One Year of Obama Foreign Policy

Very good piece. While I disagree with the overall neo-conservative tone of this article (i.e. that America should spread democracy all around the world) I agree with Kagan that America needs to be a pillar of justice in the world, opposed to tyrants and evil. Obama simply isn't doing this by making nice with people like Hugo Chavez, Hu Jintao, and Vladimir Putin.

In other notes, since I got Windows 7 Enterprise I have been unable to paste stuff from Word documents or OneNote. Since I typically write my blog posts in either of these formats first, I haven't posted a blog since before finals last semester as they won't copy. Hopefully with some help (Jason?) I can get back to posting more blogs.

http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/2010%20-%20JanFeb/full-Kagan-JF-2010.html

Angst

And as I sat alone
In tired alienation
A devil came to me and spake
“Life is not for the faint of heart”
“What do you mean, sir?”
I asked the devil.
“Victory is seized by those who
Are strong in spirit and in will

Who relentlessly
Pursue friend and foe
Ever striving, never ceasing
Those who know no limitations,”
He answered to me.
“From whence does a man
Find such a ceaseless mastery?”
I questioned the cunning devil.

The demon replied
To me these very words:
“A man finds the will to power
When he forsakes ethic’s limits
And serves only the self
Kindness is man’s death
Submit yourself to other’s will
And your life shall forever be

Tossed to and fro like
A ship upon the sea.
Command your will and conquer life
Utterly and completely
No friends only slaves
Bound unto thy will
All life is but a vain contest
In which all of men must compete

Some win and some lose
And it is your end
To be found amongst the winners
Thus caste off all inhibitions
Right is for the weak
Who fail at life’s game
The full potential of a man
Is found in unbounded freedom.”

“I cannot do this!”
I wailed unto him.
“I cannot treat a man as a slave
And disregard his dignity.
‘Do unto others
As you would have done
Unto yourself.’ The golden rule.
I cannot forsake this teaching.”

“Oh! Then you are weak!”
The devil accused.
“Have you not heard a thing I said?
those words bind a man utterly,
Tighter than shackles
Restrictive as cuffs.
The crown of victory is seized
By those men who abandon them.

Will men accord you
The same rule you keep?
You will be a foolish puppet
Danced on stage by stronger men
There are only slaves
And stronger masters.
What is it you gain by your rule?
What are the fruits of your labor?

Your toil is in vain
It renders nothing.
Long have I watched you from above
In the agony of your soul
You long for the fruit
That others consume
But you are restricted by fear
And are constricted by weakness.

The fruit that they eat
They offer you none
That fruit can only be purchased
By those who are willing to cheat
And willing to trade
Your rule for the fruit
The fruit is the crown of victory
Victory is won by real men.

Slaves do not mind it
Their subservience
Those of weak wills accept their fate
There is no evil done in it.
Behold nature’s way
Lions hunt gazelles.
The lions are men of power
And the deer are those who are weak.

The fawns are lion’s food
Made for that purpose
So consume your pound of the flesh
As a mighty beast does such
There is but one rule:
Hunt or be hunted
An animal’s defense must be
It’s vicious offense on its prey.”

Thus the devil spoke
And then he left me
Once again in isolation
Leaving his words to lie upon me
Oh! How the haunt me!
And cause temptation!
Truly do I lust for the fruit
That the strong possess by their strength

Yet I cannot leave
The path that I walk
To another no matter how
Lined with fruit trees their road may be
Something is sweeter
Than delicious fruit
No matter how I hunger for
Refreshment in the earthly apple.

Grass

As winter recedes
Spring is ushered in
The snow melts away
And the seeds of grass
Germinate in soil
Sprouts begin to grow
And long stalks of grass
Grow up from the earth

As springtime ages on
The grass grows up high
It grows tall and thick
And they know not of
The grass of last year
Which also grew tall
And the stalks of grass
Marvel at their height

But spring does not last
Springtime is fleeting
And the hot days of
Summer draw up nigh
The tall green stocks brown
Their roots are made weak
By the burning sun
They wither and they die

Then the grass is thrown
Into a hot oven
And burned to ashes
The stocks are laid low
The field is made bare
And Littered with straw
A plain of dead things
Trampled on by beasts

The summertime wanes
Autumn arrives next
Soon the frost comes and
Freezes the hard earth
Making it barren
And no more grass grows
Until the spring comes
Once again the same.

Thanksgiving

As Thanksgiving approaches, I thought I would create a list of all the things that I am thankful for. Too often our prayers contain far too much supplication and far too little thanksgiving. We seem to be able to remember all the problems in our lives but none of our blessings. As Americans living in the 21st century we have much to be thankful for. If you compare our standard of living to that of the rest of the world and then to the rest of the world throughout history, you would discover are supremely blessed. We are free from fear, famine, wars (close to home anyway), disease, and suffering. We often forget the quality of life in places in Africa where daily life is a struggle; a struggle to find clean water, a struggle to find food, a struggle to avoid disease, a struggle to avoid warring militias, etc. We also forget the quality of life in the past, before anesthetics and antibiotics were invented. So this Thanksgiving remember the massive material and spiritual blessings that God has given you.

*My savior, Jesus Christ and the grace and love of God the Father.
*My parents who made me into the person I am today.
*My brothers who always gave me elder brother advice.
*My sister-in-law Jennifer whose kindness and love have always been a great addition to our family
*My adorable niece Karla.
*My many friends both at school and at home.
*The comfortable life that I have been blessed with.
*The liberties that my country has given me.
*The wisdom that God has given me.
*My intelligence that God has given me.
*The ability to worship my religion freely.
*Several great professors at school who have helped my academic maturation.
*My health
*My churches, both at school and at home.
*My freedom from fear due to the fact that I live in a power nation.
*My wealth, compared to the rest of the world.
*My education.
*My maturity
*In general, the Lord has blessed me with a good life, full of good people.

KSM Trial

I thought this was a very interesting article. I have to agree with Pat Buchanan on this one.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/11/17/are_we_at_war_or_not.html

New Amendment for the Election of Senators and Representatives

I. No senator or representative shall take office unless they have passed a proctored exam, approved by Congress, in order to ascertain their ability to act as a senator or representative. A tougher exam being in place for senators and an easier one for representatives.

II. A grade of three-fourths correctly answered questions shall be required for a passing grade on the proctored exam. The candidate shall have no knowledge of the exam prior to taking the exam. If any candidate violates this article, the candidate shall immediately be disqualified. In addition, after failing an exam, the candidate may retake the exam only once as long as the candidate has scored better than fifty per-percent. Any candidate scoring below fifty per-cent may no retake the test again during the current election year.

III. The questions in the said exam shall be objective and based on the following subjects: English language, history, economics, the American constitution, and comparative politics. There shall be no discrimination of persons in the exam, with the same questions being asked of each candidate per election year and new questions being generated for future exams.

Christianity and Knowledge

Foundational to my epistemology is faith. All of our knowledge is formed by certain categories that have developed in our minds. The modernist dream of finding a neutral, objective, and "rational" body of knowledge is just that - a dream. If postmodernism has done one positive thing, it has been to show that the constructs of the human mind do indeed influence our knowledge. Everyone is coming from somewhere and all knowledge is built upon epistemic assumptions that we hold to be true. These assumptions include; theism, atheism, pantheism, the New Age, existentialism, pragmatism, and countless other isms. All such isms are accepted on faith. This is because there must be a rock-bottom foundation that human reason can spring from. We cannot reasonably reason that reason is reasonable, for this always includes one basic assumption; that reason is reasonable. It is impossible to prove that he can trust our reason. It is impossible to prove that what we experience is reality for, if it is an illusion, all the tools that we use to prove thus are part of our reality and thereby themselves illusionary. Thus I take it as a matter of faith that God exists. This is not a "leap of faith" or fideism. I do not accept this faith blindly. Rather I accept this faith because I believe that it provides the best foundation for accepting all those things in life we accept to be true; reason, science, knowledge, morality, meaning, beauty. As C.S. Lewis said, "I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen; not because I can see it but because by it I can see everything else. Also, reason is not excluded from faith. Rather from the standpoint of faith reason has been justified and the Christian can use it critically. The Christian can, from the standpoint of faith, use reason to buttress that faith and critically think about faith to ensure that it is coherent and consistent.

In the epistemology of Christian knowledge it is important to remember that all knowledge is God's knowledge. Christians often forget that even so-called "secular" knowledge is God's knowledge. When discussion the Renaissance, it is fashionable for historians to say that it was the "birth" or "rebirth" of secular learning. We should not, however, believe that simply because Renaissance learning was not dominated by theology (indeed I would say that even in the High Middle Ages learning wasn't solely about "theology") that the educational and scholarly trends of the Renaissance was "secular." The spiritual and the secular is a division drawn up by post-Kantian thinkers. To the Medieval or Renaissance mind, there was no such division. The exploration of history, the science, art, and literature were as much a part of the knowledge of God as theology proper. To them, all knowledge was truly God's knowledge because all thins, or rather all good things were created and sustained by Him. Many of the greatest minds that Christendom ever produced, men such as Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, and Edwards, very much treasured reason. As Augustine said, all knowledge of men, even that of the heathen, that is in accordance with faith is as gold and silver mined from the veins of God's knowledge and should be embraced by Christians.

In this way I view the Bible, not as an exhaustive body of truth as some fundamentalists see it, but as foundational. Since man is depraved because of original sin and distorts his reason, God sent his Word so that man would have a reference point of truth. The Bible gives us a foundation from which to build our knowledge upon. This does not mean that I view the Bible in a lesser sense than other Christians. I believe that the Bible is the absolute and final word on spiritual matters and matters of salvation. However, in the realm of politics, economics, history, and science I believe that the Bible is normative and not comprehensive. The Bible gives us foundations for these subjects such as the chief end of man, the characteristics of God, the finite characteristic our universe, the imago dei of man, and the depravity of man. With an understanding of these profound spiritual truths we can pursue learning in what is termed the "secular realm," though I would prefer to call it the temporal realm or the material. We must remember that the temporal and the material are creation of God and that he has deemed His creation "good." Therefore they are worthy of our study as Christians. Indeed God has commanded us to take dominion of the earth as His stewards. But again, I stress, we do not find answers to these questions in the Bible but rather they pursued by our reason, though a reason that is informed by the principles of Scripture and is guided by it.

I think I can best illustrate this by applying to the subject that I know best; history. Though the Bible is set in history and recordsmany historical facts (the kingdom of Israel, the coming of the Assyrians, the Exile, the rebuilding of the temple, and the Roman Empire, it is not a history textbook. The Bible gives only a sliver of ancient history. The history that it is most concerned with is the history of the People of God which is a spiritual history that is the sphere of special rather than natural revelation. Such a history is not, I believe, discernable from the academic study of history, but rather had to be revealed to us by God. We must also avoid, as Christians, to insert biblical providence into history. The only things we know about God's providence in history is limited to what is record about the events of Scripture. Christians must avoid the arrogance of believing they know for certain the purpose of God's hand in the events of most history (e.g. God let 9/11 happen because of gays). However, the Bible does inform us of God's sovereignty in history. We know that all events are ordained by Him and that nothing occurs which God did not make happen or let happen. Christians also know what the Bible says about man. Christians know the creative potential of beings created in the image of God as well as the depravity of creatures who suffering from original sin. Christianity supplies us with a moral compass to provide a basis from which to judge historical events and apply history to contemporary life (e.g. the Holocaust was morally wrong. Ultra-nationalism should be avoided because of the horrific results that it can bring). Finally, Christianity can humble us in the pursuit of history. As Christians we are fully aware of the imperfection of man. As Christians we know to avoid utopian ideals in both the political/societal and academic spheres. Christianity knows that perfect societies and perfect scholarship are beyond our reach, though we should strive for them (Christ commanded us to be perfect although he clearly knew our inability to be so). Christians can therefore imbue their scholarship and politics with a sense of humility