The Hopeless Moral Confusion of the Left.

With the recent botched execution in our fair state two things will undoubtedly happen.

1.  Everyone who is opposed to capital punishment will use this case as canon fodder to outlaw the death penalty.  Get ready Oklahoma for the legions of liberal activists, ACLU hacks, attorneys, college kids, ivory tower professors,  and those just plain morally confused.

2.  It, if you pay close enough attention will expose the moral bankruptcies and confusion of today's Left.

Without getting into a drawn out argument on capital punishment (FYI this blogger has no trouble with CP as long as it's administered as impartially and humanely as possible, notice I didn't say completely free of pain, fear etc. ) let's look at what drew the condemed to the gurney.  Was he jaywalking?  What about petty theft?  Assault?, domestic battery?  No on all; what got him to the death chamber and in the middle of an international story was simple.  He raped, shot, and BURIED ALIVE a teenage girl who just graduated from high school  

And when you forget this, or elevate the criminal to martyr  status as today's Left has, not only are there dangers to our rule of law, but it shows the moral confusion and hopeless bankruptcy of today's left.   

To understand where I am coming from when I say "moral confusion" and such, one must understand the basic tenant thinking of your average left winger.  Theirs is the usually optimistic view of man.  To the liberal, man is basically, at heart, good.  To reform mankind, one need only spend more on education, government programs, abortion, healthcare, etc.  That modern liberalism i.e. Progressiveness has been tried and failed does not enter the liberal's mind as results are based on intentions.  To the liberal, it is entirely within mankind's sphere of influence to change the world and completely transform society.  With this high view of one selves and the education many receive in college, the average liberal, especially, but not limited to those higher educated, will then begin to see their views as more "progressive" exalted, more educated etc.  One who, say believes (as do I) that as much as we may help the poor but humans are what they are and until Christ returns and transforms the world Himself, perfection is nothing short of a fantasy, or holds differing views than the liberal will begin to be looked down upon.  If a conservative or other non liberal is lucky, they will be branded a racist or looked down upon.  If one is not, get ready for charges of "hate speech"  That liberals have to resort to such childish (one reason I refer to them as "liberal children") measures infers the complete lack of ideas or substance on their part is completely lost on them.   That the views expressed by today's Left go contra to reason, human expreience, both human and natural history never seems to enter the Let's mind.  Were it to, their view on such hot button topics as abortion would change overnight; not to mention complete abandonment of our "War on Poverty" started by well intentioned but flawed liberal thinking.  

And here's where we get to the moral emptiness of today's Left.  You see, these liberals have no trouble defending somebody who was caught, tried, convicted and spent a total of FIFTEEN years on death row but utters nary a word defending the rights of the unborn doesn't make much moral sense.  Where are the outcries for justice for the victims.  And there is the trouble.  When the victim is brought into the argument liberals have to either make a token gesture towards the victim or simply ignore to continue their lack of morel clarity.   Were the plight of the victim to enter into liberals' thinking, their entire theology of moral relativism would crumble like a house built on sand.  You see, fact is, there is a moral difference between executing a criminal tried, convicted, and sentenced to death and the wanton murder of the unborn.  The lives, whereas created in God's image, are not equal as in protection under the law. The criminal had his day in court and to not execute justice sends a morally confused message.  The same is true with our society's failure to defend the innocent.  When a society fails to defend the helpless, whether a child, unborn baby, disabled, etc. it shows the moral rot of said society.  

And if there are no moral differences between the lives of the innocent and guilty, what moral standard do we have to administer justice?  Liberals, having removed moral absolutes, in truth, have none.  Before long a society will become like the Hebrew nation during the time of the Judges where "every man did what was right in his own eyes"  

And the funny thing is, the liberal fails to see the utter double standard and absurdity of their thinking.  Spend a minute listening to liberal's arguments and you will quickly discover, like the fools gold, their speech and arguments may sound good but scrape off the emotion and good sounding speech, the thinking and rationale behind them is worthless.  

He is Risen

"On the third day he arose from the dead, and ascended into heaven where he sittith at the right hand of God the Father Almighty"  Taken from the Apostles Creed.  

The greatest day in the history of mankind the day Christ defeated death and our salvation was paid for.  
Like the Trinity, salvation via faith alone, and the person of the Holy Spirit, this doctrine is something cults and false religions try to deny, downplay, or simply refute.  Despite what somebody's "revelation", outright denial of Scripture, inner light etc. may tell them, NOTHING can and will refute the truth that Christ rose bodily from the dead.  He was as dead as dead could be, however, three days later, God raised him from the dead.  

Happy Easter everyone.  

Put that in Your Pipe and Smoke it.

One of the many joys of life I've discovered over the last couple years is the joy of smoking pipes.  Yep, those evil, cancer causing, tobacco laden, no better than poison pipes.  So what got me started and where am I now?

For the last twenty years I've smoked, off and on, cigars.  This all started in the fall of 91 when a friend,  coming to visit me after he got off work, brought a machine made cigar to my house he got from a friend celebrating the birth of his daughter.  We both enjoyed the stick so much he brought over two more the next night and the rest is history.  From there, whether it was to celebrate the birth of his firstborn, finishing a late class assignment, camping trip, or "guy time" we would include a pack of Swisher Sweets.  This routine continued until my friend moved and I became more interested in "real" stogies, the hand made (and more expensive) kind.  This pattern of on-again-off-again continued for some time but each time I would go to my favorite tobacco shop, I was drawn to the pipes section.  After several years I broke down and started asking a about the differences between smoking pipes and cigars.  After doing an amount of research and watching YouTube videos, I broke down and purchased a cheap corncob, an ounce of three types of tobacco, lighter, pipe tool and a pack of cleaners for under eleven bucks, an amount I was more than willing to lose if I decided pipes were not for me.  After trying and more than once failing, I went from cobs to cheap briar's (around thirty bucks each) One thing I know about myself is I have a tendency to devour large amounts of information on a specific subject, then either abandon or reduce interest in the subject.  For example, I have a sister in law who spent time in the Iron Lung due to Polio.  When I learned this, I looked everywhere for information on Polio and its victims including those who spent time in the Iron Lung.  Not long ago I did the same thing with beer, after detesting the stuff most of my life, all of a sudden I developed a taste (more like love) for the stuff and at first, spent amounts of time and money learning more about it.  When I discovered pipes, I fell into the same routine and purchased ounces of tobacco and at four or five pipes, on of which was WAY over my budget.

With all this happening at once, I failed to realize how difficult pipe smoking can be, and it was not too long I became very discouraged (even going so far as smashing two pipes I smoked to pieces, a very stupid move I might add)  Had I not invested in so many pipes (I didn't break them all) one of which was worth more than the three or four of the others combined, I no doubt would've packed up the pipes, thrown out the tobacco and called it quits.  Remember, I was used to smoking cigars, something very different. The biggest challenge to smoking stogies is clipping the top off and lighting.  My twenty year experience taught me they were very low maintenance to say the least.  With pipe smoking it's a different story, how you pack the pipe, light the tobacco and the number of draws will determine the success or failure of your smoking pleasure.  It's no surprise smoking pipes have been called "the gentle art of pipe smoking"  Something else I learned, and had to make my peace with, is the fact pipes will go out and it's not unusual to relight your pipe several times during a forty to sixty minute smoke.  It is this reason I do not use a pipe lighter but instead light them up with matches.

At about the time I was ready to quit a friend of mine who, unbeknown st to me, had smoked pipes for some time and was recently getting back into the habit, took me under his wing and taught me some very needed packing skills.  Between his teachings and the amounts of practice, it was not long before I had broken in my collection of pipes and added time and satisfaction to my smoking experiences.

From there I have gone from a single corn cob to a total of thirteen pipes, twelve briers (the one most common among pipe smokers) and one meerschaum (a white mineral used in making a certain type of pipes) My smoking takes anywhere from forty five minutes, an acceptable smoking time considering I was luck to get a half hour when I started out to over an hour average time probably fifty five minutes.  My tastes of tobacco have also changed.  I still like flavored tobaccos but have learned to like the "English" or natural favored blends.  

Another joy of the art of pipe smoking is how relaxing the experience can be.  On warm  nights it's not unusual for me to go out to the patio, turn on some big band music and light up the pipe.  As for the number of smokes, I usually smoke one or two smokes a day.  

I could go on and on and maybe at a later post I will but for now this in formation will have to do.  I have a cup of coffee to pour and a pipe to smoke.

BeerJourney

In the sojourn of life, I have also started taking another journey; that is the journey of trying and liking different types of beer.

For a long time, I stayed away from beer simply because of the taste, however like Cole slaw and pickle relish, as I got older my tastes changed so I again tried beer and discovered it wasn't half bad.

Since then I've tried Blue Moon, SawTooth, and several different types of Sam Adams, not to mention Guineas.

Don't go Baptist on me, nowhere in Scripture does it say one shant have a drink. Scripture only condemns the practice of getting drunk.

Now I need to ration my beer drinking since not only are the high in calories, but can be quite expensive to purchase.

Either They're Agenda Driven or Just Plain Stupid

I've heard the usual murmurings from the Left that seem to occur anytime a Conservative Grown Up wants to do anything remotely close to reigning in spending, cutting waste, and/or limiting the scope of government.

With the copious amounts of examples not only form human experience, but history as well as examples from our own day, and common sense, it should come to no surprise to anybody remotely willing to think the Welfare State does not work. On the contrary, not only does it fail those it claims to help, but has adverse affects on society at large. Allow me to site an example.

At my previous job, I was an adjuster for Illinois work comp. It was my job to review claims, and pay those deemed work related. As part of my job, I was also responsible for paying those whose doctors took off of work; this was called Temporary Total Disability or TTD. There was only one problem. IL, as other states is very liberal in its work comp policy. The claimant can choose their own doctor, so long as they don't go over two choices, and unless the company sends the claimant to an Independent Medical Evaluation, which we almost always did, we had no choice but to pay the claimant for being off of work.

Many times, the IME would tell us the so called injured person could work, at which time, they almost always hired an attorney, which meant us paying a settlement, even though they could work with little lasting affects.

Which leads us to the problem. Those who abused the system were given no reason to not do so, while those who were rightfully injured and owed settlement were forced to have their cases drawn out while we were investigating possible bogus or exaggerated cases.

With so many companies having to pay little more that what could be called shakedowns, said companies left IL in droves. Per the attorneys we hired, IL's economy is in shambles since no industry will go there to do business. Those who do, are subject to draconian Work Comp regulations.

This was something I saw everyday where I worked, and led me to the obvious conclusion. If you make it easy for people to sit on their rear ends and not work, people will do so. Again, I'm not talking about actually hurt, I'm talking about those abusing the system.

This is but one example and with it and others, I am left with only two conclusion about the Left.

1. Either they are completely stupid, devoid of learning from the mistakes of other countries around the world who so foolishly bought into the Socialist lie, history, common sense, or human nature or.....

2. Beginning with Barrack, and his Merry Band of Marxists, the Left doesn't give a rat's butt about the "poor" but instead is wiling to allow more and more people to become slaves to the government so advance their agenda of more government.

Not many other options.

Been a While

I was going through some old bookmarks and came across this blog, and frankly, didn't realize how long it had been since I posted. To be honest, I wanted to, but with time and such, the posting was just put off longer and longer.

It also didn't help that in December of 2009, I started a new job, which, to my dismay was not much of what I thought it would be. The commute was long (I was aware of this)and the hours and workload expected were much larger than I anticipated. Frankly, because WW and me both took a job at this location, we both would come home from work and just veg because we were so tired from the stress of our chosen line of work. Thankfully, those days are gone as the both of us have found new employment. The pay may be much less, however, the stress level is NOTHING compared to the last job, plus, I NOW HAVE A LIFE which means, God willing, I will have time to blog. Oh, and lest I forget, the new work seems to have much more room for advancement, and the benefits kick the previous' employeer's "benefits, out of the ball park.

A lot has happened since my last post. I have gotten back into cycling, which I have done off and on over the last twenty or so years, my wife and I took a trip to another country, I have been the victim of a crime, switched churches, and last but not least, both of us have taken on career changes.

Provide I learn to manage my time, more posts will be forthcoming.

Stay tuned.

My Journey to Manhood is Now complete

Note: This is not what you think

I always felt I was different from the other guys. I could never put my finger on the issue, but something just felt different. As we purchased our new house and had a larger yard and covered patio, the yearnings and desires grew. As much as I tried to fight it or put off dealing with my issues, I knew sooner or later, I would be forced to complete the summer rite of passage into manhood.

A few weeks ago on a moonlit night, I finally took the final step and gave in to my feelings.

I GOT A GRILL!!!!!!!!!

Not just any grill, mind you, a duel mode grill. One side is for propane grilling, the other charcoal. Since I could not decide on what kind to purchase, I decided to get the best of both worlds. Since my joke to people is "my journey to manhood is now complete," I've taken to calling my grill a Mangrill.

That night I had a cookout where myself and a more seasoned grilling veteran cooked some hamburgers and hot dogs. Since then I have cooked burgers, hot dogs, chicken, and pork chops. Wednesday I got some husked corn to try . Just last night, I grilled a couple chicken breasts for WW and me. When they were done, I basted them with BBQ sauce. She had no complaints.

Sooner or later I want to try some veggies, shrimp, and some salmon. My dad is a Grill Master of the umpteenth degree so I'll be asking him his advice. Oh lest I forget, steaks are also on my to-grill list too.

I've had a few setbacks learning the art of becoming a Grilling Master. A church member put it this way. "Grilling is easy once you get the hang of it, but every once in a while, you have to offer up a few burnt offerings" The worst I've done is offer up six burger patties to the god of grilling. But hey, it's a learning curve, you can't walk before you learn to crawl. Thankfully Mardel's had a Weber's grilling book on sale. I not only got some good recipes to try, but this book has several guides to cooking meat, how long, what temperature, etc. It has proved very useful.

Any you grilling vets have any suggestions, I'd be glad to hear em.