Why I support the YEC witch

[grmorton]

There is an interesting question I am pondering. What does Freedom mean? When I lived under my father's roof, he often wouldn't let me do something he considered to be a mistake because I was eating his food and wearing clothes he paid for. "As long as you live under my roof, Glenn, you WILL follow my rules!", he said many times. Thus, I was not truly free. I couldn't make my own decisions. I was not free to do things that my father thought was a mistake. So, does freedom include the freedom to be wrong? Or must we all follow some particular behavioral pattern?

Following on that is the question of which is more important, Freedom, or Truth? If I possess freedom, true freedom to make mistakes, then it clearly raises the question about whether, if one is wrong factually, is it ethical to force them to give up their beliefs? I say no. One can persuade, one can argue, but it is absolute tyranny for people to try to force others to give up their false beliefs.

I am known far and wide for my opposition to young earth creationism. But it is also fairly obvious that over the past couple of years I have been largely absence from that debate. From age 20 until 44, I was a committed young-earth creationist. Everyone knows that I published lots of articles attempting to make YEC work. I published 30+ items arguing for young-earth creationism. But all the work I put into that effort crashed around my feet in the early 1990s, and I found myself thinking a lot about rejecting religion entirely. I spent about 10 years in that struggle before emerging knowing that atheism simply makes no sense. During that time I continued to present geological arguments against YEC, and I still am firmly convinced that YEC is a horribly flawed strategy of my fellow believers, who want the Bible to be historical, but which strategy fails when one forces the Bible to be interpreted in a way that requires us to believe a false history of the earth.
But all that being said, the questions in the first 2 paragraphs has made me re-think where best to spend the time God gives me. I recently received from an old friend, an approving note about a Lawrence Krauss article in Scientific American in August, 2010, p. 36. I have edited my replies into what follows.

Lawrence Krauss, "Faith and Foolishness," Scientific American, August, 2010, p. 36

" When presented with the statement “human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals,” just 45 percent of respondents indicated “true.” Compare this figure with the affirmative percentages in Japan (78), Europe (70), China (69) and South Korea (64).
Only 33 percent of Americans agreed that “the universe began with a big
explosion.”
. . .
White evangelical Protestants have the highest denial rate (55 percent), closely followed by the group across all religions who attend services on average at least once a week (49 percent).
I don’t know which is more dangerous, that religious beliefs force some people to choose between knowledge and myth or that pointing out how religion can purvey ignorance is taboo. To do so risks being branded as intolerant of religion.
. . .
Religious leaders need to be held accountable for their ideas."

© source where applicable

I read this when I got my Sci-Am. As a libertarian, politically, I don't like the increasing governmental dictates that intrude more and more into our daily lives. Part of this intrusion is being driven by those with whom I share my evolutionary beliefs. I don't like the increasing intolerance for religion which I see among the pro-evolution crowd.

I think at heart this is why I withdrew from the debate. I am tired of political and scientific nannies telling me what I must or must not believe. They have become nothing more than another form of fundamentalism--which I define as a belief system that says you MUST believe what they tell you to or you are to be held in contempt or persecuted in other ways. Evolutionists criticize YECs for teaching that one MUST believe in YEC to be a Christian, but then, they turn around and say people MUST be held accountable when we don't live up to their ideas--as Kraus does below. Shunning, a widely used device in religious circles for those who deviate is also widely used among the scientific fundamentalists who shun you, ridicule you or call you names if you disagree with anthropogenic global warming

Frankly, Kraus should not assume that his moral universe is superior to all others. What scientific data can he possibly present to support his complete self-assurance that his moral views are the only correct ones? And isn't that what evolutionists hate about the YECs--they think their moral universe is superior to all others?

Scientific nannyism extends from abortion, to global warming, to the worth of the individual, to the relationship of the individual to the state. In the case of global warming we are told in no uncertain terms how we must believe, that this 20th century warming is unprecedented, yet somehow, those scientific nannies forget, ignore and/or react with anger if you point out that geology shows that 5000 years ago the world was warmer by 2-3 deg C, that there was no permafrost in Siberia at that time, that seas were 2 meters higher, that Antarctican ice shelves collapsed hundreds of kilometers south of where melting is occurring today. The fundamentalist nanny scientist priests tell us that we must ignore the fact that oranges grew in Guangxi province China in the 800's AD, a place today that is too cold for them to grow--yet if you tell scientific nannies that this is the case, you get met with fundamentalist claims that you must be an idiot to believe such things.

Another case of scientific nannyism came to my attention while reading Nature:

Brian Wynne, "When doubt becomes a weapon." Nature, 466(2010), p. 441

"In Merchants of Doubt, science historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway
describe how a small circle of influential and ideological US scientists
paralysed policy action on various environmental and health issues, from the dangers of tobacco smoke to global warming. The group did so by manipulating scientific uncertainty to undermine evidence that supported regulation."

© source where applicable

I am sorry, but scientific evidence says NOTHING about regulation. It says
things about correlations between events. Regulation or non-regulation is a POLITICAL and MORAL decision, not a scientific decision. Yet scientific nannyists insist that they have the right to enforce THEIR morality and THEIR political opinion on others because they think they have the only true way of thinking. When there is abundant peer-reviewed evidence that the world was both hotter and the seas higher 5000 years ago, why is one to claim that his political view must prevail on global warming? What gives these arrogant bastards the right to impose their form of fundamentalism on the rest of us?

I recently heard that Gisele Bundchen proclaimed that breast feeding should be mandatory for all children under 6 months. What business is it of hers? Nannys are everywhere proclaiming over and over how the rest of the world should live. God save us from the fundamentalist nannies of all stripes, who think they are better and more knowledgeable than the rest of us.

No doubt, this bad attitude of mine will be met with claims that Kraus isn't doing that. Of course Krauss is doing that. Even scientifically no one can be absolutely sure that the Poincare Cycle (go look it up on your own) didn't create our present universe, in which case, YEC would be scientifically true and Krauss would merely be forcing his beliefs on others!!! Yet he wants to hold religious leaders accountable. I am tired of the political and scientific tyrants (or scientific fundamentalists) thinking that they can determine how everyone else lives because they think they and their views are superior to everyone else.

During my time arguing against YEC, I felt a bit like one of Lenin's useful idiot. I was trotted out as a 'tame' believer and used as an example to YECs of how a Christian could accept evolution. But I never felt that their goal was merely the fighting of YEC, it was the fighting of religion itself. There were too many anti-religious jokes and snide comments about the stupidity of religion on all the forums. During the last election, when the republicans said stupid things about science, it
was ballyhooed as examples of their ignorance; but when equally stupid statements were made by dems, the evolutionists would get mad if I pointed it out. They were clearly advancing an agenda I didn't share. Therefore I decided that I didn't want to play the role of useful imbecile any
longer. I still know that evolution happened, but I also know there are more important issues to be faced in this country.

Krauss illustrates the arrogance and intolerance of the modern scientific fundie. They present a problem. Today, it is Krauss demanding that religious people abide by his views of abortion or evolution. Tomorrow what will it be? Already there is a subtle shift in terminology, our
government is talking about freedom to worship, which is NOT the same thing as freedom of religion.( http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2010/july/2.12.html
) Freedom of worship means I can go to the basement of my choice to pray. But that may not allow me to tell others of my faith or belief system. Freedom of religion means I can engage in my religion so long as I don't hurt others or interfere with their freedoms to engage in non-religion, if that is their choice.

I am disturbed by the constant harassment and suppression of free speech I see. Today Facebook said no one can criticize the gay life style. That is fascism, not freedom. No one is above criticism. No one, and no lifestyle should be immune from it. In what manner is that different from Muslims saying to newspapers that they can't draw Mohammed?

I saw on Bloomberg today that a Dem Congressman who voted for the Healthcare bill has objected to the Ohio election commission because an opposition group is saying that he voted for Federal funding for abortion. The election commission is threatening the president of the opposition group with jail. The commission says the claim is untrue which means we now have the government deciding what is and isn't true and we like sheep must blindly follow. The fact is that the Healthcare bill does allow Federal funding for abortion and by voting for the health care bill, he did vote to federally fund abortions. But the nanny's who think they get to decide what we can think and say, are trying hard to suppress free speech by threatening jail time. (http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=39498&page=1)
And today’s firing of Juan Williams by the very liberal and tax-supported National Propaganda Radio shows that these liberals won’t tolerate any views they disapprove of. They ARE the thought police.

While I was living in China, I was once in an internet discussion about how to use the courts to stop John Buell (editor of Of Panda's and People) from publishing a new book. I was so appalled by that that I instructed my wife to send John's organization some money to fight off the ACLU. She did. I will NOT engage in behavior that removes from YECs their basic
rights as citizens and taxpayers be part of the decision on how those tax dollars are spent. Why? Because if they don't have their rights, I won't have mine. From their point of view and mine, the young-earthers correctly see the government taking their tax money and using it
to extinguish them. That isn't fair in anyone's book. It is in principle like Pol Pot or Mao making the prisoner dig his own grave before he is shot. If we want to kill off YEC, we must do it by persuasion, not force. And taxation is most definitely force. If you don't pay your taxes, you go to jail, even if you have no right to say how those tax dollars are spent.

People out here in flyover land are tired of funding the whims of the parasitic class (Krauss, being a professor gets most of his salary and funding from us taxpayers and thus, in a real sense, he is parasitic to the economic body). These elites, who live off our backs, using our tax dollars to tell us what we must teach, using our tax dollars to tell us that we have no right to amend a state constitution without the approval of the Federal judicial system, and suing us for trying to enforce federal laws concerning the borders. And then, most galling, is that these very parasitic bureaucrats get better benefits than most out here. That is not a sustainable situation. Taxpayers who are barely making it by get to watch Michele Obama frolic on the Spanish coast at the cost of a king's ransom, all taken from the labor of the taxpayer. No doubt the elites will tell us we must fund a jolly good time for Michelle because we get to eat cake.

While I disagree with YEC tremendously and my past actions show how much I do disagree with it, I have NO right to tell them that they can't use their tax dollars to further their agenda if the elites are using those very same tax dollars to further their preferred agenda. Fairness is fairness. It can't be morally right for one side to say that ONLY THEY have the right to proclaim, 'you must give us your dollars so we can teach your kids what WE want to teach them even if it is contrary to what you believe," It becomes tyranny when the other side is never allowed to win, even if they do it fair and square according to the rules. This is why it is so perverse for judges to overrule what voters determined.


And here is that fundamental question again. Do we citizens have a right to make our decisions or must we bow to the commands of a ruling elite. Are we adults or are we wee children in need of a Great Leader? In New York, adults no longer have the freedom to over salt their French fries, the nannyists worry about your blood pressure and removed your choice. And adults in New York are no longer allowed to eat trans-fat, and now the elites in New York are going after outdoor smoking. Yes, the masses need to be forced to obey the dictates of their rich, smarter and better looking leaders.(http://m.npr.org/story/130111848 ). Obama is now explaining the coming electoral defeat by saying effectively that we are not thinking clearly because we are scared, which, of course, assumes that he is the GREAT CLEAR THINKER! Sen. Kerry expresses his contempt for those who would dare disagree with him by saying

"We have an electorate that doesn't always pay that much attention to what's going on so people are influenced by a simple slogan rather than the facts or the truth or what's happening."
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/us_...ctorate_stupid

Before you agree with this consider that I was in a cab with a very uneducated driver and he thought most voters were too stupid to vote the way he thought they should vote as well. We all look at the others and think they are stupid if they disagree with us.




California, right or wrong, voted to change their constitution. One dictatorial judge says that Californians no longer have the right to change their constitution without his agreement to what changes they make. Do we really want our 'betters' our 'Masters" forcing us to do what they want us to do? Missourians voted 70% to opt out of Obamacare. Any bets that a federal judge will come along and say the citizens don't have the freedom to opt out? One man gets to override millions of votes. Freedom means the freedom to make mistakes. Even if it is a mistake for Californians to deny gays marriage rights, the question is, do they have the freedom to make that wrong choice? I contend that if they don't have the freedom to make mistakes, they don't have real freedom.Do the citizens or the elites run this country? Krauss represents the elites who think they can tell us all how to live. It is time to have our freedom back, even if it is only
to make mistakes.

Our Declaration of Independence says, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."


It is incredibly important that our rights come from the Deity and not from the government. Those who hold that man evolved without God's involvement must by necessity believe that our rights are granted to us by the government. And this changes the relationship between the government and the governed. Rights are alienable if there is no Creator. The government can withdraw rights granted to us at their whim, as has happened in many cases.

The government is removing our contract rights. My father-in-law owned GM corporate bonds. In a bankruptcy, the bondholder is supposed to be first in line to be paid off. That is part of the contract and contracts outline the rights and privileges between two parties. But our courts took the view that contract rights are alienable and they declared that the unions were first in line in the GM bankruptcy and the bond holders were screwed. My father-in-law lost tens of thousands of dollars because his rights were abrogated for political expediency. It might have happened to some of your relatives. But that isn't the only place where contracts are no longer being honored. If you loan money to someone to buy a house, the government now makes it hard for you to collect the house if the buyer ceases paying his mortgage. Today I saw that Chicago's sheriff is refusing to foreclose homes. While he thinks he is being nice, what he forgets is that he has his money in banks which lent his money to those people who now don't pay their mortgage. If the bank doesn't get the property to sell and recoup their loss, they may fail and take his deposit with them. Being nice to the home owner is being mean to the person who loaned the money in the first place. It is being unfair to the neighbor who pays his debt. Contract enforcement MUST be honored and not be at the whimsy of the government or we will all suffer. If foreclosures around the country cease we risk a collapse of the banking system.

Our rights cannot be dependent upon a fickle government and be secure at the same time. If you own timberland in Oregon, the government is about to interfere with your property rights again. They are about to shut down what remains of the lumber industry, the small amount left alive after the spotted owl debacle. The last thing a land owner wants on his land is some endangered species because you will lose your property rights (lefty environmentalists love animals; they hate humans). Go look at the Kelo v. City of New London Supreme Court case. The court ruled that it is ok to steal your land and give it to another private individual, in that particular case, a hotel-retail-condo developer. The city thought it was going to get 3000 jobs. The facility was never built because the company which was supposed to be the anchor for that redevelopment shut their facility and moved 1500 more jobs out of New London. You no longer actually own your property in any more fundamental way than do the poor urban Chinese. There, the government regularly seizes the land of the poor hu tongs (neighborhoods) and then build new buildings on them, and the land is now rented for 99 years to billionaire developers. After this decision, our freedom to own land is no more certain than the inhabitants of the hu tongs.

Christians face more and more anti-religious pressure. The Supreme court ruled that Christians on a campus no longer have the right of free association (Christian Legal Society v. Martinez). They said that non-christians were allowed to join and run this free association of religious lawyers. This means that Christians no longer are afforded the unalienable right to peaceably assemble which is guaranteed in the First Amendment. When one group loses their freedom, all our freedoms are threatened. Those who don't think so should remember that someday in the future, your political opponents will have power and they should ask themselves if they want the same things done to them that they are doing to Christians?

I have had discussions with a young pastor who, noting the above court case, worries that eventually churches will be forced to hire people who don't share their religious beliefs and that he fears he will face jail time. I told this young man that he better be mentally and economically prepared to spend some time in jail for his beliefs.


Thus, as I looked at the problems in society over the past few years I began to realize that Freedom is more important than Truth. Without Freedom, one can't debate the issues and decide the Truth. Without Freedom, Truth is given from the rulers (as my father's truth was delivered to me as a child). Without Freedom, we can't own our property with certainty. I began to realize that the real threat to society lay not from the mis-guided and powerless YECs, but from the anti-religionists, and scientific fundamentalists who felt they have the right and moral superiority to deny anti-evolutionists their basic human rights, one of which is to vote for and implement policies of their choice (so long as they can convince a majority of their fellow citizens).

Because of the above, I decided to support any and every candidate who will support real freedom. Not the kind of shame freedom offered by the scientific fundies and their lefty anti-religious envirowacko ilk. Their freedom merely grants to us the freedom to agree with them. Dissent is not allowed. Thus I have given money to the YEC witch, Christine O'Donnell. While I don't think the YEC witch will win, I do hope she does. I want her to turn a few of the parasitic bureaucrats and politicians into toads. She is much smarter than those ignoramuses who laughed at her asking where 'separation of church and state' was in the constitution. That phrase does not appear. The elitist ignoramuses who laughed are precisely those who are taking our freedoms away.

I have also donated to Sharron Angle and Starr Parker who are rumored on lefty blogs to be a YECs. Do I care that they are or might be YECs? Not at all. Which is dumber, someone who believes the earth is 6000 years old or someone who thinks higher taxation and higher spending creates jobs? I don't know, but I do know which one is more dangerous! Who is more dangerous, someone who believes that God created man 6000 years ago and that our rights devolve not from the Government but from God, or someone who thinks that our rights are subject to change at the whim of a governmental official? Clearly the most dangerous person is those who believe that the government gives us our human rights because the government can change their mind and then take those rights away. Already it is late in our loss of liberty. We have already lost much of our ability to own land (owning means determining its use); we have lost freedom to control how salty our fries are; we have lost the right to have your contract honored and we are losing the freedom of RELIGION and assembly. We just lost the freedom to have the healthcare of our choice, and the freedom NOT to have healthcare. Our liberty is at peril. It is time to put down inconsequential arguments.

[seanD]

I got to tell ya, I don't really have a dog in this fight, but I've never ever seen a candidate like O'Donnell get the type of non-stop bashing from the media, as well as from BOTH the political left and right. That usually tells me she may actually be focused on her constituents for a change.

[gharfish]

..........
Scientific nannyism extends from abortion, to global warming, to the worth of the individual, to the relationship of the individual to the state. In the case of global warming we are told in no uncertain terms how we must believe, that this 20th century warming is unprecedented, yet somehow, those scientific nannies forget, ignore and/or react with anger if you point out that geology shows that 5000 years ago the world was warmer by 2-3 deg C, that there was no permafrost in Siberia at that time, that seas were 2 meters higher, that Antarctican ice shelves collapsed hundreds of kilometers south of where melting is occurring today. The fundamentalist nanny scientist priests tell us that we must ignore the fact that oranges grew in Guangxi province China in the 800's AD, a place today that is too cold for them to grow--yet if you tell scientific nannies that this is the case, you get met with fundamentalist claims that you must be an idiot to believe such things.

You oppose Cap and Trade...bad for the economy. (Right ?)

And you want abortion to be made illegal again. I hear you there, and agree.

..........

I decided to support any and every candidate who will support real freedom. Not the kind of shame freedom offered by the scientific fundies and their lefty anti-religious envirowacko ilk.

...and atheistic treehugger elitist types, get out of Washington. Alright.

Their freedom merely grants to us the freedom to agree with them. Dissent is not allowed. Thus I have given money to the YEC witch, Christine O'Donnell. While I don't think the YEC witch will win, I do hope she does. I want her to turn a few of the parasitic bureaucrats and politicians into toads. She is much smarter than those ignoramuses who laughed at her asking where 'separation of church and state' was in the constitution. That phrase does not appear. The elitist ignoramuses who laughed are precisely those who are taking our freedoms away.

What god-given (or just good) freedoms will she help restore and godly (or just good, fair and right) dissents offer? What has she got, specifically?

I have also donated to Sharron Angle and Starr Parker who are rumored on lefty blogs to be a YECs. Do I care that they are or might be YECs? Not at all. Which is dumber, someone who believes the earth is 6000 years old or someone who thinks higher taxation and higher spending creates jobs? I don't know, but I do know which one is more dangerous! Who is more dangerous, someone who believes that God created man 6000 years ago and that our rights devolve not from the Government but from God, or someone who thinks that our rights are subject to change at the whim of a governmental official?

The latter one.

Clearly the most dangerous person is those who believe that the government gives us our human rights because the government can change their mind and then take those rights away.

Yes. More dangerous than a YEC.

Already it is late in our loss of liberty. We have already lost much of our ability to own land (owning means determining its use); we have lost freedom to control how salty our fries are; we have lost the right to have your contract honored and we are losing the freedom of RELIGION and assembly. We just lost the freedom to have the healthcare of our choice, and the freedom NOT to have healthcare. Our liberty is at peril. It is time to put down inconsequential arguments.

This last paragraph echos what you had already written several times over. This pretty well illustates the tone and content -- the protests and accusations -- of your post. You have written so much that, IMO, borders on paranoia and is that which is a gross distortion or is untrue about liberals' increasing persecution of "We The People," and especially Christian "We The People," who must be rightly political conservatives in all things (?)


>

[grmorton]

You oppose Cap and Trade...bad for the economy. (Right ?)

Very bad for the economy AND for the very poor. When energy costs are high, people like me, a relatively rich fellow, can afford the energy. But the poor, like my neighbors who live next to my ranch, they can't afford high energy costs. They are poor but honest and very honorable people. Cap and trade will hurt them very badly Shame on anyone who wants cap and trade. As a Christian I am told to help the poor. Helping the poor doesn't entail raising their costs of living.

And you want abortion to be made illegal again. I hear you there, and agree.

interestingly, while I think abortion is murder, if I am to advocate getting the government out of my pocket and out of my life, I may have to grant that it has to get out of the abortion area entirely.
I hate that. My daughter-in-law was adopted AFTER Roe v Wade. She could have merely been a fetus, but as it turns out, her birth mother gave her up for adoption and she is one of the most wonderful people I know. But how do I tell the government to get out of our lives without at the same time telling them to get out of the abortion area?

...and atheistic treehugger elitist types, get out of Washington. Alright.What god-given (or just good) freedoms will she help restore and godly (or just good, fair and right) dissents offer? What has she got, specifically?

She will vote to stop the spending, which will impoverish us all. If that isn't enough, I don't know what else to say. When your family has economic troubles, do you spend more????? I didn't when I was laid off twice in 1986. The first layoff cost me a job that even today has a decent salary. My job after that layoff paid 50% of what I had been making. And then I got laid off from that job as the oil industry continued to collapse. I started working as a consultant and survived. I didn't thrive. I know what poverty is like. Today every american owes over 100,000 dollars via the government. Our government is an identity theft operation. They use OUR names to borrow money. They won't have to pay it back; WE WILL!!! O'Donnell will be part of stopping that. I dont' care if she thinks the world was created 5 minutes ago if she will stop paying the economic parasites, AKA bureaucrats, professors etc, These economic parasites, who merely suck money out of our wallets, are endangering our well being. As I said in a previous post on another thread: A dog with one flea is ok. A dog with a hundred fleas lives ok. A dog with a million fleas is dead.

You have written so much that, IMO, borders on paranoia and is that which is a gross distortion or is untrue about liberals' increasing persecution of "We The People," and especially Christian "We The People," who must be rightly political conservatives in all things (?)


>

• Edited by a Moderator • about whether I am paranoid or not. My mother was from Cuba and I heard the stories about how people who opposed Castro initially were considered paranoid. I am proudly paranoid. Have you ever seen an old bird who wasn't paranoid? Non-paranoid birds die young.

Back in the late 1990s people told me I was nuts about what I believed about oil getting scarce. invested in oil starting in the late 90s. It was, a really nutty thing to do. I made a fortune being paranoid. Thus, I wear my paranoia proudly.

But as far as I am concerned the liberals tolerate NO ONE who disagrees with them. Hell, look at Tiggy's reaction to my mere questionings of anthropogenic global warming. Juan Williams is a perfect example. Heck, he is a liberal. I agree with almost nothing he says, yet we conservatives are the ones most vocal about defending his right to speak his opinion. Liberals are happy to run him out of town on a rail, with a bit of tar and a few feathers on him.

Calling me paranoid illustrates precisely my point that liberals like to call people who disagree with them names. In case you haven't noticed, calling someone paranoid is calling them a name. This is the shunning behavior I spoke of. Thanks for illustrating my point quite well.

Have YOU defended Juan's freedom of speech by chastising National Propaganda Radio??

Moderated By: rogue06

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[gharfish]

Not an insult! No, you are showing real delusional thinking in some of what you wrote. That's Ok, but your distortions are another. Then there are some untruths...

No.

And now we've both had our say, so goodbye.

>

[grmorton]

Not an insult! No, you are showing real delusional thinking in some of what you wrote. That's Ok, but your distortions are another. Then there are some untruths...

No.

And now we've both had our say, so goodbye.

>

Yep, the old, "if you disagree with me then you must be delusional approach to life" has just been illustrated quite nicely. Since you gave no facts in the above, just opinion, I will reply with facts.

Let's first do a thought experiment. We all know that the private sector's taxes have funded the government for over 200 years. As long as spending is kept in control, this is a sustainable situation. But those who think government is the way to create jobs, consider trying to have the government employees be self sustainable without the input of the private sector taxes. Since governmental workers do not produce a product anyone wants to buy, the pay/taxation cycle using ONLY the governmental part of the economy would look like this.

cycle 1: $100 pay; 30% taxes taken out, meaning $30 for taxes.
cycle 2: $30 pay, $9 taken in taxes
Cycle 3 $9 pay, $3 taken in taxes
and so forth.

You can see that the government is a parasitic form of economic life. It is reality. Government employees can't get a self-sustaining pay check without bleeding the private sector.

The second reality today is that Federal government workers wages and benefits are more than twice those of the average American.

Donald Jud, "Why federal wages should be cut" The Business Journal, Oct 21, 2010,

Department of Commerce figures reveal that the average federal government worker earns $153,465 in total wages and benefits compared to an average of $58,312 for private sector employees.
http://www.bizjournals.com/triad/pri...ld-be-cut.html

© source where applicable

And this this morning from the Wall Street Journal. Michael Moritz, "San Francisco's Public Pension Revolt, p. a19. The average city employee in San Francisco pays $10 per month for their health care. The average private sector employee pays $953 a month. You can kind of see the disparity.

So, who is the biggest contributor to candidates most likely to increase taxes and federal spending? The public employee unions whose entire raison d'etre is to bleed the taxpayers..

Campaign's Bikg Spender, Wall Street Journal, A1, Oct 22, 2010

"The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees is now the biggest outside spender of the 2010 elections, . . .

© source where applicable

So here is the scam. Our tax dollars are used to pay the exorbitant salaries of the members of the Public Employee Unions. The Unions skim off some of those dollars and then use them to ensure that Congress will bleed us a bit more next year. Our liberty is at risk because the parasites have become very powerful and they are using our tax dollars donating to congressmen who will ensure that the flow of blood continues to grow each year. If you earn your livelihood off the public trough, you have chosen a parasitic form of life, that is a fact and clearly your interest is to increase the take from the host.

To put the scam in another way, Consider the dog with a thousand fleas. He wants to get rid of the flea infestation but he is constrained by the fact that the decision to use flea powder must be voted on and each flea has an equal vote with the dog. How do you think that election will turn out?

The dog's liberty to apply flea powder is at risk in such a vote.

Such a situation, in which the host is not allowed to use flea powder to save himself is precisely what is so perverse about our tax dollars being used against us, the bleedee. Is this the kind of government we want?

[Da Blonde]

Thank you for nominating Christine O'Donnell and thereby making Chris Coons' election inevitable.

[Der Kanzler]

So many people think religion will somehow impact someone's governing style...

You end up with atheist nutjobs critisizing the religious nutjobs for critisizing the scientific nutjobs, and when you step out of it you realize they're both hypocrites. Nothing ever gets decided; this forum is proof of that.

[WaitingForGodot]

So many people think religion will somehow impact someone's governing style...

SEE: George W. Bush

[seanD]

SEE: George W. Bush

The problem is that Bush pushed a militarized agenda and cloaked it in Christianity to appease the Christian domionionists that had strong influences on his election at the time. Obama, however, is pushing the same military agenda that Bush was pushing, only Obama is appeasing the non-religious left by cloaking it with humanitarianism. Same objective; different rationales. So the question we need to ask: is religion driving this, or is it a deeper political agenda with something else underlining it, and religion just happened to be one of the rationales used to justify it?

[Zombie]

So many people think religion will somehow impact someone's governing style...

You end up with atheist nutjobs critisizing the religious nutjobs for critisizing the scientific nutjobs, and when you step out of it you realize they're both hypocrites. Nothing ever gets decided; this forum is proof of that.

hahaha! true dat.

[Zombie]

The problem is that Bush pushed a militarized agenda and cloaked it in Christianity to appease the Christian domionionists that had strong influences on his election at the time. Obama, however, is pushing the same military agenda that Bush was pushing, only Obama is appeasing the non-religious left by cloaking it with humanitarianism. Same objective; different rationales. So the question we need to ask: is religion driving this, or is it a deeper political agenda with something else underlining it, and religion just happened to be one of the rationales used to justify it?

same iron fist, different glove

[OmniSkeptical]

While I disagree with YEC tremendously and my past actions show how much I do disagree with it, I have NO right to tell them that they can't use their tax dollars to further their agenda..

You mean if evolutionary psuedoscience instead of technology is directly funded, one cannot point fingers at the YEC museum in Kentucky? I agree-- though I think you say cleanly, unlike some people, that Ken Ham's "museum" should not be using federal tax dollars.