I just don't understand some people

Some time back, I wrote a lengthy post on why I am not a Republican. I stick by that account. Not only is the historical founding and growth of the party abhorant to me, it's modern leaders are as well. Admittedly, there is at least a part of me that has a soft spot of The Gipper. And Ron Paul, who holds a congressional seat as a Republican, and ran for President in the Republican primary is a man that I admire. But, on the other hand, going back through at least Eisenhower, the policies pursued by Republican Presidents or Presidential Nominees have been very poor. Think Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Bush, Dole, Bush, McCain. No real true solid consistent constitutionalist in the bunch. In fact, quite the opposite. (Reagan, I believe was a mixed bag - and while far from perfect, was the best of the bunch)

Basically, I am a man without a party. While I am not a Republican, I do not see how any knowledgeable Christian person could ever support any of the Democratic Presidential candidates of the last several decades. It is chilling to me that many Christians are openly supporters of our current leader, Barack Obama. While I can sympathize greatly with them if they do not like many of the Republican contenders, as neither do I, I can not even see a "hold your nose and vote for Obama as the lesser of the two evils" approach as acceptable. As I wrote elsewhere, I even think a 'wasted' third party vote or even a no vote at all are more respectable than a vote for a downright evil candidate.

But, I am aware of people who profess the name of Jesus Christ and who attend Evangelical Bible Believing churches who whole heartedly support Barack Obama. I honestly do not get it. I can give at least a couple of reasons for it, but I think they would fall apart with even a cursory examination.

1. GWB got us into a war that we do not need to be in and we need a change in that direction.

The whole current war situation is way beyond my understanding and I honestly do not know if it is a 'just war' on our part or not. I am not of a settled opinion, and can actually understand if someone is of the settled opinion of it being bad. That is, I can sympathize with someone who thinks this is the wrong war, at the wrong time, fought in the wrong way, for the wrong reasons. But, after all the hoopla in the election cycle, when all is said and done Obama's timeline for troop withdrawel is virtually identical to Bush's.

2. We have used torture methods and Obama is ending that practice and shutting down Gitmo

The torture method that seems to make all the headlines is waterboarding. This is a very controlled method which produces no injury and no long term harm. Obviously while going through waterboarding, the recipient must be under more than a minor discomfort, else it would not work. But, is it 'torture'? Is it inhumane? What if it produces results which prevent a major attack on the US (which it has) What if this method, which produces no injury results in imformation which saves thousands of lives?

This interrogation process does not even hold a candle to the methods used in the past and present by other nations - many of which either permanently maim, or even kill the victims. (I don't think anyone has ever survived a decapitation)

But, no, we just need to 'love our enemies' I am told. All the while, they not only hate us, but are bent on our very destruction.

Also, as some commentators are now pointing out, for all the grand oratory about closing Gitmo, our beloved leader has no workable plan on what to do with the detainees. Hey, Obama supporters, ya'll got any ideas? Why don't you 'love' them by taking them into your own homes???

Finally, though, if Barak wants to end the practice of waterboarding and even if he wants to close Gitmo, that still does not make it right for him to have released important classified documents to the world.

3. Barack (and of course all Democrats) care for the poor or otherwise underpriviledged, unlike those rich evil Republicans

This is the one that just kills me. Of course, every politician of any party if he or she is going to have any chance of getting elected, is going to claim to want to help the helpless, etc. and of course, virtually everyone falls into some sort of 'underpriviledged category. Women?? Underprivilidged. Minorities? Underpriviledged. Old People; children; overweight; addicts; The list goes on and on.

And of course every right thinking person, especially Christians, actually do want to truly help the truly underpriviledged. BUT, on what do we base the idea that the only way, or even the best way, to do so is through government coercion? I could go on and on, and won't, but I have yet to hear a single person argue effectively that government is good or successful at this. In fact, I have seen scholarly studies proving just the opposite. Also, on what do we base the very idea that this is even a legitimate function of government. Helping the needy IS a legitimate activity, and the Church should be behind it in every way. But before one more Christian ever attempts to tell me that he or she is for the 'liberal' candidate because said candidate 'cares about the poor' I insist that that person make the biblical case that this is a legitimate function of the civil government to carry out. I am also going to insist that they prove to me that if I don't share their love of government programs, that this means that I do not care about the plight of the unfortunate. I hate to harp so much on this, but I have read a few too many Christian writers state that they like Obama (or some other liberal) because he cares about the poor and of course Christians should care about the poor so why would any Christian not support Obama. Well, I care about the poor, and I think in the long run government programs to help the poor actually hurt the poor and everyone else, so why would I support a candidate that wants more and more programs?

Now, in addition to fact that the supposed reason for a Christian to be a supporter of Obama are quite weak, the reasons to not be are even stronger.

1. For over 20 years Obama attended a church that was so obviously racist and anti-American that absolutely no one can deny it. He finally dropped it when it became a politically hot issue and the media immediately dropped the issue as well. But, study up on this church and its preacher. Then exchange the black and white labels and ask yourself would a white person ever stand any chance of having any respectability at all if he attended such a place. You know the answer. It is beyond doubt. The white guy would be universally condemned and would never stand a chance in national politics. AND RIGHTLY SO. But, with Obama, we just act like it never happened. Apparently people even believe his preposterous story that even though he attended there twenty years, he never heard any of the inflamatory type remarks that were documented.

Moreover, Barack's 'religion' is not at all Orthodox Christianity. I base this not on conjecture, but on his own words that can easily be found on the internet. He believes all will go to heaven and there is no hell. He believes 'sin' is defined as 'not being true to yourself'. (Actually, we are all born sinners so sin is actually when we ARE true to ourselves!!) there are so many other things in which whatever his religious beliefs may be, they are definitely not Christian.

2. Obama has very little relavent experience

He has in his adult life been a left wing agitator (aka community organizer) a state repressentative (for a short period) and a US Senator for a short period before running for President.

3. He demonstrates on a daily basis that he does not understand (or is it does not care about?) our constitutional system of government.

The constitution spells out what the federal government as a whole can and can not do, and specifically spells out what the executive can and can not do. He daily acts as if these restraints do not exist.

4. He is driving the economy so far down the tubes that I fear it will never recover

I know I know George Bush did this. Well, he did have a lot to do with it. That is why I do not like W. He pushed the economy further and further toward the breaking point. But, here is what 98% of Americans do not understand. BO does not represent a change in direction from the Bush administration in the area of the economy. Instead, he is going in basically the same direction at a much much higher rate of speed. All this sype policy does is put off the inevitable crash that much longer, and make the inevitable crash that much more severe. Apparently Obama, like Keynes, has the opinion that it does not matter because "in the long run, we're all dead." How CHRISTIAN is it to place our kids and grandkids in the position of a nation in total economic collapse?

5. He radically supports gay 'rights' and the gay agenda

On an earlier post I put a link to a site documenting his beliefs and actions on this issue. You can go look it up

6. He is rabidly pro-abortion - more so than any President or contendor in the history of this nation

Again, that post refered to in #5 has info on this. Of course, many Christian Obama supporters will say that well, they are not 'one issue voters' but if there was ever a single issue that one could vote on, this would be it. Killing innocent unborn human life just should not be an option.

I also realize that some supporters will say that we should be more willing to help and to be understanding to women in the unfortunate position of having an unwanted pregnancy. I agree, that Christians should be on the front lines of this issue and where we are not it is to our shame. But even that is not as shameful as supporting a politician who wants no part of any limitations on abortions. And we do not need to let our care and concern about it remove us from the fact that quite often the woman is not exactly a 'victim' but was a willing accomplice. We are not showing Christian love to a person by telling them there are no consequences to their actions. Instead we show them there is forgiveness in the cross and strength in Christ to work through the situation without resorting to making a bad situation a million times worse by committing murder.

How anyone who considers themselves an evangelical Christian, who believes that humans have dignity and worth because they are created in the image of God, could turn the other way and support with great fanfare a leader who is not only complacent, but active in the destruction of millions of innocent lives, while at the same time decrying a previous leader because he allowed some people to poor water on the faces of terrorists bent on our destruction is totally beyond me.

Can anyone explain this to me please?

Our Current Economic Crisis

I have been reading, studying, and thinking alot about the economy lately. My daughter is having to read a book entitled Whatever Happened to Penny Candy? for her high school economics course and the wife and I have been reading it also. Like all economics books, it is not perfect. But, especially the first several chapters are very good, and should be required reading for every single person in America (that is if I were the dictator type - but I guess the fairness doctrine would insist that everyone also read Keynes or Marx or something).

I have also been re-skimming Honest Money by Dr. Gary North, and What Has the Government Done to Our Money by the late Professor Murray Rothbard. If you get a chance, you need to read any or all of these.

Yesterday while out and about, I stumbled on a radio program which featured a guest named Thomas Woods. His insight into the situation was fascinating. A brief article about his book can be found here: http://www.pointofview.net/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=8531

Woods main argument, one that is echoed in the works of Rothbard and others, is that an unfettered free market is NOT the cause of the problems we are facing, and government intervention of one form or the other is NOT the solution. In fact, the exact inverse is true.

The current situation, like that of the Great Depression of the 1930s, has been caused by irresponsible governmental monetary policy.

The books mentioned above make this claim as well. In reading my version of Penny Candy which was dated 2005, I was fascinated by the relevance to the current situation. The author demonstrates how throughout history, governments have turned to the same currency devaluing schemes to try to continue to prop themselves up, ultimately leading to their inevitable downfall, and the downfall of the society they were suppose to be protecting. The same thing is happening now at a terribly alarming rate.

Money is simply a medium of exchange. Nothing more. Nothing less. The natural state of things has always led in civilized society to the use of precious metals ( hereafter referred to as PMs), specifically gold and silver, as this medium of exchange. The reasons for this are many. PMs have real value in and of themselves. They can be broken down into usable quantities (from large bullion to small coins). The amount of them available in society can not be quickly, nor infinitely increased. In short, they provide value, ease of use, and stability.

Monetary units (such as dollars) are simply known quantities of some precious metals. By definition, a dollar was the equivalent of one ounce of silver. (The British Pound Sterling was just that - a pound of sterling silver). At the time of the formation of the U. S. Constitution, gold was considered to have roughly twenty times the value of silver - hence a 'dollar' was also one twentieth an ounce of gold, or an ounce of gold was twenty dollars. That is, the value of gold or silver did not fluctuate in terms of dollars, but the value of a dollar would fluctuate if the value of gold or silver fluctuated. Things were essentially this way for the better part of 150 years. If you had a dollar, that meant you had an ounce of silver or a twentieth of an ounce of gold. If silver or gold for some reason increased or decreased in value, your purchasing power increased or decreased with it. However, due to the nature of things, rapid or large fluctations in the value of precious metals rarely occur.

In times past, such as during the late stages of the Roman Empire, governments would devalue the currency by 'clipping' the coins. That is, they would collect coins (through taxation or whatever means), shave off portions of the gold or silver, then mint new coins with the shavings. A coin that was say one ounce, may then be 0.9 ounce, but, have the same 'face value' even though the real value had diminished. Also, there were now more coins made from the same amount of PM.

Now suppose you were a Roman merchant who was selling an item for an amount equal to nine ounces of PM. Previously, you collected nine 1 ounce coins. Now, to obtain the same quantity, you needed ten 0.9 ounce coins. (Obviously, I am simplifying here). The result? There are more coins (therefore, supposedly more 'money' available for exchange) in the market, but prices have gone up. That is, the currency has been devalued. Prices have risen. People may seemingly have more 'money' in their pocket, but, their purchasing power has not improved. This is inflation.

Please note, inflation is not a rising of prices. The rising of prices is a result of inflation. Inflation is the devaluing of the currency.

Over the centuries other innovations have made this practice more convenient for the government devaluers (counterfeiters) to ply their trade. The most useful innovation has been the introduction of paper money.

Paper money began as what could be termed bank notes. Someone may not want to store their reserves of PM in their own home. Businesses which were essentially warehouses for PMs developed. One could deposit his PM in the warehouse, and the warehouse would issue him a paper receipt or receipts. Suppose I deposited 25 ounces of gold and 100 ounces of silver in the warehouse. I get receipts stating that I have this (maybe I get twenty five receipts each worth one ounce of gold, and 100 receipts each worth one ounce of silver). Now, I do not carry all this gold and silver around with me, but I can redeem any or all of my receipts whenever I desire. If I buy an item priced at one silver ounce, I could trade my receipt for it. Now, the merchant I traded with can redeem that receipt upon demand and receive the actual silver. (Likely, the warehouse (bank) would charge some type of holding and processing fee for this service.)

Now, these banks began to get creative. They determined that rarely if ever did they have a run on all deposits. At any time, they had the overwhelming majority of deposits on hand. Therefore, they began 'loaning' some of the reserves that they had. This is called Fractional Reserve Banking. So, just using my deposits for example. I may come in and out occasionally and deposit more, or withdraw some, but on the whole, my balance is staying somewhere near what I originally deposited. The bank may then write out another receipt against my deposit and give it to another individual as a loan that must be repaid. So, now for my one deposit, there are two sets of receipts in circulation. The borrower then goes and somehow invests this, trying to make a return. He may go turn his certificate over to a merchant who sells him some equipment that he uses to provide a good or service to make more money. If he makes a return, he pays back the borrowed credit, with interest. The bank has made money. As long as I, and the others who are now holding certificates against my deposits do not demand our PMs at the same time, the bank is safe. However, obviously, the larger the overlending verses the amount actually on reserve, the larger the risk the banker is taking. Also, the riskier the investment, the more risk of the bank failing.

Fractional reserve banking has caused some problems during economically troubled times in the past. In fact, it has actually caused some of the economic problems themselves. For one, this has inflated the currency (If the banker 'loans out' receipts equal to my original deposit, he has essentially doubled the currency in circulation, thereby lowering its value, much like the coin clippers of old)

During much of the 19th century, American politicians struggled with these issues. On the one hand were the bankers, licking their chops to use fractional reserve banking, along with the politicians they backed to help foster the system. On the other hand, were more economically conservative politicians who fought against this system.

Finally, in 1913, perhaps the greatest debacle in the history of American economics occured. The Federal Reserve system went into effect. Since that time, they have continued along a path that has gone further and further in the direction of currency devaluation.

The climax of this has been to utimately remove all ties from our paper money to any PM, along with the passage of 'legal tender' laws. Not too many years ago, your paper money had a noted on it saying it could be redeemed for 'real money' (i.e. silver or gold). That is no longer the case. Now, it is simply a note that we are forced by law to accept as legal tender for all debts. In reality it is nothing but a worthless piece of paper. (And nowadays, often it is not even that, but is simply an electronic blip on a computer program). You could have piles and piles of hundred dollar bills, and they are absolutely worthless in and of themselves (unlike silver or gold) and the ONLY reason they have value is because the government by law forces everyone to accept them as tender.

So, now the 'value' of a dollar is not tied to PMs. It therefore can fluctuate tremendously. As stated previously, one of the major reasons why PMs became used as a medium of exchange is because they could not be quickly and easily devalued by a sudden large influx. (It is not impossible that this could happen, as it happened in Spain when they obtained huge amounts of gold from the Americas during the 16th century - another story for another post at another time!) However, it can not easily and frequently happen.

However, when paper that is printed solely at the governments discretion and is forced to be used as legal tender is the only allowable legal tender, the government can inflate the currency at will. A huge influx of this so called money into the economy does not add one whitt of wealth to the economy, but only devalues the currency.

Our wealth as a nation is the sum total of all our productivity. In reality, money is only a medium of exchange for that productivity. If suddenly the government prints one trillion dollars and injects that into the economy, it has not increased our wealth one iota. All it has done is make the buying power of each unit (dollar) that much less. This can cause widespread destruction.

Suppose you are 70 years old, have worked hard all your life, have saved, invested, and smartly handled your money and you now have a net value of one million dollars. Sounds like a lot of money, doesn't it? However, if the government suddenly prints and circulates trillions of dollars into the economy, now your one million dollars is worth a fraction of what it once was. All your hard work and intelligence just went down the drain. This is happening to millions of Americans right now.

Well, in our current hard financial situation (which has been caused by the very monetary policies we are talking about) the Messiah's, uh, I mean the President's plan for fixing it is to inject tons of money into the economy. See how utterly senseless this is?

Not one person in a hundred understands this. The average Joe, while possibly thinking something might be amiss in what is going on, at least on some level thinks that injecting money to 'jump start' the economy is a good thing.

In actuality, it is a travesty - and one we will be suffering from for a long time to come.

This inflationary monetary policy is actually harmful in many many more ways than I can even begin to talk about here. This policy, and not the unfettered free market, causes the business 'boom and bust' cycles we have seen throughout our history. We have just come out of a long 'boom' and are now going into a huge 'bust.' The best that our current policy of stimulous can do is to continue to artifically lengthen the aritificial 'boom' and forestall the inevitable 'bust,' while making the eventual 'bust' just that much more severe. I fear we are near a breaking point where no matter what happens, soon the 'bust' will be irreversable - perhaps leading to a total cultural meltdown. The only way to fully and finally recover is to allow the 'bust' to run its course - as painful as that may be, then to restore a sound monetary policy in its wake.

Austrian economists (see the Woods link above, or that of the Mises Institute or Lew Rockwell Report to the right) have been saying this for years, only to be labeled lunatics. However, I think it is undeniable that the only solution to this situation is to somehow someway get back on some sort of Precious Metal ("honest money") monetary system with little or no government intervention.

An open letter to President Obama, and all people in power

Dear President Obama,

You may want to consider the following words from a 'Good Book' that I have:

Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.”

He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying, “As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill.”

I will tell of the decree: The Lord said to me, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”

Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

Thank you for your time.

Fooled Again?

A blogger friend of mine (The Sun Stands Still - linked at the right) posted the following quote from Mark Horne concerning Obama:

"Obama’s arrival is change from the Bush administration the way a baby is change from a pregnancy. He’s not a repudiation; he’s the ultimate end."

When I read that, I immediately thought of that classic hard rock anthem "Won't Get Fooled Again." by The Who. (I know - I'm kinda weird). The lyrics seem to speak of a 'revolutionary' change of power, which only results in more of the same.

Look up the lyrics on the internet - they're easy enough to find. I am sure The Who were not politically (or religiously, or in any ways) near any form of agreement with Evangelical Christianity, yet taken generically, the lyrics to this song are actually, for rock music, pretty profound.

The climactic final lines of that song demonstrate a similar thought to those of Mark Horne:

"Meet the new boss.......Same as the old boss!"

The Keynesian 'Solution'

Dictionary.com describes John Maynard Keynes as follows:

1883–1946, English economist and writer.

British economist who proposed that high unemployment, being a result of insufficient consumer spending, could be relieved by government-sponsored programs. He also advocated deficit spending by governments to stimulate ecomomic activity.

English economist who advocated the use of government monetary and fiscal policy to maintain full employment without inflation

Keynesian economics has dominated the American political economy for decades, going back at least to the great depression. It was Keynesian policy which FDR used to get us out (cough, gag) of the depression. In the late 1960s early 1970s Richard Nixon (who had taken us off the gold standard completely) stated “We’re all Keynesian now.”

Virtually every president since at least FDR has been to some extent or the other, Keynesian, no matter what else you may say about him. That even includes Reagan, though possibly to a lesser extent.

As can be seen from the above definitions, one of the main, perhaps THE main tenant of Keynesian economics is that during times of economic slowdown, the government should spend money on infrastructure and various projects in order to provide jobs, spur consumer spending, etc. This, supposedly will get the economy through the tough times. Once the economy recovers, the government spending can be curtailed. It is a form of planned economy.

Sounds good on paper to the layman, but there are more than a few drawbacks.

To start with, it really does not work. As I have said elsewhere, the state of the economy was at least as bad, if not worse in the late 1930s, after years of FDR, than it was when FDR took over. FDRs programs were, among many other things, Keynesian.

It is not a natural thing for the whole economy to be in a downturn all at the same time. Unfortunately, most people think that the free market will frequently result in a total economic meltdown, at which point some government intervention (in the form, at least, of Keynesian policies, if not outright socialism) is required. However, while no possible economic system can ever insulate every individual from hardship, the free market will never end up in an economic meltdown. The meltdowns that do occur (such as 1929 onward and our current situation) are almost always directly related to government intervention. However, the solution proposed by our government leaders? More government intervention. Make sense to you??? Yeah, me neither.

1929 was the result of government intervention. The as bad or worse situation of 1938 was due to continued government intervention.

Second, it is as close to an absolute fact as anything in the world that once government spending is started, it is not stopped. Many of the programs for economic recovery of the 1930s are still with us today. This causes continued deficits and other problems which result in further economy wide problems on down the road.

Third, and most importantly, there are long term negative effects of this type of spending (deficits and higher taxes and the further economic hardships that occur due to these things). When asked about what the effects of his policy would be in the long run, Keynes himself famously quipped, “In the long run, we’re all dead.” There ya go. That’s the philosophy we want to hand down to our kids, right? We want policy which we believe (rightly or wrongly) will benefit us, but who gives a rip what it will do to our descendents? Sure, count me in. I don’t care what Jr. says.

Now, what to do about our current mess? First off, let us be clear. Our problems are not the result of the free market gone wild. Our problems are directly related to over arching government intervention into the lives and businesses of individuals and corporations, from bad, even terrible tax policy, from wretched spending programs, from freedom squelching regulations, from currency devaluing monetary policy, and on and on. The proposed solution? More government. Create money out of thin air and spend it on ‘infrastructure,’ and a myriad of other social programs. In short, the current proposed solutions are the same old tired Keynesian policies which have actually contributed to the current mess.

In the end, I have no idea exactly how all this will turn out. But I can promise you, absent any major change, the direction we are heading is wrong. We can keep putting band-aids on our severed jugulars and keep the patient alive until hopefully, in the long run, we are all dead, OR we can care about our descendents and try to fix the problems permanently with sound, honest money, low taxes, limited government, and so forth.

What do you think?

Another Freebird Falls

I heard on the way home last night, that Billy Powell, keyboardist for Lynyrd Skynyrd, passed away.

Powell's story was an interesting one. He had been classically trained as a pianist. In high school, he befriended Leon Wilkeson, future bassist for Skynyrd. Ultimately, he began working for the band as a roadie, setting up and taking down equipment, etc. No one in the band really knew that he even played an instrument, let alone that he was good.

One night in 1972 after the band had played at a prom (can you see Skynyrd playing a prom???) Billy had a few minutes and he sat down at a piano, and began playing "Freebird." Ronnie Van Zant was blown away. "Man, you mean you've been working with us for two years, and you can play like that??? We've been wanting to add a keyboardist. You're in the band."

The rest is history. Other members of the band have joked about Billy's playing. The problem is in holding him back. He does not know when to not play. he plays constantly, throughout the song. Although classically trained, Billy's work with Skynyrd produced more of a 'honky tonk' piano style.

This band (a favorite of my youth, and one that still holds a special place in my heart and mind) has had perhaps the most tragic history of any band. Everyone, of course, knows about the plane crash of October 20, 1977. That crash killed the heart and soul of Skynyrd - Ronnie Van Zant, as well as the most recent addition - Steve Gaines, who had replaced Ed King as third guitarist.

In subsequent years, guitarist Allen Collins was seriously injured (and his girlfriend killed) in an alcohol related auto accident. Collins was left permanently crippled.

In 1987, the band reunited and embarked on a reunion tour. On October 20, the ten year anniversary of the plane crash, they played the Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center. Your's truly was present, about 15 rows back from the stage. It was a great show. Included were Gary Rossington, Powell, Leon Wilkeson, and Ed King (original 3rd Guitarist). I'm thinking Artimus Pyle may have manned the drums that night, but I am not sure. Of course Johnny replaced his brother Ronnie on vocals. A touching moment was when Allen Collins came onto the stage in his wheelchair and praised the band, and encouraged everyone to not drink and drive.

The show was great and the band has been playing with varying lineups ever since. However, most of what they have done is insignificant tripe compared to the old days.

Since that night, however, Allen Collins subsequently passed away (I think around 1990) from further complications going back to his accident. A falling out occured amongst many of the old members. Ed King was kicked out (he claims that as a Californian, he was never accepted by the other members, even in the old days - even though he is responsible for the licks on Sweet Home Alabama, their biggest hit) Artimus Pyle has had major legal battles and is no longer welcome ni the band. Many of the old timers speak ill of Rossington.

In 2001, Leon Wilkeson died of liver problems, likely related to years of not living right.

Now, Powell dies at 56. He had a history of heart problems, and was significantly overweight in later years. I am sure that he had had substance abuse issues in his life too, but I have no idea if that was a demon he had conquered or if he still dealt with it.

During the original years of Skynyrd fame (1973-1977) the band had 6 or 7 members at any one time on any one album. With some rotation, this included a total of nine people. Of these, at least five are now dead (unless there are others I am unaware of.) Of these, Powell lived the longest, and that only to 56. The only ones still living are original drummer Bob Burns, replacement drummer Pyle, Original 3rd guitarist (and sometimes bassman) Ed King, and Gary Rossington. Of the current Skynyrd recording/touring group, only Rossington is present. King has had major heart problems. Pyle has had major legal problems. I don't know much about what has happened to Burns.

I got into Skynyrd after the plane crash - probably first latching on to their music around 1980. During my high school years, all of music could be divided into two categories. There was Lynyrd Skynyrd, then there was everything else. I've grown a great deal since then, thankfully. But the original Skynyrd will always have a place in my heart. Powell was an incredible talent, and, from what I could tell seemed to be a nice, soft spoken gentleman. He will be missed and remembered fondly.

Incidently, the childhood friend/neighbor I grew up with - his birthday was October 20, the day the plane went down. Now Powell dies on January 28 - my son's 19th birthday. Weird.

A bunch of random thoughts concerning the election

In no particular order, kind of a 'stream of consiousness' thing:

1. I have read many comments from liberals about the fact that poor ole McCain supporters were not really for McCain, but just AGAINST Obama, as if that is in any ways important. If you are a liberal with this view, suppose one side was someone you really did not much care for (say George Bush) and the other side was Adolph Hitler. Would you be more voting for Bush or against Hitler? The choices are what they are and a person just has to make what he thinks is the wisest choice among what is there - even though he may not like even the wisest choice. In my case, I decided to cast a vote that I could feel good about (3rd Party vote) even knowing the guy had a zero chance of winning. Admittedly, if the race would have been close in Alabama, I would have voted for McCain.

2. I don't for the life of me understand why when there is potentially really controversial information about a candidate, it is wrong for us to wonder about it or even speak about it. There have of course been rumors that Obama was Muslim. I have heard rumors that he had been addicted to Cocaine at one point in his life. I had heard rumors that he was gay or bi. Now, admittedly these may be crazy. They may be flat made up. They may be totally baseless. My personal feeling right now is that Obama is not a Muslim (more on this later, though). I do not think he shows any characteristics of a drug addict, although I have actually seen him admit to smoking pot frequently when he was younger. I really know nothing about his sexual preferences, but have no knowledge of any deviancy on his part. So, unless someone could really produce evidence for any of these, then of course it is silly, immature, and unChristian to spread such rumors around. If there is any evidence for any of these, then I think they are legitimate concerns and are open for discussion in a campaign.

However, there are are other areas in which there have been persistent rumors that seem to have more backbone. Mr. Obama's past activities and ties with other people and organizations would say a lot about who he is. He has been associated with who knows who.

At the very least we could talk about Jeremiah Wright. 'Pastor' Wright has openly touted 'Black Liberation Theology" and the writings of James H. Cone including "A Black Theology of Racism" (you can find Wright touting this book on youtube and he has in the past at least, cited this book as a founding document for his church. ) This book and this man and this "theology" which term is used in the loosest way possible, is simply hate filled anti-American racism. The major premise of the book is that community defines theology. Therefore, the 'black' community can define a 'black theology" that suits their needs. Of course, the other premise is that historical orthodox Christian theology is "White Theology" which has been used to oppress blacks. Note here then that 'theology' which correctly would be the objective study of God with no racial connotations at all now becomes the subjective statement of our own racial prejudices clothed in the righteous garb of religion. There is 'oppresive' white theology and black 'liberation' theology. Where is God in this view?

According to Cone and Wright, they can not worship a God who is not on the side of the Black Liberation movement. If God is on the 'side' of Whiteness then they hate that God.

Here are a few excerpts from this book:

1. "[W]hiteness is the symbol of the Anti-christ."
2. "The goal of black theology is the destruction of everything white, so that blacks can be liberated from alien gods."
3. "The black experience is the feeling one has when attacking the enemy of black humanity by throwing a Molotov cocktail into a white-owned building and watching it go up in flames. We know, of course, that getting rid of evil takes something more than burning down buildings, but one must start somewhere."
4. "Black theology seeks to analyze the satanic nature of whiteness and by doing so prepare all nonwhites for revolutionary action."
5. "We have reached our limit of tolerance, and if it means death with dignity or life with humiliation we will choose the former. And if that is the choice, we will take some honkies with us."
6. "To be black is to be committed to destroying everything this country loves and adores."

Now, I ask you dear reader, rearrange the black and white above and what would our media do to anyone even remotely associated with it? Anyone white who can even by the third or fourth degree be remotely associated with anyone even remotely racist can have their any hope of attaining public office destroyed. Remember Pat Buchanan in 1996? Remember Trent Lott?

But, what did we do in this case? We elected a man president who for twenty years attended a church that was self described as based on these racists writings/rantings. Then, when it briefly became a political issue, he dropped it like a hot rock and the rest of us are suppose to just shut up and never mention it?? Excuse me??? I am absolutely sure I would get labeled a racist by some for even mentioning it here.

No, I do not believe Obama is a Muslim. I believe Obama is a lifelong member of a church that falsely uses the name of Christ to buttress marxism and anti-white bigotry.

Add to this other known ties at some level or other with terrorists, Chicago mafia types, marxists, vote fraud scams and the like and there is tons of smoke, but we simply must assume that there is absolutely no fire. If we want to do a fire investigation, we are labeled as fearmongers, haters, racists, etc. It really boggles the mind.

3. Sarah Palin was absolutely unready to be President, we are told. But Barack? Oh noooo. Time as a street agitator, a while in the Illinois State House, and a hudnred some days in the Senate make him uniquely qualified for the most powerful job in the world. Wright, er. Right.

4. I didn't much care for McCain, that is for sure. I do think much that McCain would do would be much the same as Bush. I do not agree at all with the direction of the country under Bush. I think we are heading in the wrong direction. However, with politics, there is a multitude of directions we could go. It is not that we go the MCCain way or we go the Obama way (which in a lot of instances are not all that different) There are a million other directions to proceed. So it is not just that since I do not like the current direction, I must vote for the change that Obama represents.

5. As bad as I think Bush has been and McCain would have been, it would still be far easier to turn things back and right the ship had McCain been elected. If Obama get's his way, and with majorities in both houses, he might, he can do almost irreperable damage. Once you let the cat of socialized medicine out of the bag, you absolutely can not be put back in. If his policies go through, we are stuck with them short of a revolution of colonial American proportions.

6. Related to this, let's just be as clear as possible. Obama is a socialist. I know I am not suppose to say this just like we are not suppose to bring up any ties to any shady characters in his past (or present). But it is the truth. People misunderstand this in many ways. a. they do not even know what socialism is b. they think they know and they actually think it is a good thing. c. they think it is allowed in the constitution d. they think it is Christian, etc. All of these thoughts are dead wrong. Socialism not only has never really worked (though through extensive use of smoke and mirrors has been made to look like it is working for a time) but actually socialism CAN NEVER work. It is an impossibility. it inevitably leads to lower standards of living and higher government power and persecution. It is impossible for it to do otherwise.

7. Obama has given indication that he will go to great lenghts not only to not allow further restricitons on abortions but to propogate more and more abortions. He has stated that the first thing he would do as president is sign the freedom of choice legislation. Ok, we know where his prioirities lie. In Illinois, he voted against legislation that would have protected the life of a child that survived an abortion procedure. Instead, they were just throwing the child in the garbage to die. Even many other liberal pro-aborts supported this legislation, but not Mr. Obamonation. Obama would be by far the most pro-abortion President in the history of the United States. What, therefore will he do in court appointments? What legislation will he push, and sign if it passes? If you are a Christian and voted for Obama, how do you justify voting for someone who is so pro-abortion?

8. Obama has given indications that he is rabidly pro-gay agenda. Now, I do not mean to imply that a candidate for president should desire to bust into homes of homosexuals and cart them off to the Gulags. Although I find the practice disgusting, and a horrible abomination against a holy God for which there will be a price to pay, I do not think it necessarily the job of the government, esp from a presidential office, to interfere with what two consenting adults may do in private. (The church has a major job to do here, for sure, though! But that is through preaching, teaching, admonishing, ministering, etc.)

But, if Mr. Obama gets his way, it may soon be illegal to preach against homosexuality. The homosexual agenda may be ramrodded at our kids through the schools, etc.

The link below is to a blog by a Robert Gagnon. Now, he is not some sort of blinded conservative. He is actually from a theologically far more liberal tradition than I. He has written a book about the Biblical view of homosexual practice that has garnered rave reviews by both conservative and liberal reviewers, even a liberal homsexual advocate. In other words, he is not simply on some sort of conservative soapbox. However, he details his concerns here about the above items (Obama's views on abortion and homosexuality) There are tons of links on this as well.

Again, how/why would a Christian have voted for this man?

http://robgagnon.net/ObamaWarOnChristians.htm

9. I am not the least bit upset over the fact that a black man got elected. I actually can truly understand why millions of black Ameicans would be very excited at the prospect of voting for a Black man. I have not experienced what they have. While there is a lot that is perception, there is a lot of reality to the history of blacks in this nation as being in an oppressed state. This is vindication of sorts for them. I understand that.

In fact, I am all for racial reconciliation and a Black president could go a long way toward that end.

Unfortunately, this is not the case with Obama. His policies will do far more harm than good, maybe even irreparable harm. I believe at the very least he has some very bigoted associates. He is from a marxist background. He is pro-death, pro-gay agenda. He is not the person, regardless of his race or gender, to lead this nation where it needs to go. He is apparently going to lead it in precisely the opposite direction than where it needs to go.

I hope it is obvious to anyone reading this that neither I, nor millions of other, white conservatives were against Obma because he is Black. We are against him because of his issues.

10. Nontheless, I am adamant that we all, black, white, liberal, conservative, need to pray for our leaders - democrat, republican, white, black, male, female, conservative, liberal. We need to pray not that our will or their will be done, but that God's will be done to His Glory and for our good.

Who Needs Radio?

Some time back, I read an ad for a web site called www.slacker.com. It seems you can go there, tell it artists you like, and listen to them all the time. What a concept!

I have been using this for awhile now. My computer speakers are not exactly hi-end, but they sound good enough. I have multiple Slacker stations - including one country, one soft rock, one classic rock, one r&b, one with a bit of everything, and several others. And, it is all free.! Of course there are upgrades you can buy, but even at the free level, it is great. This gives me enough exposure to the music I like, that I do not have to buy anything else!

It has also allowed me to find out there is music out there that I like and others that I don't that I would not have been able to know about before. I have found out that I like Gov't Mule, The Derek Trucks Band, Ray Wiley Hubbard, and others. I don't much care for Warren Zevon (I figure actually being able to sing would be a plus!)

I wish I could have a little bit more control. I wish I could list Chicago and only get stuff from the sixties and seventies, and leave all that eighties garbagio alone. I have listed Fleetwood Mac, and as you might expect, I get a great deal more of the Buckingham/Nicks era Mac than I do the Peter Green (which I love) or Bob Welch eras. On the plus side, when I put in Skynyrd, I get mostly the old original and not the current stuff. Another plus is that with the Allman's I get mostly pre 1975 and post 1990, and not much of the stuff in between. So, all in all it is a mixed bag but did I mention it is free? I guess if I got off the wallet I might be able to control it a little more, but for free it is great!

Further Thoughts on the Upcoming Election

The closer we get to the election, the more uncertain I become of which way to go.

In brief, here is my delimma:

I absolutely do not like and can not support Obama/Biden. They clearly represent everything I am against, and are against everything I represent.

I do not care much at all for McCain. I am not real sure what it is he does represent. I don't care for his personality, such as it is. On a great variety of issues I see no huge difference between him and Obam/Biden.

I am very intrigued by Sarah Palin.

On the whole from what I know, Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party would be far closer to what I would feel comfortable supporting (though he/they are not perfect). But, he has exactly zero chance of winning the election.

The struggle is this - is the addition of Palin enough to make me vote for the Republican ticket?

Palin has in her favor in my mind several things which the liberals scoff at her for:

1. She is a biblical literalist (I do not know exactly what her interpretive principles are and if they are the same as mine, but just the fact that she accepts the Bible as God's inerrant word to be taken seriously is good for me) I know a great many would question what in the world this has to do with being a national leader, but I would say it has plenty. She also has the guts (if she were a man, I would possible use another bodily reference) to state this publically and stand by it. This colors a lot of her other views in a positive light, some of which I'll mention here.

2. She is VERY pro-life. Not kinda sorta in a politically correct way when it is convenient, but solidly staunchly biblically pro-life as best I can tell. She also lives consistently with this, giving birth to a Downs Syndrome child and having her daughter carry her pregnancy through. It is not as if she says one thing then acts another way.

3. She has pursued action in Alaska consistent with not pushing the gay agenda - including wanting to rid the schools of pro-gay readings.

4. Most consistently, she has publically stated her belief in the literal reading of Genesis - meaning God created the world in six days not so very long ago. Adam and Eve were real people, etc. I recently read a liberal columnists which used this as reason enough to be scared silly of her. She must just be stoopid to believe that fairy tale, ya know!

These things makes me tend to want to have huge respect for her. Maybe even God is using this time of wimpy men to raise up another Deborah, as Douglas Wilson pointed out. (Deborah had to deal with a wimpy leader named, of all things, Barak!)

However, I do have a few reservations about making her VP, and with a certain turn of events, eventually President.

1. This may sound silly, but the fact that she is sided with John McCain makes me uncomfortable. I know Joseph had to work for the Pharoah. I know Daniel had to work with the leaders of his day. But, these great Godly leaders did not have to politically bow to the leadership direction they served under. Quite the opposite, Joseph and Daniel rose to the top by staying faithful to God even when it was unpopular, even dangerous. I have know idea what the level of faith of John McCain is, but some of his positions are not what I believe someone who understands biblical government, our constitution, and the relation between the two would be. The political reality of our day is that a VP has to be almost an exact echo of the Pres. How far is Palin willing to compromise? Or is that even a compromise for her? Is she politically comfortable with McCain?

2. A specific example was displayed to me in an interview I recently heard. I believe it was Sean Hannity who repeatedly asked her what was the problem with the economy, and what was the solution. Her consistent answer was that THE cause of our current economic woes was corruption on Wall Street and that THE solution was more government in the form of regulation. Now, I do not at all deny that there is some corruption on Wall Street. Only an imbecile, and Ayn Rand would. And I do not even deny that the government has a legitimate role to play in dealing with corruption (its job being to administer justice). However, the totality of our current economic problems is really a long and complex result of over one hundred and forty years of bad economic policy and too much government. There are so so many other things she could have more accurately stated as being major causes of our current economic woes and so many other directions she could have taken to point the way out. But, instead, she says that THE problem is Wall Street corruption and THE solution is more government. She even mocked the idea of 'self regulation' stating that it was actually 'no regulation.' My question to this is always then, who regulates the regulaters? At some point somewhere, someone is 'self regulated.' For all the dangers associated with the money of Wall Street, I feel much better with them being 'self regulated' than with the government empowered regulaters being 'self regulated.'

All this fits in nicely with McCain's own direction. He brags that while he is a Republican (presumably pro-big money interest) he has attacked Wall Street, Big Oil, Big Tobacco, Big Money Campaign Financing, etc. If McCain is a "Maverick" it is because in what little difference there is in the actual direction of the Republican and Democratic parties, there are some issues in which his rhetoric is that of Democrats instead of Republicans.

So, in the end, I am uncertain if I can swallow all of this and vote for McCain/Palin or if I should cast a protest vote.

Any help would be appreciated!

A Hero Falls

How many of you knew that Alexandr Solzhenitsen (sp?) recently passed away?

How many of you know who Alexandr Solzhenitsen was?

While he was an often hard to deal with old man, one whom I no doubt would have had at least a few major differences of opinion with, he was in the end one of a tiny handful of men that I would consider to be a hero.

Solzhenitsen spent about eight years in the horrid world of the Russian Prison Camps during the 1940s and 1950s. Unlike many millions of others, he lived to tell (and write!) about it. He was released during the first supposed Communist reform era of Russia. Decades before the mid to late 80s reforms, the mid 1950s reforms of Kruchev occured. This was the first hint of "Yeah, we're a bunch of totalitarians who can not support ourselves, so we'll act like we are reforming in order to get continued Western support" that continued for decades.

After his release, Solzhenitsen eventually wrote and published (1962 I think) a small novel entitled "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisavich." This was a fictional account of one day in the life of a Soviet Political prisoner in the Gulags of Stalin. This work eventually won Solzhenitsen a Nobel Prize for Literature.

As is always the case with tyrants, eventually the communists tired of Solzhenitsen's continued critiques of their ways. They eventually exiled him. He wound up in the US - Vermont in particular. However, rather than embracing the capitalism of the west, Solzhentisen criticized it, its decadence, its consumerism, its un-reverent religion of status, just as harshly as he criticized the Soviet tyrants.

This marginalized him and his writings. The extreme liberals of the west hated him because he was so staunchly opposed to the religion of statism. The 'conservatives' (mostly modern neo-con Republicans) could not tout him too loudly because he so staunchly opposed the 'religion' of capitalism and consumerism.

However, between the release of "One Day", his exile to the US, and his eventual return to Russia in the late eighties or early nineties, Solzenhitsen published many important works. Most notably, in my opinion, were the novel Cancer Ward and the massive three volume work about life in the prison camps entitled The Gulag Archipelego.

These are literary works based on his own biography. He had himself spent time in a Russian Hospital in the Cancer ward. Gulag was a semi-fictional, semi-factual series of tales from the prison camps. These works, it was said, held a mirror up to Soviet Society. Exactly how much they influenced the eventual fall of communism is up for debate, and likely unknowable. However, they did contribute. This adds to his hero status in my book.

However his hero status actually is based not on his works alone, important though they are. To me they are based on his resiliiance, and the steadfastness of his Faith. (Even though, he as a Russian Orthodox Christian, and me as a Reformed Christian would no doubt argue over the Faith itself) Perhaps there is no more moving sentence in anything that I have ever read than one, near the end of Volume II of Gulag, where, after spending literally hundreds of pages documenting the horrors of the place, could say "Thank you prison, for having been in my life." That is, Solzhenitsen saw clearly that all things are governed by God for his ultimate purpose. This includes the tragedy of spending eight years in a place that could only be described as 'hell on earth.' Sozhentisen recognized he would not be who he was, nor who God intended him to be, without going through this seemingly meaningless madness. Faith puts meaning into both joy and suffering. In fact, it puts joy into suffering.

We would all do well to have have cuch faith!

A couple of Political Vids

Just for your general interest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtxRU2QXJ8Q&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trqB6p02Kek&feature=related

The City of God

I just recently started reading St. Augustine's"The City of God." I have gotten through the first two books (out of twenty two) - which translates to about 80 pages out of over 800.

For those who do not know, the context of TCOG is that the city of Rome was attacked by the Goth's in 410 AD. Many of the leaders of the city were placing blame on the Christians for the calamities. They said that since the Christians were not worshiping the gods of Rome, the gods had abandoned the city, and the city was now falling. Augustine began writing TCOG during this time to refute this accusation.

The thing that has struck me the most so far is, believe it or not, how contemporary it is. You could change the language slightly, change the names of the philosophers and writers he refers to, and voila, he is talking about the condition of today's United States, and the position of our modern liberal leadership.

Time and space do not permit me to elaborate, but I wonder who else has noticed any parallels??


J

That's Entertainment?

The things some people do for entertainment!

There are numerous enormously popular activities that I just don’t get.

Slot Machines

Around here in Alabama Casinos are not legal so they say. However, there is apparently some sort of loophole in these laws because we have dog tracks and at at least one of these tracks there is what appears to me to be a casino. Not a full-blown casino with all the trappings, but basically a big huge giant room filled with slot machines.

We also, apparently on a county by county basis, seem to go back and forth between allowing or not allowing ‘arcade’ rooms which are essentially slot machine casinos on a very small scale, yet with no cash award but something else such as gift certificates, etc.

Finally, Alabama also has at least one gaming institution on Indian (Native American) Land.
The point is, that this stuff is extremely popular. Even in Alabama where gaming is supposedly not legal, some form of it is legal and operates on a big scale. Not to mention how many people frequently drive over to Mississippi where it is legal. Whenever any of the arcade places are open, they are packed – especially in the late night hours. I have been into the Choctaw Indian casino before and there were lots of people in there – and this during daytime hours. It was just becoming prime time when we left and the crowd was growing fast. I have had the same experience at one of the dog tracks, which has a huge room of slot machines. I have also been on the casino on a couple of cruise ships and they are always busy. Finally, I have been to both Atlantic City and Lake Tahoe and was just amazed at the amount of activity.

All this may sound like I actually go to these places a lot. Actually, I do not and am not at all interested in them. Every time I have been in one of these places, I have been with other people who wanted to go. I had little or no interest and did little or no gaming. It’s not that I have a huge moral problem with gambling per se, it’s just that it does not interest me.

However, I could give you a long list of names of people I personally know who just can’t get enough of it. Presumably, they all believe they will strike it rich one day. They all claim that for their entire history of gaming, they have come out ahead – though none of them has kept records proving it, and if everyone who played came out ahead, the casinos would be out of business! All of them have at one time or another hit a big jackpot of hundreds of dollars. One of them has even once hit a jackpot of over fifteen thousand dollars. Yet, I’ll bet every one of them has in the end lost money on gaming. Yet they all keep going. Why? I just don’t get it.
And I only know a relative handful of people. There are thousands of folks doing this stuff all over the country every single day. They all think they are going to hit it big. They all seem frustrated every time they come out of the place. However, one thing is for certain. The CASINO is making money. The whole thing is set up so that they take in much more money than they pay out. That is obvious. These things are huge and elaborate and must cost a fortune. That money comes from the gamers who think they are going there to get rich. Every gamer I know understands all this. He or she just thinks that the next time they go they will beat the odds and win big and it will all be worthwhile. It is true that a few individual gamers do hit it big. But if they do, they need to quit right then and there. It is an absolute law of how these things operate that if anyone played continuously for all there lives, they would come out very much in the negative. In other words, the more you play, the more you lose. There is no way around that. So, if you just happen to have one great day and win thousands you need to walk away and never come back. I have yet to meet a gamer who has done so. The industry knows this and is laughing all the way to the bank with the money.

The picture I have in my mind of playing the slots is the picture of standing in front of a garbage can and little by little throwing your money in it. If that’s what you call entertainment, then by all means, go for it. Just count me out.

Soccer

The next thing is soccer. I won’t elaborate much, because in spite some of the predictions of soccer fanatics, the sport still has not become huge in the US. I remember reading a Lewis Grizzard column once where he stated that someone had told him that ‘in 25 years soccer will be bigger in America than football, baseball, and basketball combined.’ He replied that someone had told him the same thing 25 years earlier. Well, it’s probably been close to 25 years since Grizzard wrote that article and soccer is still not huge in the US. You know why? Because we actually have sports that are entertaining. Football, basketball, auto racing – heck, even baseball seems about as fast paced and exciting as an Indiana Jones movie next to big league soccer. I would probably even prefer watching golf on television to watching soccer. I just can’t imagine that the sports gods could develop an actual team sport that involved a ball, pads, and cleats that was more boring to watch than soccer.

Now, when two of my kids were younger, they actually played soccer. I’m talking about, say, 2nd, 3rd, 4th grade or thereabouts. It was actually fun to watch. Obviously, it is fun for a parent to watch his own kids, but even beyond this, it was fun just watching all the kids play. There was actually tons of action. There were scores like 10-8 and stuff like that. But soccer seems to be the one game in the whole world that gets progressively more boring as you move up in skill level. By the time we get to major league soccer or world cup soccer, it is just painful to watch. It is simply a bunch of guys kicking a ball all over a huge field. Yawn.

You know its boring when the announcers have to scream like a banshee every time someone scores. That’s because a score is so rare. Every soccer game I have ever watched has a final of 1-0. Heaven forbid if it winds up 1-1. It then goes into some sort of overtime that could not be called ‘sudden death.’ Maybe ‘long drawn-out painful boring death’ overtime is what they call it in soccer. If they ever have a game that ends 2-1 that is considered an offensive shoot out. It’s offensive alright!

So, if there is a soccer game on tv, count me out. I think I have some drying paint to watch.

Deer Hunting

Let me be clear about this. I am a man. I love man things. Football. Beer. Rock and Roll. Women. (Well, actually I love one woman very much!) I don’t like musicals, chick flicks, shopping for clothes, or anything like that.

I preface this section in this way because apparently to a large number of dudes out there, deer hunting is the height of manhood. Conversely then, if a man does not like to go deer hunting, he is not much of a man.

Now, if you want to kill Bambi then by all means, go ahead. I just don’t get it though. Every friend of mine who has described his hunting trip to me gives me the same description. I’ll see if I can summarize it here:

You sleep in a musty, dusty, stinky, hunting camp cabin in the middle of nowhere that only gets used a few times a year

You wake up hours before the sun does.

You find your way out into the middle of the woods

You climb up in a tree stand – a device that has been specifically engineered for your discomfort.

You sit there for hours freezing you valued manhood off – because it’s only legal, apparently, to hunt deer during record cold temperatures

You’re sitting there freezing for hours just on the chance, the slight chance, the miniscule chance, that some prize buck will pass by within shooting distance. More often than not you a) see nothing b) see only a doe and its not doe season c) see a buck that’s not worth the effort d) see a prize buck who is about seventy three thousand yards away

After hours of this, you climb down and go back to the musty, dusty, cabin and drink your fill of Wild Turkey. This, actually, is a good hunting day.

A bad day, I believe, is the one day out of fifty that you get a good shot at a good deer because then….

You see the deer you want so you take your frost-bitten fingers and grasp your freezing cold weapon.

You raise it and try to aim at some specific spot on the deer who is always, as I said, about 73 thousand yards away. You are trying to aim while at the same time shivering.

Nine times out of ten he gets spooked and runs off before you get a shot.

Nine times out of ten if you get a shot you can’t actually pull the trigger because you can’t actually feel your fingers

Nine times out of ten if you actually fire a shot, you miss

Nine times out of ten if you do hit him, you injure him, but he doesn’t just fall over dead right there. So, here starts the second phase of ‘hunting’ – hunting for the place where your injured specimen hopefully falls over and dies.

Nine times out of ten you don’t find him

If you do find him, nine times out of ten he is still alive, barely, then you have to kill him on the spot – if he doesn’t jump up and attack you first – a thing the deer does about seven times out of ten at this point.

Ok, so now you’ve gotten success. You’ve got a kill. (Do the math, here, the chances of you getting to this point are one in 166,666,667) BUT, what the heck do you do with him? Where the heck are you? How the heck do you get him back to the musty dusty cabin? How do you get him home? All of this involves knives, blood, guts, smells, sights, ugh! There is a six in ten chance you'll puke in the process. If this is at least your second day of the trip and you have been guzzling Wild Turkey the night before, these odds go up to 9.9 out ot ten!!

Now, if you ever find your way back and if you ever make it home with some semblence of a usable animal, you have to go pay someone to process the animal into edible meat. How much does that cost?

So, you now have freezer full of meat. No room for stuff like chicken, beef and pork. Bucky’s moved in!

Your wife (if you still have one) cooks you a nice deer roast.

It tastes something akin to what you would imagine road kill would taste like.

Great. Yeah. You’ve got me convinced! Can I please go with you next time? Oh, wait. Never mind. There’s a sale at Macy’s.

Youtube

I like youtube...for the most part. A while back, I linked a bunch of youtube vids to this blog - found over to the right. However, since then, I have gone back and looked and a lot of my linked vids are no longer available on youtube. This is mostly due to copyright lawsuits.

If you read my economic posts, you will probably figure out that I am basically in agreement with this. Say a movie company makes a movie. Someone - the movie company, the actors, etc. actually 'own' the product. Not just anyone can then 'broadcast' this product. The production company has invested its money, as well as the time and talents of its workforce in the production. The actors have invested their time and talents. These are the people who whould reap the financial reward, if any, from the viewing of the product. They have taken the risk of their time and money - they get any reward. They - someone in this chain anyway - own the rights to broadcast the piece when and where they choose.

Now, if someone, without permission, 'broadcasts' snippets from the movie on a site like Youtube, they are doing something they have no legal right to do. I guess I also have no legal right, therefore, to link to the youtube post so that my millions and millions of readers can see the snippet. Often then, when someone posts a two minute segment they find funny or meaningful on Youtube, sooner or later the owners of the piece file against youtube and have it removed. All well and good. Philosophically I do not have a problem with their petitioning at all.

However, I tend to think it possibly a bit unwise. Watching a two minute segment on Youtube will not prevent anyone from spending the money on the product. It might actually encourage it. Watch a two or three minute segment and think its funny and you might actually go rent the movie. You might even come across a movie you were unfamiliar with before, then go watch it. Actually, rather than gripe to Youtube to have the snippets of their work removed, the production companies need to right Youtube a thank you letter. Really, what it is, is FREE ADVERTISING! Then, when I link it to MY blog, its even more free advertising. You, my loyal millions of readers, might actually go rent a movie, or by a CD, or something because of a link on my blog. Why do you think every small time rock band or filmmaker in the world posts their work for free on Youtube or other web based sites? It gives them a chance at a sale!! Just see my own kids stuff on there!

At any rate, I just removed about half the links I had to Youtube because they were no longer available. Bummer. You guys, the millions of followers of the Groaning Philosopher are the real losers in all this!!

Theological Book Recommendations - I

I recently wrote several book suggestions for economics. I would like to write a few recommendations on religious/theological works as well. This list is by no means complete – even of the books that I would recommend. Also, as with all subjects, there are countless books published on the topic, and I have not read even one one-hundredth of one percent, so there are probably innumerable books out there that others could recommend to me. Therefore, these are simply recommendations – not an attempt to be an end-all discussion about which books one must read.

I would like to start off discussing my favorite theological authors and list several books by each with brief discussions of each. I really enjoy each of these writers a great deal, and the order they appear below is simply the order they came to my mind, not necessarily an order of favorites. In this post, I will start with one of my favorite authors.

Peter Leithart

I would recommend to anyone anywhere to read anything they can get their hands on by Dr. Leithart. He is simply one of the most brilliant minds on the planet. I have fallen far behind on reading his books, because he seems to write books faster than I can read them. I will list and discuss several here.

Before discussing, though, I would like to make a caveat. Most of the writers I am going to be discussing come from the Presbyterian/Reformed tradition. That may seem at first to pigeonhole my exposure to one small section of the total Christian Tradition. And certainly Leithart and many of the others are firmly planted in the Presbyterian/Reformed Tradition. However, certainly with Leithart (as well as Jordan, our next author) you really get the best of all worlds. These guys are extremely well read across the vast array of the Christian tradition. They constantly quote or reference scholars/authors/thinkers/pastors from all sorts of various Christian denominational affiliations. Methodists, Baptists, Episcopalians, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and others are referenced extensively – or if not, their influence can be seen in their writings. Therefore, you get a truly Catholic (in the good sense of the word) reflection on things theological along with the doctrinal boundaries of the broader Reformed world. This makes it far more interesting, readable, and informative than someone stuck only within the reformed world, while at the same time not losing the moorings that reformed doctrinal boundaries give you.

That said, allow me to discuss Leithart’s work.

The Kingdom and the Power

I think this was his first major book length publication. I have seen evidence on Amazon of earlier books or collaborations, but I believe these are minor compared to this. This is absolutely one of my favorite books. Very readable, very thought provoking. It is scholarly (filled with endnotes referencing a variety of sources) yet accessible, in my opinion, to the average, or even slightly below average reader. This is my favorite level of book to read. Most popular level stuff is just so much fluff, not really saying anything. On the other end of the spectrum is scholarly work that makes my eyes gloss over while I try to read it. This book (as with most of Leitharts work) is incredibly deep while still being readable.

The topic of this book is pretty much given in its subtitle Rediscovering the Centrality of the Church. Leithart discusses the Christians role in the current "cultural wars." Written in the early 1990s some of the issues and people mentioned may seem a tad dated now, fifteen years later, but this is not even distracting. Leithart’s argument is not that Christians should be politically active in some certain way, or not active, or anything of the like. (He discusses early some of his own activism and/or lack thereof in the anti-abortion movements) His point is that actually the most political thing the church can do is to be the church. The church is most politically active when her people are gathering on a regular basis and corporately worshipping the One True and Living God, praying, singing, confessing, loving one another, communing. This is where the Kingdom is manifest. This is how societies will change primarily. Any political or social activism by Christians individually or collectively needs to flow out of a culture of coroporate worship.

A House for My Name

Subtitled A Survey of the Old Testament. This book is exactly what that subtitle says – well almost. It is not really a full survey of the entirety of the Old Testament Writings (Torah, historical books, wisdom literature, Psalms, Prophets). Instead it is really a survey of Old Testament History – basically outlining the major themes from Genesis through the intertestamental period. Like any good OT discussion should do, he finishes with the wonder of the Gospel and how it fits into, and completes, the story. The Old and New Testaments are not two separate entities, but are indeed one story that the OT starts, and the NT completes.
This book does not simply reiterate the stories told in the OT, but discusses the typology of the OT. This very brief review can not begin to touch on what this means – you’ll just have to buy the book! However, this is one of those handfuls of books that I absolutely recommend to everyone. You can gain so much from learning that the OT is not simply a collection of stories designed to be example to us. What does the creation story mean? What was the Garden? What does the flood and Ark of Noah signify? How does the Ark relate back to creation? How does it relate to Eden? Why is the basket of Moses referred to as an Ark? Why are there multiple stories that repeat similar themes? Barren women conceiving? Women killing bad guys (usually with a head injury)? What are literary panel structures? What are chiastic structures? How does worship and covenant renewal fit into the OT? How does it flow into the NT? I could go on and on. Great, great book. Again, deep and scholarly, yet readable and accessible to even a simpleton like me!

Blessed are the Hungry

Subtitled Meditations on the Lord’s Supper. Another great book. Unfortunately, in most protestant churches the Lord’s Supper is just not a noticeable part of the culture. Oh maybe once per quarter, or if you are lucky, once per month (I went to one Baptist Church for about 3 ½ years and celebrated communion, I think, twice!) you get to chew on a bland cracker and have a sip of, ugh, grape juice. However, Leithart considers the Supper to be the "world in miniature; it has cosmic significance. Within it we find clues to the meaning of all creation and all history, to the nature of God and the nature of man, to the mystery of the world, which is Christ. It is not confined to the first day, for its power fills seven. Though the table stands at the center, its effects stretch out to the four corners of the earth."

That’s heavy stuff. Leithart then goes on to 28 Old and New Testament Passages concerning the importance of the communion meal. He relates areas you would have never thought of back to the Supper. Some are easy – think of the feeding the five thousand. Jesus took the food in his hand, gave thanks, and distributed it, thereby feeding thousands. He follows the same procedure in the Last Supper. Some of the OT passages may seem to be a stretch, until you start to realize how common such things are, and that really all of scripture is ultimately about Christ communing with His Church. All of a sudden, another key to understanding Scripture is opened up. This with the previous book will certainly bring you a long way to better scriptural wisdom.

This book closes with the only long essay in the whole thing (Most of them are less than 5-6 pages.) The long essay looks at the Lord’s Supper in Christian history, suggesting that most of the controversy has focused on the wrong thing. The question is not what happens or does not happen to the communion elements. The question is what happens to the communion participants. Good Stuff!

Against Christianity

Yes, the title may sound shocking. I think it was intentionally provocative on the author’s part. As should be obvious, Dr. Leithart is not against the faith, Our Lord, Scripture, Christian living, etc. However, he is against what many people seem to posit as the faith. That is, namely, that we can reduce all of scripture to some list of propositions and call this list of propositions "Christianity." Then of course, anyone who assents to these propositions is a "Christian". This is a major truncation, in fact a misrepresentation, of what the faith actually is. The faith is really a whole new way of being human. It is not something we assent to and maybe participate in on Sunday Morning, then leave at the altar. It is something to be lived. We are followers of Christ morning, noon, and night, seven days a week. Our whole life is not simply colored by our Christian beliefs (assents to propositions) but in fact our very nature and existence is dead and resurrected into newness. The depth of this relatively short book is simply mind boggling. The writing is among Leithart’s best, though at times least accessible. I did notice that when I re-read the book a second time, I got a whole lot more out of it. This is also among Dr. Leithart’s most controversial works. Particularly since a large portion of the Presbyterian/Reformed world actually does believe that "Christianity" is simply an "assent to certain propositions."

A Son to Me

This book is an exposition on the books of I and II Samuel. Many typological themes are picked up on and hammered home. Think of this as A House for My Name expanded to greater detail – honed in on a particular book of the Bible. It’s been a while since I read this, so it is hard to comment. However, as the title suggests, the theme of ‘sonship’ runs throughout the book(s) of Samuel. Samuel became a ‘son’ first to Hannah, of course, but also then to Eli. David became a ‘son’ to Samuel. Hmmm, the Father and the Son. Any Christian implications in this book of the Old Testament?

From Silence to Song

Subtitled The Davidic Liturgical Revolution. This book picks up on the fact that early in the history of the nation of Israel (Leviticus in particular) there was no music involved in worship. With the kingship of David, this changed. (I’m sure you all noticed that when studying the OT , didn’t you??? Me neither!!!) David instituted Levitical Choirs, and instrumentalists. ‘Song’ is really glorified speech and prayer. This represents a major step forward in redemptive history. Dr. Leithart draws out many important implications of this for Christian life, worship, and finally for eschatology. Pretty short book, yet fairly deep reading.

Others

I have read at one time or another all of the books above, but Dr. Leithart has written many more which I will briefly mention here. Yes, they are all on my reading list!

The Brazos Commentary on I and II Kings

( I am not sure if this is the exact title) The publishing company Brazos is working on a series of Biblical commentaries by various heavyweight theologians. Dr. Leithart seems to have great interest in Old Testament Studies, particularly the periods covered by Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles. He has done extensive studies in these areas. I have heard great reviews about this book. I would think it would stand alongside A Son to Me, (Samuel) and From Silence to Song (which is largely from Chronicles) along with the relevant sections of A House for My Name to give the unseasoned a great overall view of this period of Biblical history.

Other books that I have not yet read, but certainly intend to at some point include The Promise of His Appearing. This is a commentary on the NT book of II Peter. Solomon Among the Postmoderns; The Baptized Body; Deep Comedy: Trinity, Tragedy, and Hope in Western Literature. In addition to this, he has written other literary works including Brightest Heaven of Invention: A Christian Guide to Six Shakespear Plays. Miniature in Morals: The Christian Novels of Jane Austin. Writer of Fancy; The Playful Piety of Jane Austin. Heroes of the City of Man: A Christian Guide to Select Ancient Literature. And finally Ascent to Love: A Guide to Dante’s Divine Comedy. As you can see, the man has a widespread knowledge of theology, history, and literature.

One other work worth mentioning is The Priesthood of the Plebs which was actually Leithart's doctoral thesis at Cambridge University in England concerning baptism. All of these works are available all over the web, although some are getting hard to find and sometimes expensive. And really, there are other books and untold articles and essays by Dr. Leithart. Several essay collection books (The Federal Vision, The Case for Covenant Communion and several others) have essays by Dr. Leithart. Hopefully I have wet your appetite and you may start checking some of these out.

I have actually had the great privilege of meeting Dr. Leithart on several occasions, even attending a small gathering for dinner a couple of times. For someone obviously in the upper echelon (did I even spell that correctly?) of intellectualism, he is as down to earth and pleasant to be around as one could imagine – even autographing several of my books. Great Guy. Great Books. I have heard him teach and preach – several times on the Samuel and Kings sections that he was working through while working on his books – What a treat! In fact, he will be here in town at our church in July '08. Check out our web page to the right if you want to find out about it.

If I had to recommend only one Leithart book (that would be very difficult) I think it would be A House for My Name. I think every Christian needs to read this book. It will help so much in your biblical studies and understand. And isn't understanding God's Word one of our highest callings as Christians?

Whenever I get around to posting again, I will write about James B. Jordan who has actually been something of a mentor for Dr. Leithart. Again great stuff!

Reading List

This post is a continuation of the previous post below. There, I talked about the lack of knowledge of the general population in the area of economics. I ended by stating that I would continue with a brief reading list. Before perusing this list, you may want to read the previous post to get an idea of where I am coming from.

I do have a few of caveats concerning this list: 1) This list is not to suggest that any and every thing said by each of these is absolutely without error – this is not a wholesale endorsement of any or every of these writers and their work 2) some of these writers are Christian of one stripe or the other, and some are not. Ultimately, I do believe that real truth is only to be found in God, its author. Therefore, real truth on earth can only be ascertained by those who faithfully believe in Him. However, this does not mean that unbelievers are not capable of getting glimpses of this truth or teaching it to others. An absolute atheist may be able to calculate the distance between the earth and sun, but have no comprehension of the maker of the earth and sun. 3) I have not myself read all of these. In fact, there are a great many that I have not. However, I am familiar enough with most of the authors to comment. I will try to comment on these issues where appropriate.

Henry Hazlitt

The first place that I send every person I can to get an overall, simple, easy to read explanation is to a book entitled Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt. (I have absolutely no idea what his religious views, if any, were) This is a relatively short work made up of numerous, relatively short and easy to understand essays on a variety of topics including some of those listed above (minimum wage laws, etc.) His "one lesson" is essentially what I have written about in the previous post, but in his words it is stated thusly: "From this aspect, therefore, the whole of economics can be reduced to a single lesson, and that lesson can be reduced to a single sentence. The art of economics consists of looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.

He then goes on to do just that, tracing the consequences of various policies and ideas for all groups. I can not recommend this work highly enough. If you never read another work on economics in your life, please read this one.

Clarence Carson

Another writer who is not known to the major portion of the general populace, but who is worth seeking out is Dr. Clarence B. Carson. Dr. Carson was from small town rural Alabama, received an education from Auburn University and Vanderbilt University, taught at both high school and college level, and wrote numerous books and countless articles. His main area of study was history. However, in this he developed an interest and aptitude in economics. Dr. Carson’s most important contribution to this field was, in my opinion, his book The War on the Poor. This book was written in the late 1960s during the peak of President Johnson’s "Great Society" program. Carson demonstrated, both theoretically and with empirical evidence, that all these programs aimed supposedly at helping the poorer people actually causes them harm. (Again, this is Hazlitt’s ‘one lesson’ of economics.) Thus, the so called "war on poverty" of LBJ was actually a "war on the poor." This work is mostly unknown and overlooked. I think it should be essential reading in our classrooms today. Dr. Carson also wrote a book entitled Basic Economics. This is more an overall view of economic thought with the various economic theories explained. I do believe Dr. Carson was a man of faith, though I am uncertain his denominational affiliation.

Gary North

Dr. Gary North is a controversial figure for numerous reasons. I will very briefly mention them here, but without any personal bias. Dr. North is a very conservative Christian with ties to certain minority wings within the reformed Christian right. This alone, of course, makes him at the very least a little suspect to those anywhere to the left of Jerry Falwell. However, the biggest problem within the circles he has run in seems to be in-fighting. All points theological and otherwise are firmly marked out and anyone within those circles who steps outside the lines then becomes outcast, or makes the others outside their own lines out to be the outcast. North has probably been on both sides of the "I’m the real reformed Christian" arguments.

As an example, North had strong ties with Dr. R. J. Rushdoony - probably the most important man in the circles in which he runs. He even became Dr. Rushdoony’s son in law. However, North and Rushdoony eventually had a falling out from which they apparently still had not mended at the time of Rushdoony’s death a few years back.

Dr. North is also noted for his sensationalism which is sometimes a bit over the top. He was one of the louder voices forecasting the Y2K disaster. He even personally staked his own professional reputation on his being right about the pending doom stating essentially that if he was wrong about it then no one should ever listen to anything he had to say again. Many of his followers spent tons of money preparing for the disaster. Of course he turned out to be wrong. Of course he keeps on opining on a variety of topics and of course a large contingent of his followers were unswayed by his inaccuracy.

Although I have never met nor spoken to the man, I know several who have had direct contact with him. My understanding is that there can be a lack of Christian love, humility and charity in his personality.

All the above is simply expanding on my caveats that I started with. I know Dr. North is a Christian and I do not question the sincerity or orthodoxy of his faith for one minute. However, I would be very uncomfortable totally aligning myself with his name.

That said, Dr. North has done a tremendous amount of work in the area of Biblical economics (which seems to be his area of special expertise.) If we ignore him because of the above stated reasons we may be missing out on some thoughtful insight. Some of Dr. North’s books include his being publisher of a series of books called Biblical Blueprints. In addition to being the publisher, he was the author of several of the volumes. Pertinent titles in this series include Inherit the Earth: Biblical Principals in Economics; Honest Money:Biblical Principals of Money and Banking; In the Shadow of Plenty; Biblical Principals of Welfare and Poverty (Written by George Grant). In addition to this series, Dr. North has written An Introduction to Christian Economics and Coined Freedom: Gold in the Age of the Bureaucrats. Finally, Dr. North’s lifelong project has been to produce an economic commentary on every book of the Bible. This is a very ambitious project and will likely not be completed. However, he has produced several such commentaries. Dr. North also writes numerous newsletters and has various websites he either runs or contributes to.

I have read several of his works and find them to be solid in the area of economics and would recommend them. This is not a wholesale endorsement of everything he has ever said, nor even of the theories of economics laid out in these books. However as part of forming an overall understanding of economics from a Christian perspective, Dr. North is very valuable.

I would absolutely recommend Honest Money as being almost as indispensable as Hazlitt’s work.

David Chilton

David Chilton was a theological writer who produced one of the greatest comentaries on the book of Revelation ever written. He was also for a time closely associated with Dr. North. (I think they ended in a theological squabble.) While he was working with Dr. North, Chilton produced a book entitled Productive Christians in an Age of Guilt Manipulators. This book was a biting, somewhat sarcastic response to a book published previously by Ronald Sider entitled Rich Christians in and Age of Hunger. Sider’s thesis was that it is a disgrace that there are Christians (mostly American) who are rich while the world is full of poverty. His solution, of course, was government programs. He attempted to use scripture to justify this position stating that God is always on the side of the poor and against the rich. Chilton demolishes this thesis biblically.

Because of his sometimes caustic wit, this book is often looked down upon as negative. However, if one can read through the biting humor, one can learn quite a bit about biblical economics here. Chilton’s book is not anti-poor, nor anti-charity. It is anti-forced governmental solutions to these problems. If you are somewhat sympathetic to his views, this will be one of the most entertaining books on economics you will ever read. If you are not sympathetic to his views, I would not recommend reading this until you have had a full cardiac exam.

Ludwig von Mises

Mises was, as far as I know, not a Christian. I am not even sure I understand exactly where he is coming from. Mises did not necessarily see some form of moral correctness or superiority of the free market, honest money system. He simply saw very clearly that the outcomes of this system were always superior to the outcomes of any form of planned or managed economy. On the one hand, therefore, he wrote from an empirical standpoint. We can study the theories behind the various economic systems and come to definite conclusions. We can then study these systems in practice and see these outcomes.

On the other hand, Mises was, correctly I believe, doubtful of the ability of the economist’s ability to empirically study a specific effect of a specific economic activity. That is because unlike with the physical sciences, economic factors can not be isolated in a laboratory type setting. We can not, for instance, hold all things constant while varying minimum wage, then measure the effects of the minimum wage. This is impossible. The economy is dynamic, not static. The whole economy is constantly changing. How can we therefore, amidst all this change, measure the effects of minimum wage? However, minimum wage can be shown very definitely in theory to have a negative impact. We can look at the overall economic policy of a nation and determine if it is sound or not theoretically. We can then look and see if our predicted effects are generally coming about in the economy.

The system of economics that Mises is associated with is called the Austrian School of Economics. This line of thought is not necessarily religious. However, the economic theories on paper are quite similar to what some see as the biblical system of economics (sound money, limited government intervention, etc) Because of this, Mises and his crowd were known to at least cross paths with Rushdoony, North, and their crowd.

Mises wrote tremendous volumes. I mentioned several of them previously. Human Action, The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality; Socialism; The Theory of Money and Credit are among his most widely read works. Much can be learned about Mises and the Austrian School from the Ludwig von Mises Institute located in Auburn, Alabama. They also have a website. It may be worth researching.

Murray Rothbard

Rothbard was a student of Mises. He was not a Christian, though apparently he had a great deal of respect for the Christian tradition of the West. Of interest are his book America’s Great Depression and his magnum opus Man, Economy, and State. He wrote many others as well as countless articles and essays.

His America’s Great Depression absolutely demolishes the myth that the depression was caused by the free market and that the nation was rescued by government intervention. The actual truth is that the depression was caused by government intervention, made longer and deeper by further government intervention, then masked by yet further government intervention which continues to this day.

Other writers who may be of varying interests include Dr. George Grant, Thomas Sowell, Llewellyn Rockwell and others. Do some internet searches. Also, the standard historical read for economics students would be Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations (1776).

Generally speaking then, I would recommend the following:

Start with Hazlitt to get a simple, easy to read, easy to understand introduction into general economic thought. Next read Carson’s Basic Economics to get a broader, overall view of the study of economics, followed by his The War on the Poor. From there, if you are still interested, read some of North, et al Biblical Blueprints series, at least the ones that are economic in nature. Particularly Honest Money is a must. From there, go where you may, including possibly some of the others listed above, or others I have not listed.