Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Monday, December 29, 2008
Technological Parking Meters Manifest Statist Mindset
One of the simple delights in the age of vehicular travel is coming across an empty parking space that still has time on the meter. Since the beast --- namely the municipalities obtaining revenue from the meter --- is still getting the amount of money it is due whether the spot is occupied by one or two cars in the purchased amount of time, one would think the taxmasters wouldn't care and simply let the lucky motorist enjoy one of the few pleasures remaining in our increasingly bleak and overcontrolled world.
However, it seems that technology is being used once more to tighten the noose of government around the neck of the law abiding citizen.
According to a Washington Post story titled “Meters Deny Parking Handouts“, a number of companies are developing devices sensitive enough to reset themselves once they detect that the space is no longer occupied. Instead of harassing motorists, perhaps these tech-heads should turn their sophisticated detection sensors towards securing America's border.
Especially revealing is the statist mentality of those supporting these Cylon parking meters (it's a wonder they don't have that little red light pulsating back and forth). The chief executive of IntelliPark (one of these companies out to get rich dreaming up new ways to further curtail human liberty) told the Washington Post, "You take away that free lunch, but on the other hand that's tax revenue."
If the primary concern here is that no one should get a "free lunch", wouldn't research efforts be better directed towards not developing a meter that resets itself as soon as a vehicle pulls away but rather makes change from the unused time?
"Why you skin-flint Conservative or tight-fisted Libertarian, how miserly of you to want back a few messily cents.” If we are to happily relinquish what is rightfully ours simply because it is just a few mere cents, just see what happens should you skimp on your IRS tax bill by the same amount.
If we are to view the motorist sneaking onto a spot where the meter has not yet run out of time as taking something out of the coffers of the state, why shouldn’t we cast the same glare of disapproval upon the state for pocketing a profit from time in which it’s space is not leased?
After all, to whom does the coinage for the unused time ultimately belong? For does it not actually belong to the original motorist that has since driven off?
Thus, it is the state (not the driver “sneaking” into the space) that is actually the small scale thief. Shouldn’t technology allow the original motorist to decide who gets to keep the change?
by Frederick Meekins
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
HWJD: How Would Jesus Dress
As I remeber John Warwick Montgomery remarking of Episcopal priests swallowing gold fish and parachuting off skyscrapers in the attempt to make the church relevant to the young: "If God's not dead, maybe He wishes he were."
Companies with dress codes should not permit this no matter how much it is justified in the name of religious freedom.
In response to the anti-Christmas crowd, it seems things may be veering too much in the opposite direction as well.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Obama's Graven Image Emblazoned Across Subway Pass Cards
The only way this is proper is if there were ones for George W. Bush as well. Anything else is nothing less than idolatry.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Have Yourself A Theistic (Not Atheistic) Little Christmas
From at least 1994 when I remember writing my first column on the subject, despisers of the Almighty and liberals of the most spineless of stripes have conspired to undermine Christmas as a national celebration in the attempt to downplay and ultimately eliminate public recognition of God in general and His only begotten Son Jesus Christ in specific. These efforts have been so widespread that I was able to compile columns written about them over the years into a book titled "Yuletide Terror & Other Holiday Horrors".
Though the American people have been manipulated and their resistance worn down on a number of fronts to the point that they now let slide any number of outrages that would have caused considerable uproar in the past, for the most part citizens have been quite vocal about attempts by secular leftists to ban acknowledgement of the Christmas season. However, now that traditionalists have asserted the right to publicly affirm their god-given heritage, secularists are responding with alternative displays of their own promoting their own particular worldview.
Foremost among these is an ad campaign targeted at Washington, DC’s public transportation system. The posters sponsored by the American Humanist Association read, “Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness’ sake..” This simple question and accompanying reply are in need of a complex response.
For starters, whether we like it or not, if an atheist front group wants to pony up the cash, they have the same right to buy public advertising space like any other organization with too much money on its hands. Responses such as the one presented in a 11/17/08 USA Today article titled “Atheism: A Positive Pillar” where an Illinois state legislator told an atheist activist, “It’s dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists!...You have no right to be here! We believe in something. You believe in destroying.”
Such an attitude may itself be of a greater danger than the outright atheism. For it is wrong on a number of philosophical and apologetic grounds.
For starters, it is not really all that dangerous for children to know atheism exists. Granted, one might not want to, as in the example used by D. James Kennedy in a classic sermon, hand one’s child over to a thoroughgoing secularist who on the first day of kindergarten proceeds to indoctrinate the hapless pupil as to the alleged reasons why God does not exist and why Jesus Christ is not His Son.
However, part of protecting children is to warn them of the dangers out there bent on destroying them in body and soul. Thus, just as parents eventually one day have to have that discussion with their young ones about the existence of pedophiles and where to aim the kick should some sicko every try to rob the young ones of their innocence, parents also have the obligation to warn to warn that there are those out there that hate God so much that they’d like nothing more than to persuade you to give up your belief in Him as well.
The cause of Christ is not served by hiding these things from young minds and then finally exposing them to such apostasies upon adulthood. It’s challenging enough when you are taught about these things and then find your self surrounded by the products of an education system advocating such a viewpoint reeking of what you always heard pot smelled like and another hooligan wearing a t-shirt with decals of copulating skeletons as I remember the first day of college.
Secondly, lack of a belief in something is a belief about it. For too long, Christians and allied theists have played into the hands of atheists and agnostics by going along with the notion that those professing unbelief are objective and unfettered by preconceived epistemological commitments and that the believers are the ones holding onto bedrock dogmatic foundations. Many atheists are just as rabid in their assumptions as the most zealous of pulpit-pounding evangelists.
The anti-God Christmas placards intone the reader to "Just be good for goodness sake." But without God, can good truly exist? For if He does not, mankind is left with the alternatives of either nihilistic anarchy or regimented totalitarianism.
For example, if God does not exist, who is to say whatever the individual thinks or does is right or wrong? As has been said, in some cultures they are suppose to love their neighbors and in others they eat them. To the cannibal the adage is not so much finger licking good but rather good to lick fingers.
Furthermore, if God does not exist, on what grounds do the institutions of society such as the government have the right to tell you to do anything whatsoever? Without God and His revelation, the "IS" automatically becomes the "OUGHT" with rules and laws merely being those promulgations which keep the strongest in power.
But what about the individual, the timid may ask unsettled by the door that has been opened but too prideful to grasp Christ's outstretched hand. What about the individual?
If the individual is no better than all the other animals who are themselves just products of random chance, his welfare means nothing in comparison to the welfare and even the convenience of the larger group. Though it is a somewhat different philosophy, according to a Caryl Matrisciana column titled “An Enlightened Race?” New Agers who believe similarly to atheists that there are no absolutes rooted in the character of an eternal personal God don’t even want to say Hitler did anything wrong but rather merely things that were misguided at worst.
The New Atheists claim that the suspicions their worldview elicits are unfounded because as humanists they only have the betterment of the species in mind and that traditional religions are the ones responsible for the atrocities of history.
Margaret Downey of the Atheist Alliance International is quoted in the USA Today article as saying, "We atheists simply add an 'o' to our belief system --- we believe in good." However, that is in spite of rather than because of their unbelief.
If anything, what atheists exhibit when they manifest goodness is remaining Judeo-Christian moral capital. These individuals professing godlessness remain largely good because they have been acculturated in a milieu largely Biblical in its underlying ethical orientation.
However, as time marches on and these foundations are eroded as succeeding generations will become less familiar with this heritage. Future atheists will not be as eager to embrace the balanced approach to life we in the West have come to categorize as good.
Incidents where traditional forms of religion have been invoked to justify abridgements of individual liberty are horrifically tragic but because they betray the values espoused by the founders of these systems of belief. However, by default, that does not make those claiming to lack a religious faith are not necessarily more laid back in their approach to life and less prone to violence.
If anything, lack of divine restraints seems to send man's compulsion to prey (not pray) upon his fellow man into overdrive. One only need to look at the histories of regimes with an explicit antipathy towards the God of the Bible such as Soviet Russia, Red China, and Nazi Germany. And even in the United States where human dignity is for the most parts respected, numbers are appallingly high in terms of the millions slaughtered in the names of abortion and so-called “reproductive rights”, a charge led primarily by the godless along with the wishy-washy easily whipped up into a frenzied enthusiasm over the joys of baby-killing.
As commuters putter about this Christmas season and viewers watch the battle of the broadsides, there is more at stake than an esoteric debate as to the nature and origins of goodness. Both our very lives and our eternal destines could very well be on the line.
by Frederick Meekins
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Would This Be Tolerated If The Image Of Obama Was Used Instead?
Halfwits thinking this incident was all fun and games should realize it was just not Bush that the shoe was hurled at but rather the entire United States.
Heathens around the world should be thankful that America is as restrained as it is and should ponder how a less-mercificul world power might have responded to this insult.
White Folks Denied Zoo Discount
Bet if a minority was denied a special privielge, they'd go on the warpath.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Fecundity Equals Faith
So since Albert Mohler only has two children, should his position as a seminary president be surrendered to someone with more children since by the argument presented in this column that individual has a greater or more sincere faith.
Or as usual, is this just a standard that gets imposed upon the believer in the pew and not the professional religionist?
By the end of the broadcast version of this commentary, Mohler lets it slip that missionary types are not to be held to this standard and that those with children understand God better.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
The Dangers Of The Christian Idenity Movement
mms://radiolibertyarchives.gsradio.net/radioliberty/120908b.mp3
Dr. Stan is to be commended of warning about this heresy and the dangers it poses to legitiamte Constitutionalism.
The Dangers Of The Christian Idenity Movement
mms://radiolibertyarchives.gsradio.net/radioliberty/120908b.mp3
Dr. Stan is to be commended of warning about this heresy and the dangers it poses to legitiamte Constitutionalism.
Warrant Issued For Senior Paying Fine With Pennies
Is not something like "for all debts public and private" stamped across U.S. moneyt?
Thus, any government agency should be compelled to accept payment in whatever form of legal tender the compliant citizen chooses to pay the penalty leveled against them with.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Barney Theme Used To Break The Will Of Terrorists
"I interogate you. You interogate me. We're a Gitmo family...."
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
The Emergent Church & Purpose Driven Movements To Play A Role In End-Times Holocaust
mms://radiolibertyarchives.gsradio.net/radioliberty/111908a.mp3
Listeners may need to copy and post this link themselves into their web browser.
Monday, December 08, 2008
Sunday, December 07, 2008
Thanksgiving Turkeys Not The Only Ones In America
Each Thanksgiving, the President pardons a turkey --- an actual barnyard fowl and not a member of Congress. For the most part, the custom is itself harmless and mildly cute; however, should taxpaying citizens learn what is done with the turkey, they will likely end up with a case of indigestion.
According to a Fox News account, after the White House ceremony the turkey was to be flown first class to Disneyland in California. There the gobbling celebrity was to serve as the grand marshal of the park's Thanksgiving parade.
Many would dismiss this story as something not to get worked up over. Yet in this dawning era where we are constantly reminded how our very way of life must change or face collapse along various fronts, escorting a turkey to Disneyland in stratospheric luxury raises a number of questions.
First, is the turkey being sent there at taxpayer expense? If Disney wants the bird, that corporation is the party that should pick up the airfare.
Relatedly and even more importantly, shouldn't those that have set themselves up as our betters and the ones out to impose the new paradigms upon the rest of us have to live by their own standards?
For example, a letter to the editor published in the Prince George's Sentinel attempts to guilt-trip the reader into foregoing the turkey dinner by insinuating that this traditional culinary centerpiece is somehow bad for the environment. But what about the resources expended to get the turkey from Washington to California, and, even more importantly, what about the "carbon footprint" (the term used by beatniks of expanding girth like Al Gore to make themselves feel better about their own ostentatious consumption) left behind each year by the Disney corporation.
I for one have no problem with amusement parks and similar resorts. However, I am not the one haranguing the average American, who can hardly afford luxury vacations these days, into giving up one of the few remaining pleasures available, namely a reasonably priced turkey dinner.
Often, America’s Puritan and Separatist founders are depicted as absolutely joyless and not having much fun in their lives. And maybe so by out standards. However, these solemn patriarchs are party animals in comparison to the glum-faced busybodies out to control in the name of the environment all aspects of the food you consume from what can go into your mouth and, increasingly as in regards to proclamations regarding no flush toilets, what is to be done with it once it comes out.
by Frederick Meekins
Thursday, December 04, 2008
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
Monday, December 01, 2008
Friday, November 28, 2008
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
American History Lesson 1: Introductory Remarks
Normally in these posts, I usually address various social and political issues that happen to be in the news.
Through advances in technology, the average citizen is able to convey information and viewpoints in a manner not all that different than more formidable journalistic institutions. Not that long ago, this would not have been possible.
Even now, there are those sharing in the mindset expressed in The Cult Of The Amateur that the proliferation of voices taking place today is inherently deleterious to our civilization and should be curtailed for the sake of elites who are to guide the masses in what to think rather than have their actions put in check by the scrutiny of a discerning citizenry. These conflicting outlooks did not pop up overnight but are the result of a process that extends back years, decades, and even centuries.
Often, those that have embraced the new technology have taken it in the direction of providing alternatives to the mainstream press in the forms of blogs, webzines, and podcasts. I have contributed to this movement since the year 2000.
However, recently I have pondered that if blogs and podcasts have enabled those to participate in journalistic undertakings that they would otherwise be locked out of, why can't this technology also be utilized to provide an electronic classroom for those otherwise unable to teach in a more traditional academic setting. Thus as an experiment, in the coming weeks and months ahead, I will attempt to teach a basic introductory course on American History.
Academically, I hold a Bachelor's degree in Political Science and History. I also hold a MA in Apologetics and Philosophy in which these subjects were often approached from a historical perspective and a Doctor of Practical Theology in Interdisciplinary studies.
I have primarily written columns on current events and have no teaching or public speaking experience. As such, the manner in which the material is presented may be quite basic and not pass muster with professional historians and college instructors.
But that's OK. From the Jaywalking segments on the Tonight Show, Americans are not struggling with obtuse historical minutiae having little bearing on every day life, but rather with the broad outlines and themes that are essential for the free citizen to have a basic familiarity with if our Republic and our liberties are to survive.
By Frederick Meekins
Monday, November 24, 2008
Nation's Capital Implements Measures Violating Rights & Property
As the nation's capital, Washington DC is often looked to for various approaches on how to handle a number of growing issues around the country. Usually government eggheads like to formulate their grandiose schemes from their comfortable halls of power and impose them upon areas of the heartland so far from scrutinizing eyes that very few end up seeing what is actually going on. However, there are now a number of policies being implemented within the city that will soon be at the forefront of efforts to undermine life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
In the episode of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" titled "Past Tense", areas called Sanctuary Districts were established in mid-21st century America as places in major cities in which to corral the economically challenged irrespective of their criminal status. Though initially established in the name of the well being of those assigned to reside there, according to the entry at Star Trek Wiki Memory Alpha, "This internment, in fact, amounted to nothing less than imprisonment."
Those thinking their feet are more firmly planted on the ground and heads out of the clouds will no doubt respond that all that is just a story that could never become reality. Think again.
In order to curb the crime in the Trinidad neighborhood of Northeast, Washington, DC, police established "Neighborhood Safety Zones" where checkpoints were set up blocking access. It's bad enough if law enforcement just about literally points a gun at the head of everyone coming into the neighborhood compelling motorists to permit officers to ransack through vehicles regardless of whether or not anything suspicious is going on.
However, things have gone beyond the limits of conscience when American citizens that have neither been convicted nor accused of a crime are then forbidden from proceeding down a free public street. Supporters of these police state tactics will counter that those entering the neighborhood with a “legitimate purpose” such as “going to a doctor, to church, or visiting a relative” could be granted access.
For starters, who are police to determine if an activity that does not violate pre-established law is of a legitimate purpose or not? Secondly, people that must divulge their law abiding activities to law enforcement who then pass judgment as to whether or not such innocent undertakings are appropriate are dangerously close to losing one of the most basic of fundamental liberties that at one time set this country apart from the lesser nations of the earth. Do we really want to further condition the American people into embracing their status as docile little Pavlovians who eagerly wag their tails every time the government blows its whistle and demands that we reveal additional information about ourselves?
Though it was claimed motorists would be granted access if they had legitimate reasons to enter the neighborhood, individuals with valid reasons in fact claim they were turned away. What part of public in "public street" don't these Keystone Cops not understand?
For now, these blockades are often temporary. What is to prevent them from being made permanent and expanded in the future?
What is to stop authorities from turning the entire federal city into a Neighborhood Safety Zone with anyone barred entry that cannot prove either residency or occupational status in the district? Already in the name of preventing terrorism, Americans are denied access to structures we are repeatedly told through propaganda belong to all of us such as the Capitol building in Washington, DC and the Statue of Liberty in New York City.
If there is power now to tell us whether or not we are to be granted access to structures belonging to "the people" and once deemed public, makes you wonder if there might come a day that they might tell you what otherwise lawful discretionary activity you can and cannot enjoy in your own home. Wait, they are already trying to do that now.
If these checkpoints are constitutional, what is to stop them from being implemented across the United States either independently by various municipalities or through the promulgation of a presidential executive order such as those already quietly drafted basically saying the government can essentially take from you anything it wants and do to you anything it wants including compulsory civilian involuntary servitude during a time of so-called "national emergency". Through implementing nationwide "safety zones", only those granted police or bureaucratic approval would be permitted to move within or without specified jurisdictions. There are likely those such as Al Gore and even Barack Obama (who chastised Americans for eating too much and driving SUV's even though he has been seen locomoting in this particular kind of vehicular conveyance on numerous occasions who would probably have no qualms about implementing such measures in the name of the environment.
The way in which the Nazi and Soviet regimes were implemented would not be successful here in the United States. Those seeking to control every last aspect of people's lives have noticed that at least here in America they must quietly implement their policies step by step so that Americans are stealthfully goaded into eventually embracing the future being planned for them by the elites of the New Order.
According to social planning, the new urbanism, sustainable development, or whatever other flurdelore you want to dress it up with, it is no longer satisfactory to allow concentrated areas of population to develop, expand, or contract in compliance with forces attributed to Adam Smith’s invisible hand. Rather, these areas are to be remodeled into the image seen fit by heavy-handed public-private partnerships even if it means ruining the lives of upstanding citizens in the process so long as it gives corporate tycoons what they want and makes politicians intoxicated on the narcotic of media attention look good in the press.
Social welfare programs instituted by government are often justified on the grounds of improving the lives of those experiencing hardship. However, often such assistance has very little to do with getting the unfortunate back on their feet but rather about fostering a state of dependence that will keep the tentacles of the government expanding often at the price of the individual's well-being, especially if the individual could actually get their life back together though private charity rather than public means.
In the District of Columbia where the city government is dominated by Democrats and the like who claim government's most important function is safeguarding the economically disadvantaged, it seems playgrounds for the hyperrich (commonly referred to as ball stadiums) are a greater priority than those struggling to make it on their own. According to a March 26, 2008 Washington Post article titled "Straining In The Stadium's Shadow", a number of those providing charitable and business services in the vicinity of the Nationals' stadium where in fact forced out using a variety of strategies.
One of the hardest hit is the group known as Positive Nature, which counsels troubled youth. In the course of about two years, taxes on the organization's property went from $9000 to $83,000. As a result, Positive Nature may have to close up shop, possibly causing those getting assistance from the organization to be taken away from their parents and placed in a variety of state run institutions such as psychiatric hospitals and possibly even in prison.
Maybe that is exactly what those thinking government is the only solution for what's plaguing the human condition want. Instead of providing for oneself or seeking assistance from other private sources, the individual is to seek purpose and solutions to life's problems from the state.
Others already capable of sustaining themselves through the efforts of their own toil might no longer be able to do so. Those trained to salivate on cue for their government handout might snap businesses ought to be soaked to provide for the havenots.
Oh really? Does this include small businesses and sole proprietorships with tax bills that went from $600 to $16,000 and from $1500 to $22000. If that is the bribe one must pay to the state, why not just throw in the towel and become a welfare leech and suckle off the system as well?
According to the Washington Post story, the stadium was marketed to citizens forced to pick up the tab for this playground for millionaires as a way to raise revenue for schools, roads, and subsidized housing. But as with all the other grandiose promises made by tax boosters throughout history, downplayed is how these assessments are also enacted as a means of social and economic engineering with any money raised a secondary matter compared to the implementation of a far more comprehensive agenda.
Considerable grassroots backlash has arisen against the Kelo decision in which the Supreme Court ruled in favor of forcing owners to sell property to developers in the name of economic improvement. But now, instead of drawing out this process as reluctant owners might put up a fight in an attempt to retain homes and businesses, all governments have to do to get people out is to raise taxes to either force owners to sell or (even better in the eyes of bureaucrats) get the owner to fall behind in their taxes so revenuers can move in to seize the property without having to pay a dime in order to acquire it.
Furthermore, by tinkering with tax rates and the like, governments, developers, and other organizational monstrosities such as public-private partnerships can economically corral undesirable populations into parts of town deemed appropriate for those not deemed worthy of living amongst the elite even if those no longer deemed worthy of an area have lived their for decades. Ultimately, such populations can be forced into low-cost housing where the movements of such individuals can be more effectively monitored, controlled, and even curtailed. Thus establishing, in essence, “sanctuary districts” quite similar to those described earlier in this essay in a manner less shocking than they may have sounded initially.
The concepts of private property and freedom of movement as we once knew them are endangered species going out of existence. In their place will arise a new system where those once knowing liberty will be manipulated into clamoring for more and more control all for the rotting pottage of prosperity and security.
By Frederick Meekins
Friday, November 21, 2008
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Gingrich Calls For End Of Adolescence
Though there is much to admire about former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, isn't it mildly hypocritical for him to be the figure calling for the end of adolescence as when he was that age he was running around with his Geometry teacher and was having an affair that ended his second marriage when he was leading the charge against Bill Clinton running around with Monica Lewinsky.
Community College Covers Over Racial Harrassment Of McCain Supporter
If the taunting was the other way around, you can bet Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton would have been flown in.
While the faculty did a reasonable job of maintaining a balance in the past with the exception of a foul-mouthed female journalism instructor that wore wife-beater T-shirts in the middle of winter, even back then many of the students were your typical liberal drones that regularly had to remind everyone what color they were with a number of them comporting themselves as if they deserved special applause and academic concessions simply because they procreated illicitly.
One can only imagine the fanatical frenzy these malcontents have been whipped up into under Obamaism.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Monday, November 17, 2008
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Monday, November 10, 2008
Witness To Jonestown Commemorates Cult Tragedy
In light of the recentl election, imagine this tragedy on a national scale.
"O Come Let Us Adore Him?": Plans Made For Obama Holiday
The fantacism spreads. Guess not long until we must be stamped on the right hand or forehead as well.
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Kaine Surrenders Virgina To Obama As A "Handout" State
If Ralph Nader can't use the term "Uncle Tom", why isn't the governor of Virginia saying "Old Virginny is dead" also being condemned for propogating racial stereotypes.
What The Obama Media Takeover Will Look Like
When the word Clark is mentioned, replace it with Obama.
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
So Do They Deserve Only 3 Or 4 More Now?
If it really is true that COLOR is more important than CHARACTER as we can deduce from the numerous talking heads in the media (who by the way I wonder as White people would step aside to give their own positions to "people of color" or that is only an obligation of those of us below their lofty status on the socioeconomic ladder), since Black people make up about 10% of the population, does that mean they are only entitled to 3 or 4 more of this segment of the population to hold this office?
Don't get ticked at me for pointing out the obvious as I am not the one that advocates Affirmative Action and quotas.
Fanatic Crowds Take To The Streets
One must temper this jubulation by asking had the New Messiah gone down in defeat if these zealots would have ripped to shreds the first White person they came across.