the repercussions for capitalist idealism can and will implicate your conscience on many levels. i write this, with the presupposition that you do believe in good and evil. recklessly, i leave to chance that your concept of good and evil are based on common sense, a rather evasively slippery constant. if you have had the good fortune of experiencing the fruits of my society in 20 and 21st century america, then you are surely spoiled rotten to the core as i am. some things i have learned to accept about myself as an "evil capitalist" is that i do not believe that we are all free from discrimination or suffering. in fact, i owe much of any small amount of good character that i have benefited from to human suffering. i struggled for a stint with church plants whose plan was to develop amongst the affluent. this made me very skeptical of their motives. very large were their video screens, but very small were their kitchens and no showers at all. it was very clear to me who these people meant to serve. they had an account with the local gourmet coffee makers for sunday mornings. what became apparent to me however was that, despite the efforts of the clergy who could only know jesus on a very comfortably heterosexual upper middle class level, even the well situated of the society came through those doors with their own wellspring of secrets. the beauty of the downtrodden is that we can quickly assess their transgressions and forgive them thier sins, appearance and all. if we are aware you are a hooker, we are shocked, appalled, and quickly reminded of the short opening of hosea where God makes lemonade out of lemons. God doesn't abhor the whore, God abhors the fake... the imitation. why romanticize what is already beautiful? but the truth is, no matter how decent we are made, we are all guilty of committing acts that we are ashamed of. no matter how easily goodness comes to our hearts and acts, we cannot disrobe enough layers of shame and malady to make ourselves clean. so the issue remains: is one good act worth doing if it can't erase all the wrongdoing? is it really even valid to measure the amount of good against the amount of awful? is not some sunlight in the dreary not better than no sunlight at all? truly good men have a need for vindication. they may work the entire rest of their lives attempting to make right what they did wrong, never believing their good deeds outweighed the bad. but who in their right mind would condemn a man who spent the second half of his life doing good when he could just as easily have continued to serve only himself? utopianists will never be satisfied. it will always rain on the wrong day in the wrong season. enemies will always rise up against even the most well-meaning people. so what have i been forced to admit to myself? i believe i live in a society that has more effectively than ANY other civilization in the history of mankind averted tyranny. the imperfection of my society is only due to the shortcomings of its own people. the amount of aid my society has provided to foreign peoples abroad is unprecedented by any other empire in human history. i have come to accept that there is a version of fairness which i can only describe as biased by my own experience. justice will always be subjective to my needs and desires. there is no perfect system that can protect everyone from suffering, nor should there be. suffering is the very vehicle for compassion. all will agree that those who have not suffered are only acting in a counterfeit part. capitalism does not mean to discriminate against the weak or disadvantaged. capitalism provides the opportunity for men to make good decisions with their strength and power, just like liberty. take away their ability and we'll never know what good men are capable of. we remove the beauty of what is done under the rule of free will. tyrants and evildoers don't need money or even an advantage to conquer. they just need a will stronger than that of those who oppose them. terrible men take what they want regardless of the rules or consequences. they fear no judgement, nor punishment. utopian discussion completely disengages the concept of good and evil. most of the discussion i've been exposed to so far, depends heavily on the intentions of men but not on the results of their implementation. so which is it then: the intentions that cause suffering or the results? at least capitalism demands results and heeds little bearing to intent. we live in a world whose nature is performance based. only the best rockets achieve orbit. your honda civic is not going to get that airstream up that 45 degree grade. and most of us are going to lose a fist fight with a grizzly bear. it is true that what distinguishes us from the animals is our ability to defer our survivalist instincts in order to serve this thing we call a conscience. there is an element of decency that we expect from other humans that we don't expect from animals. regardless of this fact, strong willed men will do whatever it takes to obtain power, even with a vision of a world without suffering, they will make heroes out of miscreants. unless God gives strength to great men, we are all doomed. so where does my conscience lie? capitalists vote with their dollar. i am proud to say that i have introduced some people to the miracle of walmart. as target is irreplaceable in many arenas of my consumer needs, walmart has made a paycheck to paycheck existence realistic. since i have a predilection to fried chicken, kfc gets a visit or two from my pocket book. my laptops are intels but my self built desktops are amds. if a company delivers a product that serves my needs, then why shouldn't i invest in their product. it's been observed that companies are concerned with serving their customer base adequately. how many times has mcdonalds changed their grease and packaging to please the squeakiest wheel? and the rest of the fast food industry followed suit. companies care about what you care about. these people make commercials they think you will like. they are constantly tiptoeing around their employees hoping to provide an atmosphere that is acceptable to EVERYONE. it gets even more demanding in the free market where any high dollar client/customer can walk for any reason. they can just not like your price or just not like you and just move on. in many ways, a client is doing you a favor by putting their dollar in your service when there's another guy around the corner who will just as willingly deliver half the quality for the same price. we see the immense amounts of cash that get tossed around by major corporations and we get envious and jaded. but we forget about how much responsibility it took to accrue that kind of revenue. it's that kind of responsibility that we need to empower in a free society. agreed, that there are people who sit in unearned positions. but in a communist state, EVERYONE sits in an unearned position. so why do i favor capitalism? because it produces the most good. i don't think it's anywhere close to perfect, but the most realistic. perfect utopian systematic ideologies are best served by religious communities... let God deal with heaven and in the mean time let's do the best we can with what we have.

it has come to my attention that the world is raising up a generation with a false sense of entitlement. this dangerous perspective is producing angry people who expect to receive what they have not earned and seek to take what does not belong to them. they are an impatient people who honestly believe that they are not. they expect their neighbors to share their harvests when they took no part in the sewing and plowing of the fields. they believe they are of noble descent and above plowing. they call those who have obtained wealth and respect, tyrants, because they believe that wealth should have been theirs. they look down on those who have what they think they are entitled to, thinking in their minds that someone who is less has taken thier inheritance. this dangerous victim complex is raising fascists within our very midst. a people who believe they are above working in order to gain respect and accomplishment. a people who believe they are above humiliation. humiliation is the known constant of entrepreneurship. those who risk little, gain little. without humiliation, there is no humility. without humility there can be no reparation, no reconciliation, no peace.

i previously expressed my promotion of tolerence. i wish to clarify my stance on tolerance. it has become clear that there is a group of people who believe that thier government should not tolerate intolerance. i heard on the radio today that there was federal investigation on an automobile manslaughter charge which involved one caucasion party and one "african american" (what a stupid term) party. I was appalled to learn this investigation was to determine whether the crime was a hate crime. do you mean to tell me that it has become illegal to hate in this country? is murder not heinous enough a crime? why is it that the left is against the death penalty for murderers and rapists, yet there should be a harsher penalty for murder fueled by hatred? how can we administer harsher sentencing but in a more humane manner? perhaps we take thier cable? oh wait, is that too mean? isn't it interesting how the left claims that morality from religion has no place in government and should never affect the decisions of officials, yet their agenda appears to include the direct administration of specific moral beliefs on all citizens whether they agree or not? it appears i should not be allowed to disagree. with what authority does this people, this atheistic minority, dispense moral criteria? this is not freedom, this is not freedom of religion... and this is far from seperation of church and state.

patience

\Pa"tience\, n. [F. patience, fr. L. patientia. See Patient.] 1. The state or quality of being patient; the power of suffering with fortitude; uncomplaining endurance of evils or wrongs, as toil, pain, poverty, insult, oppression, calamity, etc

2. The act or power of calmly or contentedly waiting for something due or hoped for; forbearance.

Usage: Patience implies the quietness or self-possession of one's own spirit under sufferings, provocations, etc.; resignation implies submission to the will of another. The Stoic may have patience; the Christian should have both patience and resignation.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.

n 1: good-natured tolerance of delay or incompetence [syn: forbearance, longanimity] [ant: impatience]

Source: WordNet ® 1.6, © 1997 Princeton University

vir·tue ( P ) Pronunciation Key (vûrch)
n.

1. a.Moral excellence and righteousness; goodness.
b.An example or kind of moral excellence: the virtue of patience.
2.Chastity, especially in a woman.
3.A particularly efficacious, good, or beneficial quality; advantage: a plan with the virtue of being practical.
4.Effective force or power: believed in the virtue of prayer.
5.virtues Christianity. The fifth of the nine orders of angels in medieval angelology.
Obsolete. Manly courage; valor.

Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition


Is patience a virtue? i suppose... i find my self pondering whether tolerance is a better one.

tol·er·ance
1.The capacity for or the practice of recognizing and respecting the beliefs or practices of others.
2.Leeway for variation from a standard.
3.The capacity to endure hardship or pain.
6.The ability of an organism to resist or survive infection by a parasitic or pathogenic organism

Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

i am often told i am very "patient", but this is in situations where "tolerant" would probably be more fitting. i suppose i am more inclined to hope tolerance is a better virtue since i am way more tolerant than patient. sure tolerance requires a shade of patience but i am as guilty as the next guy of losing my patience under high stress, although my ability to tolerate the high stress situation is what gets me through it gracefully. my virtue is tolerance... you may do things that i don't completely respect, and that may get on my nerves, but when all is said and done, i'll still be there for you. i think intolerance is one of the key proponents for broken relationships. you get to know someone and become friends, then one day they just turn you off. it seems to me that EVERYONE is destined to turn you off eventually. the patient can wait to see when that time is, but the tolerant can persevere it.

tolerance is a better virtue.

if you choose to stay home for entertainment, that has a huge effect on your social situation. if you have friends who like to go out for fun you may not spend near as much time with them as you might otherwise be. and what about people who just don't like the same music as you? or don't dress the same as you? is it possible we are more judgemental than we thought? we may take great leaps to befriend those who are obviously of a different way of life but are we inadvertantly opting the less adversely different completely out of our lives? interesting how we tend to choose our company based on our aesthetic preferences.

is it possible our identities are determined by the way we choose to consume?

house cleaning is some sort of seductive psychological mind game on gender roles and foreplay

so here i am reading some article about whether the universe will contract after expanding or just explode or something. and there were two guys, one said it would start contracting and the other said it wouldn't. am i the only one that it bothers that both guys are readily assuming that the expansion of the universe is fact and true even beyond that!? i mean first of all how could we POSSIBLY observe the expansion of the entire universe? here's my theory if the ENTIRE inviverse is expanding, meaning all matter, then wouldn't earth be subject to that expansion? and if so wouldn't that make our instruments subject to that expansion? and if so wouldn't that make our ability to observe said expansion a bit difficult? even if say there was a delay of reaction from many light years to earth, would it matter since we have been subject to this delayed reaction for at least thousands of years? ok so say we aren't all subject to this expansion... maybe the expansion spoken of is just of preexisting celestial bodies moving away from one another. how are we observing this activity diplomatically? aren't all forms of radiation subject to gravitaional pull? we have scientists speaking of the very singularities, which are great enough in mass to redirect radiation completely away from us, as key players in the activity of celestial bodies of the universe. well aren't these same singularities (as well as other high mass bodies) distorting our view of reality out there? sure we can calculate coordinates based on regular relative motion of bodies but what about the "fact" that these "light suckers" themselves are in motion as well as other constant changes in gravitational feild traversing our view of the universe at any given point (remember we are in constant motion as well). if this is what the "expansion of the universe" is supposed to be (simple motion of celestial bodies) it just doesn't seem to be a great enough force to change the direction of time. from where i stand we are staring out into space through billions of dollars of warped glass. i think it's great to ramanticise about science and it's implications on human life, but why take a mile on half ass theories with more half ass theories. i think it's important as a scientist and as a theist to keep your eyes open to what can't be denied. if you want to get romantic, get intimate with the things you know to be true. let people decide whether our everyday discoveries are relevant, and interesting. i'm tired of rabbit trails on unfounded data. let people fall in love with what's tangible not some pipe dream that has the potential to become unreliable. it's these very actions that are leading our conversations into oblivion. talk about something real... or at least acknowledge the fragility of your foundation.