Happy New Year! 2014 Begins

Posted January 1, 2014, 1:04 a.m.

I wanted to take a moment and wish all of my Off on a Tangent readers a very happy new year. I hope that 2014 will be filled with blessings for each and every one of you.

I suppose it’s right and proper for me to spent a moment looking back at 2013. It was a good year, on the whole, for the Bradford household, although we have spent far too much time in medical facilities. When the year began, Melissa and I both knew that we were going to be having outpatient nasal surgery to correct our respective deviated septa. We didn’t know at the time that Melissa would need two more surgeries later in the year for other issues. Add in a couple of emergency room visits and all the regular checkups and so-on and, well, I’ll be happy if I can avoid seeing the inside of a hospital until June or so.

We also adopted a puppy named Nena. Oh, and Melissa quit her day-job to run her business full-time. All of that madness, combined with a whole lot of other unrelated madness, conspired to make Off on a Tangent far less active than I had planned, so I especially appreciate those of you who have borne with me and keep reading anyway. I am cautiously optimistic that 2014 will be a much more active year on the site, and I’m hoping to maintain a more consistent rate of posts. No promises just yet!

I’m also planning to re-start development on the next big site update: version 24. It was about half-finished when life forced me to abandon development. In addition to a refreshed look, you can look forward to a more ‘responsive’ design that will give you a more consistent and complete experience across the full range of phones, tablets, laptops, and desktops. Stay tuned; more information to follow.

All in all, I’m looking forward to a more stable and active year in 2014 . . . but I really don’t know what God has in store for me, for you, for our nation, or for our world. As John Lennon once said, “Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans.” Regardless, I am pretty sure it will be fun to watch, observe, and write about, and I hope you’ll keep coming back to join me on the journey. God bless.

Scott Bradford has been putting his opinions on his website since 1995—before most people knew what a website was. He has been a professional web developer in the public- and private-sector for over twenty years. He is an independent constitutional conservative who believes in human rights and limited government, and a Catholic Christian whose beliefs are summarized in the Nicene Creed. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Public Administration from George Mason University. He loves Pink Floyd and can play the bass guitar . . . sort-of. He’s a husband, pet lover, amateur radio operator, and classic AMC/Jeep enthusiast.

Quotes

While we are contending for our own liberty, we should be very cautious not to violate the rights of conscience in others, ever considering that God alone is the judge of the hearts of men, and to him only in this case they are answerable.

Anger is a momentary madness so control your passion or it will control you.

Now, if no other work were commanded but chastity alone, we would all have enough to do with this one; so perilous and raging a vice is unchastity.

Never violate the sacredness of your individual self-respect. Be true to your own mind and conscience, your heart and your soul. So only can you be true to God.

Wine is like life to men, if you drink it in moderation. What is life to a man who is without wine? It has been created to make men glad.

I do not promise you happiness in this world, but in the next.

By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s.

A beast gnawing at its prey can be happy . . . , but only human beings can feel affection for each other, and this is the highest achievement they can aspire to.

An idealist believes that the short run doesn’t count. A cynic believes the long run doesn’t matter. A realist believes that what is done or left undone in the short run determines the long run.

Encased in their provincialism and supported by Western intellectuals, Third World leaders blamed the West for the failures of their own cultures. Instead of asking themselves ‘What did we do wrong? How can we put it right?’ they asked ‘Who did that to us?’

He who gives himself to vanity, and does not give himself to meditation, forgetting the real aim of life and grasping at pleasure, will in time envy him who has exerted himself in meditation.

The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust.

The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases.

For when I look at these various anti-Christian truths, I simply discover that none of them are true. I discover that the true tide and force of all the facts flows the other way.

If Men are so wicked as we now see them with Religion what would they be if without it?

Whenever anything disagreeable or displeasing happens to you, remember Christ crucified and be silent.

The [National Rifle] Association fills an important role in our national defense effort, and fosters in an active and meaningful fashion the spirit of the Minutemen.

Falsehood can hold out against much in this world, but not against art.

It cannot be too often repeated that in this country, in the long run, we all of us tend to go up or go down together.

The transient passions and the interests of an hour, or the chance of circumstances, may have created the external forms of independence; but the despotic tendency which has been repelled will, sooner or later, inevitably reappear on the surface.