but then I don’t get out much. The whole truth about Obama? He has spent 20 years listening to anti-white, anti-American rants in a “church.”  Moreover, the great “family man” exposed his children to this filth.  He has palled around with a large assortment of Chicago radicals; taken money from sleazoids; and, generally, developed a worldview that might best be described as naive. At best.

Obama is not a Muslim; he’s not gay. I’m not sure what kind of Christian he might be, given the radical and very much unchristian nature of Trinity United.  But he is a radical who is now doing his slick best to appear to be a moderate. 

While he’s got the mainstream media in his corner, it may be too little, too late for actual Americans, who are closer to the truth even if they are a little off in their facts.

Romans 13:1-5 is trotted out in many churches for patriotic occasions, to remind us to submit to our government:

1Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 2Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, 4for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. 5Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience.

It’s easy enough to submit to our government; despite the views of the few, it is generally a great place to live and be free.   But clearly the United States is an exception; most governments are tyrannies, petty, and great. So why should a Christian be so deferential to government, and why would God allow tyrannies?

The late John Howard Yoder, has one answer. Yoder, a Mennonite, was a pacifist who based his views on Christ Jesus. In his seminal work, The Politics of Jesus, Yoder argued (this is my Cliff’s Notes understanding) that Christians owe allegiance only to the Kingdom of God through Christ, and not to any worldly power. His thesis was that Romans 13 was a redaction of Paul’s original epistle to the Romans, added to be pleasing to the then-all powerful Roman empire. Or, if not pleasing, at least not threatening of Caeser’s authority.

Yoder was a principled pacifist, but I think he was wrong. I think we must accept Romans 13 at its face value, since it is supported rather well elsewhere, for instance Paul’s letter to the Collosians, Chapter 1:

6 For by him [Christ] all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities–all things were created through him and for him.

This is plain enough. God instituted governments, not all of them good. To say the least. But then, Christians should know that we were not put on this earth to be entertained or coddled. We suffer often, usually in fact, in solidarity with the Christ. So are we really prepared to think that God somehow doesn’t know what He’s doing when he sends us tyrants? Tyrants, as well as just rulers, all owe their existence to God.

Let me put this concept differently. In the over-used passage in Matthew 22:21:

They said, “Caesar’s.” Then he said to them, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

This passage is often quoted to justify giving obedience to the ruler, however tyrannical. I’d ask this, however: what on this earth, or in this universe, exactly, is not belonging to God? My take is that Jesus simply put one over on the hypocrites, told them that they should render to Caesar that which is Caesar’s, without adding the obvious: all things owe their being to God.

So we should not give blind obedience to any secular ruler. God, in fact, has also inspired us to not just accept tyranny. A ruler, to retain God’s blessing, must be just (see, for example, 2 Samuel 23:3). This is the context for Romans 13 — not blind obedience to any ruler (can anyone say “Nazis”?), but obedience to authorities who rule justly. In fact, one of the greatest churchmen of the Reformation, William Tyndale, is quoted as saying “Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God!”, and of course he is correct.

Writing this simply, of course, does not mean I think that it is ever a simple thing to assess whether a given ruler is just in the eyes of God. As Christians, the best we can do is focus on the Kingdom of God, prepare for His return, and in the meantime, resist tyranny where we find it, and understand that just governments derive their true authority from Almighty God.

The question is as old as our Republic. And still has no satisfactory answer that will go unchallenged. Today’s multicultural crowd will shudder at the notion that we might be a Christian nation; they will, at the mere hint of Scripture being sent their way holler “Theocracy!”

On the other hand, there are (usually) well-meaning Christians who look askance at you for asking such a silly, rhetorical question. To such, of course we’re a Christian nation; always have been, always will be. Why even ask? It’s obvious.

Well, friends, it’s anything but obvious that we are a Christian nation. No less than Billy Graham, perhaps the greatest evangelist in our times, stated that we are not, and have never been, a “Christian nation.” We are, however, a nation of Christians, and this is the essential point: a nation can not be “Christian.” Only an individual may be Christian.

The definition of who is a Christian is not up to me, or thee. It is up to God, who calls those who he chooses* to die to sin and be reborn in Jesus Christ. Now a nation of Christians may choose to follow God’s law, or not. Since we are also a nation of sinners, we mostly will not follow that law. Even a casual examination of life in these United States will suffice to prove that we are not perfect.

Didn’t Jesus tell us to imitate God and be perfect (Matthew 5:48)? Yes, and we fail. Such will it forever be on this side of God’s kingdom. So let us not waste what precious little time we have in the here and now on whether we are a “Christian nation.”

Let’s do our level best to proclaim the Gospel, and, to the best our sinful natures allow, perfect ourselves. It’s really simple: love God; love your neighbor. Everything else is commentary.

_________
*With apologies to any who believe that salvation may be gained through a particular sacrament, rite, church, or theology. I don’t know you’re wrong, but I think you are. I’m a Reformed Baptist, meaning a Calvinist. Hey, it’s my cross to bear…

News you can use — if not believe. According to this post at EcoGeek,

In less than 7 years, Mercedes-Benz plans to ditch petroleum-powered vehicles from its lineup. Focusing on electric, fuel cell, and biofuels, the company is revving up research in alternative fuel sources and efficiency.

The writer goes on to surmise about the coming of the “[Mercedes] Smart electric car which is fuel and emission-free.

And electricity comes from where? In America, the biggest sources are coal and nuclear power. Both of which are on enviros shit list. The problem for most of our greenies is that their perfect source of power is forever just over the horizon: renewable energy that is sufficient, clean, and has minimal environmental impact in its production and use.

It’s possible that one day we will discover such a power source. In the meantime, nuclear power remains the best single alternative for electricity production. Unless you’re a big fan of coal, of course.

As for Mercedes not selling petroleum-fueled cars in seven years? Don’t think so; but, hey, eco-freak, sorry, eco-geek, never lose that dream of the impossible.