Okay, I think everybody agrees that Rush Limbaugh should not have called Ms. Fluke a "slut". Even Limbaugh agrees with that. Ms. Fluke inserted herself into a debate through her congressional testimony that is costs her $1000 a year for birth control, but that does not make her a slut. Some say it may make her a liar, but I digress.
How did birth control get to be a presidential campaign issue in the first place? It seems to have begun with George Stephanopolis asking Mitt Romney whether a state can ban contraceptives during a presidential debate. What a baffling question at the time. Little did we suspect that he was merely setting up the manufactured issue that was to come.
Can I get a date to testify before congress regarding my insulin costs? I'm diabetic, after all. If all of society must provide free contraceptives to every woman that wants them, can I get a little help with my insulin costs? I mean, a person doesn't need contraceptives to keep on living but, well, I do have to have insulin to survive more than a few weeks. All of society does not bear the cost of my insulin, yet I have to share in the cost of birth control pills. I'm told that I'm somehow a misogynist if I don't agree with this.
I pay every month for every prescription drug I have to use. Yet I have to provide birth control pills free of charge to all women. Why is that fair? Or, should everything be free for everybody? How does a society like that work? This is so nutty at so many levels it's not even funny, and the more disturbing part is how many people buy the nutty "argument" for this hook, line, and sinker. Say, how about this? Instead of making me pay for some woman's birth control (and frankly, at $1000 a year, that Fluke gal must be having an awful lot of sex) why not let me use that money to buy my insulin, which is not free at the expense of everyone else?
There are a great many necessities of life that are not provided free. But to make political (not women's health) points, the democrats have manufactured this as a political issue. The stupid republicans have fallen for it. And it's all so that the president can avoid having to talk about his dismal record. And it's working, so I don't blame them, but I'm just hoping that those who regurgitate the nonsense know in their own intellect that it's nonsense they are spewing so their guy gets reelected. I'm sure hoping they don't believe this crazy stuff.
Of course the new governement health care system is supposed to give everyone everything for free, right? Giving everything for free to everybody is a myth. It is definitely not free. I do in fact use more medication than the average person. If everybody had to pay for everybody's medications, I'd make out like a bandit. Is that supposed to make me support such nonsense? It is madness, I tell you...
Zambonis Rule!
Monday, March 19, 2012
Sunday, October 16, 2011
How Much Do Rich Folks Pay in Taxes?
Finally, a real duct tape moment topic!
You recall that a few weeks ago Warren Buffett was quite public in his pronouncements that he pays taxes at a lower rate on his income than does his secretary. That's shocking, isn't it? But is it true? Certainly politicians have picked up on this and have run with it. There's even a "Buffett Rule", named after the legendary Berkshire Hathaway CEO, being proposed to add a surcharge to the income taxes of wealthy folks like Warren Buffet. But was Mr. Buffett truthful in his remarks? Did he tell the whole truth? Does our tax system really work that way?
Well, it's not supposed to. The progressively higher tax rates on income as it goes up are 10%, 15%, 25%, 28%, 33%, and the highest rate of 35%. The tax system is one area of specific expertise for me, so you can trust me when I tell you, someone with a salary of $500,000 a year has a marginal tax rate of 35%. There are no gimmicks or tricks to get around that fact. However, there is another rate built into our system for certain kinds of income that doesn't come from salary.
If you invest in stocks, buying low and selling high, and if you hold those stocks more than a year then your tax rate on that income is 15%. That is indeed lower than the rate paid by some middle to upper middle class folks. In addition, dividends paid out of a corporations profits to shareholders on most stocks are also taxed at 15%. This was implemented in 2003. Prior to that, dividends were taxed just like salaries. Also, when Bill Clinton was in office capital gains were taxed as a maximum rate of 20%. Under Ronald Reagan's administration, it was 28%. So it is certainly legitimate to discuss whether 15% is the right rate, whether that lower rate should also apply to dividends, etc. But what about Mr. Buffett's claim?
Not having seen Mr. Buffett's income tax return, I have to presume from his public comments that he derives most of his income from dividends paid by Berkshire Hathaway, which is where most of Mr. Buffett's money is invested. But remember, Berkshire is a holding company for many other corporations. Corporations also have a 35% top rate just like individuals. Some corporations avoid taxes by leaving their profits overseas, as General Electric has done, thereby paying no taxes on those profits and using them to build factories overseas instead of here in the U.S. But U.S. companies doing business in the U.S. that are profitable generally pay 35%. Mr. Buffett's company is currently fighting a $1 billion tax bill with the IRS right now. That corporation pays an enormous amount in taxes. Therefore, Mr. Buffett's income has been taxed at a rate of 35% before he ever gets a nickel of it out of the company.
See, human beings own every financial asset on earth. We speak of corporations as if they are some sort of Dark Side entities run by mysterious Darth Vader types, but really, human beings own every bit of all of them. If Mr. Buffett owns Berkshire, and Berkshire pays 35% in taxes on the profits, then Mr. Buffet is getting taxed twice. That's how it works for corporations. But Warren Buffett somehow neglected to mention the taxes already paid on the profits his company generates. He focused solely on his personal income tax return. His secretary does not own Berkshire Hathaway, so she doesn't pay the double taxes.
Now, I have no problem with the Warren Buffetts and the Bill Gates' of the world paying more in taxes. Heck, if Mr. Buffett thinks he should pay more taxes he could just mail a check payable to the United States Treasury to Washington. And he could drop his company's resistance to paying that $1 billion the IRS is trying to collect.
But it doesn't help when deceitful information is bandied about, picked up by politicians and the media, and then used to mislead or deceive the public. Most people do not have detailed personal knowledge of how individual and corporate taxes work. That is why I've chosen to write about it here. Decide what ever you want to as far as what policies are right. Now that we've recovered from the financial shock of 9/11/2001 perhaps we should go back to taxing dividends as we used to. Fine. But at least know what is being proposed, and how the system works. Otherwise, you're just being manipulated by big wigs in the political and media world to accomplish their agenda, and they are using your ignorance to their own advantage. The time is now to destroy ignorance through education and communication. The better we all understand these things the harder we are to manipulate.
You recall that a few weeks ago Warren Buffett was quite public in his pronouncements that he pays taxes at a lower rate on his income than does his secretary. That's shocking, isn't it? But is it true? Certainly politicians have picked up on this and have run with it. There's even a "Buffett Rule", named after the legendary Berkshire Hathaway CEO, being proposed to add a surcharge to the income taxes of wealthy folks like Warren Buffet. But was Mr. Buffett truthful in his remarks? Did he tell the whole truth? Does our tax system really work that way?
Well, it's not supposed to. The progressively higher tax rates on income as it goes up are 10%, 15%, 25%, 28%, 33%, and the highest rate of 35%. The tax system is one area of specific expertise for me, so you can trust me when I tell you, someone with a salary of $500,000 a year has a marginal tax rate of 35%. There are no gimmicks or tricks to get around that fact. However, there is another rate built into our system for certain kinds of income that doesn't come from salary.
If you invest in stocks, buying low and selling high, and if you hold those stocks more than a year then your tax rate on that income is 15%. That is indeed lower than the rate paid by some middle to upper middle class folks. In addition, dividends paid out of a corporations profits to shareholders on most stocks are also taxed at 15%. This was implemented in 2003. Prior to that, dividends were taxed just like salaries. Also, when Bill Clinton was in office capital gains were taxed as a maximum rate of 20%. Under Ronald Reagan's administration, it was 28%. So it is certainly legitimate to discuss whether 15% is the right rate, whether that lower rate should also apply to dividends, etc. But what about Mr. Buffett's claim?
Not having seen Mr. Buffett's income tax return, I have to presume from his public comments that he derives most of his income from dividends paid by Berkshire Hathaway, which is where most of Mr. Buffett's money is invested. But remember, Berkshire is a holding company for many other corporations. Corporations also have a 35% top rate just like individuals. Some corporations avoid taxes by leaving their profits overseas, as General Electric has done, thereby paying no taxes on those profits and using them to build factories overseas instead of here in the U.S. But U.S. companies doing business in the U.S. that are profitable generally pay 35%. Mr. Buffett's company is currently fighting a $1 billion tax bill with the IRS right now. That corporation pays an enormous amount in taxes. Therefore, Mr. Buffett's income has been taxed at a rate of 35% before he ever gets a nickel of it out of the company.
See, human beings own every financial asset on earth. We speak of corporations as if they are some sort of Dark Side entities run by mysterious Darth Vader types, but really, human beings own every bit of all of them. If Mr. Buffett owns Berkshire, and Berkshire pays 35% in taxes on the profits, then Mr. Buffet is getting taxed twice. That's how it works for corporations. But Warren Buffett somehow neglected to mention the taxes already paid on the profits his company generates. He focused solely on his personal income tax return. His secretary does not own Berkshire Hathaway, so she doesn't pay the double taxes.
Now, I have no problem with the Warren Buffetts and the Bill Gates' of the world paying more in taxes. Heck, if Mr. Buffett thinks he should pay more taxes he could just mail a check payable to the United States Treasury to Washington. And he could drop his company's resistance to paying that $1 billion the IRS is trying to collect.
But it doesn't help when deceitful information is bandied about, picked up by politicians and the media, and then used to mislead or deceive the public. Most people do not have detailed personal knowledge of how individual and corporate taxes work. That is why I've chosen to write about it here. Decide what ever you want to as far as what policies are right. Now that we've recovered from the financial shock of 9/11/2001 perhaps we should go back to taxing dividends as we used to. Fine. But at least know what is being proposed, and how the system works. Otherwise, you're just being manipulated by big wigs in the political and media world to accomplish their agenda, and they are using your ignorance to their own advantage. The time is now to destroy ignorance through education and communication. The better we all understand these things the harder we are to manipulate.
Monday, October 10, 2011
What About Rich People?
What about those rich people, anyway? They seem to be in the political forefront these days. Either they are greedy bastards who don’t want to pay their fair share in taxes, or they are the job-creating saviors and we should let them make all the policies in their favor so they’ll create us more jobs.
Which is it? What role do rich people serve in society? Do we need them, or should we take all their wealth (well, we would leave them enough so they don’t have to work) and give it to everyone else? I’m not rich, so that does have a certain appeal. This is unless, of course, I need them to be who they are for some reason.
Take a trip with me for a minute. I’d like to take you on a visit to the city of Asheville, NC. Why? Because the largest home in America is located there. It is the Biltmore Estate, built in the very late 1800’s by George Vanderbilt, heir to the Cornelius Vanderbilt railroad fortune. It was George’s “little mountain escape”. This home is 175,000 square feet in area and took six years to build. Hundreds, if not thousands, of skilled and unskilled laborers were employed as well as architects, engineers, landscapers, and designers. The materials for Biltmore came from all over the world and required countless hours of paid human labor to mine, quarry, grow, or make. In the end, George spent over half of his family fortune on this one project.
After the home was built, hundreds of people in the Asheville area found jobs as groundskeepers for the vast acreage, farriers and blacksmiths for the stables, mechanics for the automobiles, maids, cooks, and all other sorts of domestic help imaginable. They were all paid somewhat higher than the going labor rates, because that is how George wanted things done.
Now, did Asheville benefit from George Vanderbilt choosing their area for his estate? The common playground for the rich was Newport, Rhode Island. To this day, however, the Biltmore Estate provides vast amounts of financial benefit to the Asheville area. It is the number one tourist destination in Asheville. It employs many people today. And it still belongs to the descendants of George Vanderbilt. By choosing to spend a vast portion of his inheritance in Asheville, the Asheville community benefited a great deal from the Vanderbilt family.
What if, instead, the government had confiscated 50% of George’s wealth? What would the outcome of that have been? Would it have been a net plus or negative to the nation overall? What would government have done with the money? We can only speculate. But when the rich spend or invest their money, I believe society benefits. And they do both of those things. Few rich people merely hunker down and count their hoarded money. They spend on things they want, and they invest in economic activities that fuel our economy. Yes, they strive to get richer. That’s what rich people do.
Those of us who are not rich can resent them, and demand that the government step in and take from them a larger “fair share”. And maybe, with historically low capital gains tax rates, that kind of policy would indeed be fairer. However, it is all too easy to get caught up in the motivations that come from resentment, envy, and lust for what the other guy has. Our government has tried multiple kinds of “stimulus”, cash for clunkers, first time homebuyer tax credits, and financial bailouts all while telling us these steps would create a healthy economy. Sometimes I think the politicians just try things, not knowing really what might help, and then they just cross their fingers. I’d just hate to see them drive away the very people in our society whose activities truly are needed to fuel economic prosperity. I may not trust rich people to have my best interests at heart, but I’ve not found any more reason to trust politicians to any greater extent. The political process is broken, but I don’t feel compelled to jump on the “hate the rich” bandwagon that seems to be developing steam.
Friday, October 7, 2011
What If...
Okay, this isn't a "Duct Tape Musing", but perhaps it's one of the musings of a delusional madman. In any case, I was having my usual contemplations while showering this morning, and the question occurred to me, "What if we are nothing more than toys in God's toy box?"
Why did God created us? Why do material things interest Him? He constitutes all of reality, and yet He seems to take pleasure in creating the material universe and creating living creatures within it. Then He went a step further and gave us immortal spiritual souls, a piece of Himself it seems. Why? What if we are nothing more than trivial playthings for God?
Sure, He loves us. Kids love their favorite toys, don't they? Responsible kids take very good care of them, and if their modeling clay gets a little too dry they don't hold a grudge, they just fix it by adding a little water. Well, the metaphor does break down fairly quickly, as all metaphors do. But the essential question remains.
Well, as will happen with musings, my mind wandered to the movie, Toy Story. What a cute movie that was. Do you recall what the highest goal was for all the toys? Yes, the thing that gave them their greatest meaning and pleasure was to please Andy, the little boy who owned them. Sure, there were the all-too-common jealousies of wanting to be Andy's favorite. There were the conflicts that come from interactions between peers. They sometimes did things Andy would not like, but in the end, Andy was the entire focus of their existence.
Was that a bad thing? No, I think the greatest aspiration for any creature is to fulfill the purpose its Creator had in mind to begin with. If we are God's playthings, because it gave Him pleasure to create us, then making Him happy should be our greatest ideal and our greatest joy. Andy's toys did not feel demeaned because they were "merely" toys. No, being Andy's toy meant everything to them.
It did give God great pleasure to create us. Yes, we are flawed, but He does not discard us. In fact, He died for us. Why? Because it pleases Him to treat us kindly, compassionately, mercifully. Even when we make Him mad, He is slow to anger and rich in love. I could not imagine anything more magnificent than to be one of the toys in God's celestial toy box that brings Him pleasure!
Why did God created us? Why do material things interest Him? He constitutes all of reality, and yet He seems to take pleasure in creating the material universe and creating living creatures within it. Then He went a step further and gave us immortal spiritual souls, a piece of Himself it seems. Why? What if we are nothing more than trivial playthings for God?
Sure, He loves us. Kids love their favorite toys, don't they? Responsible kids take very good care of them, and if their modeling clay gets a little too dry they don't hold a grudge, they just fix it by adding a little water. Well, the metaphor does break down fairly quickly, as all metaphors do. But the essential question remains.
Well, as will happen with musings, my mind wandered to the movie, Toy Story. What a cute movie that was. Do you recall what the highest goal was for all the toys? Yes, the thing that gave them their greatest meaning and pleasure was to please Andy, the little boy who owned them. Sure, there were the all-too-common jealousies of wanting to be Andy's favorite. There were the conflicts that come from interactions between peers. They sometimes did things Andy would not like, but in the end, Andy was the entire focus of their existence.
Was that a bad thing? No, I think the greatest aspiration for any creature is to fulfill the purpose its Creator had in mind to begin with. If we are God's playthings, because it gave Him pleasure to create us, then making Him happy should be our greatest ideal and our greatest joy. Andy's toys did not feel demeaned because they were "merely" toys. No, being Andy's toy meant everything to them.
It did give God great pleasure to create us. Yes, we are flawed, but He does not discard us. In fact, He died for us. Why? Because it pleases Him to treat us kindly, compassionately, mercifully. Even when we make Him mad, He is slow to anger and rich in love. I could not imagine anything more magnificent than to be one of the toys in God's celestial toy box that brings Him pleasure!
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
The Assasination of Samir Khan
Samir Khan was the publisher of an online magazine called "Inspire". He was a U.S. citizen who began his career by blogging from his family home basement in the U.S., but who moved to the Arabian penninsula to study Arabic. He began publishing his jihadist online magazine in 2010.
On September 30, 2011, Samir Khan was killed by a Hellfire missile fired from a CIA Predator drone aircraft. Our governement has not confirmed whether Mr. Khan was a separate target, or whether he was killed merely by being in the presence of Anwar al-Awlaki, who was also assassinated in the same attack. The Obama administration has also not released its legal justification for killing citizens of the United States without extending to them the protections afforded to Americans under the fifth ammendment of the U.S. Constitution, which states that no person shall be "deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." Neither has it articulated the specific charges of criminal or war acts alleged against Mr. Khan.
As an American, I am not sorry that either Mr. Khan or Mr. al-Awlaki are dead. I too initially celebrated that the two al Qaeda members who principally spoke to the Western world were dead. However, once I had a moment to reflect on this unprecedented action by our president, I became concerned. If the president of the United States can kill Mr. Khan because he does not like what he was publishing on the web, what will stop Mr. Obama from killing you or me if we do something he doesn't like? It appears that the only thing that has supported Mr. Obama's actions in this regard is general public opinion? Is public opinion on the killing of a U.S. citizen enough to constrain the governement in taking such actions against you or me if we somehow end up on the "bad" list? After all, the government says I am someone who is dangerous - a veteran of the U.S. army, a Christian, conservative in my views, white, and an owner of guns. Just how worried should I be?
Consider how well public opinion constrained tyranny in Germany in the 1930's.
On September 30, 2011, Samir Khan was killed by a Hellfire missile fired from a CIA Predator drone aircraft. Our governement has not confirmed whether Mr. Khan was a separate target, or whether he was killed merely by being in the presence of Anwar al-Awlaki, who was also assassinated in the same attack. The Obama administration has also not released its legal justification for killing citizens of the United States without extending to them the protections afforded to Americans under the fifth ammendment of the U.S. Constitution, which states that no person shall be "deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." Neither has it articulated the specific charges of criminal or war acts alleged against Mr. Khan.
As an American, I am not sorry that either Mr. Khan or Mr. al-Awlaki are dead. I too initially celebrated that the two al Qaeda members who principally spoke to the Western world were dead. However, once I had a moment to reflect on this unprecedented action by our president, I became concerned. If the president of the United States can kill Mr. Khan because he does not like what he was publishing on the web, what will stop Mr. Obama from killing you or me if we do something he doesn't like? It appears that the only thing that has supported Mr. Obama's actions in this regard is general public opinion? Is public opinion on the killing of a U.S. citizen enough to constrain the governement in taking such actions against you or me if we somehow end up on the "bad" list? After all, the government says I am someone who is dangerous - a veteran of the U.S. army, a Christian, conservative in my views, white, and an owner of guns. Just how worried should I be?
Consider how well public opinion constrained tyranny in Germany in the 1930's.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Should We Care if the Governement Kills Terrorists?
The killing of Anwar al-Aulaqi and Samir Khan seem so wrong on so many levels, but I will try to articulate why these killings of accussed terrorists are so troubling.
Recall the criticism of the George W. Bush administration for supposed "war crimes" because harsh interrogation techniques were employed against such captives as Khalid Sheik Muhammed. Candidate Barak Obama, and later the Obama administration, referred to waterboarding and other such enhanced interrogation techniques as "torture". In January 2009, President Obama banned the use of waterboarding.
Recall further that President Obama promised to eliminate the detention center for terrorists located in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He has found it impossible to find a politically survivable way to deal with these terrorists and Gitmo remains open, but our government no longer captures terrorists nor does it send any more to Gitmo. Now, we kill them with drones or kill them with Navy Seals. The loss of intelligence due to the administration's inability to figure out how to deal with interrogation and housing issues is not the subject of this piece, but it is also quite troubling.
Now, however, our President has taken an unprecedented step. He has institutionalized the notion that the President of the United States of America has the power and authority under our Constitution to order the killing of a U.S. citizen on foreign soil if he, in his sole discretion, believes that it should be done. When asked for details on the legal principles that allowed the killing of al-Aulaqi and Khan, the White House today stated that those were "state secrets". Therefore, no legal justification will be offered to Americans or the world, it appears.
The media has told us that al-Aulaqi was a very bad man. He is "linked" to other terroists, what ever that means. He has incited others to commit violence against Americans, we are told, though we do not know who his accusers are who say these things about him because no one in the judicial system has conducted a trial. We do not know what the evidence is that proves this man's guilt, other than the say-so of the media and the White House. This, my friends, is not how the United States of America was supposed to work.
The assassination of Mr. Khan is even more troubling. His great crime was to publish an online magazine that promoted jihad. To our knowledge, he has never killed anyone or participated in any terrorist plot. He says things we don't like on websites, and therefore he has been killed - a 20 year old American citizen who never stood trial or faced any accuser for what ever crime he is supposed to have committed.
This is not a liberal or conservative matter to me. It is a matter of whether we love our Constitutional form of government, respect how it came to be, and commit ourselves to governing in accordance with its principles, or whether we are willing to ignore it when the media and our political leadership tell us to ignore it.
I have no problem pouring water up the noses of terroists. I have no problem housing them humanely at Gitmo and putting them on trial in military tribunals as foreign enemy combatants. I do have a problem with my government killing American citizens who have been convicted of no crime. I had a problem with it when the massacre at Kent State occurred in 1970 and I have a problem with it today. Other Americans do not seem to mind. That is the observation that bothers me most. I wonder if we have not already lost our country and our liberty, and have simply been to distracted to notice.
Recall the criticism of the George W. Bush administration for supposed "war crimes" because harsh interrogation techniques were employed against such captives as Khalid Sheik Muhammed. Candidate Barak Obama, and later the Obama administration, referred to waterboarding and other such enhanced interrogation techniques as "torture". In January 2009, President Obama banned the use of waterboarding.
Recall further that President Obama promised to eliminate the detention center for terrorists located in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He has found it impossible to find a politically survivable way to deal with these terrorists and Gitmo remains open, but our government no longer captures terrorists nor does it send any more to Gitmo. Now, we kill them with drones or kill them with Navy Seals. The loss of intelligence due to the administration's inability to figure out how to deal with interrogation and housing issues is not the subject of this piece, but it is also quite troubling.
Now, however, our President has taken an unprecedented step. He has institutionalized the notion that the President of the United States of America has the power and authority under our Constitution to order the killing of a U.S. citizen on foreign soil if he, in his sole discretion, believes that it should be done. When asked for details on the legal principles that allowed the killing of al-Aulaqi and Khan, the White House today stated that those were "state secrets". Therefore, no legal justification will be offered to Americans or the world, it appears.
The media has told us that al-Aulaqi was a very bad man. He is "linked" to other terroists, what ever that means. He has incited others to commit violence against Americans, we are told, though we do not know who his accusers are who say these things about him because no one in the judicial system has conducted a trial. We do not know what the evidence is that proves this man's guilt, other than the say-so of the media and the White House. This, my friends, is not how the United States of America was supposed to work.
The assassination of Mr. Khan is even more troubling. His great crime was to publish an online magazine that promoted jihad. To our knowledge, he has never killed anyone or participated in any terrorist plot. He says things we don't like on websites, and therefore he has been killed - a 20 year old American citizen who never stood trial or faced any accuser for what ever crime he is supposed to have committed.
This is not a liberal or conservative matter to me. It is a matter of whether we love our Constitutional form of government, respect how it came to be, and commit ourselves to governing in accordance with its principles, or whether we are willing to ignore it when the media and our political leadership tell us to ignore it.
I have no problem pouring water up the noses of terroists. I have no problem housing them humanely at Gitmo and putting them on trial in military tribunals as foreign enemy combatants. I do have a problem with my government killing American citizens who have been convicted of no crime. I had a problem with it when the massacre at Kent State occurred in 1970 and I have a problem with it today. Other Americans do not seem to mind. That is the observation that bothers me most. I wonder if we have not already lost our country and our liberty, and have simply been to distracted to notice.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Didja See ABC World News on 11/09/2010?
Okay, here's a duct tape moment - you know, the kind of thing that makes you want to wrap your head in duct tape so it doesn't explode? Yesterday evening Diane Sawyer and ABC's World News Tonight ran a "story" about two supposed pastors of Christian churches who say they have lost their faith and no longer believe in God.
They teased the story from the beginning of their so-called news broadcast with lines such as, "Does your pastor have a deep dark secret? No, it's not what you think...". Who were these two "pastors"? We don't know. They were shown only in darkened silhouette and their voices were altered. Their names were not given. For all we know, they are not real people. Their stories went like this:
"I was a Christian for 30 years but then I started reading Bertrand Russel and others. I figured God was big enough to withstand criticism, and I wanted to see what these folks had to say. Well, I no longer believe, but this is my job and with the economy like it is I still go through the motions of being a pastor of a church because I need a paycheck."
That's not a quote, but a general paraphrase of the message. What I question is ABC's motive in running this broadside hit piece against Christianity. Are there pastors who lose their faith? I don't really know. Did these men ever have actual faith, or were they the types who grew up in church, maybe influenced by a youth pastor or other man in their church that they looked up to with respect, and decided maybe the ministry was a great vocation for them. Whether they had ever actually experienced God personally might not even have entered into the matter. They accepted what was familiar.
But the way ABC portrayed the story was interesting. Once they looked at the matter with an open mind, ABC indicated, well, they realized how stupid they had been blindly accepting this God that people more intelligent than themselves had already realized was a myth. The unspoken message was that pretty much anyone who takes a look objectively and intelligently will also come to the same conclusion. So all those clergy people you look up to? Ha, most of them probably don't believe all that God malarkey.
Was this story "news"? By no means. It was a piece designed with one purpose, to damage the faith of weak Christians who have not personally experienced God and only hold a general belief based on their upbringing. Pull them away and then you debase the traditional values that support our social institutions like marriage, country, and culture that our leftist media seem to hate so much.
Unfortunately, a lot of folks (and especially younger people) don't question where these "stories" come from, what they are designed to do, and the affect they have on society in general. Please, teach your children to think critically. Teach them to question authority - yours, and the media. Yes, God can withstand scrutiny. But the media doesn't scrutinize, it twists and manipulates. More than ever, we must be diligent to look beneath the covers at what is really going on.
They teased the story from the beginning of their so-called news broadcast with lines such as, "Does your pastor have a deep dark secret? No, it's not what you think...". Who were these two "pastors"? We don't know. They were shown only in darkened silhouette and their voices were altered. Their names were not given. For all we know, they are not real people. Their stories went like this:
"I was a Christian for 30 years but then I started reading Bertrand Russel and others. I figured God was big enough to withstand criticism, and I wanted to see what these folks had to say. Well, I no longer believe, but this is my job and with the economy like it is I still go through the motions of being a pastor of a church because I need a paycheck."
That's not a quote, but a general paraphrase of the message. What I question is ABC's motive in running this broadside hit piece against Christianity. Are there pastors who lose their faith? I don't really know. Did these men ever have actual faith, or were they the types who grew up in church, maybe influenced by a youth pastor or other man in their church that they looked up to with respect, and decided maybe the ministry was a great vocation for them. Whether they had ever actually experienced God personally might not even have entered into the matter. They accepted what was familiar.
But the way ABC portrayed the story was interesting. Once they looked at the matter with an open mind, ABC indicated, well, they realized how stupid they had been blindly accepting this God that people more intelligent than themselves had already realized was a myth. The unspoken message was that pretty much anyone who takes a look objectively and intelligently will also come to the same conclusion. So all those clergy people you look up to? Ha, most of them probably don't believe all that God malarkey.
Was this story "news"? By no means. It was a piece designed with one purpose, to damage the faith of weak Christians who have not personally experienced God and only hold a general belief based on their upbringing. Pull them away and then you debase the traditional values that support our social institutions like marriage, country, and culture that our leftist media seem to hate so much.
Unfortunately, a lot of folks (and especially younger people) don't question where these "stories" come from, what they are designed to do, and the affect they have on society in general. Please, teach your children to think critically. Teach them to question authority - yours, and the media. Yes, God can withstand scrutiny. But the media doesn't scrutinize, it twists and manipulates. More than ever, we must be diligent to look beneath the covers at what is really going on.
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