The Agence France-Presse article is entitled, “Death business booms in Baghdad.” Their main point? Well, apparently, there’s a lot more death in Iraq now than during the “good old days” of the Saddam regime.

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Hussein Mohammed never dreamt that roadside bombs and suicide attacks in Baghdad would make him a fortune.

“With every victim that falls to an explosion and suicide attack, the demand for coffins increases and my work flourishes,” said the coffin-maker in his tiny shop in the heart of the war-torn capital…

“During the days of Saddam (Hussein), I used to make one coffin a day. Now, I make scores of them and the demand increases with every suicide car bomb that explodes,” said the 67-year-old Baghdadi.

Wow! There’s a silver lining in every cloud I guess.

All kidding aside, do these folks REALLY need someone to tell them that our friend, Hussein Mohammed, who is quoted in the story, is busy because the same people who were murdering Iraqis before are continuing to do so today? And, do they really need to be told that Mr. Hussein is filling orders for coffins because the mass graves that Saddam used to use to bury all those innocent civilians he was killing pre-invasion are no longer an option?

Now, at least, Saddam’s murderous followers have to kill in plain sight, and families find out about the loss of their loved ones right away, instead of having a relative simply disappear never to be heard from again. Even better is the fact that some of those coffins being ordered are likely for dead insurgents as well as innocent civilians.

When Saddam was still in power, it was just the civilians dying. At least, today, insurgents are dying too.

Would it be cruel of me to suggest that, perhaps, insurgents and terrorists receive the same treatment they once so joyfully doled out to innocent men, women, and children in years and decades past? I remember reading a story of one mass grave filled exclusively with women and children. Saddam’s murderers lined up all the mothers and their children and then moved down the line, shooting the children and their mothers. One woman was found still clutching her infant child, who had been shot first through the head, before the mother herself was shot.

Now, I’m not suggesting we put insurgents to death this way. I am, however, thinking that insurgents who die in battle should be treated as they once treated so many others.

Just a thought.

David Flanagan
Viewpointjournal.com

Did you know that you could die tonight? And some of us will die tonight. And some tomorrow, and so on.

So what happens after we die? Is it the end of everything… of life, of knowledge, of existence? Or, perhaps, it’s merely the end of the beginning. Or perhaps we are in a cycle of birth and rebirth, as some believe.

No matter what you believe, there is a great divide seperating those of us who do believe in an afterlife of some kind and those who do not. Know what it is?

A belief in meaning… or not.

It’s very simple really:

No God? No truth.

No truth means no meaning, no purpose, no need to worry about anything other than what is good for yourself. At least, you would be crazy NOT to put yourself first in a universe with no meaning.

If there is no truth, then the terms “right” and “wrong” are arbitrary, based only on the way a society defines them. It means that we can accept slavery IF the society which supports this institution defines it as a societal good. If means that cultural genocide is a good IF it helps the dominant culture.

I can’t tell you how many athiests have tried to assure me that, even though the absence of God means that there is no such thing as absolute truth, it really does not mean there are no “truths.”

Ummm… Yes it does.

A “truth” by definition is something that does not change. It’s a perfect measure that always gives you the same result. One inch is always one inch, a mile is always a mile.

For you athiests, there are norms, certainly. But those exist only until they change; then you have new norms.

And forget about the concept of true equality for all people. If there is no God and no truth, then there is no true freedom, no true liberty, and no hope at all of ever achieving perfect equality for all. Worse is the fact that, for those who have given up opportunities for wealth and power to serve others, as their religions may require, they may have wasted their lives for no good purpose.

If there’s no truth, then what we are seeking to do right now in promoting freedom for all across the globe is the height of naivety. Not the height of arrogance mind you. After all, we are the most powerful nation in the world. In a universe without truth, there is no such thing as arrogance for those who are more powerful, only the logical assertion of dominance.

It is naive because there is no universal human yearning for freedom, which President Bush and our very Constitution presupposes as a need that all have and long to realize. But, then again, a major irony here is that many liberals who call President Bush “evil” and the war in Iraq “unjust” are many of the same who people also would like to see faith and religion compartmentalized, which are the very approaches to life and civilization which give us our modern concepts of justice and equality, right and wrong, good and evil.

Which raises for me two worries regarding the efforts on the part of a small minority of Americans who hope to use activist judges to sterilize our society from anything which smacks of faith or religion, especially, of course, if it has to do with Christianity:

1. The Soviet Union tried and failed to remove all religion and faith from their society. They rounded up people of faith and put them in jail. They closed churches, mosques, and temples. And they banned faith except where it pertained to “the state.” Communism was and is an experiment in “anti-democracy”. The result? A government which viewed and used people as cogs, as throwaway pieces on a chess board, good only to serve the needs of the state. Even now, 15 years after the fall of communism, it seems to me that they are still a people searching for their soul. THIS is what secularists want to do in this country, use government to tell those of us whose faith is central to our lives when, where, and how we can worship the God of the universe. I don’t think so.
2. My second worry is this; in their zeal to save us from our “ignorant superstitions,” secularists are compromising the First Amendment, which was set up to act as a restraining order against the federal government on the part of the American people. And it was intended to work just like a restraining order in that it mandated that the federal government could not do any one of three things: 1) Respect or restrict any establishment of religion, 2)Restrict the rights of those who wish to assemble peacebly in the public square, and, 3) curtail or impinge upon the media. Here’s the problem. The framers of the Constitution wrote all of the federal restrictions into the Constitution as ONE SENTENCE.
   

   Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

   The First Amendment restrains the federal government from interfering with our freedom of expression. And this amendment sees freedom of the press, of peaceful assembly, and of religious expression as equally weighted. So here’s the kicker; if we can now use the First Amendment as a mandate to push religion from the public square and from public institutions, we can also then use the First Amendment to push the press and our rights to peacefully assemble from the public square and our public institutions. The First Amendment was NOT constructed in such a way as to allow us to manipulate one form of expression without giving us the ability to then manipulate other protected forms of expression.

Why don’t members of the MSM see this problem? Why aren’t they attacking secularists for their desire to alter the basic tenets of the First Amendment, which undermines the very existence of a free press?

For all those who whine about a surge of puritanism in the US today which seeks to “roll back the clock” on freedoms we enjoy today, both in public and private life, it is NOT the religious you should fear. It was Christian thought which shaped the entire American Revolution. A diverse group of people who were members of various faiths, who understood that, if God created all people, then all people are indeed special, no matter their faith.

But what do secularists believe? I’m sure some of those who read this post will want to tell me; and I welcome your thoughts and comments, but the only evidence I have of secular influence on a governmental scale is what I see from the former Soviet Union, Communist China, North Korea, Cuba, and even Iraq under the rule of Saddam Hussein.

I hope you understand that this does not give me the greatest faith in secular philosophies when it comes to views of our common worth. They have no truth, therefore, they go about creating whatever standards conform to their desires of the moment, and the rest of us have to either live by those standards or suffer the consequences.

No thanks.

I choose to defend the First Amendment as it was originally written. I would rather live and work in a nation of many faiths, with people who peacefully live their faith both at home and in the public square. We’ve always been a nation of diverse faiths; never more than today, but members of a minority faith are now attempting to impose their worldview on the rest of us and to, at the very least, marginalize what we believe. Those are the secularists. Their priests are lawyers and their temples are the courts, where they hope to spread their influence.

Secularists have the right to believe what they believe, but they have no right to tell me where it is appropriate for me to pray, or to praise God, or even to study the Bible. Secularism is not “the voice or reason” or even of science, it is simply another voice that should be heard. And thats it.

David Flanagan
Viewpointjournal.com

I can tell you for a fact that I wasn’t awake as my body and mind entered the last year of my fourth decade of life. That unstoppable force called “time,” which pushes us all ever onward, shoved me right along… Right into my 40th birthday. Damn!

The good news, I’m told, is that 40 is the new 30… Yes? Strange, feels nothing like 30 to me.

For one thing, when I turned 30, I was still struggling to figure out what my career path should be. That was 1995, of course, and I was just about to take a job with a young but promising company called Clark Internet Services, Inc., in Columbia, MD. I still remember my first interview with the owner and the Sales Manager for the company.

We met at the Pizza Hut in Columbia, where the owner/President, Jamie Clark, bought pizza for us and chatted casually with me via his Sales Manager who translated Jamie’s Sign Language into speech for me, and vice versa. Jamie was a nice, highly intelligent, man who was immensely dedicated to the dream that, one day, this obscure service called “the Internet” would change the world and help level the playing field for members of his community.

After dinner, we drove just a few miles down the road into Clarksville, MD — yes, named after Jamie’s family, whose history stretches back to the nether reaches of Maryland history — to a 300 acre stretch of farmland. We turned onto a bumpy dirt road that wound itself through about a half mile of corn fields to an old barn. And there we parked.

We had arrived at the hub of ClarkNet’s operations… A converted dairy barn nestled amongst the corn fields, cow and sheep pastures, and several wooded acres.

It was dark when we arrived and there was noone at the “office.” Jamie unlocked the door, which was newer than the building, walked in, and turned on the lights.

I walked in and looked around. Yup, a barn. It smelled like a barn, looked like a barn, etc. On the right was another door which led to the room which housed ClarkNet’s servers as well as an impressive (for that day) bank of modems. I honestly can’t remember for sure, but I think they were all 14.4K modems at the time, which was, of course, the best dial-up standard of that day. On the left was a round room that had been completed coated with tiles… The milking room.

I also noticed that there was actualy HAY on parts of the floor. Obviously tracked in by employees during their comings and goings. I thought it was totally cool.

That was then.

Now, a decade later, I work for a company that generally hovers in the top 50 of the Fortune 500, where I can grab free coffee, tea, or soda from any of the pantries on our floor, or go down to our subsidized cafeteria for a Starbuck’s coffee (NOT free). I work, not in a converted dairy barn, but on a “campus” of offices owned by my company, and I make more than three times the amount I used to earn with ClarkNet.

Is that an improvement? I’m not sure.

Life is certainly different. I have resources that I never dreamed of, a company which treats me well, compensates me well, offers me challenging work, opportunities for advancement, etc.

Truly, I live now in “Corporate America.”

When I think back to my earliest days with ClarkNet, I wasn’t even sure whether or not I’d be paid from one week to another. And, Jamie was a notorious workaholic. He NEVER took vacation. A year or two later, after Jamie hired Drew Clark, his cousin, to take the financial and business reigns of the company, formal vacation days were established. Before that happened, however, you just sent Jamie an email which said something like, “I’m taking tomorrow off, see you after Christmas.” His response? Generally it was along the lines of “have a great day off! :-)”

I couldn’t do that again. I have kids now, and they expect to see their daddy. And their daddy looks forward every day to going home to see them. Yet, if I could afford to go back to another startup led by a young, intelligent, ambitious person, would I do it?

It depends I guess. But for today, the question I’ve found myself asking at the cusp of my fifth decade is this: Am I a better person today than I was ten years ago?

I think so… I hope so.

I’m fairly sure.

David Flanagan
Viewpointjournal.com

David Brooks, an Op-ed columnist for the NY Times wrote an interesting article today which he entitled, “A House Divided, and Strong.” Here is the gist of the article:

Conservatives have not triumphed because they have built a disciplined and efficient message machine. Conservatives have thrived because they are split into feuding factions that squabble incessantly. As these factions have multiplied, more people have come to call themselves conservatives because they’ve found one faction to agree with.

I agree.

Most of the conservatives I know LOVE a good debate. The more challenging, the better.

And I’m not talking about shouting matches. I’ve been shouted down many times while debating liberals face-to-face. When you begin shouting, you’ve lost the debate.

Actually, though, I debate my fellow conservatives far more often than I debate liberals. These days, many of the liberals I debate love to give me bumper sticker slogans, or quotes from obscure reactionary websites, but not a whole lot else.

Now, on my blog and here at Blogcritics.org, I’m accused all the time of being “a mouthpiece” for the GOP. “David has his talking points out,” they say. Really, though, I have many differences with my party.

I’m a strong supporter, not just of diversity in general, but diversity training. I wholeheartedly support equal opportunity/access initiatives. We do not yet live in a perfectly equal society, and probably never will, so it makes sense to try and even the playing field as much as we can.

I’m liberal when it comes to immigration. This country has grown and thrived because immigrants coming into this country (legally and illegally) by and large just want a chance to work hard and support their families. It is their hard work and their commitment to family values that have helped keep America strong and prosperous over the centuries.

I’m moderate on issues related to gun control. I’m perfectly okay with requiring background checks and registrations for gun owners. Having said that, if my state were ever to pass a concealed carry law, I’d be the first to sign up.

And there are a host of other issues that I wind up in debates over with friends, including things like Medicare spending, the deficit, the UN, etc.

And you know what? Debating with friends and with others too, makes me a better person.

Win or lose, I learn something from every debate. I learn because I go into the debate with the knowledge that I could be wrong on specific points I’m trying to make, or on the whole thing! Been there, done that many times over.

It’s like calling someone out in the old west. You can almost hear the cheesy music playing as you face off with your opponent. The wind stirs up the dust, townsfolk run for cover… Then one person makes their move and the bullets fly. Blam, blam, blam!

And when the smoke clears and the dust settles, it may just as likely be me lying on the ground as the one across from me. Such is the nature of the gunfight… And any given debate for that matter.

Here’s the difference; if I go into a debate with an open mind, losing will probably make me stronger than winning. You learn more when you lose, you know. But, unlike a gun battle in the old west, you can pick yourself off, learn from your loss, and do better the next time.

Conservatives in general have done that. What’s more, we’ve anchored ourselves to the solid foundation of this country’s history; acknowledging that we’ve made MANY errors, and have far to go, we also can lean on the strong minds of our forebears as we formulate and debate contemporary issues, policies, and life in general.

Some liberals do this, but then again, many do not.

Overall, though, when you look at a site like this one, or Blogcritics, or even the Blogosphere in general, you have to think that there’s good being done here. We don’t always have the facts, or truth, or even a clue, but at least we have the ability to say, “I disagree and here’s why.”

I respect those who can disagree in a thoughtful way, and challenge my own thinking. Those who choose simply to sling idiotic sayings and baseless accusations… Well, I generally just ignore them.

David Flanagan
Viewpointjournal.com