BigCat’s Blog of DOOM

Socialism
conservatism
Liberalism
Populism
Libertarianism
Capitalism
Evangelism

All interesting subjects to talk about. All seem to have meaning in one part of our lives or another.

All, except evangelism, don’t mean much in the long eternity of things. But these interesting subjects have immediate bearing on how we do Evangelism, so I thought I would talk about a few of them and how I feel like they relate in my eyes.
( Socialist Economics )
Socialized things are sometimes good, but it has to be balanced.
( Capitalist Economics )
Well, that is great to talk about money, but what about morals and government…doesn’t that help us decide things too
( Populism )
( Libertarianism )
( The important bit, how this effects me )
Not looking for a debate today, just thought I would share some ideas I have about my values. But if you really want to start one, go ahead. I just may not participate.

So Dink and I were chatting of the IM during lunch, and after we exhausted all of the free amusing bloat MSN has added recently, this following conversation was had concerning me preparing a lesson for small group.

Anyway, I thought this was funny

( Funny IM stuff )
The topic is actually “Brokenheartedness in / from the Chruch” and I’m using 2 Timothy 4:9-the end, where Paul is kinda saying how annoying some people are when they try to FUBAR his ministry. I’ll probably also reference 1 Timothy 1:18-20. THe practical application will be 1, dealing with these people, and 2, how not to be one of the people who is a pain in the ass.

Should be an easy topic for me to talk about from both ends…..well…I got more experience being the pain in the ass

Read this entry and thought about going just to make Dink happy.

Don’t you wish you lived here now Dink? I told you that you should come visit.

I like the west wing, it is a very well written show. I almost completely disagree with their politics on that show at times, but the fun aspects of it make up for that. And when they have a republican character do anything important on the show they are usually smart and say stuff that I would say about why I think more conservatively in the area of politics.

The one I liked the other day went like this:
“Why are you a republican?”
“I hate poor people,….No seriously, I believe that big government limits our freedoms to govern ourselves, and this country was founded on the ideals of personal freedom.”
Or something like that. The point was big government = not so good, which is generally what I think in a very shortened form.

I also like the way they are talking about this estate tax issue. I don’t know if it has come up in a long time or anything, but the kind of estate tax they are talking about could potentially be very bad for farmers.

An estate tax, as they have laid out in the show, is saying if you inherit an estate / land valued at over a million dollars (or some big number) you have to pay a pretty damned high tax on it. In the show it is something like 65 cents on the dollar.

Normally I wouldn’t be bugged by this kind of thing, cuz it mostly affects very rich people, but then I got to thinking. That kind of a tax would dick famers really hard. I’m willing to bet the assets including land and the farm equipment that Dirks dad has would tip well over a million dollars in value. Hell, the combine is a quarter million dollar machine. Does that count as part of an estate?

Well, it is only fiction, and I haven’t bothered to look up any facts on real laws like this, but the issue struck me as interesting even if it is a fictitious one. Especially considering the Democratic parties official name has the words “Labor” and “farmer” in it, but usually does very little to help either one anymore.

Odd the party that created the middle class misses the boat so often with middle-class economic values of today. I think I will ponder this more in my head as I find it interesting. I suspose it has more to do w/ the secularization of the values of the democratic party than anyone would care to admit, but I’m not certain of theat. Again, I’ll have to think on it…but at any rate, the show has made me think about some things that I may not have otherwise, and the writing is very funny at times, and appropriately serious at others. And after watching a while and getting involved in the characters I don’t even care that it is way way way overly idealized….hell, I would have voted for the guy on that show.

Monday I decided that working at a job that you aren’t meant to stay at can and will erode the human soul.

Before you know it you walk in your front door, announce your home, and promptly plant your ass on your couch and put your hand down the front of your pants. And if that isn’t an eroded soul, I don’t know what is.

On a different front, I was talking with my boss this morning, and we were IMing a guy in Taiwan who is supposed to be helping us getting some software for displaying advertisements across networks going. Well, he isn’t the tech guy, but he is the boss. So while I’m talking w/ my boss who is typing to this guy, the guy says I should just fly out to Taiwan for a week or two.

So I think “Holy shit, I’m actually worth something cuz they want me to help in Taiwan.” Which is good cuz I already thought I could direct this project for them if I were there. Hell, I could help code the stuff if it isn’t written using those weird-ass chinese characters…I mean, code is code. About that time my boss points out that my wife would freak out if I were gone for two weeks, and that we don’t really have the money to drop for a spontaneous trip to Taiwan. So I say that I will go if Charley (the guy in Taiwan) will pay for it, and I will only go for a week. That really doesn’t fly w/ Charley cuz he is a bad business man and doesn’t have a ton of money to fly me out there, but he isn’t totally opposed to the idea.

But the kicker of all this is that my boss mentions that he should be sending me in June out there instead of him, to go to “the show.” And by show he means….oh yes, you guessed it….Computex. Fuckin’ Aye, how cool would that be to be at computex?

But, alas, the plane is booked, and everything is in Jeff’s name, so I won’t go to Computex. But it would be freaking awesome to go to computex, and all I would have to do is go visit a few of our vendors and have them take me out to lunch or something, and then go see all the cool shit at the show.

So, while my job erodes my soul, it kinda has its upside. My boss is cool most the time, and on days like today when he is in a good mood I can have a pretty good day. I suppose the upside doesn’t make up for the eroded soul, which is why I have my resume updated on monster (as well as occasionally posting it to some other places) and I’m answering calls from recruiters.

I watched Don Juan Demarco again this weekend and was reminded of a few things. (Now imagine my speaking in my best spanish accent for the next part)

1. Beauty is something that can be seen at any time, but not because it has to do with the shape of your body or color of your skin. It is something that inside of our souls. God put it there, and we can erode at it, or nurture it to grow, but we can’t destroy it or steal it. To see it you really have to look hard. And not in the looking for a long time kind of hard, more like you stare deeply into what someone says verbally, as well as what they say with their body movements. Also, you have to try to look inside their eyes, that is key.

2. Women contain a fragile sort of beauty. Not because they are weak, or less than a man, or anything silly like that. Instead it is fragile like a something dear to our hearts that we cherish and protect. And only the one who cherishes and protects it really understands its true beauty and sees it for what it actually is.

3. Love is important. Even at the cost of reality. People who don’t believe in God that I talk to will hear me say this: Currently my life is better than it was several years ago, because I try harder now to really love people. This is true if I made up a God to facilitate this change, or if he is real. If more people tried to Love others it could improve the whole world. I believe this is because God designed things that way, but I also believe w/o Christianity or God or whatever, this idea has merit. Yes, I know that is not an original thought, and a subjective observation, but no matter how I think about it, this idea seems much closer to the truth than all the others I’ve heard.

4. When you can truly see the beauty in a woman, and she sees the beauty in you, that is magical. I don’t know why, but it just is. And the physical expression of that mutual realization needs to be just that; Mutual expression. If you go through your sex life just trying to get your gun off your missing a lot of really great stuff.

5. If you spend time trying to reach out and touch that beauty inside the other person in a time of great physical intimacy you can achieve a greater level of intimacy than you think is really possible. I don’t understand it, but sometimes when I am really into my wife because she is amazing and wonderful and beautiful, (not just a place to get sex) I can feel something completely different than other times. You have to look for it to see it, otherwise the moment might pass you by.

If you are the least bit of a romantic you should watch Don Juan DeMarco, it is a great movie. I highly recommend it.