My Liberation Theology

The LORD works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed. -- Psalms 103:6

If we wrestle not against flesh and blood but with spiritual foes, it makes sense that oppression, that is, circumscription of or constraints upon our liberty would be spiritual as well.  

I’m a member of the NRA.  I have been for years and will be for many more years.  Personally, I am very conservative.  Politically, I am libertarian and vote Republican most often, occasionally voting for Libertarian or other third party candidates.  I spend a lot of time complaining about intrusive bureaucracies, government schools, and the oppressive, obsessive, statist control freaks that want to tell me how to live.  I don’t think they are any better or wiser than anyone they are trying to intimidate and control.  We ought to try and elect people who will leave us alone; nevertheless, politics is not capable of ultimately rescuing us from despots and tyrants.  We need to be free before we can enjoy freedom.

No one ever became a better person because he or she was restricted from doing bad things and harming themselves and others.  It’s true that sometimes people in prison, for example, turn their lives around, but that’s because they realize the bondage they are in, and they decide they are going to change their lives.  Being caged can get your attention, but it doesn’t, by itself, change you.

Liberty, freedom from oppression is more than just a state of mind.  We will never be free apart from Christ.  So long as we live by the old nature, we live as slaves of sin.  The Cross releases our will and allows us to freely choose to serve the Lord – because, as Dylan says, we’re going to serve somebody.  In fact, the process of learning to be a servant of God, becoming a disciple, is essential to our liberation.  

Even though our position has changed when we confess and receive Christ, our minds still have to be renewed.  We have, especially some of us, a lot of mental strongholds behind which the enemy hides and from which he attacks the new man.  Those have to identified, taken and destroyed.  We do that through disciplines such as prayer, worship, communion, confession, submission and obedience to authority, studying the Bible and fellowshipping with the saints.   

No one can really give another person freedom.  A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him (Ezra Pound).   Even Christ can only offer us our liberation.  The Lord makes it possible; He works righteousness and justice.  It is up to us, though, to decide we are going to accept and live in the freedom He is creating for us. 

Chris Matthews Blacklists Franklin Graham

The press calls for censorship when someone says something they do not like.

"I think we should stop inviting this guy to talk about politics. He should stay out of the -- I mean, I love the bookings on "Morning Joe." I love the guests. In this case, I think this guy should not be in the public square talking politics," Matthews said on his "Hardball" program. "He's got his own little thing and he ain't his father's son."

Because, you know, that First Amendment free speech thing only applies when people don't offend other people, or, perhaps, it applies only to professional journalists and to the purveyors of vulgarity and obscenity.  Christians should sit down, shut up and know their place.

Brother Graham is "in trouble" because he said that he does not know if Obama and Romney are Christians, but he thinks Santorum and Gingrich are.  In Obama's case, Graham said that he "assumes" Obama is a Christian because that is what Obama says he is.

With regard to Romney, Graham said:

"Most Christians would not recognize Mormonism as part of the Christian faith," Graham said, declining to say outright that he does not count Romney, a Mormon, as a Christian.

Graham added that he thought Romney "would be a good president if he [won] the nomination."

Brother Graham, of course, accepts Catholicism as Christian despite difference between Protestants and Catholics in secondary beliefs.  Thus he believes that Santorum is a Christian both because of his public statements about his faith and his moral stances.  Gingrich, also a Catholic, has told Graham personally that he is a Christian, and Graham accepts this testimony.

Chris Matthews is an idiot.  If I ever doubted it, I do not any longer.  Franklin Graham is plainly stating what any Christian knows.  We do not know what is in a person's heart.  We only know what comes out of the mouth of another, about the person's behavior and actions.  According to Matthews, Graham -- as a minister of the Gospel, answerable to God, should have said something more positive and nuanced about Obama's beliefs and about Mormonism.  I have a feeling Matthews is much less concerned about leaving questions of Romney's faith open than that of Obama.

Matthews thinks Graham is violating the First Amendment leaving room for questioning Obama's faith, when, in fact, this kind of discourse in the public square is exactly what made this country a generally peaceful and prosperous and unified nation.  Like all of his kind, Matthews hates the truth.  To his ilk there is no god but government and Obama is its prophet.  To question Obama, for these fanatics, is no different than disparaging Mohammed to the Muslims.

The facts speak for themselves.  The only church Obama and his family have attended with regularity during his adult life is that of Jeremiah Wright.  Wright is not a Christian in any traditional sense.  His theology is Black Liberation Theology.   He is in agreement with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakan.  The Nation of Islam is a gang not a religion.  It was, at one time and possibly still, the most prominent and powerful gang in prisons across the country -- that is to say, a club for thugs.

I can say stuff like that because I live in America, and I have the God-given right -- not derived from but acknowledge by the U.S. Constitution -- to say whatever I want.  Obama was raised in a Muslim culture by a Muslim step-father.  He embraced a brand of racial religion that blends humanistic socialism with elements of Christianity and Islam.  His grandparents were Muslim on one side and Unitarian socialists on the other.  His biological parents were both atheists.  It is apparent that he does not believe in God in any specific way.

Does anybody who has heard her think that Oprah Winfrey is a Christian?  Winfrey attended the same church as Obama until Wright's ranting became so off-balance that she feared her continued association would harm her celebrity status and position.  Obama stayed.  He regarded Wright as a surrogate father and only abandoned him when it was clear that Trinity United Church of Christ blocked Obama's path to the White House.    

Obama can call himself whatever he likes.  This is, after all, America.  He has an animosity toward any form of orthodox or traditional Christianity as evidenced by his actions.  His cultural inclination is against Judaism.  If American voters want to re-elect this person and let him continue to run this country, it only takes about 51% of the American Idol watchers to do that.  But, at least, Chrissy, let us know what we are getting this time.

Alas, Babylon

I try to avoid putting topical or political commentary here when I can. But today the Biblical and the political are colliding.

Last night the rumor was that Obama would advocate Israel returning to its (indefensible) 1967 borders. I thought this was just smoke to mislead. It was inconceivable to me that an American president would side with Israel's enemies to assure her destruction. Even when Henry Kissinger advised allowing Israel to suffer a little during the '73 Yom Kippur War, Nixon stepped up to provide the munitions and support that Meier requested in a desperate hour. Yet the inconceivable is reality in our new Dali world.


Despite my disagreements with Dispensational hermeneutics, I suppose I am a Christian Zionist. The Jews are God's people. My Lord and my God walked this earth as a Jew. The foundations of my faith rest upon Judaism. I love the Old Testament as much as I love the New Testament.

Putting aside religion, from a purely political point of view, Israel is an American ally. Yet this is an effort to bully the Jewish state into a ill-conceived compromise with those who would see Israel obliterated. If someone wants to kill you, it is not really feasible to attempt a compromise with them. What? Isn't half-dead good enough for you?

It is clear that the antisemitism of Black Liberation Theology is part of Obama's thinking. The President's proclaimed Christianity is questionable. To make this speech is a mistake. To make it while the Israeli Prime Minister is visiting is an insult. I don't know how effective Obama will be in implementing this disastrous plan, but I can say that, to the extent he is successful, he will suffer. And if America supports Obama in destroying Israel, America will suffer more than she has already.

Obama appears to believe that the killing of Osama bin Laden gives him solid ground from which to attack Israel while offering support to the Muslim Brotherhood now in control of Egypt. Possibly he is correct as far as it goes. Many Americans really are not paying much attention. Perhaps they will miss the fact that we are "forgiving" a billion or so in loans to Egypt and guaranteeing new loans of around a billion or so, helping that economy while our own people struggle to pay their bills. Perhaps they will not grasp the fact that Obama's proposal dramatically weakens Israel's position in negotiating with the Palestinians. Be that as it may, I suggest that there is One who is paying attention.

Obama's speechwriters can put all the icing on it they want with statements about assuring Israel's existence. This speech is still a fresh, steaming cow pie thrown in Netanyahu's face. This is hot, bloody meat thrown to the ravening dogs of Hezbollah, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Iran.

A return to the borders as they existed before the Six Day War would mean the loss of East Jerusalem.

Psalm 122 (ESV)
I was glad when they said to me,
Let us go to the house of the LORD!
Our feet have been standing
within your gates, O Jerusalem!
Jerusalem-built as a city
that is bound firmly together,
to which the tribes go up,
the tribes of the LORD,
as was decreed for Israel,
to give thanks to the name of the LORD.
There thrones for judgment were set,
the thrones of the house of David.
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!
May they be secure who love you!
Peace be within your walls
and security within your towers!
For my brothers and companions' sake
I will say, Peace be within you!
For the sake of the house of the LORD our God,
I will seek your good.

I think I will stand with Israel. Alas, Babylon.

The Taxes of Perception

Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires. And do not offer any parts of it to sin as weapons for unrighteousness. But as those who are alive from the dead, offer yourselves to God, and all the parts of yourselves as weapons for righteousness. – Romans 6:12-13

In the sixteenth verse, Paul goes on: Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are whom ye obey? We are mastered by and thus empower whatever we obey. So I have a question. What if someone wants our attention only? Are we empowering that entity by paying attention?

Our thoughts and certainly our minds are as much a part of our mortal body as hands or feet. To think on a thing is to, in a sense, yield our minds to it. There must, however, be a distinction between being aware of evil or threats or danger and the giving over of our minds as a “weapon of unrighteousness”. To simply consider a situation or an event, to observe and analyze even the most heinous thing is not the same as allowing our minds to be brought under the dominion of sin.

At the beginning of Miracles, C.S. Lewis says: What we learn from an experience depends on the kind of philosophy we bring to experience. If we bring God’s perspective to our experiences in the world, we will derive from them God’s wisdom. If we approach our experiences from the world’s horizontal perspective, we will likely be conscripted into the army of unrighteousness. Our attention will be fastened on and fascinated by the world’s machinations as they appear from the flatland level.

I notice that I have been paying much attention to the wrong things recently. I’ve yielded my thoughts, my attention, and much of my space, if you will, to entities that crave that attention and are probably empowered by it. Governments, politicians, cable television hosts, news readers, and other flatland entities need to be put on a starvation diet – of attention before they are starved of monies. Governments can print monopoly money, but they cannot manufacture the power over me that they derive from my giving them undo attention.

There are consequences to the actions even of fools. Those consequences on the plane of material existence may have an adverse effect upon me. Nevertheless, I will not yield my thoughts to be used as a weapon against the good. By playing a fool’s game I become, if not a fool, indistinguishable from a fool. I am not saying that we should ignore completely the actions of the current cabal of idiots that would stand reality on its head to feed their cravings. I greatly appreciate the protestors who did their best to deliver an emergency shipment of reason to alleviate the plague of stupidity rising with the miasma of the Beltway swamp. But, now, the blathering simply needs to be turned off. The beasts have shown that even their beastliness exists only in a single dimension. I will step over them as I would step over a pile of dog poop and move on. I am aware of it. I will avoid it. I will not give it undue attention.

So it should be with much that would ensnare us.

You will keep in perfect peace the mind that is fixed on You (Isaiah 26:3).

Deer Season and Disarmament

The "feminization" of America and especially of American foreign policy continues, and it will lead, without question, to conflict and unpleasant consequences.

Firearms deer season is underway in my area. The rut began probably around two weeks ago, that is when the bucks started moving and stripping the bark off some of my trees. Why they can’t limit themselves to the hundreds of saplings in the woods, I do not understand, but that’s another topic. A rutting buck is a masculine creature, no doubt about it. The bucks are looking for does and willing to fight for them. What’s interesting is that these animals very rarely kill one another. Occasionally, two well-matched males will literally lock horns and be unable to break apart, but that is a most unusual occurrence. Even serious injuries are relatively uncommon despite the many encounters that take place among the estimated 1.4 million deer in Missouri’s herd.

Over thousands and thousands of years, evolution has enabled bucks to come to the conclusion that it is better to avoid a fight with an obviously more powerful opponent. Where the contenders are more evenly matched, there is a well-developed instinct to break off the encounter before any serious damage is done and look for some lone does or perhaps for some sweet chicks pursued by a weaker adversary.

There are two types of fights that take place in nature: fights for dominance among males, and fights for survival against predators. In the latter case, there is no option. Every struggle is a matter of life and death. The intended victim – male, female, young, or old – flees if possible, but if cornered it must fight or die. In the former situation, males may fight among themselves for dominance, but every fight is optional. Males are inclined to size up the situation, run bluffs, challenge, back off quickly, and work things out, where possible, without getting beaten up or drawing blood.

To some extent, this behavior is paralleled in humans. Imagine an old schoolyard in the 1920’s or even the 1950’s and ‘60’s. Boys seem more aggressive. They challenge one another. There may be an occasional shoving match. Lines may be drawn in the dirt. Dares are made. There’s lots of action and apparent conflicts. There may even be fist fights – usually more like awkward wrestling matches. A bloody nose, a split lip, or a black eye is no big deal in the overall scheme of things. The dust settles. The fighters may be pals both before and after a fight.

Those were what you might call masculine fights. Contrast that with modern schoolyard conflicts where teenagers kill one another, as happened recently in Chicago. Those killings have all the marks of the other kind of natural fight – the struggle for survival that also involves females – often females fighting for their helpless offspring. For want of a better term, we'll call them feminine fights.

It is understandable from an evolutionary perspective that women would be inclined to approach conflict differently than men. Obviously, we are talking in generalities. Many of the country girls I knew growing up were, using my terms, more masculine in their thinking. I had a cousin a few years older than me who learned to fight from her older brothers, and she, in turn, used to fight with me just for fun. Humans are not bound and controlled solely by instinct. Learning and individual differences are much more powerful in humans.

For generations now, in large segments of society, the men have been removed from their traditional place in the family. Boys are raised in the absence of fathers. Government education and popular culture do their best to portray male aggressiveness in a negative light. The natural aggressiveness that comes with testosterone never gets properly identified with a mature male role model. Instead of conflicts being somewhat noble, instead of fights as displays of competence, courage, and the willingness to endure, every fight is seen by these mamas' boys from the perspective of the feminine. Every fight is life or death. Is it any wonder that there is such a rash of killing in the inner cities?

Our problem is that society is becoming increasingly feminized. We are equating the feminine with peace, progress, harmony, civilization and sophistication. The masculine is seen as threatening, uncouth, savage, and primal. We think that the idea of “peace through strength” is outdated. In fact, peace through strength is more than a good idea; it is the law. Weakness invites aggression, and there is no way around it. To voluntarily weaken ourselves by disarming – either as individuals or nations – means that we become more of a target for those who would take advantage of us, rob us or attempt to destroy us.

If you have any doubt that Barack Obama is the perfect example of a feminized male – feminized in his thought processes not hormonally or sexually, of course – consider how he is dealing with his political opponents. The struggle to push government health care on an unwilling population may be politically disastrous, but Obama sees it as a fight to the death. He refuses to engage in legitimate political dialog. He dismisses the idea of compromise. As he said early on, “We won.” At the moment he is dismissing critics of his delay in making a decision on Afghanistan as not being engaged or not understanding. He falls back on the phrase “it is important to get it right,” meaning, it is important that he is perceived as being right.

While seeing his American political foes as predators, he sees foreign policy as if it were a schoolyard fight -- exactly the opposite of most prior administrations. The truth is that both predators and bullies are always on the lookout for weakness. They will inevitably go after those who seem to be vulnerable, easy targets. They retreat only when faced with a determined defense.

Obama’s willingness to disarm the United States unilaterally, the dismantling of missile defense systems, the disregard for military expertise all are symptoms of his feminine, life-or-death thinking. The leftist academics now in control believe that if America is weaker, then we will invite less conflict. They hope a less threatening stance will lead to peace. Unfortunately for us, Obama and his feminized advisers are wrong. Whether our opponents are predatory or simply opportunistic, a weaker America emboldens them to attack us and our interests. Attempts at appeasement are blood in the water for our enemies.

Here’s a simple diplomatic principle: never take the advice or give in to the demands of those who would benefit from your failure.

And the raccoons looked up

The sun and the earth seem to have no regard for the end of the world. This morning is clear and the eastern sky turns from midnight blue to red and gold. I have seen this before, and it has always foretold the advance of light, the day. To see it as other than a semaphore from God would be to miss the point. To regard it as a message to the world would be to miss the point as well. Moses wore a veil among his people, but he removed it when he went in before his God. What can be shaken will be shaken, and removed – not, say I, from the world, for the world is not my business: I am in it, not of it. What can be shaken will be shaken, and what cannot be shaken, that alone shall remain in me and of me.

I have seen clouds looking like mountains, and, in the distance, I have seen the mountains and wondered if they were clouds. Not long ago a great storm passed to the south of me as the sun sank in the west and the last rays fell long upon the vast thunderhead. It towered above any earthly mountain, with its top sheered into an anvil, and thunder did sound like the boom of Thor’s hammer falling upon it, as lightning, like the sparks from the smith’s blow, flashed within.

The storm beat upon those beneath it. It was the shaker, and yet the shaken, for it passed on and was no more, a bubble, nothing more, a tool in the hand of God. That which could not be shaken remained.

The mountains remained, silent, dark, worn, and ancient.

Sunrise.

The Politics of Humility

For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted. – Luke 14:11

It has been said that, all other things being equal, a bald man cannot be elected President of the United States. While that may be the case, I would say it is most necessary for a presidential candidate to embrace at least the appearance of humility if he plans on receiving a majority of the votes.

I owe John McCain an apology. I did not vote for him in my state’s primary. I’m not apologizing for that but for underestimating what an astute politician Senator McCain is. I fear that he is still a moderate, still reluctant to shutdown the borders, too willing to compromise with Democrats. Of course I would have voted for him in November regardless. Over the course of many presidential elections I have voted for the lesser of two evils more often than not. Politics is not religion. Like horseshoes and hand grenades, close counts in politics. Anyway, John McCain is an admirable man who served his country nobly and courageously in unimaginable circumstances. He also has a measure of political shrewdness on the level of Richard Nixon. All his faults aside, Nixon was a genius when it came to understanding the electorate and gaming the process. Bill Clinton was only elected President in 1992 because of Ross Perot and the not-so-subtle efforts of the media back before the internet with its forums, blogs and new sources became a factor. Nixon was already detested by the Democrats and the media when he won unassisted in 1968. I’d take Nixon over any 20th Century leader, except Churchill, in a back alley street fight.

Of course the Palin pick was a master stroke, but McCain was on the right track before that. At the Saddleback forum he looked and sounded presidential. Obama sounded like he was running for president of the student council. At Saddleback and more explicitly in his acceptance speech McCain found the perfect note. He talked about how he had been a cocksure, know-it-all stud Navy pilot. Then, so truthfully it was painful to hear, he told how he had been broken and humbled, how he had become a changed man through his trials. Humility will win the South and the swing states.

The core American voter may not have a lot of Scotch-Irish blood in his veins these days, but he still has the culture and the values. We expect a man to brag on his family or his bird dog, and we don’t mind if he takes a little justifiable pride in his brains, his brawn or his skill. But if he ever gets to thinking that he’s better than the rest of us, we will mock him and poke him every chance we get. We will delight in his failures, not so much to gloat over him, though we might do a little of that, but to see him come to his senses and be a better man. We’ll rejoice in another man’s good fortune or success in business so long, as we say, it doesn’t go to his head. We may make fun of one another as the opportunity for a good laugh arises, but we usually trade in self-deprecating humor. We are not bigots or racists. We do not care about a man’s skin color, his accent or where his people came from so long as he treats us the same way.

John McCain has managed to turn this election into a choice between a humble man who can laugh at himself and a cool, distant mocking elitist. Whether that is in fact the truth of the matter makes little difference. If things remain as they are Obama will lose, not just the South, but all the swing states and some states like Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and Wisconsin that have gone to the Democrats in the last four cycles. The final outcome is still in question. There are the upcoming debates, and McCain may falter, but at this point John McCain and his team are positioned to win. Obama has allowed himself to be defined, not just by the Republicans, but by his own supporters, as an arrogant aristocrat who knows what’s best for everybody else.

My people do not like aristocrats. We appreciate the nobility of an individual and respect those who are leaders by nature and inclination but we have little use for those who would "lord it over" others.

There are some who do, such as those who think of themselves as part of the aristocracy or the meritocracy – the mainstream media, Hollywood, many of the newly rich technology tycoons, and those from the ivory towers of academia. An aristocracy, though, cannot exist without an underclass. In this case the much more numerous part of the snob voting block consists of those who have been convinced that they are victims of society in need of a savior, such as the urban, African-American community, some of the less thoughtful, more extreme members of the gay community, and various other assorted collectivists. One thing that has always baffled me about the Democrat coalition is the rabid defense of “abortion rights”. Why is this so central to the Democrat platform? If we think about the elitism at the heart of the collectivist left, we see that abortion is an easy way to eliminate “unnecessary” humans: white trash “clingers”, blacks, Trig Palin. There are only so many resources and they should not be wasted on the marginal. It’s the same reason elitists are so in love with universal health care. There is no reason to waste time and money on people who are going to die anyway, or, more importantly, those who should never have been born in the first place, and it should be up to those in the bureaucratic meritocracy to make that decision – not, Gaia forbid, families.

So, too, with the radical environmentalists: humans are bad and need to be controlled least they overrun the pristine world nature created. Only the elite know what is best. The hicks out there can’t be allowed to just do whatever they want with their own property. If it were up to them, the environmental elites would herd us all into high-rises in urban centers. There would be no sprawling suburbs or small towns. Some of us, by permit only, would be allowed to venture out on weekends via light rail. They would eliminate the private automobile, that diabolical device that allows people the freedom to live where they want.

It really is a culture war. We are the rural egalitarians who believe we can take care of ourselves and one another without a bunch of arrogant knowers-of-all-things standing over us dictating. They are the urban elites who -- along with their serfdom of victims -- fear those ignorant hicks who don’t have passports, who drink Folgers coffee, and eat iceberg lettuce and baloney on Wonder Bread while watching NASCAR. The aristocrats’ day may come, but it is not yet. Humility, even if you have to fake it, is still the way to be exalted in America.

Abort the IRS

I heard something the other night that just astonished me. Some Christian leaders were talking about abortion, the Supreme Court, Roe v. Wade, etc. The topic of the “right to privacy” came up and these Christians unanimously upheld the idea that not only is there not a right to privacy in the Constitution, but a right to privacy is not even a desirable thing and would have been opposed by the Founding Fathers.

I’m afraid I called bravo sierra on that one. While I agree that the right to privacy is not explicitly enumerated as is freedom of speech, assembly, religion, and the right to possess military weapons, I believe it is a fundamental aspect of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. Further I think the Founders’ assertion of freedom of religion is tantamount to an endorsement of the right to privacy.

Abortion should be opposed on moral and scientific grounds. The beginning of life deserves a scientific definition. It is a biological fact, or should be. Politics should not enter into it. A new, separate individual life begins at conception. Many things may happen along the way to prevent that life from developing fully and completely, but abortion should not be one of those things. The moral argument is simply that once a life has begun, it should be protected. If a woman does not wish to have a baby, there is at least one fool-proof way to avoid it. That’s where “choice” should end. As it is, terminating a human life is a money-maker for abortion clinics. For the careless and imprudent, abortion is last-resort birth control. In any case, it is not up to the federal government to handcuff the states in this matter. If New York and California want to make abortions “safe and legal”, it is nobody’s business in Texas and Missouri. If South Dakota and South Carolina want to protect the lives of children in the womb, it is nobody’s business in Vermont or New Hampshire. Roe v. Wade was bad law not because the Court’s claim of a right to privacy is bogus but because they were out of their jurisdiction ruling on a state issue.

We’ve had far too many of our rights eroded by do-gooders ignoring that most basic of laws – the law of unintended consequences. Because Bonnie and Clyde used a BAR or the mob had a proclivity for Thompson submachine guns, does not mean that law-abiding citizens should not be able to easily acquire military weapons. Personally, I’m not interested in machineguns, but it ticks me off to no end that I am not be able to have a cheap short-barreled shotgun for fishing trips or killing pests around the farm without jumping through a bunch of ATF hoops.

Arguing against privacy is a wrong road, especially for the religious. There are way too many government agencies nosing in my business as it is. I don’t want the government to have access to my medical records. I hate the fact that I have to report all my financial information to the IRS. I actually happen to agree with the leftists who oppose further inroads into privacy by bureaucrats, but I won’t take them seriously until they join me in wanting the IRS abolished. If we were to go to a simpler, less-intrusive system like the Fair Tax, it would be a huge boon to privacy. The IRS started it, the War on Drugs exacerbated it, and now the War on Terror threatens to make us all criminals for paying with cash. Believe me, the government would be a lot less interested in “money laundering” if they were getting their revenue off sales rather than income.