A Modest Proposal: Adopt Mexico's Illegal Immigrant Laws

Article 67 of Mexico's Population Law says, "Authorities, whether federal, state or municipal ... are required to demand that foreigners prove their legal presence in the country, before attending to any issues."

Amnesty International seems to think Mexico's application of this law is brutal. Read it yourself and decide if Mexico's objections to Arizona's new law are justified.

Central American migrants are frequently pulled off trains, kidnapped en masse, held at gang hideouts and forced to call relatives in the U.S. to pay off the kidnappers. Such kidnappings affect thousands of migrants each year in Mexico, the report says.

Many are beaten, raped or killed in the process.

One of the main issues, Amnesty says, is that migrants fear they will be deported if they complain to Mexican authorities about abuses.

Full article at: AP, April 28, 2010

A Rabbi and a Tax Collector Walk into the Temple

“A rabbi and a priest walk into a bar.” Ever hear a story begin like that? If you have, you are probably waiting for a laugh line about now. I wonder what Jesus’ listeners were thinking when he opened his act with, “a rabbi and a tax collector walk into the temple.” I wonder if they were looking for a laugh line too. So let’s put the story into the vernacular and maybe hear what the listeners heard and how they heard it. You’ll find the original version in Luke 18:9-14.

A Pharisee and a tax collector walk into the temple.

The Pharisee goes right up to God and says, “Hey, Lord! Look at me! Aren’t I a great guy? I don’t steal, I don’t cheat, I don’t run around on my wife. I do all the stuff I’m supposed to do. I fast and I pray. I’m not like that IRS agent over there, I pay tithes instead of taking them. I can’t wait to get up in the morning and look at myself in the mirror, and every day I can’t resist giving myself a great big squeeze.”

God says nothing because there is nothing to say.

The tax collector waits in the back. “What a mess I am! God, forgive my debts!”

So God forgives his debts.

Maybe there’s not a laugh line here, but I do wonder if the people listening to this story didn’t get a little giggle from the Pharisee’s prayer. In the Talmud is a prayer that sounds very much like that of the parable’s Pharisee:

I give thanks to Thee, O Lord my God, that Thou hast set my portion with those who sit in the seat of learning and Thou hast not set my portion with those who sit in street corners, for I rise early and they rise early, but I rise early for words of Torah and they rise early for frivolous talk; I labor and they labor, but I labor and receive a reward and they labor and do not receive a reward; I run and they run, but I run to the life of the future world and they run to the pit of destruction. (Babylonian Talmud, Berakoth 28b)

Personally, I get a little suspicious whenever someone attempts a Bernie Madoff and tells me how good he is. The parable’s Pharisee saw himself as pretty hot stuff and likely expended a great deal of effort letting his neighbors know about it. Living next door to a guy who makes himself the subject of every conversation would be either an exercise in patience or a personal daily comedy show, depending on one’s mood that morning, but frankly, sharing the back fence and a beer with the lowly tax collector would be a better way to spend an afternoon.

The point is, beware of people who like to talk about themselves and all their wonderful talents, and be just as cautious around those who look down on others and share their disgust with everyone else in the sandbox. In the words of the parable, they despise others (verse 9). Those are toxic people, and you deserve better than that.

My Thoughts on Earth Day

Some 40 years ago, I was involved in the first Earth Day event, and I have no regrets about it. Understand where I was in those days. It was Niagara Falls, NY, potentially one of the most beautiful places in the world, but in those days one of the most polluted.

Love Canal, that infamous pit hole, was within walking distance of my house. Just a few blocks behind us factory smokestacks spewed soot and foul odors. Many men who worked in those plants died young from strange cancers, as have many of those who just happened to live in Niagara Falls.

Back then nearby Lake Erie was almost a “dead” lake, no fish being able to survive in the cesspool it had become. I deigned to fish in the Niagara River, just down the street from me, but if I happened to catch one, it was advised not to have it for dinner. The banks of the river were littered with every piece of trash imaginable, and whatever was in the water caused the banks to be lined with some kind of foamy mixture that didn’t smell very good.

On the way to elementary school (we were able to walk to school in those days) dumps of some kind of slag heaps from nearby chemical plants littered the field we used to cross. We never knew what those slag heaps were or where they came from, but we knew they were not a part of God’s creation and it was best to dodge them whenever possible.

To this day mountains of industrial waste are still growing in and around the city. I am sure that Occidental Petroleum's then-owner Armand Hammer (that Soviet synpathizer) and his Love Canal is not an isolated problem, and that other toxic time bombs have just not been brought to light yet.

In my high school days Earth Day was something I had to be involved in because there were real, visible, smellable, verifiable risks to health and life parked in front of me every time I looked out the window, went for a walk, or showed up on the sandlot ball field. I felt I had no choice but to be involved, and I was right. The command to “dress it and keep it” is plain enough. “Dress it” is to improve it. “Keep it” is to preserve it. That makes as much sense to me now as it did then.

And therein is the rub, and why I call myself a conservationist and not an environmentalist. From what I see the modern environmentalist seems to operate from the perspective that the human race is an ecological outcast, and that if people would just go away the world would reach a natural balance of perfect ecological harmony. But one look at what happens to your vegetable garden should let you know what happens when there is not a gardener there to tend it: It overgrows with weeds and critters.

In the Biblical worldview, the job of the human race is to finish God’s work, to take that garden and keep it beautiful and productive. The problem is, we have played the role of environmental invader as opposed to our God-given role of stewards and sustainers. And we do that because we have become Takers instead of Givers.

Just as important as that is the strange turn the environmental movement has taken. As our society has invested more and more to clean up the mess we made, and as these efforts have become more and more successful, the environmental movement seems to have evolved into a cabal of hobbyists or perhaps better said a group of religious zealots. The Earth (always spelled with a capital “E”) has become a goddess, a new incarnation of the ancient Gaia, and this Gaia has become a living, breathing organism of its own.

This mindset touts theoretical disasters that might result from a 1 degree change in temperature, which of course is our fault, and other such concerns. Do you see why this now older boy who once saw real environmental degradation and still hears stories of strange cancers from his boyhood home questions the purveyors of such alarms? Do you see why I suspect that "environmentalism" has become a tool to shake down the rest of us for our money and freedom?

And it bothers me. It bothers me a lot. It bothers me because we as a people have an obligation to our Creator to be aware of the needs of our environment and our responsibility to dress and keep it for our benefit and the glory of God. As hype is hyped and subsequently discredited, very real environmental concerns are discredited along with it.

Let’s get real, folks. Being good to the earth (small “e”) is a mandate from God. But Gaia is not a god, and neither are money and control.

So Who Are the Racists?

It seems that every little bit of criticism is held up as evidence of racism. But I will submit that it's the left that is fixated on race. Look at these gems:

"I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy," – Joe Biden

“Light-skinned … with no Negro dialect unless he wanted to have one.” – Harry Reid

"Listen he's a nice person, he's very articulate, but he couldn't sell watermelons if you gave him the state troopers to flag down the traffic." – Dan Rather

“I forgot he was black tonight for an hour.” Chris Matthews after the State of the Union Address

Poll: Young people in their teens, the voters of tomorrow, have no faith in democratic institutions

Quote:

“In the United States … recent public opinion polls have revealed that an actual majority of young people in their teens, the voters of tomorrow, have no faith in democratic institutions, see no objection to the censorship of unpopular ideas, do not believe that government of the people by the people is possible and would be perfectl6y content, if they can continue to live in the style to which the boom has accustomed them, to be ruled, from above, by an oligarchy of assorted experts. That so many of the well-fed television-watchers in the world’s most powerful democracy should be so completely indifferent to the idea of self-government, so blankly uninterested in freedom of thought and the right to dissent, is distressing, but not too surprising.”

Distressing indeed, but think of it this way. Those words written in 1958 by Aldous Huxley in his Brave New World Revisited. The teenagers he was talking about are now in their 60’s and 70s.

They Aren’t Like Any Baptists I Know

I’ve been around a lot of Baptists in my life. I’ve known Southern Baptists, Free Will Baptists, American Baptists, Independent Baptists, Primitive Baptists, and Seventh Day Baptists. There is one thing I can tell you. People who call themselves Westboro “Baptists” are not like any Baptists I know.

They want you believe that they know the Bible and that they know it a whole lot better than you do. They love those parts that they can use as a club against other peoples’ sins, especially the part in I Corinthians 6 that says people with certain sexual issues will not be in the kingdom of God.

So let’s accept the Apostle Paul at his word here. Paul is very clear that people who are idolaters and adulterers are in the same spiritual condition as the others on the list. Why doesn’t that special breed of self-proclaimed “Baptist” protest adultery and the broken marriages that result? I would humbly submit that adultery and other heterosexual sins have done more damage to our culture over the last half century than has the other. Think of the broken marriages, the hurt children of those marriages, the abortions, the STDs, the economic poverty, and the emotional train wrecks that lay in the wake of sex outside of the bounds of marriage.

And even if you disagree about which sexual sin has done more damage, can anyone deny that Paul’s bold statement condemns both equally?

Here’s another thing I don’t understand. I don’t understand why these “Baptists” of that supposed “church” don’t take Paul’s full counsel. They don’t realize that it is a duty of the follower of Christ to “speak the truth in love”, not in hate. And I don’t understand why they think they are righteous while at the same time they commit one of the egregious sins on Paul’s list: reviling. Look up revile in your Webster’s. It’s not a pretty thing, and Westboro needs to check its own heart, especially when they lack an understanding of what Paul really said the chapter before.

In Chapter 5 of I Corinthians Paul provides a similar sin list in verse 11 as he does in chapter 6. But before that (verse 8) he makes the point that sins committed in malice and wickedness are the dangerous ones. Throughout his time on earth, Jesus consistently showed mercy to those who sinned out of weakness or ignorance and even stated that principle on a number of occasions (Matthew 11:20-24, Luke 12:47-48). I’m simply going to ask some questions. We’ll let you answer them. Who is a reviler? Who is acting in malice? Is Westboro Baptist free of sin?

The Other Golden Rule

The “do unto others” maxim is about as well known as any in the world, but there is another Golden Rule that will become more apparent as healthcare reform begins its trek towards implementation. That new Golden Rule is this: He what gots the gold makes the rules.

Most would agree that one way to lower medical costs in the short run is to live healthier lifestyles. (Note: I personally question whether this would be true in the long run. Example: Smokers die younger than non-smokers and therefore shave years off Social Security obligations and ongoing medical expenses.) If the government is the source of funding for medical expenses, it won’t be long before they begin a program of “incentives” for healthier living in order to “promote the general welfare”.

This practice of incentives (often leading to “disincentives” for unacceptable behavior) has been standard operating procedure for nearly a century. Home ownership is deemed good, so the government provides special tax breaks to encourage home ownership. College education is good, therefore taxpayers are afforded tax credits for higher education. Saving for retirement is good, therefore we have tax advantaged retirement plans.

In the same way, certain behaviors are deemed negative for the general welfare, and therefore disincentives are put in place. If carbon dioxide is deemed to be a poison (hold your breath on this one), government will impose a carbon tax to discourage release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. If nuclear power plants are deemed unacceptable, strangle them with regulations.

If the government funds certain programs, the government will insist on keeping certain strings attached to the use of those funds. If states accept federal education dollars, the Department of Education will mandate what those states may teach or not teach. If a charity accepts funds from the government to fund its programs, they must adhere to government hiring guidelines. If federal construction funds are released, those accepting those dollars must either pay union scale wages or hire the union help.

Because the government gots the gold, the government can make the rules.

So when the government controls healthcare dollars, the government in the name of “general welfare” can rationalize special taxes on products they deem particularly destructive. Do you like cheeseburgers for lunch? Expect to pay a special tax to pay for your irresponsibility to the rest of society. Do you like soft drinks with sugar and corn syrup? Pay a higher tax. Do you weigh more than the charts say you should? How does a "fat tax" grab you?

Don’t think these things aren’t possible. This is way these things will unfold. Maybe you think it’s good when the government regulates private behavior. If you do, remember that a government that is your master cannot be your servant.

Who's on First?

See "Who's on First" here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sShMA85pv8M

The advent of Major League Baseball’s opening day demands a revisit to the classic Abbott and Costello routine. “Who’s on First?” still elicits guffaws generations after its debut.

The signature line from this classic piece of slapstick is the subject of this essay, and the theme is not baseball. The theme is about politics and churches, and particularly about politics in churches. Churches seem to split all the time and lots of reasons can account for that, sometimes doctrinal and sometimes not. To an outsider it is particularly curious when a church splits and both resulting congregations seem to retain virtually identical doctrines. That makes both of them look a little small in the eyes of the world, and maybe the eyes of the world are getting it right.

Having seen a number of splits firsthand, I can tell you that the wisdom of Abbott and Costello is a big part of the answer.

Who’s on first? Asking that question is a common human affliction and can almost become an obsession. Everybody wants to be on first. The disciples wanted to know who would be first in the kingdom of God. They all wanted to know who would be seated at Jesus’ right hand and left. Absalom, one of the wayward sons of King David, wandered around Jerusalem lamenting how if only he were king the people would be so much better off. He wanted to be first, and he wanted it so badly he was willing to foment a revolution over it.

As with the disciples and every generation before and after, churches that can be so very similar separate from each other and antagonize each other over the simple question of who’s in charge – “Who’s on first,” as it were.

One time I talked to a lady who was a part of a church split, and she was ecstatic about it. If memory serves, this split was of a Methodist church in a smaller city. But they split because they had a better understanding of Who’s on first than some of the church splits in my experience. The church was a growing church. They were a fast growing church.

Then they split.

But they split not over doctrine, not over politics, and not over who was in charge. They split because it was better to have two moderate-sized congregations on different sides of town than one large one on one side of town. Splitting enabled them to better serve the community. That’s the kind of split I would like to see more of.

And it worked because they know Who is on first.