If Pat Buchanan or David Duke dared endorse someone for no other reason than that they happened to be White and enunciated a need to get Whites elected to office, there would be outrage in the media.
Shouldn't there be the same response regarding minorities that pull the same stunt?
Since a number of the trustees making this decision are members of Congress, does this mean if the American people employ tactics of a similarly seditious nature as the Gallaudet protestors that such members of Congress should be forced to resign?
While Kevin Swanson does a good job of poitning out the failings of the socialistic public school system, frankly, I would not want to live in his brand of utopia either as in this edition of the program he believes girls should be married around 16 years of age and have 16 children over the course of their fecund years.
While people did marry at ridiculously young ages years ago, they also died a whole lot earlier on average as well. I have seen pictures of my own great-grandmother who died in her mid 40's and she looked like she was pushing 70.
Control by church authorities over matters not definitively spelled out in the Bible is still too much control.
by Frederick Meekins
In an informative episode of his program dealing with the decline of manliness in our society, Albert Mohler complained that mostly women called in to discuss the issue.
However, since his program is recorded at 5 pm, weren't the real men in America out working?
Furthermore, isn't it the perceived epitome of feminity to yap one's trap about the inner recesses of one's feelings with someone you don't even know?
Frankly, what manly man is going to want to do that on national radio?
While a vital topic, at its conclusion, it veered to close towards sterotypical depictions of manhood rather than Biblical ones as it was insinuated hardware stores were a proper place for real men to hangout.
Firstly, are those not given over to physical pursuits not to be viewed as manly; why aren't certain parts of the library considered sufficently masculine? For are not war and conflict as much about the mind as the body?
Perhaps we should castigate as limpwristed those unfamiliar with sagas of adventure and the intricacies of critical thought if the same kinds of insinuations are going to fly about those lacking fetishes over power tools.
Secondly, if someone is manly, frankly, they don't really need to be hanging around a group of men. If that's what one is craving to do, in my opinion that is itself a sign that one might secretly not be as brawny as one tries to lead others to believe and actually a bit of a flake at heart.
by Frederick Meekins
Two of comicdom’s most legendary characters are none other than Superman and Captain Marvel, more popularly known as Shazam.
To the unfamiliar, at first glance the two heroes seem almost indistinguishable from one another with Captain Marvel wearing the spiffier costume while Superman possesses the more iconic insignia.
Superman/Shazam: First Thunder chronicles a contemporary interpretation of the first meeting between the World’s Mightiest Mortal and the Man of Steel.
And though not the best-drawn story featuring these characters that have both been around since the early days of comic books, this graphic novel provides a bit of insight into the differences between the two.
For example, from a dialogue between these foremost costumed adventurers, the reader learns that while Superman might have superior senses, Captain Marvel is more immune to the effects of magic.
It is doubtful Superman/Shazam: First Thunder will be remembered as a graphic novel classic. However, fans will nevertheless get a kick out of seeing these legends team up.
by Frederick Meekins
In a classic Simpsons’ moment, at their show’s equivalent of Disney World dedicated to the parodies of Tom and Jerry known as Itchy and Scratchy, a giddy Homer is duped into trading his money for the amusement park’s imitation play currency which can’t be spent on anything at the park. The scene is humorous in that only Homer would be among those stupid enough to fall for such a scheme.
At one time, it use to be a sign of discernment if the prudent citizen was not taken in by such snake oil. However, if a bunch of grubby beatniks have their way, one’s willingness to fall for such nonsense will serve as a measure of one’s devotion to and support of the COMMUNITY.
According to the June 2006 Hyattsville Life And Times, the cities of Hyattsville, Mount Rainier, and Brentwood will be acquiring a local currency to be called the “Anacostia Hour”. Those hoodwinked into accepting this tender can use it to purchase goods from businesses part of the program and even pay employees “willing” to accept this glorified monopoly money.
The purpose of this dubious means of exchange as stated in the Hyattsville Life & Times is to “keep people shopping in the local community.” Maybe if a given municipality had stores worth shopping at or free from the dregs of humanity prowling the aisles of such establishments, residents wouldn’t mind spending their regular money in the area. But bigshots in these here parts insist upon either “high end retailers” or idiosyncratic specialty merchants selling novelty junk common folks have little need of.
Furthermore, in a market economy, it is not the business of any collection of individuals from where I acquire goods and provisions classified as legitimate in a free society. For while these proposals are often packaged in terms of civic enthusiasm, they are merely contrived guises for exerting additional control over the American people.
For example, way back in the cybernetic dark ages in response to a letter to the editor I had written regarding a local issue, one disgruntled neighbor wrote in the response that they shopped in the COMMUNITY (no doubt a dig against the distinct Wal-Mart bags they had seen my family get out of the trunk on various occasions) and that they gladly offered up their children for indoctrination at the local elementary school (a slur regarding my own private education). From the tone of the indignant epistle, one might conclude that the author believed I should have had my freedom of speech and other civil protections abridged for not prostrating myself before the radical whims of the neighborhood.
By implementing an alternative currency, residents gullible enough to literally buy into the program will be further conditioned into accepting the notion that the era of the individual making their own decisions for themselves is coming to an end to be replaced with a system where morality is no longer determined by reference to eternal values but rather by a consensus arrived at by the leaders of the COMMUNITY.
I am not making this up out of nothing. The motto to be emblazoned upon this lucre will be “In each other we trust.”
So instead of looking to God to get us through the trials and travails of life, we are suppose to rely on the drunken wife beater down the street or around the corner. That will sure provide a sense of comfort when you are lying there on your deathbed.
At this point in our cultural development, this little game is confined to the self-congratulatory leftists that usually get a kick out of such lunacies. However, it won’t be so cute when the program is made mandatory for the rest of us.
During the Great Depression, businesses participating in the National Recovery Administration were given an insignia with an eagle on it to display in the window. Eventually, this symbol became so pervasive that some Christians thought it might be the Mark of the Beast foretold in the Book of Revelation.
Likewise, those persons and businesses accepting the new currency in lieu of the old could receive assorted privileges and incentives from the overseeing authorities. Conversely, those refusing to participate could be financially reprimanded or penalized.
But even more importantly, by transitioning the residents of a specific region onto a local currency, the ability of the residents to travel beyond their own area could be effectively curtailed by requiring them to go through a lengthy administrative procedure to get their tender converted from the specie utilized by the COMMUNITY to that utilized for transactions outside the primary residential unit. This way, authorities would be able to cut down on what it deemed to be unnecessary travel and wasteful economic transactions. And residents will no doubt be discouraged from undertaking any unauthorized activities for no other reason than the bureaucratic hassle they will have to be put through.
Already in urban design circles it is common practice to set into motion disincentives for the use of the automobile. Aspiring architects and engineers cut their professional teeth in many college classes across the nation where they learn to design vehicle-free university campuses. And on an episode of Freedom 21 Santa Cruz, it was observed that the American people are to be conditioned into no longer viewing travel and movement as a freedom but rather as a privilege.
Some witty minds might quip what’s the difference between a local currency and the Federal Reserve notes we have been persuaded to settle all debts public and private with. Technically, not all that much since both are useless pieces of paper.. But until Americans can pay the extortive taxation being extracted from them with this new money, no more regard should be given to it than used bathroom tissue once it is sent on its merry way.
by Frederick Meekins
WakeUpAmerica.com interviews Jerome Corsi about this horrendous abridgement of the First Amendment.
Pat Buchanan and Alex Jones discuss "Reconquista".
Those thinking this radicalism will confine itself to the Southwestern United States are in for a rude awakening.
Jones relays that when in Canada he saw Mexican subversives prophecying this fate for our neighbor to the north as well.
Ironically, the ones that believe "indigenous" children should be kept in their original environments are the same ones that believe immigrants should be allowed to overrun the United States.
Each year as the school year gets underway, I write a column about the mandatory communalism that takes place in numerous schools across the country where unsuspecting students and parents are forced to surrender their supplies to educational authorities, deemed by the state to be of superior enlightenment than those actually acquiring the school supplies, for redistribution as these demagogic pedagogues see fit. While satisfying to write as there are few topics as visceral as one’s school experiences and the attachment one has to one’s possessions, somehow these most debated of my epistles somehow felt incomplete as they primarily dealt with a symptom rather than the underlying disease. For the socialistic communitarians that have infiltrated the public school system and taken it over for the most part do not primarily want your paper and pencils; the thing the really lust over are the hearts and minds of your children.
Usually, those concerned about the state of the public school system are told that if they don’t like how things are run, they are perfectly free to withdraw their children and pursue private or home-based alternatives to their liking. Overall, better advice could not be given; however, in the years and decades ahead such wisdom will prove to be charmingly naive and old fashioned.
For if things continue along their current path, there will probably be a day when it will be against the law to educate one’s offspring in anything but a state-run school. Already devotees of secularism and radicalism are laying down the perceptual framework necessary to bring about the paradigm shift as to whom has the ultimate authority over the minds of the young.
Some opposed to parents having the final say over the education of children won’t come out and say so directly. Rather, the subversions of the traditional family are often dressed in altruistic platitudes about socialization and COMMUNITY.
Often communal and anti-individualistic in their epistemological orientation, such critics claim that homeschooling should not be curtailed so much for the proverbial “sake of the children” but rather for the benefit of the government schools themselves. According to a May 16, 2003 FoxNews.com story titled “Parents Fight Government To Homeschool” by Trace Gallagher, “Many say that as more parents pull their kids out of public schools, confidence quickly erodes and has a domino effect on other public policy issues.”
In other words, liberals are afraid that, if children learn to think for themselves, they will do for themselves later on and the cycle of dependency on the state will be significantly diminished if not broken all together. As a parent, one’s responsibility is to the well being of one’s own children, not to the budgetary ego of some petty bureaucrat. For as the Fox News story concludes, “...the issue is about money --- every home-schooled child means fewer dollars in the public school budget.”
As such, those opposed to educational freedom will go out of their way to shame and penalize parents and students from leaving the system. Some enemies of mental liberty even suggest parents not feeding their children to the public beast are guilty of child abuse. Back in 2003, WorldNetDaily.com ran a story about a proposed law in California that had the potential to outlaw homeschooling by criminalizing parents of the “habitually truant” defined as five unexcused absences
This proposal was a concern since, under certain interpretations of California law, parents without a teaching credential homeschooling their children could be construed as operating outside the law. According to WorldNetDaily.com, in 2000 in the Berkeley Unified School District, truancy charges were brought against several families who withdrew their children from the public system despite the fact that the parents had properly filed all the necessary paperwork to establish a legitimate homeschool under the law.
Some might dismiss such legislative posturing as the kind of kookiness for which California is renowned around the world. Unfortunately, such radicalism is embraced by a broad swath of liberal leaders.
For example, Professor Robert Reich of Stanford, according to the Chalcedon Foundation Report article titled “A Quiet Threat To Homeschooling”, believes that the state should force homeschool parents to teach their children values at odds with those held by the parents. Reich, staying true to his name bringing to minds thoughts of totalist control, claims that the state has a compelling interest in allowing students the opportunity to select a way of life abhorred by the parents. And if the parents do not agree to this, Reich believes, they should be compelled to send their offspring to public school by court order (and thus under the following corollary of at the end of a barrel of a gun since anything the state requires ultimately has the threat of force backing it up).
Children have pretty much always had the right to chuck what their parents taught them into the philosophical waste basket. It’s usually called turning 18 or 21. And unless a provision has been added to the Patriot Act outlawing libraries altogether like something out of Ray Bradbury rather than simply allowing some government hack to snoop through our checkout records, children will have every opportunity they need to hoe their own path at that point in their lives.
Mind you, while the likes of Robert Reich think that public educators have their right to have their way with the minds of your children to such an extent that would make Michael Jackson blush, at no time will children indentured to the state have the right to formulate a system of values at variance with those espoused by the public schools while under the auspices of the public schools.
For example, while homeschoolers favoring creation science as their preferred theory as to the origins of the cosmos might be compelled to teach evolution or face having their children snatched as if the parents were common crack addicts, so-called “educators” and their ACLU taskmasters have gone out of their way to promote the perception that only the materialist conception of reality can be presented as part of the science curricula. Conversely, parents with children in the public schools believing that monogamous marriage is the only legitimate human relationship through which to enjoy conjugal affections have been told by judges hardly worthy of the silk in their robes ruled that parents with children in the public schools do not have the right to exempt their offspring from the perversions these scholastic pederasts seek to cram down the throats of unsuspecting students.
Even liberals less blatantly secular than elite university professors and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals are edging ever closer to implementing the policy that any schools other than public schools are child abuse. Ordained minister and former public servant Andrew Young, in a bit of oratory that would probably make his mentor Martin Luther King role over in his grave, was recorded by the 3/18/04 edition of the Montgomery Sentinel as saying of parents pursuing private education for their children, “You are socially retarded and you ought to have better sense than to do something like that.”
Young claims private schools are a waste of money and deprive the young of opportunities to enhance their leadership abilities by not exposing pupils to the broadest possible swath of people and circumstances. But what exactly are the leadership abilities did Young allude to?
Obviously not those classic schoolroom disciplines of readin’, writin’ and ‘rithmetic. In Prince George’s County, Maryland (just one county over from where Young delivered his comments), according to the 10/20/03 Prince George’s Journal, in the southern portion of that county (an area of the jurisdiction lit with the type of diversity propagandists such as Young like to rub the noses of the American people in) only 36% of third graders were proficient in reading and only 38% of eight graders were assessed as such.
Maybe Rev. Young was not referring to those skills us half-wit private school graduates thought school was primarily convened to convey. Maybe he was alluding to the following behavior displayed by the young scholars elaborated below since such skills should do them well as members of Congress and the like.
According to Gazette.net in a story posted on May 24, 2005, four students at Wheaton High School (in the same county where Young delivered the speech in which he labeled as retarded [a put-down most give up by later elementary]) surrounded the desk of a female student and touched her inappropriately. However, a study by University of Wales Professor Leslie J. Francis featured in the May 5, 2005 ThisIsLondon.com concluded that 62% of boys in private Christian schools believed sex outside of marriage was wrong while only 13% educated at non-Christian schools believed the same way.
I ask you, if this young woman really was violated in the way she described (as nowadays spurned females as reprobate as the young males prowling the hallways of the nation’s public schools are not themselves above concocting such reputation-shattering rumors when they don’t get what they want) what group of young people would parents would you want her to be around? If being pawed over and felt up like a slab of supermarket beef is what Young has in mind when he says, “Your children will learn more sociology from bad kids than they will from European sociologists,” that is one lesson our children should not have to learn. Young is perfectly free to hand over his own daughters and granddaughters for such “hands on learning” if he so desires, but most decent people take their responsibilities as parents a bit more seriously.
Contrary to Young’s contention that parents have the obligation to cultivate “The sensitivity to problems we’re going to have to deal with all our lives” (code words for increased welfare and racial preferences for minorities) the first order of duty of any parent is to protect their own children from the physical dangers and moral filth permeating our culture. You are not expected to take up the cause of every whelp rambling down the street; that is the responsibility of their own parents.
From Young’s insinuation and innuendos, you’d expect home and private schooled kids to be sitting on their hands rocking back and forth drooling on themselves as if they were in some Eastern European orphanage. However, such young people are not the ones filling prisons, clogging our welfare roles, and pumping out out of wedlock babies as often as those on Metamucil run to the restroom.
So what if private and homeschool graduates aren’t as sociable (a fancy Ivy League word used nowadays as a euphemism to characterize a willingness to participate in various forms of deviancy)? So long as they aren’t getting public handouts, why is it any of the government’s business how such young people spend their time?
Even if objective assessments such as standardized tests measuring acquired knowledge rather than social opinions, competitions such as Spelling/Geography bees, and the accomplishments of those educated in this fashion in terms of books published, businesses opened, and scholastic prizes won are proof of the superiority of non-statist education, woe unto the public official daring to suggest that private schools with a solid religious foundation might be able to accomplish some good that the public schools cannot.
For example, back in 2003, then Secretary of Education Rod Paige dared to suggest that the reason Christian schools appeared to be growing was the result of their strong value system not found in their public counterparts as a result of these government institutions insisting that no form of morality is better than any other. For enunciating his own preference, numerous liberals condemned Paige for daring to believe that what he believes might be better than what those that claim there are no better beliefs believe.
But by condemning someone that believes that what they believe is better than what others believe (whether you like it or not) aren’t you saying that what you believe is better than what the other person believes? For if all views really are equal and you condemn someone for not believing that, aren’t you saying that the belief that there are no superior beliefs is actually a superior belief?
Exposing the lunacy of those out to undermine parental control of education should be just as easy. Thing is, one has to make an effort at doing so.
Within the Southern Baptist Convention, one group has counseled that parents should remove their children from public schools in favor of either Christian or homeschools. However, other voices with just as much sway within the nation’s largest Protestant denomination have coalesced around a counter claim that Christian parents are somehow obligated to send their children to public school since these are an untapped mission field.
Leading the charge in 2004 was none other than Franklin Graham. At the time, Graham told the Convention, “One important forum where American believers must share their faith is in the public schools. Instead of withdrawing from public schools, Christians should train their children to share the Gospel with their non-Christian classmates.”
Having spent much of his ministerial career assisting believers and the downtrodden in the hell-holes of the earth such as parts of Africa, the Graham lad certainly has a heart for mission work. However, he decided upon this calling freely as an adult and did not have it thrust upon him against his better judgment by denominational luminaries.
One would not send a child to face fanatical Muslims on their own turf. Then why should we send such youngsters into the hovels of the Humanists? For though they are not quite as violent as the Islamofascists, they are just as intent on ensnaring the minds of your children with their damnable ideology.
Franklin continues, “I want to see at least one child in every class in America who is trained as a witness for Jesus Christ.” Frankly, the primary duty of parents is not to please Franklin Graham but to do what is in the best interests of their own children.
It’s nice that it would make Franklin Graham happy to see an outspoken Christian youngster in every public school classroom across America. Since such would provide him considerable delight, will he be there for these kids when things go south? As the son of a Christian celebrity and now one in his own right, Franklin Graham does not have to worry about losing his livelihood or the custody of his children should he decide to exercise his God-given right to express his faith publicly as might happen these days in a climate were allegations of abuse fly and are believed so easily.
As a single voice (influential as he might be), Franklin Graham would not have all that much sway. However, one might contend that Franklin’s position rather than the alternative of withdrawal from the public system is the prevailing attitude among many SBC leaders.
According to Graddy Arnold of GetTheKidsOut.org in a Dec 22, 2002 Agape Press story titled “SBC Pastor: Biased Mission Board Ignores Public Schools’ Reverse Evangelism”, the Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Mission Board insinuates homeschooled students lack “adult contact” (I guess Deborah LeFay can’t get her hands on such virile youngsters), exhibit “lack of socialization” (less likely to go boozing or at least less likely to go along with the group for the sake of the group as is occurring in many contemporary churches where the leadership structure is based more on personality than the Bible), and that “public schools have produced leaders in every arena of public life” (usually occupational advancement is not based on what you know but who you know or whom you’ve brown-nosed and the thieving overclass is simply likely to promote to their ranks those of a similar ethical background to themselves).
It has been said (a piece of wisdom attributed often attributed to Lincoln) that the philosophy of the classroom in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next. From the degree of collectivism being pushed on the nation’s youths, it won’t be long until Communism will once again be the predominant ideological threat of the foreseeable future and just not some best-forgotten historical nightmare.
by Frederick Meekins
According to this sermon on courtship, parents still control the lives of offspring no longer living under the parent's roof.
But if the young folks aren't getting the bulk of their upkeep from mom and dad, what's to prevent them from cutting off contact altogether if the parents get too bossy?
This pastor also believes that a young adult has no basis to refuse a mate the parents (especially the father) has picked out for an offspring unless it is over a reason explicitly spelled out in Scripture.
According to the hosts of Generation’s radio, if a single person is without a father it is up to the elders of the church to decide when the person is to get married.
Mind you, the individual discussed was not some 18 year old as Al Mohler and possibly even Dr. Dobson would suggest this as the proper age to marry, but rather a 31 year old.
By then, frankly, one should make your own decisions and not have the church do it for you.
If you are in a church that insists upon this amount of oversight over your life, it is my suggestion to get out now and don’t look back.
Also, it was insinuated that distinct feelings for your intended should not develop until the engagement.
If feelings have not developed by then, why bother with the misery inherent to marriage anyway as it is clear you can get along just fine without the person.
by Frederick Meekins
An informative episode of "Live Fire" with Larry Pratt.
Particularly interesting was the part where agents categorized the Constitution and related educational paraphenilia pertaining to the document authorzing the government's very legitimacy as "subversive".
If today a legitimate firearms business can be harassed with reason, how long until they go after the producers of "subversive" materials such as bloggers and self-publishers?
Less than three months until Christmas. Have you gotten your copy of Yuletide Terror & Other Holiday Horrors.
The company the book is published through, Lulu.com, has linked to my column on the Statue of Liberty as posted at AmericanDaily.com since in my byline there I list my book.
In this era where anyone holding a position short of compulsory miscegenation runs the risk of being called racist, it seems Oprah Winfrey might be one of the most prominent ethnocentrists of all times.
Speaking on her satellite radio program, Oprah admits that she has only one Black person on staff and (as one headline put it) likes to "lord over White folk".
Unless Oprah employs ten or fewer people since if she employs more Black folks are being underepresented on her staff, shouldn't she be investigated for her lack of Affirmative Action since diversity mongers subject every other business and private enterprise in this great nation to.
Furthermore, why is an elitist of her stature noticing color at all; doesn't Political Correctness dictate we have an obligation to ignore one of the most obvious of human physical characterisitics?
Interesting how prominent minorities are allowed to notice color all they want, but by golly if you are White, you had better be as blind to it as Helen Keller.
Can you imagine the controversy that would erupt if a major Caucasian broadcaster admitted to enjoying having pliant little Asian gals carry out his commands?
Since Miss Winfrey has been granted near godlike status among contemporary liberals and the like, I suppose she is too good to be bound by the same laws and social expectations infringing upon the affairs of us less noraml people beneath her lofty status.
by Frederick Meekins
Interesting how cartoon vegetables that sing about God and simple moral truths are deemed too offensive for Saturday mornings but when I wrote about condom ads aired during the same time slot the deviants that can't keep their pants on showed just how tolerant and accepting they are by ridiculing my own studious countenance.
According to this post at AlbertMohler.com, the network wanted unacceptable statements such as, "God made you special and he loves you very much." cut from episodes.
Can't have broadcasts undermining the Darwinism the young ones are taught in the public schools?
Besides, if students go through life fortified with the idea that they are special and God loves them, it might cut down on the condom revenue as with such an idea they will have a bit more internal wherewithal to resist this brand of temptation when the time arrives.
Frederick Meekins
For over a century, the Statue of Liberty stood in New York Harbor proudly extolling American values to the world, even doing so defiantly in the face of those finding this country an affront to their despotic aspirations and morays. However, as factions within the government conspire to use the war on terror as a smokescreen behind which to continue the transformation of the American people into docile minions of conformity, it seems Lady Liberty no longer stands quite so bravely because her caretakers compel her to cower before the forces of evil from both within and without this great nation.
Since the 9/11 attacks in 2001, access to the statue has been curtailed and severely limited. The interior of the landmark was closed for nearly three years following the terrorist incident. And as with other aspects of American life, from that day forward the tragedy was invoked as an excuse one could not question without having one’s patriotism assailed to keep the upper reaches of the statue off limits in perpetuity.
In 2004, the Park Service begrudgingly reopened parts of the complex. However, to symbolize our status as pawns of the totalist state, visitors are only allowed now to go as high as the pedestal on which Lady Liberty stands.
Such a limitation brings to mind one or two apt metaphors.
First, one might say being forced to stop beneath the statue’s feet is comparable to Orwell’s symbol representing the future of a boot forever pressing down around the neck of mankind. Second, being forced to look up Lady Liberty’s skirt at where her unmentionables would be if she was a real dame reminds freedom loving people everywhere of the numerous perverts holding elected and bureaucratic office that derive a voyeuristic pleasure rummaging through metaphorical underwear drawers all in the name of homeland security in pursuit of information to which these authorities have no right or legitimate purpose.
After the Bible, probably one of the best sources of insight into human nature is none other than “The Simpsons“. In one scene fraught with prophetic implications that one had to laugh at or you’d end up crying because deep down you just know that someday it will probably come true, giant robots reminiscent of the Sentinels from the X-Men were shown whipping tourists (or prisoners since with the amount of surveillance these days in public places its increasingly difficult to make the distinction) as they file past the Capitol and Washington Monument.
If the American people are to be forbidden from enjoying Lady Liberty to her fullest, then why should we be compelled to pay for her upkeep? For as a holding of the National Park Service, isn’t the statue maintained for the enjoyment of the American people?
If not, just go ahead and sell her altogether to the highest bidder like some barroom floozy as was predicted on an episode of Dark Angel. At least that way we’ll be done with the hypocrisy.
To shame those opposed to open borders, those locked behind their gated communities and walled estates in need of an unending stream of cheap illegal labor tell us, if the Statue of Liberty is to continue as a beloved symbol of the United States, immigration must continue unabated. Ironically, had those coming to our shores (who actually wanted to be Americans unlike the immigrants of today) had caved so easily to their fears in a manner similar to that which these very same elites counsel in reaction to terrorism they would have never come here in the first place.
Don’t we owe it to their memory to keep access to the Statue of Liberty as free as her name implies?
by Frederick Meekins
The U.S. Census Bureau has lost nearly 300 computers.
Those forced to fill out the long form (euphemistically called the "AmericanCommunity Survey since in the current ideological climate only deviants fail to obey what the COMMUNITY tells them to do) are informed they face the potential of a $1000 fine for each question they fail to answer accurately.
These questions go beyond simple matters such as name and address necessary for the only constitutionally authorized purpose of the census, namely Congressional apportionment, to pry into all kinds of matters that would make a Peeping Tom blush such as how much you earn, to how far you live from work, and what time you get there.
Using the what's good for the goose is good for the gander standard, since identity theft is a serious problem and the Census Bureau dupes the American people into answering this perditious parchment, maybe Census takers careless enough to loose their computers should be fined $1000 for every name in the missing computers.
Bet you'd have a lot fewer computers stolen.
By Frederick Meekins
Dr. Stan and Nancy Levant examine the militarization of civil society.
This discussion primarily focuses on the infiltration of the nation's churches by the Department of Homeland Security to coerce pastors into condition the congregations into accepting relocation into designated government labor and detention camps.
Though one does not want to unduly interfere with the affairs of an autonomous church and though I am ambivalent about lady preachers, I can’t help but feel that a 81 year old Sunday school teacher dismissed in large part because she is a woman has somehow gotten a raw deal.
What makes this case most vexing is not so much that the church in question forbade women from the get-go from ascending to positions of dogmatic instruction but that this lady was relieved of her duties after fifty years of service.
So why was it OK for her to be teaching all this time then all of a sudden her classroom ministrations transfigured into an ecclesiastical outrage that could no longer be countenanced?
Though I cannot be absolutely certain, methinks I catch a whiff of Purpose Driven Warrenism in the air or at least the stench of the church growth movement.
On the August 24, 2006 edition of The Albert Mohler Program, listeners learned that the pastor came to the First Baptist Church of Watertown, New York in 2004. If female Sunday school teachers were such an abomination to this minister but were permitted by this church, shouldn’t he have done the chivalrous thing and not accepted this particular pastorate to begin with?
The pastor claims that, after his arrival, the church began to experience a period of growth and this ruffled the feathers of some longstanding members. If this follows the pattern of this phenomena taking place in other churches across the country, this means rock music and jungle rhythms were probably introduced to attract a bunch of tattooed and possibly lice-infected young people more interested in dancing and carousing than actually worshipping God.
According to the Syracuse Post Standard, much of the stink stems from opposition to the pastor’s removal of a stain glass window and crosses in the church (can’t exactly have those scruffy hooligans feeling guilty about their sins, now can we, since that would hamper their self esteem). Part of church growth operational policy is that a church should not look like a church but rather like a rec center or a pub (and probably a brothel in a few years if the seeker sensitive trend continues much longer).
Standard Purpose Driven strategy in such a situation would be to neutralize the resisters by getting those whose egos have been stroked with the offer of ecclesiastical offices and honors to swear allegiance to the pastor and purge from membership those retaining their integrity through no unquestioning loyalty to no one but King Jesus. Makes you wonder if the problem with a lady Sunday school teacher in her 80’s is not so much that she’s a lady but that she’s in her 80’s and not led around as easily with a ring in her nose as someone considerably younger. According to one witticism popular among Purpose Driven theorists open to different interpretations is that the pillars hold up the church.
Though he was reluctant to discuss the matter in initial press accounts, the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Watertown was finally man enough to admit on the Albert Mohler Program that more than the teacher’s plumbing was taken into account in this personnel matter. She was also let go since she was deemed not sufficiently submissive to the pastor and his cronies.
This matter of whether or not a woman should be allowed into positions of doctrinal authority within the church is indeed a serious matter. However, are all the other ducks in a row at this church as well?
Is the pastor going to take a similar hardline position against those whose divorces were acquired under less than Biblical guidelines? Given that the First Baptist Church of Watertown is a member of the American Baptist Churches USA, one would think this pastor would have weightier matters to consider like whether or not a pastor so concerned about a literalist interpretation of Scripture should even be a part of that particular denomination, convention, association, or however else you want to classify it.
For you see, the American Baptist Churches USA is involved with a number of matters that make the scandal of a lady Sunday school teacher seem quaint by comparison. For starters, the American Baptist Churches USA is a member of the National Council of Churches, a group of borderline Communists cutthroats in clerical collars that make the rogues in the bar scene from Star Wars look ethical. Furthermore, a number of American Baptist USA congregations just about endorse homosexuality.
It is not like heresy is anything new to the American Baptist Churches USA and struck the leadership of the First Baptist of Watertown unaware. After all, one of that denomination’s foremost personalities was none other than Martin Luther King, Jr.
While Martin Luther King might have done a commendable job for the cause of civil rights, he was hardly a font of orthodox Christian doctrine. According to columnist and pastor Chuck Baldwin, King denied essential Christian doctrines such as Christ’s deity, the Virgin Birth, and the physical resurrection (in other words, those very things that make Christianity worth messing with in the first place). Furthermore, King’s association with reported Communists and similar subversives has been well documented.
I wonder if the Pastor of First Baptist of Watertown would have the courage to put the smackdown on Dr. King or is that just something he does to old ladies? After all, unlike denominational bigwigs and assorted pressure groups, little elderly grandmother-types don’t have much ability to yank the purse strings shut or block access to the other niceties of positions those deriving their livelihoods from emolumented parsonships often crave.
Though this debate within the church makes for an interesting back and forth, probably even more disturbing is the response coming from the town mayor. Since the pastor also sits on the town council, the mayor felt it was his place to weigh in on the debate with the following comments: “If what’s said in that letter reflects the councilman’s views, those are disturbing remarks in this day and age. Maybe they wouldn’t have been disturbing 500 years ago, but they are now.”
Since this community apparently employ part time alderman, does the mayor speak out on personnel disagreements taking place at the day jobs of the others sitting on the council? More importantly, does the major plan to speak out against other religious organizations and groups that do not allow women to assume the highest levels of authority?
Since the mayor thinks he is some kind of equal opportunity crusader by kicking around the pastor of the local Baptist church, does he have the guts to take on the local Catholic church or is he just too afraid to take on the Vatican? Better yet, is he big and bad enough to take on the Muslims when they come to town as many times in that religion women aren’t only banned from positions of authority but also barred from the very act of public worship. They only thing the mayor should be worried about is whether or not the church is in compliance with the fire code or if members take over too many parking spaces on the street.
The pastor claims that God intended men and women to fulfill different roles within the church, and for the most part he is correct. But as my grandmother Louise Schwartz use to say, the man might be the head but the woman can sure twist his neck. So the next time he calls upon the ladies of the congregation to prepare the pancake supper or whatever else the gastronomically carefree gorge themselves on at such functions these days, perhaps these women of conscience should flat-out refuse pointing out it is not their place to cook promiscuously for all kinds of men to whom they are not married.
For if we are to adhere to such an airtight interpretation of Holy Writ, does it not say women are to be keepers at home? There is not one word there about being the kitchen scullions of the church. And if the pastor does not like it, tell him to take it up with the disgruntled husbands that are no doubt sick and tired these days of all these extraneous groups and Purpose Driven this study and Purpose Driven that study that act like they are more entitled to the labor of these women than the men to which such women are married.
Frederick Meekins
Dr. Montieth interviews a representative from Eagle Forum originally from Austria who compares what happened in her homeland under the Third Reich and things that are beginning to happen here. A fascinating program for all those that truly love liberty. The comparisons between the two nations will send chills down your spine.
As the federal government grants additional rights to terrorists captured in war, the American people may find themselves increasingly used as guinea pigs in the experimentation of non-lethal weaponry.
Secretary of the Air Force Michael Wynne said devices such as microwave guns had to be calibrated by targeting them on our own countrymen before they could be used on the battlefield aiming them at enemy combatants for fear of the condemnation of the world community (or in other words the scumbags of the earth).
Ladies and gentleman, behold the rising curtain of the New World Order where your very government is more concerned about the hurt feelings of some homicidal heathen that didn’t like being walked around on a dog leash but doesn’t not have second thoughts about going postal on your granny with a light saber.
As the saying goes, if we had had this attitude during WWII, we’d all be speaking German now.
by Frederick Meekins
A Christian bookstore in the Washington, DC metropolitan area told me that, though an important topic, books such as my Yuletide Terror & Other Holiday Horrors do not sell and thus the retailer said they were not interested in it.
Maybe if I titled it Purpose Driven Yuletide or Why I Kissed Scrooge Goodbye or after some other bit of inane navel-gazing drivel, I might be able to sell some copies.
So if you like to collect rare books, be sure to get your copy of Yuletide Terror & Other Holiday Horrors since it seems this tome will go down as one of the worst selling books in all of history and thus an ensured classic.
Since I have spent around $175 for this project, I do not have to sell too many copies to declare the project a success and still retain the claim to one of publishing’s worst selling books.
In the spring of 2005, I wrote a column detailing what I considered a few of the shortcomings and dangers of the Emergent Church Movement. Much to my surprise, the piece sparked more of a debate than originally anticipated, full detail of which I am not privy but it must have been a real humdinger.
According to one pro-Emergent blog called TallSkinnyKiwi, since I have dared to say my peace elsewhere about tattooing, smoking, and boozing (three things Emergophiles seem to revel in with impunity), as well as enunciated differences with Presbyterians, and Southern Baptists (as if these institutions were somehow above criticism [perhaps they should be reminded about the Protestant Reformation ]), my comments about the movement ‘s grand pooba Brian McLaren are therefore out of line and not worthy of consideration.
In the spirit of ecumenical inclusion gripping much of mainstream Evangelicalism, TallSkinnyKiwi categorized my classification of McLaren as “the worst McLaren slam” making the rounds on the Internet and “This is NOT the kind of discussion we want to have, so please...no wrangling about words, no arguing, no divisiveness...Let’s have a good productive discussion that allows us all to move ahead.” No doubt headlong into the arms of apostasy. Thus, the practitioners of liturgical diversity hold the sacrament of tolerance should only apply to those agreeing with them.
My column regarding McLaren might seem utterly bizarre to minds too small to fathom the revolutionary apocalyptic changes sweeping across certain sectors of society, but I stand by my conclusions and assessments of this aberrant movement and its foremost luminary. Yet, from what I have learned since then, the situation might even be worse.
In the May 9, 2006 Sojomail ezine of the leftwing Christian rag Sojourners, McLaren is interviewed as to his opinion of The Da Vinci Code. According to McLaren, though The Da Vinci Code is lit with fallacies and distortions, these are no more serious than those in the Left Behind Series.
Though there is room for debate among committed Christians as to the specific chronology of certain eschatological events and that some of the plot elements seem needlessly drug out or somewhat silly, overall one cannot deny that the Left Behind novels depict a milieu where Jesus is Lord of the universe. The Da Vinci Code portrays Jesus as little more than a sex fiend no more divine and thus worthy of worship than the rest of us. But since in their own words a good story is more important to the Emergent crowd than cold hard fact, all that is beside the point.
What McLaren and his disciples really can’t stand is the reasonably conservative outlook espoused by the Left Behind novels. McLaren writes, “The Religious Right has polluted the air. The name ‘Jesus’ and the word ‘Christianity’ are associated with something judgmental, hostile, hypocritical, angry, negative, defensive, anti-homosexual, etc. Many of our churches, even though they feel they represent the truth, actually are upholding something that is distorted and false.”
Encase Pastor McLaren has not been off that spacious Burtonsville church compound of his surrounded by houses pushing a million dollars in prince, there’s quite a bit to be negative and angry about in the world today. Frankly, it’s that naive brand of Christianity with the sickening grin plastered across it’s face that is so emasculated that it doesn’t get upset at anything that is upholding something distorted and false.
The McLarenite beef with the Left Behind series is the way novels “twist scripture toward a certain theological and political end.” Mind you, I doubt he’s raving about a pre-tribulation rapture or the oddity of a believer chauffeuring the Anti-Christ around the globe. Rather, what McLaren is lamenting is Left Behind’s stern warning against global government and the amalgamation of world religions into a demonic mismash.
For you see, whether he wants to admit it or not, Rev. McLaren turns out to be something of a universalist deep down. For while he will no doubt dance around the matter with the obfuscation endemic to the Emergent Church movement, McLaren is out to undermine traditional belief in the afterlife, particularly the destinations of the soul popularly known as Heaven and Hell.
According to McLarenite doctrine, it doesn’t even matter if these metaphysical realms even exist and the belief in them are actually a holdover from a more primitive time, actually hindering continued spiritual progress by fostering what has become the new boogeyman constantly harangued from the twenty-first century pulpit and Sunday school classroom (namely individualism). McLaren comes close to insinuating that Jesus didn’t even believe in Hell but simply invoked the concept to best the Pharisees at their own game of verbal one-upmanship.
Instead of fearing the eternal torments of Hell and anticipating the unending happiness of Heaven, the truly spiritual person only concerns themselves about a this-wordly COMMUNITY. Frankly, if this is all there is to the Kingdom of God, I want a refund and being a Christian is a colossal waste of time.
The hyperpious might come down with a case of the vapors for me having said that, but whether they want to admit it or not, my opinion is essentially that of the Bible as I Corinthians 15:19 says that if in this life only we have hope, we of all men are most miserable.
Interesting how those in these revolutionary movements constantly counsel how we have so much to learn from foreign cultures when these alien dogmas undermine sound doctrine, traditional liberties, and private property yet so eagerly dismiss these concepts when a degree of congruity is shared with Christian belief. So what if Zoroastrians at that time had a more vivid understanding of the after life than their Jewish counterparts?
Does the idea’s origin somehow negate any of its truthfulness as apparently Jesus wasn’t the only Biblical source to endorse the notion of a punitive realm of the after life irrespective of where the idea might have gotten its initial start as the theme received its most elaborate treatment probably in the Book of Revelation. But if McLaren is going to get his knickers in a knot over Left Behind, he’s as sure as Sheol not going to like the Book of Revelation.
What good is the COMMUNITY going to do you on your deathbed as your existence is about to be snuffed out all together if Heaven and Hell really do not exist as destinations in eternity but merely as states of mind for the few brief years that each of us trod this earth? McLaren and his ilk often claim they have taken the tack they have in the name of bringing the young people back into the church. But if his message is going to be this life is all we have, why should they bother showing up Sunday morning at all because in the grim world McLaren posits (no matter how much Emergent types might try to put a smile on it with their scented candles, nose rings, and espresso bar, one is better off patterning one’s life after Hugh Hefner than Jesus Christ if tomorrow never comes.
By Frederick Meekins
Just recently I wrote how wildlife documentarians hoodwinked the viewing public into believing audiences have nothing to fear from nature.
Now, one of their most famous, Crocodile Steve Irwin, will forever serve as a reminder of just how dangerous these creatures are.
Though it won't be popular to say and still quite sad, frankly everyone knew this day was coming.
And like the episode of the Lone Gunmen predicting a jetliner would be flown into an American skyscraper, I bet you'll never again see the episode of the Simpsons' were Irwin is mauled to death by a crocodile.
Yet no doubt some environmental idiot will blurt out that sickening line "At least he died doing what he loved." Try telling that one to the wife and kids.
By Frederick Meekins
In the field of apologetics, leadership is often taken by scholars in the discipline of philosophy as such academics are often inclined to point out the inconsistencies of various belief systems and the rational superiority of the Christian faith. While such efforts will always be at the forefront of worldview analysis, experts in the fields of history, journalism, and law more oriented towards concrete fact than theoretical reflection also have an essential role to play in defending the Christian faith and in presenting a reason for the hope that lies within the believer.
One such work exemplifying this approach that is both comprehensible to the average reader yet filled with informative detail for those of a more academic bent is The Case For Christ by Lee Strobel. Himself a former skeptic, The Case For Christ recreates Strobel’s spiritual journey where this Chicago Tribune reporter turned his journalist’s eye and trained his legal mind towards the fundamental claims regarding Jesus Christ.
Strobel recreates this process by interviewing the foremost Christian experts in the fields of ancient history, Biblical studies, and even medicine and psychology. To some, this approach no doubt reeks of a detached tedium for which many professors are infamous; however, Strobel imbues this quest with both intrigue and a touch of humanity.
Strobel assures those reluctant to commence an in depth theological inquiry that such an investigation can be exciting and does not require any esoteric mental abilities beyond the commonsense used to operate in normal everyday life. Strobel accomplishes this by beginning each chapter with an anecdote drawn from his own life.
For example, in the chapter examining the eyewitnesses for Christ, Strobel opens with the story of a teenager on a respirator, paralyzed from the neck down by a robber’s bullet, who testified to the judge and jury assembled in his hospital room of the deed done to him (48). The victim died eighteen days later.
Many of the experts interviewed by Strobel themselves have their own engaging backgrounds that the reader will find both interesting and assuring to readers that these imposing intellects are not all that different than the rest of us. For example, Lewis Lapides, interviewed as an expert on the Messiahship of Jesus, went from being born into a Jewish family, into a skeptical phase surrounded by a dope-induced haze, to embracing Christ as his savior. Particularly touching was how the Resurrection was more than an academic truth to historian Gary Habermas but rather a source of existential comfort getting him through the loss of his wife to cancer.
It is through this witty give and take that Strobel lays out the evidence of the case for Christ. Though the entire book should be read, the conclusion does an excellent job of summarizing Strobel’s main points.
Strobel comes to the following conclusions. The biographies of Jesus stand up to scrutiny as reliable history as they were not countered as being inaccurate and have been reliably preserved in that the number of manuscripts indicate 99.5% accuracy of the text (350). Furthermore, evidence regarding the existence of Christ can be found outside the Gospels such as the mention of Jesus in Josephus and archaeology confirms that the Bible is accurate in numerous small details, thus increasing the credibility of its claims in more complex matters. Strobel then proceeds from these brick and mortar issues to address the more profound theological matters such as whether Jesus was insane to claim He was the Son of God and an examination of the various alternatives to the Resurrection such as the swoon theory that fall short of both logic and evidence.
As an introductory text, The Case For Christ by Lee Strobel is bound to become an apologetic classic as it succinctly addresses the fundamental issues of the Christian faith in an engaging manner that will stimulate reflection among believers and the spiritually curious alike.
By Frederick Meekins
This audio sermon is a good summary of this spiritual danger.
A driver has deliberately rundown people in 12 locations throughout the San Francisco area, killing at least one pedestrian.
Omeed Aziz Popal was arrested as a result of the incident.
But because his is hardly a good solid Irish or German name, most accounts throughout the country have deliberately omitted the moniker of the alleged perpetrator.
Had his name been Joe Bob Lumpkin, tolerancemongers would have alreadytaken to the airwaves denouncing this deed as a hate crime and called upon additional federal oversite of the attitudes espoused by motorists, especially those daring to purchase SUV's.
But because this weirdo is probably a Muslim or some kind of sympathetic foreigner, once again sensitivity has been placed above survival.
by Frederick Meekins
Less than four months until Christmas. Get your copy of "Yuletide Terror & Other Holiday Horrors".
For years, enemies of mankind such as Steve Irwin and Jeff Corwin have duped the American people into believing we have nothing to fear from allowing megafauna to trundle unimpeded across the face of the continent.
On these propaganda pieces disguised as informative educational programming, we are told that alligators and black bears wouldn't harm a hair on a human head.
However, three deaths at the mouths of ravenous reptiles and the report of a child being mauled to death by a black bear makes you stop and wonder if the wrong people weren't eaten for the sake of the gene pool.
The next time citizens hear of pleas by environmentalists to reintroduce extinct species, they would do well to think back to the tragedy befalling these individuals and their families.
And this will likely become a more prominent issue in the years ahead. With the advent of sciences on par with something out of Jurassic Park, we are talking about more than a stray pack of wolves here and there.
According to one Reuters news story published in August 2005, suggestions are being made to reintroduce elephants and large cats such as lions and cheetahs to the North American continent since it is claimed such creatures roamed the countryside over 10,0000 years ago.
Couple this with the desire to conjure mammoths and sabretooth tigers from hypergenetic witchcraft, and we could have a real nightmare on our hands.
Those worshipping the creation rather than the creator will argue that in all these instances sounding like episodes of the Fox Network's "When Animals Attack", the human victims were at fault for intruding on the territory of the predator in question, and since naturalistic evolution teaches we are no better than the animals, these victims got what they deserved.
But frankly, where are humans suppose to live and if we are to be denied firearms if the gun control lobby has its way, how will we be allowed to defend ourselves?
By unleashing wild animals in the areas beyond designated human sanctuaries (a nice euphemism for relocation compounds), the government will not have to round people up or even offer them much of a payment for their property. The unprotected will be scratching at the door to get on the inside.
Already it is pretty much against the law to protect your loved ones and property from these creatures to which the elites have abdicated humanity’s rightful place at the top of the food chain.
In East Manatee, Florida, a retired lady marine was cited for hunting without a license for shooting an alligator when the ravenous reptile lunged through her doggie door on her patio in an attempt to make a quick snack of her golden retriever.
Those promoting evolution and other heresies about nature claim they advocate an equality of species.
However, unless they plan to bring up the trespassing gator on charges as well, what is really being implemented is a systematized human inferiority where we will not only be denied the right to live where we want but also the right to protect ourselves as well.
Had the gator lunged at the presidential pooch, the Secret Service detail would no doubt made quick work of the scaly assassin. If we are to maintain the perception that in the American system that there are no aristocrats or nobility, on what grounds can we deny the average citizen the same right to protect life and property?
In the NBC drama "Surface", the giant monsters prowling the depths of the sea turned out not to be creatures from outer space but rather produced in a laboratory, it was alluded to as the season drew towards its conclusion, for the purposes of a systematic campaign of depopulation where the elites would eventually emerge from their undersea bunker to reclaim a new Eden.
If people do not awaken soon, they might very well find their property, their freedom, and even their very children on the menu of the inaugural feast of the New World Order.
By Frederick Meekins
Those in favor of the cultural and demographic changes sweeping over the United States as a result of immigration would do well to consider the discovery of an archeological site in Mexico where evidence has been discovered suggesting that the Aztecs did not have the Spanish over for dinner but rather had the Spanish for dinner.
For the Mexicans pouring into the United States as part of the downplayed insurgency actually taking place draw inspiration not from the Spanish side of their ancestry but rather from the homicidal, cannibalistic savages commemorated by the name "Azatlan" which they plan to rechristen upon the triumph of their subversions.
Already in their ruminations they claim there will be no place for the White man in their paganized empire.
As in the Germany of the 1940's, it is only a few short steps from posting signs saying "Whitey Keep Out" or "Get Lost Gringo" to implementing the Final Solution to the so-called "Caucasian Problem'.
by Frederick Meekins
Nowadays, if you glance at a police officer the wrong way, its 200,000 volts with a stun gun with the likelihood of additional shock if the cop doesn't like it that you happen to convulse and twitch after falling to the ground.
However, instead of being bound and gagged for his return trip to America, accused child killer and all around sicko John Mark Karr was subject to no such deprivations.
Instead, the aspiring predator shipped champagne and dined on roast duck and king size shrimp.
by Frederick Meekins
According to reports, a trendy Chicago suburb voted “the sexiest suburb in America” may be on the verge of banishing from its venues of commerce those not conforming to arbitrarily contrived body aesthetics.
Lane Bryant, a retailer known for marketing clothing to full-sized women, has been denied the opportunity to open a store in a development called “The Village Of Oak Park”.
Before the hypercapitalists decide to slit my throat as they are wont to do whenever anyone dares to question a decision made by big business, it must be noted that the decision to deny Lane Bryant the retail space was not made by a private sector firm or entrepreneur but rather by the committee managing the village, an entity quasigovernmental in nature.
The bureaucratic mouthpiece for the community association told the press that, “Lane Bryant is not the kind or quality of shop that is desire for development,” and, “We want a more broad based retailer benefiting the village, rather than a niche market.”
In other words, “Fat chicks, keep out.” For unless the Village --- a term as almost as nauseating as COMMUNITY as it is usually invoked by an insular elite out to micromangage the lives of those residing in a particular locality --- is planning to open a Wal-Mart or a Target (places these Communitarian types despise even more than the overweight), by definition the retailer would otherwise serve a niche market.
For example, does Oak Park Village plan to offer a men’s clothier? By default, such an establishment would be niche because of excluding women’s garments. Does the Village plan to have an electronics store? By definition, wouldn’t that be a niche retailer since it would not sell groceries?
The rich and snooty thinking it is their place to tell us poor working slobs how to live and how we are not quite as good as they are since the names slapped across our rearends didn’t cost quite as much as theirs will look down their elevated noses and claim that what I describe above has nothing to do with niche retailing. Rather a broad-based retailer would provide raiment for members of the retailer’s targeted genders.
Maybe so, but the person slightly above “average” in size can hardly ever find attrative clothes in these places catering to the malnourished and emaciated. One is often more likely to find the Holy Grail than a decent shoe above a size 12 in many of these places.
In a Chicago Tribune account of the dispute, it is claimed that Villagistas banished Lane Bryant because there was already a place reserved for a full size specialty store. So what?
Is it really the place of a municipal authority or even a residential association to make such economic decisions? Consumers should be the ones to decide whether the market can bear two merchants appealing to a similar demographic. If it cannot, one will eventually fold opening space for a new establishment; if it can, consumers will be all the better off as both venues will compete for customer dollars through either discounts or choices of selection.
All local authorities should do is to make sure the area surrounding the mall is crime free and to eagerly take in any tax revenue to accrue from otherwise free and unfettered commerce. However, it is this idea of consumer choice that the proponents of the “New Urbanism” cannot really stand as they use their cloak of diversity to impose a mandatory conformity.
Many advocating this perspective on public planning are appalled at the idea of the cinema multiplex where moviegoers have a selection of motion pictures to choose from. To the Communitarians, we are to have a limited media so that we are all exposed to the same thing and thus have community thrust upon us through a uniformity of thought. Seems choice is only to be allowed when promiscuous vixens decide to have their unborn children hacked to pieces.
Today, Oak Park Village conspires to retain its distinction as “sexiest suburb” by taking steps to ensure that all those fat people the anti-obesity racket has labeled “unsightly and unattractive” use these facilities at a minimum. What is to prevent them from banning such people all together?
Don’t laugh. Shu Bartholomew hosts an informative webcast called “On The Commons Radio” that catalogs episode after episode the abuses of power and unbelievable petty bylaws endemic to the system of homeowner associations sweeping across the United States like a plague of locusts devouring all the liberties stranded in their path.
On her guest appearance on Freedom 21 Santa Cruz, another eye opening broadcast warning of the dangers of contemporary community planning and the like, Shu detailed the plight of one homeowner that had to have the family dog weighed periodically to ensure that the canine did not go a few ounces over the weight stipulated for pets in the residential association regulations.
What is to stop a similar law or regulation from being promulgated that people over a certain size are not permitted to live in a particular housing development? Ridiculous, those of limited perspective might snap.
But is it? Already various community development authorities are manipulating the rules of the game to attract the kinds of people they want to allow into their own little versions of utopia.
For example, in Hyattsville, Maryland, subsidized housing is being set aside for so-called “struggling-artists” even though hardly anyone else either can afford the dilapidated housing ranging from $300,000 to $500,000 with tax bills over $3000 a year (as Dolly Parton use to quip regarding her own appearance, it sure costs a lot to look so cheap). Another program paid for at public expense around the country gives preferential mortgages to teachers.
Neither artists nor teachers make that much less than us common folks and are often found on the more shiftless end of the labor spectrum. If anything, the members of these respective occupational classes given over to the radicalism infecting much of the intelligentsia have done the most to subvert this great nation over the past few decades.
Those favoring the malnourished look wouldn’t really need to be all that openly hostile initially in their campaign to banish the portly from these oases of optimal nutrition and fitness. In the name of health, municipalities and residential associations could enact rules demanding those living in a certain area participate in COMMUNITY exercise programs and those caught snacking on certain foods or weighing over a certain amount could be forced to pay a fine (or as such assessments are called in the Owellian lexicon) an additional fee.
Already the White House is conspiring to measure the urinary byproducts of dope in various sewer systems around the nation. I am sure some clever chemist could devise some kind of test to determine what kinds of snack foods are being excreted by the eating public.
Once Americans have been conditioned to accept increased dietary oversight, additional measures could eventually be introduced. For example, those refusing to comply with the promulgated standards of body aesthetics in reference to weight despite incurring the established financial disincentives could be relocated to cellulite liquidation centers where, of course, they would never be heard from again.
Some might laugh and say that in America such action would never be taken against those failing to abide by such arbitrary standards. At one time, the very same people said a government agency would never tell a property manager what retailer might set up shop in a private facility or seize a beloved home that’s been in a family for generations just to placate the influential as evident in the threat posed be eminent domain.
By Frederick Meekins
According to the Department of Homeland Security itself, x-ray machines that screen airline passengers cannot detect explosives.
So unless the devices are being used to further increase the risks of cancer or to further condition the American people into doing as we are told without complaint, then what's the point.
But then again, maybe those reasons are the point.
Perhaps Americans should stop and consider this before they rush headlong into implementing other measures supposedly being enacted for our own good that won't do a thing to stop an actual act of terrorism such as the Real ID Act but merely tighten the chains around the neck of the American people.
by Frederick Meekins
With much attention focused on the danger posed by eminent domain, one does not hear as much about the threat posed by "wetland preservation" as you once did.
However, in this interesting discussion, Sharon Hughes points out though this environmental smokescreen governments can effectively sieze control of your property without even having to compensate you for it.
Over the course of the modern era, whether fairly or not, orthodoxy has come to be associated with glumness and austerity. Thus, those coming across Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton might assume they are in for a dull and obtuse recitation of doctrine and dogma. They will, however, be delightfully surprised by Chesterton’s wit, feistiness, and zest for life.
It is Chesterton’s contention that, rather than stifling the individual, it is through orthodoxy that man is liberated to both accept and embrace the contradictions of this life for what they really are in all their wonder and horror. It is the heretic that is unable to rise to a level that would give him a perspective that would enable him to appreciate things as they actually are since the heretic is ultimately beholden unto these very forces of life. Chesterton muses, “Thoroughly worldly people never understand even the world; they rely altogether on a few cynical maxims which are not true (22).”
Often, believers are accused of being close minded. However, Chesterton contends that Christians are no more close minded than the adherents of any other outlook. Chesterton writes, “For we must remember that the materialist philosophy...is certainly much more limiting than any religion...The Christian is quite free to believe that there is a considerable amount of settled order and inevitable development in the universe. But the materialist is not allowed to admit into his spotless machine the slightest speck of spiritualism or miracle (41).”
As a result, the heterodox mind must increasingly withdrawal from a world that declares the glory of God in order to maintain the consistency of the fiction it has constructed. For example, in illustrating views regarding the existence of sin, Chesterton offers the following humorous illustration, “If it be true...that a man can feel exquisite happiness in skinning a cat, then the religious philosopher can only draw one of two deductions. He must either deny the existence of God, as all atheists do; or he must deny the present union between God and man, as all Christians do. The new theologians seem to think it a highly rationalistic solution to deny the cat (24).”
Those adverse to traditional religious notions have constructed elaborate epistemological systems in an attempt to justify their unbelief. However, Chesterton assures, such intellects (though formidable by human standards in terms of the facts such minds have accumulated) actually bear a startling resemblance to the insane.
Like the insane, rationalists view themselves as the source of all meaning. In the struggle and strain to understand everything, Chesterton notes, the consistent rationalist is actually driven mad as they end up losing everything but their reason. Chesterton observes, “The man who begins to think without the proper first principles goes mad; he begins to think at the wrong end...But we may ask in conclusion, if this be what drives men mad, what is it that keeps them sane (48)?”
The answer provided by Chesterton is none other than the mystical imagination found in religious orthodoxy. The thing about the cosmos human beings occupy is that is both physically and epistemologically too complex for the finite mind to fully comprehend. The only thing we can do is appreciate what we can and to accept that there is a power beyond us. Chesterton notes, “The real trouble with this world of ours is not that it is an unreasonable world, nor even that it is a reasonable one. The commonest kind of trouble is that it is nearly reasonable but not quite (148).”
Chesterton further likens the spiritual realm to two wild horses threatening to bolt off into the extremities of either direction with only the church adhering to orthodoxy capable of reining in these powerful tendencies that are good and pure when kept together as a team but result in heartache and ruin if not kept working together in tandem. Ironically, Chesterton claims, though often depicted as scatterbrained the best poets (actually quite sensible and businesslike) are often the ones embodying the spirit necessary for handling this awesome responsibility. For what the average person desires above all else is a life of practical romance defined by Chesterton as “the combination of something that is strange with something that is secure (16).” And what is any more mysterious and secure at the same time than God Himself?
Written in the early years of the twentieth century, some of the authors mentioned by Chesterton might seem obscure to readers not that familiar with general literary history. However, the fact that they have been forgotten while Chesterton is still embraced as a foremost defender of the faith is a positive testament to the relevance of Chesterton’s ruminations that, though written nearly a century ago, ring with a truth that sounds as if they just rolled off the presses.
by Frederick Meekins
Ben Franklin is attributed with saying that those desiring safety above liberty deserve neither safety nor liberty. If one particular proposal being suggested as a potential solution to the seemingly insurmountable immigration problem is implemented, those living in the United States --- both those with the right to be here as well as those that should be tossed back over the border --- will have neither safety nor liberty.
Both the chairman of Verichip and the President of Columbia are on record as suggesting that the vaunted guest workers heralded as the future backbone of the U.S. economy could be implanted with radio frequency identification chips in order to ease security concerns by tracking the movements of migrants and reliably confirming their identities.
Citizens might respond, “So? This doesn’t concern us. This only applies to those that want to come here in compliance with the law and the first thing any law-abiding person does is always comply with the law no matter what.” You know, a variation of the old why-are-you-so-concerned-about-privacy-if-you- haven’t-got-anything-to-hide thing.
The program might start off implanting only foreigners, but little will prevent this program from being expanded to include citizens once full Americans have been conditioned to accept biochips. For the proposal to inject aliens with homing devices is nothing more than a technologically sophisticated manner through which to transform citizenship into a legal and economic irrelevancy and as a way to bring about the demise as Americans as a distinct and robust people in the world
In the future when the world will no longer be characterized by independent sovereign states but instead organized around regional or hemispheric districts, the privileges (as rights will no longer exist) one will be permitted to enjoy at the whim of global planners will not be based upon the natural rights bestowed upon the individual by God Himself but whether one has bended his knee before the masters of the end of the age and submitted to their global order by accepting the identification chip.
Those whose perceptions are confined by the realities of the immediate present and unable to conceptualize anything in the future beyond getting drunk next weekend can’t imagine Americans submitting willingly to a program of such extensive control. Yet we are already well down that path. All in the name of preventing terrorism, Americans just about now do a striptease in airports, have been compelled to drink their own breast milk, think little of the government rifling through their library records, and will probably not make much of a fuss about the NSA colleting dossiers right off their MySpace profiles.
All the government has to do to get the population to accept monitoring chips is to continue to do little to deter or interdict every piece of human refuse thinking it’s their place to mosey on into the United States (without respect for our laws, language or culture) and demand we acquiesce to their inferior way of life. If the acolytes of the chip promise that the device will dramatically cut down on undesirables while ensuring that this technology will allow the sincere (both native born and newcomer alike) to be able to contribute to the American economy, the naive will flock in droves to prove their fealty to the hemispheric union and ultimately the global order.
Despite the preeminent threat biochips pose to human liberty as well as their spiritual implications described in Revelation 13, such a proposal is actually quite revealing as to what the quasi-open border crowd actually thinks of Hispanics and others coming to our shores (or perhaps more precisely right on through our shores without even stopping).
Elites claim that, if anything, they want to see an increase in the levels of immigration and to legalize most of those already here out of their compassion for the downtrodden of the earth and out of appreciation for diverse cultures. What they really want is to reduce everyone below their lofty status to the level of a glorified slave class.
At the rally on the Mall in Washington, DC lauding the wonders of illegal immigration, a litany of radical liberals aided and abetted this criminal act by complaining how, if illicit cross border migration was curtailed these, elites would lose their steady stream of cheap labor. And in all the fancy rhetoric about the wonders of legalizing those in violation of the nation’s immigration laws the politicians, activists, and bigwigs , conveniently neglected to mention how these new additions will be incorporated into the system of statutes and regulations already bearing down on the American economy.
For example, unscrupulous businessmen often employ illegals because of their below the radar status so these firms can reimburse these laborers at rates lower than that proscribed by law. But when these workers are granted an occupational legality equivalent to that enjoyed by all other citizens and properly documented aliens, won’t those now bestowed the right to remain here through the alchemy of legislative and bureaucratic hocus pocus have to be given the same pay and workplace protections as everybody else? More likely, these guidelines will be altered or overlooked in their entirety to drag us all down to the squalor and poverty characteristic of the Latin American barrio.
Been giving the boss some lip about not getting a raise; you better watch out. Not only can you be replaced with a foreigner that will work for a pittance of what you make and who will not only be beaten gladly with a rubber hose but also endure being denied potty breaks as well.
Refuse to accept that identification chip? No problem. We’ll see just how long you’re able to last excluded from all economic participation, or as Revelation 13 puts it, “...no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark.”
Whereas the globalists claim to have the best interests of the migrants at heart only to use these laborers in pursuit of their agenda to turn the entire planet into one giant slave plantation, at least those opposed to the system of immigration (both legal and illegal) as it currently stands think enough of their counterparts originating outside this nation to force them to abide by the system of laws to which all people are to be subject.
For one is dishonest with those one is dismissively contemptuous, not with those one respects as a fellow human being. Furthermore, if all men really are created equal, shouldn’t they be expected to adhere to properly constituted law irrespective of their pity parties or sob stories? To grant them a waver from these statutory expectation is an admittance that deep down one believes those of the population in question to be an inferior breed of the human species incapable of rising to the standard everyone else is expected to adhere to.
In the circles that study the methods through which freedoms are lost and nations undermined, there is a concept credited with being Hegelian in origin known as “order from chaos”. According to the strategy, those in power allow conditions to deteriorate to the point where the people clamor to have an iron fist clamp down around them.
No doubt about it, the current immigration crisis did not come about unintentionally. Rather it is part of a deliberate plan to bring about the end of the United States and to eradicate human liberty from the face of the earth.
By Frederick Meekins
Instead of buying into the new mentality that one is stuck in a bad church the way one is stuck in a bad marriage, Jan Markell does the body of Christ a service by providing a set of guidelines the believe can use to tell when it is time to break fellowship with an errant congregation.
Especially disheartening was the email she read about the elderly couple where the husband had an inoperable aortic aneurysm who was told by their "seeker sensitive" pastor (who was anything but sensitive) to basically hit the road because they would not go along with the heathen jungle music permeating so many of the houses of God today.
Robertson now says, "We really need to address the burning of fossil fuels."
But while you are suppose to feel guilty about driving around in a reasonably safe and comfortable vehicle such as an SUV or even air conditioning in your home, at one time Robertson had a race horse he spent over $500,000 and lives in a mansion atop a mountain with its own airstrip.
According to Generation's Radio co-host Dave Buehner, those with fewer than three offspring don't really love children and that people refuse to have anymore for selfish reasons such as wanting additional consumer electronics.
I don't know how things are out there in the hinterlands, but some of us live in areas where it is irresponsible to procreate beyond that number as real estate prices have gone through the roof with smaller houses often going for over $300,000 with annual property tax bills topping $3000.
And if parents send even a two child family to Christian school, that's probably another 8 to 10 thousand on top of that, not to mention how we are lectured incessantly how we are greedy and irresponsible if we don’t sock away a hefty amount for retirement; maybe believers ought to cut back on their tithes to finance these expenses since they are just as much God’s work than recarpeting the sanctuary.
As homeschool operatives, Swanson and Buehner will probably retort that the children can be homeschooled; but what if the parents are more salt-of-the-earth laborers while the child's interests lie in a more bookish direction?
Being buddies with R.C. Sproul, Jr who was defrocked in part for browbeating those that dared to consider leaving his congregation, I guess these two would say those aspiring beyond the parameters of a neo-feudal class system where your place in life is determined by that of your parents should be chastised until they accept their lot.
As a parent, one's obligation lies with the children God has blessed you to have already.
If that means sacrificing your own pleasure in abstaining from having any additional children one might desire to take care of the one's you already have, that's just the way it has to be.
Does not the Bible say that he who does not provide for his own children is worse than an infidel; that dictum does not say anything about me having to pay for the kids of the guy down the street that can't seem to keep his pants on.
The number of children one produces is in no way an indicator of one's love for little one's nor is it always in the best interests of mothers to keep popping them out until she bursts.
My great-grandfather was an abusive drunk who fathered ten, with my grandfather brought into the world prematurely as a result of my great-grandmother having been kicked in the stomach. Nine children later, this once bright-eyed redhaired girl was dead by her mid forties from a heaviness of heart causing her to look as if she was in her late 60's.
By Frederick Meekins
While I am a tad leery about some of Dr. Hovind's reasoning as to why he believes he should not be compelled to pay taxes like the rest of us, the treatment he and his wife recieved at the hands of IRS operatives is inexcusable.
One would think this would be a matter for accountants and tax lawyers rather than goon squads.
