I’ve been thinking about my comments on centrism and how I view myself. My sister-in-law made comments to my Facebook page in light of comments made by a local friend that she felt she should take her views and move off to the corner. I wholeheartedly disagree and I think that she, like my friend, fell victim to my own articulation issues with my own political stance. I usually self-identify as a left-leaning libertarian if pushed. I do believe in the reduction of the state especially when it comes to the granting of powers to the state. I firmly believe the PATRIOT act should be scrapped as just as surely as Prohibition was after that failed experiment was shown for what it is. I do believe in individual liberty. I admire many of the left for their desire to create an equal and just society. I believe they have the best of intentions and the worst of vehicles with which to work, the state. Most of the people I know on the left are wonderful people, they want everyone to work together and to have justice, equality, and a fair chance at life. Most of the people on the right, on the other hand, seem to want two things. They want their version of religion forced upon everyone, preferably by legislative means and they want to shut the door of opportunity behind them after they’ve achieved their success. They look at it as placing themselves in an elite category and then demonstrating their elite status. In my own political view, fiscal conservatism should be easy to attain because the government should have little income from which to pull to do things. I believe in government support of infrastructure and schools, more at a state than federal level, but I think both should play parts. I believe the federal government should regulate interstate commerce, diplomacy with foreign powers, assessment of duties and taxes, and the protection of our borders by a strong military. It should create the framework from which the states then draw model in order to ensure homogenous laws and regulations. I also believe states should create frameworks for municipalities to do the same thing. I don’t think this would create a over-arching, over-reaching federal system, but a more localized system where the intent is to give us all frameworks in which to live, work, and pursue happiness while providing for the general welfare of all citizens. Socially, I support equal rights for all persons regardless of any differences. I support marriage rights for all adult persons regardless of their partner’s gender. I support the rights of like minded people to come together and form a community based on their principles, but I also demand the right not to participate in their community, without prejudice, should I not agree to those principles.

I think the decline of the American right, especially within the Republican party has been mirrored by the rise of the evangelical movement post WWII. In many ways, this movement more and more seems to mirror something I have seen in the history of the religion to which they subscribe. The modern evangelical “star” ministers remind me of incomplete versions of Saul of Tarsus. Saul of Tarsus is the most influential and enigmatic figure in Christian history after Rebbe Y’hoshua ben Yosef himself. Little to nothing is known of Saul’s childhood and history. These things become important to our discussions as he was formed by those experiences. Somehow he went from being a Pharisaic Jew to a burgeoning Christian. To what was he exposed as a child? This question is important as you investigate his Christian faith. Saul never met Y’hoshua, though if the book of Acts is correct, he might have met others who have met him. I personally don’t believe it as Paul’s own letters never discuss it and if he had the authority described in Acts, he would have used it.

As Saul only encountered a spiritualized representation of his view of Y’hosua, it’s safe to say, as he wrote about Christianity, it become more and more apparent, he pulls the faith father away from the Torah and closer to a Gnostic/Hellenic model. Over time, the evangelical movement has pulled more and more away from the New Covenant, due to their “spiritualized” form of Christianity which is a “protest” against the “hide bound ways” of the conventional denominations. They harken back to parts of the Torah, but as they don’t embrace all 613 commandments, they cannot be good Jews. Instead, they create and the push out a faith which demands belief in their version of faith which they control and determine for you. Questions are not welcomed and their own prejudices are paramount.

I wonder what it bodes for everyone that these folks are following the other part of the Roman model, control the government and you can enforce the religion throughout the empire. Perhaps my progressive friends would do well to not be quite as senatorial as Rome.

Currently I’m eating lunch and writing this. So here’s what’s been rolling through. Random thought on the way into the office, Saul of Tarsus would convert later in life to a form of Christianity and would become paramount in shaping the direction of the nascent faith. However, as he never met Yeshua, he only had his own experience and common readings of the day to use as a source. It seems he wasn’t reading or aware of the gospels which were written after his time, so most of his sources were oral. In this vein, and when you look at the meillieu of religious threads in Tarsus as well as the Empire overall, it makes sense what he learned was much different from the Judaism practiced by the rabbi. What would be more enlightening would be to not only comb the authenticated letters, but other documents of religious thought from that same time period to see just what shaped his views. (Preferably without a bias if possible)

With healthcare, teabaggers, birthers, progressives, and all the other issues running amok in politics, it feels like the middle ground is becoming more and more vacant. Centrist is taking on the appearance of being a dirty word, and just exactly how does a libertarian like Glenn Beck claims to be, become the poster child of the extreme right wing?

I feel like there has to be middle ground and there are so many independents who would likely embrace a philosophy which states that we the people have a greater importance in civilizing the national debate. I thought of this is a similar vein to Marx and Engels, without the utopianism or room for misinterpretation.

More will be coming.

The other bright idea combines my love of programming with a challenge to improve it. I’ve been messing around with WP themes. Why not? This is a WordPress blog. I have seen several parent themes and other really interesting themes which have been written over time. Each tutorial I see references things just a little differently in order to change the complexity level. Some make them basic and easy in order to ensure people will get the code. There are some which are highly detailed and complex hoping to extend the reader’s skills into new directions. Well, I, for one, am intrigued about the possibilities and would like to create, deliver, and eventually deploy the most complete, read complex, WP theme. I don’t think it would be that hard; especially considering most of the themes out there can have 10 to 15 pages, I can do that with my eyes closed.

Right now, I’m trying to write MVC code and work it into something which will be useful for the district in a web app. I haven’t done a lot of .NET work and that makes me more concerned since I have to do this in a .NET frame of some type. I am also going to start coding a desktop app in VB.NET just to see if I can learn it well enough to create something. The funny part will be when I get it done.

Well, enough of that for now. I have other entries to write and other sacred cattle to slay.

In the midst of this comes a principle of Celtic Brehon Law which allows for an injured or wronged party to seek redress first in court and then before the Gods should the court not be able to address the wrong. I believe for my own injuries and those visited upon a child, I have the right to seek that redress from the Gods. A member of my family has also mentioned a desire to seek that redress as is proper considering family has been wronged and the wrong not fixed at the courts. (When you have two Brehon trained in the same family, it’s entertaining, put them in the same house, and well, there are many druids running for cover.) She was admonished, when discussing the need to seek redress, to be mindful of “Three-fold Law” and the karmic implications should she act to gain that redress.

I take issue with that admonition. Notwithstanding the most basic point of someone delivering an admonition who should ensure a house in order first; the idea of both three-fold law and the other Wiccan “law” lifted from the ethics of that most honourable of magicians, Alistair Crowley, “Harm ye none, do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law,” being the guiding foci behind such an admonition reminds me of the large hole in the collective public ethics of contemporary neo-paganism.

Let us start this deconstruction with the Crowley instruction and work our way forward. While so many will workers both neo-pagan and non like to quote Mr. Crowley’s instruction as a good guidepost for their behaviours; strictly speaking, this is not actually possible, neither is his statement plausible. Every action taken or any action left untaken has the potential for some form of harm by the action or inaction as the case may be. Therefore, there is no way to “harm none”. Even the most devoted vegan has to come to grips with the reality that in harvesting their food, even from a non-animal source, a living entity dies. Studies have shown recently a broccoli will recoil from a knife, exhibiting the symptoms of fear. Consumption of resources harms others as it denies those same resources to them. However, non-action can be just as harmful. Failure to act can cause great harm. The bottom line is that there is no way to “harm none”. One can take actions to mitigate harm if needed, but in some instances, harm may be called for, which leads me to my next point.

Then there is the Wiccan standard of “three-fold” law. Simply stated, whatever energy one sends out into the universe will be returned to you thrice. Effectively, this is considered a neutral acting principle. If one only does what is considered good, then the return would be  three times the good. This isn’t too far afield, in its positive description, to the prosperity gospel in modern Evangelical Christianity. If you give to the church a tithe, even if it is painful, G_d will reward you by giving you even more money, goods, lucre, et al. Both of these are ethically flawed because they do not promote good works for the benefit others, but for the expectation of reward. When this is considered, do those works then actually count as good works? Does the risk then merit the reward, since the risk is taken only on such an expectation? With its other face, the three-fold law seeks to work as a deterrent by its wielders by offering the expectation of doom and gloom for acts which cause greater or somewhat lesser harm than daily living. However, I have seen too many instances, this one included, where it seems continued spell work can stave off portions of this “reward”. Granted, the universe does balance out, but modern physics and ancient texts agree, energy is neither created nor destroyed, so to multiply any energy/intent/will expended by any integer greater than one requires said energy to be created ex nihilo, a physical and universal impossibility. (Before anyone quotes the Big Bang, do remember that the entirety of mass and energy were contained in the singularity at the outset, therefore, nothing was created or destroyed, only changed in form.)

Having shown that both “Harm ye none” and the three-fold law are both ethically suspect and impossible to maintain, what then is left as an ethical framework for neo-pagans to use for daily life? Well, frighteningly enough, most major religions do propose very similar ethical guidelines, the simplest being “Do to others as you would want done to you.” From there, most of us have grown up with the basics of ethical and moral training and it really doesn’t need to be overdone. Yes, there should always be a dedication to family and to tribe, but it should not be such as to exclude the other simply for being different. Before I digress to far, I think we can all develop and express ethical guidelines while accepting the fallacies of modern neo-pagan trite phrases designed to convince other religions we possess what we have possessed for centuries. Should one go back to the discussions from pagan Rome, pagan Greece, pagan Egypt, the ethical and moral guidelines did not hold for multiplication of your fortunes, but they did believe your fate was majorly what you made of it. If you had strong ethics, you would see the fruits of your decisions in your lifetime. I still believe that true, but I also know should you poke a wolf enough, it shall awaken and defend itself.

The awakening wolf above leads me to my next point. Should the wolf restrain from acting upon the poking, injury, disturbance and rest safe in the knowledge that some nebulous concept of fate or karma will eventually deliver the same treatment or a similar injury unto the perpetrator? Absolutely not, though if anyone is interested in trying the experiment, there are wolves in Minnesota, Wyoming, and Montana who I think would be interested in participating in the experiment. Instead, the wolf becomes the instrument of fate at the same time it defends itself against the wrong. Therefore, using such a nebulous concept, fate chooses the wolf to be the instrument of payback for an injury to itself. When most of my “fluffy-bunny” cousins in faith speak of restraint so fate/karma can take care of things, I wonder, just how do you know how fate/karma is going to “balance the scales” as it were? Do the “fluffy-bunnies” have a special hotline to fate/karma which allows them to know with complete certainty how the scales will be balanced without their involvement? Truthfully, no. There are times when any person can be called to be that instrument of fate to balance the scales. If I am injured, it may be upon me to balance those scales and to be the payment fate will require in future. If I take the attitude fate will take care of it, a passive, not pacifist, attitude, then nothing may happen and the perpetrator could walk away clear. I must take an active role in my own defence and my own justice. Granted, I’ve experienced the old salt “the wheels of justice grind slowly”, yet through that, they still grind and I might be the one turning the wheel at the appropriate point.

In the end, since I know my ethical and moral boundaries, so long as I work within them, I have the right and the responsibility to address any injuries to me and to mine own. The admonitions of “three-fold law” and “harm none” fail as certainly as most spell work which allows for so many caveats in order to stay within the fallacy. If my assailant is willing to work within her ethical framework, then I can stay in mine and be the hand of fate to balance the scales.

Speaking of which, we’re due in court next week on Monday. So far, my ex hasn’t said anything to the kiddo while she’s on the phone with him, but I imagine she’s going to think of saying something this evening.

Otherwise, things are going on as normal. I was thinking about what I hear out of the Religious Right Wing these days and all of their statements. I heard them described once as the Christian Taliaban. Sadly, that is an accurate statement. In that vein, what would happen if they had the ability to force their agen