FROM THE PULPIT
of
A Humanist

“Upon this ground I affirm that the Magistrate’s power extends not to establishing any article of faith, or forms of worship, by the force of his laws.”

John Locke, 1689.

“We reject a Christianity co-opted by any government and used as a tool to ostracize, to subjugate, or to condone bigotry, greed, and injustice.”

The Christian Alliance for Progress
( And those organizations and individuals who work at getting government to do so.

*************************** As ye need, so shall ye believe.

As ye believe, so shall it be,

unto you.

The substance of a person is one’s purpose in life.
Without purpose, life is meaningless.

**********************

Religion, when private, is never objectionable, when public, it’s obnoxious.
( Stolen, rephrased, and extended, from Richard Rorty, American philosopher. )

************

Burton Ridgeway is a famous unknown with the need to augment his long-forgotten public, and social accomplishments, with spiritual inspiration, because what he had heard at the houses of worship he had attended, and the discussion groups to which he belonged over many years, left him wanting. This church was created by his devoted followers to provide a place for his ranting. Needless to say, all his teachings come from God, because that’s what gives sermons authority. Besides, we suspect he thinks he is, being over three quarters of a century old, and cannot be gazed upon without wonder, for he claims to be the reincarnation of Alexander Hamilton, who he does, in no respect, resemble .

Please take all that follows as you will, and consider that it is not “God’s” will that you ingest whole, whatever you read or hear, on any subject, from any one. You have the right, in fact an obligation to yourself to accept parts, without accepting, or rejecting, wholes. Regardless of who speaks, there is no reason why a God would give it’s thoughts to some, not to all, so the thoughts are really the messenger’s, not God‘s. Why he had chosen Mr. Ridgeway to be a messenger, we have no idea, but Mohammed was supposed to be the final one! Sorry Mo!

Jennifer
Webmistress
( Webster? )

Fr./Rev./Rabbi/Imam, Burton Ridgeway, At The Lectern
*********************************************

Proselytizing satisfies the need for re-enforcement of one‘s own belief, but it is disrespectful of the target’s. Only if a person gives an indication of a need for strength is it right to offer it. This is an offer; you could stop reading, now.

THE BASIC QUESTIONS

WHAT IS GOD?

*God* is a word. Not a name. “God” is the power behind “the natural order of things.” The Hebrews gave it the name YHWH, YAWAH when spoken, and there are other names by other religions, but * we * do not name God, because the power is a * thing *, without genitalia, and not anthropomorphic; we therefore do not refer to It as, He or She.
*
The natural order of things includes, behavior of heavenly bodies, weather, the domination over us by chaos, the limitation to protection from the elements, each other, politicians, lawyers, and the phenomenon of self-completing prophesies.

There is no predestination in reality; existence is, and always will be, chaotic ( unexplainable confluence of events ). Only in your personal life can you effect chaos, and only to the extent that those with whom you share existence permit you to, with * their* behavior; we share existence with all life on earth, so people you never met, or ever will, can, and do, effect your life, no matter what you believe, or how you live it. There is no self-righteousness in this membership.

Above all, we do not believe that God protects us; collectively, or individually, we are on our own. If ever a member of this church experiences the joy of a loved one not being killed in a disaster when others had, we swear never to say, in our hearts, or in public, that “God saved my baby.” We of this church know that there would be no reason for God to not have saved the others, and we do not care to tell those whose baby was killed that God wanted it so.

WHAT IS RELIGION?

A means of control. We control our fears of the unknown in life by believing in a father-image; the idea of there being no “Lord” to watch over us is difficult to accept, as it is impossible for us to imagine nothing; there are things to explain, and no one we can see to explain them, so people over time - different people in different times - had written, rewritten, and edited, sets of instructions and explanations, a few good ones having made it into print, giving us stories and prayers by which to make up our own rules, faking answers to the unanswerable. Then there is the fear of, and the meaning of, death.

Religion is comfort. Just as belonging to a club, or other organization provides comfort in friendship and commonality, people sharing a common set of beliefs feels secure in their commonality. Which also explains hate groups.

Religion is an attitude toward existence, the purpose of which is to deal with it, and have a central authority. It is a culture, a means by which most people remain stable with a Golden calf.

Each of us had been taught an attitude by those who had raised us; we are products of conditioned response. Christians ask Jews why they don’t accept their fellow Jew, Jesus, as their Savior? The answer being, “For the same reason that you do: I was not taught to, you were.”

Moslems ask why don’t Christians accept that Jesus was merely a Messenger, not a Savior, and that Mohammed is the new messenger, and that Islam is the new answer? ( Of course it is! )

My personal answer is that Mohammed had decided that the Arab tribes needed to stop killing each other, and be brought together as a people, so he took Christianity back to Judaism by denying a visible God, and redesigned the “Book” to be understood by the Arab people, to do the same job their Jewish cousins did with their “Book.” Of course all “Books” are subsequently distorted by opportunists, and crazies, so it’s “Death to the Infidels.”
( It is not the Moslem people who go nuts with Islam, it is the few who need the excitement of religious leadership, or the power of gang warfare ( militias, and such ). Dedicated Moslems need to organize to kill off such leadership and rewrite the Koran, which ,of course, will never be done, so the war will never end. )

Theists ask atheists how they can possibly not believe in a God, some of whom give the only right answer: “I can’t! I can no more accept a God, than you could reject it. It‘s not a choice. I don’t need it, you do.”
As for those who had chosen to reject a God they had believed in, there are as many reasons for that as there are disappointments in life.

The problem is that to too many people feel it necessary to think one’s own belief right and all others wrong, as a source of strength. Religion need not be self-righteous, except to seek re-enforcement of a weak belief, and it is not appreciated by logically-minded people with the awareness of the universal sciences. Nations where the average intelligence of the population is low actually *grow* a need for a state religion.

Religious faith is belief in a truth, but one has to be perfect to know what that is.

It is an absolute that no Creator could possibly be the “God” of all people, and want us to fight among ourselves for any reason other than food, clothing and shelter, and let the fittest survive. Humanity is no different than a family of five children: each claims to be daddy’s favorite, and the others should just go away. And leave their toys.
So, since “God” is considered to be the power over all that exists, no one is “His” favorite; religion is man’s invention, for his own purposes. Religion is a safe place for the needful psyche to retain sanity, and a feeling of security. We should be humble enough to respect everyone else’s style, as we want everyone else to respect ours, because very few of us had actually shopped around and chosen our religious identity; we were born into, and conditioned to, it. And if one chooses a religion different than the one into which (s)he was born, it is because the new religion satisfies a need their inherited one had not - for the moment. Or, (s)he won’t marry you unless you do, and you can‘t live without him/her. If one actually feels no genuine need for it, eventually, you cut loose, and go without; and not miss it. Except that you lose legitimate claim to holidays.

This church’s credo is: We don’t require confirmation of our beliefs from anyone. We each need only to know what it is we believe, and *believe* it. Those who need reinforcement of one’s own spiritual beliefs by proselytizing, don’t really believe. And those who share life and community with others, regardless of their beliefs, are truly secure.
As we each need, so shall we each believe.
There is no belief where there is no need for it.
With inner strength, belief is intrinsic.
With a need for more inner strength than we have, God gave us Therapists.

No nation can be put into chains unless the intelligent are eliminated, and a single religion, or anti-religion, dominates.

If you cannot reject God - not that I ask you to, I definitely do not - you should not have read this far; if you can, and in fact do reject belief, then you can accept the above as reinforcement, and join us with your own input.

A HUMANIST PROFILE
James A. Michenor (1907-1997
Taken from the American Humanist Association Magazine-Jan.2007 issue.

I decided . . . that I was both humanist and a liberal, each of the most dangerous type. I am terrified of restrictive religious doctrine, having learned from history that when men adhere to any form of it are in control, common men like me are in peril. I do not believe that pure reason can solve the perpetual problems unless it is modified by poetry and art and social vision. So I am a Humanist. And if you want to charge me with being the most virulent kind-a secular humanist-I accept the accusation.

A people raised in a culture that disabuses them of introspection can never grow superior to an animal who knows nothing more than survival.

WHAT IS THE MEANING OF LIFE? *

*********PURPOSE ! ! ! ! ********

Because this church does not believe in a “God,” as most people think of it, we do not accept that a reason for living had been assigned to us.
This question can only be answered as our assignment to ourselves, individually.
So I believe;
To all that live, “purpose” is survival.
To animals, “survival” is food, and safety. They are physically and mentally limited to those basic needs. To humans, purpose is to survive as a thinking personality, and to those with no reason for being, life is misery.

So we give, we serve, we share, we search for personal meaning. But it won’t come from a figment of your imagination, or a friend, relative, or countryman; it must come from yourself, dealing honestly with reality, otherwise it won’t give you stability.
Each of us in this fellowship hope our purpose is eventually served, so with intent, and effort, we work at completing the purpose we each had chosen for ourselves, then adopt a new one. New Year resolutions are one method of doing this; your birthday is a great day for a new year resolution. All you really need to feel complete, is a purpose *you* had chosen.

Each member of this congregation is free to take the lectern, and deliver a sermon. Editorial judgment will prevail. Membership is available to all, merely by submitting your name, and city of residence. ( There’s no good reason for a false name, or city; anonymity invites irresponsibility. )

BELIEF ITSELF

Religion, as we consider it, is merely the means by which to live a life of discipline; it is not at all necessary to believe in a bearded old man in the sky, or acceptance of a punishing God, or even one who watches over us as individuals. It is a belief in discipline and purpose, that created this nation.
There are those who need guidance in the conduct of our lives, so we accept a set of rules, and a mortal rule-giver who will tell us what the immortal guy wants, ( as if He knows!) and comfort us from time to time as we feel the need for comfort.

I'm troubled by the instinct to passionately believe one's own religious convictions valid, and those with other beliefs wrong. We state an opinion as if it's from God, instead of seeing it for what it is: opinion, whether heavily considered, the result of conditioning during childhood, or for the satisfaction of one’s emotional need.
When people who are not religious leaders say that something they favor is the will of God, what is it they refer to? Do they claim they *know* the will of the Creator? I can’t land on a decision -What do people mean when they say that something is the will of the big Guy?
Are they saying that they actually, know! Or that it is what they want to be the will of God, to have it their way? If *you* say it, why don’t you tell me what you mean.

On the question of religion, there are those who can believe, and those who cannot. It is not a matter of choice. An atheist can no more accept religion, than a theist can reject it.
We Americans are saturated with selfish theism; I stand alone, secure in my beliefs, while allowing others their own. After all, it's not as if (s)he has a choice. Atheists seem to do well, and I’m not so self-righteous as to say that, whosoever shall not believeth in mine, his soul be damned.

Ugliness is in the thought: “I allow you your own beliefs, but I’ll make it pure hell for you if you don’t live according to mine.”

THEISM, ATHEISM, AGNOSTICISM, DEISM, MEISM, HUMANISM

Theism is a belief in a creator of all that exists, who sees and hears all that happens, and is concerned with it all. A Theist is unable to accept the idea that all that exists was unplanned, and uncontrolled. (S)he believes the creator to be present, and interested in each individual’s problems. A Theist needs a God, and denies, or ignores, all evidence to the contrary. A Theist believes God has a staff of zillions sitting before monitors, each assigned to a sector of the earth and all life within it; that He receives a continuous flow of reports as to the behavior of each of us, and administers his judgments on us, according to the rules to which the Theist had been conditioned. All evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.

An Atheist rejects Theism, in the absence of a need for it, and invokes logical evidence in support of his belief. A theist says, there is a God; an Atheist says, there is not a God.

An Agnostic doesn’t know, and doesn’t care.

A Deist believes God came, saw, created, and left. From that point, a Deist is probably an Agnostic. Many of our nation‘s founders were Deists.

A Humanist, in the religious sense, is concerned with man’s relationships with his fellow man, rather than with a “God,” and could be any of the above, excluding Theist.
To Darwin, it means, either, man is the measure of all things, or all things can be measured, which are meanings I cannot apply to the topic of religion.

Humanism is the “religion” others who find the belief they were born into unacceptable, and should consider examining. It serves the needs of thinkers who don’t need the “balm” that is so important to the masses.

PROSPERITY

There are fellowships that claim to be religions, and preach that God wants us to be prosper - economically. Because religion is not God-created, but what man uses to explain existence, we need not accept this as gospel.
Religion should help one to cope with reality as best he can, and to retain a sense of inner security, to the degree we have such a need. Economics does not enter into it, or should not. Religion should deal with emotion - the personal psyche, and not the dollar and the right to it. When one does, you can count on it being a scam.

GOD AND CHURCH

Cal Thomas wrote in a 1995 column about Archbishop of New York, John Cardinal O'Connor entering into the center arena on the question of elected officials representing their constituents rather than the Church. Mr. Thomas was doing fine until he, like most people, made synonymous, God and the Church/elected officials, and the State.
The Cardinal, and his organization who's purpose is to care for the souls of their voluntary followers may reprimand them to his heart's content, and, when an elected official chooses to place the interests of all his constituents in contradiction to his personal religion, the Church may ask him to choose between - not the State and God, but his civil constituency, and the Church. Elected officials, when considering proposed legislation, represent people of all faiths, as well as none at all, and they oversee the management of the state, but they, as individuals, do not represent it; they represent their constituents, not the State.
That is where Cal went off the strait and narrow: he melded the will of God, and the will of the Church. If indeed a political official chooses to heed the collective will of one’s constituency as opposed to one’s own, or the will of the Church, he can quit the Church’s employment, which is not the same as telling God to take a hike. Many of us do not need a Church in order to relate with the Big Guy/Gal. The Catholic Church is not the Church of America, and never will be. Church directors could permit their uniformed members who decide to enter the public arena special dispensation to represent their constituencies, as citizens, not his flock, but that would be oxymoronic; Churches should prohibit their clergy from holding civil office. That‘s dealing with reality, and that is exactly what I, in particular, want: No clergy in government!

********

We should establish a law that forbids elected officials from meeting, in official capacity, with members of the clergy concerning legislation; that no elected official, or candidate, may call for such a meeting for guidance on legislation, unless in a public hearing.
Either we protect ourselves from the government, and the Church, and both from each other, or we lose. As a former Governor once said: "Let's not Pussyfoot around this thing."
(Poor guy!)

HUMANITY’S MENUE

(1997) All humans are intelligent. I take Intelligence to mean, at base, the awareness of one’s own mortality; to base, I add “’degree”, or “level.”
I think of all the ideas of man as being on a bill of fare; people adopt thoughts and opinions from the menu, either eating the idea whole, or just munching on a small piece, and there are those who reject all the items because none of them are his or hers.

At breakfast, with morning paper, it occurred to me that intelligence not only has a degree or level, it also has a “Quality”: An intellectual could present complicated and well thought-out presentations of pure brilliance, but produce useless abstraction, and opinions that challenge even the sense of a horse, which is to say, he approaches the level of an idiot! Patrick Buchanan’s opinion, based on very heavy analysis, that Hitler would have been satisfied with ruling just Europe, is an example.

INTRINSIC VALUE OF HUMAN BEINGS

From time-to-time, I’ve heard someone say or write that merely being human is to have intrinsic value; no one is worthless.

What is intrinsic value?
I assume it is anything that, in and of itself, is beneficial. It cannot be denied, because it’s mere existence is a benefit. The only way to remove it’s value is to “kill” it; to render it useless, unlike Matter, which can never be killed; it exists even as dust.
> A multitude of living species on earth have intrinsic value, in that their activities benefit other life forms, and the earth itself. Kill a bug, and you unfavorably effect the surroundings. So, a bug, as a bug, has value. Only as a bug, and only to what depends on it.

Our money used to have intrinsic value, in that it was in the form of value itself: gold or silver, or, in the case of paper, payment of gold or silver on demand; make a metal plentiful, or destroy the metal, or that paper, and the value diminishes or, is gone. But no more. Our money had been deprived of its intrinsic value; it is no more than a piece of paper that holds no value, in and of itself; it‘s just a promissory note, cancelable at the will of the issuer. (Who, as you know, cannot be trusted. )
(PS: Recently, the government realized that our coins are taking on a higher intrinsic value as metal, than their denomination, so the coins will be made of more worthless stuff.)

But how can we say that every person has intrinsic value when there are person’s who we have found are an insult to everything civilized? Charles Manson as an example.
Did Manson have, in and of himself, a value?
What was it?
To whom?
Who did he benefit? He can’t be said to have benefited God, considering the life he’s led. So what could we say was the value of him, to anyone, or to The Creator itself?

Only one answer suggests itself to me: if we had put him to work sweeping the streets, he would have had value. But it would not be his person that is of value, but his structure; *it* can do the job. He the person, the individual who he is, is an abomination whose termination would have tremendous *real* value. But we kept him alive and parasitic, because we consider merely being human to be of value.

At murder trials, we actually decide if a person has intrinsic value. The punishment by the jury tells us to what degree they consider the accused to have value; that * is * what juries in murder trials decide.
So human life cannot be said to have, in itself, intrinsic value. Each of us has value only if it proves itself to exist.
We should, however, never allow ourselves to consider who should die only because we think (s)he is worthless, outside the courtroom. Do *you* trust your judgment to that degree?

ATTENTION HATERS, OF EVERY PERSUATION

Who are You ?
Not your race
Not your clan, or Klan
Not the religion you were born to, or the one you joined; not your gang, but You . Who are You ? What are You worth? Are You worth more to humanity than the individuals you hate, without even knowing who they are, or what they look like?
No one with a wholesome purpose in life, in the eyes of the majority, can possibly hate a people, or want to be separate from them, thinking oneself superior to them.
Hate is salve to those who are depressed over their own inadequacy, and should get one’s self to a shrink.

I AM THE ANTI-CHRIST!

Hal Lindsay, author of, “The Late Great Planet Earth,” says that the Anti-Christ will be an extremely handsome, unbelievably brilliant man who will promise, and will actually solve, all the world’s problems, before he reveals himself by consuming our souls.
So, even if Christ himself returned to save us, which is what Christians are awaiting, they should accuse him of being his own Anti.
Brilliant! How would we know the real thing, Hal?
\ I had thought he was referring to me when I read that, until he got to “consuming souls.”
There can be no paradise on earth until no one is left who needs the Hal Lindsay’s of the world.

AN IDEA!

In the 1890’s, Theodore Herzog thought up the idea that the Jews should have their own country; the fact that no other religion had theirs, was not discussed, I don‘t think! However, considering that the Christian and Moslem world will not stop trying to kill them off, it makes sense.
This gave me an idea for the Christian Right, who are so disturbed by the direction of American society, and can‘t accept the variety America provides; why not establish a home for yourselves, where you could do just as Zionist Jews did, which is to have a constitution that establishes Christianity as the controlling religion. No one is trying to kill them off, but . . .

Then there is Islam. Why would a man turn from his parent’s Christianity that teaches love, and turn the other cheek, to one attuned to aggression? ( regardless of what peaceful Moslems have to say; they, themselves are peaceful, not the religion.)
To Judaism? Nah! That’s a strange one, and one that is mostly a different race. Besides, he’s not smart enough.
So why Islam? What‘s in the Koran that is such a good seller? ************************ Don’t just sit there looking up at me and smirking! Answer me!

ABOUT SUICIDE

The mass suicide “down the street” from me, in Rancho Santa Fe, San Diego county, California in 1997 left many people in a quandary as to why they did it. It’s no mystery; people with no spirit think nothing of calling it quits, and dream up any one of a multitude of nutty places they are going to, including a passing space ship to “Heaven”.

(I define “Spirit” as the excitement of a personality; the “Soul” is the thing that makes a person a human. What Animals have is whatever we decide to allow them. So for purposes of communication, animals have something other than a soul, and a Spirit is a part of the human personality, rather than the soul. Unless, of course, we redefine “Soul”, allow animals to have one, and declare them inferior, you know? Like White Supremacists and Moslem doctrine does.

Death is not a bad thing, it is merely the end of a person, except in the minds of one’s friends, relatives and countrymen; there’s no God to answer to on arrival anywhere, because there is no place at which to arrive. So it’s the end, and, as long as termination is not painful, and swift, it is a good thing to do when a life is not worth much, except as a series of attempts to give it worth, which becomes boring after a while, if they are merely to fill a void.
Even when a life had been worth a lot, or something of value, if it ceases to be worth dealing with, and it looks to be too long an experience to tolerate, then end it! I say...you won’t live to regret it! ( I do not here include parents of dependent children, and the relatively young who have years ahead of them in which to tackle the problem. )
Only those who fear the unknown fear death. To feel anxiety about it is, of course, natural, but when it becomes an inviting thing to do, making the big trip to non-existence is a good thing.
I think of the expression, “quiet desperation”. When a person gets far into a life and is faced with even more privation than it has been when hope had existed, but when there is no more for the shortness of the time ahead, it’s time to go. Let us pray for a Soylent Green in our future.”

DID WE REALLY STARTED OUT AS FISH?
By
Jimmie Monroe
Seattle

I find myself unable to accept that, blindly. I *could* accept it with evidence, but, how did the fish start out? Of course they began from seed. But how was the seed born? An idea came to me while reading a magazine while in the “throne room“, having nothing to do with what I was reading; my mind wanders incessantly.

We began as popcorn. Yes, popcorn. Now wait! Don‘t scream Bah Humbug! Yet. Just picture corn popping for while.
The earth cooks and simmers, and does whatever planets do during formation. Basic material for a living cell eventually came together. They were still among the crowd of particles constituting this particular planet, but unlike them, these guys were, “corn“.
One-at-a-time over the earth, as the temperature reached whatever it took to produce something, be it a single-cell bug, or a fish (because the “corn” was lying, or floating, in water), or whatever, the corn started popping into a form of what it’s individual basic material dictated - Still microscopic.
Now, what?
Well! Every popped corn, in the form of its basic product, developed as a member of a tribe that popped in the same place, be it a tribe of bugs, or whatever, and over millions of years the members of each tribe grew into a similar being, one of them becoming the first Chimp, and others the first Baboon, and it goes on from there, as our museums illustrate.
As for color of human, remember, As we developed clothing, body-hair grew redundant, so we lost the hair that was exposed to the sun, leaving only that covered by our armpits and crotch to survive. So developed all the color of earth: be it brown, clay, tan, etc, which was the color in which the tribe of cells developed, so Africa grew Burned Sienna and Burned Umber, East Asia grew Yellow Ochre, etc.
The right combinations probably took many years to move across the earth, beginning in Africa, which would give Anthropologists the idea that we started as Burned Umber, and some of us stayed there, or propagated toward White Sienna as we moved north and east, but I tend to think, while in the popcorn frame of mind, that if lines were drawn from the beginning to the present for each of us, each would have come from a popped corn of a particular color, then co-mingling would have produced new shades and colors, so each of us resulted from a different kernel of corn to begin with.
Thanks for the exposure, if you do print it.

*********************** An observation
By congregant, Alfred R, in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

“Man is overextended. He has built a world, not by design, but having surrendered to political and religious realities by people unequipped to challenge them. The product of our work is too much for us; we will crash and burn, if not from collapse of the world’s superstructure, then from the insanity of religious fervor, with its chauvinistic, self-righteous idiocy that cannot function within the turmoil of reality, and competing self-righteousness.” A patient in a rest home. IQ: 138. Prognosis Doctor?, “He’ll not be leaving here.”

GOOD POLITICAL THINKING

I had heard a speaker say, “Religion has a place in politics.” What is religion?
She also said, in regard to political decisions and values, “Listen to God”
What is God?
She also said, “Listen to your own conscience“, in decisions relative to politics.
What is a conscience?
Is Religion a belief in one’s own conscience?

Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State, in her book, “The Mighty and the Almighty” also said that religion has a place in politics, God is good conscience, and life without religion is no life at all. At least not good politics. So, Atheists have no God, no conscience, no right political values.

Let’s say that, “Good political values are based on a belief in social good rather than good only for one’s self.” “Religion” is a word, and there is no single word to describe good values based on…etc, so people use religion, on the instinctive assumption that atheism is disgusting, so Atheists are absent socially responsible values, and the word religion says everything in the name of goodness, never mind all the killing in the name of religion, and many of our marvelous founders having been Atheists.

I think we need a word to describe political values based on self-interest that includes interest in everyone else, and dismiss “religion” as a word to describe all that is good, because it doesn’t. It only describes philosophies that people base their lives on, and zillions of people have hateful philosophies.

I think that word is, “Unselfish“, but I don’t think anyone would accept it for this purpose. So what word could we use instead of “Religion’ as the quality for good political thinking?

We, the keepers of this site, hereby begin a discussion of single words that describe what it is the speaker I heard, and Ms. Albright refer to as the source of good political thinking.

Your words will be placed right here, with no editing of clean, well-intended contributions. The contribution will be melded into one word when enough have been offered.
Saul, King of the thoughtful ones

WE INVITE YOUR COMMENTS, AND SERMONS. Please be civil, and reasonable.

© 1997 burtonridgeway @yahoo.com

Please visit these other places where Mr. Ridgeway deals with political, and social issues, as a participating member of American society, which is his personal Purpose. ( Actually his purpose is to pay my salary. )
Jennifer.
Web Mistress

A better way to secure our benefits:
Social Security
*
Another tax idea:
Taxes
*
“Political leaders everywhere have come to understand that to govern they must learn how to act . . . who are we really voting for? The self-possessed character who projects dignity, exemplary morals, and enough forthright courage to lead us through war and depression, or the person who is simply good at creating a counterfeit with the help of professional coaching, executive tailoring, and that the whole armory of pretense that the groomed president can now employ? Are we allowed anymore to know what is going on, not merely in the candidate’s facial expression and his choice of a suit, but also in his head? Unfortunately. . . This is something we are not told until the auditioning ends and he is securely in office. . . As with many actors, any resemblance between the man and the role is purely coincidental.”
Arthur Miller, playwright.
A proposed end to the spectacle we tolerate
”The FECMA Conspiracy.”
*
Who’s body is it, anyway?:
Abortion
*
We need a better approach:
"The War on Drugs"
*
Are we destined to go on and on about the right to own an arsenal?
Guns and the 2nd amendment
*
Is it really a threat?
National ID Card
*
A commentary on the not-so-little things about our legal system.
Law and Order
*
The solution:
Health Care
*
Our cities are terrible!
*
Proposed changes in the Constitution
*
On Near-east problems
*
A commentary on miscellaneous issues and questions:
Misc.
*
Issues too minor for the attention of people so involved
with larger issues, but . . . .
Small Considerations
*
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