Posts Tagged ‘taxes’

Define irony.

The president of the country whose government shot a rocket at the moon was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Really? Really. Really NASA? What did the moon ever do to you? And if it did do something to you should you really have retaliated with such force? Who bombs the moon? Honestly.

Some, in their quest for intellectual greatness, may still be wondering, “I never learned it in 2nd grade. What does NASA stand for?” I’ll tell you what NASA stands for. It stands for violence, environmental toxification, monetary waste, and any activity that could mess with gravity enough to possibly throw the earth from its axis and implode the entire cosmos.

Yes, the United States’ National Aeronautics and Space Administration launched a rocket at an object whose gravitational pull supposedly controls the ebb and flow of the earth’s oceans. As if the recent typhoons and tsunamis were not enough, the U.S. government had to spend millions of tax dollars and “money” borrowed from China to invest in what could have been and still could be the largest water displacement experiment in human history.

Don’t get me wrong, I highly value imagination, research, and exploration. My father was a chemistry and physics teacher. I earned state placement honors in a tri-state chemistry exam competition. I have visited NASA and even when I was younger, Colonel James Irwin, the first astronaut on the moon to drive the lunar rover, ate dinner at my house. My sister spilled an entire platter of turkey onto the floor which now seems to be rather minimal on the impact-o-meter compared to a rocket hitting the moon.

I have a difficult time justifying the expenditure of resources to send a rocket to the moon when many, many humans around the planet where we all live do not have access to clean water or healthy food. Surely, if the people in of the United States can imagine and figure out a way to collect lunar data through an observation and sensing satellite, there is a way to discover and implement processes of provision for basic life and health necessities for those who are oppressed by the otherwise gross waste of natural resources. How else might we spend our money and time in a manner that better cares for humanity?

That’s one small step for man. One giant lapse for mankind.

"Do I feel bad about betraying Jim? Not at all. That was the game-convince him we’re in an ‘alliance’ together, use him for info, then toss him to the wolves… It’s called politics, baby. It’s about getting what you can out of people and then destroying them."

Dwight Schrute
Assistant TO the Regional Manager
Dunder Mifflin, Scranton Branch

Politics: It’s about getting what you can out of people and then destroying them. It seems as though the writers of The Office have been paying close attention to recent foreign policy decisions. Since the "church" by and large has dropped the proverbial ball on caring for people, the government has implemented tax funded initiatives such as Social Security and welfare. Could it be that under our current systems of political functionality that the church must operate in cooperation with the government to care for people? If "followers of Jesus" don’t take care of the poor then should one be in favor of higher taxes so that said provision may be allocated by legislators? How should a follower of Jesus actively engage the public square so that money taken from people may be used in a life-giving manner rather than for destruction of a "lower class" or "other nation" (emphasis on quotation marks to distinguish language that represents something that doesn’t really exist)?