The term Resurrection Day, which Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christians (Those who do not prohibit the celebration of the Resurrection of Christ altogether) has been pushed with a proud determination for some time now. Having a horror of any name or practice that has its roots in pre-Christian traditions*, they do their utmost to excise any an all remnants from not only their world, but those of others.
*http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2012/03/1300-year-old-anglo-saxon-girls-grave.html
Easter is a sort of accidental name for the celebration of Christ's resurrection. In Romance languages, the respective word for Passover is used. Most linguists assert that the name came from the Germanic goddess Eostre, but some claim that it derives from the word "East", signifying a focus in the direction of Jerusalem.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_Easter
Regardless of the actual choice of name for this day, the dating** and its actual day (Sunday), like all Christian holidays, are the work of the Catholic Church. Most Eastern Christians utilize the older Julian calendars. Evangelicals and Fundamentalists will I guess grudgingly accept the Catholic dating of Easter, the Church's decision on what books are in the New Testament, the doctrines of the Trinity (Excepting "Oneness" Churches) and Jesus' divinity and humanity, but a name for a holiday that has come down through the ages just will not do.
**The dating is certainly a bit confusing, but the Church eventually came to the conclusion that the resurrection should be marked on a Sunday.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter
While Catholics, Orthodox, and Mainline Protestants largely or entirely gave up on refusing to recognize each other as Christians and deriding their differing beliefs and practices, Evangelicals and Fundamentalists (EF's) are, in the words of Al Pacino's character in Scent of a Woman" ".....just gettin' warmed up!'" Having learned little about the latter two from their Pastors, E/F's take the fight to Catholics on a regular basis. Armed with a quite distorted picture of what the Catholic Church actually teaches and seemingly always on the alert for a chance to break in with a diatribe, EF's almost never pass up an opportunity to take a poke at their Catholic friends, family members, and coworkers. Interestingly, former Catholics tend to comprise a disproportional amount of EF's who walk around with apparently purposely distorted understandings of Catholic teachings (Former Catholics tend to stick with the rule of "never confuse me with the facts").
EF's have for about twenty years been promoting the change to switch the name Resurrection Day for Easter. It is almost embarrassing to see and hear them going out of their way to wish non-EF's a Happy Resurrection Day when Happy Easter clearly says the same thing, utilizes the universally recognized English word for the day, hurts no one, and allows no room for an absolutely unnecessary debate when we are in the middle of a holiday that should bring us together. Being fully aware that non-E/F Christians utilize the term Easter, their use of Resurrection Day smacks of an aggressive and bullying tactic. What is worse, EF's employ the new term in a manner that is clearly designed to suggest that it is they who are using the proper term and that all others are in the wrong.
Evangelicals and Fundamentalist Christians, despite the quite recent (In the course of Christian history) and significant changes to Christian doctrine and thought that they have adopted, have nevertheless made tremendous efforts to present themselves not as a new Christian group, but as the Christian group. All others are dismissed as pseudo-Christian or less than that. For some Fundamentalist bodies, the work of railing against and printing literature assailing the Catholic Church comes perilously lose to matching the work of preaching itself.
As with Muslims, who adhere to a religion that is presented not as a new revelation given to Mohammed but as the religion from the beginning of time, Evangelical and Fundamentalists continually struggle with the nagging reality that early Christianity had, in beliefs and practice, immeasurably more in common with Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and much of Mainline Christianity than with E/F Christianity.
As Muslims labor to paint Noah, Abraham, Solomon, and Jesus as Muslims in heart, practice, and mind, so too do E/F Christians work to portray Jesus, the Apostles, and early Christians as classical-era Christians that taught and worshiped as, say, American Baptists. We are told or expected to believe that these early Christians had professions of faith that consisted of "accepting Jesus Christ and my personal Lord and Savior", altar calls, "witnessing" in which a laundry list of one's pre-Christian life is almost bragged about in public, "dedicating" as opposed to baptizing infants and young children, believing in a forgiveness of sins "past, present and future" which locks a believer into salvation from the moment he accepts Jesus, and even the roughly two-hundred year-old belief in the pre-millennial and pre-tribulational Rapture. E/F Christians would have us believe that the early Christians would be as horrified as they are at the thought of Sacraments in any form, a belief in the intercession of the Saints, an apostolic succession, the use of images for any purpose, and most of all the sacrificial nature of the Christian liturgy.
All these things were kind of OK for E/F Christians to claim when they and their communities could remain isolated from historical works that would refute their claims. Once this arrangement began to fall apart, however, E/F Christians were faced with a dilemma; what to do with our inability to demonstrate the existence of E/F Christianity in the early Church?
Aside from a few E/F writers that had no scruples about falsifying history outright (St. Patrick was a Baptist by Rev. John Summerfield Wimbish, and The Noble Army of Heretics by Bill Jackson, most E/F Christians have dropped the whole idea of wishing their beliefs and practices into the past and concentrated instead on usurping Christianity in the here and now.
The E/F assault on Christianity had been relentless. Although, as I have fairly noted previously, E/F Christians defend much of Christianity such as the the doctrines of the Trinity and Christ, the family, and speak out against the threats of Leftism and Islam, their strategic switch to co-opting all of Christianity has led to a war of words in which E/F Christians work tirelessly to force their chosen definitions onto all who profess Christianity.
Christians who take part in celebrations such as Halloween that contain even the slightest residual element of pre-Christian practices are condemned and routinely mocked by E/F Christians. Please can we admit for once that maybe just a few old pagans did some nice things?
E/F Christians expend substantial efforts to pretend that practices such as abstemption from meat during Lent are something other than they are. A Catholic sits quietly at this lunch at work, an E/F fixes his gaze on the papist's meal, and the game of deception begins. "What are you eating?" - "Tuna sandwich". "Why Tuna?" - "It's Lent." "You know, that won't save you". The E/F obviously knows fully well that the Catholic nor his Church never believed that a good act or omission earns salvation***, and that the 'binding as loosing" authority of the Church includes designating religious practices but he still steers the conversation (while the guy is just trying to eat) into a picture that both eater and accusers know don't exist. The Catholic never gets a chance to explain as the E/F is too busy describing a scenario that he knows is not true.
***Salvation by works and without faith has been condemned by the Church throughout her history, especially at the Council of Trent, which was the body that dealt with the age of the Reformation.
Allowing a little imagination in the mind of a child is essentially verboten to E/F Christians. Refusing to allow that Santa Claus has anything to do with the Christian Bishop Nicholas of Myra, they deny their children a chance to have that spark of wonderful anticipation and imagination. Gone too are completely innocent stories about dragons and other mythical creatures; these all being seen as opening doors to the occultic world.
As I have noted in previous posts, EF's place no value on cultural aspects of Western societies that predate Christianity. This is unfortunate as there is in Western Civilization a wealth of literature and history that would be edifying for anyone regardless of religious preference. Even Christian monks were astute enough, for example, to record most of the saga of Beowulf with little Christian-friendly editing. No sense of the history of one's nation or people is a threat to one's faith if that faith is sincere. Steeped in the Bible, EF's grow up, in one way, just as the Left wants them, fully ignorant of their cultural past. This is dangerous in many ways. Possessing no basic understanding of the culture that bred his society, the Evangelical is vulnerable when confronted with the propaganda of the Left whenever a crisis of faith or moment of doubt arises.
Christians, Jews and others who hold our cultural inheritance dear have far too many real threats to be engaged on word-play with each other. Evangelicals and Fundamentalists need to be made aware of this. A deliberately placed "Happy Resurrection Day" should be tactfully answered with "Happy Easter to you too." A gentle reminder that the English word for the day of the Lord's resurrection is Easter would not hurt either.
The Hot Gates - 480BC. An event that was to determine what path much of the Western World would follow occurred as the Persian army threatened to overwhelm Greece in 480BC. The West today again faces both external and internal threats to its identity and existence.
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Bioshock Infinite Video Game Rabidly Anti - US and Christian
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/03/29/bioshock-infinite-the-video-game-that-lets-you-shoot-robo-george-washington-should-you-be-worried/
I found the conclusions of the above article very disappointing, especially as the writer clearly had on hand quite a bit of details about this new video game. In fact, it was from the same article that I obtained all of the information that I have. The writer, Mytheos Holt (I have always assumed that this was a pen-name) usually handles the material well, but I think that he missed the mark on this occasion.
I will limit my thoughts to how I interpreted the quotes from the creators of the game and the details provided by Holt:
Quote from its creator, Ken Levine:
“The current political conversation in America is exhaustingly the same conversation that’s been going on for hundreds of years. We are very much like two countries. America has been this bifurcated thing for a long time.
“The American Exceptionalism, theocracy-based power structure has been around the edges of American culture for a long time. BioShock Infinite gives it its full day in [Kangaroo at best] court.
http://www.johnadamscenter.com/home/why-john-adams/
"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people."
"It should also be noted that, while the promotional materials for the game might make this misunderstanding more likely, all one has to do is play the game for about ten minutes before it becomes clear that the Founders are not so much a thinly veiled political allegory as an obvious work of fiction. This can be seen when the protagonist of the game first enters the city of Columbia after being nearly drowned in a botched baptism, and sees a group of fellow emigres praying to statues of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, and addressing those statues as Gods rather than men......"
I found the conclusions of the above article very disappointing, especially as the writer clearly had on hand quite a bit of details about this new video game. In fact, it was from the same article that I obtained all of the information that I have. The writer, Mytheos Holt (I have always assumed that this was a pen-name) usually handles the material well, but I think that he missed the mark on this occasion.
I will limit my thoughts to how I interpreted the quotes from the creators of the game and the details provided by Holt:
“The current political conversation in America is exhaustingly the same conversation that’s been going on for hundreds of years. We are very much like two countries. America has been this bifurcated thing for a long time.
“The American Exceptionalism, theocracy-based power structure has been around the edges of American culture for a long time. BioShock Infinite gives it its full day in [Kangaroo at best] court.
Aside from his curious manner of using the word "exhaustingly", Levine's purpose seems clear enough from the get-go; admit that we are effectively two country, then intentionally misrepresent the side opposing yours to make them look like the bad guys. American exceptionalism has been attacked mercilessly by the Left, a camp that would rather see us ruled by an elite that decides how even the most mundane and basic aspects of a person's life will be controlled. The charge of theocratic rule has been a common toll of modern Leftists. Atheists and Leftists, both of which see the State as their God, have not only attacked our Judeo-Christian cultural background, but have continually acted as if it never existed. Although our republic is clearly secular, our Founders were overwhelmingly imbued with a strong sense of thought that was derived from Judeo-Christian principles. They had no intention of creating a theocracy or having an institutionalized religion, but they were fully aware that, in the hearts of the people, their faith would be a guide in how they conducted their own lives and in their choices of leaders. It was also never in doubt that these leaders would begin with the same understanding whenever they undertook to make their decisions. John Adams himself, being no stranger to irreverent jest and a firm believer in secular government, noted that our Constitution would work only for a religious people:
"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people."
Mr. Levine clearly has no intention of painting a picture that has any degree of accuracy. He wants to pretend to be under the impression that our nation was built by a non-believing people and that those who advocated any inclusion of religious principles were on the radical periphery. Yes, some people pushed religion too far, but that is what I say, not what Mr. Levine says. The latter would make any person that was concerned about the lack of Judeo-Christian principles out to be the radical; a classic case of projection om his part.
The Left also paints Americans as ignorant racists and as needful of reminders that our Founders and Constitutional Framers were not deities:
"The framers were not gods and were not infallible"
Again, from the game:
Leftists and their supposedly more moderate Progressive friends detest those who own property, pay taxes, and thus feel that they should have a say in how things are done. Being that their idea of how things should be entails the subjection of the people to a rule of a small class of elites, they again project their desire for totalitarianism onto Americans.
"In fact, Columbia’s (The city of the bad guys in the game) economic system is portrayed as more feudal than capitalist. Propaganda videos inside a gun manufacturers’ factory liken company owners to lions, and workers to oxen, while completely discouraging the idea of upward mobility which forms the basis of capitalism."
Aside from a token shot at ruthless Communist insurgents in the game, it seems as if the main idea is to portray Americans as religious fanatics bent on establishing a racial supremacy. Those who admire the virtues, courage, and sacrifices of the Founders and Framers are mocked as deifying these rather than honoring their work by refraining from wrecking it.
From what I gathered from the information provided in the article at top, the game is quite anti-US and Christian. I thank the writer for his work, but disagree with his conclusions.
Friday, March 29, 2013
Aborting the Already Born
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/03/29/im-almost-in-disbelief-planned-parenthood-rep-says-mother-and-doctor-still-have-right-to-decide-babys-fate-if-born-alive-and-breathing-on-a-table/
- A tragic irony given that this occurred during Holy Week:
"Earlier this week a committee in the Florida House of Representatives heard positions on its “Infants Born Alive” bill, which addresses situations where a child is still born after a failed abortion. Planned Parenthood representatives were on hand, arguing the bill would ultimately make abortions harder to get in the state.
Alisa LaPolt Snow with Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates presented this perspective, saying in the hearing that even if a child were born alive, she believes it is still the mother’s right to decide its fate.
The Weekly Standard pointed out to a clip from the full committee hearing, which took place Wednesday, where Snow was questioned by representatives about the position:
“So, um, it is just really hard for me to even ask you this question because I’m almost in disbelief,” said Rep. Jim Boyd. “If a baby is born on a table as a result of a botched abortion, what would Planned Parenthood want to have happen to that child that is struggling for life?”
“We believe that any decision that’s made should be left up to the woman, her family, and the physician,” said Planned Parenthood lobbyist Snow.
Rep. Daniel Davis then asked Snow, “What happens in a situation where a baby is alive, breathing on a table, moving. What do your physicians do at that point?”
“I do not have that information,” Snow replied. “I am not a physician, I am not an abortion provider. So I do not have that information.”
Rep. Jose Oliva followed up, asking the Planned Parenthood official, “You stated that a baby born alive on a table as a result of a botched abortion that that decision should be left to the doctor and the family. Is that what you’re saying?”
Again, Snow replied, “That decision should be between the patient and the health care provider.”...............................
http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2012/02/ethicists-call-for-infanticide-call-it.html
"Ethicists" and Neo-Barbararism : After Birth Abortion
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/ethicists-argue-in-favor-of-after-birth-abortions-as-newborns-are-not-persons/
In the article, the two (Very young) "Ethicists" are pictured. Is it me, or do all people who advocate abortion, euthanasia, or infanticide always make sure that they have a huge, leering smile on their faces when photographed for their work? These are two very bad people.
I would strongly recommend reading the post in the above link as I intend to avoid the details contained in it. I prefer to concentrate on how this serves as a prime example of the continual and seemingly celebrated undermining of the culture of the West.
Infanticide, now darkly and grossly referred to euphemistically as "After Birth Abortion", is back in the news. For most, the inhuman and purely barbaric concept of killing newborns whose apparent health or probable abilities do not meet the expectations of either the parents or, even more frighteningly, the state, is just a sick idea promulgated by the Left. We tend to briefly express our disgust of people such as Peter Singer* and put such awful ideas conveniently out of reach of our thoughts, much as people such as he recommend we do with those who, at birth, have no refuge but in our sense of humanity.
Statists such as Nazis, Marxists, or Fascists, who put tremendous emphasis on the elimination of the individual and a full reliance on the wisdom of the state, have historically been the force behind such ideas. One of these types, who many are not aware advocated such ideas, was the early champion of "women's rights" Margaret Sanger.**
People who advance such practices believe that life must be of sufficient value to society, or at least be as little of a burden as possible, to be allowed to live or supported by the government. They hold that mentally retarded or severely disabled babies should be culled, thereby reducing the surplus population, saving money, and ensuring that the imperfect do not pass on their genes to succeeding generations.
I will avoid preaching a sermon except to say that this is more than an abandonment of our obligations as humans, but an attempt to overturn everything that we have done to improve our culture by insisting on protecting our weakest and most vulnerable.
Western Culture, though ironically under constant attack by the Left for its core values of family, parental authority, liberty of the individual, private property, national sovereignty, personal valor, religion, and more, is, on this subject, under attack for something that was not a part of its core values but was a tremendous improvement of it - the protection of the newly-born. Here the Left again parts ways with Western Culture but, in doing so, seeks to bring us back to our days of barbarism.
Those who are proud of or admire Western Culture look back at the accomplishments of our ancestors, the Romans, Greeks, and Northern Europeans, along with the other two pillars of Jewish and Christian thought, and know that we were indeed fortunate to have all of these. What we naturally tend to avoid contemplating is the parts of our history of which we are not proud, in this case a common practice of the former two of the pillars. (The ancient Germans, although partially descended from Indo-Europeans, do not appear to have practiced infanticide. I hold that they likely adopted the mores of those among whom they settled and with whom they merged upon reaching their new homeland).
Infanticide, like many other crimes against humanity, was and in some cases still is practiced by societies all over the world. In the case of Western Culture, it seems to have been fairly widespread (Some hold it was not common) among Indo-Eropean cultures. The Greeks, Romans, early Hindus, Persians, and other groups ethnically/culturally descended from the Indo-Europeans, who moved out from the Steppes north of the Black sea in the late Chalcolithic, Bronze, and Iron ages, accepted the practice of exposing unwanted or disabled babies. This barbaric practice survived the advent of civilized cultures in the West and was not abandoned until Christianity was firmly established.
One version, the translation of which I prefer to use will be a slight variation of the one I cite in support, is from the Twelve Tables, an early codification of Roman Law that was made by the Decemvirs (In itself a story of how a people, Roman citizens, rebelled against tyrannical oppressors):
"Quickly kill, any dreadfully deformed child"
The other translation can be read here:
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/12tables.asp
Infanticide was practiced in Greece not only by the Spartans (Many are aware that the decision in Sparta was not in the hands of the parents, but the state), but also in Athens and other Greek cities:
(It was banned in Thebes)
http://www.stoa.org/projects/demos/article_women_and_family?page=8&greekEncoding=
-and a source for India:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Agora/4229/in3.htm#infant
Lastly, one brief source attributing the practice to Indo-Europeans in general:
http://books.google.com/books?id=gZ8LyGDtSZIC&pg=PA168&lpg=PA168&dq=infanticide++indo-european&source=bl&ots=H2ajSA0uvp&sig=0ZOgsQpVOexItY7VujZYWV1s_a8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=q1hNT9eeCcro0QH2_eS8Ag&sqi=2&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=infanticide%20%20indo-european&f=false
Western Societies were born of a period that possessed many fine attributes, but that early age was also a brutal culture. The exposing of unwanted newborns was among the most inhumane of their worst practices. Through the centuries, and thanks in great part to Jewish and Christian thought, the West was slowly able to purge this practice from its culture. Today, we complain about many things on which our taxes are spent, but providing for the disabled is not one of them. We hold fast to the best of our inheritance but are happy to have been long rid of our days of barbarism with its infanticide, making of eunuchs, gladiatorial murders, and slavery in general.
The Left, in its quest for "progress", seeks to reduce those in the West to the status of serfs who are totally dependent on the good nature of the state. They would do away with private property, the family (Forget any idea of paternal authority), the concepts of bravery, self-defense, our religions, sacrifice, work ethic, patriotism, and more to create a body of fully-managed insect-like primates.
The striking part is that, out of all the parts of Western Civilization that the Left would decide to implement or reintroduce as opposed to tear down, they choose infanticide. While they denigrate all that makes us what we are, they want to bring back something from our past, a horrid practice of which we can be proud to have excised.
I will note that this is admittedly a logical extension of the idea of abortion. Like it or not, these Leftists are taking abortion to its logical conclusion. When abortion became legal and accepted, many bravely stood up in the face of ridicule by their peers and asserted that infanticide and euthanasia were the next steps. Few believed it. They, like many in the West today, refused to see abortion as the foot in the door that it was and convinced themselves that the murder of our infants would be confined to the unseen recesses of the womb .
We could therefore pretend that it never happened.
Now, we have unbelievable amounts women on anti-depressants and in and out of therapy.
Right now, an emphasis must be placed on the terms that are employed. Leftists are regressives, not progressives. Everything about the Left is either a regression to either a utopian communal*** past that never existed or to a dark, inhuman practice from a barbaric age.
We need to defend the good of our history while also defending modern improvements of our culture. Stand against both the denigration of the best of our culture and the call for renewing practices of which we rightfully disposed long ago.
*http://www.lifenews.com/2006/09/12/bio-1766/
**http://www.uffl.org/vol16/gardiner06.pdf
**http://www.citizenreviewonline.org/special_issues/population/the_negro_project.htm
***No one could have gotten away with letting others do the work or standing back while everyone else defended the group in prehistoric communal societies. Anyone who entertained such a con job would have been thrown out of the clan.
- A tragic irony given that this occurred during Holy Week:
"Earlier this week a committee in the Florida House of Representatives heard positions on its “Infants Born Alive” bill, which addresses situations where a child is still born after a failed abortion. Planned Parenthood representatives were on hand, arguing the bill would ultimately make abortions harder to get in the state.
Alisa LaPolt Snow with Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates presented this perspective, saying in the hearing that even if a child were born alive, she believes it is still the mother’s right to decide its fate.
The Weekly Standard pointed out to a clip from the full committee hearing, which took place Wednesday, where Snow was questioned by representatives about the position:
“So, um, it is just really hard for me to even ask you this question because I’m almost in disbelief,” said Rep. Jim Boyd. “If a baby is born on a table as a result of a botched abortion, what would Planned Parenthood want to have happen to that child that is struggling for life?”
“We believe that any decision that’s made should be left up to the woman, her family, and the physician,” said Planned Parenthood lobbyist Snow.
Rep. Daniel Davis then asked Snow, “What happens in a situation where a baby is alive, breathing on a table, moving. What do your physicians do at that point?”
“I do not have that information,” Snow replied. “I am not a physician, I am not an abortion provider. So I do not have that information.”
Rep. Jose Oliva followed up, asking the Planned Parenthood official, “You stated that a baby born alive on a table as a result of a botched abortion that that decision should be left to the doctor and the family. Is that what you’re saying?”
Again, Snow replied, “That decision should be between the patient and the health care provider.”...............................
This is of course nothing new. The assault on human life is ongoing and is being carried out by some of the most vicious individuals around.
Last year, I wrote a post on the very same subject. The Left wants all the virtuous aspects of the ancient cultures that gave birth to our society excised, but seeks to bring back the horrific parts of these ancient cultures that we got rid of long ago. They want us to be reduced to a neo-barbaric state, just one without any morality whatsoever:
"Ethicists" and Neo-Barbararism : After Birth Abortion
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/ethicists-argue-in-favor-of-after-birth-abortions-as-newborns-are-not-persons/
In the article, the two (Very young) "Ethicists" are pictured. Is it me, or do all people who advocate abortion, euthanasia, or infanticide always make sure that they have a huge, leering smile on their faces when photographed for their work? These are two very bad people.
I would strongly recommend reading the post in the above link as I intend to avoid the details contained in it. I prefer to concentrate on how this serves as a prime example of the continual and seemingly celebrated undermining of the culture of the West.
Infanticide, now darkly and grossly referred to euphemistically as "After Birth Abortion", is back in the news. For most, the inhuman and purely barbaric concept of killing newborns whose apparent health or probable abilities do not meet the expectations of either the parents or, even more frighteningly, the state, is just a sick idea promulgated by the Left. We tend to briefly express our disgust of people such as Peter Singer* and put such awful ideas conveniently out of reach of our thoughts, much as people such as he recommend we do with those who, at birth, have no refuge but in our sense of humanity.
Statists such as Nazis, Marxists, or Fascists, who put tremendous emphasis on the elimination of the individual and a full reliance on the wisdom of the state, have historically been the force behind such ideas. One of these types, who many are not aware advocated such ideas, was the early champion of "women's rights" Margaret Sanger.**
People who advance such practices believe that life must be of sufficient value to society, or at least be as little of a burden as possible, to be allowed to live or supported by the government. They hold that mentally retarded or severely disabled babies should be culled, thereby reducing the surplus population, saving money, and ensuring that the imperfect do not pass on their genes to succeeding generations.
I will avoid preaching a sermon except to say that this is more than an abandonment of our obligations as humans, but an attempt to overturn everything that we have done to improve our culture by insisting on protecting our weakest and most vulnerable.
Western Culture, though ironically under constant attack by the Left for its core values of family, parental authority, liberty of the individual, private property, national sovereignty, personal valor, religion, and more, is, on this subject, under attack for something that was not a part of its core values but was a tremendous improvement of it - the protection of the newly-born. Here the Left again parts ways with Western Culture but, in doing so, seeks to bring us back to our days of barbarism.
Those who are proud of or admire Western Culture look back at the accomplishments of our ancestors, the Romans, Greeks, and Northern Europeans, along with the other two pillars of Jewish and Christian thought, and know that we were indeed fortunate to have all of these. What we naturally tend to avoid contemplating is the parts of our history of which we are not proud, in this case a common practice of the former two of the pillars. (The ancient Germans, although partially descended from Indo-Europeans, do not appear to have practiced infanticide. I hold that they likely adopted the mores of those among whom they settled and with whom they merged upon reaching their new homeland).
Infanticide, like many other crimes against humanity, was and in some cases still is practiced by societies all over the world. In the case of Western Culture, it seems to have been fairly widespread (Some hold it was not common) among Indo-Eropean cultures. The Greeks, Romans, early Hindus, Persians, and other groups ethnically/culturally descended from the Indo-Europeans, who moved out from the Steppes north of the Black sea in the late Chalcolithic, Bronze, and Iron ages, accepted the practice of exposing unwanted or disabled babies. This barbaric practice survived the advent of civilized cultures in the West and was not abandoned until Christianity was firmly established.
One version, the translation of which I prefer to use will be a slight variation of the one I cite in support, is from the Twelve Tables, an early codification of Roman Law that was made by the Decemvirs (In itself a story of how a people, Roman citizens, rebelled against tyrannical oppressors):
"Quickly kill, any dreadfully deformed child"
The other translation can be read here:
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/12tables.asp
Infanticide was practiced in Greece not only by the Spartans (Many are aware that the decision in Sparta was not in the hands of the parents, but the state), but also in Athens and other Greek cities:
(It was banned in Thebes)
http://www.stoa.org/projects/demos/article_women_and_family?page=8&greekEncoding=
-and a source for India:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Agora/4229/in3.htm#infant
Lastly, one brief source attributing the practice to Indo-Europeans in general:
http://books.google.com/books?id=gZ8LyGDtSZIC&pg=PA168&lpg=PA168&dq=infanticide++indo-european&source=bl&ots=H2ajSA0uvp&sig=0ZOgsQpVOexItY7VujZYWV1s_a8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=q1hNT9eeCcro0QH2_eS8Ag&sqi=2&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=infanticide%20%20indo-european&f=false
Western Societies were born of a period that possessed many fine attributes, but that early age was also a brutal culture. The exposing of unwanted newborns was among the most inhumane of their worst practices. Through the centuries, and thanks in great part to Jewish and Christian thought, the West was slowly able to purge this practice from its culture. Today, we complain about many things on which our taxes are spent, but providing for the disabled is not one of them. We hold fast to the best of our inheritance but are happy to have been long rid of our days of barbarism with its infanticide, making of eunuchs, gladiatorial murders, and slavery in general.
The Left, in its quest for "progress", seeks to reduce those in the West to the status of serfs who are totally dependent on the good nature of the state. They would do away with private property, the family (Forget any idea of paternal authority), the concepts of bravery, self-defense, our religions, sacrifice, work ethic, patriotism, and more to create a body of fully-managed insect-like primates.
The striking part is that, out of all the parts of Western Civilization that the Left would decide to implement or reintroduce as opposed to tear down, they choose infanticide. While they denigrate all that makes us what we are, they want to bring back something from our past, a horrid practice of which we can be proud to have excised.
I will note that this is admittedly a logical extension of the idea of abortion. Like it or not, these Leftists are taking abortion to its logical conclusion. When abortion became legal and accepted, many bravely stood up in the face of ridicule by their peers and asserted that infanticide and euthanasia were the next steps. Few believed it. They, like many in the West today, refused to see abortion as the foot in the door that it was and convinced themselves that the murder of our infants would be confined to the unseen recesses of the womb .
We could therefore pretend that it never happened.
Now, we have unbelievable amounts women on anti-depressants and in and out of therapy.
Right now, an emphasis must be placed on the terms that are employed. Leftists are regressives, not progressives. Everything about the Left is either a regression to either a utopian communal*** past that never existed or to a dark, inhuman practice from a barbaric age.
We need to defend the good of our history while also defending modern improvements of our culture. Stand against both the denigration of the best of our culture and the call for renewing practices of which we rightfully disposed long ago.
*http://www.lifenews.com/2006/09/12/bio-1766/
**http://www.uffl.org/vol16/gardiner06.pdf
**http://www.citizenreviewonline.org/special_issues/population/the_negro_project.htm
***No one could have gotten away with letting others do the work or standing back while everyone else defended the group in prehistoric communal societies. Anyone who entertained such a con job would have been thrown out of the clan.
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Supreme Court Almost Blows Case on Search of Home
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/03/27/drug-dog-sniff-is-unconstitutional-search-supreme-court-rules/?intcmp=trending
The Supreme Court of the United States is a sick joke.
In this case, what should have been a slam-dunk 9-0 in favor of the defendant, turned out to be a razor-thin victory for our rights.
I am a retired local law enforcement officer, a former K9 handler, hate bad guys and am all for nailing people who violate the law. I do not, however, support violating in any way the fourth amendment unless an immediate threat to public safety exists or if a victim cannot be rescued by any other means. In the latter cases, my take was that my job was to end the threat and deal with the courts later.
"The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that police cannot bring drug-sniffing police dogs onto a suspect's property to look for evidence without first getting a warrant for a search, a decision which may limit how investigators use dogs' sensitive noses to search out drugs, explosives and other items hidden from human sight, sound and smell.
The high court split 5-4 on the decision to uphold the Florida Supreme Court's ruling throwing out evidence seized in the search of Joelis Jardines' Miami-area house. That search was based on an alert by Franky the drug dog from outside the closed front door.
Justice Antonin Scalia said a person has the Fourth Amendment right to be free from the government's gaze inside their home and in the area surrounding it, which is called the curtilage.
"The police cannot, without a warrant based on probable cause, hang around on the lawn or in the side garden, trawling for evidence and perhaps peering into the windows of the home," Justice Antonin Scalia said for the majority. "And the officers here had all four of their feet and all four of their companion's, planted firmly on that curtilage — the front porch is the classic example of an area intimately associated with the life of the home."
He was joined in his opinion by Justices Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan."
Note the skewed voting pattern.
It took the infamous "Wise Latina", a, otherwise worthless Kagan, and the Constitution-disparaging Ginsburg's joining with Thomas and Scalia to get this most basic of cases right.
I have no idea what, if anything, was going on in the minds of Breyer, Alito, Kennedy, and pig-boy Roberts. Did they ever go to law school?
If they had confessed to have been partaking in the evidence seized from the defendant, their votes and dissenting opinions could at least be understood.
I will avoid a lecture on search an seizure laws, but suffice to say that when it comes to a home police can't peer over fences or look through windows for the purpose of looking for evidence. What they can do is look through vehicle windows and use K9's to search by smell on vehicles and in public places. These do not have the broader protection of the fourth amendment that homes have.
If the cops are at your door for, as an example a health and welfare check, such as when a family member reports that he has not heard from his father, and after waiting for an answer at the door then looks through a window and sees marijuana plants, then the cops would be justified in applying for a warrant. At that point, even if the homeowner later came to the door, the cop would have seen the plants while in the course of doing his job.
I can't believe that the judge issued a warrant in the fist place. The cops seem to have made no effort to obtain evidence by undercover buys, searches of curbside garbage (Except in NJ but that is a separate issue), or any of the other means by which the police can actually work to write up a creditable affidavit.
There was not even a public safety issue involved here; no bombs, meth labs (Which can explode), reports of an imminent mass-shooting, missing kids or women chained up in the basement - nothing to indicate that the cops had no time to act. Even the possibility that evidence was being destroyed by the defendant is unlikely. A growing operation generally has more pot than can be destroyed quickly.
Had this case gone the wrong way, as it almost did, your front door and porch would have been wide open for all sorts of abuses. We are required to allow letter and parcel carriers, visitors, and public officials to be able to knock and/or ring the bell at your door. To have this part of your house become a vantage point from which searches can be undertaken would set us up for full governmental control; possibly as a result of a mere anonymous complaint.
I have to wonder why four justices (Alito and Kennedy being the big shockers for me) voted for such an incredible expansion of law enforcement searches.
We are in trouble.
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Cameron -Britain Must Integrate With Muslim Culture
http://gatesofvienna.net/2013/03/david-cameron-declares-war-on-the-edl/#more-27717
Hat tip to Gates of Vienna.
We have seen this before.
Americans, Swedes, and other citizens of Western nations have also been targeted for cultural dilution and political impotence. The very same PM that once stated that the UK is a Christian country has taken up the cry of the Left - that the people of Western nations must accept that they will become minorities in their own countries and that these nations are to be made utterly unrecognizable from the ways of life that made them.
"David Cameron’s Con/Lib government really doesn’t like the English Defence League. Here is Cameron on the EDL:
“The hon. Gentleman speaks not only for his constituents, but, frankly, for the whole House in deprecating the English Defence League and all it stands for. On its attempt to say that it will somehow help to restore order, I have described some parts of our society as sick, and there is none sicker than the EDL.”
When Cameron talks about Islam, however, he adopts a slightly different approach:
“Many Muslims I’ve talked to about these issues are deeply offended by the use of the word ‘Islamic’ or ‘Islamist’ to describe the terrorist threat we face today… it is mainstream Britain which needs to integrate more with the British Asian way of life, not the other way around.' "
"This article from today’s Aftenposten concerns AFA-Norway and the ‘anti-fascist’ methods they rely upon to silence those that they don’t agree with politically. Their latest stunt is to distribute and hang posters outing a female member of the Norwegian Defence League (photo, full name, phone number and home address) in various locations in and around the inner eastern neighbourhoods of Oslo, where they ‘advise’ the young woman to leave the NDL so that they, AFA, can ‘leave her alone’ and presumably ‘focus’ on other NDL members.
The funny thing about AFA-Norway is that they only seem to target young female NDL members. In 2012 AFA ‘advised’ a young pregnant NDL member in Bergen (city on the west coast of Norway) to ‘think about her unborn baby’ and leave the Bergen branch of the NDL. In that particular letter they made it abundantly clear that they knew where she lived.
That AFA is willing to resort to violence is no big secret. They have done so on numerous occasions. Their Swedish thugs-in-arms managed, only a few days ago, to disrupt an SDL rally in Malmö. Apparently there were 700 AFA thugs against approximately 20 SDL activists, which in AFA-speak means even odds."
Hat tip to Gates of Vienna.
We have seen this before.
Americans, Swedes, and other citizens of Western nations have also been targeted for cultural dilution and political impotence. The very same PM that once stated that the UK is a Christian country has taken up the cry of the Left - that the people of Western nations must accept that they will become minorities in their own countries and that these nations are to be made utterly unrecognizable from the ways of life that made them.
"David Cameron’s Con/Lib government really doesn’t like the English Defence League. Here is Cameron on the EDL:
“The hon. Gentleman speaks not only for his constituents, but, frankly, for the whole House in deprecating the English Defence League and all it stands for. On its attempt to say that it will somehow help to restore order, I have described some parts of our society as sick, and there is none sicker than the EDL.”
When Cameron talks about Islam, however, he adopts a slightly different approach:
“Many Muslims I’ve talked to about these issues are deeply offended by the use of the word ‘Islamic’ or ‘Islamist’ to describe the terrorist threat we face today… it is mainstream Britain which needs to integrate more with the British Asian way of life, not the other way around.' "
Rapes, months and years-long periods of gang-rapes of young girls, violent rioting, and repeated calls to transform Britain into a Muslim nation, and whom does Cameron blame?
The English Defence League.
This group has demonstrated a tremendous amount of self-restraint in its protests against encroaching Sharia and all that follows, yet it is they who are placed in the crosshairs. Regular guys and girls who have jobs and have to pay bills take the time and subject themselves to incessant verbal and physical assaults, and again they are the ones who are blamed for the violence. When a vicious criminal like Breivik slaughters people, they are blamed for inciting the bad guys.
The people who stand for British culture and the safety of their fellow citizens are made out to be monsters.
The Left will do anything to make people fearful of defending their nation and culture:
The funny thing about AFA-Norway is that they only seem to target young female NDL members. In 2012 AFA ‘advised’ a young pregnant NDL member in Bergen (city on the west coast of Norway) to ‘think about her unborn baby’ and leave the Bergen branch of the NDL. In that particular letter they made it abundantly clear that they knew where she lived.
That AFA is willing to resort to violence is no big secret. They have done so on numerous occasions. Their Swedish thugs-in-arms managed, only a few days ago, to disrupt an SDL rally in Malmö. Apparently there were 700 AFA thugs against approximately 20 SDL activists, which in AFA-speak means even odds."
Monday, March 25, 2013
Ex-Muslim Catholic - Church Weak on Islam
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/03/25/prominent-arab-convert-to-christianity-leaves-catholic-church-over-its-weakness-on-islam/
This will not be an isolated incident.
As readers know, I am a Catholic and have noted my problems with the extra-Christian teachings and mindset of Evangelical Christians. They also know that I will not hold back from criticizing the Church when it is wrong. I have noted that the Church has failed miserably in dealing with pedophiles who joined the priestly ranks and with its stances that threaten the security of Israel.
When it comes to Muslims, though, the Church has been quite weak. The former Pope Benedict retracted the 6th or 7th century quote he referenced about how Islam has been almost completely advanced by warfare as soon as some peace-loving Muslims, to prove their aversion to violence, killed and raped non-Muslims, including a nun.
The Church has not done her job in standing in defense of Christians in the Middle and Near East. I will in fairness note that Benedict did condemn the violence on a few occasions, but the Media ignored these as they concerned Christians being attacked by Muslims.
"In a shocking display that does not bode well for the Catholic Church and its stance on defending the multitudes of Christians currently being persecuted in Islamic countries, Magdi Christiano Allam, a prominent covert from Islam to Christianity, has left the Catholicism. He reasoned that he could not abide the church’s “weakness” and policy of appeasement towards Islam.
The Egyptian-born Allam, who publicly converted in St. Peter’s Basilica on Easter 2008 with the oversight of Pope Benedict XVI himself, renounced his Catholicism because, in his view, the church legitimizes a religion that is “inherently violent” to people of all walks, including fellow Muslims.
Ever-outspoken, Allam assures that he will remain a Christian, but roundly criticized the Catholic Church for also fostering an environment in which the Islamization of Europe will, in his mind, most assuredly take place.......
“I am convinced,” Allam stated, “that Islam is an ideology inherently violent as it has been historically conflictual inside and warlike outside.”
“I am even more convinced that Europe will eventually be submitted to Islam, as has already happened since the seventh century.”
Allam also criticized the church for not having “the vision and the courage to denounce the incompatibility of Islam with our civilization and fundamental rights of the person.”
Islam and the Christian Patriarchates - Continuing on Mission
A subject long-ignored by both Leftists and Evangelicals Christians is the organization of the early Christian Church. Both of course have different reasons for doing so; Leftists because they would love nothing more than for Christianity to disappear, Evangelicals because all those historical events get in the way of the picture of the early Church that they would prefer had existed. They go to great lengths to pretend that the church was structured in the way they would have wanted it. Muslims, however, have no desire to ignore the structure of the early Church nor do they labor under the delusion that it was anything other than what it actually was. Muslims are all too aware of the administrative makeup of the Church and intend to do something about it.
This post is intended to describe the Church structure as it pertains to Islam and Islamic conquests. If any long-winded debates are needed on the tired subjects of Rome, Peter, Papal authority vs. other Patriarchs, etc., that can be handled later. I will also avoid the intricacies of how much authority a local bishop has versus that of a Patriarch as this would be irrelevant for the purposes of this post. Purely national bodies such as the Armenian and NestorianChurches, although they too fell under the rule of Islam, will not be covered here. We will need to avoid the comparatively brief few years that the patriarchates of Jerusalem and Antioch were brought under Christian control during the Crusades.
The Christian Church was Episcopal in nature. As bishops came to administer ever-large swaths of the population with more and more converting to the new faith, the greater portion of daily duties fell upon the presbyters (The Greek Presbuteros made its way into our English word Priest), or elders (the most literal translation of Presbuteros). The Bishop of Rome (as a successor to Peter) from early on made continual efforts to assert his primacy over the rest of the bishops with varying degrees of success. By the time that most, if not almost all of the population of the Empire had become Christian, the Church had been fully organized into Patriarchates. These were sees where the bishops of the higher ranks exercised authority over the Churches and episcopates of the respective areas. There originally were five Patriarchates of the Church; Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Jerusalem, and Antioch. Even today one of the titles of the bishop of Rome is Patriarch of the West. Among the five, primacy was generally accorded to the Bishop of Rome however few were willing to allow that primacy to be of much effect. The mayhem that went along with the Arian heresy and the resulting conflict serves to illustrate how independent many other bishops considered themselves.
Shortly after the Byzantines and the Sassanid Persians had exhausted themselves one last time in a long war, the Muslim armies were unleashed against both empires. The Persian Empire was totally destroyed by 649AD. The Byzantines, although surviving admirably as an empire for centuries after and officially until 1453AD, suffered several defeats at the hands of the mostly Arab Moslems in rapid succession. Syria (including some portions of modern-dayTurkey), the areas of Israel/Palestine, and Egypt were overrun and incorporated into the Caliphate from 636-642AD. The Patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem thus began their Dhimmi * status. The lead in Islamic aggression was later assumed by the Turks. From that point until 1453, the only Christian Patriarchates not under Christian control were those of Rome and Constantinople.
Well, you know the story from this point - the Ottomans conquered Constantinople in 1453. The entire original Christian East was now under Islamic rule. From the middle of the 15th century until today, only the seat of the Patriarch of the West, the Bishop of Rome, was left free of the rule of Moslem overlords. Not that this a result of a lack of trying, Islam forces seized and controlled for a time portions of Italy and France, ruled most to all of Sicily for the better part of 250 years, and of course conquered almost all of Spain and were not fully ejected from there until 1492. Rome itself, including the Vatican, was sacked by Muslim raiders in 846AD.
Boy, just imagine if Islam had not been a religion of peace! With milquetoast peaceniks like these, who needs enemies?
There are a tremendous amount of verses on The Koran that refer to conquest of non-Muslim countries and peoples. Jews and Christians are to be subject to a status of second-class citizens, including a payment of the Jizya tax, so that in the words of the Koran, they will feel submission. Those who are neither Christians nor Jews can expect no such mercy from the religion of peace, death for the men and slavery for the women and children is the lot for them. Interestingly, Hindus came to be given statuses similar to that of Christians and Jews under the Moghul emperors. Again, to keep this post even remotely digestible I will need to refrain from listing specific Koranic citations. These are easy enough to find separately anyway. It seems to be a specific burr under the saddle for Muslims that there are Jews and Christians that are not yet subject to Islamic rule. It seems that Muslims may say to one another “How can we even begin to speak of bringing the rule if Islam to the entire world when we can’t even get the Christians and Jews under control?”
Today the Islamic world continues on its mission to extend its dominance over the last major original Patriarchate of the early Church. In 1995, what was then the world's largest Mosque was built in Rome. Let’s see here - the only one of the five original Patriarchal seats not found in an Islamic country+(Note also that Italy did not have near the number of Muslim residents found in other countries of Western Europe) and Muslims coincidently choose Rome to be the location of the world’s largest Mosque. Unfortunately this was not greeted with any protest by Pope John Paul II. +.+ Muslims who protest in Europe today often hold signs saying that “Islam will rule the world” or that it will conquer Rome.
Muslims take full advantage both of the disastrous and malicious immigration policies of the Left and of the lawful protections inherent in western European countries to brutally bully ethnic Europeans and continually call for more and more concessions to be ruled by their own Sharia Law. The Patriarchs of the Eastern Churches have done what they thought was best to care for their flocks from the time of conquests until the present day. Any word of protest from them inevitably results in negative repercussions on their people. It is high time that the Pope, the Bishop of Rome, Patriarch of the West, et cetera, takes the position of leadership that he is obligated to perform and works with Protestant and secular leaders of Western Europe to make a stand for the rights of Europeans to remain free of Dhimmi status. He also needs to find ways to offer support to his coreligionists still under Islamic rule as they even today rarely enjoy any respite from attacks by Muslims. Perhaps he can be a thorn in the side of the United Nations and use that forum to expose the plight of his fellow Christians. This could be ironic yet appropriate as the UN for years has been dominated by the vast number of Islamic nations. The Leftist media would have a hard time ignoring the ensuing uproar. Unless the Pope or his successor has no problem with the thought of the last of the five original patriarchates too falling under rule of the crescent, he will have to accept that the current manner of dealing with Muslims is not working.
*Usually translated as “protected peoples” but in practice applied in a manner to keep a Jew or Christian in a status of second-class citizenship where little to no protection is provided in civil courts and churches may not be built (or even repaired without lengthy periods of permit applications). Dhimmi were also required to give up their seats in public to Muslims and allowed to ride donkeys but not noble creatures such as horses which are reserved for use of Muslims. Christian women may marry Muslim men but a Christian man can not marry a Muslim woman, thus providing for a steady decline in Christian numbers.
+Note that although Jerusalem has been under the administration of the Israeli government since the 1967 Six-Day War, until that point the City had been under Islamic rule for almost the entire time since the beginning of the Arab Muslim conquest. The only other exceptions were those of the short-lived Crusader states and the post WW1 British Mandate. Either way, the Islamic world does not recognize Jerusalem to be anything other than a Muslim-ruled city.
+ +John Paul II made several attempts to provide an example of tolerance in the hope that it would be reciprocated in Muslim countries. He participated in ceremonies celebrating the opening of the Mosque, even reportedly kissing a copy of the Koran. He added to this an appeal to Muslim countries to allow for more freedom and protection of non-Muslims in Muslim-ruled countries. This of course had no affect on the status of any of these peoples. The Pope also reportedly expressed disappointment at what he took to be the underlying cause that allowed such as thing as the Mosque-building. He felt that it was due to the failure ofEurope’s Christians to fully embrace their faith.
This will not be an isolated incident.
As readers know, I am a Catholic and have noted my problems with the extra-Christian teachings and mindset of Evangelical Christians. They also know that I will not hold back from criticizing the Church when it is wrong. I have noted that the Church has failed miserably in dealing with pedophiles who joined the priestly ranks and with its stances that threaten the security of Israel.
When it comes to Muslims, though, the Church has been quite weak. The former Pope Benedict retracted the 6th or 7th century quote he referenced about how Islam has been almost completely advanced by warfare as soon as some peace-loving Muslims, to prove their aversion to violence, killed and raped non-Muslims, including a nun.
The Church has not done her job in standing in defense of Christians in the Middle and Near East. I will in fairness note that Benedict did condemn the violence on a few occasions, but the Media ignored these as they concerned Christians being attacked by Muslims.
"In a shocking display that does not bode well for the Catholic Church and its stance on defending the multitudes of Christians currently being persecuted in Islamic countries, Magdi Christiano Allam, a prominent covert from Islam to Christianity, has left the Catholicism. He reasoned that he could not abide the church’s “weakness” and policy of appeasement towards Islam.
The Egyptian-born Allam, who publicly converted in St. Peter’s Basilica on Easter 2008 with the oversight of Pope Benedict XVI himself, renounced his Catholicism because, in his view, the church legitimizes a religion that is “inherently violent” to people of all walks, including fellow Muslims.
Ever-outspoken, Allam assures that he will remain a Christian, but roundly criticized the Catholic Church for also fostering an environment in which the Islamization of Europe will, in his mind, most assuredly take place.......
“I am convinced,” Allam stated, “that Islam is an ideology inherently violent as it has been historically conflictual inside and warlike outside.”
“I am even more convinced that Europe will eventually be submitted to Islam, as has already happened since the seventh century.”
Allam also criticized the church for not having “the vision and the courage to denounce the incompatibility of Islam with our civilization and fundamental rights of the person.”
Allam is quite correct in noting that the god of Islam is not the God of Christians and Jews, Sure, they say that he is, but the personality of this god is diametrically opposed to the God of Abraham.
Islam also has no room for the dignity and rights of the individual, both of which have only been curtailed in Judaism and Christianity when elements in these bodies have strayed from the core beliefs of their religions.
The same goes for violence. Judaism saw very limited violence on their behalf and that was to gain a single country. (They just had to do it a few times). Christianity did not pick up violence in support of the faith until the Middle Ages, and this was an absolutely direct response of and influenced by the violence of the incessant Jihad.
If the Church does not take action or at least call Muslims to task, more people will leave.
The Catholic Church also knows firsthand how Islam views Christian countries.
-From a previous post:
Islam and the Christian Patriarchates - Continuing on Mission
A subject long-ignored by both Leftists and Evangelicals Christians is the organization of the early Christian Church. Both of course have different reasons for doing so; Leftists because they would love nothing more than for Christianity to disappear, Evangelicals because all those historical events get in the way of the picture of the early Church that they would prefer had existed. They go to great lengths to pretend that the church was structured in the way they would have wanted it. Muslims, however, have no desire to ignore the structure of the early Church nor do they labor under the delusion that it was anything other than what it actually was. Muslims are all too aware of the administrative makeup of the Church and intend to do something about it.
This post is intended to describe the Church structure as it pertains to Islam and Islamic conquests. If any long-winded debates are needed on the tired subjects of Rome, Peter, Papal authority vs. other Patriarchs, etc., that can be handled later. I will also avoid the intricacies of how much authority a local bishop has versus that of a Patriarch as this would be irrelevant for the purposes of this post. Purely national bodies such as the Armenian and NestorianChurches, although they too fell under the rule of Islam, will not be covered here. We will need to avoid the comparatively brief few years that the patriarchates of Jerusalem and Antioch were brought under Christian control during the Crusades.
The Christian Church was Episcopal in nature. As bishops came to administer ever-large swaths of the population with more and more converting to the new faith, the greater portion of daily duties fell upon the presbyters (The Greek Presbuteros made its way into our English word Priest), or elders (the most literal translation of Presbuteros). The Bishop of Rome (as a successor to Peter) from early on made continual efforts to assert his primacy over the rest of the bishops with varying degrees of success. By the time that most, if not almost all of the population of the Empire had become Christian, the Church had been fully organized into Patriarchates. These were sees where the bishops of the higher ranks exercised authority over the Churches and episcopates of the respective areas. There originally were five Patriarchates of the Church; Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Jerusalem, and Antioch. Even today one of the titles of the bishop of Rome is Patriarch of the West. Among the five, primacy was generally accorded to the Bishop of Rome however few were willing to allow that primacy to be of much effect. The mayhem that went along with the Arian heresy and the resulting conflict serves to illustrate how independent many other bishops considered themselves.
Shortly after the Byzantines and the Sassanid Persians had exhausted themselves one last time in a long war, the Muslim armies were unleashed against both empires. The Persian Empire was totally destroyed by 649AD. The Byzantines, although surviving admirably as an empire for centuries after and officially until 1453AD, suffered several defeats at the hands of the mostly Arab Moslems in rapid succession. Syria (including some portions of modern-dayTurkey), the areas of Israel/Palestine, and Egypt were overrun and incorporated into the Caliphate from 636-642AD. The Patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem thus began their Dhimmi * status. The lead in Islamic aggression was later assumed by the Turks. From that point until 1453, the only Christian Patriarchates not under Christian control were those of Rome and Constantinople.
Well, you know the story from this point - the Ottomans conquered Constantinople in 1453. The entire original Christian East was now under Islamic rule. From the middle of the 15th century until today, only the seat of the Patriarch of the West, the Bishop of Rome, was left free of the rule of Moslem overlords. Not that this a result of a lack of trying, Islam forces seized and controlled for a time portions of Italy and France, ruled most to all of Sicily for the better part of 250 years, and of course conquered almost all of Spain and were not fully ejected from there until 1492. Rome itself, including the Vatican, was sacked by Muslim raiders in 846AD.
Boy, just imagine if Islam had not been a religion of peace! With milquetoast peaceniks like these, who needs enemies?
There are a tremendous amount of verses on The Koran that refer to conquest of non-Muslim countries and peoples. Jews and Christians are to be subject to a status of second-class citizens, including a payment of the Jizya tax, so that in the words of the Koran, they will feel submission. Those who are neither Christians nor Jews can expect no such mercy from the religion of peace, death for the men and slavery for the women and children is the lot for them. Interestingly, Hindus came to be given statuses similar to that of Christians and Jews under the Moghul emperors. Again, to keep this post even remotely digestible I will need to refrain from listing specific Koranic citations. These are easy enough to find separately anyway. It seems to be a specific burr under the saddle for Muslims that there are Jews and Christians that are not yet subject to Islamic rule. It seems that Muslims may say to one another “How can we even begin to speak of bringing the rule if Islam to the entire world when we can’t even get the Christians and Jews under control?”
Today the Islamic world continues on its mission to extend its dominance over the last major original Patriarchate of the early Church. In 1995, what was then the world's largest Mosque was built in Rome. Let’s see here - the only one of the five original Patriarchal seats not found in an Islamic country+(Note also that Italy did not have near the number of Muslim residents found in other countries of Western Europe) and Muslims coincidently choose Rome to be the location of the world’s largest Mosque. Unfortunately this was not greeted with any protest by Pope John Paul II. +.+ Muslims who protest in Europe today often hold signs saying that “Islam will rule the world” or that it will conquer Rome.
Muslims take full advantage both of the disastrous and malicious immigration policies of the Left and of the lawful protections inherent in western European countries to brutally bully ethnic Europeans and continually call for more and more concessions to be ruled by their own Sharia Law. The Patriarchs of the Eastern Churches have done what they thought was best to care for their flocks from the time of conquests until the present day. Any word of protest from them inevitably results in negative repercussions on their people. It is high time that the Pope, the Bishop of Rome, Patriarch of the West, et cetera, takes the position of leadership that he is obligated to perform and works with Protestant and secular leaders of Western Europe to make a stand for the rights of Europeans to remain free of Dhimmi status. He also needs to find ways to offer support to his coreligionists still under Islamic rule as they even today rarely enjoy any respite from attacks by Muslims. Perhaps he can be a thorn in the side of the United Nations and use that forum to expose the plight of his fellow Christians. This could be ironic yet appropriate as the UN for years has been dominated by the vast number of Islamic nations. The Leftist media would have a hard time ignoring the ensuing uproar. Unless the Pope or his successor has no problem with the thought of the last of the five original patriarchates too falling under rule of the crescent, he will have to accept that the current manner of dealing with Muslims is not working.
*Usually translated as “protected peoples” but in practice applied in a manner to keep a Jew or Christian in a status of second-class citizenship where little to no protection is provided in civil courts and churches may not be built (or even repaired without lengthy periods of permit applications). Dhimmi were also required to give up their seats in public to Muslims and allowed to ride donkeys but not noble creatures such as horses which are reserved for use of Muslims. Christian women may marry Muslim men but a Christian man can not marry a Muslim woman, thus providing for a steady decline in Christian numbers.
+Note that although Jerusalem has been under the administration of the Israeli government since the 1967 Six-Day War, until that point the City had been under Islamic rule for almost the entire time since the beginning of the Arab Muslim conquest. The only other exceptions were those of the short-lived Crusader states and the post WW1 British Mandate. Either way, the Islamic world does not recognize Jerusalem to be anything other than a Muslim-ruled city.
+ +John Paul II made several attempts to provide an example of tolerance in the hope that it would be reciprocated in Muslim countries. He participated in ceremonies celebrating the opening of the Mosque, even reportedly kissing a copy of the Koran. He added to this an appeal to Muslim countries to allow for more freedom and protection of non-Muslims in Muslim-ruled countries. This of course had no affect on the status of any of these peoples. The Pope also reportedly expressed disappointment at what he took to be the underlying cause that allowed such as thing as the Mosque-building. He felt that it was due to the failure ofEurope’s Christians to fully embrace their faith.
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Bloomberg - Model for the New Totalitarians
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/03/22/michael-bloomberg-were-going-to-have-more-visibility-and-less-privacyget-used-to-it/
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/03/23/bloomberg-to-launch-12-million-national-gun-control-ad-campaign-its-time-for-another-voice/
NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg is one of the faces of the new totalitarians.
In his comments on the addition of more cameras to the streets of the city, he spoke so enthusiastically about the developments in this type of technology that he sounded like he was actually salivating. I was reminded of someone who is describing the best steakhouse or pizza place that he ever visited.
In the second article, Obama brings in a guy who claims to be a gun owner who supports universal background checks. The media leaves out that this will include an effective registration of all guns by recording the data on each gun transferred and a prohibition on, say, giving one of you guns to your nephew. The speaker has in his hands a shotgun with the action closed (You can't be sure that it is not loaded) and also holds it parallel to the ground, something that is never done unless you plan to fire the weapon or have ensured that the area downrange from the firearm is clear. As kids (presumably his) are playing in the near background, the speaker cannot claim to know that they will not run in front of that gun.
Later, while I was looking at a larger image, I saw that it appears that the speaker has his finger inside the trigger guard. This is the worst safety violation of all.A finger never goes inside the trigger gaurd unless the weapon is to be fired. This has got to be the worst video ever made.
Obama comes down on people and organizations* by requiring them by law to pay for people's abortions, abortion drugs, and contraception (Even the regular pill is known to function as an antiabortion), would have you forced to pretend that fake marriages exist and be unable to defend yourself . Bloomberg goes right after the individual himself, coming after one habit or practice after another.
*Pope Francis I may well turn out to be Obama's nightmare. Firstly, the American bishops have not backed down despite Obama's pretend compromises that no one thinks change anything and have also called Barry's bluff. The Argentine who is a second-generation Italian (That's some combination when it comes to attitude) appears to have the guts to stand against a demagogue. This could become a modern version of the medieval-era Investiture Controversy. The picture of Obama standing barefoot in the snows of Canossa is enough to warm my heart.
Obama uses the machinery of the state to make you powerless to refrain from participating in the sins of another, and Michael uses the same power to restrict you like a child.
This is not a nanny-state. These are the manifestations of the totalitarian socialism that is being established in the West. As of yet, you will not be sent to Siberia, but you will certainly have to be a party to another's wrongful acts and will have no freedom to decide what you eat, drink, or do otherwise. As many immigrants of the 60's-80's from from the Warsaw Pact nations have noted, no one experienced a degree of control that was this pervasive in the old country.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-From the second of the three links at the bottom:
All of this brings me to something that I gleaned from the days when he was drumming up support for a run at the Presidency. As is common with someone in his case, he gave several interviews in which he would have a chance to tell his life story and have that publicized by the Media. That's not a bad thing in and of itself. What got my goat was a tidbit from one of the artcles.
He stated that, as a boy, he was inspired by the book Johnny Tremain. Many of us have not read this book as anything that makes us aware of our history is either purposely glossed over or demonized by Academia. This story is about a boy who grew up in the days when our protests against British misrule were bringing us ever closer to war and thus independence. It is an incredible and uplifting story.
My problem with this is a simple one. If the actions of the Whigs (American Patriots) were undertaken with the understanding that we should not be oppressed and over-regulated in our daily lives by a government, and the story of a boy who is caught up in these events inspired him, how does Bloomberg think that he can reconcile the two? We are faced with to diametrically opposed concepts; the story of a patriot who desires freedom that inspired boy Bloomberg, and the controlling politician man Bloomberg. I never caught any statement reflecting Bloomberg's volte-face on the idea of Liberty. He just pretends that the two can be paired together without any conflict.
I would compare it to an event from my life. As a boy, I was very inspired by watching the movies, especially that of Disney's, about the defense of the Alamo* in the Texas War for Independence. For the purpose of this post, I will refrain from any arguments in support of or against the motivations or virtue of the Texians (That's what they referred to themselves as back then). I will only add that, although I now have a much clearer understanding of this event, and thus have an appreciation for the motivations on each side, I still do not take the weak Leftist position that the Mexicans were the victims in the conflict.
My point is simple; if I, through years of research on the above noted war, came to the conclusion that the Texians were wrong, I would not cite my boyhood admiration for the men of the Alamo unless it was to clarify that I no longer held to that position and that I now regret the outcome of that conflict and our later war with Mexico.
Bloomberg, in telling us that he was in fact inspired by Johnny Tremain, while at the same time advocating more and more governmental control in people's lives, exposes himself as a hypocrite and a liar in a way that no one else could. He should be more ashamed about his supposed appreciation for our Revolutionary Patriots than anything else that he has done.
*On the one occasion when I toured the Alamo, I did ask if I could see the basement.
Anyone who responds with an answer for that reference will be recognized.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2012/05/bloomberg-force-cities-to-take-in.html
http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2012/07/bloomberg-why-dont-cops-strike-to-push.html
http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2012/05/bloomberg-to-ban-large-soda-servings.html
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/03/23/bloomberg-to-launch-12-million-national-gun-control-ad-campaign-its-time-for-another-voice/
NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg is one of the faces of the new totalitarians.
In his comments on the addition of more cameras to the streets of the city, he spoke so enthusiastically about the developments in this type of technology that he sounded like he was actually salivating. I was reminded of someone who is describing the best steakhouse or pizza place that he ever visited.
In the second article, Obama brings in a guy who claims to be a gun owner who supports universal background checks. The media leaves out that this will include an effective registration of all guns by recording the data on each gun transferred and a prohibition on, say, giving one of you guns to your nephew. The speaker has in his hands a shotgun with the action closed (You can't be sure that it is not loaded) and also holds it parallel to the ground, something that is never done unless you plan to fire the weapon or have ensured that the area downrange from the firearm is clear. As kids (presumably his) are playing in the near background, the speaker cannot claim to know that they will not run in front of that gun.
Later, while I was looking at a larger image, I saw that it appears that the speaker has his finger inside the trigger guard. This is the worst safety violation of all.A finger never goes inside the trigger gaurd unless the weapon is to be fired. This has got to be the worst video ever made.
Obama comes down on people and organizations* by requiring them by law to pay for people's abortions, abortion drugs, and contraception (Even the regular pill is known to function as an antiabortion), would have you forced to pretend that fake marriages exist and be unable to defend yourself . Bloomberg goes right after the individual himself, coming after one habit or practice after another.
*Pope Francis I may well turn out to be Obama's nightmare. Firstly, the American bishops have not backed down despite Obama's pretend compromises that no one thinks change anything and have also called Barry's bluff. The Argentine who is a second-generation Italian (That's some combination when it comes to attitude) appears to have the guts to stand against a demagogue. This could become a modern version of the medieval-era Investiture Controversy. The picture of Obama standing barefoot in the snows of Canossa is enough to warm my heart.
Obama uses the machinery of the state to make you powerless to refrain from participating in the sins of another, and Michael uses the same power to restrict you like a child.
This is not a nanny-state. These are the manifestations of the totalitarian socialism that is being established in the West. As of yet, you will not be sent to Siberia, but you will certainly have to be a party to another's wrongful acts and will have no freedom to decide what you eat, drink, or do otherwise. As many immigrants of the 60's-80's from from the Warsaw Pact nations have noted, no one experienced a degree of control that was this pervasive in the old country.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-From the second of the three links at the bottom:
All of this brings me to something that I gleaned from the days when he was drumming up support for a run at the Presidency. As is common with someone in his case, he gave several interviews in which he would have a chance to tell his life story and have that publicized by the Media. That's not a bad thing in and of itself. What got my goat was a tidbit from one of the artcles.
He stated that, as a boy, he was inspired by the book Johnny Tremain. Many of us have not read this book as anything that makes us aware of our history is either purposely glossed over or demonized by Academia. This story is about a boy who grew up in the days when our protests against British misrule were bringing us ever closer to war and thus independence. It is an incredible and uplifting story.
My problem with this is a simple one. If the actions of the Whigs (American Patriots) were undertaken with the understanding that we should not be oppressed and over-regulated in our daily lives by a government, and the story of a boy who is caught up in these events inspired him, how does Bloomberg think that he can reconcile the two? We are faced with to diametrically opposed concepts; the story of a patriot who desires freedom that inspired boy Bloomberg, and the controlling politician man Bloomberg. I never caught any statement reflecting Bloomberg's volte-face on the idea of Liberty. He just pretends that the two can be paired together without any conflict.
I would compare it to an event from my life. As a boy, I was very inspired by watching the movies, especially that of Disney's, about the defense of the Alamo* in the Texas War for Independence. For the purpose of this post, I will refrain from any arguments in support of or against the motivations or virtue of the Texians (That's what they referred to themselves as back then). I will only add that, although I now have a much clearer understanding of this event, and thus have an appreciation for the motivations on each side, I still do not take the weak Leftist position that the Mexicans were the victims in the conflict.
My point is simple; if I, through years of research on the above noted war, came to the conclusion that the Texians were wrong, I would not cite my boyhood admiration for the men of the Alamo unless it was to clarify that I no longer held to that position and that I now regret the outcome of that conflict and our later war with Mexico.
Bloomberg, in telling us that he was in fact inspired by Johnny Tremain, while at the same time advocating more and more governmental control in people's lives, exposes himself as a hypocrite and a liar in a way that no one else could. He should be more ashamed about his supposed appreciation for our Revolutionary Patriots than anything else that he has done.
*On the one occasion when I toured the Alamo, I did ask if I could see the basement.
Anyone who responds with an answer for that reference will be recognized.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2012/05/bloomberg-force-cities-to-take-in.html
http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2012/07/bloomberg-why-dont-cops-strike-to-push.html
http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2012/05/bloomberg-to-ban-large-soda-servings.html
Friday, March 22, 2013
Revised: Texas Schools - More Anti-US Propaganda
Revised 4/3/13- This article paints a grim but accurate picture of how the Left is working to get Texas under their control:
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7787
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http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/03/21/texas-mom-outraged-after-finding-stunning-question-about-911-terrorism-on-her-sons-test/
This is only a follow-up to a post from a few weeks ago. When I saw the above article, I wanted to put it with the earlier one, but decided that it would not be seen if I merely did. a revision.
"A Texas mom is furious after discovering that her son’s school is teaching students that the United States is partly to blame for the 9/11 terrorist attacks that claimed the lives of nearly 3,000 people.
Kara Sands, of Corpus Christi, Texas, took to her Facebook and posted photos of the test administered by Flour Bluff Intermediate School. The test reportedly covered content in a video fifth-grade students watched in class.
Of all the questions about the 9/11 attacks, Sands was most disturbed by question three:
“Why might the United States be a target for terrorism?” The answer? “Decisions we made in the United States have had negative effects on people elsewhere.' "
Many conservatives pin their hopes on Texas remaining as a strongly conservative state. The Left has no intention of allowing this to happen. They are working feverishly on the curricula of public schools to promote anti-US and Western attitudes and to excise any lingering pro-US feeling that the kids may have received from their reactionary and anti-progressive parents.
When the topic if secession is broached by its proponents, Texas is sort of put on a pedestal as a model state and lynch-pin or core state of a restored republic. A probable secession scenario has all the Pacific states and all or almost all of the Atlantic states going with the Leftist/Progressive side. (I treated the notion of two-part and non-contiguous states in previous posts which are linked at the bottom.) For a hypothetical Gulf state for a restored republic, Texas is the most promising, but -
Couple the demographic trends above with a generations of brainwashed students, many of whom will vote in 4-8 years, and Texas may very well fall.
Without Texas, even in an intact US, a national election is less than a charade; its electoral votes are too many and too crucial to lose. For a restored republic, losing Texas could easily leave the hypothetical new state landlocked. With no access to deep water ports, the new republic will be strangled at birth.
Texans have to fight hard and to start doing so now. As far as I am concerned, Texas is our Athens*. As Herodotus noted in The Histories, if Athens had submitted to the Persians or remained neutral, the enemy would have picked off the free Greek states one by one. Even if Sparta never yielded, she would have eventually have been overrun once all of her allies were out of the fight. The Athenian navy was the lynch-pin of a free Greece. For a free US, Texas is a must-win state. Without her electoral votes, we lose every national election. Without her ports, a restored republic free of Leftist handcuffs will wither on the vine.
* I later thought about the chorus of jeers that would make fun of Texans for not being 'cultured'. My point was that Texas, like Athens was, is terribly crucial in the scheme of protecting our nation as a free country. As for being cultured goes, I would rather be associated with good-hearted people with common sense and bit of fear of God than a cosmopolitan jerk who plays the iconoclast against everything that is good.
* I later thought about the chorus of jeers that would make fun of Texans for not being 'cultured'. My point was that Texas, like Athens was, is terribly crucial in the scheme of protecting our nation as a free country. As for being cultured goes, I would rather be associated with good-hearted people with common sense and bit of fear of God than a cosmopolitan jerk who plays the iconoclast against everything that is good.
-This is the original post on the present situation on the ground in Texas schools:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/25/facebook-photo-of-female-students-dressed-in-burqas-for-lesson-on-islam-prompts-state-investigation/
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/04/texas-lesson-plan-instructs-6th-graders-to-design-flags-for-a-new-socialist-nation/
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When Rick Perry scoffed at the claim that Texas will soon become "purple" then a "blue" state, I wondered if he was denying the obvious or if he was really that dense.
The Left desperately wants the electoral votes* of the Lone Star State, and they are working at a feverish pace to get the job done.
*Leftists decry the assignment of the electoral votes as it was designed to offset the natural electoral power of the most populous states. Today the highly-urbanized states are almost in a position to carry a national election by themselves. While Leftists hate the fact that the electoral college exists, they are fully aware of how it works, and they have every intention of getting Texas under their control. Once they are successful they will surely change their tune and extol the virtues of the electoral college.
As I have noted in previous posts, the Left wants a classless society of people who have no knowledge or interest of their heritage. Only by creating such a society can they move to eliminate national sovereignty and begin a full-blown despotism of socialist committees.
One method is to dilute the electorate by importing so many people from markedly different cultures that assimilation or integration into the culture of the host nation is impossible.
Working in parallel with the former is the just as effective but far more insidious technique of excising all understanding of a people's or nation's sense of identity. Primary school textbooks are doctored to contain Leftist views of history, admirable people and events from a nation's past are left out, and the students grow up knowing next to nothing about how their society and nation came to be. Products of this Leftist kulturkampf leave high schools in a sponge-like state, ready for the heavy doses of anti-western propaganda's of college.
It is working. High school seniors are already telling their parents that they would get rid of imperialist/colonialist holidays such as Thanksgiving if they could. Not only have I read numerous accounts of similar incidents, but I personally know of this occurring in New Jersey. These young people are or will soon be of voting age, and they will likely be no friends of American society and virtue. Having been fed a steady diet of anti-western/American lessons, they will utter no peep of protest when their children are subjected to the same brainwashing.
The top links are recent reports of events in Texas schools. The first concerns a Spanish class in which the teacher apparently felt that Spanish literature offered nothing of value, so the students were required to recite the Mexican national anthem and pledge of allegiance. Cervantes and others can be conveniently ignored.
The second reports on students that were given a more interesting assignment:.
"Parents are demanding answers after a Texas teacher reportedly invited female students to dress up in Islamic garb and told the class to refer to Muslim terrorists as freedom fighters.
Texas state Sen. Dan Patrick, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, has launched an investigation into the incident. He told Fox News he was disturbed after seeing a photograph of female students wearing burqas and learning that students were reportedly taught that the cause for Egypt’s turmoil is democracy, not the Muslim Brotherhood, based on an article by the Washington Post."
The Left desperately wants the electoral votes* of the Lone Star State, and they are working at a feverish pace to get the job done.
*Leftists decry the assignment of the electoral votes as it was designed to offset the natural electoral power of the most populous states. Today the highly-urbanized states are almost in a position to carry a national election by themselves. While Leftists hate the fact that the electoral college exists, they are fully aware of how it works, and they have every intention of getting Texas under their control. Once they are successful they will surely change their tune and extol the virtues of the electoral college.
As I have noted in previous posts, the Left wants a classless society of people who have no knowledge or interest of their heritage. Only by creating such a society can they move to eliminate national sovereignty and begin a full-blown despotism of socialist committees.
One method is to dilute the electorate by importing so many people from markedly different cultures that assimilation or integration into the culture of the host nation is impossible.
Working in parallel with the former is the just as effective but far more insidious technique of excising all understanding of a people's or nation's sense of identity. Primary school textbooks are doctored to contain Leftist views of history, admirable people and events from a nation's past are left out, and the students grow up knowing next to nothing about how their society and nation came to be. Products of this Leftist kulturkampf leave high schools in a sponge-like state, ready for the heavy doses of anti-western propaganda's of college.
It is working. High school seniors are already telling their parents that they would get rid of imperialist/colonialist holidays such as Thanksgiving if they could. Not only have I read numerous accounts of similar incidents, but I personally know of this occurring in New Jersey. These young people are or will soon be of voting age, and they will likely be no friends of American society and virtue. Having been fed a steady diet of anti-western/American lessons, they will utter no peep of protest when their children are subjected to the same brainwashing.
The top links are recent reports of events in Texas schools. The first concerns a Spanish class in which the teacher apparently felt that Spanish literature offered nothing of value, so the students were required to recite the Mexican national anthem and pledge of allegiance. Cervantes and others can be conveniently ignored.
The second reports on students that were given a more interesting assignment:.
"Parents are demanding answers after a Texas teacher reportedly invited female students to dress up in Islamic garb and told the class to refer to Muslim terrorists as freedom fighters.
Texas state Sen. Dan Patrick, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, has launched an investigation into the incident. He told Fox News he was disturbed after seeing a photograph of female students wearing burqas and learning that students were reportedly taught that the cause for Egypt’s turmoil is democracy, not the Muslim Brotherhood, based on an article by the Washington Post."
The third is the blaster:
"A curriculum system used across the state of Texas reportedly includes a lesson plan for 6th graders instructing students to create a flag for a “new socialist nation” using “symbolism to represent aspects of socialism/communism.”
The following was taken from the CSCOPE curriculum lesson plan: “Notice socialist/communist nations use symbolism on their flags representing various aspects of their economic system. Imagine a new socialist nation is creating a flag and you have been put in charge of creating a flag. Use symbolism to represent aspects of socialism/communism on your flag. What kind of symbolism/colors would you use?' "
Today, we have yet another report of the goings-on in Texas, and it is a comprehensive and voluntary self-indictment of those who are making all of this happen:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/03/07/cscope-exposing-the-nations-most-controversial-public-school-curriculum-system/
-Excerpts from the link above:
Bolding is added.
"In February, Texas announced that the state, along with the Texas Education Service Center Curriculum (TESCCC,) would enact major changes to the controversial curriculum management system dubbed CSCOPE. The system received a litany of complaints from faculty members and parents alike concerning its lack of transparency(parents were allegedly not permitted to review lesson-plans), lack of oversight from the State Board of Education, and for allegedly imposing oppressive working conditions for faculty members.....
To note just how off-color some of the CSCOPE curriculum is, consider that the Texas CSCOPE Review, an independent watchdog group, uncovered an out-of-date, optional CSCOPE lesson-plan on terrorism — “World History Unit 12 Lesson 07″ — which allegedly likens the Boston Tea Party to “an act of terrorism.”
Using a chart, Barton documented and mapped out core CSCOPE material, which eliminates national values, Americanism or rather, American exceptionalism, the study of federalism and majority rule (the core of our constitution) along with patriotic symbols like the Liberty Bell. Christopher Columbus, Rosh Hashanah and Christmas are all relegated to the dustbin along with American military history. Equality and a belief in justice is replaced by “fairness” and instruction on American propaganda and imperialism.
Disturbingly, Beck and Barton noted that the worst is yet to come. Showcasing a lesson plan for grades 1-3, Barton revealed CSCOPE’s list of “heroes,” which comprises a dozen secular progressives and only three conservatives or political moderates."
It gets worse:
"According to a previous report from TheBlaze, teachers complained that they were expected to deliver the curriculum verbatim and only on days allotted by the CSCOPE lesson plan. Even if students were unable to absorb the lesson, teachers were allegedly directed to progress to the next lesson regardless. TheBlaze also reported that teachers were “asked to sign a contract that would prevent them from revealing what was in the CSCOPE lessons or face civil and criminal penalties.' "
I hope that everyone sees what is going on. If the States do not take action now, they will, likely within 10-20 years, all fall to swing-state or blue-state status. The Left will not only have won handily, but those who advocate American principles and virtue will at that point be in no position to even break off from and form a new and restored American republic. The youth are being trained to detest or ignore all of the people, their actions, and events that shaped the very nation that bred them. If the schools can be taken back immediately then we have a chance to avert catastrophe, but given the political climate, that will be an uphill battle.
In The Spirit of Laws, by Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu*, the author repeatedly stresses that the primary means by which a republic can survive is if the people have a love of their country. Without this, the republic will fail.
"A curriculum system used across the state of Texas reportedly includes a lesson plan for 6th graders instructing students to create a flag for a “new socialist nation” using “symbolism to represent aspects of socialism/communism.”
The following was taken from the CSCOPE curriculum lesson plan: “Notice socialist/communist nations use symbolism on their flags representing various aspects of their economic system. Imagine a new socialist nation is creating a flag and you have been put in charge of creating a flag. Use symbolism to represent aspects of socialism/communism on your flag. What kind of symbolism/colors would you use?' "
Today, we have yet another report of the goings-on in Texas, and it is a comprehensive and voluntary self-indictment of those who are making all of this happen:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/03/07/cscope-exposing-the-nations-most-controversial-public-school-curriculum-system/
-Excerpts from the link above:
Bolding is added.
"In February, Texas announced that the state, along with the Texas Education Service Center Curriculum (TESCCC,) would enact major changes to the controversial curriculum management system dubbed CSCOPE. The system received a litany of complaints from faculty members and parents alike concerning its lack of transparency(parents were allegedly not permitted to review lesson-plans), lack of oversight from the State Board of Education, and for allegedly imposing oppressive working conditions for faculty members.....
To note just how off-color some of the CSCOPE curriculum is, consider that the Texas CSCOPE Review, an independent watchdog group, uncovered an out-of-date, optional CSCOPE lesson-plan on terrorism — “World History Unit 12 Lesson 07″ — which allegedly likens the Boston Tea Party to “an act of terrorism.”
Using a chart, Barton documented and mapped out core CSCOPE material, which eliminates national values, Americanism or rather, American exceptionalism, the study of federalism and majority rule (the core of our constitution) along with patriotic symbols like the Liberty Bell. Christopher Columbus, Rosh Hashanah and Christmas are all relegated to the dustbin along with American military history. Equality and a belief in justice is replaced by “fairness” and instruction on American propaganda and imperialism.
Disturbingly, Beck and Barton noted that the worst is yet to come. Showcasing a lesson plan for grades 1-3, Barton revealed CSCOPE’s list of “heroes,” which comprises a dozen secular progressives and only three conservatives or political moderates."
It gets worse:
"According to a previous report from TheBlaze, teachers complained that they were expected to deliver the curriculum verbatim and only on days allotted by the CSCOPE lesson plan. Even if students were unable to absorb the lesson, teachers were allegedly directed to progress to the next lesson regardless. TheBlaze also reported that teachers were “asked to sign a contract that would prevent them from revealing what was in the CSCOPE lessons or face civil and criminal penalties.' "
I hope that everyone sees what is going on. If the States do not take action now, they will, likely within 10-20 years, all fall to swing-state or blue-state status. The Left will not only have won handily, but those who advocate American principles and virtue will at that point be in no position to even break off from and form a new and restored American republic. The youth are being trained to detest or ignore all of the people, their actions, and events that shaped the very nation that bred them. If the schools can be taken back immediately then we have a chance to avert catastrophe, but given the political climate, that will be an uphill battle.
In The Spirit of Laws, by Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu*, the author repeatedly stresses that the primary means by which a republic can survive is if the people have a love of their country. Without this, the republic will fail.
*Along with Locke, Montesquieu was a source of political though on whom the Founders greatly relied. His work had tremendous influence in the drafting of our Constitution, especially with the actual separation of powers of our government, an attribute that has sadly become ineffective.
No system of government lasts forever. We currently live under the longest-lasting Constitution in the world. That is a major achievement and a credit to those who crafted it and later defended it when our nation was threatened with collapse. We cannot, however, continue to cling to it if it is no longer what it was intended to be. I would rather lay it to rest honorably than live with it as a facade of a government animated by Leftist thought.
We still, barely, have the power to create a restored American republic comprised of the states that are not already lost. Our children deserve to learn about our history in a manner than makes them proud of our nation.
If we do not act, and soon, all will be lost.
No system of government lasts forever. We currently live under the longest-lasting Constitution in the world. That is a major achievement and a credit to those who crafted it and later defended it when our nation was threatened with collapse. We cannot, however, continue to cling to it if it is no longer what it was intended to be. I would rather lay it to rest honorably than live with it as a facade of a government animated by Leftist thought.
We still, barely, have the power to create a restored American republic comprised of the states that are not already lost. Our children deserve to learn about our history in a manner than makes them proud of our nation.
If we do not act, and soon, all will be lost.
Thursday, March 21, 2013
To Assuage Disappointment, Honors Night Cancelled
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/03/20/massachusetts-principal-calls-off-honor-night-because-it-could-be-devastating/
"You didn't build that."
"A Massachusetts principal has been criticized for canceling his school's Honors Night, saying it could be 'devastating' to the students who worked hard, but fell short of the grades.......
"The Honors Night, which can be a great sense of pride for the recipients' families, can also be devastating to a child who has worked extremely hard in a difficult class but who, despite growth, has not been able to maintain a high grade-point average," Fabrizio penned in his first letter to parents, the station reported.
Fabrizio also said he decided to make the change because academic success can be influenced by the amount of support a student receives at home and not all students receive the same level of emotional and academic support at home."
The Leftist mindset strikes again, this time again targeting those who made it.
Even without the last quote, you had to know what was on the principle's mind. Not every kid has the help of two parents, or even one parent. Some students have to study on their own because Mom or Dad works evenings. Some parents cannot be bothered with helping their kids. All students are born with the same ability and work ethic. It's just not fair.
Being disappointed can be the greatest thing that can happen to a students who could have tried harder and can motivate them to reach their goals the next time, but that is not what the Left wants. Academia and their junior partners in primary schools want to paint a picture in which all students are merely the products or victims of their own personal histories - no accident can change the inexorable course of those histories, either.
The students and parents of those who made the honor roll at that school certainly feel cheated and rightly so. The Left loves mediocrity, and one of the the best ways to enforce it is to chalk up great grades to having received more help from parents or tutors that are paid for by the better-off parents.
Of course, like your business, you did not do the work yourself; everything that you have is the product of the help or work of another. Belittle someone's accomplishments often or profoundly enough and over half of the job is already done.
Make more victims by implying that it was not your fault that you did not achieve.
Not every kid can be a professional athlete, nor can all kids make the honor roll, do well in college, or obtain and succeed at highly-skilled jobs, but the Left wants us to feel as if we have nothing of which to be proud.
The Left crossed the Rubicon long ago. We are still blind to that fact. They are at war with us.
"You didn't build that."
"A Massachusetts principal has been criticized for canceling his school's Honors Night, saying it could be 'devastating' to the students who worked hard, but fell short of the grades.......
"The Honors Night, which can be a great sense of pride for the recipients' families, can also be devastating to a child who has worked extremely hard in a difficult class but who, despite growth, has not been able to maintain a high grade-point average," Fabrizio penned in his first letter to parents, the station reported.
Fabrizio also said he decided to make the change because academic success can be influenced by the amount of support a student receives at home and not all students receive the same level of emotional and academic support at home."
The Leftist mindset strikes again, this time again targeting those who made it.
Even without the last quote, you had to know what was on the principle's mind. Not every kid has the help of two parents, or even one parent. Some students have to study on their own because Mom or Dad works evenings. Some parents cannot be bothered with helping their kids. All students are born with the same ability and work ethic. It's just not fair.
Being disappointed can be the greatest thing that can happen to a students who could have tried harder and can motivate them to reach their goals the next time, but that is not what the Left wants. Academia and their junior partners in primary schools want to paint a picture in which all students are merely the products or victims of their own personal histories - no accident can change the inexorable course of those histories, either.
The students and parents of those who made the honor roll at that school certainly feel cheated and rightly so. The Left loves mediocrity, and one of the the best ways to enforce it is to chalk up great grades to having received more help from parents or tutors that are paid for by the better-off parents.
Of course, like your business, you did not do the work yourself; everything that you have is the product of the help or work of another. Belittle someone's accomplishments often or profoundly enough and over half of the job is already done.
Make more victims by implying that it was not your fault that you did not achieve.
Not every kid can be a professional athlete, nor can all kids make the honor roll, do well in college, or obtain and succeed at highly-skilled jobs, but the Left wants us to feel as if we have nothing of which to be proud.
The Left crossed the Rubicon long ago. We are still blind to that fact. They are at war with us.
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Atheist Anger Causes Comedian to Retract Faith Comments
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/03/20/former-snl-star-caves-and-apologizes-over-pro-faith-tweets-affirms-separation-of-church-and-comedy/
A few days ago comedian and actor Norm Macdonald made some nice, and seemingly sincere, comments about his faith. Since the tolerant athesits only allow people to denigrate religious beliefs, these naturally rose up like a mob with pitchforks and torches.
I assumed that this would blow over, and it did, but "and how".
"First, comedian Norm Macdonald frustrated atheists and now he’s disappointing religious adherents. Following his highly-publicized Twitter spat with non-believers over the weekend — a dialogue during which the former “Saturday Night Live” cast member said that he studies Biblical scriptures and believes in God — the entertainer now is backtracking....."
I can't find the exact quote, but it goes like this:
'If the only difference between a man's nose and the snout of a pig is an accident of nature, then there is no reason that I cannot slaughter him like a pig'.
The second is only one of the remarks by our Founders in which the strong tie between our type of government and the culture of the people is stressed:
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” -John Adams
A few days ago comedian and actor Norm Macdonald made some nice, and seemingly sincere, comments about his faith. Since the tolerant athesits only allow people to denigrate religious beliefs, these naturally rose up like a mob with pitchforks and torches.
I assumed that this would blow over, and it did, but "and how".
"First, comedian Norm Macdonald frustrated atheists and now he’s disappointing religious adherents. Following his highly-publicized Twitter spat with non-believers over the weekend — a dialogue during which the former “Saturday Night Live” cast member said that he studies Biblical scriptures and believes in God — the entertainer now is backtracking....."
The actual content of the shameful retreat can be read on the above-linked article.
I don't know if his agent talked him into this, if he was afraid of boycotts, loss of ticket sales, possible heckling at his gigs, or a concern that he would have a hard time getting new jobs, but I cannot believe how quickly, easily, and thoroughly he caved in.
-This illustrates the intense hatred and bizarre amount of influence that the God-hating/denying subsection of the people in the US have.
The devout and moderately religious are of course required to suck it up whenever someone makes a comment that ridicules religion and God.
Atheists, resting comfortably in the bosom of a society that in no way could have been created except by a people to loved and rightly feared their God, use the very freedoms of that society to undermine and suppress one of the pillars on which that society rests. Safe and secure, they bite that hand that protects them, claiming that religion is the worst thing that has happened to the world.
When taking into account the fact that atheists, being a very incurious and unintellectual group, revel in their insistence that everything, including life, came about with no act of a Prime Mover, one must recall two points.
The first one notes that, if there is no God, then people have nothing to prevent them from treating others as, for example, lions do - killing the cubs of another lion that has been killed or driven off. Atheists would largely cower in fear if people were released from the restraints that religion places on them, especially if the State, their god, no longer is in operation.
I can't find the exact quote, but it goes like this:
'If the only difference between a man's nose and the snout of a pig is an accident of nature, then there is no reason that I cannot slaughter him like a pig'.
The second is only one of the remarks by our Founders in which the strong tie between our type of government and the culture of the people is stressed:
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” -John Adams
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Photo of Son With Rifle Brings Family Services and Cops
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/03/19/dad-this-picture-of-my-son-holding-a-gun-triggered-a-visit-from-nj-police-family-services/
Welcome to my totalitarian state of New Jersey-
A Dad posts a photo of his son holding an unloaded rifle (.22 magazine inserted but indicator clearly empty) on Facebook. Someone who saw his post or page decided to pretend to believe that the act of having the child holding the firearm put his life life in danger and drops an anonymous dime to the Division of Youth and Family Services (DYFS). One of their Leftist/state control of parents-loving agents shows up at the home with the cops. The agent demands to be directed to the firearms in the household, and interestingly also wrongfully insists that they must all be registered. (Only handguns need be registered in NJ). The Mom, surprised at the intrusion, does let them in but calls her husband to tell him what they want. He of course makes it painfully clear that the only way they will see any guns or search the house is if they have a warrant, which they did not. He also calls his lawyer, who happens to be the best firearms law attorney in NJ - Evan Nappen.
Needless to say, due to the quick thinking of the Mom and Dad, the agent and the cops had to leave disappointed, but as they say, "Don't go away mad, just go away".
From The Blaze-
"2C:58-6.1 Possession of firearms by minors; exceptions.
(1)In the actual presence or under the direct supervision of his father, mother or guardian, or some other person who holds a permit to carry a handgun or a firearms purchaser identification card, as the case may be;...."
Not only that, but the kid clearly had his finger along the trigger guard, not inside of it.
"NRA Certified Firearms Instructor – One of the toughest certifications to attain, requiring skills with the weapons as well as teaching.
NRA Certified Range Safety Instructor
NJ State Certified Firearms Hunting Instructor"
Welcome to my totalitarian state of New Jersey-
A Dad posts a photo of his son holding an unloaded rifle (.22 magazine inserted but indicator clearly empty) on Facebook. Someone who saw his post or page decided to pretend to believe that the act of having the child holding the firearm put his life life in danger and drops an anonymous dime to the Division of Youth and Family Services (DYFS). One of their Leftist/state control of parents-loving agents shows up at the home with the cops. The agent demands to be directed to the firearms in the household, and interestingly also wrongfully insists that they must all be registered. (Only handguns need be registered in NJ). The Mom, surprised at the intrusion, does let them in but calls her husband to tell him what they want. He of course makes it painfully clear that the only way they will see any guns or search the house is if they have a warrant, which they did not. He also calls his lawyer, who happens to be the best firearms law attorney in NJ - Evan Nappen.
Needless to say, due to the quick thinking of the Mom and Dad, the agent and the cops had to leave disappointed, but as they say, "Don't go away mad, just go away".
From The Blaze-
"We present the un-edited post in Mr. Moore’s own words:
Last night I was out with a buddy of mine. I got a text from my wife that the cops and dyfs are at the house and they wanna check out my guns and needed me to open my safe.
I’m instantly on my way. I get in contact with evan Nappen on the way. I explain the situation. I walk in my house and hand the phone to the first cop I see. Then direct all of em outside. Dyfs got a call because of a pic on my son holding a gun. They wanted to look around and check all my guns out, make sure they were all registered. Obviously that didn’t go well because I refused. I had Nappen on speaker phone the entire time so they had to deal with both of us. They kept trying to pressure me to open my safe. They had no warrant, no charges, nothing. I didn’t budge. I was told I was being “unreasonable” and that I was acting suspicious because I wouldn’t open my safe. Told me they were gonna get a search warrant. Told em go ahead. Nappen (my lawyer) asked me for the dyfs workers name. she wouldnt give it. i asked for credentials and she wouldnt show em. i tried to take a pic of her and she turned around real fast and walked away. After a while of them threatening to take my kids, get warrants and intimidation they left. Empty handed and seeing nothing.
People it can happen that fast. Most people wouldn’t have stood up to them like I did."
Last night I was out with a buddy of mine. I got a text from my wife that the cops and dyfs are at the house and they wanna check out my guns and needed me to open my safe.
I’m instantly on my way. I get in contact with evan Nappen on the way. I explain the situation. I walk in my house and hand the phone to the first cop I see. Then direct all of em outside. Dyfs got a call because of a pic on my son holding a gun. They wanted to look around and check all my guns out, make sure they were all registered. Obviously that didn’t go well because I refused. I had Nappen on speaker phone the entire time so they had to deal with both of us. They kept trying to pressure me to open my safe. They had no warrant, no charges, nothing. I didn’t budge. I was told I was being “unreasonable” and that I was acting suspicious because I wouldn’t open my safe. Told me they were gonna get a search warrant. Told em go ahead. Nappen (my lawyer) asked me for the dyfs workers name. she wouldnt give it. i asked for credentials and she wouldnt show em. i tried to take a pic of her and she turned around real fast and walked away. After a while of them threatening to take my kids, get warrants and intimidation they left. Empty handed and seeing nothing.
People it can happen that fast. Most people wouldn’t have stood up to them like I did."
This is how it works now. In the UK, the kids would have no doubt been taken by now. We are not far behind in the US.
In a bizarre twist on the holier-than-thou mindset, too many people in the US have taken to insist that their shameful refusal to own and be reasonably proficient with at least one firearm should be the rule for everyone else. These sheep commend themselves for informing on the parents that do in fact fulfill their ethical obligation to be ready and able to defend themselves and their community.
Family services agents tend to have the same attitude; that people really should not have guns in the first place. They will seize any opportunity to make a splash by bring the arm of the state crashing down on any parents that dare defy the establishment and actually act like, well, parents.
The tipster will rest content with the satisfaction that he or she informed on the parents. "I can't believe they did that to that poor boy". The problem for the rat is that in NJ, if the Dad, Mom, or other person approved by law was with the boy when the photo was taken, no law was broken.
(1)In the actual presence or under the direct supervision of his father, mother or guardian, or some other person who holds a permit to carry a handgun or a firearms purchaser identification card, as the case may be;...."
Not only that, but the kid clearly had his finger along the trigger guard, not inside of it.
All people must become versed in the laws of their respective states. State statutes are easy to access via the Internet. Never give consent to a search. If the police do not have a warrant, you cannot be charged for failing to allow them into and have access to your home. The only case in which this may not apply is for state such as Ca., which seems to allow the confiscation of any firearms in the home of someone who has received mental health care and was reported (Correctly or not) to have suicidal thoughts.*
*As a friend of mine (Contributor Scipio) noted today, the Left wants you to kill yourself with the help of a physician when you are old and useless or disabled, but don't you dare kill yourself with a gun.when you can still work and pay taxes.
The Dad is also an expert on firearms and firearms safety:
NRA Certified Range Safety Instructor
NJ State Certified Firearms Hunting Instructor"
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