Okay, I admit it; I’m a former recovering bureaucrat. Oh, the things my eyes have seen and the shutter my spine feels when I remember the past…. Stop, there might be children reading. I must begin this piece with the warning that the content in this article may be too upsetting for some tender members of the audience.

Bureaucracy is about rules. Bureaucrats live by them, the public demands them, politicians and the courts make them and individuals moan because of them. We are civilized by the rule of law and when the public and or the government wants something, rules become regulations and regulations get enforcers and enforcers become public servants-sort of. However, rules are rules and are most often attached to the redistribution of wealth or taxation thereof, and anybody who wants to create or redistribute wealth knows that there are volumes and volumes of rules.

Have you ever felt that a rule enforcer might be making up stuff as he goes along? Well, you just might be right. They do. If a rule enforcer doesn’t agree with the rule they are enforcing, or they have a better idea, it isn’t unusual to have a home made variation of the rule enforced. A building inspector might require a contractor to do extra work not actually required by the building code because the inspector thinks it should be done and the contractor can afford it. A public assistance distributor is lax about a provision of the regulations because they disagree with it and feel they can defend their actions. The regulations concerning a particular policy or rule are so complicated that the people enforcing it decide to put their own “interpretation” on things and blue suddenly looks orange. And my favorite, the “We don’t do that. Or, where we supposed to do that? ” response. Then there is the “ Oops, I’m sorry but we don’t abide by that rule because we don’t like it right now and chances are that you’re too weak to do anything about it. That’s my favorite.

Ah, bureauracy, don’t you just love it.

God forbid you make a public servant mad. When you enrage a public servant they slink off into the dark and plot how to extract vengeance upon you. They will wait, a long time if necessary. Like a seemingly incurable disease they hide in the dark waiting for their moment and then they burst on to the scene and save they day! However, saving the day often looks like the stomping of feet by misbehaving children.

Employment in bureaucracy has become the melting pot for attempts at socially engineering a new progressive society and making up for social ills from the past. Joining this experiment is not unlike joining a tribe. However, unlike a tribe the survival of a bureaucracy is not predicated upon the skill and success of tribal leaders and members. Bureaucracies are a tribe with their own rules and just continue on even if they’ve become irreverent.

John

To all the men and women who have served our country in defense of freedom and liberty, THANK YOU! Your sacrifice, blood, sweat and tears have helped maintain our constitution and society. Thank you, thank you thank you.

John

 One of the nice things about having a growing relationship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is that he doesn’t let me rest on my own self righteousness. He knows and so do I that I am far from perfect, occasionally do stupid and sinful things, and need to continually grow in Him to be more effective for his Kingdom. The key element being here that it’s His Kingdom and not mine.

I have a friend who is a very skilled surgeon. He could financially retire if he wanted but once told me that he didn’t know if he could retire because the skill God allowed him to acquire was still growing and incredibly useful for God’s Kingdom and the rest of humanity. Money stopped being his motive. Pleasure and self indulgence had stopped being his drive to discipline and persevere.

One of the things I’ve noticed as I’ve walked with and in Christ is that many of us have a difficult time really believing the idea of complete forgiveness. Believing that the price for my sin has really been paid. I and others have held on to emotional infections and sin enjoyment that plagues us for years.

Christ, however, really did pay the price for all our afflictions and transgressions and we don’t have to wallow in the mud. Yet some of us have great difficulty letting go of our favorite mud wallows. We love our mud wallows and they may even bring us some sort of perverse comfort despite the horrid consequences they bring with them.

This is why I love that concept of sanctification. The longer I walk with Christ, the more the Holy Spirit heals my tolerance for emotional infection and the love of sin. The sole purpose for this is so that I can be more effective for His Kingdom.

We live in a society and culture that is built on an appetite of indulgence and temporal pleasure. It’s easy for my friends in the world to point out my flaws, of which I have many. They think I’m crazy not to join in their kinks and mock me if I fall and do.

I know that I’m not better then my worldly friends, but the Kingdom of God is. The longer I walk in the Holy Spirit, the less I sin and fall short of the Glory of God. Yet the less I sin and fall short of the Glory of God the crazier the world thinks I am. God plucks out my favorite emotional infections and sin, exposes them and heals them. It isn’t pretty, but it is real and the fruit of this Healing is the Power and Love of Christ filling the formerly deep crevasse of darkness with love and light.

I have fallen short of the Glory of God, and I know it. God, however, hasn’t. The Glory of God is healing me in this world, but only so I can serve Him. The crumbs of serving him may trickle down to me, and what beautiful and amazing gifts they are.

In Christ

John

Fred Thompson said recently that IslamoFacists have a 100 year plan for global domination. He’s right, they do. He also said that we don’t have a plan past the next presidential election. Again, he right.

If global demand for oil disappeared, most of the available funding for IslamoFacists activity would also. So, becoming energy independent should be paramount for our own safety.

Then, since the IslamoFacists hate us so much, perhaps we should stop taking their huddled happy masses into our immigration quotas.

We should also stop sending appeasement money in the form of humanitarian aide to the very people who want to kill us. People who danced in the streets in celebration when the World Trade center crashed down should supply their own needs without our tax dollars.

Sadly, every time I pay my dollars for gas and oil, the IslamoFacists get a payday.

Things are the way they are, but until we change, they’ll have big dollars to attack us.

John

When I was in college back in the old days, the 1980s, people of conscience were engaged in confronting the evil of South African apartheid. The evil of apartheid was worth confronting to most of us at most of the universities in the country. However, South Africa was a far more stable country under apartheid then it is today.

A reporter for the Los Angeles Times asked President Bush today if the middle east wouldn’t be far more stable if we wouldn’t haven’t changed the regime in Iraq. I find that logic astounding.

We were very successful confronting Soviet style evil and paid a very heavy price for it. Yet, arguably, the world might be more stable today if the Soviets were still a real superpower. I personally don’t miss the Soviets and the evil they represented.

President Clinton let more then half a million black Africans die in genocidal attacks in Rwanda in the 1990’s and essentially did nothing about it. I think that was a huge mistake. By letting genocide run wild in Rwanda back then the country is stable enough today not to concern the world’s power brokers and press.

Today, we face a different kind of evil then we faced with the Soviets and South African Apartheid. Islamic fascist terrorism is worth confronting I believe. If we hadn’t confronted the Soviets or Apartheid the world probably would be more stable today, yet I’m glad both are gone.

It’s much easier to retreat into Starbucks, have a latte and feel good about our wealth then it is to confront evil head on. Evil doesn’t like to be confronted and the more virulent strains of evil strike back and doesn’t play by civilizations rules.

Evil Islamic Terrorist chaos will kill millions in the Middle East if not confronted. After it kills millions in the Middle East it will kill tens of millions in Europe and North America and India. Our friends in South America, Australia and Asia will not escape either.

We keep hoping these evil men will be seduced by wealth and freedom and stop their evil ways. I doubt they will.

We in the west seem to have lost our belly for confronting evil, especially if it is costly in too much of our own blood or gold. We like to work out our differences with evil and negotiate terms and conditions of coexistence.

Confronting evil is incredibly costly and may cost us our lives and the gold in my 401K fund. We can pay the price now, or pay the price later. I vote we pay the price now.

John

The Jew haters in Europe, the United States, the press and elsewhere are thunderously silent on the Lebanese government’s incursion into the Palestinian camps in Lebanon. Lebanon is trying to defend itself against growing violence from Palestinian IslamoFacists in Lebanon. The “brave’ IslamoFacist terrorists robbed a bank, killed civilians then ran and hid amongst women and children in their self governed camps.

This sounds very like the situation Israel has been dealing with for years. Once again the IslamoFacists live out their announced rules of law, and people die.

Where have all the Jew haters and their justification for IslamoFacist violence gone? Their thundering silence is deafening.

So, lets see: It’s ok to shell the home of Palestinian women and children in defense of yourself, unless of course you’re a Jew; Or perhaps the shed blood of Palestinian women and children isn’t worthy of outrage unless it’s the collateral damage of Israel; Or the condemnation and outrage of the Jew hating United Nations slumbers at the blood of Palestinian women and children, unless it’s an Israeli military action in defense of Israel that causes it.

The thundering silence of the Jew haters shouts all of these things. It makes you wonder.

John

Terrorist, IslamoFascists, Gangsters and their supporters have developed a set of official rules by which they live. They have been kind enough to post their agendas, manifestos and mission statements all over the internet, television and in various fatwa in print and broadcasting. Oddly enough, many in the west have refused to believe them. We keep hoping that our civilized behavior and goodwill will spark a change that causes our version of civilized behavior to take seed and prosper in them.

Terrorists think that all of us are guilty of what they consider to be sins against them. Therefore, there are no innocent civilians. My kids, your elderly parents, our stay at home moms are no more then cattle for slaughter to them.

Any atrocity that makes for good media manipulation or home propaganda consumption is acceptable, if not praise worthy, before their society and god. The bloodier, the better. Dancing in the streets is praiseworthy over western spilled blood.

What we in the west consider cowardly behavior is proper and praiseworthy for them; hiding amongst civilian women and children for instance. If a civilian neighbor’s wife and small children die when the west blows up a terrorist apartment filled with weapons or rockets, it makes good film and television propaganda material.

Islamists believe killing one’s self and innocent civilians is a ticket to heaven.

Terrorists and IslamoFascists All Jews are bad and need to be exterminated. The same for most Christians and western society and culture.

Another tenet of terrorists and islamists fundamentality is if you can’t convert them, kill them.

Now there are other facets of the terrorists’ rules of law, but I have a lunch date in the Sears Tower. It’s one of my favorite places to lunch.

Why won’t we wake up and believe these guys?

John

I had a prescription refilled at Wal-Mart yesterday and paid $ 8.00 dollars. Another national Chain Store, CVS, charged me $130.00 for exactly the same generic the previous month. Now let’s see $8.00 verses $130.00. I wonder where the extra $122.00 goes. Wal-Mart has the reputation for being a cutthroat competitor. They throw their weight around and squeeze everybody to keep their prices low. Yet, the principle stock owners the Walton Family are filled with Billionaires.

The majority of American families I know shop at Wal-Mart. It’s how we keep our heads above water. Yet, CVS manages to stay in business so at lease some people are willing to pay $130.00 for what is available for 1/16 the consumer cost just three thousand feet away. I and others have choices.

If I go down to the GMC candy store and get the spanking new Mac-daddy, crew cab, turbo diesel elephant that my flesh desires, I’ll pay $55,000.00. If I could find a version of a Wal-Mart Motors corporation and use the ratio of difference that my prescription has, I’d only pay $3,500.00 for the beast. I’m sure I’d have two of the elephants in the garage. Obviously there are differences in available profit margins for different products, but hey, I can dream.

American families need places like Wal-Mart in order to provide anything like a middleclass lifestyle for themselves and offspring. I plan to take my extra $122.00 and but my son a birthday gift, not at Wal-Mart. I’m going to take my wife to lunch, and but gas to go down and look at GMC elephants, and dream.

John

Jimmy Carter is an enigma for me. He’s supposed to be a Christian, I am a Christian, and He and I seem to want the same things for people and our Country. However, he keeps saying and doing things that make me shake my head.

Jimmy Carter is perhaps the best presidential friend that IslamoFascists have ever had. He helped put the Islamic revolution in Iran in to power; sparked the Muslim Brotherhood and their cronies to assassinate President Sadat of Egypt; and emasculated U.S. military power in the eyes of the very people who want to destroy us. He recently made comments that legitimized Islamofachist violence.

Additionally, Jimmy seems to be great pals with many leftist socialist tyrants in the world. He even goes so far as to legitimize their rigged elections.

He seems to have a sort of a selective moral relativity in his application of biblical principles and political capital.

Anyway, Jimmy carter is Jimmy Carter and God will ultimately Judge his actions when get gets to the gates of Heaven. And, I’m not God. However, neither is Jimmy. He also says some of the most contrary things, and he seems to say them to stir the pot.

Well, I guess he and I do have that in common.

John

I feel sorry for the Palestinian people. Everybody seems to have failed them, including themselves. At times, they seem to be their own worst enemies. The PLO, which was the acknowledged leader of the Palestinian people until recently was kicked out of Jordan for trying to overthrow the kingdom of Jordan; kicked out of Lebanon for starting the civil war of the late 70’s and eighties; and finally lost power to Hamas in an election in the new century.

Today Gaza looks more and more like Beirut of the 70’s and 80’s. The Palestinians have nobody to blame but themselves, but, it’s still not too late to change. Interestingly the explosive Palestinian reproduction statistics are far more likely to bring them political victory in the long run then violence will.

The Palestinians must learn that to have a stable sustainable peace and country they need a viable economy and rule of law. They have neither, and won’t until they learn to change with the times. Running gun battles between rival thug gangs in the street isn’t the answer. Blaming others isn’t the answer. Providing peace and the opportunity to improve living conditions for the common good is the answer.

God help the Palestinian people, they need it. Their opportunity of self rule is slipping away quickly. I wonder how long the world will watch in horror as the Palestinians self destruct.

John

If I were an unskilled citizen of, Ireland, and had been waiting for the past five or six years for a visa to enter the United States I would hate the current immigration reform bill. I would look and see that this bill clearly favors people of Hispanic ethnic origin.

I would also hate the bill because the United States has an abysmal record enforcing previously enacted immigration legislation. The Immigration Reform Control Act of the 1980’s being a prime example. Anybody who worked with immigration issues will remember how the Federal Government declined to enforce some of the most elemental provisions of that fiasco.

I would look at the immigration reform bill and see that there really are two immigration systems. One for Hispanic people and one for everybody else. People of Hispanic origin get through quicker, easier and with greater creativity. Everybody else waits.

The price that the Hispanic people pay is being part of an illegal underclass is that citizens of the United States call these immigrants criminal, and they operate in underground status. This despite that fact that our country let them in.

We let these people in the country. Our businesses prospered because of them. Our governmental services have been overwhelmed because of them. There are thriving and growing illegal immigrant ghettos around the country that are filled with them. Their citizen children despise the system makes them untouchable, and rightly so. And unskilled want to be immigrants in non Hispanic countries are mad because the system favors Hispanics.

The current bill probably won’t do anything to change those facts because the next administration will probably not enforce this legislation.

It is a mess and we made it.

John

I’m off to the Lincoln Park Zoo with a bunch of jubilant 1^st graders. These precious moments are priceless. I wouldn’t trade these times with my son for anything. I’m fortunate that my children attend a school where the kids are still innocent and haven’t been completely corrupted by our secular society.

I encourage everybody to invest our disposable time and love in our kids. It’s a wise investment that pays dividends for generations.

John

If we could magically send the 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. back to their countries of origin it’s very likely that inflation would spiral out of control. The influx of low wage seeking undocumented immigrants is one factor that has kept inflation under control. It’s not the only one, but it is a contributing element. The pool of available labor for farm laborers, construction workers, meat processors, domestic workers, hotel and restaurant laborers, day labor and landscapers would all change radically. There are many other categories that are affected as well.

As citizens and documented labor and replaced the undocumented, wages would most likely rise. In some cases it would rise a lot. Labor cost increases of 10 to 50% would not be out of consideration.

Now I’m not saying we should not reform immigration, but I do think we should prepare for the consequences.

John

 I watched the debate last night, enjoyed it and only threw a few sharp barbs at the practiced responses that the candidates gave.

Of those who were there last night, Ron Paul was the most entertaining. He was a little crazed, and reminded me of the old style ready to loose republicans. His outrageous theory on the cause of the 9/11 attack I found reminiscent of the Ivy league Republicans and Democrats.

Rudy G is a man. I can’t vote for him, but he is a man. He doesn’t hide his support for abortion and gay rights, but I believe he would defend our country vigorously. I worry that we’d have another series of Clinton like sexual integrity controversies to hear about because Rudy seems to like his women, and is a practitioner of a sort of serial monogamy. Rudy may not be done getting married and divorced, so he worries me. I appreciate that he doesn't hide his liberal social views.

Mitt is slick and he looks GREAT. I’m not sure that he’s settled what his core political beliefs are, but he looks great. Mitt also has to overcome the Mormon issue with traditional Orthodox Protestant Christians without hurling accusations of bigotry at the Christian Coalition crowd. He could start with the founder of the Mormon Church’s written statements that Orthodox Protestant Christians are an abomination. If Mitt can overcome the differences between the Christian Coalition Crowd and the older practices and beliefs of Joseph Smith’s LDS Church, he will be formidable.

I love John McCain. He’s got the manhood thing down pat. I too have survived torture, and I disagree with John about the use of torture in dire circumstances. I’ve been water boarded, and know first hand that it is effective. Water boarding is torture, but we’re not fighting civilized people. I have no doubt that John would indeed be the last man standing in the defense of our country. If John McCain ran the war on terror and the war in Iraq, I’d be happy. I disagree with John about lots and lots of other things, and those issues make we wince.

Mike Huckabee could be the man for the Christian Coalition Crowd. We’ll see. I don’t know that much about him.

Mr. Tancredo was good but he seems to be cooking on low.

The Rest of the crowd looked like the rest of the crowd.

It’s really early in the race. You never know who may breakout. The frontrunners could flame out and someone from the rest of the crowd could strike like greased lightening. I should be an interesting Republican race. You never know what will happen and you never know what the public will end up voting for.

John

 I was praying today and it occurred to me that God probably has at least one criterion for people He picks to serve Him. That one minimal ability would be the ability to obey both Him directly and His written Word. God says in the bible that he desires obedience rather then sacrifice. I think it reasonable to extend that proposition further to include everything in life. God cares less about what I want in life, and cares more about if I’ve obeyed him where I’d rather not.

I’ve never met a person who didn’t struggle with obeying God. Thank Goodness for God’s Grace. Yet when I take my rebellion into the blast furnace of God’s Holiness, the flames of sanctification scrape off some more of the filth that keeps me from being increasingly useful to His Will.

My prayer is that all of us who have been purchased by the Blood of Christ would grow in our ability to obey God. The better we can obey Him, the more will be given to us to serve him.

Your Brother in Christ

John