New York has changed state law so it can still prosecute those that have been granted a presidential pardon. So how is this appreciably different than Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio enforcing immigration law when the federal government refused to? Do progressives intend to speak out as forcefully in regards to this New York development?
Some people really need to think through the implications of the things they advocate. Apparently an associate is outraged that a student could be denied the opportunity to attend prom because of an unpaid lunch tab. Yet the same individual stated he is actively praying for the conditions to come about where that very same student could very easily end up being a trafficked sex slave or summarily executed on the streets. Civil wars are not the photographic tourist monuments of the Gettysburg fields. Just what exactly does this person think will come about if his prayer is granted that God judges American through a civil war? God promises things will be well afterwards for those that place faith in Him once the person is dead. However, history proves that He allows overwhelming horrors to take place in regions gripped by such conflict. Such a naive thinker apparently epitomizes Stalin's remark that one death is a tragedy but a million are just a statistic.
It is often argued that Halloween used to be OK but no longer is because “times have changed”. If one holds the celebration is wrong, isn’t that essentially the same as saying that it used to be acceptable for grandpa to go to the strip club but Junior had better not do it?
On the 8/14/19 edition of Fox and Friends, the Lieutenant Governor of Texas in part blamed video games for the El Paso massacre because the gunman allegedly mentioned in his manifesto wanting to live out the super soldier scenarios found in video games. If this is the route we are to head down as a culture, will Marvel Comics also be blamed since Captain America is also a super soldier? While we are at it, why not lay a bit of the blame offices within the Pentagon such as DARPA constantly speculating about tinkering on the genetic, psychological or biochemical levels to create actual super soldiers and whose surreptitious machinations might actually have some shady role behind these acts of violence.
In light of a series of mass shootings across the United States, it is repeatedly admonished that people need to come together in unity. Apart from not shooting people, just how close are people obligated to come together? Relatedly, do those insisting that these incidents are failures in tolerance intend to compromise on the incessant demands those advocating progressive revolution constantly make under threat of upheaval? For it is usually those holding to traditionalist conceptions of morality and social organization that are expected to alter their fundamental beliefs or be penalized with a variety of punitive sanctions.
Obama is now jacked out of shape about the ideological purity of cancel culture. But didn’t he in part get that particular ball rolling when he urged supporters to get in the faces of those that dared articulate criticism of his policies and when he threatened to punish his electoral enemies?
Cambridge University Press has published a book titled “Cultural Backlash: Trump, Brexit and Authoritarian Populism”. So the people of the United Kingdom governing their own affairs is to be feared but arbitrary bureaucratic intervention into their lives on the part of transnational technocrats as epitomized by the European Union is the ideal to which they are expected to aspire?
A Florida church is accusing the 18% that did not vote in favor of a Black pastoral candidate of racism. But if the congregational leadership is going to take the allegations online, shouldn’t the rest of us be provided with some idea what was actually said to determine if it actually was racist or merely what passes as such in the circles of contemporary Southern Baptist elites? Often that can be as little as disagreeing with a Black person or, perhaps more importantly, with the White leaders metaphorically using Black people as human shields to keep their hold on power.
The Southern Baptist Convention is considering disfellowshipping a Florida church where a Black pastoral candidate did not receive the percentage of affirmations necessary to be granted the position. In all fairness, it was remarked in the Religious News Service coverage of the development that things were so split in the church that it’s doubtful Billy Graham in his prime could have mustered the necessary votes. Getting booted from the Convention like that at this time could end up being the best thing that could happen to such a congregation. For is that really a spirit of diversity and inclusion if a mere 15% of a congregation fails to bend to dictates from a level of hierarchy technically derived nowhere from the pages of Scripture?
Media and political elites are outraged that Trump announced that he is switching his official residence from New York to Florida. Commentator Juan Williams remarked that greed was behind this as part of a scheme to take advantage of Florida’s more favorable tax rates. So why isn’t it greed for governments to demand an increasing percentage of what individuals have prudently accumulated? Golfer Phil Mickelson was essentially accused of being a tax cheat in the press for making a similar move from California. But shouldn’t this mobility instead be praised as one of the inherent strengths of the federal system where the individual is free to ideally select from the fifty jurisdictions most in accord with their particular values or in which one can maximize individual well being?
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary provost Matthew Hall laments that he views reality through a racialized lens, that that has given him undeserved power, but being called a racist is not the worst thing that one can be called. If so, why do those ranking among this faction of Southern Baptist functionaries spend so much time peddling White guilt and (along with what even Obama criticized as cancel culture) invoke that label with little evidence as a way to frighten opponents into silence? Most importantly, Hall seemingly does not feel so guilty as to be compelled by his conscience to relinquish his posh lifestyle to someone of their preferred demographic. But he does apparently feel guilty enough that you as a mere pewfiller in his estimation should be called upon to surrender what you have earned by the sweat of your own toil to be redistributed to or at least seized from you in the name of those that have not really lifted a finger of their own.
Theologian Kyle J. Howard claims that the rise of homeschooling is linked to racism. Where in the Constitution does it say that the exercise of a right is predicated upon a socially acceptable justification? And what exactly does he define as “racism”? To many of these woke Southern Baptists, that consists of little more than disagreeing with a minority or, more importantly, with White elites claiming to speak for minorities.
In a podcast on racial reconciliation, the theologian that denounced the founding of the homeschool movement as racist said that it is his desire to plant a multiethnic, minority led church. If he is to be praised for being so race conscious as to exclude Whites apriori from leadership positions, why would any Whites other than the self-loathing variety be willing to attend such a venue of subversion and leftist cognitive conditioning? For what if a minister spoke of his desire to plant a multiethnic yet Caucasian-led congregation where it was insinuated that all that minorities are wanted for is what they can drop funsds in the collection plate?
The cover story of the Oct 2019 issue of Harper’s Magazine is titled “Do We Need The Constitution: Has The Nation’s Founding Document Become The Nation’s Undoing?” Usually when such questions are asked, it is not to consider provisions such as those regarding the establishment of post offices or forbidding the issuance of a title of nobility. Rather such grandiose inquires are enunciated as a pretext to justify the elimination of the Bill of Rights, particularly the fundamental guarantees of the First and Second Amendments.
So if Chick-Fil-A is on record as not being an explicitly Christian company, perhaps we can at least do away with having to justify if one is a believer why one has never been to one or for feeling sleazy over picking an outright heathen establishment such as McDonald’s for a fast food outing.
Doesn’t the altering of a corporation’s philanthropy policy to placate an agitated faction indicate which side in that debate is most likely to engage in acts of violence or sabotage in the so-called “culture war”?
After a call to the CEO, Franklin Graham assures the faithful that Chick-Fil-A remains committed to Christian values. So does that mean celebrity Christians will stop upbraiding the mere pewfillers that don’t make themselves religious nuisances in the workplace but instead model their witness more along the lines of Joseph of Arimathea who Scripture references as a secret disciple?
In a world where the Salvation Army is looked upon with more contempt than outright subversive front groups such as C.A.I.R, Planned Parenthood, and La Raza, how long will it be before it becomes a crime to drop spare change in the Christmas kettle or parents charged with child abuse for letting their little ones do it?
Hugh Ross as an Old Earth Creationist believes that the days of the Genesis creation account are not to be understood as literal but rather as lengthy epochs of time. Now it seems his ministry has uploaded a podcast insinuating that the global flood was likely not quite as global as many Christians have come to believe. The astrophysicist assures that, by making this concession, the skeptic might be more inclined to consider other more important miraculous claims of Scripture. So how long until Ross starts insisting that it does not matter so much whether or not Jesus really did rise from the dead or that believers go to Heaven when they die? Instead what really matters are the moral teachings of Jesus. Think this is an allegation a step too far? Ross’ conclusions were arrived at through a form of linguistic analysis not all that different than that resulting in the RSV substituting “young woman” for “virgin” in its translation of Isaiah.
If as the commercial suggests it is Jimmy Dean sausage that lifts your spirits this time of year, you must be having one really miserable and pathetic Christmas.
Those sneering down their noses over Trump’s remarks about the effort to undermine Thanksgiving are the same ones that pitch a fit about the Pilgrim’s being White European Christians and over romanticize American Indians as the embodiment of Rousseau's noble savage hooey.
Apparently the KFC fire log is something to burn in your fireplace and not what emerges from the other end of the digestive tract once that culinary treat is consumed.
In a SermonAudio homily, a pastor confessed that, in terms of paganism, Christmas is as inherently evil as Halloween. As such, he weaned his family off the celebration over the span of three years. But if Christmas is as evil as he insists and given that a holiday cannot produce biophysical dependency like a narcotic or alcohol, isn’t his way of renouncing the practice akin to saying one should quit the strip club over time rather than suddenly? Perhaps having a lapdance only once every other week followed by a time where one just goes to watch with no physical interaction?
If Hillary Clinton was really shocked at the way Donald Trump speaks about woman, wouldn’t she have not gone on the Howard Stern program?
By Frederick Meekins
No comments:
Post a Comment