The guru explains politics

When our Christian apologetics group covered the New Age movement, we, of course, had to read comments by media personality and New Age guru Deepak Chopra , who comes up with great examples of abstract nonsense. I just found out his musings are not restricted to religious matters. He can also spout strangely amusing craziness in political matters, according to The Wall Street Journal, which recently highlighted Chopra's views as set forth in a San Francisco Chronicle column.

Chopra analyzes liberals and conservatives with four major points (you're gonna love this). Here goes--

1. Liberals are freethinkers who wisely question their own assumptions. "One of the virtues of being on the liberal side of politics is that total obedience isn't required. There are no hidden agendas. Ideology doesn't lead to unreason. . . . Liberal politics is based on a non-regimented, all-inclusive approach to democracy. Freedom of thought is paramount."

2. Conservatives, by contrast, are sheep who blindly adhere to crazy dogmas. "It feels as if the inmates are running the asylum--as in the current Republican threat to default on America's debt. . . . If you suppose that the average citizen remembers that the right wing are the very ones who got us into this forlorn tangle of wars abroad, financial collapse, out-of-control spending, and massive bonuses for the rich, you have not felt the power that fear exerts."

3. It is crucial to keep Obama in office, or the crazy, stupid conservatives might take over. "The prevailing sanity of President Obama is something that others and I have taken for granted. . . . It was such a relief to return to humane, non-ideological governance when President Obama won in 2008."

4. Therefore, liberals should stop questioning him and give him their blind support. "All of us who have taken advantage of our liberal heritage to question and criticize President Obama need to step back and consider the radical nature of the opposition. . . . If ever there was a time to stand behind the captain, this is it."

To sum it up even more concisely: Liberals are smart. Conservatives are stupid. We can't let the stupid side win. So we need to be stupid too! How's that for logic? Yeah, his religious views are similarly confusing. If you have a chance, go to Youtube and see how masterfully Greg Koukl knocked down Chopra's so-called arguments in an episode of Faith Under Fire, hosted by Lee Strobel.

What's really going on in the debt ceiling talks

The current debate over raising the debt ceiling has suggested something interesting about where we are in our politics today. We are actually considering ways to cut back government growth. Imagine that.

Consider how quickly things have changed. Just last February Pres. Obama submitted a budget that would have increased the debt drastically, spending more money than any previous budget in U.S. history. The Senate rejected that in May. Then, just three months ago he called for an increase in the debt ceiling without any spending cuts, without any attempts to slow the runaway debt.

But today the same man calls for debt reduction. Of course, he also asks for an increase in taxes. The problem with these two concerns is the history of what happens when they both are brought forward. The increase in taxes always takes place immediately while the proposed cuts in spending are stretched out into the future and never quite materialize.

So how did Obama do when he offered to consider cuts in spending? Well, judge for yourself. Negotiations which were chaired by Joe Biden, our current Vice President, came up with a grand total of $2 billion in spending cuts. That was all. To put that amount in perspective, the federal government spends $10 billion each day. Of course, that was nothing but a drop in the bucket, so today we find ourselves locked in a struggle over the debt ceiling.

What I find really interesting is the suggestion that free-spending, big-government programs may be on their way out. Look at European countries such as Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Ireland. Then look at places a little bit closer, like Illinois and California. As George Will says, "Entangled economic and demographic forces are refuting the practice of ever-bigger government financed by an ever-smaller tax base and by imposing huge costs on voiceless future generations."

That statement bears repeating. Will is saying that economic problems as well as a lack of population growth are bringing to a close the idea that you can have bigger government by squeezing money out of fewer people and kicking the can of huge deficits down the road to a future generation.

So, my hope is that this liberal philosophy of taxing endlessly to keep a larger and larger number of people dependent upon the government is reaching a dead end. People are waking up to the fact that economic growth under this system cannot generate enough money to keep up with the growing entitlements.

We will see in next year's election if enough Americans have awakened to this fact: Obama is using these negotiations to finance the blowout spending of his first two years by insisting on tax increases. That’s not the way to go.

California's no longer the golden state

I was born in California. I'm old enough to remember how proud I was when the state passed New York to become the most populous in the nation. It was a good thing to be from California--home of great universities, Disneyland, the Pacific Ocean and surfing, Hollywood, and the Byrds (OK, I had to stick that in there). But the wheels have come off since the golden days in the Golden State.

In the first decade of the 21st century, California's population grew by only 10%, the smallest population growth in its history as a state. It will not gain any seats in Congress or electoral votes for the first time in its history. Much of its population growth in the last 10 years came from immigration from Mexico, both legal and illegal. For the first time, California had a net outflow of population among American citizens. Think about that--people who have the means are getting out of the state.

What happened? All of California's natural assets are still here. Its climate is just as wonderful, its resources as abundant, its agricultural productivity as great, its infrastructure as developed. The answer lies, as you probably have guessed if you've read any of my earlier blogs, in politics.

Lefties and their allies have persistently put roadblocks in front of those who wanted to get ahead in this state. The environmental movement has become harsh and strident. It threatens to strangle the state's economy in a crazy and confusing monstrosity of regulations. The state's vast oil and natural gas potential on the continental shelf has been off limits for years. Environmental groups and others have become masters at tying up economic development in court.

But that’s not the only reason for people to give up on California. Non-environmental regulations have mushroomed as well. It can take months to obtain permits to open even the simplest business. Is it any wonder that the state's unemployment rate, 11.7%, is one of the country's highest?

I think the biggest cause of California’s dysfunction has to do directly with its politics. Let’s see . . . who runs the state government? Oh yeah, Democrats. And not your run-of-the-mill variety. Out here we have grown a lethal, spend-crazy, anti-business, out-of-touch-with-reality set of politicians who see more taxes as the solution to all problems. An ever-growing political class, largely funded by public service unions, has hugely increased the size and cost of government. California now has among the highest tax rates in the country as well as some of the greatest budget deficits.

It’s pretty discouraging now to live in California. No quick solution exists. My guess is that it will take severe economic conditions to wake up the voters, who will then toss out the entire dysfunctional legislature and start over.

The key question for the 2012 election (oh no, I'm rhyming like Jesse Jackson)

Well, a week ago a new jobs report came out. It showed an unemployment rate that moved up to 9.2%. This reminded me of a famous line used by Ronald Reagan when he ran for President against Jimmy Carter. You remember Carter? He's the man who had only one term and then spent years growing more bitter and angry, lashing out at George W. Bush and Israel.

Reagan's line came at the end of his only debate with then-President Carter. It was devastating: "When you make [your decision to vote next Tuesday]," he said to the American people, "it might be well if you would ask yourself: Are you better off than you were four years ago? Is it easier for you to go and buy things in the stores than it was four years ago? Is there more or less unemployment in the country than there was four years ago? Is America as respected throughout the world as it was?"

Why am I bringing this line up now? This latest unemployment bad news is starting to feel like a rerun of the 1970s. Both Carter and Obama suggested Americans should ratchet down their dreams and expectations for the future. Nobody likes the feeling that our President is not sold on the positive possibilities of America. Remember when Obama refused to say the United States was an exceptional country?

These latest numbers regarding unemployment are just a small part of a general unease in this country. We are worried about where things are headed. Food costs are up, gas prices have soared under this President, any economic progress seems weak and uncertain, the world seems hostile while the administration appears hesitant about what to do.

The official response from the administration is not likely to dispel these concerns. The Wall Street Journal reports that Austan Goolsbee, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisors, has recently stated that the best-case scenario for 2012 will be an unemployment rate of 8.2%. Wow, that's a lot higher than when Obama took office, despite all his spending and all those promises of jobs "created or saved."

So, we need to face that question: "Are you better off?" For many the answer is "No." Obama will have to say in his re-election bid that it would have been worse if he hadn't been elected. Remember when he ran in 2008? Then he was the man of the future, the candidate of change who declared that his nomination would mark the moment "when the rise of oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." Instead, doom and gloom have settled over the nation.

Maybe he can get away with that defensive position. Maybe Americans who believed Mr. Obama when he said unemployment wouldn't go past 8% if we passed his stimulus will now be persuaded by his explanation that his job was tougher than he or his economists expected. Maybe that's the only way to get around the "Are you better off?" question.

But I think Americans expect more from their leaders. If we're not better off, policy changes that fail should be acknowledged, and those who peddled such rosy but inaccurate cures should be voted out of office.

Christians in China--an ominous trend

We hear liberals praising China repeatedly. Thomas Friedman, famous New York Times prize-winning columnist, gushed over China in several columns. But this country's dictatorial leaders are cracking down on Christians who consider God, not the Communist Party, the head of the church.

Take the example of Shouwang Church, one of Beijing's largest unsanctioned "house" churches. The Wall Street Journal reported recently that since early April, police have prevented church members from gathering for normal Sunday worship services. Hundreds have been detained for short periods, and the entire church leadership has been under house arrest since April. This church, whose 1,000-strong congregation is mostly upscale professionals, actually paid $4 million for meeting space in a Beijing office building. But under pressure from the authorities, the sellers refused to hand over the keys, leaving the church with no place to meet.

China tolerates Christian church services, but only within the narrow boundaries of theology and church life dictated by the State Administration for Religious Affairs. Estimates of the number of Christians in China vary widely, ranging from a government figure of about 20 million for its own churches to that of outside observers who say the total is as high as 130 million.

Most Chinese Christians belong to unofficial house churches like Shouwang, which reject Communist Party-controlled theology and consider God—not the Communist Party—the head of the church. The number of house-church Christians, while hard to estimate, is likely more than 60 million.

The recent crackdown on house-church Christians is the outgrowth of a Communist Party initiative launched last December, called "Operation Deterrence," to force all house-church Christians to be incorporated with the government. In light of the savage treatment of practitioners of Falun Gong, a meditation group brutally repressed since 1999, the implications of "Operation Deterrence" are alarming.

Why hasn't Shouwang Church agreed to join the government organization? It claims this government administration was an outdated product of the Cold War, and that the faith that the government allows is what church history calls liberal theology, while the faith of the house churches is evangelical theology.

Evangelical churches around the world, of course, have always stressed the need for Christians to share their faith. But the Chinese government forbids its churches to evangelize. Last autumn, the Lausanne Conference on World Evangelism was held , but authorities blocked some 200 invited Chinese house-church representatives from leaving China.

This crackdown on Christians is part of a rising tide of repression against dissent that's often accompanied by interrogations and torture. Recently, the wife of blind human rights activist Chen Guangcheng said that she and her husband were beaten and tortured for several hours by a gang of plainclothes thugs led by the village Communist Party secretary. Worryingly, some of the Shouwang church detainees found government church representatives taking part in the police interrogations, "educating" and "rebuking" the Shouwang Christians. Incredibly, a key government official denies that house churches even exist.

We need to join groups like Open Doors and Voice of the Martyrs to keep pressure on China and help to shed light on the ongoing repression of our fellow Christians in China.

Blatant religious discrimination that calls for a response

I am a big fan of Frank Turek, who has debated Christopher Hitchens on the existence of God and who is the co-author of I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist. He recently ran up against political correctness in a big way. I wanted you to hear the whole story, so I'm adding a letter sent by columnist and college professor of criminology Dr. Mike Adams to the president of Cisco Systems.





June 16, 2011
Mr. John Chambers
Office of the President
Cisco Systems, Inc.
Mail Stop SJC10/5/4
300 East Tasman Drive
San Jose, California 95134
Dear Mr. Chambers:
I want to bring to your attention a recent decision made by your HR team that I think does not reflect your leadership of Cisco. Dr. Frank Turek was fired as a vendor for his political and religious views, even though those views were never mentioned or expressed during his work at Cisco.

By way of background, Dr. Turek is an eight-year veteran of the United States Navy. He and his wife have two sons serving in the United States Air Force. They defend our Constitutional rights and appreciated your personal support of Senator John McCain in the last general election.

Given your Republican leanings, I know you do not believe that free speech and religion rights vanish when one works with Cisco. I know that you do not believe that all political conservatives, Jews, Christians, Mormons and Muslims should be fired for their deeply held beliefs. But that is how the Cisco policy of “inclusion” was applied to Dr. Turek.

In 2008, Dr. Turek was hired by Cisco to design and conduct a leadership and teambuilding program for about fifty managers with your Remote Operations Services team. The program took about a year to conduct, during which he also conducted similar sessions for another business unit within Cisco. That training earned such high marks that in 2010 he was asked to design a similar program for about 200 managers within Global Technical Services. Ten separate eight-hour sessions were scheduled.

The morning after completing the seventh session earlier this year, a manager in that session —who was one of the better students in that class—phoned in a complaint. It had nothing to do with content of the course or how it was conducted. In fact, the manager commented that the course was “excellent” as did most who participated. His complaint regarded Dr. Turek’s political and religious views that were never mentioned during class, but that the manager learned by “googling” Dr. Turek after class.

The manager identified himself as gay and was upset that Dr. Turek had written this book providing evidence that maintaining our current marriage laws would be best for the country. Although the manager didn’t read the book, he said that the author’s view was inconsistent with “Cisco values” and could not be tolerated. (Dr. Turek is aware of this because he was in the room when his call came in.) The manager then contacted an experienced HR professional at Cisco who had Dr. Turek fired that day without ever speaking to him. The HR professional also commended the manager for “outing” Dr. Turek.

This firing had nothing to do with course content—the program earned very high marks from participants. It had nothing to do with budget constraints—the original contract was paid in full recently. A man was fired simply because of his personal political and religious beliefs—beliefs that are undoubtedly shared by thousands of your very large and diverse workforce.

I assume the intent of Cisco’s value of “inclusion and diversity” is to ensure that people in that diverse workforce will work together cordially and professionally even when they inevitably disagree on certain political, moral or religious questions.Please note that Dr. Turek agrees with that value and was demonstrating it. The manager and HR professional were not.Dr. Turek was being inclusive working with them. They were being exclusive by refusing to work with him, even though his viewpoint was never discussed during his work at Cisco. (Ironically, the people who say they are fighting for “tolerance” are often the most intolerant!).

I have a couple of important questions: First, what action would have been taken had Dr. Turek been aproponent of same-sex marriage but a conservative employee had complained? Second, given your support of Senator McCain, a same-sex marriage opponent, are you qualified to be working at Cisco?

My purpose in writing is simple: I am asking you to correct a policy of “inclusion” that is currently being applied as a policy of exclusion.

Dr. Turek has been excluded now from earning a living with your company. Moreover, he is concerned about the thousands of conservatives, religious and secular, who are employees of Cisco. He has spoken to several who live in constant fear that they will similarly be “outed” for their deeply held religious and/or political convictions. In my view, such totalitarian political correctness is immoral and un-American, and I doubt it engenders a climate of diversity and collaboration you so eloquently champion.

I thank you for your attention to this matter and look forward to your prompt reply. I can be reached atadams_mike@hotmail.com. I intend to publish your response next week.

Respectfully,
Dr. Mike S. Adams


OK, that decision by the Cisco people has really bothered me. I plan to write Mr. Chambers as well, and I hope you decide to do the same. Such bigotry has no place in our society.

Thoughts on Evan turning one

Recently our family celebrated the first birthday of our grandson Evan. It made me realize how many things I have learned to appreciate over this past year.

For one thing, I have come to be even more impressed with the power of God. When I look at him, I'm amazed at how intricate he is, down to his tiny fingers and toes. His complexity is not a result of random chance in the universe. He is the result of a master architect at work.

I also appreciate the changes I have seen because of a different perspective. When I was a new father myself, the day-to-day swirl of life left me little time to see the gradual changes taking place in my sons. Now, as a grandfather, I see him from a distance, separated by time, geography, and emotions. I am constantly aware of the progress he makes as he learns to walk, point, eat solid foods, and express himself. It's a constant delight.

Furthermore, I am in awe of the job my wife did as a parent. I was at work Monday through Friday when our kids were young. I'm sure I appreciated the efforts my wife Sharon made, but my respect for her has grown as I see how difficult it is to raise Evan even though he's a great kid. The patience, wisdom, and love required for all good moms is enormous. Janelle, Evan's mom, and my wife have these qualities in abundance. I am so grateful for them.

I can see the true value of friends and families for support now. Janelle has several women with whom she can share activities and concerns. Evan has aunts and uncles who love him and provide encouragement for both Jordan and Janelle. His grandparents live close enough to help with babysitting.

I also realize how important it is to pick the right activities for children. Both Jordan and Janelle have refused to allow television to become a babysitter. Instead, they both read to Evan. This will pay off someday in a child with more creativity, a better vocabulary, sharper reading skills, and an ability to focus on the task at hand.

So, happy birthday to Evan. You're off to a great start in life, and I'm looking forward to sharing many more years with you.

Cosmic scales

Ever since I was a little kid, I have enjoyed astronomy. Part of the reason has been the mind-boggling scale of our universe. I thought about that the other day and looked up in reference books various ways to understand the size of our solar system and the universe in which it is situated. I thought you might like to read some of these.

Let's start with the solar system. If the sun was represented by a yellow beach ball with a 2-foot diameter, the earth would be the size of a pea 215 feet away and Jupiter would be the size of a large orange 1,056 feet away. Or consider this other scale: if we represent the sun by a large orange, the earth would be a sesame seed about 49 feet away and Pluto, a grain of millet, would be over 3,400 feet away. According to this scale, the nearest star to the sun, Alpha Centauri, would be nearly 2,500 miles away. Now, let's consider cosmic distances. If you could drive to the sun at 55 mph, it would take 193 years to get there. If you wanted to get to Alpha Centauri, you take 52 million years at the same speed. Here are other ways to think about sizes. The sun weighs as much as 300,000 planets like Earth. Over 1 million earths would fit inside the sun. The moon's entire orbit around the Earth could fit inside the sun.

All right, much of that was mind-boggling, but it gets crazier when you consider the Milky Way galaxy in which our solar system is found. If the diameter of our solar system was scaled to 1 inch, then our galaxy's diameter would be about 100,000 miles. If our entire solar system could fit into a coffee cup, our Milky Way galaxy would be the size of North America. If you took an Apollo spacecraft to Alpha Centauri, the nearest star, it would take 850,000 years to get there. Or, think about this. If our sun was represented by a basketball in New York City, the next star would be a basketball about 5000 miles away.

For some people, the message in the above statistics is that we are insignificant. We live on a nondescript planet and circle an average sun near the edge of an typical galaxy. But discoveries in the last 10-20 years have shown that this is not the true picture after all. So much has to happen exactly right to produce life that it appears to be extremely rare. In fact, Paul Davies, who is a well-known secular physicist and professor, says he believes we may be the only intelligence in the entire universe. So, the question becomes very simple -- are we the product of chance or intelligence? To get things so exact both on the cosmic scale and down to our cellular makeup (consider DNA, for example), it requires the intervention of an intelligent agent. I think I know who that is.

The 4th of July and American exceptionalism

The term "American exceptionalism" refers to the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the unique American identity which arose from an American civilization that honored them. When our current President was asked if he believed point-blank in this concept, he said each nation believes in its own exceptionalism, which, of course, really says there is no such thing as true American exceptionalism. A new book contrasts this idea effectively -- A Nation like No Other by Newt Gingrich. On this Fourth of July I wanted to include some quotations here from this book to illustrate how unique our country is and how blessed we are to be part of it.


"Belief in American exceptionalism leads inevitably to a smaller, more effective, accountable, and limited government. The American revolutionaries did not shed their blood for the welfare state; nor did they replace the arbitrary rule of King George and his officers with their own oppressive bureaucracy. Instead, they fought for individual liberty -- that made America an exception among all other nations."


"Big government and an increasingly centralized economy are the antitheses of liberty, which is fundamentally connected to free enterprise, local power, smaller, more effective, limited government. Our Founding Fathers understood these ideals and fought for them, just as we, in a different way, must fight for them today."


"No nation had ever before embraced human equality and God-given individual rights as its fundamental organizing principle. America was the exception, because never before had a nation recognized sovereignty in the citizen rather than the government. Never before had a nation been brought forth that was dedicated first and foremost to identifying the source and nature of the individual's rights and defending those rights, and only secondarily to defining the scope of governmental power -- and then only in relation to, and limited by, the individual's unalienable rights."


"Acceptance of this simple hierarchy -- God, then the individual, then government -- set America apart, an exception from all nations that came before it."


"True liberty had come to mean [to the Founding Fathers] freedom of faith and conscience, while religion was deemed necessary to support liberty, a gift of God. The purpose of liberty was to give glory to God. If God was forsaken, liberty's purpose would be destroyed, and liberty itself would give way to tyranny."


There's much more to think about in A Nation Like No Other, but I'll save that for a future blog. I hope on this Fourth of July that we take some time to appreciate how special America really is.