The recent Notre Dame debacle has caste the harsh spotlight of reality on our omnipotent sense of pre-eminence. There are no more lines drawn between good and evil. There is only self-justification driven by a complete loss of responsibility. The black and white of right and wrong has been blended into a dull, murky gray and life and death have been distorted by a self-serving mentality of sanctimonious political correctness.

We live in a sin free world, because sin is no longer recognized. Even the use of the word is avoided as if saying it was the sin itself. If it feels good it must be alright. The bible teaches that God’s ways are not our ways, so to align our ways with His without actually having to change our ways we simply change our god.

We create our own personal god like a golden calf (or even a golden dome). We know what our god expects of us because he is in our own image and likeness. We use this god to bring praise and glory to ourselves rather than the other way around. Our every thought and decision is sanctified by our own free will and a god that empowers us to teach rather than learn, direct rather than listen and act with impunity without fear of retribution.

Our god is all knowing and he knows that we know best. It’s like a computer god whose knowledge may be greater than our own but in reality is only the cumulative data of our experiences. There is no threat of punishment because our god is love, and love doesn’t judge, except those we deem guilty and so we seek his guaranteed corroboration. It is a god who is eager to please us because he is our employee. Like a cosmic waiter waiting for our orders. We assign him a list of projects we want him to take care of and give him the time frame within which to accomplish them. We usually don’t think of him until the need is immediate so the time frame is typically short. If he performs his tasks to our satisfaction, like any real boss, we take the credit. If he fails we simply fire him until his services are needed again.

It is a god of barter and negotiation, “Just get me out of this and I’ll never do it again” and of complete forgiveness. Even Christians, who understand that Easter is not about a bunny, can wield their salvation like a perpetual get out of jail free card rather than a gift of grace. “I may not always be right but I am always forgiven, so why worry.” It is a god who may still be “our father who art in heaven” but the father has become as dysfunctional as the rest of the family.

It is a god whose ten commandments have been whittled down to just one. “Well, as long as I don’t kill anybody”. But even that one has been modernized to exempt the murder of infidels and unwanted children.

It is a god of endless theory and the unlimited possibility of change, morphing with the fickle nature of public opinion so as not to offend anyone. It’s a modern day god who mirrors our revulsion for the restrictions of definition, unless of course the definition is also of our own creation. It’s a god of self-centered fairness and completely devoid of challenges. It is a god of success and prosperity because difficulty and failure are no longer useful teachers.

We create this god to be as comfortable as an old shoe. We use him for the traditions that make us feel warm and fuzzy without considering their significance. Like an old shoe we wear him occasionally but we don’t feel any pride in him. We use him when we want to be comfortable but when we want to flaunt our stature we leave him in the closet for something a little more politically acceptable.

It is a god of spirituality that has no spirit, who is omnipresent but has no presence, who is just but has no judgment. It is a god of the me generation. We pray to this god, we light candles and give cash all so that, like an old friend we haven’t talked to in awhile, we can call on him when times get tough. And then we wonder why this god of our creation seems feckless over our plight or doesn’t us answer at all. There’s no answer because we’re really just talking to ourselves.

God still answers. We just stopped listening. It’s not a matter of proclaiming faith. Even the devil knows there is a God. What is important is where we place our faith and how it dictates our actions. That’s in both good times and bad.

He never promised it would be easy. He only promised it would be worth it.

It’s a great time to be a liberal in America today. A liberal Democrat controlled House and Senate is in place and in just a few days the most liberal President the United States has had in decades or perhaps ever, will be inaugurated into office. There will be dancing in the gold paved streets and America will once again be brought to greatness in the eyes of the United Nations and the diplomatic hacks that grace its halls.

The mantra of “Change” will become the reality of new legislation relieving weary American citizens and businesses of their burdensome personal responsibility. No longer will we need to worry about people either individually or as corporate directors making poor decisions or more importantly suffering the consequences of poor decisions. Wealth will be redistributed, taking from those who have worked for it and giving to those who have not. All those who have not succeeded in taking advantage of the opportunities already in place to advance themselves out of poverty will be given their free shares of milk and honey ration stamps further tightening the shackles of welfare slavery and dependence on government for their very existence.

New stimulus packages are already being drafted so that once the President is officially installed he can make the redistribution of free money his first priority. New and even broader bail outs of failing union controlled businesses are in the works to protect the promised quid pro quo. And new construction projects of roads and bridges will provide a plethora of new dues paying members.

I hate to be a party pooper in the midst of this liberal love fest but I do have a few questions. First off, have we learned nothing from the crisis caused by the government inflicted infection of welfare into credit markets? And secondly, how much of our economic freedom are we willing to cede to government controls in order to avoid taking personal responsibility?

In his 1986 book “Free Enterprise Economics” author Tom Rose makes the following remarkably prophetic statement:

“If Americans value liberty, if they value individual freedom and self-responsibility before God as a desirable and moral state of affairs, then civil government will play a minor role in their lives. Its role will be limited to that of protector of property and a punisher of those who rob, steal and cheat others.

If on the other hand, Americans come to fear self-responsibility, if they attempt to escape the self-responsibility which is inherent in the free market system, then civil government will play an ever increasing role in their lives. Instead of servant and protector of property, civil government will become a regulator and master of the people as well as a redistributor of wealth.”

To the glee of Kremlin officials and the Russian state run media Russian academic Igor Panarin has come out with a prediction that the U.S. will implode by the year 2010 under the debt load proposed by the incoming administration coupled with the backlash of all those who will come to the realization that this new President is not a Messiah but rather just a charming liberal politician who is retrying the same failed economic hocus pocus that didn’t work every other time it was tried.

Comrade Panarin is a former KGB analyst and is now the dean of the Russian Foreign Ministry. He admits that his calculations show only a 55% chance of the U.S. collapse which he points out “One could rejoice in that process, but if we are talking reasonably it’s not the best scenario for Russia.”

It would be easy to pass off Panarin as a crack pot looking for some Russian TV face time. But considering the additional $1 trillion debt load to be incurred if the new president does what he says he’s going to do as well as the reduction in tax revenues from the increase in income taxes he may not be that cracked a pot after all.

No foreign government has the power to strip Americans of their freedom. But if Americans choose to surrender that freedom to their own government in exchange for a bag of silver and a release of their own personal responsibility we will all lose an important piece of our collective freedom.

Freedom and personal responsibility are like conjoined twins where trying to separate one from the other will mean certain death to both.

And that is too high a price to pay.

It has become apparent that the hallowed halls of academia and others in the corporate world have begun to catch on to what Richard Simmons, Jenny Craig and Susan Powter knew years ago. There’s money in a fat mans jiggle. As I watched football on Thanksgiving, eating chips and dip whilst waiting for a turkey the size of a Toyota Prius to finish cooking, I was struck by the number of advertisements from the NFL regarding their fight against obesity. I found it to be almost ironic that a sports organization that employs the services of some of the biggest men on earth (can you say William “Refrigerator” Perry) would chose this particular affliction as the focus of their attention and donation dollars. But as obesity has become the new public awareness fad, the NFL has come out with the “Play 60” program which urges kids to get outside and play at least sixty minutes a day.

Northwestern University just announced what they consider to be a major initiative in “addressing a local and national health epidemic.” The University’s Feinberg School of Medicine just opened a center to research the causes of obesity and find new ways to treat it. The Northwestern Comprehensive Center on Obesity will focus on treatment, research, education and advocacy. Scores of other government agencies and corporate sponsors are jumping onto the obesity band wagon. Are they doing this to save us fatsos from ourselves or could it be that there is some money to be made or research grant dollars to be had?

Do we really have an epidemic of obesity? Is obesity sweeping the nation like a plague spreading its pestilence amongst the unsuspecting youth and adult population of America? Do we need major well respected universities studying the cause of people getting fat? I am not a doctor, but speaking as one who has been severely stricken by this affliction of tight pants and busting buttons I must ask, are you freaking kidding me?

To be sure, there are a number of people who suffer from some sort of metabolic or glandular problem that causes them to be fat. But that number is only a small fraction of those of us who waddle the streets of America in search of a lit “Hot Now” sign at the local Krispy Kreme. The cause of obesity in the majority of those of us with expandable waist pants is that we eat too much of the wrong stuff. The reasons for this self-destructive behavior vary, but perhaps the biggest reason is that ice cream tastes better than a carrot and kelp salad.

Over the course of my life I have lost and regained the combined weight of the population of Rhode Island. I look at that as a success in that Rohde Island is the smallest state in the union. There are those that have weight variances equal to much larger states. The range of excuses we use for our weight gain are as expansive as our underpants. But deep down most of us know the cause our heft is only as far-reaching as our dominant eating hand.

I think the NFL’s “Play 60” program is designed to help this billion dollar organization satisfy their community service commitment rather than have any real or lasting effect on America youth. I don’t see them pulling their licenses from football related video games. The reality is that they can spend a fraction of what they make licensing video games that allow kids to be couch potatoes on commercials that tell kids to quit playing them and still be money ahead. Plus they get the added benefit of the PR in stating they are addressing the problem. Much like a nosy neighbor with no children, it’s not the NFL’s place to direct our kids on how to spend their free time. It’s up to the parents of guardians to turn off the TV and kick the kid’s ass out the door.

Northwestern University has apparently caught on that obesity could be as profitable to their big bottom line as global warming. They should be able to strong arm most of the fast food chains into making super sized donations to help subsidize their research. The FDA and other health and welfare agencies in the federal and state governments will be there with the taxpayer’s checkbook to fund research as well. If they play their cards right they could also get matching funds from the Granola Growers Co-op and the National Green Bean Consortium. The National Cattleman’s Association will donate along with pig and chicken farmers. Any food related organization with a public relations department will want to make sure they get some favorable public sentiment from the sponsoring of this research and a favorable appraisal in the results. Exercise equipment manufacturers and sports related clothing and shoe makers will want in on the action too. Without a doubt “Lean” could become the new “Green” in the corporate world of advertising.

Years of research and tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars will be spent to discover the cause, affect and treatment of portly cheeseburger connoisseurs. The wide end result will remain the same. If you eat too much of the wrong stuff and don’t get your fat ass out of the chair you will get fatter. We don’t need new weight loss diets. Honest to God, the ones we have work just fine. The Atkins diet works like a champ, except that all that protein with very little fiber turns ones daily constitutional into a real sweat breaking work out. I actually consider that the exercise portion of the diet. Jenny Craig works if for no other reason than you don’t have any money left to buy fattening food. The best diet by far is Weight Watchers. They have it broken down so even the simplest tubby can follow it. You can count food points or you can eat all you want from a group of core foods. But just as these diets work every time in losing weight, going off the diet and returning to your old eating habits works every time in putting it back on.

It breaks my heart to see really fat little kids. I want to yell at them to “put down the spoon and back away from the Hagen Das.” But if nobody with authority in their lives is willing to step up to the responsibility plate then no amount of research is going to help. Maybe that’s where Northwestern University and the other big names in education should be looking to invest their research dollars. How about creating the Center for Taking Personal and Parental Responsibility? The problem is that there are very few corporate sponsors for that research. Do you think McDonalds is going to have TV commercials that say “Friends don’t let friends eat a Double Quarter Pounder value meal with an extra fry”? Or is Dairy Queen going to end each commercial with the caveat “Eat Responsibly” or have special commercials about the effects of brain freeze?

And promoting personal responsibility is the last thing the government wants to do. No politician would be able to keep his fat ass in power if people took responsibility over themselves or their children. We would have no need for gun laws, or mandated sex education. Pick a law and see if a little personal responsibility wouldn’t make that law unnecessary.

Being fat is no treat. Ahhhh, but a big banana split Blizzard, that’s another story.