Real Christians don't murder

Anders Behring Breivik claims to be a Christian. He does so both in his manifesto and on his Facebook page. He is clearly mistaken. On page 1307 of Breivik’s manifesto (8MB pdf file): he makes the following assertion:

If you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and God then you are a religious Christian. Myself and many more like me do not necessarily have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and God. We do however believe in Christianity as a cultural, social, identity and moral platform. This makes us Christian.

No it doesn't. It makes you an ideologue. The fourth commandment:

Exodus 20:7
You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.

This madman has attempted to cover his atrocity with the name of Jesus. He admits no personal relationship with the Savior, but calls himself a Christian.

He is not a Christian.
He is a murderer.

Hat tip: Verum Serum

Can we defend our prosperity?

It is because we are a prosperous nation that we can devote precious resources to things like clean energy initiatives, healthcare for the poor, and welfare for the unemployed. Moreover, every prosperous nation - including our own - has been attacked for that prosperity. Our ability to be generous and compassionate depends on having enough wealth to literally give much of it away. Poor people are not generous because they have nothing to give.

With these facts in mind, look at the chart published by the House Armed Services Committee (please click to enlarge):

Remember that food travels by ships that need protection from piracy. The seas are still just as large as they were 20 years ago, and we have only half the ships we did when Bill Clinton was president. We cannot support ground troops without fighter squadrons and strategic bombers.

And the world is not safer than it was in 1990 ... it is far more dangerous.

A weakened America means an ever more dangerous world.

The consequence of the minimum wage

One of the most common arguments when it comes to the minimum wage is that it hasn't keep pace with inflation, and therefore should be raised. However, only one part of that argument is factual. The other is purely opinion.

In 1978, the minimum wage was $2.65 per hour, which when it is adjusted for inflation would equate to $9.18/hr in 2011. Therefore, it is true that increases in the minimum wage have lagged behind increases in the general price level.

But an increase in the minimum wage is a government action ... and all actions have consequences. Even if that action is supposedly in response to other events, the consequences are real.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only one in four teens, age 16-19, have found a job. Notice the steady downward trend since the peak in the late 70's.

Notice how teen employment dropped until the early 80's, then climbed again until 1989, when it began another steep drop.

What happened?

Year	Min. Wage
1981	$3.35
1990	$3.80
1991	$4.25

Each drop in teen employment was preceded by a federally mandated increase in the minimum wage. This is a small sample which illustrates this larger pattern. It is an entirely predictable pattern. And it should call into question the very existence of a minimum wage.

The entire history of minimum wage rates is available at the US Dept of Labor.

Giving money away is not spending

It is no mystery why the stimulus has failed to reverse the course of unemployment. Much of those 'expenditures' were actually transfer payments ... money taken from one group of citizens and given to other groups of citizens. In so doing, our government has intentionally taken resources away from those are productive and transferred them to those who are unproductive.

It has been over a full year since the stimulus became law, and it is, in fact, highly logical that our economy is worse than before the stimulus. Unemployment is higher - as is the unemployment rate - because business owners have less money to hire new workers, expand their business or to purchase additional goods and services. They would have more money, except that it's been taken from them and given to folks that are not in a position to ... hire new workers, expand a business or purchase additional goods and services.

Vanishing credibility

Our economy is sputtering. The signs of recovery are being overwhelmed by persistently high unemployment and real inflationary pressures. The two are linked. And this administration seems determined to steer clear of any action that would actually help. Instead, they seek to distract the voters by blaming someone.

It is not credible for the administration to endorse Ben Bernanke's decision to flood the world with dollars — and then denounce China for manipulating its currency.
Bret Stephens, WSJ (link requires subscription)

This is exactly what the thugs in the middle East have been doing for 50 years. They demonize Israel so as to distract their populations from their economic failure and absolute oppression.

We must not allow this to continue. We must elect new leadership.

No ability and no right

One of the tenets of the modern American liberal belief system is that the broad sociological and economic improvements can be achieved through scientific means. Therefore, a highly advanced thinker can, by the power of their superior intellectual capabilities, devise a strategy that will change society for the better. You can see this in action when tax credits are implemented for certain types of activity, like using solar energy. You can also see it when government agencies decide the content of school curricula.

Government agencies are made up (for now at least) of a minority of our population. Yet they make decisions that affect people of every walk of life. Modern American liberalism is content with this, since those agencies are made up of specialists, who presumably know more about their field than the rest of us. For a liberal, that superior knowledge gives them the authority to make those decisions.

The reality is, though, that the men and women who make up those agencies cannot possibly possess enough knowledge to surpass the population at large. The citizenry has, collectively, the benefit of its full experience and knowledge. Therefore, citizens make far more productive decisions and make far better choices than government agents.

Government agencies have no right to favor certain industries with subsidies, and penalize others with additional taxes. They do it anyway ... and we can see the entirely predictable results: anemic growth across broad swaths of our economy.

Except for the government agencies.

Energy Indepenence is possible

The fringe environmentalists want us to believe that so-called green energy is vital to our national security. We need to be independent of foreign oil in order to stop supporting regimes that are hostile to our interests. But they are lying.

If they were truly serious about energy independence, then they would stop blocking the development of the abundant natural resources in our own backyard. The North Slope pipeline in Alaska can safely transport upwards of 2.2 million barrels of oil each day from the oil fields to the refineries. Currently, there are three untapped oil fields in Alaska: the National Petroleum Reserve, the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas, and the 0.0087% of the 23 million acre ANWR that is necessary to begin oil production. Those fields contain an estimated 60 billion barrels of oil. At the peak transport capacity of 2.2 million barrels a day, that is over 70 years of production.

Is that a permanent answer? No. But it is a safe and affordable alternative to foreign oil that would give us time to develop other non-petroleum based fuel sources.

If our government was serious about energy independence, they would open these areas up for oil production.