What to Do? 09/24/2009
I've been having difficulty writing like I used to. This is primarily due to the new role I took with Liberty Mutual. I put in a lot more classroom hours than I have in the past, which means less time to think, research, and put pen to paper (that's figurative, I type out my blogs). I've been brainstorming ways to make my blog a little more effective and meaningful- especially considering that I have another baby on the way and I can't imagine that this is going to get easier once he's in my life. If you've got ideas of your own, please post them in the comments section. Thanks for reading! Why Rich People Make Money in a Bad Economy 09/17/2009
You want to know why the rich keep on getting richer, even when the stock market takes a fall and everyone else is scared of losing everything? Savvy investors see a dip in the stock market the same way most of us see a Labor Day Weekend Sale at the local mall. They run in with their wallets out, taking advantage of all the discount prices on their favorite brands. Then, when the market heads back up again (as it always does), they've got all their initial investments and more to boot. So, if I know all this, why didn't I do a bunch of investing over the past year? Well, simply put I didn't have a lot of equity to dump into the market. That's the only reason. I'm a very strong advocate for limited government (as anyone reading this blog should know by now), but that doesn't mean that I'm not compassionate or that I care only about myself. In fact, I've been learning more and more about selflessness since having a baby and I'm fairly confident that I care about the needs of other people to the point where I'm willing to donate time/money to making sure other people are doing life well (whatever that means for them). As a Christian, I believe that we should look out for the poor, the needy, the downtrodden- but when I say "we" I don't mean the government. I mean you and I. Yes, whoever you are reading this right now, I mean that you and I have the responsibility to make a difference in other people's lives. The best healthcare reform I've ever experienced was when my friend Jamie put together a small task force of friends who held a garage sale and donated some of their own money in order to help us pay for some unexpected medical expenses. And likewise, it's when I've been the one who's served a meal to families staying at the Ronald McDonald House, or helped a friend move into a new apartment, or donated some shoes to kid in the Dominican Republic, or shucked corn for a church potluck, that a real difference has been made. Not only in the lives of those whom I've served, but in me, too. I'm better because of giving. Some friends of mine began a ministry called Home Sweet Homeless where they head downtown once or twice a month and share a meal or a movie with the homeless in Orlando. They don't just give them cash or food- they spend time with them and learn about their stories and give them a chance to feel like a cared for human being. These guys (and girls) aren't waiting to send in a government proxy that's going to lend a helping hand to their friends. They aren't just legislating compassion. They're out there BEING compassion. Whatever ends up happening with healthcare and Wall Street and banking and the Federal Reserve- I'd encourage you not to miss out on the personal, individual benefits of serving the community. Government programs don't have the personal touch that a friend coming along side us does. So rather than send in a proxy that will take care of social justice- take the initiative to make social justice happen right now. You don't need Barack Obama, Ron Paul, or Bono in order to do good for those around you. You can be the Change that you've been waiting for. Sin is an Awful Lot Like Ivy 09/15/2009
A few weeks ago, I was out in the backyard pulling some grass and weeds out of the small garden plot I planted and I noticed some tree limbs sticking out of the ten foot bushes that line one of our fences. As it turns out, my fence isn’t lined with ten foot bushes, it’s lined with trees that have been overgrown by ivy to the point where they are unable to continue growing. Left unattended, they’d probably die within a few more years and I’d be stuck with a thicket of brambles. So, this weekend I put on some gloves, got out the hedge trimmers and began to cutting away. Four hours later… I had a stack of debris so deep it’ll take a few weeks before the city will haul it all away, but I can finally see the trees that were underneath. And my backyard looks awful now. I think the trees are going to survive, but they had been sitting under so much ivy that they’re all on the brink of death and look as if they just survived a hurricane. The fence isn’t much better. For a moment, I almost regretted taking it all down. I mean, it didn’t really look too bad to begin with and it’ll be years before these trees rebound back to health again. While I was working, I couldn’t help noting how similar ivy is to sin. You see like ivy, sin also creeps in and takes over, gradually killing whatever is underneath it. At first, it may look good. It may even be planted there on purpose. Plenty of us knowingly and willingly put things into our lives that could get out of control if they aren’t handled properly. We tell ourselves that we’re able to confine it all to one area of our lives, but we’re fooling ourselves. You see, sin never stays put. It reaches out from where it starts and stretches into to other areas of our lives, too. It’s always expanding, always growing, always looking for something or someone else to consume. And sin doesn’t stop with one person, either. Its web of destruction will take down a whole community- just as ivy takes out an entire row of trees. And then there’s the removal process. It turns out that just like ivy, getting rid of sin is back-breaking work that leaves you exhausted, bruised, and beat up. When it’s finally gone (or mostly gone), the landscape of our lives is riddled with the evidence of destruction. Often, we look and feel worse off than when the sin was in full form, which makes us tempted to go back to what we had so that we can escape the prying eyes that see damage and guilt instead of beauty. Removing sin and ivy isn’t fun. It’s definitely not how I’d like to spend my weekend. But I feel like the work I did on the yard and the work I’ve done in my life has been time well spend. You see, I think the future is worth the effort we exert, today. Things will be better then because of the pains I’ve taken to fix things. I bet my yard is going to look a lot better in a few years and I’ll remember with fondness the time I spent to make it that way. I bet my life will look better, too! You Have The Right To Remain Silent 09/09/2009
Yesterday, I ran across the following video regarding the 5th amendment. I think it's interesting that this right was originally bestowed in order to ensure that INNOCENT people were not forced into conviction by their own words. Most of the time, we'd assume that anyone who doesn't speak with the police or testify in their own defense must be GUILTY. After all, if they have nothing to hide, why wouldn't they want talk about it? Why would an innocent person hide behind silence? The video does a much better job explaining why, but if you don't have time to sit through all forty-eight minutes, I'll provide a brief summary below.
I’ve been off the blog for a few days now because I took an extended Labor Day weekend retreat with my family. We went down to Walt Disney World Resort and played in the Magic Kingdom, Epcot, and Hollywood Studios for a few days. As a former theme park employee, I’ve seen the stress that’s caused by visiting an expensive place like Disney. The heat makes everyone grumpy, the prices makes everyone stressed out about “getting their money’s worth” out of the experience, and so the dream vacation often ends up with family quarrels and disagreements. We decided to do things differently. Now, I’m surely not a professional vacationer or anything, but I have to say that by following the “rules” below I really enjoyed our family retreat and I feel refreshed and rejuvenated. I’d suggest these for any vacation, but particularly if you’re going to be heading to a theme park. Rule One: Disconnect Other than our phones, we decided that the best way to spend our time together would be disconnected from the internet, social networks, and other outside experiences. We left the computers at home and didn’t use our phones to access our e-mail, facebook, or twitter. As difficult as it might have been to break my internet addition- I gotta admit that I didn’t really miss it that much. I mean, I like spending time with my wife and my child. And with my attention focused on them and on the experiences at hand, there wasn’t really a lot of time to miss my “online presence.” Rule Two: Don’t Do Everything Theme Parks are huge. In a really part of the year like the beginning of November, it might be possible to do experience most of what’s offered in a Theme Park, but not on Labor Day Weekend- and most certainly not with a seventeen month old in tow. It’s just not realistic to expect to do everything and so we maximized each moment by enjoying all the things we were engaged with at that moment instead of rushing onward to the next thing. Rule Three: Do Things That Everyone Will Enjoy So, you agree not to do everything. Great. Then what DO you do with all the possibilities out there? I think it's best to focus on things that everyone will enjoy. For instance, my son is too young and too short to experience some the activities at Disney. He’s not going to be going on a rollercoaster for a few more years and some of the attractions are a little too advances for his attention span or abilities. So we stuck with things that were exciting for him. We spend 15 minutes watching him watch the dolphin swim past the viewing window. We rode the Mexico ride twice. The only two times we broke this “rule” was when we took him on the Energy Ride (boring) and later went to the Nine Dragons Restaurant in China. Boy did we regret it! He was a mess. He wanted to run around and we were making him sit on our laps on a loud, boring movie ride or sit up in a high chair while we were anxious about the fact that his high pitched shrills were bothering everyone else. The entire experience worked much better when we merely enjoyed the things that he enjoyed instead of trying to get him to enjoy the things we wanted to do. Rule Four: Take Naps, Drink Water, and Eat Regularly Who wants to be cranky on vacation? Yet, I’ve seen a lot of parents pushing their kids beyond naptime when they’re too young to be without naptime. I’ve seen people in the parks dehydrated because they forget that walking around in the hot sun is taxing. I’ve seen people forget to eat because of the excitement around them. All these things add up to disaster- a big blowout fight waiting to happen because everyone’s on edge because of exhaustion. We brought a big water bottle with us and drank from it often. We got a big breakfast every day and then tried to eat regularly, even though it meant buying overpriced theme park food. But most importantly, we napped. Because we stayed at one of the onsite hotels, we were within about 30-40 minutes of a bed at all times. The busses dropped us off and picked us up at each park and delivered us close to our room within a fairly reasonable time, anytime we needed. So, we went to the park for a few hours in the morning, went back to the hotel from about 12:30-3:00pm and came back and spent the afternoon and early evening at the park again before bed. We missed the really hot, crowded times and were fresh and ready to go in the evening when everyone else was dragging and beginning to get cranky with each other. Rule Five: Leave Time to Recoup After Vacation As good as vacation can be when it’s truly relaxing, it can be stressful to head back to work the day after returning from vacation. We spent two nights at the Disney hotels and two and a half days at the theme parks. Then we came home and spent two and a half days at home, hanging out and recouping. Vacation is only a success if it doesn’t cause more stress- and having a normal weekend to mow the lawn, hang out together, and do the typical stuff that needs to get done during time off is an important part of vacation. It meant that my mind was completely focused on my family and my surroundings instead of thinking about when I was going to get the ivy pulled down from the side of the house or get the ironing done. How Can the Same God be so Angry and Kind? 09/02/2009
Something that bothers a lot of Christians (and non-Christians) is the seeming contradiction of God’s character between the Old & New Testament. In the Old Testament, God often seems very angry with people- like a cruel old man seeking vengeance on anyone or anything that doesn’t fall in line with His ways. Then comes the New Testament and suddenly God seems to become a kind and loving father who patiently waits for everyone to come home into His arms. This apparent split personality of God has been one of the most difficult issues for anyone who studies the Bible. Some of my friends think that maybe God's been evolving and adapting, just like we do. But I wonder if it's merely that we're gowing up as a species and our understanding of who God is, is increasing and expanding? * * * Last night, I forcefully removed my son’s hand from the stove control and he screamed at me. His eyes filled up with tears and he had a little meltdown right there in the middle of the kitchen. Now, he’s usually the sweetest little boy in the world, but when he wants something that he’s unable to have, he gets furious. Sometimes he becomes so angry that he can’t function and we literally have to pick up and remove him from wherever he is and hold him close until he calms down. I’m not sure what's going on in that little brain of his when these meltdowns happen, but I wonder if his anger isn’t pointed directly at me and his mom. He still knows that we love him, but since we’re keeping him from his desires- we’re villains, thwarting him at every move. I can only imagine that it’s going to get worse as he gets older. My experience with my own parents was mixed, too. As a child, I had a terrible temper and I got in trouble for all sorts of things. My mom and dad were often viewed as the enemies, always dishing out punishment, making me eat food I didn’t like, forcing me to go to bed when I didn't want to, and giving me rules and restrictions that a lot of my friends didn’t have. It wasn’t until I graduated from High School and was out from under my parent’s constant supervision that we became friendly with each other. Gradually, we developed a different sort of relationship and I began to see how their “restrictions” and “punishment” were actually for my own good. Due to their influence in my life, I had a little more discipline over my own actions and was able to make better choices. I see now that it wasn’t always vengeance or cruelty that drove them to put rules and restrictions in place. It was more often kindness and love. It was merely my own immaturity that made me view them as villians. It was my adolescent and teenage brain that hadn’t grown to the point where I could see the whole picture of what they were trying to accomplish. And I bet my son is going to have the same feelings about me as he grows up. In the middle of the kitchen floor, while Ethan was still crying, it suddenly made sense why God seems to be so mean, angry and jealous in some places and so kind, loving and compassionate it others. It’s because the story of humanity is much like the story of a little boy who's growing up. At some points, God gave rules and then gave grace. At different times, He disciplined and befriended. God is fathering us and just like is for all sons and daughters, His methods don’t always make sense in the moment. There are times when He seems like the villain rather than the protector. There are times when He seems to needlessly keep us from our desires. But as we mature in our ability to know Him and understand this world we live in, we’re able to see more clearly that the whole picture is love- even those rough patches when everthing seems to be out of sync with how we’d expect a loving God to act. A friend of mine asked me the other day how it is that I can rationalize taking the New Homebuyer Tax Credit when I don’t believe in Federal subsidies, bailouts, and most welfare programs. Good question! He could have also asked me why it is that I took unemployment checks from the State of Washington if I don’t believe in government subsidies, bailouts, and most welfare programs. And he could have also asked why I cashed the stimulus check in the summer of 2008 if I don’t believe in government subsidies, bailouts, and most welfare programs. Here's the deal: I definitely filed for unemployment and I am definitely taking the New Homebuyer Tax Credit and I definitely cashed the stimulus check. All three are true and all three seem to be directly counterintuitive to this blog’s ideals on liberty and limited government. So the question becomes this: Am I a hypocrite for taking government money when I’m so adamantly against government spending programs? In the cases mentioned above, I’m going to say no. To prove this, I’m going to suggest that we tackle each of these apparent discrepancies in chronological order: First, the Stimulus Check, then the Unemployment Checks, and finally the New Homebuyer Tax Credit. The Stimulus Check: Back in the summer of 2008, we got a check in the mail from the Federal Government asking us to “Stimulate the Economy” by spending a few hundred dollars. Most Americans got one. I didn’t believe then that we’d be able to spend our way out of debt anymore than I believe it now, but I went ahead and cashed it anyhow. Why? Because this check proved to me that the government doesn't know what they're doing with the money we give them. Programs like these are rediculous. They tell us that if we just continue spending enough, eventually, everything is going to work out. President Bush told us after 911 that the Terrorists would WIN if we stopped spending our money and going on vacation. What? If one of my friends told me that their way out of debt would be to continue maxing out their credit cards until someone came along and offered them a job that would take care of the amazing stuff they just purchased- I'd laugh them off. And I'd definitely not feed their lunacy by giving them more money to waste. So, I decided that since I apparently know how to manage money better than the government- I'd keep the check and use it for something better than a "spend your way out of debt" campaign. Unemployment Checks: When I was laid off at the end of 2008, I filed for Unemployment Checks. And I received my unemployment checks for a few months until I got a new job here in Florida. They weren’t really enough to live on- so I’m really grateful for our savings account and my in-laws who were kind enough to help us out a little bit- but I still filed for unemployment and made it my “job” to search for a job (and I was pretty good at it, too). Why, if I don’t believe in Federal Welfare Programs, did I take Unemployment- doesn’t that violate my principles? There are really three reasons why I did it: First off, unemployment is usually the realm of the State government rather than the Federal government. While I don’t believe that government welfare programs are usually the most effective programs to ensure the welfare of the people, I’m actually OK with them on the local and state levels unless they violate the local or State constitutions. They usually don’t. What I am opposed to are Federal Welfare programs. This isn’t because Welfare programs are “evil” or anything. It’s merely because on the Federal level they are unconstitutional. No matter how helpful a program might be, we cannot continue to fund something that isn’t allowed within our US Constitution. Check this site for some interesting facts about how Welfare is in Direct Defiance of our Constitution. Anyhow, although I don’t believe that Federal Welfare Programs are the most effective means to bring about social justice and ease poverty- if our nation truly wants them, let’s vote to amend the Constitution rather than continuing to ignore it. Amendments aren’t easy to pass, but it’s better than allowing other things to slip by that undermine our freedom. So, to summarize- the first point is that welfare programs that are done on the State level aren’t unconstitutional and are OK, even if there are better ways to provide for people. Secondly, I paid into unemployment and so did my employer. We were taxed on it. Every week, we both had our own income taken out in order to fund the unemployed of our State. So after paying into it, I believe that it’s OK to take out of it, too. The same goes for Social Security- I don’t think it’s going to be around when I retire, and I think it was a bad program to begin with, but I’m not opposed to anyone taking Social Security checks- especially after paying into the program for their entire life. I hesitate to call it an entitlement because I hope that it’s gone one day… but for the time being, if it’s given to you- take it. Third, I couldn’t allow my principles to starve my wife and child. If I had been on my own, an idealist without anyone relying on me, I might have been more inclined to refuse help and go get a minimum wage job or live off of savings until I landed another position. But now that I have two other people depending on me (three other people by Thanksgiving) I couldn’t reasonably refuse unemployment on principle. My principle of taking care of those entrusted to me trumps any personal need to thwart the government. New Homebuyer Tax Credit: Tax Credits, we must understand, are different than welfare programs, stimulus programs, and bailouts, but since the definition is a very narrow one, I’ll need to explain it a bit more so that you’ll understand why it’s not hypocritical to take a tax credit- even when I’m against government spending programs. Stimulus programs, bailouts, and welfare programs all mean that the government is giving me something. I take money from the government. Tax Credits, on the other hand, mean that I owe less to the government in the first place. It may seem like a very arbitrary difference, but it’s very important to get this if we’re to understand property rights and such. Let me clear it up: I believe that I own 100% of my paycheck even though I am obligated to pay taxes. So every year, I pay the full amount of my taxes because I believe that we should obey the laws of the country that we live in. Those taxes are given to the government and they use them for whatever is in the Federal Budget that year (including a lot of things that I agree with and a lot that I don’t). If the government says, I owe $8,000 LESS this year because I just purchased a home, that doesn’t mean that they are GIVING me $8,000. That means that out of the taxes that I owe from the paycheck that I own, I am obligated to pay $8,000 less than normal. That’s my money that I no longer have to pay rather than a gift from the Federal Government. Do you see the difference? |