As alluded to yesterday, I was on a tear. On the Neal Boortz radio show Wednesday a woman describing herself as a tax accountant declared, “if you’re rich, if you have a million dollars, and have put your children through college, you ought to pay estate taxes. You ought to give back…” to the government for all the good things you’ve had. I don’t have a million dollars but I have one question, WHY!! What did the government do to deserve getting 50% of my estate. Just because it exists?
If I was one of those persons who through effort and hard work was able to accumulate a net worth of a million or more dollars I’d be saying…
“The government didn’t earn that estate. The government didn’t take the risks, work night and day, forgo vacations, family time and invest time, talent and intellect to make that million dollars happen. All the government did was try to keep me from earning it.
They taxed my annual personal and corporate income at exorbitant rates. They put on me unbelievable regulations to restrict my ability to grow and expand my business and provide work for more people. The regulations and taxes placed on me are also heaped on the businesses I do business with, meaning they have to increase their prices to cover the costs. I have to do the same to cover that additional burden, and the people, those customers of mine and the ones the government claims to be looking out for, have to pay increasing prices due to the hidden taxes they pay through increased prices due to government regulation and taxation.
I will give back. But I’ll give back my way. Through charitable contributions to the needy. Gifts to my church and other organizations whose purpose and methods I agree with and want to support and advance. I’ll give the gift of self-respect and hard work to those who I employ. I’ll help others who are willing an able to take the risks of self –employment by investing in them with my time and experience.
I’ll give my time to help the less fortunate at the local shelter and Habitat for Humanity project. I’ll work on projects at my church that help others and advance my personal beliefs.
But don’t tell me I owe the government half my estate. I’ll pay what I have to, but government hasn’t earned a bit of it and deserves nothing outside of what is required to provide for a national defense and basic constitutional government."

In his victory speech last night John Kerry declared, “We resoundingly reject the politics of fear and distortion.” If that’s so Mr. Kerry will need to distance himself from his party these next 8 months. If the Democrat party is anything, they are masters at using fear and deception in political campaigning.
Here in Florida we are very aware of the fear of Medicare and Social Security loss used by Democrats to scare our senior citizens. The Democrats are always using the fear factor, if George Bush wins you’re going to loose jobs, children will be starving and dying in the streets, seniors will be choosing between dog food and prescriptions, armed militias will be marching in the streets, and on and on.

(See Democrat Discrimination and The Democrats' "Bush recession" scare tactic that didn't work)

Deception goes hand in hand with the scare tactics. So if you reject these tactics John Kerry, the tactics of your party, you’re gonna have to reject your party. And you well may do that. But we know, based on your record, that come a few days or weeks later you’ll do a turn about. You always do. You have yet to find an issue you cannot embrace both sides of, depending on who you’re talking to. Holy Bill Clinton!
I’ve got something else in my craw, but that’ll wait ‘till tomorrow.

Today on C-Span the National Press Club broadcast it's Monday, March 1st, meeting. Maybe I read too much into her comments, but by way of welcoming all to the meeting NPC President Sheila Cherry advised the members to hold their applause until after the speakers had finished. I'm sure it was meant as a time saving measure.
However, her comments directly after that to the broadcast listening and viewing audiences was to the effect that should we hear any inappropriate applause it would be from the visitors and guest in the gallery, not from the members.
Seemed to me it was an arrogant way of saying the members of the press club are a well disciplined sort and will naturally comply 100% with her request. But the uncouth members of the visitors gallery are wholly un-disciplined gutter trash who most probably will have that audacity to interrupt the gathering of the fine members of the press by refusing to contain their zeal.
Is this arrogance on the part of an elitist press? It it just bad judgment on the part of the NPC President? Hopefully the latter, my gut tells me, sadly but not unexpectedly, the former.

There continues to be a lot of discussion about Mel Gibson's movie The Passion.... Here's a few links to articles I've found interesting that tend to be outside the mainstream media line of thought.
I know I can always count on World Magazine for news and opinion from a Christian worldview. The following are articles in the Feburary 28th edition:
Graphic By Design - Get past all the controversy and hype, and the brutal film The Passion of the Christ turns out to be a very personal project of Mel Gibson's, reflecting his experience.
No mere martyr - The self-consciously limited focus of The Passion of the Christ is both a strength and a weakness of the landmark film
Caught in the middle - Jewish Christians on "The Passion..."
Jesus & James - Actor James Caviezel, "The first thing I said to Mel was, 'Mel, if we don't carry our cross we're going to be crushed under the weight of it.'"

These articles are from Time Magazine, a publication I can count on to give a viewpoint heavily slanted to the left. The writer, Richard Corless, readily admits his liberal point of view, yet his take on the controversy swirling around The Passion... is as interesting as it is unexpected.
Holy Hypocrisies - Corless takes to task the hypocirsies of Hollywood and the movies critics.
In Jesus Christ Movie Star Corless gives a critque and comparison to Gibson's film of what he considers to be the compendium of "Jesus" movies since 1912. Hold onto your hat, according to Corless The Last Temptation of Christ is closest to The Passion of the Christ, at least in "manner and method".

Of course, as much as one reads about this film, you won't really know it until you experience it. Just be prepared when you go. Though the screenplay closely follows scripture, there is some artistic license taken to flesh out some of the Biblical characters or to dramatize some Biblical concepts. And in one instance to artistically show what scripture tells in part and implys about the Father's response to His Son's death on the cross.

As I've said before, this film has the potential to change you. It's up to you what that change will be.