Why is this one so special?

In his gospel, Matthew summarizes John the Baptist's message as "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Mat 3:2). Then he summarizes Jesus' message the same way: From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Mat 4:17). The apostles continued the gospel message of repentance and forgiveness of sins, including both Peter (Acts 2:32) and Paul (Acts 17:30). So repentance must be a pretty significant part of the gospel message.

In Christ we are given new birth, and our repentance is fitting for our new godly nature. Christian repentance involves a change of action - the thief must no longer steal, but work diligently to have more to give (Eph 4:28). But the change is not merely of the external actions, but of the inner desires and attitudes that drive them. The Christian former thief will not only repent of stealing, but of covetousness and dishonesty, to be replaced with ever-increasing diligence and generosity. You may be inclined by nature towards anger, wrath, or malice (Col 3:8), but they are to be repented of, replaced with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience (3:12).

Repentance is not just for actions, but for character, attitudes, desires, inclinations. Jesus illustrates this with murder (Mat 5:21-26); the act is sinful, but so is the inner hatred which produces it, even the thought of demeaning him as a fool. And Jesus makes it abundantly clear that this is true for sexuality as well. Adultery is sin, and so is the inner lust which produces it (5:27-30). It doesn't matter how strong your sexual desire is by nature; lust is sin, and sin must be dealt with through repentance. Even thoughts and attitudes, even those of a sexual nature, even if you were born that way.

Yet for some reason we are supposed to believe that there is one special sin for which repentance is not to be encouraged or pursued - the sin of homosexuality. The assertions span the spectrum from "the desires are OK as long as you don't act on them" to "there's nothing wrong with it at all", but all of them share a common assumption, that this particular sin is so deeply ingrained in a person's nature that repentance is impossible, if not undesirable.

He can't repent. He shouldn't even try to repent. He was born that way.

At this point I can't help but wonder how anyone, especially a professing Christian, could say something so hateful. We would be aghast at a doctor lying to a patient, denying that he needs the one medicine which could (and would be guaranteed to) save his life. How much more reprehensible is it to deny a man the sure and only hope for his soul!

The biggest problem with the "born this way" exemption from repentance is that we are all "born that way". That is, we are all born sinners, dead in our trespasses and sins, children of wrath. Our sinfulness may manifest in different acts or lusts in each of us, but we all have the same core problem - we are vile sinners who will be judged by a holy God. And the only hope - the only hope - any of us has is the atoning work of Jesus Christ, who was put forth as a propitiation by his blood, who was delivered up for our sins and raised for our justification, who became sin on our behalf so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. In his great mercy God saves those who have faith in Christ, raising them to newness of life, forgiving their sin, sanctifying them, granting them repentance. To deny this possibility to anyone - to lie to them and tell them they don't need it - is beyond cruel.

Brothers, let us have faith that the atoning work of Christ is strong enough to redeem the vilest sinners. Even homosexuals. Even you. Even me. Let us not deny anyone the glorious hope held out by 1 Corinthians 6:9-11.

"Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God."

A Common Word Between Christians and Sabellians

Friends, it's time for something I rarely participate in - some hardcore, full-throttle ecumenism.

A big stink is being raised - yet again - over a Trinitarian church group mixing with Sabellian (or modalist, or oneness pentacostal, whichever you prefer) pastors. This time the group Phillips, Craig, and Dean, consisting of three modalist pastors, has been invited to lead worship at a Southern Baptist event. By now you can probably predict the arguments being made on both sides, from the "we shouldn't be led in worship by pastors who preach damnable heresy and worship a god who is different from the actually-existing God" to the "come on, aren't they Trinitarian enough?!?".

Enough already! All this divisiveness is just so... divisive? Anyway, I think we can all agree that this bickering over things like "should we extend the right hand of fellowship to rank heretics and false teachers in gross violation of scriptural commands" just needs to end. What we need is a solid middle ground, somewhere we can stand with one foot firmly planted in both camps. Here is my modest proposal for an awesome solution which should make everyone happy:

One God, two persons.

Genius. It's so incredibly brilliant, I'm surprised the team writing for the sock puppet known as the 'Mark Driscoll' didn't propose it sooner.

I suggest we all agree to this immediately, and work out the fine details later. Does God eternally exist as two persons, or manifest himself in two forms at various times? I guess we need to pass it to find out what's in it!

Just think of the alternative! We'd have to go on carefully considering scripture, practicing discernment, learning from church history, parsing statements designed to deceive to reveal the true intent, putting up with whining and accusation when we warn that someone's favorite teacher/musician is a wolf trying to lead astray God's people with destructive heresy, and worst of all, thinking. It's just so... so... so... HARD. Ain't nobody got time for that!

No friends, this is clearly the way forward. You're welcome.

Preaching About the Wrong Man

This was originally going to be a post bemoaning the "ethics downgrade" plaguing American evangelicalism. Since Mark Driscoll and Ergun Caner are back in the news for their various violations of ethics rules accepted even among the most virulently secular, I was planning to compare the response of secular organizations in similar situations, and axe why the American district of the City on a Hill has lower standards than those in the valley.

And that would be an easy post to write, would it not? Recount some stories of people fired or expelled from hostilely secular schools and companies for relatively minor cases of plagiarism, then ask why Mark Driscoll can brazenly steal the work of others, and the response of the Christian elite (as if that term doesn't explain the problem) is to attempt to destroy the person who dared to expose his self-exalting theft.

Then I could recall the story of George O'Leary, the college football coach who in 2001 was hired for one of the most prestigious positions in his field, head coach at Notre Dame. But when the school went to prepare his biography for their media machine, some discrepancies were found. He had padded his resume three or four decades earlier to help him break into the field, and never got around to removing the padding from his bio. He had a great track record as a coach over multiple decades, so no big deal, right? Wrong. Notre Dame, a Catholic school, exposed the decades-old lies, and fired him immediately.

It would be easy enough to compare that to the case of Ergun Caner, who built a career through lying about, well, pretty much everything. In numerous sermons at churches all over America, he told a life story that simply isn't true. He lied to the Marines, presenting himself as an expert on Islam because of his background in order to train them in Muslim relations (shudder to think of soldiers dying because they followed his advice). Time after time, he told the same story of his life - and when someone finally looked into it, it was a mountain of lies. Did his employer, Liberty University, act as boldly as Notre Dame, especially considering how much more serious Caner's lies are than O'Leary's were? No. They 'cleared' him of lying, saying only that he had made "factual statements that are self-contradictory", and letting him remain on the faculty. Egads.  Now several years and several gigs later, he was hired as president of Brewton-Parker College. Was he hired in spite of his lies? Worse - according to their official statement, he was hired because of them. Specifically, because he remained unrepentant and defiant, and is fighting in anti-Christian ways to destroy those who exposed him. The liar is a hero and paragon of virtue, while the truth-tellers are pagan attackers.

That's not an ethics downgrade. That's hitting bottom and keeping on digging. The folks at Brewton-Parker hit rock bottom, and brought in the dynamite.

OK, so I guess I wound up writing that post anyway. So be it. Anyway, while I was thinking that through, something else occurred to me. I'm going to set Driscoll aside for a moment here - which, come to think of it, is good advice all the time; let the widdle boy-man pee in his own sandbox all he wants, don't worry about him, but be willing to hose him off if he ever realizes how much his diaper stinks and asks for a change.

For now, let's just focus on Caner, with one question - why does it matter so much that he's such a dirty rotten filthy stinking liar? What difference does it make that his life story has him sitting on a throne of lies? Aside from listing the bare-minimum qualifications for an elder, let's do a little thought experiment.

Think about your pastor, and maybe a famous pastor you respect (MacArthur, for instance). Imagine they had lied about some significant biographical details. How many sermons would they have to preach before the lies had an impact on the message? I suspect for many pastors, it would be several months before those stories were in sermons, if ever.

Now do the same with Caner. Find any sermon he preached from about late 2001 to 2010. How much would it change the message if you replace the biographical lies with the truth? Could you find even a 10-minute stretch which wouldn't be any different without the lies? Change Caner's lies about himself to the truth about himself, and his sermons would be completely unrecognizable!

For any faithful pastor, from the MacArthurs and Pipers and Sprouls to the myriad small-church pastors you'll never hear of until heaven - really, anyone who fits the minimum qualifications of an elder - the star of every message is Jesus Christ.

For Ergun Caner, the star of every message is Ergun Caner.

The trail of lies (and the inexcusable actions of his enablers) is disqualifying. But it wouldn't be so noticeable, and he maybe wouldn't have been so tempted to do it, if he didn't preach about the wrong man.

The Gut-Wrenching Tale of a Partial Savior

When I started to think about writing a Thanksgiving post, I never imagined this article would be the inspiration. Before I link, here's fair warning: it's an ugly and agonizing read, about subject matter that some have dubbed "not safe for homeschool". And now, here is the article in question.

The article talks about the truth behind the carefully-fabricated façade of the homosexuality movement, and it's a tough read, downright ugly. The narcissistic idolatry that is homosexuality is shocking when you get a glimpse behind the curtain (though hardly surprising, for anyone who has read Romans 1 and believes God knows better than we do) and see the real turmoil instead of the utopian bill of goods we've been sold.

As you read this tale, if your heart is anything like mine, you will feel agony - disgust at the wretched sinfulness of such manifest pride, compassion for those who destroy their lives pursuing 'love' via sin (the very opposite of love), indignation at those who should know better but are persistently encouraging people to devote themselves to the sinful path, an aching for Christ to return and set all this right. It's shocking to see sin so enthusiastically embraced and the terrifying results of doing so, and pride-destroying to realize that aside from the restraining grace of God, my heart is capable of all that and much worse.

Let me put it this way: if nothing else open the article, hit control-f, and look for 'bug chaser'. See the vile depths unchecked sin can reach, feel compassion for those pitiable souls who are so blinded that they think this is a good idea, and renew outrage at those who (in the name of Jesus!) encourage people to follow those depraved passions in a search for 'love'.

But none of that is the most gut-wrenching part of this article. For that, I nominate the following paragraph:

"I am not proud of the life I have lived. In fact, I am profoundly ashamed of it. But if reading this prevents one naïve, gullible man from making the same mistakes, then perhaps with the assistance of Our Lady of Guadalupe; of St. Joseph, her chaste spouse; of my patron saint, Edmund Campion; of St. Josemaría Escrivá; of the blessed Carmelite martyrs of Compiégne; and, last but not least, of my special supernatural guide and mentor, the Venerable John Henry Newman, I can at least hope for a reprieve from some of the many centuries in Purgatory I have coming to me."

Ugh. After all the nastiness of the main article, this paragraph, meant to fill the reader with hope, is possibly the saddest of all. It's hard not to feel anguish over someone who finds his hope in a savior whom he believes cannot save! The best his 'savior' can muster is to allow him to save himself through centuries of suffering, as long as numerous other sinners help him out.

So how is this a Thanksgiving post again? More than anything, I'm thankful that this pathetic image of the unsaving savior is completely different from the true Jesus Christ we find in scripture. I'm thankful that, as opposed to this wretched Roman doctrine which denigrates Jesus, the Bible presents him as the Savior who actually saves! Compare how this deceived man describes his 'salvation' from homosexuality to how scripture describes it:

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Cor 6:9-11)

The Christ-demeaning doctrine of Rome says, maybe in a few millennia of your suffering and saints interceding, God may consider you clean. God says, if you are in Jesus, you are clean! You have been washed, sanctified, justified - solely by the work of Jesus. The blood of Christ is sufficient to save completely from any and all sin!

But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. (Hebrews 9:11-14)

Jesus does not make it possible for you to maybe redeem yourself via centuries of mini-hell if you get enough people to pray/donate for you. No, the blood of Jesus is fully sufficient to save even the vilest sinner - he has secured an eternal redemption!

Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. (Hebrews 9:25-28)

Jesus has put away sin by the sacrifice of himself! It does not need to be dealt with again; his work leaves nothing to be completed by someone else. If it's a sin Jesus has put away, it's done forever, period.

And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. (Hebrews 10:10-14)

One sacrifice, effective for sin for all time. The sacrifice of Christ does not earn us the chance to self-atone through our suffering for countless centuries to come. His single offering perfects his people forever - in Christ our sin is completely forgiven!

So how is it a Thanksgiving article? It prompts me to thank God that Jesus Christ is a Savior who truly saves! If we believe scripture rather than the pope, we can read an article like that, revealing the greatest depths of depravity, and be able to say confidently without hesitation that the salvation Christ provides is more than sufficient to instantly, completely, eternally forgive even that sin. Those who are in Christ are forgiven - sinners like them, and sinners like you and me.

Let us give thanks, for Christ is overwhelmingly sufficient. "Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen."

One Verse, Five Solas

Another Reformation Day has come and gone, and you know what that means. Yes, it's the annual peak of activity for Roman Catholic deceivers trolls apologists, who are again making the rounds to mock the Reformation as inventing newfangled doctrines. Before the 1500s, so the argument goes, nobody had ever heard of these strange new doctrines (that God saves by grace, through faith, in Christ, as revealed in scripture, to His glory). They're totally new, and besides that, they're new. This is supposedly in stark contrast with the Roman doctrines which were handed down from the early church through a series of antichrists popes and blah blah blah I can't even make myself write such drivel.

Look, we have the doctrine of the early church. It's laid out clearly in scripture. Compare the doctrine of Rome and the doctrine of a faithful Protestant church to the New Testament, and there's no contest.

But that's where I'm going with this post (there are tons of resources already available for that - a few seconds on Google will find you something far better than I could write). Instead of that, I thought it would be fun to see how far back I can trace the distinctive doctrines of the Reformation, and frankly it's not possible to go back much farther. Specifically, I want to show that the five solas are all present (to some extent) in Genesis 1:1. Here's the verse in case you're unfamiliar:

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth".

God is the creator, and everything else is His creation. God exists; everything in the entire created universe exists contingently, at God's pleasure. We came into existence at God's command, and we remain in existence only through His continued will. Everything - the air we breathe, the food we eat, the planet we live on, life itself - is a gift of God. He provides everything, we contribute nothing. This is clearly sola gratia - grace alone. Every aspect of our very existence is a gift of God, not just our salvation. This was true of Adam pre-fall, and it's true for the mightiest angel in heaven. How much moreso must it be true for the salvation of rebellious fallen man? If our entire being is by grace alone, how can our salvation not be sola gratia as well?

Now consider the relationship between Creator and the created. The Creator supplies everything for His creation; the creation provides absolutely zero for the Creator. What can we give to God that was not already His? What can we possibly do for God to earn His beneficence or put Him in our debt? Here is the complete list of what God needs from us: ....and, we're done. Zilch, nada, bupkis. Please, tell me how we can merit anything from God by our awexome works of righteousness. Thought so. The creator/creation distinction necessarily brings sola fide, faith alone. We can do nothing for God, we can only faithfully trust His provision for us. And again, this is true of all of creation all the time; how much more must it be true for rebellious sinful creatures? What could we ever do to earn anything from God, especially after we have committed cosmic treason?

God is the omnipotent provider of all, and we are entirely dependent upon Him for life and breath and everything else. The interaction between us is entirely one direction; God gives us everything, and we give Him nothing. Our proper orientation towards our Creator is perpetual complete worship; He is worthy of all glory and honor and praise. What could we ever do to deserve glory from the one who created and sustains our entire existence? Clearly, this is soli Deo Gloria, and again this would be true even if we had never fallen. The idea that we, as sinful creatures, deserve any glory for our salvation is beyond absurd.

Now imagine if one of the created beings was to rebel against his creator, exalting himself over God. Insane, I know, but bear with me. What would it take to mend this relationship, to turn aside the wrath that God would rightly have against such insolence? Is there anything the creature could do to make things right? Any gift or sacrifice he could offer is something God made and already owns. What would be an appropriate expression of reconciliation from the one who rebelled against the sovereign creator of all? There is nothing in all creation that a creature can give to appease the Creator. No, any reconciliation would necessarily be initiated by God, who alone would bear any cost himself. This of course points us to solus Christus; though the details would come later, we can see immediately that the reconciliation of God and sinful creatures must be of divine origin.

Finally, we can ask: what would a creature know of its Creator, and how would he learn it? Could he by observation and deduction figure out what God is like, and what God demands of him? By looking at creation, what can he know about one who is not part of that creation? Simply put, a man can only know about God what God chooses to reveal about Himself. This is the beginning of sola scriptura, but of course it doesn't get us there. From this verse alone we can get to 'revelation alone' (sola revelata?), but the exact form of that revelation (general vs special, scripture only or scripture plus papal imaginings) needs to be fleshed out later.

There you have it. Three are necessary just from the creator/creature distinction, the fourth is there in all but name, and the fifth just needs to be fleshed out. Far from being inventions of the 16th century, these doctrines are rooted before time began.

Bug or Feature?

Is it a bug or a feature? Anyone who's worked with new software or has a programmer friend (and if you do, God bless you) will be familiar with the concept. The shiny new program does something... unexpected... and you joke about whether it's an error, or a feature they just neglected to tell you about. Some are wonderful, but often it's something wrong.

Anyway, I thought about that when I saw this tweet from Adrian Warnock defending(?) the Charismatic movement in the wake of the Strange Fire conference:

If we researched & criticised all the crooks, cons, and cookies in the Charismatic Movement we'd have no time for anything else #StrangeFire
— Adrian Warnock (@adrianwarnock) October 17, 2013

So first off, I'm not sure if he's offering a defense or conceding. Wasn't it a large part of the Strange Fire case that the Charismatic movement is overwhelmingly full of "crooks, cons and cookies"? It would be tempting to just say "you're exactly right, now what are you going to do about it?" and move on.

But we need to press a step further.

It's obvious to anyone (except maybe discernment masters like James MacDonald and Mark Driscoll - who, lest we forget, absolutely should know better) that this movement is overrun by heretics and charlatans. It's nice to see Warnock agree. But the question remains, is this a bug of the system, or is it a feature?

Is the flood of "crooks, cons, and cookies" a bug - an error resulting from a few bad lines of code in an otherwise sound program, that can be fixed by a simple patch? Does it just need a minor recalibration, maybe a reboot, and everything will run smoothly? No doubt this is where Warnock stands - it's a good program, but inevitably something goes wrong somewhere, and BOOM - heretics!

Or is it a feature - is it how the system is designed? Is this overwhelming amount of heretics exactly what you'd expect when the system works? I think, and I believe MacArthur and friends made the case very convincingly, that this is an utterly predictable result of the distinctives of Charismatic theology. It's not an occasional aberration; the faithful ones like Piper, Grudem, Warnock, etc are the aberrations.

What else would you expect from a system that promises ongoing divine revelation apart from scripture? People will say all kinds of garbage and claim it's God. Or some will define prophecy down, so God's word will become errant and/or can be ignored at will. Gee, what could possibly go wrong with that?

What else would you expect from a system that teaches a second-tier, higher-plane experience for only some believers, which manifests itself in a particular physical act? Do you think maybe people will try to make themselves do that, and fake it till they make it?

What do you expect when such obvious fakery cannot be questioned under fear of blaspheming the Spirit?

We could go on, but I think that's sufficient for now. Why would we expect anything other than an overwhelming number of blatant false teachers, when all the distinctives of that theology promote the faking of supernatural revelation and signs? Another programming saying comes to mind - garbage in, garbage out.

Budgeting for Adults

I want to make a few points about the current chaos from Washington, but before I do, we need to be on the same page. So this will be sort of an Economics 101 - no, it's much more remedial than that, let's call it Economics 001. This is simply how an adult sets a budget, and the basic principles apply from the personal to the multi-trillion dollar level. This is stuff everyone should know, the sort of thing anyone who wants to be considered a grownup should have down, but, well, look around.

Essentials first. If you only had $100 this month, what would you spend it on? I reckon you'd probably make sure you have food before you have the latest UFC pay-per-view. Food: essential. Entertainment: non-essential.

What do you need? Make sure you have funds allotted for those things first. If you can't afford food/shelter/clothing because you bought Legos, you're a moron, no matter how cool those Legos may be.

Add luxuries in order of importance. Once the vitals are taken care of, add on everything else (and yes, everything non-essential is a luxury). If you had another $100, what would you do with it? Another $100 after that? And so on, until all your income is accounted for. It may be adding a new item, like getting cable. It could be increasing a previous allocation - bumping the food budget so you can go to a nice restaurant. It could be something non-immediate, like savings. Whatever is next-most-important, set aside the money for that.

Note that some categories are purely luxury, but some are a mix of essential and luxury. Food, for instance. The cost of subsistence-level food is essential; everything above that is luxury. A very great luxury to have, mind you, and one you would be wise to invest in quickly. But it's still non-essential.

When all the money is allocated, there is no more. If you have $50k in income, and $65k in allocated spending, u r doin it rong. If you don't have the money, you don't have the money. Either re-prioritize so it's paid for (which will require eliminating or cutting funds to something else) or learn to live without it for now.

That's it. Really. No matter what plan or technique you find, they all come down to this. Prioritize your needs/wants, and allocate funds in order of importance.

Now, let's take this ultra-basic principle and look at the government quasi-shutdown. What can we observe?

They keep using the word 'essential'. I do not think it means what they think it means. It's hard to believe everything 'non-essential' has been shut down when it's running at about 83% capacity (which is still at deficit, by the way). Would you believe 5/6 of your household expenditures are so essential that you can't cut so much as a penny from them? Yet somehow we're supposed to believe this about the government - they can't cut even a penny from these areas for even a few weeks!

So what makes something essential for the federal government? I would suggest several qualifications. (1) It must be a necessary function of a nation; that is, any nation which lacks it is not a nation at all. Examples include the ability to make, execute, and adjudicate laws, and the ability to repel attacks. (2) It must be necessary that this function is performed at the federal level. If state or local governments (or private entities) can do it, it's not essential for the federal government.

Which means that a whole host of programs, departments, and agencies are non-essential luxuries. Some are nice to have, but not necessary for the survival of a nation. Some could just as easily be done at lower levels of government. Even some things we like, like Defense, are a blend of essential and luxury (we may be willing to pay for the luxury of everything above survival-level military, but let's at least be honest that it is a luxury). Some programs are so utterly non-essential, they don't just need a temporary partial shutdown, they need to go away entirely.

When money is short, you cut the least important things first. If you don't have enough one month, you don't buy the Eddie Rabbit tickets while your kids go without food. The most important things are the first to get funded and the last to get cut, and the first things to get cut are the least important. At least if you're an adult, anyway.

If you want to know what politicians value, look at what they threaten to cut first if they don't get more money. Locally it's always liberals threatening to cut police, firefighters, teachers, and hospitals, which I guess means they consider them almost completely unnecessary. Now look at what Obama and his cronies have decided to cut first vs what remains instact, and tell me what he values. Many 'cuts' have been to programs that actually provide some benefit to the public, and the 'cuts' have often cost more than full operation, which would seem odd for a shutdown except that a petulant child is in charge. Which brings me to the last point.

If you are in a financial crunch, and your instinct is to spend more money to antagonize the people who pay the bills, you are despicable. Not that anyone would ever stoop so low, of course.