Free Market Army

I wonder if most Americans are aware of the level of involvement in Afghanistan. Not so much troops as private contractors. Are you comfortable with for-profit armies, fighting in your name? Check it out HERE.

Peace on Earth

Interesting. Angelic pronouncement came along with Jesus' birth. "Peace."

He practiced peace, to the point of death. He instructed his followers to take up their own cross too. He didn't try to defend himself. He didn't fight to throw off Roman oppression. Non-violent.

"My kingdom is not of this world." It seems like maybe we've replaced allegience to that kingdom with patriotism.

You have to work pretty hard to see the two wars in which we are engaged as defensive struggles. Even if they were preventing a larger evil, we are not following the proscription for a just war. Is such a war even possible with our current way of fighting?

Curious.

The Defense Debt

For the 2009 fiscal year, the base budget of the Department of Defense rose to $518.3 billion. Adding emergency discretionary spending, supplemental spending, and stimulus spending brings the sum to $651.2 billion. Defense-related expenditures outside of the Department of Defense constitute between $274 billion and $493 billion in additional spending, bringing the total for defense spending to between $925 billion and $1.14 trillion in 2009.

Imagine the good we could do with this.

Imagine the debt we have incurred because of this.

And now we have severely wounded soldiers to take care of for the rest of their life.

Good quote

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.”

Dwight Eisenhower

In the Mail

The whole thing seems so ridiculous.

To register as a conscientious objector in the Free Methodist Church, you have to get three copies of a form notarized. One copy is sent to the secretary of the General Conference, one copy is sent to the secretary of the local Annual Conference, and one is for your personal records.

I went to the FM website, and there's no physical address or even a name given for the secretary of the General Conference. The Board of Administration secretary often fills this function I believe. But that person is not identified (but then, the list of Bishops was out of date, too). So I just addressed my "Affidavit of Conscientious Objection" to my Conference Superintendent and to the FM headquarters address. It's in the mail!

Since Pastor Matt also serves on the Board of Administration, he'll see this gets to the right person.

It's a bit shocking that I may be the only member locally to avail themselves of the opportunity. Why should it be this difficult? I'm curious about the process, and even more curious about why people working with our young people are not aware of it.

A new Bee in my bonnet

I recently discovered that my denomination, the Free Methodist Church, requires those who object to war to "register."

Yeah. Seems to me like people who follow Jesus and think war is just fine -- they should be the ones who have to register with the denomination.

A quick survey in Seattle and Greenville (both towns host Free Methodist universities) tells me that no one really is paying attention to this topic.

My intent with this blog is to start a discussion, get the proper "affidavit of objection" into play, and see what might happen.

I'll have to experiment to see how to post the form.