Saturday, December 1, 2007

Something to think about ...

I found this link today while looking at Technorati which bumped me from one thing to another thing to another thing, etc., and I ended up here: ["Are You Supporting The Porn Industry When Buying Kids' Christmas Gifts Christians?"].
I don't necessarily completely subscribe to this thinking. But it does make me think a bit, especially when looking at the entire global economy and things encircling around it [corporate greed, sub-prime mess, the stock market, Christians who worship the money god, etc.]. Maybe I read the WSJ too much at this point but I think I'm getting a pretty good education on economics and what is wrong with economics. And then, when you measure those things to what your core values are as a person - or what you would like your core values to be, what you aspire to, and all that encompasses that, you get a mind-full, if you will.
I like the fact that "Job" is not trying to pass judgment here but is instead trying to connect a number of points together and see if anyone else gets it. I got a lot of it. I also like these lines:
And this really is not about Christmas anyway, but rather daily Christian living. Whenever you disobey Jesus Christ by making unnecessary purchases, it is not only a personal sin, but you are contributing to the system of personal, national, and global enslavement to greed and materialism that causes physical death in this life and spiritual death in the next that the Emily Sander Zoey Zane story represents. When you are buying that trinket that you don’t need or even really want … you might have to consider that the guilt - tripping bleeding heart liberals are right … think about the starving children out there.
Like, somehow, things that bleeding heart liberals say are not right sometimes. And the fact that we do think about these things at Christmastime but forget them after Jan. 1 ... probably when the credit card bills start coming in.
As we all have learned, both sides of the fence are right on a number of things, especially when juxtaposing them with scripture. And, at the same time, we are all imperfect so we should be the last people to judge anyone. All we can do is our best or what we think is best and forgive those who do us harm.
For example, if we took Christ's words literally, none of us would have much at all and we wouldn't be doing 95 percent of what we are doing. We could have true communities of people helping each other instead of attacking each other, trying to eat each other alive in order to get to a perceived step up [Note: I used the word "could" instead of "would." "Would" implies a definitive and, after all, we are humans, imperfect, and therefore can never truly create a "perfect" world]. We would have low to no taxes because we would have low to no war [This would be a "would" because math is definitive even if liars figure and figures lie, or whatever that saying is].
If next year, for example, the Pentagon budget was cut by 91 percent like it was in the year after World War II [FY1947], it would be about $60 billion and not the $647 billion it is for FY2008 ... [Check out Page 7 of the Defense Departments FY2008 Green Book if you don't believe me and while you're there, check out all the other interesting information]. And, BTW, this does not include money for "the Global War on Terror" or the Iraq/Afghanistan campaigns [Page 10 of Green Book states, and I quote, with an asterisk next to National defense: "* Estimated future emergency funding for the Global War on Terror is not included." Check out those words: "Estimated future ..." How can you estimate the future?]. We could all work and earn less because we wouldn't need as much. And, would of this be such a bad thing?
It reminds me of the John Adams quote that Jerry Brown used to bandy about in 1991 and 1992 during his run for the presidency:
I must study politics and war [so] that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.
Sure, it is a tad sexist. But the point is that at some point in the future of mankind, we should be able to move beyond politics and war, and later, move beyond commerce, so that we are able to concentrate on art, music, and poetry. So long as we are always fighting, so long as we are always scrambling for the crumbs, we are not able to move beyond it and are doomed as a society and a species.
Again, something to think about.

1 comment:

healtheland said...

Job is my actual name. I like what you said about how not fighting wars lower taxes. (I used to be an ultraconservative hyperpartisan religious right George W. Bush Republican. It was a lot of fun! Then I started, you know, reading the Bible, and it ruined it for me.) The GOP keeps blaming the Democrats for high taxes while they are fighting their wars. (Although it must be said, the Democrats do a lot of warmongering of their own ... they lie to their supporters about supporting peace and the poor when they support wars and major corporations too). I think that I will use it in a follow - up post.