The Few, the Proud, the U.S. Marine Corps!

Friends, we live in truly perilous times. Government surveillance (of our internet usage, cell-phones, etc.) is blatantly un-Constitutional yet is still pernicious. If we cross the wrong person who is a politician, then suddenly we could have certain 'files' formed on us (e.g. claiming that we are terrorists or something else insinuating in order to frame us). I have even had a Georgia congressional candidate threaten to call Dick Cheney on me! (he was drunk and this was at the Leadership Institute run by the mentor of Karl Rove . . . I kid you not!).

But in spite of such surveillance (a nightmare of the modern Western Post-Enlightenment world as described by post-modern philosopher Michel Foucault in his book Discipline and Punish), good people are nonetheless looking out for us!

One such group, for the most part, are the U.S. Marine Corps.

My accountability partner is a former U.S. Marine and recently I was 'tipped off' by another Marine about a type of surveillance that I was under (private, not governmental). Pretty funny actually how this person wanted to 'spy' on me outside of normal evaluation procedures, and he was CAUGHT red-handed because the very person whom he was eliciting information from just happened to be a former marine!

Hoo-ahh! A U.S. Marine looking out for a fellow military man.

Well, in spite of such good men (also my father, a 20 year vet) who try to safeguard freedom and protect the Constitution, sadly, even within our military, the Constitution itself is under attack.

Here, I speak neither as a military man, nor as an official politician (although I do have these aspirations obviously), but instead as a citizen of the United States of America! If Habeas Corpus is needing to be 'restored' by Senate Judiciary Chair Patrick Leahy (a fine fellow Catholic man), then something has run aground with the Military's own law. UCMJ (the Uniform Code of Military Justice) should never supercede the Constitution, nor be an 'exception to the Constitution,' but instead must be grounded completely IN the Constitution, its freedoms, and our own unique American form of democracy as a United Republic. Similarly, "One Nation Under God, with Liberty and Justice for All" does not equal immunity from prosecution by higher ranking federal government officials, so in other words, someone like Dick Cheney MUST open his office for Congressional review!

Blessings in Jesus Christ,
Rob J. King, citizen of the Republic of the United States of America and inheritor of the Natural Right Freedoms that this Republic was founded upon!

Friendship

Back when I was a Resident Advisor for the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity at Duke University, in addition to getting the free basketball tickets to see Duke play :-) I also learned a lot about friendship and its importance.

To this day I am good friends with someone who now works next to the Pentagon, is a strong Christian man, and all because we have made time for our friendship over the years.

Similarly, although the communication can be somewhat stilted, I am still friends with professors from Duke.

Stanley Hauerwas (one of my old profs . . .) in some of his work in Christian Ethics has pointed out that in the field of moral philosophy, friendship is a prominent, yet often overlooked theme. Aristotle, the ancient Greek Virtue Ethicist (and Natural Law philosopher who gave taxonomies of the various animal species) especially noted the importance of friendship.

From a Christian perspective, friendship is also vital. Jesus Himself one time said that "what greater love is this then for a man to lay down his life for his friends . . ."

So, how are you being influenced by your friends?

Is this influence positive or negative?

Also, how good of a friend are you being?

If a friend has just been laid off from work or suffered a horrific divorce, are you willing as a friend to stop and talk or even potentially pray with them?

These types of friends are the one who have "kept me going" over the long-haul and it is this type of friend that I always seek to be.

Blessings in Jesus,
Rob J. King, Friend of All, Love of Jesus my LORD and Savior