This is pathetic.  From Daily Kos:  Why I Have A Little Crush on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:

I know I'm a Jewish lesbian and he'd probably have me killed.  But still, the guy speaks some blunt truths about the Bush Administration that make me swoon...  Okay, I admit it.  Part of it is that he just looks cuddly.  Possibly cuddly enough to turn me straight.  I think he kind of looks like Kermit the Frog.  Sort of.  With smaller eyes.  But that's not all...

I want to be very clear.  There are certainly many things about Ahmadinejad that I abhor -- locking up dissidents, executing of gay folks, denying the fact of the Holocaust, potentially adding another dangerous nuclear power to the world and, in general, stifling democracy.  Even still, I can’t help but be turned on by his frank rhetoric calling out the horrors of the Bush Administration and, for that matter, generations of US foreign policy preceding....

This is very interesting.  Whatever reasons or explanations President Bush gives for his actions the left dismisses as false, as they look for the true, deeper motives.  Yet here, the rhetoric is all-important and accepted as genuine.  Never mind that Ahmadinejad actually kills gay people, listen to what he says.  But President Bush?  Everything he says is merely propaganda.

Ahmadinejad, it would appear, cares more about American troops than President Bush....

And now, all of a sudden, you have no ability to see past appearances?

Perhaps the Bush Administration's campaign against Ahmadinejad --- just like its campaign against Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro and others --- isn't as much about whether he's a danger to the world.... I'm not saying he's a good guy at all.  I'm only saying it's hard to know the full story when the Bush Administration seems so invested in smearing Ahmadinejad....

People can be so invested in smearing their foe that we can't trust what they see and say?  I can't imagine how that could happen.  Pot, meet kettle.  And while you're at it, meet Ahmadinejad.

In the quotes she gives from her beloved Ahmadinejad, I particularly like how he says he'll be judged positively compared to Bush by the following criterion:

Did we bring the world peace and security or raised [sic] the specter of intimidation and threats?

This she finds compelling coming from the man who has repeatedly insisted Israel should be "wiped off the map."  Unbelievable.

In the comments to a previous post, Aaron Snell referenced the classical notion of freedom meaning “freedom to.” Ironically, I’ve been reading Biblical Christian Ethics by David Clyde Jones and he discussed this as well. Jones notes the shift from freedom being the ability to do what’s right, to the current idea in our society that freedom is the ability to do what you want…

“One of the most perceptive analyses of the American character in the 1980s was the best-seller Habits of the Heart, by Robert Bellah and four associates. The authors, backed up by their extensive sociological research, observe that “Americans tend to think of the ultimate goals of a good life as matters of personal choice.” Americans accordingly rank freedom has practically become definitive of the good in the American mind. But as Americans typically describe it, freedom is a summum bonum without positive content.

“Freedom turns out to mean being left alone by others, not having other people’s values, ideas, or styles of life forced upon one, being fee of arbitrary authority in work, family, and political life. What it is that one might do with that freedom is much more difficult for Americans to define.” (Bellah)

Freedom in the biblical tradition means freedom to do the will of God; in the republican tradition, to participate in working for the common good of society. But in modern American individualism, freedom means “freedom of choice” without reference to objective moral criteria. “What does the Bill of Rights mean to you?” a reporter asked a schoolchild viewing the original manuscript on display. “Being free to do whatever you want,” was not the expected reply. This is how the posterity of the founders of the American republic typically construe the “blessings of liberty” it as the purpose of the Constitution to secure for them/ “Choice is what this country’s all about” is a proposition of bumper-sticker depth, yet it appears as the trump card in all sorts of public policy issues… Freedom of choice functions in American culture as a self-justifying moral absolute.” (pages 34-35).

            In other words, our culture’s view of morality, which went from generally objective to subjective, has also affected our view of freedom. The postmodern culture puts Self as the standard: Self is the standard for what is right, and it must be unrestricted. In some sense, we are consuming ourselves. Our god is out stomachs.

There is an absence of holiness today. I doubt this is controversial- one simply has to turn on the news to find the evidence. However, I’m far more concerned about the absence of holiness among those of us who call ourselves Christians. This is also evidenced by the news, as well as on the Internet in social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook.

We are not saved by our works, and, thankfully, those who are saved cannot be condemned by their sins. But salvation is not an excuse for sin. We are not to continue in sin that grace may abound- this would be an insult to Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf. On the contrary, we are to walk in newness of life. “Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.” (Romans 6:8)

Living with Christ means freedom. Some Christians take this freedom the wrong way- as though it means freedom to do whatever they want. They take this to mean freedom from legalism, freedom from authorities who seem to think we have to be Puritans in order to be a Christian. This is how the world thinks of freedom- especially our postmodern one which despises all authorities but the self. John Mark Reynolds recently addressed this from the "Christian liberty" angle.

The Christian life is not about being spiritual, it is about being holy. We are called to be holy as Christ is holy. Freedom in Christ is not freedom to do what one wants, but freedom from enslavement to sin- freedom to finally reflect Christ’s holiness as we were created to. This means we must flee from sin, we must die to it, we must mortify it.

And yet, so many Christians appear to live in sin. On Facebook and MySpace it doesn’t take long to find profiles of people who label themselves as Christian, and yet they post pictures of themselves obviously drunk, or practicing sexual immorality, or being immodest in their appearance or speech. Students at Biola University are required to sign a contract in which they agree to refrain from drinking alcohol while enrolled. But some of these students are so careless with their integrity (or lack of) that they have posted pictures online of themselves drinking.

The Bible is clear:

Being drunk is a sin. (Gal. 5:21, Eph. 5:18)

Sexual immorality is a sin. (1 Cor. 6:18, 2 Cor. 12:21, Gal. 5:19, Eph. 5:3)

Unwholesome speech is a sin. (Eph. 4:29, James 3:9-12)

Breaking your word is a sin. (Prov. 6:16-19, Rom. 1:29, Eph. 4:25)

I don’t profess to live perfectly. I must admit that I’ve committed most of these sins. But I’m not suggesting myself as a model of holiness. Christ is the model of holiness we are to seek. And if we’re going to call ourselves followers of Christ, we best start living like we are. Following Christ does not mean being spiritual, it means we reflect His holiness in all our thoughts, words, and deeds, and that includes what we do and say on the Internet.