Abortion

Are you really pro-life?

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

A friend of mine from my youth provided a link to an interesting, and somewhat refreshing, blog post by a pro-life Christian:

Link — In Faith and In Purity: Are we really Pro-life?

In it the author, Valerie, points out some of the hypocrisy in the pro-life movement and tries to resolve the hypocrisy down to a central point. I’ll do my best to explain what I feel that point is herein, and Valerie, if you believe I have misinterpreted what you have said, feel free to provide a clarification.

The way she points out the hypocrisy that is seen in the pro-life movement is through a mock conversation. In this conversation, a pro-life woman protesting outside an abortion clinic verbally confronts a pregnant woman before she goes in. In the conversation it is revealed that the Christian pro-life protester is married, relatively well-off, has two kids, and to keep from having more children, her husband had a vasectomy. In response, the woman seeking an abortion says this:

So your [sic] telling ME, a non believer, with no husband, no money, and no house, I should trust in "God" to provide for me when it comes to children, and to welcome that unwanted child into my life with open arms because God loves children. And YOU a Christian who trusts in the God I do not know, who has a husband, and money and a home, and a car that works, wont even DARE let the chance of conception happen because your so scared of having more.

And Valerie is right that this is a display of hypocrisy. But how is it hypocrisy?

It comes down to two things: stating that God should be the decision maker in whether a child is conceived and born, and employing artificial methods to prevent pregnancy. Any contraceptive method can be seen as acting in conflict with God’s alleged plan for you. Even the rhythm method can be seen as this as well because you are purposefully ignoring your own innate instincts until such a time as the chance of conception is at its lowest.

This is especially pertinent given the language that was used in the argument. The woman says "we decided our family was complete", implying it was only the husband and wife. Did they pray on it? If they did, it wasn’t mentioned so we have to assume that they did not. As God wasn’t consulted, their actions could be seen as contrary to God’s plan because God wasn’t given the chance to provide any indication that He decided their family was complete.

Could the confrontation have gone differently in such a way that does not seem hypocritical? Maybe.

In response to the question "Is that all [the children] you plan to have?" the protester could have responded simply with "Yes, that is all we plan to have". Is there any implication of hypocrisy in that statement? Certainly not. The question was answered. But the pregnant woman could still reveal the hypocrisy of the protester with two questions: "Are you and your husband still sexually active?" and "What measures do you take to prevent pregnancy?"

The answer to the first question would be "Yes", and responding to the second question truthfully would reveal the hypocrisy and place the conversation back where we left it. The hypocrisy is out in the open, and the protester again looks foolish.

Now how could the hypocrisy have been avoided at all? This I think is the question that Valerie should have explored as it leads to the true answer to the question of whether you are really pro-life. Let us explore this.

Instead of the black and white "Choose life. Trust God." argument the protester was stating, the focus really needs to be on providing help. "Well turning them to God is helping them," I can already feel running through the minds of Christians reading this. And if you’re thinking that, you are missing the point.

In about 3 of 4 abortions, financial difficulties were given as the reason the woman was terminating the pregnancy — she just didn’t feel she could afford to raise the child.

Here we have an unwed, single, impoverished, pregnant atheist. Instead of engaging her only to say "Choose life. Trust God", you could instead say, "Let me hand you a business card to a private charity who can help you get whatever you need." And if you were to try to direct this woman to a charity that would try to proselytize to her, she may end up back at the clinic.

If she still says she doesn’t want the child, an alternative could be "Let me set you up with a lawyer who can help you arrange for an adoption when the child is born." You could also include in the argument that many couples looking to adopt children from unwed pregnant impoverished women also help cover prenatal medical expenses, in some cases in full.

Find a way to respond to their concerns regarding the pregnancy and you may be able to talk them into continuing to carry it.

I am pro-choice. The decision regarding an abortion is ultimately between a woman and her physician. However if the woman has expressed interest in obtaining an abortion, then within reason others can try to talk her out of that and toward other options. However this should occur without mentioning God, Christianity, or Christian principles because that has a remarkable capability of turning people off, in which case you’re only going to lose the argument and the chance to talk a woman out of an abortion.

As painful as it may be for you, if you want to convince women to not obtain an abortion, you need to leave God at the door. Bringing God into the argument will only cause you to be perceived as an older sibling getting daddy to back you up in a bid to get them into trouble. And if you want to successfully turn women away from abortion, that is not the impression to be giving.

So let’s get back to the question of whether you are really pro-life.

First let me ask you this: do you really think, in the bottom of your heart and in the depths of your soul, that protesting and proselytizing outside an abortion clinic is really helping to turn lots of women away from the clinics? To the best of my knowledge there is no unbiased evidence suggesting this. So protesting outside a clinic isn’t doing any good, especially if all you’re doing is shouting and proselytizing. ("Trust God. Choose life. Abortion is murder! You’re going to regret this!")

So if in your bid to curtail abortions you employ means that have no demonstrable evidence of obtaining the ends you seek, are you actually pro-life? If what you are doing is having little to no demonstrable effect on the incidence of abortions, in the United States or abroad, are you actually pro-life?

Valerie says this toward the end of her blog post:

BUT AT LEAST now I can say honestly to any woman who asks, I am pro-life. I will welcome any child God chooses to give me. And if you choose not to raise your child, I will gladly welcome that child into my home also.

She believes she could honestly say she is pro-life because her husband had his vasectomy reversed, despite there being an apparent irreversible negative effect on her husband’s fertility courtesy of the vasectomy. But even with him seeking the vasectomy, could she still have said she is pro-life without looking like a hypocrite?

Yes.

I volunteered as a counselor/client advocate at a crisis pregnancy resource center and all the while, my hope was that I could encourage, love on, and bring hope in the name of Christ to some of these hurting women.

While the actual effect of crisis pregnancy centers on the incidence of abortions in the United States is dreadfully difficult to measure, I would be lying if I said they had no impact. They are set up to help people. Some are established with the secondary purpose of proselytizing, but they are there in an attempt to give women an alternative.

Valerie took an active, peaceful role in turning women away from abortion, therefore she is pro-life. It is all in how you try to combat the incidence of abortion that makes you pro-life. Do you proselytize and preach, standing around holding signs and shouting, or do you actually try to help the women who are in need?

Are you really pro-life?

Capitalism/Driving/Libertarianism/Second Amendment

Self regulation

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

One of the primary principles of libertarianism, and also capitalism, is the idea of self regulation: people will naturally want to find a way to co-exist that is peaceful and cooperative. One of the more interesting aspects of self regulation is how this can occur, automatically, without law or law enforcement.

Both Democrats and Republicans are for big government. Do not be fooled by the Republican rhetoric — they are not for small government. Never have been, and never will be. And how can I say that? Quite simple: they do not like the way people self regulate.

The one example that is commonly used about why we need laws is actually the clearest example of why we do not: traffic.

For anyone who commutes on a regular basis, such as to work every morning and night, it becomes quite easy to see how the people can and do regulate themselves. This regulation on the road can be called a traffic pattern. The drivers of the individual cars will adjust their speed and driving behavior in such a way that people can get to their destination without being killed.

It is actually those who try to evade this self regulation that end up in car accidents, and it is the possibility of this consequence that brings people into regulation. Again all of this happens relatively automatically and without any signals or communication between the drivers on the road, and more importantly without law enforcement trying to regulate traffic.

When you introduce law enforcement into the mix, you interrupt this regulation in surprising ways because now instead of getting into a car accident, the drivers have a secondary fear that is more immediately conscious: the traffic citation. Introduce law enforcement into a well and self-regulated traffic pattern and you see a disruption of that regulation.

It is actually for this reason that, contrary to what many people believe, law enforcement will only look for outliers when it comes to traffic violations: people trying to speed through traffic or those driving erratically. Those who are trying to evade that self-regulation, or actively inhibit or impede it, are the ones who get pulled over, or worse.

On a grander scale with capitalism we have the idea of self-regulating markets. Yes markets can, and often do, regulate themselves without the "help" of the government. And like with law enforcement and the traffic pattern, when government tries to regulate a market beyond the normal definition of regulation, those markets are impeded, and at times in striking ways.

Now I said "beyond the normal definition of regulation", so what do I mean? Regulation in its natural sense means one thing only: to make regular. What many people have come to believe "regulate" means includes not only making regular, but restriction.

Proper government regulation is little more than the establishment of standards and processes: defining the monetary unit along with standard units of weights and measures, defining certain kinds of bank accounts, and establishing processes. The original idea of regulation at the Federal level was to establish minimum or uniform standards of trade and operation between the several States.

The idea that regulation includes restriction is a little far fetched. Let’s take one example: purchasing a handgun.

To purchase a handgun, there are certain legal restrictions you must meet: must be 21 years old or older, cannot have been convicted of a felony, and various other restrictions. As part of the need to enforce these restrictions, the Federal government has established various regulations on the process of purchasing a firearm. You cannot just walk in and buy a gun. There’s a process to follow first, just like there are processes for purchasing other items like cars and houses.

The minimum standard established by the Federal government requires only one thing: a background check performed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). This process is regulated as well, but not heavily. Unlike your taxes, purchasing a firearm requires only one form: ATF Form 4473. And on that form the purchaser only fills out the first page. The seller fills out the rest.

It’s not a painful process either. I went through it myself about 5 months ago when I purchased my handgun. My resident State of Missouri follows only the minimum Federal standard and does not enact any additional regulations or restrictions on the purchase and sale of firearms. Your State may differ, so check with local gun shops or local law enforcement for details.

Now regulation can be, and often is, a product of restriction. The restriction implies the regulation of verifying the restriction is not applicable. For alcohol, ammunition, and tobacco purchases, there is an age restriction, implying a regulation on the sale for checking the age of the purchaser.

But let’s say there were no restrictions or regulations on the purchase of a firearm. You could freely walk into any gun store and walk out with a handgun (after laying down several hundred dollars, mind you). Would this result in a populace armed to the teeth where people will be killing others in cold blood just for sport, as some gun control advocates seem to imply?

No.

This goes back to the notion of self regulation. Even before massive regulations and restrictions were enacted on the purchase and sale of firearms, people weren’t killing others for sport. There were a couple reasons for this, with the primary reason being that guns were (and still are) expensive items, so they weren’t being bought up to the point where the entire populace could fight an intergalactic war and win.

But there’s another reason that is far more fundamental: all actions have consequences. And consequences have one hell of a way of keeping people in line.

Those who do use firearms to rack up a huge frag count are not the norm, something that people seem to conveniently forget when there is a mass shooting, such as the recent assassination attempt of Congresswomen Gabrielle Giffords that resulted in the death of a Federal court judge and a 9 year-old girl.

Virtually all of society is self-regulating and not in need of government and law enforcement. The fact that people follow the law voluntarily without cops swarming the streets and invading every aspect of your life to ensure you’re complying with arcane and mundane laws you didn’t realize exist proves that people are self-regulating. And when government intervenes in such a way that interferes with this self regulation, it causes strife within the community.

Less regulation from the government is always best because self regulation is always better than government regulation. Self regulation is blind, unconscious. Government regulation is direct, focused, conscious and deliberate, with questionable motivations that always impedes on personal liberty and individual freedom.

Charity/Life/Religion

Praying for me

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

Anyone who’s read a bit of this blog knows how I feel about prayer. Several who know me know that I’ve used words more harsh than I’ve published here to describe and discuss it. However I know that there are many strong-willed Christians who still won’t take the hint, so I have an idea.

First, for the purpose of this post, I’ll temporarily grant the presumption that God exists and does answer prayer. On that mark, I am probably very, very low on his list of people for whom prayer is actually needed. In other words, you could be spamming God’s inbox with tons of prayers for which he just hits his divine “delete” key. So instead of praying for me and crowding God’s inbox even more (which, if he’s like anyone who gets e-mail or any other kind of message, this likely pisses him off to no end), how about taking the moment you’d otherwise be praying for me and putting that time to use by sending a donation to a charity.

Now do I have any particular charity in mind? Well donate money to your favorite charity, a little more than normal (this is a new prayer, after all), or if you don’t have a charity in mind, how about helping children across the world with their medical costs by donating to the First Hand Foundation (link below and at right under Charities).

The First Hand Foundation is a charity organization owned and administered by the company that employs me. Their administrative costs are entirely absorbed by their parent corporation, so 100% of any money you donate will go to help some child in need.

This is the kind of prayer that I and many other will appreciate, because you’ll actually be doing some good in the world instead of flooding God’s divine inbox with prayer spam. And I won’t mind if you tell me you’ve donated to them.

So visit the foundation’s web site and look around and read about the kind of work they do to help people and give a little of yourself to help them.

Link: First Hand Foundation – click on “support our mission” to make a donation.

Religion

Talking about God

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

I’ve got to thank a friend of mine for giving me two blog post ideas in a row. First was the previous post about Christians praying for non-believers, and now this one. In response to my last post, she posted to Facebook with this:

Like I said before, for a guy who does not believe in God you spend alot of time thinking and talking about Him. I’ll be praying for you Kenneth.

Yes I do spend a lot of time talking about God and Christianity for one simple reason: plenty of people hold a belief in God and subscribe to Christianity. And talk of God is everywhere, especially from Christians: "In God We Trust", "one nation under God", "God hates fags", "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth".

And let’s not forget about Jesus Christ. Oy vey.

It’s not like I can just ignore it, especially since if I say to someone that I don’t subscribe to Christianity, the "I’ll pray for you" reaction is the milder of the reactions I typically receive. So as long as Christian’s won’t shut up in trying to promote God, I’m not going to shut up in trying to counter the unfounded beliefs behind Christianity, Islam, or what have you. Plus there’s the fact that Christian beliefs that get in the way of personal liberty have become the basis for laws in this country, up to and including talks and proposals of amendments to the Constitution of the United States!

And yet there are people who say that without God we have no liberty. Bullshit!

Contrary to a rising belief among Christians, atheists don’t talk about God because we actually believe in him and are just trying to "rebel". That may be true among some people who call themselves atheist or agnostic, but the vast majority of us don’t believe in God or subscribe to Christianity or any other religion because we’ve either never followed it (like me) or see it (and can show it) to be entirely bullshit.

I talk about a lot of things I don’t believe in, simply because they are beliefs people hold and defend with all their energy and might. Read through this blog about the many things people support or believe that I discuss and attempt to counter: socialism, the pledge of allegiance, creationism and intelligent design (not so much), hetero-exclusive marriage, statism, and so on.

If people didn’t espouse a belief in God, or any of those other topics, would there be a need for me to discuss it or counter it? Of course not. It’s a waste of my energy trying to counter a belief or point of view held by a relative few number of people or no one, with one exception: beliefs that pose a risk to human life, such as eschewing modern medicine in favor of faith healing or some other unsupported, unsubstantiated mess that only results in a far more painful death.

I’ve also written about holidays and I’ve considered writing blog posts about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, and why you’re doing a major disservice to your children fostering those kinds of beliefs in them.

Here’s the bottom line on religion…

Christians, you can dial the phone all you want, but that voice you think you’re hearing on the other side ain’t God. It’s just your own mind conjuring what you think is God. That’s right, your mind is playing tricks on you. So hey if you want to pray to what is essentially your imagination that I will know my imagination and whatever love it might have, then let me save you the energy: I already know my own imagination, so I don’t need to do anything more to accept it.

However praying to an invisible being that you cannot prove exists that I will eventually know him and his love is about the same thing as my mother saying the same about my father: "your father loves you, and I hope you’ll come to know him and his love". The difference, however, is that I can talk to my father, directly, and he will respond, directly with audible words, and we have a good relationship.

Plus I can prove he exists as he is a physical person who is alive and DNA testing can establish beyond reasonable doubt that he is, indeed, my father. Plus anyone who has met me and my father can tell without any cue that he is my father — with the exception of one waitress in Rock Port, Missouri, who thought we were brothers…

So as long as I still have the capacity to do so, and as long as people still follow Christianity, which is likely for much of the foreseeable future, I will continue to talk about God and Christianity. If you don’t like that, tough luck.

* * * * *

Resources

Why do atheists talk about God? — Ask the atheists

Why Atheists think about God — Atheist Revolution

Atheists – Always talking about God – Radical Atheist

Why are atheists concerned about other people’s belief in God? — Kylyssa Shay, Yahoo Contributor Network

"If atheists don’t believe in God, then why do they talk about him so much?" — Way of the Mind

Does God Exist? The Nightline Face-off (with links to videos) — Martin Bashir, ABC News

Let’s Talk about God — Lisa Miller, SamHarris.org

* * * * *

Videos

Why atheists care about YOUR religion — GoGreen18 (YouTube)

Why do atheists care about religion? — ImRational (YouTube)

…and there’s plenty more out there, so google around.

Religion

"I’m praying for you"

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

Can someone answer me this one question: why do Christians seem to feel the need to tell a person they’re praying for them? Is there some kind of "heavenly referral program" and they’re trying to make sure they get the points if I happen to sign up for it?

The one thing that’s odd about this comes from a study that actually tried to put prayer under a microscope. The study involved several groups of hospital patients. The group that came out the worst, having an increased number of complications and prolonged stays in the hospital: those who were told people were praying for them.

Over the years, there have been so many people who have prayed for me and told me about it. Initially I didn’t mind it, until I got to Peru State. Then it just became annoying beyond control. I mean it’s like a bunch of whiney Christian teenagers crowding around the atheist, with one girl saying, "Remember to tell God when you meet Him that I sent you." Then she gets slapped down by another one saying, "No, I sent you." And it just turns into one big brawl where everyone’s vying for the points.

Again is there some "heavenly referral program"? Because if there is, I’m leaving the "who referred you?" line blank.

More recently, a friend of mine from my adolescent years said that she was praying for me as well, praying that God will reveal himself to me and that I will know him. In my experience I’ve come to realize that if God really cared a lick about me or my soul, he would’ve done that a long time ago in such a way that it would be categorically unquestionable, beyond reasonable doubt.

Here is what you’re up against: God must physically manifest before me, clearly identify himself as the God of the Bible, and demonstrate his deity powers in such a way as is virtually undeniable, as I said, beyond reasonable doubt.

But even then there is no telling whether that person is Yahweh, the God of Abraham. This also means that no Christian can know 1. whether the god to whom they have been praying is actually on the other side of the prayer telephone line, but presuming a god is there to answer the phone, that 2. that God is Yahweh.

There is no way to know. You could be praying to Satan, Shiva, Hades, Zeus, Ra, or who knows. Or, more likely, there is no one there at all.

So on that mark, if you feel the need to pray for me, for whatever reason you might be entertaining, save yourself the energy and the trouble. Your prayer won’t be answered, I can guarantee it. The likelihood of your god revealing himself to me in a way that is unquestionable such that I can "know him and his love" is so low I’d sooner expect a recently-departed friend to wake up.

Life

Ingenuity and electrical tape

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

There are times where a little knowledge can save you some money. I have a beard/mustache trimmer that I bought back in 2004, over six years old, well past warranty. Well in recent months it hasn’t worked at all.

So the question came down to this: see what’s wrong with what I have or go out and buy a new one? Well since cracking open the one I’ve got wouldn’t take long, and it was out of warranty anyway, why not see what I could do for it?

So I popped it open and noticed a Nickel-Cadmium AA battery soft-welded to a couple wires. Should be simple enough to replace right?

The connectors were easy to snip loose, and with a couple strips of electrical tape, I had them connected to different kind of re-chargeable AA battery. Now I have a perfectly working trimmer that I don’t have to replace. And when the battery dies, I’ll just need to pull it out and tape in a new one. Sure it’s a little bit of work, but it’s something that should only have to be done every couple months.

And I saved about $30 in the process from not having to buy a new trimmer.

Note: remember do your part for the environment by taking any expended batteries to a recycling center for proper disposal. Don’t just throw them in the trash.

Life/Religion

The need to be honest

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 1 Comment

For quite a while I had been lying to practically everyone with whom I’ve crossed paths about something so important that I really cannot continue to lie about this any longer: my religion. To those hopeful souls out there, no I haven’t seen the light and welcomed Jesus Christ into my heart. Far from it. Well not really.

For years I had been propagating the lie that I was previously a Christian. Indeed about six and a half years ago, the summer of 2004, the summer my uncle passed away suddenly at 44, I said in a letter to my (now ex-) girlfriend’s parents that I was "on a path that may lead me back to Christianity". This, too, was a lie. What I thought was a "path to Christianity" was actually my mind running itself in circles in my skull about many different things. Plus as I was never a Christian, I couldn’t legitimately say I was going "back" to it.

So here is the truth: aside from my baptismal in a Methodist church when I was an infant, I was never actually a Christian.

And part of the reason I’d been propagating this lie is because I had been bullshitting myself with that fairy tale. I never was a Christian, and I’m not sure why I kept saying I once was.

I never believed that Christ was the son of God. The closest to a theist I ever became was in middle school when I could be considered a deist. Indeed at that time I described any religious beliefs I had as believing God existed but not accepting that Jesus was his son. In fact, I outright rejected that notion.

In the seventh grade, my first year of middle school, in my honors English class, we studied select sections of the Bible as literature. In some ways that sealed a wall between me and Christianity forever: I could never look upon the Bible and consider any part of it to be truth. The summer prior, my grandmother purchased me a Bible — I think I still have it — simply because I wanted one. I never said I believed or intended to believe the words written in it. I just wanted a Bible.

In eighth grade, I believe it was, or maybe seventh as well, my mother gave me a cross, which I still have locked away in a lock box where it’ll likely stay until I give it to any child I have. I wasn’t a Christian, nor did I believe in Christianity. I just wanted a cross, so my mother gave me a small golden cross from her jewelry box along with a golden trumpet pendant. I still have both, and both are locked away right now.

Ninth grade was the first year I ever really had any direct confrontation with religion. Since seventh grade, I had been in band every year. Ninth grade meant high school, which also meant marching band. The director was a modestly religious man who insisted on gathering all of us into a group prayer before each performance, as we gathered in a circle, joined arms, and recited the Lord’s Prayer, something I now know was a violation of the First Amendment. I still remember the words to that prayer as well, having recited them in recent months at two funerals.

Those of you who’ve been in a marching band know this: it’s a tight group. If I had objected to that prayer like I originally wanted to, who knows what would have happened, not only with the band but also with my own parents, especially my mother. Instead I did the only thing I reasonably could: I just went along with it. Initially I didn’t know the prayer, but about midway through the marching season in ninth grade, after listening to it enough, I had it memorized.

Through the rest of high school into adulthood, I completely ignored religion. It was never really apart of my life with the exception of a time in my junior year when I managed to read about all of the occult section of the library in Fairfield, Iowa. I studied religion to go with it just to get some semblance to what many were trying to relate things. But otherwise I left it alone.

One thing that was interesting through this whole thing is this: while I never had any belief in any god, deity, or what have you, I never considered myself an atheist or agnostic simply because I had never heard those words. That, ironically enough, wouldn’t happen until I was 20, if I recall correctly, and I remember when that happened. Again I never considered religion a serious topic, so I had no need to know the existence of those words.

But when I was 20, there was a show on CBS called The District, starring Craig T. Nelson and the late Lynne Thigpen (who I used to watch all the time on "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?"). In one episode several of the characters, including one Detective McGregor, are sitting around a table at a pub after work and the topic of religion came up. McGregor was from Ireland, a country famous for it’s conflict between Catholics and Protestants. McGregor said he was an atheist.

I’d never heard that word before. No really, I never had, so next opportunity I had, I looked it up. Discovering the word fit with what I believed at the time, I adopted it to the dismay of my parents. It would not be until a couple months after that I would discover the word agnostic and discovered that to be an even better fit to what I believed. I use the moniker atheist periodically to avoid confrontation over semantics with other atheists, but I otherwise consider myself agnostic.

It wasn’t until my first semester at Peru State College that confrontation with religion, namely Christianity, became a daily chore. I got my first taste of active religious groups on a college campus — perfectly within the boundaries of the Constitution as they were student run and not sponsored by the college in any way. Indeed many with whom I had become acquainted and befriended are, to some degree, devout Christians.

My girlfriend at the time attempted to coerce me into attending several religious gatherings on campus. Much to her dismay, they didn’t do anything to sway me toward Christianity. She held out hope, though, and when I offered a blessing for her family during an Easter lunch, she and her mother took it as a "sign" that I might be coming around.

Sorry to disappoint, but I wasn’t even close.

My largest confrontation with religion would come with my next girlfriend, "Annika", or rather with regard to her family. Annika is four years younger than me, and she was 18 going on 19 when we first started dating, while I had just turned 23. The age difference alone was enough to make her parents a little nervous, but I was well acquainted with Annika’s brother, who introduced us, which quelled worries over the age a little.

Now one thing about me that made Annika nervous around her parents was my religious beliefs. Her parents are devout Christians, and she grew up in a religious, church-active household. One afternoon over the phone, she told her mother. Shortly after this, she spent the weekend at home to attend to some personal affairs, and during that time, according to Annika, her parents would heatedly confront her, saying some things that were downright disgusting.1Due to a confrontation I had with "Annika" in the fall of 2006 in which she made a rather startling confession to me, I have since called her account of those events into question and am unsure if they actually happened as she claimed.

The summer of 2004, my parents would confront me about Annika, as they didn’t trust her at all, and they’d confront me about my religion, especially my father. Needless to say, pleased I was certainly not. Instead I got just a lengthy lecture that, in my mind, I all boiled down to this: my parents never exposed me to religion but instead expected that I would have found God on my own, and since I had not…

My fiancée, soon to be my wife, Elicia, grew up in a Catholic household. Her immediate family knows about my beliefs. We never speak of it, though, because we’ve come to a kind of unspoken agreement wherein as long as I respect the traditions of my mother in law’s house, there is no need to discuss that at all. And respect her traditions I always have, from the first day.

It was really only over the last few weeks that I came to the realization, looking back over my life, that I was never a Christian, well aside from the moments not long after my birth when I was being christened. And realizing the truth, it’s time I stopped lying to myself and to everyone else. So therein lies the truth: I was never a Christian.

References[+]

Constitution/Supreme Court

Advice and consent

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

At the end of each year, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court issues a report, a year-end report on the Federal judiciary. This year, the Chief Justice turned his report into an opportunity to answer back at what is the central limitation on the judiciary: the Federal nomination and confirmation process established in the Constitution.1Ross, Lee. (2010, December 31. “Chief Justice Roberts Blasts Lawmakers On Judicial Nominations“. FoxNews.com.

We saw this all throughout the term of President George W. Bush. The Democrat majority in the Senate used their majority power to block confirmations on Presidential nominations, most notably those of the Federal judiciary including the Supreme Court, as a means of accomplishing goals completely unrelated to the nominations themselves. Instead the Democrats seemed to turn the confirmation process into a bargaining chip.

Had the Republicans won a majority in the Senate in this last election, we could expect the same would have occurred with regard to Obama’s nominations.

Under the Constitution of the United States, the Senate has the sole authority to provide “advice and consent” to any and all nominations by the President of the United States.2Article II, Section 2 Exercising this power, the Senate interviews and grills all nominees to determine their suitability to the role in question. The Senate is not to merely “rubber stamp” confirmations, but we all know this happens regardless, unless an opportunity arises in which the Senate can use this power to get something from the President: “okay we’ll confirm this nomination as long as you agree to this…”

The question comes down to why the advice and consent power is vested only in the Senate. The answer comes down to the true role of the Senate that was lost when the Seventeenth Amendment was passed.

In an earlier article, I wrote of the true role of the Federal government, and that its proper place is subordinate to the States and the People.3“Citizen Congress“. Posted July 30, 2010. This is clear in how the members of the government were originally selected. The House of Representatives was the only part of the government directly elected by the People. The Senate and President (by way of Electors) were chosen by the State legislatures.4Article I, Section 3: “The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each state, chosen by the legislature thereof“

This important balance, eliminated by the Seventeenth Amendment5“The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each state, elected by the people thereof, for six years”, kept the Federal government inferior to the States. And because the State governments were deemed inferior to the People by way of the ballot, the Federal government was kept very well in check. The Federal government’s authority was in check by the States through the Senate and by the People through the States and the House of Representatives.

Vesting the power of advice and consent to the Senate was the ultimate means of keeping the Federal government inferior to the States. This means the States selected not only the President, by way of Electors who may be chosen absent a popular vote6Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution: “Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress” and have been previously, but also the President’s officers, including the Cabinet and the judiciary. The People had the say in what the Federal government would do by way of the House of Representatives, and the States had say in who would do it through the Senate.

Today the Federal government is making itself superior to the People, placing the States on the bottom and at the mercy of the Federal government.

The Senate, now directly elected by the people instead of appointed by the States, is arguably now even more politically afire than the House of Representatives ever has been. Vested in the Senate is a lot of authority in so few people, which is why its original selection was to be removed entirely from politically-charged elections. Senators were to be the representatives of the States equally in the Federal government.

The Founders knew that vesting so much authority in so few people, relatively unchecked, would result in oligarchy. We are today seeing this to be the case. The question to be answered is whether we have caught things too late.

I do not like denigrating the People, but ignorance is difficult to ignore and the People of the United States are not only ignorant, but cowardly and paranoid. It was against this the structure of the Federal government was designed to protect. By having only one half of one branch of government popularly elected on as frequent a basis as every two years, with each Representative checked by the other Representatives of not only the same State, but the entire United States, the possibility of the ignorance, cowardice and paranoia of a relative few number of people overly influencing the Federal government is significantly reduced than if, say, two people were popularly elected to represent the largest States by population (i.e. California and Texas).

Now this isn’t to say the Founders were not paranoid. They certainly were, which is why they designed a process for selecting the President of the United States, along with much of the rest of the Federal government, that is insulated from the People. The Founders lack of faith in the People when it comes to their government is difficult to ignore, hence many procedural safeguards along with the specific enumeration of powers. While the Founders did have a lot of faith in the People, for without that faith, independence from the Crown of Great Britain would not have been attained, when it came to enacting a national government to unite the States, they kept said national government focused purely on the role of the States within that government and kept as much of it as possible insulated from the People.

The people were not supposed to have a direct role in the Federal government.

The reason for this is because the People are more able to influence the governments that are closer to them: those of the city, county, and State in which they reside. When the people are not able to check a government they choose directly, the chance of that government becoming corrupt increases significantly.

Oddly enough the Electoral College was the one part of the Constitution least contested, as noted by Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 687Federalist No. 68: “The mode of appointment of the Chief Magistrate of the United States is almost the only part of the system, of any consequence, which has escaped without severe censure, or which has received the slightest mark of approbation from its opponents.”, yet today it is the one part of the Constitution that seems the most desirable to change, especially in the wake of President Bush’s election in 2000 wherein he won the requisite number of electoral votes (albeit with the intervention of the United States Supreme Court8Bush v. Gore, 531 US 98 (2000)) but did not win a majority of the popular vote.

The States were the best safeguard for keeping the Federal government in check. The People do not have nearly as much ability, especially given how easily we can be reduced into pesky, pestilent, squandering, argumentative and belligerent mobs, often at the mention of only a few words. In other words the People tend to act in a democratic fashion, as history has shown, and that is the fastest way to erode a republic.

The Founders knew this. This is why prior to the Seventeenth Amendment the more powerful chamber of Congress was left to the selection and safeguard of the State governments. This is why the power of advice and consent was left solely with the Senate and not with the House of Representatives. The Federal government was intended to be insulated from the People for reasons we have been witnessing since about the time of the Civil War.

In short the power of the Federal government was meant to be wielded by those appointed and confirmed by representatives of the States, not by those directly elected by the People. This was intended as the principal safeguard of that power from corruption, and those safeguards have been all but eliminated. This is why the Electoral College is under attack: it is the only safeguard left before the government becomes entirely popularly elected, with the exception of the judiciary, and subject to the kind of corruption known to democracies.

References[+]

Life/Politics

Ashamed to be American?

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

On YouTube, I subscribe to a user called PaulsEgo. Now on YouTube, he recently made a short series of videos that have caught quite a bit of attention because he says, in short, that he is ashamed to be an American, along with giving his reasons why.

For those who haven’t seen the videos I’ve embedded them below. I’ll be writing my response to them in a later article, which I’ve been wanting to do for a while. Needless to say he provides a lot of food for thought. If you have any comments to make, go to YouTube and leave them on the video instead of here. For those who come to this through Facebook, same thing applies — go to YouTube to comment.

 

 

 

Debt

Say "yes" or "no" to credit?

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

In this recession, one thing that I have come to expect is a ton of articles speaking out against debt and credit cards. And there is good reason: Americans are addicted to debt, credit cards, financing, loans and mortgages. But one thing that is common and unwarranted among most of these articles is simply this: allegations that no debt is good debt.

For example I recently saw an article saying to stay away from student loans. Others say to stay away from credit cards. One thing for which no one seems to be accounting is that, while insane amounts of debt is what turns this country belly-up and caused the recession, it is also the ability to take on debt and finance large purchases that made this country as wealthy as it has become.

So for this article, I will be responding to a recent article called "9 reasons to say no to credit", telling you why it is still okay to say "yes" to credit, along with some caveats to keep in mind.

1. Financing your purchases doesn’t teach self control.

Financing your purchases doesn’t teach anything, but the author of the article dives into territory without the proper warrants, alleging that those who finance purchases don’t exercise self control, which is a generalization that is beyond wrong, but also alleges that those who finance purchases may allow their health to be compromised.

What?!?

True that financing purchases won’t teach self control. But when you finance a purchase, you must take the monthly payment on what you’re financing into account. If you’re financing something with a credit card, plan in advance of the purchase on paying off the financed amount within a certain period of time and stick with that, wavering from it only when you have a damned good excuse.

2. Financing your purchases means you aren’t sticking to your budget.

This depends on how you’re financing things and why you’re making the purchase. Are you putting it on a credit card because you want it but cannot afford the entire purchase with cash? Or is it something you need and you cannot afford it with cash?

Plus sometimes things or services you need end up costing more than you can anticipate or afford. Without a backup of credit to cover that overage, you’re probably SOL. And if the overage you need to cover is the deductible on your car because you were the victim of a hit and run, then what do you do? You charge it.

3. Credit card interest rates are expensive.

And they are intentionally expensive. Credit cards are unsecured debt, meaning there is no collateral to secure the debt in case of default. This presents a higher risk on borrowing to creditors, and interest rates are directly proportional to perceived risk. Present a higher risk to lenders, and you will pay more for it.

4. Credit card interest rates increase when you can’t pay off your balance in full.

Quoting the article:

To add insult to injury, that great annual percentage rate (APR) you thought you had on your credit card might have merely been an introductory rate that was subject to increase after a certain period if the balance has not been paid in full.

And if you didn’t know this when you signed the paperwork, you have only yourself to blame. Contrary to popular belief, credit card companies don’t hide the fact that your interest rate is only introductory. It’s plainly written on the disclosures. You did read them before you signed, right?

But if your interest rate does go up and you are carrying a balance, the amount of the balance may be the factor that determined you to be a higher credit risk. The issuer likely didn’t raise your rate to get more money out of you, but as an implicit signal that you need to pay the balance down.

5. A poor credit score can affect your insurance rates, being accepted for a job or the ability to finance meaningful purchases like a home.

Quoting the article:

Insurance companies that check your credit score when considering your premium seem to assume that if you can’t pay your bills, you might be letting your car or home maintenance slide, or you might be an irresponsible person in general, all of which could make you a higher risk by increasing your odds of filing a claim.

This is incorrect. Insurance companies that check your credit report (not credit score, no one but you has access to that) may raise your rate because you’ve presented yourself as a greater risk of not paying your premium. So they may raise your premium to ensure they are the first to be paid. Your car insurance is one example.

Your credit report has little bearing on whether you let maintenance on your car or home slide. Many people with good credit may be poor at keeping up with maintenance on their car, and vice versa.

Some employers also run credit checks on potential job applicants, and an employer who is concerned enough to check your credit score will probably be concerned enough to not hire you if it’s poor.

If you will be offered a job where you will be directly responsible for cash or cash flows, expect a credit check. The reason for this is they want to determine what risk you might present that you’ll "skim the till". This is nothing new, either, and has been going on for a long time. Many employers also disclose whether they will be checking your credit, but it is not a good idea to ask an employer if they will because that might send up some red flags.

6. Poor financial habits can jeopardize your relationships.

This statement is too generalized. Many couples get into financial difficulties together, and sometimes financial difficulties are unavoidable, such as in the case of unemployment. They can jeopardize relationships, however, but that depends primarily on how you got into the difficulties to begin with.

7. Financing purchases can lead to higher spending.

Purchasing a $1,000 laptop might be easy to accept if you just sign a piece of paper. On the other hand, if you pay with cash, you can physically feel the $100 bills leaving your hand.

Major purchases should always be planned. For example my fiancée and I are planning a purchase of a new television to replace the over 5 year-old power-hogging rear-projection television we currently have with a more energy efficient LCD or plasma display of similar size to what we have. We know about what that television will cost, and we will be saving up to pay most, if not all, of the cost with cash.

Or to take advantage of a deal, we may borrow. It depends on how the math works out.

But the point is that we are planning the purchase, know what it will cost, and if we borrow, we will know before we buy that we plan to borrow and will have a payoff plan budgeted out.

But if you finance without taking into account that you are taking on debt, it’s your own damned fault. Realize you’re taking on debt, that you are borrowing money when you finance and treat it like debt.

8. In a worst-case scenario, the habit of financing your purchases can lead to bankruptcy.

If you go on enough spending sprees without a plan for paying them off, or if your plan goes awry because you lose your job, or get hit with massive medical bills, you may find yourself hopelessly in debt.

You can end up with massive unexpected expenses or no income even if you have no debt. It is a risk of living and participating in the economy. Live with it, account for it, insure yourself against it, and just go on.

9. Avoiding financing can bring peace of mind.

Not always. While it’s great to be out of debt — my fiancée and I are going to be celebrating when we pay off a settlement that has been sapping our budget — there are times where you are paying more not taking on debt. Every decision has a cost, and as many of those costs as possible should be taken into account when deciding whether to pay cash, borrow, or not purchase at all.

The bottom line

The convenience, protection and cash-back rewards offered by credit cards make them a handy tool if you use them wisely.

The truth is if you can’t really afford it, you may be giving yourself a gift in the short term, but you’ll be giving yourself an expensive headache in the long run.

The key words here are "if you use them wisely". There is no doubt that many people don’t. They don’t see credit cards as debt, don’t treat it as debt, and that is where the problems can arise.

Keep in mind that credit cards are debt that you will have to pay back, and how soon you pay it back determines how much you will have to pay. Make a plan for every major purchase and stick with it.