this is a short snippet of what i remember from my stand-up comedy routine this morning. during the shower. stream of consciousness thinking, i guess you'd call it.
where do the Russians keep their armies?
in their sleevies.
that should be sleevskis.
there are two kinds of people in this world: Amerikanskis and Amerikantskis.
i'm an Amerikantski.
a bit of advice: don't try to learn to ski when you are over the age of forty.
also, when you are doing that snow plow idea to slow yourself down, you know, where you ski pigeon-toed, and then your skis cross each other, and you start falling forward? well, don't plant your pole in front of you to keep yourself from falling. it won't. you will find yourself decelerating from, oh, about a hundred miles an hour to zero in a nanosecond. and that hurts.
You answered Nothing when accused. O Mighty Nothing! we owe You. You spoke one time and made the world, then saved us all without a word. The world was made of Nothing then; it's made of Nothing once again.
Abe Lincoln once asked, "if you call a dog's tail a leg, then how many legs would he have?" "he has four. just because you call a tail a leg doesn't make it one."
a three-legged dog walks into a saloon and calls out, "i'm lookin' for the man that shot my paw."
what does a man do standing up, a woman do sitting down, and a dog do on three legs? shake hands.
if you taught a dog to walk around on his hind legs, would you begin to call his front legs arms?
if a satanist is sings a song about his dog, and you play it backwards, does that mean the song is really about God?
what do you call a dog with no legs? it doesn't matter, because he can't come to you anyway.
McCain trusts big business. sooner or later, people with money will put it to use and hire the middle class to do their work.
Obama does not trust big business. he believes that the wealthy are greedy, and they must be forced to give to the middle class. big businesses need a watchdog to keep them in check, and, like Robin Hood, to take from the rich and give to the poor. in other words, Obama trusts big government.
as for me, i do not trust big business OR big government. i believe that mankind, both rich and poor, is depraved. so whether it is the multi-millionaire who exploits workers to build his own wealth, or it is the politician who somehow became a multi-millionaire in so-called "public service" because he receives support from special interests, every person is out for himself. that's one thing we can trust: the depravity of mankind.
do you really think that if someone who is poor, or someone who is middle class, just needs a little hand up, and that having received that, he or she will be content and will flourish? why are you and me, as the middle class, any different from the wealthy in our motives?
the only hope for our economy is when all Christ folowers (we can't hope for much change in human nature from the rest) to have a heart change and choose to live purposefully beneath their means, so that they can be generous. then individuals can genuinely help the poor.
until that happens, i say it doesn't matter much whether we have mixed socialism (as we have now) or pure socialism (which is what Obama means by the word "change").
the TRUTH is: 1. i CAN homeschool my child without permission from the government. but most people, including many school superintendents in Ohio, don't realize it. many parents have to procure a lawyer in order to defend their rights. they almost always win their case, because the law is quite clear about our freedoms, but many bureaucrats don't know the law.
2. i CAN start a church without permission from the government. by definition, that church is even tax-exempt. the only reason to seek governmental "permission" is if that church chooses to register as a 501(c)3 organization, so that they can cooperate with other recognized non-profit organizations. but increasingly, there are movements afoot to change the tax-exempt status of unregistered churches.
3. i CAN be a minister without registering or obtaining "permission" from the government. i can even marry people without being registered in my state. but such unregistered marriages (sometimes spoken of a "common-law" marriages) are frowned upon by the government, and they make things difficult for the couple. it is easiest simply to register.
the POINT is: all of these are rights and freedoms. today. but all are being currently reviewed by lawmakers, fought in courts, and debated by those in control (superintendents, the IRS, Social Security, and other governmental bureaucracies that seek "better" control of their jurisdictions).
isn't it GOOD for the government to have more control? more regulations? more monitoring? maybe. but remember, every right that we as a people surrender is one less freedom that we own. we read about bad use of guns, about abusive parents hiding under the guise of homeschooling, about ministries that fraudulently misuse funds, and we begin to conclude that because of the few we must take away the freedoms of the many. and so, one by one, we surrender our rights to our always-benevolent Big Brother.
as long as our dictator is benevolent, it doesn't matter on a practical day-by-day basis whether or not we have freedoms like these. but ask homeschoolers in Germany how it feels to have their children removed from their homes, because home education is illegal there. ask the church in China if registering with the government is a good idea. ask them what doctrines are permitted to be preached in a registered church. ask them about the penalty if they choose to meet without registering with the government. ask any pastor in Iran, or Indonesia, or North Korea, how much freedom they have to preach the gospel, and ask them how the limitations began and where they are now.
every once in a while, i must make a serious political statement. as a follower of Jesus, as a minister of the gospel, and as a home educating father, i am aware that my government has "permitted" me the privilege of doing these things. the government "tolerates" my actions--for now.
the problem is, as Jefferson understood it, these are unalienable rights of mine. not permissions to be granted by men, but endowed by my Creator. and if they are unalienable, then the government cannot take them away. if they are unalienable, NO ONE can take them away. it is impossible, because they simply cannot be removed from me, by divine right.
Thomas Paine said that toleration and intoleration are not opposite. both are despotism. if the government assumes to itself the right to withhold something from me that God gave me, it really doesn't matter whether they have given me "permission" or not.
i am "allowed" to follow Jesus, as long as my beliefs don't interfere with others. wait a second! allowed? since when does the government have jurisdiction over religious liberty? i thought i was endowed by my Creator with certain unalienable rights, among which [is] . . . liberty.
i am "licensed" as a minister of the gospel, as long as i submit certain papers and get certain permissions. then i have a "perk" from the government of being tax-exempt. hold on! why is the government the watchdog over the church? why is there even a possibility of government taxing a minister who does not meet with their approval? where did that power come from?
i am "permitted" to home educate my children, as long as i register with the local school, submit for approval my course scope and sequence for the year, and prove myself to be qualified and competent. oops! since when has the government owned my children? i thought that the concept of democratic governments meant that we own and control the government, not that they own and control us.
the idea of America is that people have rights. we have slowly become a country in which the Government has rights, benevolently granting permissions to citizens who stay in line.
something is backwards here.
this next election will take us a huge next step in the direction of an all-powerful, self-declared benevolent, despotic Big Brother. take a deep breath, we're going to be underground for a long, long time.
sunday afternoon i had committed myself to give the invocation and benediction for ITT technical institute's commencement. what was in it for me? a tight schedule. the challenge of staying awake in front of hundreds of people. the chance to pray in front of perfect strangers. a standing ovation for my benediction (or was that for the graduates, now that i think of it?). and a clock.
i did the same thing for their commencement a few months ago. got a clock for that, too.
no more. know my boundaries. gotta be paid next time. or learn to use the batteries in the clock for fuel.
then this morning i was reading about Jesus. after He heard about john the baptist being killed, Jesus got into a boat by Himself (not even with His disciples!) and rowed away, to have some alone time. understandable. He needed some Jesus time.
but the crowds saw Him go, and rushed around the lake to greet Him, and mostly to ask more of Him, once He got there. of course, Jesus sent them away. said He was a little down and needed to be alone.
no? you say it says He had compassion on the crowds (and His disciples) and He spent the rest of the day healing and teaching.
Jesus needed to read the book, Boundaries.
what did He get out of it? nothing. not even a clock.
but He came to serve, not to be served. He came to die, not to live comfortably.
interesting the difference between men and women with regard to humor. and so, a difference between them as to what is politically correct in finding humor at the generalities of each gender.
if we were to say it this way, i wonder what the response would be:
"men have testosterone, and it tends to make men more aggressive and risk-taking. as a result, sometimes they do impulsive things that come across as foolish. women, on the other hand, have a cycle in which their estrogen levels raise and lower, causing them to sometimes appear moody."
few would disagree with those generalities, but would we actually laugh about them both?
in general, it is okay to laugh at men but not at women.
every situation comedy, with very rare exceptions (e.g., Lucille Ball), features an incompetent father who blusters his way through life. the formula is predictable, and yet works every time: a man is impulsive, proud, unteachable, and incompetent. everyone around him, especially his wife and kids, know more than him, but he is the only one who is not aware of his flaws. that's funny.
one example: the Berenstain Bears. Ma is always calm and right, while Pa is blustering and wrong. fifty books over 30 years, and the formula remains the same (though it has certainly calmed down since the 60s). it quite simply wouldn't be funny the other way around.
another: for more than 15 years, Budweiser has run a continuous series of humorous commercials called "Real Men of Genius." why do we assume a man invented the foam finger? why is it not funny if a woman rolls a cooler around? it's just the way it is. men can be laughed at, but it simply isn't funny if we say those things about women.
on Mother's Day, every church features a sermon in which mothers are honored and described as exemplary parents. on Father's Day, the preacher tells men that they are not available or in touch enough. we tell men how to do a better job, but no preacher would dare to tell women how to do a better job. you don't criticize a mom.
can we have this discussion? or is it politically incorrect?
