In this time of political upheaval and mass hysteria, I bring you something completely unrelated to the presidential race:
While standing at a public urinal in my friendly neighborhood Walmart, my eyes drifted to a framed poster of a country road winding into the sunset — a simple metaphor that even Homer Simpson and his radioactive co-workers could understand, thanks to the caption emblazoned in wide-spaced capital letters across the bottom: “CHALLENGE.”
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From “Robocop” to “Wall-E” to the new TV drama “Fringe,” the science fiction genre loves scaring people with dystopian visions of a gullible world dominated by greedy corporations. The theme repeats itself over and over because it’s a win-win situation: moviegoers get a chance to pretend they’re fighting the Man, while the Man collects their money. These David and Goliath stories tap into our basic instincts of fear, insecurity, jealousy, pride, survival, and compassion.
As it turns out, however, the writers may need to go back to the drawing board, because the doom-and-gloom futurists have got the story backward. Oh, there’s still plenty of doom and gloom, but the evil corporations are not swallowing up government. Instead, the government is slowly, methodically, and with sweet words of mercy, swallowing up free enterprise. And it is happening with the full support of corporate executives, who would love nothing better than to enjoy the job security of adoption into the state.
Yes, our nation’s financial crisis is scaring us into surrendering more freedoms, by letting Congress transform Wall Street into a welfare state for the rich. Whether or not you believe that Bush’s big fat bailout bill is necessary, the implications for the future are grim. Rather than taking from the rich and giving to the poor, we are taking from the middle class and giving their earnings to greedy, incompetent millionaires, thus enabling their bad behavior and keeping unprofitable companies in power.
It is certainly true that big business benefits many people – in this case, the middle class workers who have invested in the stock market for their retirement. But this view is short-sighted. In capitalism, even the biggest corporations of all, if they are bad businesses, must be allowed to die, so that more profitable and better managed corporations can take their place and benefit the whole economy. By artificially keeping the big boys in power, we are not solving the problem but extending it into the generations to come.
Even more frightening is what this bailout will mean for the role of government. The Supreme Court has held that when the federal government gives money to something, it has the right to regulate that thing. By investing in these failing businesses, the government is eroding the private sector and increasing its own power and authority. It is buying us out, and we are running with arms wide open to our destruction. Before we realize what we’ve done, our Constitutional rights will have withered away, as they always do wither when a thing is deemed “public” rather than private. The interests of legislators and CEOs will become inextricably intertwined, and success will be monopolized by those who rub shoulders with the feds.
Make no mistake. This is not capitalism. This is fascism—a marriage of big government and big business, with government as the undisputed senior partner. I fear that one day we will regret having turned a blind eye when the United States of America embraced a command economy. If the bailout is necessary to the survival of our economy (and I don’t believe it is), then the situation is far worse than even the doomsayers imgine.
I’m normally not a fan of abstract art. You know, the kindergarten finger-paint drivel that high society has been inflicting upon public museums since the days of Jackson Pollock. But Makoto Fujimura’s work is somehow different. It grabs you, and you can’t stop looking. Maybe because he aims for beauty where other artists aim for ugliness. Or maybe because his art pours out from the heart of his Christian faith.
I’ve always wondered why Christian culture tries so hard to mimic the art of the world around it, as if Christianity lacks enough passion and tradition of its own from which to draw. Imitation is not always wrong (if anything, it is largely inescapable), but if the gospel is truly an alternative to the philosophies of the world, the difference should announce itself loud and clear in the work of its artists, whatever the medium. A Fujimura painting reveals a very different human soul than does a Picasso, a Dali, or, if I may be more obvious, the grotesque cover art for a Cannibal Corpse death metal album. The product of a man’s hands bears the fingerprints of those hands. Read more »
My fellow Americans, your vote for me is a gamble – a gamble that, despite your pathetically incomplete knowledge of my character and beliefs, I will prove myself a champion of the ideals, hopes, and dreams of this great nation – or at least of the voters who chose me. Thank you, America, for your faith. Thank you for again ignoring all third-party candidates because you knew they could not win. Thank you for not catching the subtle irony of my last statement. And most of all, thank you America for having the audacity to hope that I am just like you.
But of course, I am not just like you—as is plainly evident by the fact that I am president and you are not. Let me explain why this is so. Read more »
Good news for the politically correct across the Atlantic. Some E.U. officials want to protect women’s rights by removing more of them. These officials, with the blessing of the E.U.’s women’s rights committee, propose a ban on all commercial advertisements that present women as sex objects or portray gender in “stereotypical ways.”
For those of you who don’t speak the language of political correctness, “stereotypical” apparently includes such things as big burly construction workers selling soda or graceful models hawking perfume. No wonder Islam is fast becoming the dominant monotheistic religion in Europe, if its leaders are more worried about protecting their children from the horrors of gender than the violence of jihad. Read more »
Everyone hates a liar—from Democrats sporting “Bush lied” bumper stickers to Republicans swapping jokes about the definition of “is.” The instinct has outlived cultures and empires, endured cruelty, witnessed glory, and even in our post-Christian, biblically-illiterate, truth-denying age holds deceptive hearts accountable, as if the legend of the “imago dei” might be more than myth, and we have in fact been created by the God who is Truth. Read more »
When word hit the presses that Russian tanks were rolling into Georgia, every Johnny Reb south of the Mason-Dixon line grabbed his rifle and marched to Atlanta.
Ok, so you know that didn’t happen. But I almost wish it had. As it stands, Comrade Stalin…I mean Medvedev…is getting away with murder, as he sends his Russian horde deep into neighboring Georgia–supposedly to force a ceasefire, but continuing to bomb and slaughter even as the miniscule Georgian army has ceased retaliation. Read more »
Black ribbons unfurled from their casings and streamed past our heads, across the gymnasium. The evening service had stretched beyond curfew, and now the emotionally drained teens were directing nervous energy toward violence. We offered a sacrifice at the altar: the summary execution of our secular cassette tapes. Plastic shards littered the floor, and still the executioners raged, beating and smashing and laughing and praising and vowing they’d never sin again. Though I have no evidence, I hold the conviction that the record labels secretly encouraged these dramatics, because the same teens who had melted their secular golden calves would inevitably purchase new copies after the spiritual high waned. Tomorrow’s hangover kept them returning to the music store like drunks to their morning coffee, only to let the ribbons unfurl again at the next big youth revival.
Cut the lifespan, increase sales, increase profit. Evil genius.
A new CNN report revives the old saying that Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in America. The statistics—only 5 percent of U.S. churches are integrated—ring true to the experience of many worshipers. However, as is usual when it comes to the subject of race and church attendance, the article misses the cathedral for the stained-glass windows. Read more »
Tired of the bland, assembly-line sameness of D.C.’s polished politics? Ask your favorite news outlet about Senate Unplugged. But don’t expect them to show you the video. The intimate session took place without cameras, lights, or microphones after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi adjourned for August recess and took her Democrat minions with her. Read more »
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