Explaining Liberty to A Jehovah's Witness

I had an interesting visit today with a Jehovah's Witness today that I just have to write about. A short Korean looking lady and a tall black man knocked on my door. Believe it or not, we ended up talking for about an hour and half! It was just a very interesting conversation! Oh how I wish I had had a camera rolling. The conversation started out pretty basic -- with a discussion about sin and "whatever happened to it." I listened quietly as she discussed the topic and pointed out various verses in Romans which discussed sin. I mentioned to her that I was indeed a Christian and that my wife and I attend church together. This of course eventually led her to the question, "So where do you two go to church?"

Ahh, the age old question. I then explained to her that we go to various churches but that we haven't settled on one in particular and are not members anywhere at this time. I then explained that it is difficult today to find a church that teaches some of the deeper Biblical truths and philosophies that we seek. She and her partner seemed interested, so I continued. I then explained that we have not, as of late, been very big participants of the modern day "church membership" philosophy.

"Now this may sound a little kooky to you, but the majorities of churches today are actually corporations."

To my surprise she was actually very receptive to this comment and understood where I was coming from and seemed to agree. At this point, I thought I would throw out a little more truth and mention that most churches are also 501(c)3 organizations as well. This caught her a little off-guard, so I started to explain...

"The problem with churches taking on the 501(c)3 (or non-profit) status is that it is allowing the government to exercise an authority which it does not have. It allows the government to come in and dictate what the church can and cannot preach about."

As the conversation went on, we continued to delve deeper into discussion about the modern day church's lack of involvement with local community, government, and helping people to understand their responsibilities in relation to government.

Much to my surprise, the conversation didn't take the turn to Romans 13 (what many church-goers believe is the "obey the government no matter what" chapter), but rather she began discussing verses in the Bible which she believed indicated that Christians should not be involved in government activities. Her reasoning was that because Satan has such a hold on the world and because sin is so powerful, no matter what we do to ensure that we have a government that abides by God's laws, we will always fail in doing so.

To which I replied...

"I agree that sin is at the bottom of all things evil with our society and our government. But wouldn't that be all the more reason for us as Christians to be involved in that area so that we can be a positive influence and bring good wherever we can?" (I'm reminded that we are to be the light of the world.)

As I continued to talk with the Jehovah's Witness lady about how I believed we should all be involved in various aspects of our society, including government, it seemed along the way to be more of a battle of wits than anything else. She was very kind and soft spoken as was I; but the conversation seemed to go in a loop.

She would tell me how Jesus chose to be a minister rather than being involved in government. I would remind her of Romans 13:4, where the Bible says that the government is actually to be a MINISTER of good. She would tell me that we should concentrate on what affects people's lives together, to teach them Biblical principles. I would remind her of how the public school system (controlled by the government) is a giant indoctrination camp with the absence of morality and no Biblical teaching whatsoever. When discussing gun rights, she said that Jesus told Peter to put away his sword. So I asked her if someone came to her door and threatened her family, what is her first obligation?

There were many memorable parts of the conversation, but one that was particularly interesting was when I proposed a hypothetical scenario with her. Now keep in mind while reading our conversation that I only advocate participation in LAWFUL and constitutional government as we had prior to Reconstruction (NCRepublic.org, AmericasRemedy.com), but I think this would have been even MORE over her head. So I continued with my scenario...

"You've stated that you don't believe it is the job of the Christian to get involved in government. Yet, you have also said that you believe we need laws to govern us. Indulge me for a moment in a hypothetical scenario in which your door to door witnessing is so incredibly effective that every person you meet accepts Christ and eventually the entire world is full of Christians. Now we all know that that's probably not going to happen right?" Her partner chuckled a bit and shook his head. "So if the entire world is full of Christians, none of which believe they should be involved in government, does that then mean that all of us Christians would succeed in governing ourselves?"

To this scenario she stuttered a bit and if memory serves me I believe she eventually said "no" or maybe "well yes and no" (she answered this way a few times). I believe at this point she again went back to sin as being the reason that we should not be involved. She kept repeating that because of sin, we can never have a perfect government.

Many of the situations she brought up with government I would rebut by comparing them to other aspects of life. For example, she said that because of sin we can never have a perfect government -- so therefore we shouldn't get involved with it. She also made some comparisons of Bible characters who failed at abiding by the law, proving the sufficiency of God's grace over works.

I would reply, "I agree that God's grace is more than sufficient to cover ALL of our sins. However, does this mean that perhaps as a parent we should say, 'oh well, God's grace is sufficient, my child will raise himself' -- or perhaps, 'me oh me, because of sin I will NEVER be able to raise my child as good as God could raise my child directly, so what's the use of trying?' In essence my illustration was this -- yes, of course sin causes government corruption. But America still started out with a Christian government and Christian values were the cornerstone of this country. Christian involvement in law making and serving in the government was an essential part of America's history and is in fact part of what made us so prosperous.

Believe it or not, the entire conversation was fairly polite and courteous. I rather enjoyed talking to her, but I still just don't think the message got through. Obviously she knew her stuff and I knew mine pretty good as well. We both agreed on many things, but unfortunately I don't think we agreed on the seriousness, necessity and obligation we all have in taking a stand for liberty, truth and right in this morality-depraved country. We did not agree on the church's (and Christians') need to be more involved in government and the assertion of God-given rights.

I told my wife Sara about this conversation and she was amazed that at the end of this conversation, it was actually the Jehovah's Witnesses who said they had to go. Apparently there is some big joke about how hard it is to get a Jehovah's Witness to leave? That was really not my intention. Nevertheless, the car that was with them had pulled in and out of the driveway several times, going to the surrounding houses and neighborhoods. And the man that was there with the lady speaking to me mentioned that the driver needed to use the bathroom.

As they started walking toward the edge of the sidewalk I said, "Hey guys, I appreciate you coming by and I hope I didn't take up too much of your time. But I would really like to give you a few things before you go if you would wait right here for a moment." I went inside and grabbed a pocket version of the Constitution, a John Ainsworth DVD and one of the little Covenant Wedding booklets Sara and I handed out at our wedding. I took them outside, explained what they were and gave them to the lady. She declined the DVD stating that she wouldn't have time to watch it on her computer and so I told her she could actually play it back on the television. "Oh, well I don't watch much television"..."Well that's okay, we don't even have TV reception!," I replied. Obviously she didn't really want the DVD, so I handed her a marriage booklet. She took it, gave it a glance and mentioned to me that I should read Ephesians for some good stuff on marriage. I told her thank you.

I could tell in the end that they were a little frustrated with me and were ready to go. I apologized once more for taking up so much of their time and told them to have a great day. They said thank you as they quickly got in their car and then drove away.

So was it a futile conversation? Perhaps. But I learned a lot. When it comes to liberty and standing up for the freedoms which men have fought and died for, I've learned not to waiver too much. Why? It is because of those very freedoms that people like the Jehovah's Witness can go door to door in the first place. It is because of that God-given liberty that I keep the fruits of my labor and not waste it on a corrupt, immoral government who refuses to be obedient to God's laws. Our law in this country is the Constitution. It was created by Christian men as an attempt to uphold God's laws and to keep greed, selfishness and the love of money and power from taking over our government and civil servants. It is not just our job, but our DUTY to know it and to keep our servants accountable. After all, if Christians aren't involved in upholding morality and law in society, who will be?

"For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to [execute] wrath upon him that doeth evil." -Romans 13:4

"To be a Christian in America and believe that only the spreading of the gospel, without challenging or making accountable the existing leadership, whether Christian or not, is the only way for us to have good leadership, you must first altogether denounce the very fashion in which the remaining freedoms you enjoy were first established." -Cliff Muncy

Volunteerism Bill - Socialism or National Enslavement?

Introducing H.R. 2857, a bill called the Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education or "GIVE" Act. It's on it's way to the Senate and it's something you really need to know about.

Wednesday the House of Representatives passed a measure that will cost $6 billion over five years as shown below. Basically your government is telling you that you need to volunteer more in your community to help out with our bad economy. Not only do they want you to volunteer, but they want to take more money out of your paycheck to pay for these efforts. That's right. Long gone are the days of liberty and freedom folks. Either we take a stand now, or well...national enslavement here we come!

Don't want to volunteer? That may not be an option in the future as the government is also considering whether "a workable, fair, and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people" should be developed.

(Sec. 2401) Authorizes:
(1) $100 million for the VISTA program for FY2008;
(2) $67.5 million for the RSVP for FY2008;
(3) $115 million for the Foster Grandparent Program for FY2008;
(4) $52 million for the Senior Companion program for FY2008;
(5) $500,000 for DVSA demonstration programs for FY2008; and
(6) $35 million for DVSA administration and coordination activities for FY 2008. Authorizes such sums as may be necessary for these programs and activities for FY2009-FY2012.

Sources:

http://www.opencongress.org/bill/110-h2857/show

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/03/18/house-readies-passage-volunteerism-critics-pricey-forced-service/

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=92288

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Education is Freedom! Join us this Thursday!
We should be AIMING AT THE ROOTS of our problems. As you can clearly see, the current federal government is one of force and coercion. This is called a "de facto" government. Take a stand for your rights and become a citizen of your original state ("de jur"). Get educated at CarolinaLiberty.com and also visit NCRepublic.org.

Apple Tiramisu

Yanni Performing in Acapulco, Mexico

Yep, my favorite artist, Yanni, is performing soon in Acapulco, Mexico. I hope he comes to the U.S. soon though. Chances are, thanks to our weak immigration laws, we probably have about the same number of Mexicans here as they do there now.

Justin's New Job!

After months of filling out applications all over town, and many weekly follow-ups, we now have results!

On August 30th, my good friend Justin and I attended orientation at Walmart on Summit Square Blvd. (off of University Pkwy). After much paperwork, videos, and well, getting 'oriented,' Justin is now officially a Walmart Cart Pusher! Now that Justin has a job he can begin saving up for his next vehicle and for his future!


It's been a long ride. First we got Justin a truck, then insurance and a license. Now he's got a job! Awesome! I'm proud of what Justin has accomplished. It hasn't been easy, but he's hung in there and made it happen.

If you have a chance to go by Walmart this week, be sure to say hello to Justin. His schedule for the upcoming week is as follows:

9/6/07 2pm-11pm
9/8/07 12pm-9pm
9/11/07 12pm-9pm
9/12/07 2pm-11pm
9/14/07 12pm-9pm


Also, if you'd like to send Justin an email of congratulations, his email is jcline@bluebottle.com

Thanks for reading.

Sincerely,
Cliff

Is AT&T the Suckiest?

While using Google today, I was curious to see how many websites I could find that told how much AT&T sucks. While I was at it, I went ahead and looked up a few other cell phone carriers. Just who is the suckiest of them all? See the results below!

Congratulations to our winner! Sprint is, according to Google search results, the suckiest cellular carrier! There are apparently over 1 million websites describing the suckiness of Sprint. Wowzers! AT&T comes in a very close second with over 829,000 results (must be all those "fewest dropped calls"..lol). And once again proving correct the plentious positive testimonials I've received their customers, Alltel is perhaps the least sucky cellular provider out there. You go Alltel! This definitely isn't a "head-to-head" competition I would be proud of winning.

What does the winner of this competition get? Well, nothing. We should give these companies' executives a big kick in the pants for being suck slackers. Instead we'll just provide gobs of links to Alltel for being the least sucky. Visit them at Alltel.com.

Hopper Relaxes

My rabbit, Hopper. Look how he relaxes. So content after humping my brother's shoe. Ah, the joys of being a rabbit.

AT&T Realizes World is Wireless

What is the deal with this recent AT&T advertising? AT&T is wireless. Nah, really? Good for you. The rest of us have been wireless for like 10 years or so. What a waste of advertising space. Just another example of a goofy slogan brought forth by the drunken executives at AT&T.

Video: The History of AT&T

A perfect example of how rediculous all the company buyouts have gotten in recent years.

VIEW VIDEO HERE!

Goofy Slogans

Who in the world is writing these things? 'Radio Shack. Do stuff.' Do stuff? Huh? Doesn't that describe pretty much anything? What does it have to do specifically with cell phones and electronics? Does this mean you can wash your car at Radio Shack? Or perhaps you can go skydiving while you're there. Anyway, you get the picture. Fact is that somebody got paid to come up with 'Do stuff'. Unbelievable.

This isn't the only goofy slogan I've seen lately. Look for more soon to come, right here on my blog.

Cliff. Write stuff.

Legs or Fingers?

Alright folks here's a little test to see if you're paying attention. Is this a picture of legs or fingers? Click below to vote. Good luck!

Legs or Fingers?

	Legs
	Fingers

  Show results

Another AT&T Blunder

Well it appears that the infamous AT&T has goofed once again. And to think I was just saying in my last blog how they have sucky service! What a coincidence!

I just checked the mail, and my cellular bill from AT&T (previously Cingular) was a whopping $753.22! As soon as I had opened the envelope my heart started racing. Where in the world did these charges come from? My bill is usually between $40-$60 here lately, so I thought this was really weird.


As you can see in the image above, my bill shows (among the many other roaming calls that I allegedly made) that on 7/16/07 I made calls from the following areas:

in Jackson, MS at 8:15pm
in Atlanta, GA at 8:20pm
in Jackson, MS at 8:22pm
in Atlanta, GA at 8:25pm
in Jackson, MS at 9:06pm
in Atlanta, GA at 9:11pm

What amazing travelling I did huh?! According to my latest AT&T bill, I repeatedly travelled over 380 miles in under 5 minutes! I knew my Ol' Blue was a fast old 89' Ford Ranger, but that's really something!

I've obviously called AT&T and after keeping me on hold for over half an hour they seem just as confused as I am. They'll be calling me tomorrow after they've had some time to figure out how this happened. And yes, the lady assured me that they'll be refunding the additional $633 (plus tax, fees etc) they charged me for these bogus roaming minutes.

I've Touched an iPhone...nah nah nah nah nah!

Well, I finally got to touch an iPhone this weekend. Jenny and I were running around town shopping and looking at various odds and ends, when I got the crazy idea to go by an AT&T store and see about handling an iPhone. Well what-d-ya-know, there's an AT&T store right there in front of us. How convenient.

Well let me say that the iPhone is very very cool. I'm not quite ready to trade in my Treo 650 for this phone yet as I would like to see them add some more features in it first. But it is very nice. Stop by a store and check one out. AT&T still has sucky service -- I haven't renounced that opinion. But the iPhone (an Apple product of course) rocks!

The Girlfriend Cage

Ever wonder how nice it would be to have a sturdy cage to put your woman in whenever she misbehaves? Well wonder no more! Introducing the Girlfriend Cage! Available now at The Habitat ReStore of Winston-Salem. Call 1-800-LOCKRUP today.

Removing a Bolt

We twisted, we sawed.
We hammered and clawed.
But try as we might,
And we put up a fight,
The bolt it just wouldn't come off!

Well its turned out to be another adventurous weekend with my good (and once in a while a pain) friend Justin. Yes sir! Nothing like a good sweat and a little grease to really get the blood racing.

Justin has been wanting a trailer for a while now to haul trash and things behind his truck (which I've appropriately dubbed the Justinmobile). Well a few days ago we saw an old rusty one here in King. I called the number and the the guy said he'd take $75 for the trailer. I told Justin I'd give him $30 for helping me on the Muncy trailer (in a previous blog entry). So a few more bucks from his mom, and Justin had himself a nice little trailer.

Now here's the problem. The ball on Justin's truck is only like two inches from his bumper. Every time we've tried to hook up a trailer, we have a very hard time with it because the lock on the coupler (the thing on the tongue of the trailer that connects to the truck) scrapes the bumper. It makes it very difficult to hook up a trailer. Also, Justin's trailer doesn't even have a coupler on it currently, so he's going to have to have one welded on there.

So today we took a trip to my Grandma's house to look for a solution in her basement. There's a myriad of trailer parts in her basement that belonged to Grandpa. Well we finally found something that would work. The plan was to simply take a part off of Justin's bumper and put on the new part we found. Sounds simple enough right? Yeah right. As you read in the poem above, it was anything but simple. Even now the part still remains on Justin's truck. I asked Justin to wait until a weekday so we could take it to somebody with the proper tools, but he insisted on continuing our efforts. So we ended up working on this little project until about 9pm or so. Yet the bolt remains. Slightly deformed, yet remaining. Happy Saturday.

Knight Rider Sightings

As you may know, I'm a HUGE Knight Rider fan. This was of course a TV show popular back in the 80's about a computerized, talking car named K.I.T.T. Well, something you may not know is that all over the world there are fans like me who have taken their fanaticism one step further. They've actually gone out and purchased a 1980s model Pontiac Trans Am and have converted it to look just like the original K.I.T.T. from Knight Rider.

Well I would of course love to buy my very own Knight Rider replica some day. In fact, this past weekend, I spotted a few potential Knight Riders-to-be which I've pictured here. And yes, one of them I even got to drive. It was for sale and I asked to give it a test drive. Awesome! Nothing like the sound of K.I.T.T.'s big V8 rumbling around you. Perhaps someday I'll be able to afford my own when I'm not looking at buying a house ;-)

Outside Primer Done!

Well its been a fantastic Saturday to work on the trailer! The trailer has been sitting up at Justin's house for about a week or so. The rear portion of the trailer which we had sanded but not yet sprayed with primer had started to get quite rusty just from sitting in the morning dew and day-to-day humidity. So I decided that today I would work on finishing the outside.

Thanks to Grandma (Connie Muncy), today I got to work in a nice, cool basement! What a luxury! If you've ever worked on a trailer in the scorching sun, you would know what I'm talking about. It was just plain fun to work on today.

So the outside primering work is now done with the exception of the corners on the very back and of course the inside. I'm not sure yet exactly how I'm going to finish the inside. I've got my choices. One is Rhino liner. Sprayed professionally, this is about $400. It makes for a really nice protective coating, and you can even get colored Rhino liner to match the paint. But I don't have $400 to spend on this. The other option is to get a do-it-myself kit and roll on my own coating. Perhaps I can get a white coating and then mix in some color (the trailer will be 'Coca-Cola Yellow'). We'll see. Plenty to do until then! Until next time...

Trailer Progress

Well this weekend we made some more progress on the old Muncy trailer. The weather in NC has been quite scorching lately, so we've had to work on the trailer a lot at night. Justin and I went by Walmart and bought some work lights (since my brother stole my other work lights), so that we could work at night. Sunday we started working at about 9pm after a hearty meal at the fabulous Dairi-o and worked until about 3:30 in the morning.

We made a lot of progress! In those few hours we were able to strip more of the paint off of the rear of the trailer, strip and prime the wheels, and spray rubberized undercoating on the bottom of the trailer.



The bottom was quite the trick. We actually had to tilt the trailer up by the tongue so that it was sitting on its tailgate. So far we've used up three cans of undercoating on the bottom, and I would probably like to do one more coat just to be sure. We've been through around 6 cans or so of primer on the trailer total, and we still need more.

I've actually done a Photoshop rendering on my computer of what the trailer will look like (hopefully) when we're finished. I would post it online, but I don't want to spoil the surprise just yet. Keep on watching my blog and photos page to see more!

Click here to see the rest of the trailer photos.

My New T-shirt

Hey ya'll check out my cool new t-shirt! I had it custom-made with a logo I designed myself. Nah, it doesn't look that similar to the MySpace logo...does it? Nope, my logo has block-heads...hehe. Gonna wear it to express my controversial view on the ever expanding U.S. population. Oh, and yeah I own the domain name too. Not sure what I'm gonna do with it yet though.

AT&T. We giveth and we taketh away.

Well folks it looks like cellular/wireless services are going to continue to charge you more and give you less for your money. As you may or may not know, I've been a customer of Cingular Wireless since they first started in 2001. Now of course, they are 'the new AT&T'. I now have what they call a 'grandfather plan.' I guess that means it's just old -- kind of like me. Anyway, this grandfather plan, as they call it, is really nice. It comes with 325 anytime minutes, 1000 night and weekend minutes that start at 8pm (not 9pm like most), free text messaging, and several other nice features. And it's only $29.99!

Well, a few months back I received a text message that tells me that I am no longer going to be getting free text messaging. So I call them. I even email the assistant to the president of Cingular. He calls me back. I'm outraged that they're going to take away a feature I've been getting for six years. Wouldn't you be? I mean, why cut it off after six years? How odd.

So I now pay $14.99 extra to add 1500 text messages and 5MB of data to my plan (for internet). Text messages which I was previously receiving for free. Obviously my bickering and complaining didn't do any good. So now I'm up to around $45 per month.

Well, I'll be derned if the story doesn't end there. Recently I called them because I was having trouble sending photos with text messages. Some go through, and some do not. Now 'the new AT&T' is telling me that I don't have the right plan for my phone, my Treo 650 (smartphone). Even though this is the plan that THEY recommended. They tell me that AT ANY TIME my internet, messaging and all features could cease to function (even though they're working just fine now), just because I'm on the wrong plan for my phone. So what's the right plan I ask?

Well here it gets kind of confusing. I've spoken to three different AT&T representatives and they all have slight variations in what they offer me. The first lady I spoke to said that my phone should keep on working just fine. The second lady said I need to upgrade to a $39.99 add-on that would include 1500 text messages and unlimited internet. The third person I spoke with said I would need to upgrade to a $69.99 add-on that would include only unlimited internet, but no text messaging. That's $100 a month to get less service than I'm getting now for $45! Next, the guy puts me on hold and says he has found some 'conflicting information.' Then he comes back and tells me the same thing the second lady told me. Good grief.

So basically from my understanding, the kind of deal you get with AT&T depends on what representative you speak to at the time you call. So if you want a nice new iPhone, feel free to call back a few times until you get a good deal. That or just avoid this silly company altogether.

So why don't I just switch companies, you ask? Well, I called Alltel today. My girlfriend highly recommends them. Turns out that in order to move my service to them, and get all of the features I currently have. I would have to pay about $69 for a new plan. Plus, I would have to re-purchase my nice Treo 650 cell phone, since cellular carriers can't seem to agree on a single compatible cellular technology. I'll stay on the lookout for a better plan. If you have any recommendations, feel free to leave a comment on this post, and I'll be more than happy to check with your carrier!

Related:
AT&T Wireless Users Sue Cingular, Say Service Sucks
CingularCucks.com
Enlightening Travel Report Number One: Cingular Sucks!