How Can I Be But Joyful?

My mom was always an early riser. One morning she wrote this poem. It was read at her memorial.

How can I be but joyful?

-–————-

How can I be but joyful

When my God is always near?

How can I be but joyful

When my every prayer He hears?

How can I be but joyful

When all my needs are met?

How can I be but joyful

When many have not been spoken yet?

How can I be but joyful

When I’m blessed with many friends?

How can I be but joyful

When I know each is one He sends?

How can I be but joyful

When I see all His hands have made?

How can I be but joyful

Knowing He spoke and all creation obeyed?

How can I be but joyful

When His hands hold my own?

How can I be but joyful

Knowing I’m never alone?

How can I be but joyful

When I hear the birds that sing? 

How can I be the joyful

When their sweet voices from Heaven ring?

How can I be but joyful

When I’m at the end of my days?

How can I be but joyful

When I’ll be in heaven giving God my praise?

By Doris Roepke

Illustrating Absurdity

The ‘Woke’ left is getting more & more ridiculous with their demands. Not satisfied with ending use of slurs like the ‘N’ word, we’re now expected to use countless made up pronouns and participate in delusions over gender. People are ‘triggered’ over words like ‘master’ or ‘man’ and even assume that owning a white dog is some sign of racial supremacy.

The late great Rush Limbaugh used to ‘illustrate absurdity by being absurd’- taking the extreme cases and demands of the left to their ludicrous ends. So, in honor of Rush’s memory, let’s get absurd.

‘Master bedrooms’ in homes are out, because a few people are told they should connect the phrase to the days of slavery. Should we then get rid of Master’s Degrees? Master locks? The Masters golf tournament? What about people who have mastered a subject? My brother in law is a master mechanic. Does that offend someone? Could some helpless snowflake be reduced to tears over being introduced to someone named Master or Masters? Master bedrooms have become ‘Main’ bedrooms in some areas. So… Main locks? Main degrees? The Main golf tournament? Main mechanic? “Hello, my name is Main’?

The word ‘man’ has been on the outs for a long time when it comes to some positions. ‘Chairman’ became ‘Chairperson’ or simply ‘Chair’. Well, ‘Chair’ is a piece of furniture. Chairperson suffers because of the word ‘son’ (a male), so maybe we should use ‘Chairbeing’ or ‘Congressbeing’.

Mailman? No. Mailbeing? Better, but it has the word ‘Mail’ which sounds like ‘male’, so maybe we should use ‘Postbeing’.

The endless parade of bizarre pronouns like hir/xi/xyr and those who use they/them for a singular individual is just nuttiness. What if I wanted to be called ‘Your Majesty’ or ‘Emperor’?

I saw an accusation against some conservative that their ownership of a white dog meant they were white supremacist. But I’ll guarantee that if they’d owned a black dog it’d be linked to a desire to own a slave. The same thing would be true over ownership of a white or black car, boat or just about anything else. Owning a red car would probably mean subconscious desire to subjugate Indians. But what does that say about someone who owns a green car? Or one that’s blue or silver? We have a cat that’s black AND white. Do those balance each other out? Or would it depend whether there’s more black or white on her?

Face it. We’re screwed, and we can thank the left.

Predictions for a (God help us) President Biden

God help us, we’re going to see Joe Biden in the White House in a few weeks. So what does that mean for America? What will happen, not just in a Biden administration, but in a wholly radical left wing Democratic government?

1. I’m betting there’s an 80% chance that Joe won’t last more than about 30 months before his senility is so obvious even the media can’t deny it.

2. Both Taiwan & Israel will be thrown under the bus. Biden will, at best, offer a token of objection when China attacks Taiwan. And when Israel is attacked by ‘Palestinians’ and other enemies, he won’t do anything much either. Thank God Trump managed to get some peace agreements negotiated between Israel & some countries in the Middle East.

3. Biden claimed he’d only raise taxes on people making over $400,000/year. But to pay for all the goodies he’s talking about, there’s no way that would raise enough money. Not only that, but eliminating the Trump tax cuts will mean everyone’s taxes will go up. And we’ll see increased taxes on fuel & energy- taxes which are highly regressive.

4. We’ll see taxes and background check requirements (already introduced) on guns and ammunition. I’d expect requirements for large amounts of liability insurance as well- limits far above what’s required for your auto insurance. There will also be pressure on insurance companies to NOT offer such limits, or to charge so much that virtually nobody can afford them.

5. I expect an end to ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws, and limits on ‘Home Castle’ doctrine. You’ll be expected to retreat (‘Pretend your a Frenchman’) and hand everything over to criminals- ‘It’s only stuff- it can be replaced’.

6. We’ll be under a federal mask mandate for 4-6 months, and probably stay in place orders. The devastation to small businesses won’t matter.

7. We’ll see amnesty for 20+ million illegal immigrants, and weakened borders.

8. ‘Right to work’ laws will be repealed, and ‘card check’ laws will be implemented, which means that your vote on union representation isn’t done in the privacy of a voting booth. I respect someone’s right to join or NOT join a union.

9. We’ll see massive cuts to the DoD to pay for all this ‘free’ stuff.

10. Biden will send money to Iran. It’ll be our tax money this time though, not theirs. And it’ll be used to commit acts of terror.

11. The federal government will take control over local zoning laws. Instead of ensuring that people of any race have the right to live somewhere (as it should be), communities will be expected to have the ‘right’ ethnic mix. If there are ‘too many’ single family homes, there will be a requirement that more duplex, 4-plex and apartments, including lower income housing, be built, even if it lowers the value of existing homes.

12. DC, Puerto Rico & Guam (if it doesn’t tip over) will be given statehood. California might be split in to multiple states, giving Democrats a guaranteed 9-12 Senators and who knows how many Representatives.

13. Vote by mail will be the norm, if not required. Same day voter registration will be required, and any form of voter ID laws will be overturned. The better to commit vote fraud.

14. Radical left groups like Antifa & BLM will be given a pass on all their violence.

I shared these with some friends, and they added a few things

15. Gun confiscation following a false flag operation

16. Permanent mask requirement

17. Right to travel restricted

18. Surveillance state, with ‘social scores’ based on ‘wokeness’

19. Shut down of non Democratic media/websites (we’re seeing that already)

20. 1st & 2nd Amendments ‘interpreted’ to be meaningless

21. Implementation of the 4th industrial revolution/great reset

22. Unsure of the term, but when banks refuse to handle accounts for entities they disagree with.

23. End to ‘self defense’ shooting defense

24. Charter schools will be eliminated. I think if they could get by with it, the left would eliminate private schools too- especially Christian schools.

The Republican party has GOT to stand up to this lunacy. America can’t survive with the radical leftist agenda coming at us. We don’t need the spineless clowns like much of the party leadership, and clowns like Mitt Romney have given us.

Run for office at the lowest levels- start at school boards and city councils and work your way up. Hell, start at the precinct level if you have to!

The Brownshirt’s of the American Marxist Socialist Progressive Democrat Left.

The Wilderness of Mirrors

The term Socialist existed before Karl Marx, but there are no Socialists alive today that are not Marxist Socialists. Oh, make no mistake about this. They may claim, and some even believe that they are not Marxist Socialists but it is a convenient deception to say the very least.

George Santayana

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

What does George Santayana have to do with the fact that all living Socialists are Marxists? Well, pretty much everything.

In in 1923 the Goethe University Frankfurt was founded by Carl Grünberg, who was a Marxist professor of law at the University of Vienna. In 1935 the Goethe University Frankfurt, or The Frankfurt School as it became known, moved to New York City where it became a part of Columbia University.

It was from the prestigious halls of Columbia University that the Frankfurt School’s Marxist Intellectuals infected Academia…

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Personal Finance from an amateur

Please note that I am NOT a financial professional, and have made plenty of poor decisions on my own finances.

Just about everyone knows that payday loans are a bad deal. Typically, they offer high interest rates and its easy to get stuck with loan after loan.

Unfortunately there are options which are even worse.

I know someone (NOT one of my own bad decisions) who got involved with installment loans.

Installment loans don’t require any collateral, so interest rates are much higher.  I looked at a few of their websites and found examples of rates as much as over 600% annually. I’m sure that rates could be even higher.

For example, https://www.axisadvance.com/rates-fees/ shows a bi-weekly payment of 76.37 over a year on a $300 loan. You’re paying back $1983.

Another company:

A loan referral company (they don’t make the loans but help you find one):

BORROW $200 FOR 14 DAYS WITH A $30 TO $60 LENDER FEE. YOUR ESTIMATED APR IS 391% TO 782%*

Payday loans are relatively expensive when compared with other loan products. Payday loans are not recommended as a long term financial solution and they should only be taken for emergency financial needs.

*Calculation: (lender fee / loan amount) x (amount of days in a year / duration of the loan) x 100
Low End of Range: ($30 / $200) * (365 days / 14 days) x 100 = 391.07%
High End of Range: ($60 / $200) * (365 days / 14 days) x 100 = 782.14%

The ’best’ option I found was ”only” a payment of $126 every 2 weeks for 13 weeks on a $600 loan. ”Only” $1638 repaid on that $600 over about 6 months.

I understand that without collateral the risk is much higher. I don’t think such loans should be illegal. I’m sure that the left would scream bloody murder if lenders stopped offering loans to high risk individuals at the 15% rate proposed by Sanders and AOC.

But please, do yourself a favor and stay away from installment loans.

 

Conservative Outreach

Before the 2018 midterm elections, Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, both extreme liberals, visited Wichita Kansas to boost the  congressional campaign of James Thompson. It’s clear that they understand the importance of trying to attract new voters, or to bring out voters who otherwise wouldn’t even bother.

Conservatives, and Republicans, need to do the same thing. We’ve ignored far too many groups of people for far too long. Republicans often don’t even bother asking for votes from the black community. We don’t bother asking for votes from Hispanic voters.

We need to strongly and clearly reject people and groups who claim to be or who are often lumped in with conservatives, and who are racist, and clearly demonstrate that we believe in equality of standard, and equality of opportunity.

We need to encourage minorities to reject the policies of the Democratic Party which, over generations haven’t accomplished the things that the left claims that they will.

 

 

 

 

“Some people did something“

Representative Ilhan Omar recently dismissed the September 11, 2001 attacks with the words “Some people did something.”  Democrats from Nancy Pelosi to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have defended these remarks.

 

While I absolutely agree she has the right to make those remarks, the remarks themselves are inexcusable.

 

If a conservative had responded to the Charleston massacre, or the murderous attack at the mosque in Australia with the words “someone did something“, they would very rightly be attacked endlessly in the media.   At the very least, there would be demands that they be thrown off every committee in Congress, a slew of opponents would be brought in to challenge them in their next election, and anyone who voted for them or defended those remarks would be attacked as a bigot.

 

Anyone who has made threats against Rep. Omar does deserve to face the full consequences. But in the same way, her casual attitude towards the murder of 3000 Americans means that she is a poor choice to represent America

 

 

Sexual assault

The recent flood of claims of sexual assault by a parade of actors, directors, producers, doctors and just about everyone else under the sun is a sad commentary.

The idea that anyone thinks they have the right to demand sex because of who they are or their position over someone else is disgusting.  And the claim by some people that women who dress a certain way or act a certain way means they’re ‘asking for it’ is idiotic.

Whether a woman is drunk, on drugs, covered head to toe or naked does not give a man the right to touch her without her permission.

I think we’d be better off too if we talked more respectfully about women, and I’ll call out people on both sides of the aisle, whether it’s Trump or Clinton on that issue.

Come on guys, be respectful.  Be honorable.  Be men.

Christianity in America

Fewer and fewer people identify as Christian today.  ‘Spiritualism’, Atheism, Agnosticism, along with other belief systems are on the rise.  And there’s increasing hostility towards Christians & Christianity as well.

Some of this increased hostility is, I believe, our own fault.  We come across, too often, as sticks in the mud.  Angry scolds.  Weird people others don’t want to be like.

I’ve read that Mahatma Gandhi was asked

Mr. Gandhi, though you quote the words of Christ often, why is that you appear to so adamantly reject becoming his follower?

Gandhi replied:

Oh, I don’t reject Christ. I love Christ. It’s just that so many of you Christians are so unlike Christ.

A variation on that had Gandhi replying ‘I would suggest first of all that all of you Christians, missionaries and all begin to live more like Jesus Christ.‘

And I can agree with that statement.  Unfortunately whether it was actually said or not, it applies to me as well.

A quick search under ‘Who said they didn’t want to be like Christians’ gave me over 7 million results.

One of the top links came from The Christian Post.  This very short article from 2009 lists a few complaints former non-believers had about Christians.

So what can we do better?  How do we draw people towards Christ?

First, we need to be more like Him.  Jesus was someone people enjoyed being around.  He celebrated with his friends & neighbors.  What was His first miracle?  Turning water into wine at a wedding!  Let’s stop being sticks in the mud, enforcing rule after rule on everyone else.  We want to be able to have fun, to laugh and celebrate with people who have things to celebrate.

When Jesus was asked about stoning a woman caught having sex with someone who wasn’t her husband, the first thing he did was to tell her accusers that whoever hadn’t sinned themselves could cast the first stone.  When all those around her had left, he told her that since they didn’t condemn her, He didn’t either.  And then he said ‘Go, and sin no more’.  Could we have a similar response?

Christians need to stop being so insular.  Yes, we need support from other Christians.  We need community.  But we also need to be there for non-believers.  We need to be a beacon to them when they’re facing struggles.  And while we need to share Christ with them, maybe beating them over the head with Him isn’t the answer.

We need to be open about our own failures & struggles.  When we condemn someone else’s sins but don’t admit to the times we fall short, we’re hypocrites.  This is something that’s especially true when it comes to sexual sins, since we at least come across as obsessed with sex.

We need to become more of a Christian community.  More loving not just to non Christians, but towards other Christians too.  We might have our differences, but most denominations at least have the central beliefs in common.  So let’s work as a community of believers to solve some of the biggest problems facing the world.  Slavery, whether it involves sex or not.  Broken families.  Single parents.  Unwanted kids- fosters, runaways and young men & women who have aged out of the foster system.  Racism & bigotry.

Charlottesville, Virginia

Groups preaching racial superiority have, unfortunately, been around for generations.  Even worse, such outdated beliefs are still with us.  Groups like the Klan, skinheads, neo-Nazis, and websites like Stormfront spout hateful, vile ideas which must not reflect the values & ideals of this country.  Racial supremacy & segregation are ideas whose time is long past, or at least should be.

But while such ideas aren’t welcome here, those who hold such ideas have the right to peacefully express them.  And those who believe in the inherit value of people regardless of their skin color have the right to peacefully oppose such bigotry.

Part of the problem in Charlottesville is that apparently the two groups may have been brought in to the same area by law enforcement.  The ‘Unite the Right’ protest was supposedly broken up and its members directed/dispersed towards the anti-racists.  Had these two groups been kept apart, maybe at least some of the problems might not have happened.

Americans need to be willing to let others express their beliefs, no matter how offensive they are.  Activists are demanding that memorials to Confederate officers and even Thomas Jefferson & George Washington be removed because of slavery.   In Germany, and a few other countries, it’s illegal to give the Nazi salute, so we need to stop ‘honoring’ slave holders.  But we have the 1st Amendment, and if it’s legal to burn the flag, as it’s been ruled, then art of any kind, as an expression of freedom of speech, must be allowed as well, no matter how offensive it might be.  Or maybe we could get rid of memorials to FDR, Margaret Sanger, Lyndon Johnson, Robert Byrd, Andrew Johnson, Che Guevara, Lenin, and Stalin, and George Soros would have to be turned over to authorities in Europe for his alleged financial crimes as well.