A Catifesto

One of my favorite movies is Bull Durham (Kevin Costner+baseball uniform=awesome). A classic and favorite scene is where he informs Annie Savoy about what he believes...to include that he thinks "Susan Sontag books are self-indulgent, over-rated crap" (he is so spot-on with that one).

That got me thinking the other day when I was driving about my own manifesto...what do I believe? So, for the next few posts, I am going to document the things this Cat believes.

1) I believe in God. I believe in His son, Jesus Christ. I believe Jesus died for me so that my sins may be forgiven.

2) I believe that God's grace was involved in the founding of my country. I also believe that by rejecting God and His grace through the secularization of our schools, public forums, government, etc. is one of the reasons our country wanders lost, without hope, and full of angry vitriol. I believe that the declining respect for human life, in all it forms, and in its place, the raising up of animals and "the environment" above humanity is the work of evil, just as when Eve was tempted in Eden.

3) I believe in the freedom of information and speech, no matter how vile or repugnant, and that attempts to restrict both will lead to totalitarianism. I believe the current attempts to "reform" health care in this nation will undermine freedom of speech: who will speak out against a government that controls one's health care?

4) I believe freedom isn't free. As John Stuart Mill stated: "A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

5) I believe the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, and Ayn Rand should be required reading in high school and college. Furthermore, I believe Mao, Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and Che should also be required reading. My required reading list (which I will make my son read) includes:

In addition to the three founding documents listed, "Atlas Shrugged," "Fountainhead," and "Anthem," from Rand. "Guerrilla Warfare" by Che Guevara, "On Protracted Warfare," by Mao, "The Communist Manifesto," by Engels and Marx, and a couple of books on Lenin and Stalin (Prague in Black, The Rape of Europe, etc.) "Common Sense," by Paine, "The Real Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington." I am of two minds on Orwell. Perhaps when he is old enough.

Okay, that is it for now. I am sure I will list some other, more fun portions of my Catifesto. But, for now, these 5 capture my mood for today.