What North Korea teaches Christians about the importance of politics and economics

Christian apologist Frank Turek writes about it at Townhall.

Excerpt:

When I hear Christians saying we ought not get involved in politics but just “preach the Gospel,” I show them this satellite picture of the Korean peninsula. Here we see a homogenous population of mostly Koreans separated by a well-fortified border. South Korea is full of freedom, food and productivity—it’s one of the most Christianized countries in the world. North Korea is a concentration camp. They have no freedom, no food, and very little Christianity.

What’s the primary reason for the stark difference between these two countries? Politics. The South politically allows freedom, while the North does not.

Ironically, Christians who shun politics to supposedly advance the Gospel are actually allowing others to stop the Gospel. How so? Because politics and law affects one’s ability to preach the Gospel! If you think otherwise, visit some of the countries I have visited—Iran, Saudi Arabia and China. You cannot legally “preach the Gospel” in those countries—or practice other aspects of your religion freely—because politically they’ve ruled it out as they have in North Korea.

In fact, politics affects virtually every area of your life through the laws made by government. So if you care about your family, business, church, school, children, money, property, home, security, healthcare, safety, freedom, and your ability to “preach the Gospel,” then you should care about politics.

Politics affects everything, which is why leaders throughout the Bible—including Joseph, Moses, Daniel, Nehemiah, Mordecai, Esther, John the Baptist, and Paul— “went political” to influence civil governments to govern morally. Even Jesus himself got involved in politics when he publically chastised the Pharisees—the religious and political leaders of Israel—for neglecting “the more important matters of the law.”

[...]But what can Christians do? After all, we can’t legislate morality, can we? News flash: All laws legislate morality! Morality is about right and wrong and all laws declare one behavior right and the opposite behavior wrong. So the question is not whether we can legislate morality, but “Whose morality will we legislate?”

[...]When we fail to legislate morally, others impose immorality. For example, totalitarian political correctness is already imposed in states such as Massachusetts where the implications of same-sex marriage override the religious liberties of businesses, charities and even parents. As documented here and illustrated here, same sex marriage prevents you from running your business, educating your children, or practicing your religion in accord with your Conscience. And soon, as is the case in Canada, you may not be able to merely speak Biblically about homosexual behavior. That is because those who say they are fighting for “tolerance” are often the most intolerant.

Unless Christians begin to influence politics and the culture more significantly, we will continue to lose the very freedoms that enable us to live according to our beliefs and spread the Gospel all over the world. That’s why you should not vote for candidates because of their race or religion, but because they will govern morally on the more important matters of the law—life, marriage and religious freedom.

Dr. Turek says that some societies make it easier for us to carry out our responsibilities as Christians, such as evangelism. That’s true. But I want to make a different point from Dr. Turek related to the point that he made.

I get a lot of e-mails from people complaining that I spend too much time on fiscal issues, and especially on foreign policy. But I really think that Christians need to branch out and read widely about these issues, too. The more we know about everything, the better we will be able to connect what the Bible says to every area, and the smarter we will be at laying out plans for our lives and achieving the good goals we set for ourselves as part of our relationship with God.

It’s always better to know how things work. What good is it to say that you want to achieve some aim like helping the poor or making the world more peaceful unless you first study economics and foreign policy so that you will know how to achieve it? Many people try to achieve these goals by embracing policies that sound good, but they actually achieve the exact opposite ends that you set out to achieve.  If you want to drive a car to get somewhere, you must first learn how to drive a car. Why should faith be any different than anything else? Don’t take positions based on feelings or peer pressure, get informed and make a right judgment.

Filed under: News, Abortion, Bible, Christianity, Church and State, Economics, Election, Election 2012, Evangelism, Family, Fiscal Issues, Foreign Policy, Freedom, Gospel, Jobs, Law, Liberty, Marriage, Money, Moral Issues, National Security, Peace, Policy, Politics, Poverty, Prosperity, Religion, Religious Liberty, Religious Right, Social Issues, The Gospel, Tyranny, Vote, War, Wealth, Wisdom

Is it “brilliant” to accumulate $185,000 of debt studying the humanities?

From the Des Moines Register, an article by Ms. Rehha Basu.

Excerpt:

Sixteen years ago, Patricia (P.J.) Johnston of Des Moines made the front page of this paper for collecting her diploma from Drake University at just 19. “Johnston was reading books on French existentialism while others her age were still buying comic books,” wrote reporter Tom Alex of the young woman who majored in religion and philosophy, dabbled in music and astronomy and found time to take part in online discussions on the Bible.

“I think I’m probably meant to be an academic,” Johnston was quoted as saying. And she has been, getting a master’s in one institution, going to seminary at another, doing field research in India in her area of interest — Indian Catholicism — and currently working toward a Ph.D in religious studies at the University of Iowa.

President Barack Obama came through Johnston’s university on Wednesday, where he said there is no greater predictor of success than a good education. “This country has always made a commitment to put a good education within the reach of everybody who’s willing to work for it,” Obama said. “That’s part of what made us special. … That’s a commitment that we need to reaffirm today.”

He talked about the untenable debt that’s limiting options for today’s college-goers — $25,000 on average — because tuition and fees have more than doubled since they were born.

Johnston didn’t get to hear him since she was teaching a class on Buddhism. But she knows a lot about educational debt. She has $185,000 in student loans to repay.

As it is, she sleeps on her office floor on the days she has to be in Iowa City, riding the Greyhound bus in from Des Moines. She helps support her mother with the approximately $16,000 she earns as a teaching assistant. But she is in danger of dropping out before getting her doctorate because she has hit her limit on loans, and most likely won’t be able to get a teaching assistant position next year because of cuts in undergraduate programs.

If that happens, she wrote me, she would be this far along, “facing the job market in my mid-30s with no marketable job skills of any kind.”

Johnston grew up on welfare and other forms of public assistance. Her divorced mother was unable to hold down a job for reasons that were never diagnosed. Johnston got through college with scholarships, grants, some help from her late grandmother, and only $18,000 in debt.

Student loans should not be connected to the government as they are now – they should be privatized. That way, taxpayers are not stuck with the bill if the person cannot make a career out of what they are studing. What is this person doing going abroad in India? What is she doing riding on Grayhounds? It makes no sense. If she had to go to a for-profit bank, then she would never get a student loan, because they know they would never get the money back. We have to have a system where people pay their own way, so that they can’t take risks with anyone else’s money but their own (or their loan guarantor’s). No taxpayer money should be available to them, and no taxpayer money should be given to subsidize universities, either – it just raises the cost of tuition. Once the number of students applying to the humanities is reduced because no loans are available, then tuition will come down for those who really intend to make a go of it.

I think a lot of the problem here comes from growing up without a father. Fathers teach their children to be practical because they worry more than mothers about the children not being able to be independent and fend for themselves.

UPDATE: The Captain comments on this story here.

UPDATE: This is from the woman’s Facebook page:

I have never asked anybody to pay my student loan debt for me, and I will pay it down someday, even if I have to eat ramen noodles for the rest of my life. I was willing to undertake my studies at any cost and at any degree of personal risk because I believe in God and I am convinced that I am doing what God is calling me to do. If you read the New Testament, you will find a great deal about how people are called to give up everything they own – houses and wealth and family and respectibility and everything else – to do whatever it is that God calls them to do. I am not brave and no longer optimistic, but I have tried to take God at his word.

I am not financing education entirely through student loan debt. I held work study jobs as an undergraduate, and have usually held some kind of on-campus employment. I have been a TA for the university for the last seven years. The fact is, government support of higher education is down and the cost of tuition has outpaced salaries to such a great degree in this country that virtually nobody is able to afford an education on their own wages without taking on a substantial burden of student loan debt. The vast majority of the anecdotes to the contrary concern degrees earned twenty or thirty years ago, before major structural changes in the financing of higher education – in the post-war years, government funding allowed the vast majority of expense for education to be met through Pell grants and scholarships, making it possible for many people to work themselves through school. That hasn’t been possible for most people in most degree programs for at least thirty years, and these nostalgic memories of an entirely different time and set of circumstances are not doing the debate on higher education financing in this country any good at all.

I am not a “professional student” nor am I taking an especially long time to pursue my degree – this is simply how long humanities education takes. http://chronicle.com/article/In-Humanities-10-Years-May/16231

If you only see value in STEM disciplines, I probably will not convince you that humanities education is valuable. There used to be a sense in this country that certain things had value and meaning in their own right, not simply because they produced nice technological gadgets or made bundles of money for businesses. Even conservatives such as Allan Bloom used to realize that it impoverishes us spiritually when we turn away from the humanities, the cultural legacy of Western society. Would that their political descendants had as much grace or wisdom.

She’s not being forced into this course of action. She’s choosing it deliberately, and she wants other people to pay to make her impractical flight from reality financially sound.

Filed under: News, Administrator, Bank, Career, College Debt, Fathers, Government, Impractical, Learning, Money, Practical, Privatization, Professor, Prudence, Student Loans, Tuition, Wisdom

Top North Carolina Democrat Party official named in same-sex sexual harassment claim

From the Daily Caller. (H/T Gateway Pundit)

Excerpt:

A top North Carolina Democratic Party official has reportedly been identified as the accused perpetrator in a sexual harassment claim made by a former staffer.

Jay Parmley, North Carolina’s Democratic Party executive director, has been accused of sexual harassment by Adriadn Ortega, a former communications staffer for the state party, according to a report by the J.W.P. Civitas Institute.

An email chain The Daily Caller previously obtained didn’t name the alleged perpetrator or the victim, but confirmed the existence of the alleged sexual harassment, a financial settlement paid to the victim and that Parmley and the victim had signed non-disclosure agreements. Civitas has since reported the names of those involved.

On his Twitter account, Parmley describes himself as an “all around good guy and a Democrat!”

North Carolina Democratic Party spokesman Walton Robinson has not responded to multiple requests for comment.

At least one Democratic Party official in North Carolina revealed apparent concerns about the same-sex nature of the allegations going public, which could pose a political conflict with the party’s attempts at defeating an anti-gay-marriage ballot amendment.

In an email to state Democratic Party chairman David Parker, North Carolina Democratic statehouse candidate Watt Jones said this sexual harassment looks bad for Democrats.

“With a Democratic Party which is suppose [sic] to be fighting to defeat Amendment One [which describes marriage as between one man and one woman] on the May 8 ballot, yet we have this in Goodwin House?,” Jones said. “How does that look?”

Parmley, the accused harasser according to the Civitas report,  is still employed by the Democratic Party.

I don’t think this will matter much to Democrat voters, who are OK with stuff like this. It might hurt their standing with some independents. This is the real Democrat Party on display though. These are the people who undermine marriage with their no-fault divorce laws, their sex education indoctrination in public schools, their subsidies for single mothers by choice, their support for gay marriage and their insistence on taxpayer-funded abortion. They oppose traditional marriage and the traditional family.  The Democrat Party motto: “If it feels good, do it. Just don’t get caught!”

Filed under: News, Adriadn Ortega, Adultery, Bill Clinton, Cheating, Confidentiality, Cover Up, Democrat, Democrat Party, E-mail, Eliot Spitzer, Family, Gay, Gay Marriage, Infidelity, Jay Parmley, John Edwards, Marriage, Money, Morality, North Carolina, Pay Off, Payoff, Same-sex, Same-Sex Marriage, Scandal, Sex, Sexual Harassment, Walton Robinson

Mitt Romney outspent Rick Santorum 4-1 in Wisconsin

From liberal CNN.

Excerpt:

Ads, phone calls and mailers have bombarded voters in Wisconsin in the days leading up to Tuesday’s vote — the next major battleground in the Republican presidential race.

The Badger State primary has gained significance over the last week as both Mitt Romney’s and Rick Santorum’s campaigns have indicated it could dramatically alter the momentum and duration of the race.

Romney and his allies have outspent their rivals by a little less than a 4-1 margin on television ads in the state, according to figures provided by an unaligned Republican media consultant that tracks ad spending in the nomination race.

Romney leads polls in Wisconsin and is expected to win in the District of Columbia and Maryland, which also vote Tuesday.

And something interesting from The Other McCain:

UPDATE 10:50 p.m. ET: Chris Moody of Yahoo News writes about Santorum’s campaign in Wisconsin, which included visits to seven bowling alleys and more than a few beers:

He has arguably been one of the hardest working candidates in the race, having labored his way up from the bottom of the polls when he held events in Iowa that literally no one showed up for, to becoming the lead rival to the frontrunner. The man has only taken five days off the campaign trail since last summer, and spent most of that time eking his way along financially. With weak organization to speak of and an entourage that consisted of little more than the candidate and a friend with a Dodge Ram, Santorum went from being the candidate who could hardly get his name on the ballot in some states to becoming a household name.

Ho-hum. Mitt Romney buys another state in the Republican primary. If they were spending the same amount of money, Santorum would win the primary by a landslide. This primary is being decided by money – Mitt Romney’s millions, to be precise. Romney also gets lots of money from global warming socialists and rich Wall Street bankers.

Here are Mitt Romney’s top contributors:

Goldman Sachs	$521,180
JPMorgan Chase & Co	$356,400
Morgan Stanley	$297,550
Credit Suisse Group	$296,160
Citigroup Inc	$280,050
Bank of America	$245,900
Kirkland & Ellis	$225,202
Barclays	$217,150
HIG Capital	$188,500
PricewaterhouseCoopers	$185,550
Blackstone Group	$178,050
Bain Capital	$151,500
Wells Fargo	$148,950
UBS AG	$140,650
EMC Corp	$128,300
Citadel Investment Group	$123,625
Elliott Management	$123,500
Bain & Co	$112,800
Sullivan & Cromwell	$106,650
The Villages	$97,500

Rick Santorum has to go door to door for his votes.

Filed under: News, Contributions, Donations, Donors, Election 2012, Mitt Romney, Money, Republican Primary, Rick Santorum, Wisconsin

Blue collar Rick Santorum outspent 7 to 1 by wealthy Mitt Romney in Illinois

From CNS News.

Excerpt:

Dealt a resounding defeat in Illinois’ presidential primary, Republican Rick Santorum brushed off the latest loss to rival Mitt Romney and told his supporters on Tuesday to “saddle up like Reagan did in the cowboy movies” and help him narrow a seemingly insurmountable deficit in delegates.

Santorum had hoped to make a real contest of Illinois, the birthplace of actor turned president Ronald Reagan, but he was outspent in advertising by a 7-to-1 margin by Romney and his allies and fled the state before balloting began.

“We’re heading to Louisiana for the rest of the week, then we’re back here in Pennsylvania and we’re going to pick up a whole boatload of delegates and close this gap and then on to victory,” he told a packed hotel ballroom in Gettysburg, Pa., as more than 1,000 supporters waited outside.

Santorum won the Southern states of Alabama and Mississippi last week. Romney has not posted a win in the South since his January triumph in Florida.

“We’re feeling very, very good about winning Louisiana on Saturday,” Santorum said to cheers.

A 10-day break follows Louisiana before Washington, D.C., Maryland and Wisconsin have primaries on April 3. Santorum is not on the ballot in the nation’s capital, the latest example of his campaign’s struggle to organize.

But Santorum has shown new signs of political life. Aides said the campaign raised more than $9 million in February and has more than $2.6 million on hand for a Republican primary that shows no sign of ending soon.

Santorum campaign sought to downplay the Illinois results, instead looking at adding delegates from rural areas to Santorum’s column in any sum.

Who is funding all of this campaign spending? Here are Mitt Romney’s top contributors:

Goldman Sachs	$521,180
JPMorgan Chase & Co	$356,400
Morgan Stanley	$297,550
Credit Suisse Group	$296,160
Citigroup Inc	$280,050
Bank of America	$245,900
Kirkland & Ellis	$225,202
Barclays	$217,150
HIG Capital	$188,500
PricewaterhouseCoopers	$185,550
Blackstone Group	$178,050
Bain Capital	$151,500
Wells Fargo	$148,950
UBS AG	$140,650
EMC Corp	$128,300
Citadel Investment Group	$123,625
Elliott Management	$123,500
Bain & Co	$112,800
Sullivan & Cromwell	$106,650
The Villages	$97,500

I pointed out before how Romney’s campaign is fueled by green socialists. His PAC just got $6.4 million from only 98 donors.

Filed under: News, Contributions, Donations, Donors, Election 2012, Mitt Romney, Money, Republican Primary, Rick Santorum