“When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.” – Ben Franklin

A spokesperson for the Housing and Urban Development Office went on the record on CNN’s “State of the Union” program and announced that President Obama plans to offer refinancing aid and loans for jobless homeowners. I’m all for helping those in need, but are we completely giving up on personal responsibility?

Am I the only one with a problem shifting all the power of both government and business to Washington?

Most of my friends disagree with me on this and think that corporate America is just a pile of greed dressed up in an Armani suit. Their arguments are always centered around unregulated industries stepping on their employees and abusing the little guy along the way to print money for the stockholders and C-level executives. I don’t disagree that much of the damage for Wall Street has been self-inflicted.

Here’s my question: What makes the President or Congress any different? Why are they morally superior to these shyster business execs? George W. Bush started the trend of bailing out industries and the slippery slope has turned into bailing out every group or industry in trouble. Slowly but surely, we’re shifting more and more power to a handful of decision makers in Washington. Need help? Lobby Congress. They’ll give you money.

At what point do we just vote to print our own?

Related articles by Zemanta

• HUD chief cites progress in New Orleans housing (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• 2 New Programs Planned to Help Homeowners (abcnews.go.com)
• Obama Administration Plans Mortgage Aid, Donovan Says (businessweek.com)

This blog post summarizes my thoughts about a recent New York Times article, How Christian Were the Founders? It’s a long article, but definitely worth the read.

There is a battle going on in the state of Texas that may shape the Church/State/Classroom relationship across the country for decades to come. Texas sets the educational guidelines for most of the states in the US. Their Board of Education sets the direction of the content that is printed in textbooks that are adopted by 46 other states. And right now there is a huge fight going on about how Christianity fits into the historical context of our country.

Christian Conservatives, myself included, believe that because our country was founded as “One Nation Under God” we should work to merge Christian beliefs into our educational system.  We believe that the Bible and Mosaic law provide foundations for American law and therefore should be taught as such.

David Barton, leader of WallBuilders, continues the argument and suggests that the following points are derived directly from the Declaration of Independence, and therefore should be included in American history lessons.

1. There is a fixed moral law derived from God and nature.
2. There is a Creator.
3. The Creator gives to man certain unalienable rights.
4. Government exists primarily to protect God-given rights to every individual.
5. Below God-given rights and moral laws, government is directed by the consent of the governed.

Liberals will argue that the First Amendment clearly strong arms a separation between church and state, but I agree with David Barton. The founders were all Christians, and the purpose of the First Amendment was merely to ensure that no single Christian denomination be elevated to the role of state church.

I believe that every American is free to choose their own religion and their own God (or none at all). It’s not my place to tell you what to believe. But I think we would be overlooking a very important part of our history if we ignored the forefathers beliefs in our understanding of the framework of our democracy.

“Those people who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants.”

- William Penn

Related articles by Zemanta

• How Christian Conservatives Are Getting Their Version Of History Into Classrooms (alan.com)
• Texas Textbooks Battle Is Actually an American War (news.slashdot.org)
• Chris Rodda: Glenn Beck’s new BFF — David Barton (huffingtonpost.com)
• America: A Christian Heritage…to be Reclaimed (dakotavoice.com)
• Do we really need a religious bill of rights? (blogs.discovermagazine.com)
• Texas Schoolbooks – Changing History? (lockergnome.com)
• Texas Prepares to Re-Write History (trueslant.com)

The White House issued a press release yesterday documenting that 1.3 million people watched President Barack Obama deliver the annual State of the Union address via a live stream on Whitehouse.gov.

Many GOP and press websites were doing live blogging during the event and engaging users to participate in the discussion, in real-time.

Congressman Joe Wilson used Facebook to issue a video rebuttal minutes after the conclusion of the event.

Quite a contrast to the same event just 20 years ago.

State of the Union – 2010

State of the Union – 1990

Related articles by Zemanta

• Obama’s state of the union: live blog (guardian.co.uk)
• Whitehouse.gov Streamed The State Of The Union Live To 1.3 Million People (techcrunch.com)
• State of the Union 2.0 (one.org)
• State of the Union: Ds and Rs Polish Their Web Strategies (blogs.wsj.com)
• SOTU Live-blogging (washingtonmonthly.com)

Five journalists will embark on a Real World like journey for five days in an old farmhouse in France. They will report the news to their respective agencies using only Facebook and Twitter as sources. No web surfing, tv, radio, phone or print information is allowed. They can only click on Facebook and Twitter links directing them to online sources.

“This experiment will enable us to take a hard look at all the myths that exist about Facebook and Twitter,” said Helene Jouan, a senior editor at France Inter.

Because of the viral nature of the social networks, Twitter and Facebook have proven to be catalysts to spread news quickly and effectively. They have also been known to spread rumors and falsehoods. I think it will be interesting to watch the continued shift away from mainstream media to social media for news. I stopped reading the newspaper and watching the nightly news about 5 years ago. DrudgeReport, Google News and local/industry specific websites are all I use.

What do you think?

Related articles by Zemanta

• Press Gazette: French journalists’ five day social media experiment (blogs.journalism.co.uk)
• I need journalists’ stories and tips on using Twitter (stevebuttry.wordpress.com)
• Can You Write News Based Only on Facebook and Twitter? (mashable.com)