Money as Debt

This is a great short video explaining how the banking system really works and where money comes from. Without drastic monetary reform we will continue deeper into debt as a nation and debt ultimately equals slavery...



If the video isn't working right (ever since I switched to the new blogger I have had trouble getting videos to work on my blog) the video can be seen by clicking here.

Excellent Article and a Call to Christian Integrity in Politics

What follows is a recent article from the News With Views web site. I found the article to be very telling highlighting the lack of a rigorous integrity in the Christian electorate. Baldwin calls the uncritical commitment to candidates with an (R) next to their names what it is...idolatry. For in supporting human rights violators like the Bush administration over the ethics of Scripture, not to mention the Constitution, Christians are elevating "Conservatism" over God's Word. Keep in mind I am not saying vote Democrat...they are just as bad, but what I am saying is for God's sake lets have some principles for a change.

CHRISTIAN IDOLATRY

By Pastor Chuck Baldwin
April 8, 2008
NewsWithViews.com

"Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry." (1 Corinthians 10:14 KJV)

This is a strange verse, is it not? After all, the Apostle Paul is addressing Christians. How can Christians be guilty of idolatry? I thought idolatry was something that only heathens could be guilty of committing. Yet, Paul plainly addressed believers when he said, "my dearly beloved."

Christian idolatry: I submit it is more rampant than anyone wants to admit.
Simply put, idolatry is the sin of giving someone or something a place of preeminence above the Lord God. It is the violation of the First of the Ten Commandments. And, yes, Christians can be just as guilty of this sin as unbelievers.

In these United States, there is perhaps no area where the sin of idolatry is more universally practiced than in the area of government. Call it civil affairs, or politics, or affairs of state. Call it what you will, the result is the same: Christians by the millions have surrendered Christ's authority and principles to humanism and pragmatism.
For one thing, a sizeable number of believers allowed President George W. Bush to redefine their Christian principles almost out of existence. They willingly looked the other way while Bush betrayed his word (not to mention the Constitution) and catapulted conservative principles into outer darkness. To the point, that they can now even support someone as liberal as John McCain and still call him a "conservative."

I will say it straight out: any Christian or conservative who supports John McCain has no principles left worth defending!

Can anyone remember when George W. Bush ran for the White House in 2000, promising the American people that he would pursue a non-interventionist foreign policy? So much for that promise.

George W. Bush has orchestrated the most meddlesome, interventionist, and nation-building foreign policy of any President in modern memory. And Christians became his most vocal supporters. Now, John McCain gets in front of international television and jokes about bombing Iran, and once again, Christians stand up and cheer.
Christians have swallowed the Bush/McCain Kool-Aid as surely as did the followers of Jim Jones. They are drunk with denial and deception.

Bush promised the American people that he would promote less government spending. He then turned around and led the U.S. government to borrow and spend more taxpayer dollars than any President since Lyndon Johnson. And, again, Christians looked the other way.

President Bush promised the American people that he would preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. He promised to respect the Bill of Rights, including the Fourth Amendment.

Since becoming President, however, George W. Bush has ignored the Constitution and trampled the Bill of Rights, especially the Fourth Amendment, with utter abandonment. And what did Christians do? They either looked the other way or, in some cases, even lauded his unconstitutional conduct.

How could Christians sacrifice their principles and convictions so easily? How could they be so willing to surrender their loyalties--both to Christ as the organic Sovereign of this land, and to constitutional government, which is, itself, built on Biblical principles?

Some Christians would say they are supporting President Bush because he is "one of us." Of course, this reasoning betrays logic. If George W. Bush is truly "one of us," he should be held to a higher--not lower--standard. That we would be willing to look the other way because Bush is "one of us" is repulsive to true Christian principles. Plus, it brings Christianity as a whole into disrepute with unbelievers. And this is exactly what has happened. Instead of unbelievers being attracted to Christ and His Word, George W. Bush--and the Christians who follow him--have turned unbelievers away from Christ. Bush and Company have made it harder--not easier--to present Christ to a lost and dying world. And that goes for people in foreign countries as well as people in America.

However, I am convinced that the reason Christians support President Bush is not because he is a professing born-again Christian. I say that because these same people are now also supporting John McCain, a man who has never professed a born-again relationship with Jesus Christ. Oh, he claims to be a "Christian" in a general sense, but what politician doesn't?

McCain is also a man who has consistently betrayed conservative principles throughout his political career. He has even lampooned and denigrated Christian people, calling them "agents of intolerance." Yet, today Christians are supporting John McCain. Why? It is not because of his religious profession. It is not because of a conservative track record. Why are they supporting him, then? Why are they willing to surrender their convictions? There is only one reason: John McCain (like George W. Bush) is a REPUBLICAN.

There it is: countless millions of professing Christians will eagerly abandon their commitment to constitutional government and Biblical principles in order to accommodate a Republican Presidential candidate. In the minds of many Christians, the Republican Party is more important than the U.S. Constitution. It is more important than conservative principles or even Biblical injunctions. In essence, the Republican Party has become an IDOL in the hearts and minds of many professing believers.

So, how can we ask God to bless America when God's children have set up the groves of idolatry in their hearts? How can we expect God to heal our land when Christian pastors, Sunday School teachers, deacons, ushers, and faithful church members place more loyalty and allegiance in a political party than they do in the very Word and principles of God?

As surely as the pagans of the Old Testament worshipped before the gods of Baal and Ashteroth, many Christians worship before the GOP. They are willing to sacrifice their children to the policies and practices of unscrupulous, evil politicians--as long as they have an "R" behind their names. They will turn their back on their pastors, their churches, their friends, and their commitments before they will turn their backs on the Republican Party.

To many Christians, God cannot work in America outside the Republican Party. God cannot bless America, except through the Republican Party. There is no success, no help, no assistance, and no redemption except through the Republican Party. If this is not idolatry, I do not know what is!

If Christians will support John McCain, they will support anyone. Support for John McCain means no principle is sacred; no conviction is secure.

It is one thing for radio and television talking heads to allow themselves to be Republican lackeys for profit. It is quite another thing for pastors and Christians to allow themselves to idolize the GOP for no good reason at all.
Why can Christians not see what their blind loyalty is doing to our country? Why can they not rise, as did Daniel and the Hebrew children, for truth and right?

Do they not realize that God may want to use some other vehicle, some other source, some other instrument than the GOP to bring restoration and revival to America? And if He did, how would Christians today recognize or understand it? Has it not dawned on our brethren that the GOP may have become lost beyond redemption, and that they are being led as blind men--by blind men--into the ditch? And would they know it, if they were?

Oh, Christian friend, please open your eyes! Take a good, hard look at truth. Remember our history. Put your confidence in God and right, and throw off the fetters of blind loyalty to Republican compromise. Bind our civil magistrates down with the chains of the Constitution. If you do not, they will certainly bind us down with the chains of oppression (which they are already doing).

If we, as Christians, cannot hold our civil leaders accountable to the Constitution, how in the name of common sense can we hold our churches and our children accountable to the Bible? It is no coincidence that we are losing constitutional government and Biblical practice simultaneously. They indeed go hand in hand.

When our Christian forebears fought our War for Independence, they had one motto: No King But Jesus. The day that our brethren reclaim that spirit and tear down the political altars they have erected to the GOP is the day God might begin to bring life and restoration back to America.
"Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry."

Obama Under Fire: How the Media Minipulates the Electoral Process

Before I get into the subject of the non-stop assault on Barack Obama via his Church affiliation I want to say that I am in no way an Obama supporter. My wife told me of a video comparing the Obama campaign to the Seinfeld episode where they came up with the idea of a show about nothing. This was then fused with the Obama campaign's success, a campaign about nothing, just the vacuous phrase "Change we can believe in!" I of course am a Ron Paul supporter and will be voting third party in November (Libertarian or Constitutionalist). This is all by way of preface.

That said, this election more than any other has woke me up to the sheer power and influence of the news propagandists in our voting process. The fall of Guilliani from frontrunner status followed by the resurrection of McCain seemingly out of the grave of irrelevancy, the predicted Obama win in NH and the defeat at the hands of Clinton allegedly because she cried. Of course there was the constant sidelining of Ron Paul as a non-contender from day one.

In short the media has more control over the electorate than many people give them credit, it is they who announce what the "latest polls show", it is they who decide who the "serious candidates" and "front runners" are, thus deciding who we are to choose between. It truly is lamentable to see how effective this is when almost everyone I talk with throws out the cliches of "Ron Paul?! Go ahead throw your vote away!" or "You gotta choose the lesser of the two evils..."

My point above is to show how influential all of this nonsense really is, if front runners are announced you must abide by the above cliches and vote for one of the "winners". So the media has a massive degree of sway and ability to manipulate the electoral process by raising candidates up and bringing others down. Moving now to the Obama pastor situation that has been incessantly bantered about by the media pundits for over a week now.

The Meat of the Jeremiah Wright Scandal:

I am not of the secularist opinion that a politicians religion doesn't matter, in a lot of ways it should be an indicator of the person's character. However, we also know that politicians feign religiosity to gain acceptance, kind of like holding babies for photo ops only in this case it's baby Jesus.

In regards to Obama's church attendance a recent fervor has erupted due to allegedly racist comments made by Wright from the pulpit. The Neo-Cons have not stopped talking about this on the radio and tv playing clips of "racist" statements, bringing up Wright's friendship with Louis Farrakhan and Obama's relationship with a former member of the Weatherman Underground group. In short, the sharks have smelled blood and there is now a frenzy.

Just what DID pastor Wright say that has Sean Hannity and company so ruffled? Here are some of the more shocking quotes (taken from an AP report):

(Speaking on Sept 11):

"We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye," Wright said. "We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost."

Here we see Wright call out our governments own nasty doings and support of terror and how our evils have come home to roost via people hating the U.S. I of course would go further than Wright so my simple question is what's the big deal here? Oh I forgot, we're not supposed to ask WHY the third world hates America we are just supposed to bomb them for hating us...that's the patriotic thing to do after all.

(Probably the most played quote):

"The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."

I admit this is strong language, we need to THINK about it and ask questions rather than simply REACTING to it. The question we need to ask is "Why is he talking like this?" Well, he lists some of the reasons, the drug trade which our own government is involved allowing (do your homework and you will see this is true), the racist prison system which can have people (mostly Black) locked up for 3 strikes of non-violent crimes. After all it is mostly impoverished blacks who are on the street pushing the drugs the CIA has brought into the country.

These seem like pretty good reasons to think God's curse would be called for on this country, and he is probably right. I do disagree with calling it down like Wright does, this certainly is out of step with what Christ Himself taught. Christ rebuked His disciples for calling down judgement on sinners. (Luke 9:53-55)

(Another quote):

"Barack knows what it means to be a black man to be living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people. Hillary can never know that. Hillary ain't never been called a nigger."

Well, again isn't that all true? What so far has been racist about anything Wright has said? He is simply saying Hillary doesn't know what it is like to be marginalized because of her race (perhaps gender), Barack does. (The above quotes were from an Associated Press release on Mar 18, you can see the article here)

Now on Rush Limbaugh's web page we see an article titled "Obama's double life exposed: His racist Hatemonger pastor". Now I am not here to defend Jeremiah Wright, I am sure I would actually disagree with him on most of his theological positions, for instance this black Jesus nonsense. Jesus was Jewish, He doesn't need to be black to be acceptable to blacks, if you think that Christ needs to be black or else Christianity is "White mans religion" you're elevating your race above Christ and His Word. Is Wright guilty of that? Probably.

My Assesment of This Boondoggle:

To tie this together what I see in this whole situation is a whole lot of silliness at best and malicious slander intended to minipulate the electorate at worst. It is silly to say that when someone looks at our own government as the cause of hatred of America that person is unpatriotic and hateful. That is just plain stupid, and antithetical to free thought. However, that is what we get in the media.

This is the new investigative journalism at it's best, say good bye to reporters breaking stories like Watergate, say hello to the era of News slathered in big breasted celebrity gossip and political assassination with spurious investigation. In this era candidates are made and destroyed by the media and corporate ties.

Even now "recent polls" say Hillary Clinton is now the front runner due to all of these revelations about Obama's filthy secretive racist Satanic pact making past. After all that's what this is really about, the media folk are the king makers. Until we realize this we will continue to play in their sand box by their rules with all of this "Left" vs. "Right", "Liberal" vs. "Conservative", "Democrat" vs. "Republican" game. This is all a charade of choice, the reality is that we have no choice, they will have decided for us.

A clear example is how the Manchurian John McCain came out of absolutely nowhere to get the nomination, early in the election McCain's candidacy was treated in similar obscureness as that of Ron Paul. This changed after Iowa, and almost overnight McCain (not Huckabee who won Iowa) was anointed "frontrunner".

These are the kingmakers at work, and right now Obama is the latest victim of their onslaught of rubber knives and Nerf bullet scandal charges. We see it time and time again, as with the "Dean scream" (The video can be seen here, ) keep in mind that little "Byeah!" at the end of Dean's speech is what allegedly cost him the nomination and brought Howard Dean's campaign to the dust paving the way for skull and bonesmen John Kerry to be the 2004 Democratic candidate. We need to see through the spin and understand where they are trying to shift our opinions to and ask why?

Will this rubbish about Obama's pastor cost him the nomination? Perhaps. It is difficult to say, if Howard Dean can be deemed unelectable because of a girlish shriek then any drummed up assault can result in the toppling of those the media wishes to sideline. Any statement on race can be spun as racist, any statement on sex can be spun as sexist, and any statement criticising the war or government intervention overseas can bee spun to be "anti-American" hate speech.

This is the new "free press" in America, it is nothing short of Soviet style propaganda. What is truly lamentable is the fact that most people don't know the difference between propaganda and reporting. There is however still a glimmer of hope and truly free press in America and that is why I thank God for the Internet.

UPDATE:

I recieved in the comment thread a link to a video of one of the controversial messages, this video gives better context to Wright's statements. Not that I think his statements were that bad to begin with but still, it is good to see the broader scope of what he is talking about rather than isolated sentences.

The video can be seen here.

Stellar Ron Paul Interview

Over on the Gold-Silver web page there is an excellent interview with Ron Paul mostly dealing with economics. In the interview Ron Paul explains a bit of the Federal Reserve system (most people have no clue whatsoever about the FED, this is intentional by the way), defends a gold standard monetary policy as well as consititional liberty. This really is a must see for thinking voters:

The interview can be seen here.

It's Nothing Short of Criminal

What I am referring to is the manner in which all of the network news outlets have consistently covered Ron Paul in all of the "debates" (More like Q & A sessions than debates). This is how elections are rigged apart from directly throwing away certain votes or adding votes. This is how the phenomena of "frontrunners" are born, the media baptizes the person who fits their allegiance and shuns those who do not.

I can understand that not every goof running for president need be taken seriously, and frankly finances has been a cut off mark. Unfortunately for the elite owned corporate media Ron Paul has such serious supporters he has met the financial cut offs and has stayed in the race. It's his ideas they don't like, the same ones that people who actually are paying attention and not voting based on superficial facades of left and right are in support of.

Ideas like killing the Federal Reserve, the IRS, the CIA, NAFTA, oh and the war we seem to be fighting for no real reason which one was it...the war on drugs, "terror", Iraq...either way Dr. Paul wants it dead. Thus, there are many who frankly want his political career dead. This can be seen in the blatant censorship of Dr. Paul in the debates. A couple of examples:

Firstly, in the Fox News South Carolina debate, Dr. Paul almost wasn't invited by the Neo Cons but after enough outrage of their censoring of Paul in New Hampshire they reluctantly let Paul in. During the debate Dr. Paul was treated very disrespectfully by the moderators, being interrupted laughed at, and one moderator intentionally tried to make Paul look crazy when talking about how the Neo Cons are trying to drum up war with Iran.

What took the cake in this debate was when Dr. Paul was asked (with other moderators laughing) "How electable are you sir?" Ron Paul answered the question so well showing that he really is the only true conservative running that when Fox News aired a non live replay of the debate later this specifice enterchange was edited out of the replay. Fair and Balanced right? No just corporate media covering their tracks of trying to destroy a candidate blowing up in their faces. (The Banned question can be viewed Here thank God for the internet)

Not only did this incident show Faux News’ bias (with the moderators laughing, and the fact that they didn't ask such a disrespectful question to Giuliani who has received less votes than Paul) but also how Ron Paul really is the only real conservative in this race. This election there are only two candidates Ron Paul and everybody else (All CFR members both parties).

The latest incident comes from the CNN debate in CA. In this debate Ron Paul was almost completely ignored, instead CNN baptized McCain and Romney as the "frontrunners" and gave them bulk of the questions and rights to talk. There were a number of times where Anderson Cooper stopped Ron Paul from giving a full answer, in one instance Dr. Paul recieved a full 9 seconds to answer whether he supported Reagan’s choice of Sandra O'Connor to the Supreme court while all the others got about a full minute without interruption. (The Ron Paul Highlights from the CNN debate can be found here) BTW, Ron Paul was the only one who had the gall to say Reagan was wrong in electing such a liberal judge to the court, he blasphemed Reagan.

Frankly, it was disgusting watching the CNN debate. Not only did McCain and Romney stink of more of the same, but when Dr. Paul was thrown a scrap from Cooper it was phrased around what he thought about McCain' position on X. It made me realize just how controlled the mainstream media really is. To put it simply, there are a lot of people with a lot of money and power who happen to own these media outlets and don't want some lose cannon Constitutionalist like Ron Paul getting his ideas out there and waking people up out of their left vs. right mirage. All that stuff is just an illusion to get the people to think they have a choice when really whoever they vote for is a CFR member (council on foreign relations) and in the pocket of the big business'.

This is why the Ron Paul Revolution is truly a revolution. I have never been so inclined to donate my time or money to promote a candidate but Ron Paul has really changed that for me. This election is vital for our freedoms in this country, and I truly believe we are at a crossroads. We can either keep going down the path of more Patriot Acts, erosion of individual rights in the name of "security" or "protecting the environment", more endless and winless wars, more globalization, screw ball economics, Socialialism (soft peddled as "Big Government") in the place of Federalism...and whoever gets in, unless it is Dr. Paul, Democrat of Republican will do just that. Whoever wins will be worse than Bush, you heard it here first folks.

Tyranny: Coming to a State Near You!

This article on Worldnet Daily about a boy who was seized from his parents home in Colorado by a swat team is one of the latest examples of the totalitarianism that is coming here in the West. I'll let the reader go through the article to get the appalling details, my point is simply this: This is where we are going as far as the power of the State and I attribute it mainly to secularism's dominance in the public square.


How might that be? Well, simply put, the secular humanists aren't fond of children learning ideas that are outside of their worldview, they are dangerous. This family and their parenting philosophy of homeschooling Christians was out of step with the secular states' religion, teaching radically harmful ideas like people are made in the image of God and there are moral absolutes etc. Just like we have seen recently in Germany families that refuse to bow to the secular government education many have had their children taken away.

Granted, the main issue in this instance was not education and as of right now families can opt out of the government education programs, but the issue certainly is related. Outlawing homeschooling is the next logical progression for the secularists as is taking place in Europe.

Again though, how can I blame this on secular humanism? Well, as Schaeffer argues in "A Christian Manifesto" (the title is a play on the "Humanist Manifesto") that we once had a government that was under the rule of law, meaning that law was king, the state was under the law. God is the law giver. This gives citizens liberty and restricts the government. However, God has been removed from our understanding of law (and thus lex rex) in favor of a secular humanist framework and Christianity no longer is the intellectual and moral framework of the culture in general (aside from whether individuals really were true believers, Christianity still at one time was the consensus). As this has happened the power of the State has become autonomous and has grown tremendously.

That's the nutshell of the argument, and why we are where we are. We are moving more and more into a police state as our individual freedoms continue to be eroded in the name of various "dire causes" like terrorism, the environment, etc. The time will come within my lifetime I believe when Christian families will not be able to educate their children according to their conscience because the State's elites will see that as potentially harmful.

To wrap up, this isn't supposed to be like one of those sandwich board "The End Is Near!" sort of message from the Charles Manson look alike on the street corner. Firstly, we should praise God for the freedoms we still have, secondly we need to in the current freedoms labor to turn the clock back (I wish Christians would get off the Neo-Con bus and wake up to some one like Ron Paul) and lastly we need to be on our knees before our God at whose word nations rise and fall.

Lord's Table

I have been wrestling a bit with the issue of the Lord's table, as a Presbyterian going to a Lutheran university. It has been good and I am more covinced of Calvin's position as I explore the issue, here's my quiz results:

Eucharistic theology created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Calvin You are John Calvin. You seek to be faithful to Scripture, and to harmonize difficult sayings. You believe that in the Lord's Supper those who have faith are united to Christ, who is present spiritually, yet in a real way. Calvin 88% Zwingli 69% Orthodox 50% Luther 19% Catholic 0% Unitarian 0%