The Politics of Fear

I've lived through quite a few election cycles now. I cannot recall a cycle in my lifetime that was as fearful as this one.

Many on the left are so terrified of Donald Trump that they will overlook and rationalize anything Hillary Clinton says.

Many on the right are so terrified of Hillary Clinton that they will overlook and rationalize anything Donald Trump says.

And many of them do so on a regular basis.

Both sides freak out at the idea anyone would vote third party. "A vote for [third party] is a vote for {Trump,Clinton}" (insert whichever one they are afraid of). And each side is utterly convinced. (Apparently if I vote third party they will both end up in office. That actually sounds like a deal to me, as they'd be too busy fighting to do much else.)

People are losing friends over this. Almost every day I see someone threaten to unfriend anyone who will vote for {Clinton,Trump}. Or see that they have done so. There's a lot of bad "theology" in Star Wars, but sometimes Yoda is right:

"Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering."

It's not guaranteed, but it often happens, and I see it running amok in the USA.

I refuse to live in fear. I refuse to be angry at any of you. I refuse to hate. I refuse to inflict suffering.

Whether you believe in the God of the Bible or not, I urge you to consider the following:

"There is no fear in love. Perfect love chases away fear." (my translation)

Choose to love those around you. Listen to what they are really saying. Talk with them instead of at them. Hold them. Hug them. Walk with them.

Fear will ultimately destroy you. It will steamroll everything and everyone you care about, if you feed it. Love will free you, and offer freedom to everyone around you. Which one sounds like the better deal?

I don't want Ms Clinton or Mr Trump as president. But I'm not going to unfriend anyone over their vote for either.

SpaceX Splashdown - So What?

You probably have no idea how happy I am to hear of the SpaceX successes. I started thinking about this after the safe return of a Dragon capsule from the 4th successful SpaceX ISS trip.

I grew up in the space age. Some of my favorite childhood memories involved being glued to a radio or TV, counting down toward zero. "We have ignition... We have liftoff! We have liftoff! All systems still go!" There was an excitement in the voices from Mission Control you now mainly hear when the underdog wins the World Series or Superbowl. It was a Big Deal. And every kid with the least bit of interest in space, especially those of us who through science fiction the best breakfast food around, knew we would get there. We couldn't wait.

Some of my favorite memories of childhood involve Dad getting me up in the middle of the night to watch a liftoff, or a splashdown. He loved them, and he know how much I loved them. One of the first model kits I recall building (with hep from Dad as it wasn't simple) was a helicopter lifting a Mercury capsule out of the water. It came complete with a little John Glenn. It was my pride and joy.

I was too young to even take note of Sputnik, but the collective national US memory and resultant fear was a palpable thing through my early childhood. This carried on throughout much of the 1960s as we seemed always to be playing catch up with the Soviets, who were first with a satellite, first with an animal in space, first with a man in space, first to orbit the Earth, first with a woman in space... But we beat them to the Moon. It was 1969. Vietnam. Hippies. Chicago. Not a comfortable year but... we landed on the Moon!

But after a few more trips to Luna, we just kind of gave up. We had been so focused on the Moon we had no plan for beyond. With everything else going on, there was no energy for one, and no will to develop one- much less spend the money. Oh, we messed around almost pointlessly a few years, but that was it.

I'd known from four or five years old that I would go to space and visit the Moon, if not live there a while. I was determined to get at least to Mars, and hopefully the stars. There was really no limit. But by the mid 1970s, such dreams were nearly dead. It was easier to get lost into science fiction and fantasy; it was clear we weren't going anywhere.

I kept hearing rumors about a space shuttle program. But by then I refused to hope. I managed to ignore the takeoff and first mission, but found myself glued to a TV with my wife, Nick Pomponio, and other friends when it came time for the shuttle landing. For them, it was just cool. But I felt a breeze fanning flames of hope from what I'd thought were dead coals. The fire was rekindled.

But we still had no real direction and little national will to do much with space technology. Eventually we let the Russians and anyone else who wanted it have whatever glory was left. Sure, we flew to the ISS and back, left some people there, did some experiments. But that was it. It was science, and space flight, but hardly space exploration or bringing space flight to the masses. I gave up again.

And then...

And then SpaceX. Thank God for Elon Musk. To quote Wikipedia,

"Historic achievements by SpaceX, among others, include the first privately funded, liquid-fueled rocket (Falcon 1) to reach orbit (28 September 2008); the first privately funded company to successfully launch (by Falcon 9), orbit and recover a spacecraft (Dragon) (9 December 2010); the first private company to send a spacecraft (Dragon) to the International Space Station (25 May 2012); and the first private company to send a satellite into geosynchronous orbit (3 December 2013)."

So what's SpaceX's current big goal? According to Forbes, via Wikipedia,

"SpaceX Chief Executive Officer Musk stated in June 2013 that he intends to hold off any potential IPO of SpaceX shares on the stock market until after the "Mars Colonial Transporter is flying regularly."

I may get to go home yet.

I Want to Hug the Westboro Baptist Church

I hope Westboro Baptist Church pickets my funeral.

No, really, I do.

I hope Jesus lets someone call me back, like Lazarus. I'd run over to hug the Westboro people first. They'd either get saved or run away and never picket another funeral.

But if not, I'm sure the revivalists, the community of people around me who are madly in love with the God of Love (and I don't mean Cupid), will show so much love that the Westboro folk will either get saved or flee in panic and confusion. I can hear the cops talking to them now. "No, sir, they were trying to hug you, not assault you. I know, because they hugged us all when we showed up."

Not long before going to the cross Jesus said, "Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples-when they see the love you have for each other." (Jn 13/33-35, The Message)

Or how about this? When asked earlier on which of the commandments was the greatest, Jesus said, Jesus said, "`Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.' This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: `Love others as well as you love yourself.' These two commands are pegs; everything in God's Law and the Prophets hangs from them." (Mt 22/37-40, The Message) Many versions say "your neighbor" instead of "others". Jesus made it clear in his parable of the good Samaritan that everyone is our neighbor, including those we might tend to look down on, left to ourselves.

I'm sure that twisted logic would tell the WBCites that they are acting in love, but it's pretty obvious to the rest of the world that they aren't. I hope and pray that the people at Westboro Baptist Church come to know real Love, and are set free from their fears and hatred, as I pray that for all-- from world leaders to terrorists to people in third world hell hole slums to those caught up in sex trafficking. I want to hug you all. because God does.

There's an excellent booklet I recommend on the base topic here, The Mark of the Christian by Francis Schaefer. It's a quick read, less than 10,000 words. I wish every Christian would read this. It's available online (with permission from the publisher!) at http://www.ccel.us/schaeffer.html .

 

Passages from The Message copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson.

Hope is Stronger Than Plugophobia

A plug should only go one way, and it should be obvious what that way is, even if you are nearly blind, trapped in a cave with no light, and the earwigs took a wrong turn and ate your eyeballs.

And yes, by this definition, most plugs fail. Headphone plugs don't. You can plug those in anywhere, under any conditions save those requiring gloves so thick you can't really feel anything or use your fingers' fine motor control. But lots of others fail, including AC power plugs. If you try to plug those in under adverse conditions, you could easily become a short circuit across the exposed prongs. Or worse, from the hot prong through your body to the rock you sat on.

But apart from safety considerations, some of the worst around are, in the words of Randy Kirchhof, "USB plugs. Specifically engineered to make sure that you try to put them in the wrong way, on the first time, every time." I had to disagree, because I'm pretty sure I get it right at first at least 1% of the time. Then again, they may do that just to get my hopes up so they can mock me more.