ramblingsofafedupmillennial-blog

[ramblingsofafedupmillennial-blog]

I got into a discussion with some folks on twitter a few weeks ago on why their argument against Graham/Cassidy had nothing to do with the actual issue at hand. Jimmy Kimmel is not a moral expert on healthcare.

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Christopher Columbus was not problematic, your attempt to dismantle Western ideology is.

“Nothing so typifies the American left’s present wave of statue toppling, anti-historical hysteria as its war on Christopher Columbus.” - Michael Knowles  

Why have so many decided to “stand up” to the devil himself Christopher Columbus in an attempt to paint him as such a vile person? Christopher Columbus’ own Wikipedia page is locked because of the constant efforts by revisionists to modify the content to present Columbus as this ridiculous, controversial figure.

Simple: He is the actual embodiment of Western Civilization.

Christopher Columbus (Cristoforo Colombo) was born in 1451 in Genoa, Italy to a lower-middle class wool weaver. He was born to no rank and received no formal education. He moved to Portugal by 1480, married the daughter of a nobleman and had his first son. By this time he had traveled to Iceland, Ireland, and Africa, in addition to his continued self-education. After developing his plans to sail westward to the Orient, the Portuguese crown rejected his proposal and he soon after traveled to Spain with his young son. He pitched the same notion to Queen Isabella of Spain only to be rejected after eight years of his lobbying efforts. However just as he left, the keeper of the Privy Purse convinced the queen to call him back and be convinced of his plans.

Plenty of hit pieces have been presented by the overwhelmingly brilliant minds over at places like Vox which intend to show just how problematic this man was. The author of this particular piece, titled “Nine Reasons Christopher Columbus was a Murderer, Tyrant, and Scoundrel,” draws attention to a letter Columbus wrote to Dona Juana de la Torre, identified as a friend of the Spanish queen,  about the settlers beneath him selling nine and ten year old girls into sex slavery.

He writes:

“There are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls: those from nine to ten are now in demand, and for all ages a good price must be paid.

It’s amazing what happens when you pull a random sentence from a passage with absolutely no context. Perhaps we should consider looking at the entirety of the letter. Directly after this statement, we find the following:

“I assert that the violence of the calumny of turbulent persons has injured me more than my services have profited me; which is a bad example for the present and for the future. I take my oath that a number of men have gone to the Indies who did not deserve water in the sight of God and of the world.”

How very convenient of Vox and their cherry-picked portrayal of such a letter. To suggest that Columbus was practicing in, or even condoning such actions, is a completely false narrative and a total misstep in understanding. His lament of these awful occurrences is evident.

Those who push the anti-Columbus narrative most strongly in recent years have focused most of their discussions on a document that was uncovered in 2006 that serves to supposedly “expose” this great explorer and discoverer of the Americas as a true monster. 

The headlines of articles surrounding the discovery of this document in 2006 leave little room for interpretation with titles such as “Lost Document Reveals Columbus as Tyrant of the Caribbean” and “Columbus Exposed as Iron-fisted Tyrant who Tortured His Slaves.”

The document suggests that Columbus was a vicious man who treated the natives ruthlessly. However, simply taking this document with no context or understanding is a massive misstep. The nature of the document must be addressed and most of these articles fail to address what it actually is as well who the author is.

The author of this document is Francisco de Bobadilla, also known as the chief political rival to none other than Christopher Columbus who would later go on to usurp power from him as governor of the West Indies.Christopher Columbus would be forced to spend many of his years after this document was written refuting it for what it was: vicious libel. 

Bartolomé de las Casas, bishop of the Americas, rightfully identified as one of the strongest defenders of the indigenous people against Spanish slavery and brutality at that time expressed his satisfaction with Christopher Columbus and his actions.  Columbus was also noted as being very much in favor of the “Indians,” going so far as to even adopting the son of one of the Indian leaders he had become friends with. 

What has happened is a continuation of the attempts to dismantle Western development where revisionists are simply blaming Columbus for the things he didn’t do.Could it be suggested that Columbus was not guiltless in the treatment of natives at that time? Yes. But to suggest that this conflated narrative that has arisen in the past several years depicting this man as a brutal, ruthless monster who did nothing more than seek his own self-interests on the backs of natives would be a completely false narrative. Revisionists are hell-bent on removing the accomplishments and attempting to build ad hominem arguments that discredit the founders of western ideology and efforts. Columbus was a key role in helping to create the modern era and played the single most important role in the founding of America.

[ramblingsofafedupmillennial-blog]

The Cure for Anxiety

“For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the [p]air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?  And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?  And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

“So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

[Matthew 6:25-34]

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The Moral Problem that Everyone is Missing with the Healthcare Debate Right Now

Other than the fact that healthcare is simply not a right, there is a huge debate surrounding congress and the president’s attempts at passing a repeal/repeal+replace of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, otherwise (not so) affectionately known as ”Obamacare.”

Under Obamacare, we have seen premiums skyrocket. They will be quick to blame the insurance companies to start, forgetting the simple economic understanding explains that when you force the insurance company to cover things you not only remove the competition (you know, keeping prices in check) from the market, but also adds unnecessary bureaucratic costs to procedures that maintain no risk.(x) Perhaps I’ve already lost you in this argument—I urge you to read on as I’m going to be making a completely different point by the end. I also encourage you to look up a man by the name of Thomas Sowell, and study his works. He’s a great thinker and has a lot of strong arguments about healthcare.(x)

Those in favor of the bill will tell you that we have seen an increase in the number of people who are now insured. But what they won’t tell you is how many of these people are now insured because they have to be. They are not willingly participating in the marketplace, but instead submitting to a government mandate that continues to fall well outside the boundaries of the Constitution. Newest speculation regarding the potential “22 million that will lose their insurance under the BCRA or others” comes from the fact that 73% (or 16,060,000 people) of these people will opt out of their own free will. 

Americans are being forced to buy into a product that they don’t want or don’t need. They have no say in the matter.  I am one of those people.

I am a very healthy, 27-year-old single female. I go to the doctor’s office once a year for an exam that costs about $140 out of pocket in my region. How much did I pay for premiums in 2016? $2,016.37. Don’t worry, my premiums only went up 25% for 2017. That’s right: one doctor’s visit cost me $2,000 last year. I work for a non-profit. I’m sitting on a great deal of student debt. The last thing I wanted to do was throw an extra $2,000 out the window when I had actual bills I needed and wanted to pay. Instead, I’m subject to a tax or a penalty, I’m getting to choose between two different guns pointed at my head—oh boy.

And on top of that I get to be counted as one of the Obama administration’s “accomplishments” of now being insured, but I had NO say in the matter. Am I the only one that sees a problem with that?

I understand that a lot of my religious and even “conservative” friends are very much in favor of Obamacare, universal healthcare, or similar proposals. Their argument is simply that we must take care of the people in our country. I would agree with this--I absolutely believe in helping those less fortunate than myself. But that is not where their view ends. They are for expanding Medicare, saying that reducing it will harm many people, that we must pay into a system to ensure that everyone is protected and we as Christians need to help our neighbors as God commands us. (PS - you all know that there are still millions of uninsured people out there, right?)

But really—what is it that God says? I’m still trying to find the verse that says “make sure you do all of these things at the forceful hand of the government.” Essentially they try to support the ideas of charity within the mandate of government regulations, but that’s not true religion, is it?

James 1:27 tells us that “pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained.”

Pure religion. Seems like almost too easy of a concept. One of the most important aspects of this is visiting the orphans and widows, those who (in that society) cannot take care of themselves and require support from the community. Yes, I am in complete support of providing for those who need it. It is our duty to help these individuals. Part of this help comes from:

C H A R I T Y 

Private charity is a strongly articulated concept in scriptures. We see it perpetuate throughout both the Old and New Testaments.

Psalm 112:5a - “It is well with the man who is gracious and lends.”

Psalm 41:1 - “How blessed is he who considers the helpless; the Lord will deliver him in a day of trouble.”

Proverbs 19:17 - “One who is gracious to a poor man lends to the Lord and He will repay him for his good deed.”

Proverbs 28:27 - “He who gives to the poor will never want, but he who shuts his eyes will have many curses.”

I Timothy 6:18 - “Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share.”

1 John 3:17 - “But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?”

But we also know that the Lord judges our heart, our intent, not simply our actions. The Lord shows Samuel this very principle even in OT times when He says “God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (I Samuel 16:7).

2 Corinthians 9:6-7 states “Now this I say, he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”

The Lord shows that a believer gives not only generously, but with a pure heart that is not under compulsion.

The fact is simple: we as believers are called to give to charity. It is clear as day. It is a simple and pure truth that is perpetuated throughout the Scriptures. But that is where the church and all religious people have failed. They believe that it is the government’s job to take care of its lowly citizens, when it is 100% ours. And unless we remove the mandates and overwhelming impositions of the government, the church is never going to step up. Someone needs to call out believers for the hypocrites that they are. When your brother is in need, did you bother to help him? When is the last time you reached into your pocket and pulled out that last $20 you had to give to the man down the street that you know can’t buy groceries this week? When is the last time you chose in faith to commit even a small $5 donation to the family friend that is trying to raise money for a medical procedure they cannot get covered? That is the problem. Plain and simple.

Many of my friends will argue that if we remove the government influences (since the church has failed), the victims of poor circumstances will remain. It appears my friends that you are treading on fallacious grounds.

There are plenty of instances where we have seen American (and non) citizens step up when their government, whether federal or local, has failed to act.

How about the citizens of Portland that took to patching their streets in an effort to show their desire for “freedom and equality?” (x x x)

Have you been paying attention to the stories of churches that are attempting to provide shelter to homeless individuals but their local governments are trying to fine them?

Across the pond, even though government overreach ultimately cost the young Charlie Gard his chance at life, his family successfully raised over 1.6 million USD to cover the costs of experimental medical treatment here in the US. And after hearing of this story, a US hospital offered to treat the sweet child at no cost. (x x)

Even the abortion-mill Planned Parenthood had a great increase in donations when they were at risk of legislation defunding them due to the 2016 presidential election results. (x x x)

Websites like GoFundMe serve as perpetual examples of the opportunity for private charity. Log on and you can easily send $5, $50, or $500 to a person in need, and you don’t even have to know them.

Perhaps people don’t believe me. Here I am sitting on my soapbox proclaiming a simple solution to a very complex problem. I don’t want my private charities to be exalted here, because that is not what this is about (Matthew 6:1-4). I will assure you, believe me or not, that I am 100% practicing what I’m preaching. And if I wasn’t pouring out thousands of dollars in mandated health insurance that I honestly don’t need, I would be able to give even more.

Acts 3:6 reminds believers of the giving nature that we are called to. Peter expressed to the lame beggar on the side of the road that he had no silver or gold to offer, but what he had he gave freely. 

This is the mindset that believers should be taking. Private charity is the only way to properly cover this great need that people feel has spread across our country. Those who cannot have their expenses covered should not need to look any farther than their local church. The church has failed, however. They need to turn and repent, and then follow the commands of the Lord.