Liberal or conservative?

I know, I know.  Some people are going to be downright amazed that I am writing another post so soon after my last one.  Oh well, get over it!  I usually blog when something excites or irritates me.  Funny how both of those things elicit the same response.......

I HATE being referred to as a liberal.  For anybody who doesn't know, my political leanings are more toward Democrats than Republicans.  Please, do not tell the Baptist Pope, I may get excommunicated for these political beliefs.  I do not think that being a Christian and a Democrat are mutually exclusive.  That is probably a violation of the Ten Commandments or it could say "Thou shalt not be a Democrat" somewhere in Leviticus, but I will claim ignorance on those.  But i digress.

First of all, I have very conservative values.  I feel abortion should be outlawed.  Not all of you who read this will agree and I could probably guess which of you disagree, but that is just how I feel.  I think that they should take sex ed out of the schools.  This should be combined with more offerings of free sex ed classes elsewhere.  Parents could then choose what organization they think should be teaching their kids sex ed based on the organizations values or they can take it upon themselves to teach this.

Some of my beliefs are a little gray.  I am for government recognized same sex civil unions.  I am against church recognized same sex unions.  I feel that homosexuals can be Christians.  We all are sinners and only we rank sin.  With that said, the Bible says that being a drunkard is a sin so we do not have keggers at church.  We do not, however, get up in arms trying to end the sale of alcohol.  I see this issue the same.  I do not see how homosexual civil unions ruin the sanctity of marriage more than those people who are on their eighth spouse.  I have yet to see legislation that limits the number of divorces a person can have simply because they are tired of their current spouse.

My fiscal beliefs are where I completely diverge.  I do not believe that private industry should be profiting off of necessities.  I see necessities as things such as water, electricity, food, health care, and a few other things.  As a matter of fact, I find it quite detestable that companies do profit off of the suffering and misery of others.  I read an article the other day blasting companies that come in and help disaster victims for a profit.  How is that any different than a hospital making a profit off of a woman who was struck by a stray bullet during a drive by?  The logical disconnect sometimes astounds me.

Back to food, this is actually Biblical when talking about feeding the poor.  Leviticus tells us that it is a sin to sell food to the poor at a profit.  This is commonplace.  Before anybody says that this is old testament and no longer applies, remember, this is the same book that tells us that laying with a man as you would a woman is a sin.  The double standards are driving me batty!!  Dom Helder Camara said it best.  "When I feed the poor, they call me a saint.  When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist."

To be honest, I also side with Fiscal conservatism.  I do not think that we should spend more than we take in as a country.  I, however, do not believe that we should simply cut all of our social programs to do it.  Some of you know where I work.  Some of you don't, but that is OK.  I work in an office that administers federal grants.  I love that there is one local Republican politician that helps his constituents get funding under these grants and then goes to Washington and tells Congress how they do not work and that they need to be cut.  I want to tell these people who he is trying to help that "we would love to fund them, but the Congressman that told you he would help you just went to Washington and told them that you weren't worth it."

I do agree with small tax increases coupled with the closing of several tax loopholes.  I also feel that we need to stop funding special interest projects and tighten the reigns on spending across the board.  I feel that we should drug test welfare and food stamp recipients.  I feel that people getting unemployment should have to meet daily and do community service projects for a couple of hours a day and attend mandatory job skill workshops.  I am pretty certain that the cost of paying people to supervise workers and teach classes will be offset by the number of people unwilling to work for unemployment.  I have several other ideas, but I will not list them all here.

All in all, I am tired of labels.  Our two party system has created this extreme void in the middle.  It makes me sick that everybody gets stuck under the label of conservative or liberal.  There is a LOT of gray area.  I hope that I did not anger too many people with this post.  I do understand if anybody drops me as a FB friend or leaves me a nasty comment.  I just had to dump all of this off somewhere.  Have a blessed day!!!        

NFC Championship as reviewed by Bears fan

My take on yesterday's game:

Our defense decided to lay down and play two hand touch for the day and the offense couldn't get anything going.  Of course, Jay Cutler decided he wanted to show off his skills and this wasn't jiving with the calls being played, so he was having a crappy game.  Realizing things were not going his way, Jay decided he was done for the day and we should finish the game with our back-ups.  Thank the Lord for Hanie who kept us from being embarrassed out there.  Not sure why we were hiding this guy, but I am glad he was tucked up somebody's sleeve.

All in all, it was a good game to watch. There were some calls that really helped out the Packers.  There was an interception that was not an interception.  The Head of Officiating in the booth with the announcers saw that it was not an interception and also saw that the man was down by contact at the spot of the "interception."  The challenge by Lovie failed to overturn the call and the ref gave Green Bay an extra ten yards to boot.  The pass interference call on the Bears was another stellar call by the refs.  The receiver stiff armed the defender while the ball was in the air.  (For those of you who do not follow football, that is offensive pass interference.)  When the defender batted away the arm pressing against his chest, he got called for defensive pass interference.

The jewel of the officiating was the interception that was, and then was not, and then had to be challenged.  The defender clearly did not catch the ball.  The ref right by the play called it an incomplete catch.  The ref on the other side of all the players called it an interception.  Now, if I am five feet from an incident and you are thirty feet from an incident, who do you think had a better view of the incident.  According to the ref on the field, the guy thirty feet could see it clearer.  He made Lovie challenge the call that couldn't be agreed upon by the refs.  We won the challenge, but now were not allowed to challenge again.  And we needed that challenge back since the refs continued to call poorly the rest of the game.

Now back to the actual plays.  I do not in any way blame the refs for the loss.  They were terrible, but if we were truly playing well, we would not need to rely on a few plays.  The play that lost us the game was the catch and run back by Raji.  This was a stellar defensive play by an awesome defensive lineman on a very inexperienced quarterback shoved into a game he had little to no preparation for.  Factor in that we were only about ten yards from the end zone and the stars were aligned for this play.  Good job Raji.  My hat off to you.

Aaron Rodgers also played a decent game, but it was definitely not his best.  The defense simply laid down for this man.  Now, although I am a Bears fan and will ALWAYS dislike the cheese munchers, I do like Aaron Rodgers. He seems to be a good person and is always a professional on the field.  I would like to congratulate you for a well played game Mr. Rodgers.

Now back to Hanie.  Thank you from the bottom of my heart for coming out and playing as well as you did.  You saved us from embarrassment and played like a true champion against overwhelming odds.  Additionally, you poured your heart into a game for a team that stuffed you into third string behind a man that couldn't play two series.  You showed true professionalism and sportsmanship out there on the field.  I do not blame you for the interception throw.  It was well executed and things sometimes just do not go your way.  You put in a valiant effort trying to save the touchdown as well.

Overall, if not for the INT, we would have seen a Bears/Packers NFC Championship game go into overtime.  That would have been an amazing thing to watch.  The Bears defense played a much better second half and the Packers were only able to score on defense in after halftime.  Had an overtime emerged, it definitely would have been a nail biter.  I am definitely not embarrassed to be a Bears fan and think the boys played very well.  Congratulations Chicago on a great year!!     

Money!!!

I am not exactly sure what I want to say on this topic.  I read a quote this morning about budgets.  The quote stated that a budget is a keeping a record of living beyond your means.  I found this statement hilarious.  The problem, however, is that this is exactly what most people's budgets are. 

My wife and I are TERRIBLE with budgets.  We know how much we have to spend and how much "free money" we have each pay period or month.  The problem is that we are both enablers.  Both of us!  If I want something, we rationalize why it is OK to get it.  If she wants something, I just go get it for her or tell her we will get it figured out.  This is no way to run a family's finances but there it is. 

For those who know us, you know that I used to work at Cat and now work for the City.  For those of you who do not know us, well, reread the last sentence.  What people may not know, but probably have inferred, is that I made a LOT more working for Cat than I do working for the City.  Another thing that is not really common knowledge is that I have turned back call backs for returning to Cat twice.  That is right, even though Anessa and I barely make ends meet, I have TWICE given up more money.  Want to know a secret?  We have NEVER been a happier couple or family!

That is right.  Although we make less money and fewer extras, we are closer now than ever before.  I do not travel.  I do not stress about work.  I absolutely LOVE what I do for a living and we make real differences in the lives we touch and actually are part of our community's solution.  And this, my friends is SO much more important to me, Anessa, and our children.

The money is nice.  Do not get me wrong.  I wish I got paid more for the work I did.  I don't, though, and that leads to me and Anessa really needing to do something.  We are taking that finance class that everybody and their brother has gone through.  Well, my brother has gone through it at least and they claim it worked for them.  I am hoping it can help us reign in some of our unnecessary spending and teach us a few things.  What we really need, though, is a shot of discipline.  Until we take steps in ourselves to discipline ourselves, we will not win in the monetary arena.

Oh well, not sure where this blog was going today.  I am glad that people read this.  I monitor the people who follow and read my blog.  There are two consistent readers from other countries that read each blog I post and I thank you for reading.  Please feel free to comment.  I would like to put names or faces to you.  Thanks to everybody else as well.  At least I know I am not talking to myself!