Offending the Barbarians

Well, this week brought another series of murders in the name of “The Religion of Peace”.  These acts of savagery have become regrettably commonplace, but the reaction was different this time, because our betters, the relativist preachers and lecturers of the media were kin to those brutally murdered to avenge the honor of a god and prophet too impotent to tend to his own vengeance.  The chaos and confliction endemic to our “thought leaders” was telling.

We witnessed  large media outlets publicly take pains to be careful how they reported the story, out of fear of offending people who have a nasty and largely unchecked habit of killing anyone who offends them…in other words, pretty much anyone else.  Despite the near toxic irony of these media outlets being in a business that relies of the freedom of expression, including the freedom not only to offend, but to gore sacred cows with impunity, this was unsurprising, as these same outlets have been willing participants in a movement to shame, ostracize, and ultimately silence others who “offend” those who have been deemed by our betters to be beyond the reproach, criticism, questioning or mockery of others.  While the New York Times, MSNBC, and social justice warriors in every walk of society haven’t yet taken to killing those who have offended their delicate sensibilities with words, they have displayed absolutely NO reluctance to use their fainting couches as bludgeons against anyone who dares to utter anything that they deem unworthy of being said.  While cries of “racism” are the general default silencer, they have been unafraid to use “intolerance” and “white privilege”, and “______phobia” as well.

I would like to say that I’ve enjoyed seeing the bludgeon of “offense” used against the very people who have brought this perversion of our fundamental freedoms into favor, but I can’t.  Instead, I’m infuriated.  As a white Christian male, husband, and father, it has been open season on me, in my own culture, for most of my life.

And in response, I HAVE KILLED NO ONE.

I haven’t killed sitcom writers, who portray me as a bumbling idiot, worthy of derision from my wife, and contempt from my children.

I haven’t killed self-designated feminists, who seek to blame me for the oppression of women in a society in which I could, and have, worked for women, and in which I have known them as intellectual and spiritual equals.

I haven’t killed African-Americans, despite the ubiquitous claims of my personal practice of oppression, or enjoyment of it because “racism” and “white privilege” from racist grievance pimps, race hustlers, and their willing accomplices in academia and the media.

I haven’t murdered schoolchildren and other innocents, or suffered a massive psychotic break, despite believing in the Second Amendment and deeply resenting government’s numerous violations of it, and intrusions on to my right to bear arms, and the portrayal of myself and others who hold such beliefs by opportunistic politicians, media figures, and “academics”, as a wackjob and loon.

I haven’t killed those who maintain that I, and others like me are “bitterly clinging” to our Bibles and guns, and that we are members of an oppressive religion.  In fact, for a member of an “oppressive religion”, I am a failure, a characteristic I share with many others like me, as we haven’t “persecuted” anyone, despite continued infringement of our First Amendment rights by our own government, and a judiciary determined to ignore history, re-write the Constitution, and impose an interpretation of ten tortured words that would be completely foreign to those who penned them, and the man misquoted and misapplied to invoke this bizarro conception of what they had wrought.

If we were to compare grievances, I’ve just demonstrated that the “offences” to me, and others like me far exceed the followers of Islam, who “unexpectedly” are at the heart of every act of bloody savagery committed for the honor of a religion or its prophet in our world today.  And yet, here I stand, not yet having beheaded a single person, or not strapping on a bomb, and detonating it, and myself in a public place,and not attacking another religion’s house of worship…such as a Buddhist temple, synagogue, cathedral, or even  the offices of NPR or the New York Times ( I wouldn’t want our secular humanist brethren to feel left out).  This isn’t an accident; this is by design.

Because our betters have been so successful in using the fainting couch to cow us into creating a right “not to be offended” out of whole cloth, and elevating it to a position where it is far superior to all other rights, they have created their own gag, and contributed to the Barbarian’s belief that they are entitled to act like Barbarians, without thought or concern to consequences for doing so.  They have contributed to the “easy” response.  I’m not shocked, in the era of hashtag “diplomacy”, that I’m seeing “Je suis Charlie” all over the web.  But I’m not impressed.  The Fourth Estate surrendered its legitimacy, and surrendered its duty as a stalwart defender of freedom of expression.  It did this when it tried to stifle speech, rather than engage in it.  It did this when it tried to shut down the marketplace of ideas, rather than compete in it.  It did this when it exceeded its authority and tried to make a new right, not defend the ones central to their purpose.  And because they did this, they conceded our rights to the Barbarians.  They gave the enemies of civilization a veto.  And if civilization is to survive, we are going to have to step up, and do what our self-appointed betters no longer have the courage to do.

If your god commands that you kill to defend his honor, he’s a pretty impotent god.

If your god tells you that anyone who doesn’t believe in you is worthy of any punishment you care to make them suffer, he is a petty and impotent god.

If your god demands that you kill anyone who leaves his service, he’s a bloodthirsty and impotent god.

If your god has offered to reward murders in his name by giving you other humans for your pleasure in the afterlife, he is a barbaric and impotent god.

If you believe that it is your duty and obligation to behead those who insult Islam, then you are not worthy of the company of human beings.

And if you would use the tolerance and conventions of civilization as a means to infiltrate and undermine society until you have the numbers to assert yourself by bloodshed, then you deserve an extreme segregation from civilization that must be exacted to make it happen…until you learn, or until you aren’t a threat to others.

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Modern-Day Incantations and the Failure of “Reason”

The most powerful word in the country today is… “Offensive”.

The words of a Facebook acquaintance hung there on the group page, taunting my mind away from a more basic Sunday morning meditation.   It worked, and my mind started milling the words, prompting my immediate rejoinder “If that were true, it would work for everyone, non?”

But the more I thought about it, the more I came to consider the “wrongness” that lead to the statement being made in the first place.  I realized that it isn’t about the rank hypocrisy that sees nothing wrong with an entitlement for some people to invoke “offense” as a means to stop discussion, debate, questions, behavior or beliefs they do not like, but is incapable of even considering that other parties might be offended by the discussion, debate, questions, behavior or beliefs of the those invoking “offense”, let alone capable of invoking “offense” themselves.

Don’t get me wrong.  I think being able to end all discussion, debate, questions, behavior, or beliefs by claiming to be “offended” is unhealthy for a free society, offensive to liberty, and childish in the extreme.   As long as it is impossible to have an honest conversation, because it will almost certainly “offend” someone, it will be impossible to address any issue of import.  It doesn’t take long before this will lead to financial impairment, social impairment, and impairment of national security. (See President Obama, Second Term)

But the really, really odious part if this is that I often hear “Offense” uttered like an incantation from many of the same people who speak of “reason” being superior to faith, and a basis for them to assume an intellectual superiority that they clearly haven’t earned, while they often put faith in “facts” that have expiration dates due to constantly changing nature of scientific paradigms.  The illogic of presuming that rights which are guaranteed by law are subject to override if only they can apply their completely subjective responses to the exercise of those rights would be laughable if it wasn’t pursued with such zeal and dedication.  Orwell himself couldn’t have conceived of the sheer scope of the vanity and delusion that have combined to impose a bizzaro-world rhetoric to such a degree that sincerity and directness are relegated to criminal status.

The saddest aspect to this current state of affairs is that too many of us allowed ourselves to be cowed by this practice, as if offending someone, or at least those granted a de facto privileged status by the arbiters of acceptability, is a combination of the worst sin and the worst crime that a person can commit.  The fact is that this extraordinary power and cancer on society wouldn’t be powerful at all if we didn’t let it.  But this requires a boldness to push back, that too few have the backbone to exhibit.  Start responding by saying “SO???”  Ask them to explain why they are suffering from the alleged “offense”.  Put the onus on them to prove why it should matter to you, and to everyone else, rather than giving what has morphed into a generic and reflexive complaint the presumption of legitimacy without the burden of proving it.  It is your duty as a citizen and a member of society to engage people who don’t want you to engage in an honest discourse.  It is your birthright to be able to do so without the threat of sanction by government, or those who want to destroy the very way you live, and censor your very thoughts.

STAND.  BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.

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The Asterisk*

*The one that leftists keep seeing after the words “…shall not be infringed.” in the Second Amendment. The one that apparently prefaces a litany of provisos, limitations, restrictions, and “common sense regulations” that are nothing of the sort.

These apparently include a government right to ban firearms that look scarier than other firearms, including the dreaded “black” firearms, magazines (clips are what you put in your hair) that are hold 10 rounds or more at a time, and the need to ask permission of the entity that the right was intended to defend against.

It’s long past time for elected officials to produce their copies of these important document, or come to terms with the fact that the asterisk, and its accompanying litany DOES NOT EXIST.

And for those who want to conjure justifications in support of overreach by an entity that has enough trouble dealing with matters that are actually under its jurisdiction, here is some food for thought:

I do not have to express a NEED to exercise a RIGHT, and yes, the burden is on you to make the case otherwise. That would include a showing that NEED was actually a serious consideration in the debates that gave us the Second Amendment. Good Luck with that.

For those who want to suggest that limitations are appropriate and permissible because “the Founders didn’t envision machine guns”, I have two responses:
(1) If you accept this as valid, and I don’t, then they also didn’t envision all of the other technological advances that touch other Amendments in the Bill of Rights either, like radio, television or computers. Perhaps we need to license these uses as well, if only to avoid “abuses of the First Amendment”, which as everyone knows, can destroy a person’s lifetime of work establishing their integrity with a single broadcast, or completely taint their ability to obtain a fair trial by their peers…just ask the Duke LaCrosse Team, or George Zimmerman. While we’re at it, maybe thermal imaging technology needs to be off-limits to law enforcement because its use without a warrant violates the Fourth Amendment? And maybe other electronic surveillance should be restricted as well. Surely the Founders, who were suspicious of government power, would have objected to being monitored when in public, as it presumes guilt in the public at large, and touches on issues of freedom of association and self-incrimination?

(2) The facts don’t bear this out. The Founders and Framers lived in an age when scientific advances were a part of daily life. The history of that time had already shown advances in firearms. Where their grandfathers might have owned blunderbusses, muskets were ubiquitous at the time of the revolution, and refinements were being made to those during their lifetimes, as this correspondence from Thomas Jefferson demonstrates. What is more, these men wanted to encourage scientific and technological advances. That’s why Congress was specifically granted the authority “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;” in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. These were not stupid men. They were not legislators who would rush though a bill trampling on the rights of their constituents, and do so in such a hurry that they would forget to include exceptions necessary to allow law enforcement to do its work. They were careful. They were deliberate. The reams of paper recording their debates on these issues show this to be true, and it is insulting to their genius to glibly, and in a perfunctory manner, to presume that they simply failed to take into account the advancing nature of science when they authored the Bill of Rights. If they had intended a limitation, one would have been put there. And that is the correct legal interpretation of a statute as well.

To those who want to argue that it is an archaic document, written for a different time, logic is not your friend either. It was written in the aftermath of a conflict where we had thrown off the yoke of a government that did as it pleased, to the detriment of those living under it here, and without a concern for how its actions were perceived or received, and when government’s inclination was to levy numerous taxes to finance its exercise of power that reached even into our homes. Depending on where you lived, daily life held a number of dangers, which could be, and frequently were defended against by individuals with firearms, because law enforcement was limited in its ability to respond in a timely fashion, or because it was non-existent. And it was a time when many still harbored a deep mistrust for the new government which had displaced the old, if only because they were wise and educated enough, or experienced enough to understand that governments have a way of consolidating power, and cloaking subsequent tyrannies in the garments of benevolence. Many people would rightly maintain that the circumstances haven’t changed, only the players. But even if those of you who still believe the “archaic” law argument, even in the face of overwhelming evidence from other countries who have stripped their law-abiding citizens of their firearms rights, you are in luck. The Framers left you a mechanism by which to change it. It’s called “AMENDMENT”, and it is the ONLY legitimate means by which you may ACTUALLY insert the asterisk and all of the baggage that you currently pretend is there. This cannot lawfully be achieved through Federal Legislation, because the words “…shall not be infringed.” contain no exception for federal legislation. This cannot be lawfully achieved through state or local legislation, because incorporation through the 14th Amendment has made the Bill of Rights applicable to the states, as well. (And for those leftists who suddenly discover both the 9th and 10th Amendments in their copies of the Constitution, I would remind you that these are for the rights NOT addressed in the Constitution…including those already addressed in the Bill of Rights.)

Amendment is also the only legitimate process because the Constitution is the only legitimate “social contract” that governs our society. And whether you like it or not, there are a number of people who have grown up under it, and ordered their lives around its guarantees. If this social contract is to be changed, ALL who are affected by it have the right to input that the Amendment process guarantees. Such a change is not to be attempted by a legislative body alone, especially when that legislature’s control over such matters was specifically and deliberately curtailed.

For those of you who want to wave around the bloody bodies of some children to support the usurpation of power, you need to educate yourselves about what happened, including coming to grips with the facts that the “common sense reforms” you seek would have done NOTHING to prevent the tragedies you’re weeping over.

Finally, legislation by emotion is an error. When you are so dead set on restricting other people’s liberty that you have measures proposed by legislators who don’t even have a basic understanding of what it is they would outlaw, it is a problem. It further denigrates the legitimacy of those who would legislate such measures, and the whole of their actions. It is akin to having an appendectomy performed by an auto mechanic, or a journalist. If you propose to regulate something, you had better understand what you’re talking about, or you risk being ignored, and bypassed…kind of like what the President does to Congress now.

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In Response to the Wanna-Be Tyrants Grandstanding On the Still-Warm Bodies….

Gun Control doesn’t fix the problem, which is PEOPLE. What it does do is make masacres like this more likely, especially in “gun free zones”, which if you think about it, are the ultimate expression of gun control. Laws that say “you can’t have a gun here”. Obviously, that only disarms people who are inclined to follow the law.

And before anyone starts hyperventilating, I’m NOT advocating that kids carry guns to school. What I am suggesting is that we allow those who we entrust with keeping our kids safe while they are in the school’s custody the ability to actually DO SO, because when seconds count, the police are only minutes away.

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MSNBC Continues Its Authoritarian Worship, Criticizes Romney Relief Efforts

Andrea Mitchell, noted “journalist” decided that it was appropriate to criticize Mitt Romney’s participation in a donation drive for victims of Hurricane Sandy.

“You’ve got the image of Mitt Romney doing what, they say, is not a campaign event in the same space they were going to hold a campaign event. They say they’re making collections for hurricane and storm relief,” the MSNBC anchor said during a Tuesday broadcast of “Mitchell Reports.”

“We checked with the Red Cross. The Red Cross said, while they’re always grateful for donations, that this is not what they need or want. They always tell people, ‘please donate money, because we have our own packagers, wholesalers’ — they have their own distribution system,” she continued.

I know this may come as a shock to Ms. Mitchell, but the Red Cross is not the only charity that goes into disaster areas to offer relief.  Perhaps she has never heard of The Salvation Army, Samaritan’s Purse, and any other number of religiously affiliated relief charities.  Maybe she simply hasn’t considered these other charities because they are religiously affiliated.  Or perhaps it hadn’t occurred to her that there might be more than one charity acting in the wake of Sandy.  Or maybe she hasn’t figured out that the Red Cross can’t dictate how OTHER people’s charity gets gathered and distributed.  And not all charities have to “repackage” donations.  When people need food and water, you GIVE them food and water.  It doesn’t have to be complicated, especially when you have already coordinated with churches in the area, and know what the needs are.

  These organizations DON’T turn away donations, and many of them smaller overhead expenses that the Red Cross has.   They also don’t ask for donations after disasters and then NOT use the funds raised on relief for THAT disaster, like the Red Cross did after Katrina.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not against what the Red Cross does.  I’m always glad when there is an alternative to government assistance, if only because there is no institutionalization of that “assistance”.  But I reject the notion that they are the arbiters of what is or is not acceptable assistance.

But perhaps the most telling part about all of this is the assumption of authority, and condemnation of individuals who dare to not do what they were told to do.  It is the idea that meaningful help can only be that which is regimented and organized according to the dictates of “experts”.  It’s charity, for God’s sake.   It is simple.  It can be small.  And is SHOULD start with the individual.  But that doesn’t work for people who believe that we have to be controlled.  Or people who believe that experts are the only ones who have opinions that matter.  Or that authority must be ceded to a monolithic institution, because it is the only one qualified to have it.  It doesn’t matter whether that is donating to relief efforts as the Red Cross being the only acceptable donation, or the belief that people shouldn’t be responsible for their own safety, and that as a result, only the police should be allowed to have firearms.  This kind of thinking is contrary to the American Experience.  Hell, if experts were to be obeyed, and were the only ones with opinions that mattered, we never would have fought against the British for our Freedom.  The experts knew that the British Army was unbeatable.  If the experts were the authority, we likely would have never come here, because everyone knew the world was flat.  And going to the moon?  Forget about it.

And yet the indoctrination must hold, which is why Marty Bashir, The World’s Most Annoying British Twit™ doubled down with this chyron “Romney Donated Goods Drive Against Red Cross Guidelines”…reinforcing the impression that individuals must not defy authority…even when that authority has been conferred by those who think they know better, or assumed by those authorities. 

I guess I just don’t know who the authorities are, since I have readied a donation to the Salvation Army.

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Having Surrogates Means Never Having To Say You’re Sorry

The Blaze today has the story of Hustler’s photoshop of S.E. Cupp.  While this is emblematic of the REAL “War on [Conservative] Women”…the one that the usual suspects have no interest in talking about, it has been rightly pointed out that all though Hustler was both good enough to provide a disclaimer next to the photoshop…which will undoubtedly NOT accompany the image as it makes its way around the web, and was also good enough to be honest about the reasons for doing so, in creating this image, they have forever marked her in a graphically sexual manner over a political disagreement.

While the National Organization for Women has not yet issued a statement, it is not anticipated that it will offer anything more than a pro forma protest, if any.

The Hustler explanation states:

S.E. Cupp is a lovely young lady who read too much Ayn Rand in high school and ended up joining the dark side. Cupp, an author and media commentator who often shows up on Fox News programs, is undeniably cute. But her hotness is diminished when she espouses dumb ideas like defunding Planned Parenthood. Perhaps the method pictured here is Ms. Cupp’s suggestion for avoiding an unwanted pregnancy.

President Obama, who inserted himself in a similar controversy earlier this year when he personally called Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown Law Student and Activist who was called a “slut” on air by Rush Limbaugh, has so far remained silent on this matter.  Fluke, despite voluntarily enrolling at a Catholic school, testified in a public hearing about the need for the school to offer health care plans that would pay for the birth control of female students, which she claimed could cost upwards of $3000 over the course of a standard law school attendance.  The number was claimed to be based not on a standard that would use either condoms, or “generic” birth control pills available at the nearest Target or Wal-Mart Stores, but upon the exceptions to the rule, who claimed the more expensive formulations were necessary to treat other conditions, an explanation not given until after the figure was criticized and ridiculed by Limbaugh and others.  For the school to offer such a plan , it would have to go against church teaching and doctrine on the issue of birth control.

So because Ms. Cupp opposes PUBLIC funding of Klanned Parenthood, an organization that has undoubtedly been of great utility over the years to a readership that was more than happy to avoid the responsibilities of fatherhood that would have been incurred by sport screwing and the objectification of women, she deserves to be photoshopped with a penis in her mouth…an image that will undoubtedly be seen one day by her children, and the rest of her family.

It seems a far cry from a January day in Tucson, Arizona when President mustered enough sincerity to say these words with apparent conviction:

But at a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized – at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do – it’s important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.

But then talk is cheap, and Ms. Cupp’s conservative views and opposition to Klanned Parenthood undoubtedly make a similar intervention by the President in this matter quite impossible.

 

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The Thing About Crying “Hypocrite”…

…is that to be correct, it should be done into a mirror.

Accomplished bully, and, oddly enough, paid spokesperson for the anti-bullying movement, Dan “Attack Dog” Savage , is just the latest example.

Savage, “famous” for a sex column and grabbing headlines for such brave and unbully-like acts such as naming gay-sex effluvia after Senator Rick Santorum, and statements about how much he wants to F**k Santorum, and how he wants all Republicans dead recently gave a Sheridan apology for his bullying of high school students at a recent conference in which he launched into a tirade on the Bible, and then call the students who chose to remove themselves from his 15 minutes of hate by calling them “pansies” as they departed from his expertly rendered discussion against bullying.

Now, for those who like some justification with their assertions, you’ll note that he cites little to support his claims of the Bible containing “bullshit”.  The Bible supports slavery, and was used to justify slavery?  Tell it to the abolitionists who were waiving it with equal committment, Mr. Savage.  Christians eat shellfish, and therefore are hypocrites, Mr. Savage?  Tell it to Jesus, who said

¹⁴ When He had called all the multitude to Himself, He said to them, “Hear Me, everyone, and understand: ¹⁵ There is nothing that enters a man from outside which can defile him; but the things which come out of him, those are the things that defile a man. ¹⁶ If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear!”¹⁷ When He had entered a house away from the crowd, His disciples asked Him concerning the parable. ¹⁸ So He said to them, “Are you thus without understanding also? Do you not perceive that whatever enters a man from outside cannot defile him, ¹⁹ because it does not enter his heart but his stomach, and is eliminated, thus purifying all foods?” 

^{Mark 7:14-19}

 There are also 6 other New Testament references that make it clear to anyone capable of reading and understanding, that this would be one of those taboos that isn’t taboo to a Christian, meaning, of course, that Mr. Savage was not correct when he decided to belittle the beliefs of a captive audience who did not have the opportunity to respond…much like bullies often do.

Missing the opportunity for demonstrating any real understanding, he recently apologized on his website, displaying the same tact and wisdom that has so recently put him back in the spotlight in an uncomfortable way:

I didn’t call anyone’s religion bullshit. I did say that there is bullshit—”untrue words or ideas”—in the Bible. That is being spun as an attack on Christianity. Which is bullshhh… which is untrue. I was not attacking the faith in which I was raised. I was attacking the argument that gay people must be discriminated against—and anti-bullying programs that address anti-gay bullying should be blocked (or exceptions should be made for bullying “motivated by faith”)—because it says right there in the Bible that being gay is wrong. Yet the same people who make that claim choose to ignore what the Bible has to say about a great deal else. I did not attack Christianity. I attacked hypocrisy. My remarks can only be read as an attack on all Christians if you believe that all Christians are hypocrites. Which I don’t believe.

No, Dan.  When you attack the basis for someone else’s beliefs, you are attacking those beliefs, and the difference between those whom you mocked when they shook the dust off their heels and departed, and you, is that they have read and understood that which clearly eludes you.  But then, with a plank in your eye that is the size of a redwood, I’m surprised that you can drive a car without running into anything.  But then, since people still hire you to talk about fighting back against bullying, my surprise is tempered with resigned disappointment.

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The View From Neverwhere

I wish I could say that the latest bit of Chicken Little Santorum hysteria in the media was amusing, but instead I find it to be another example of the stunning lack of intellectual inquiry by the “guardians of the record” when they have enough to cobble together something commensurate with the narrative they so desperately want to tell.  When you add to the formula otherwise intelligent people who are hellbent on not recognizing simple truths, then the agenda becomes toxic. 

I woke this morning to headlines stating that Senator Santorum doesn’t believe in the separation of church and state, which of course feeds into the trumped-up paranoia about his obvious desire to bring about a theocracy here on our shores.  This can only confirm the worst fears of organizations like Klanned Parenthood, which is fervently pointing to conservatives like Santorum as evidence of a non-existent “War on Women” that is being waged from one end of the country to another.  And because the fourth estate can make this the headline, rather than the historical and unprecedented failures of the guy currently putting his feet on the Resolute Desk, the narrative is doubly served: Reinforce the myth that religion, specifically Christianity, was not central and formative to the men who declared us a nation, and formed the Republic, and deflect the well-deserved scrutiny and criticism away from President Downgrade.

However, the truth is a bit more complex than that, which should not be a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention, and the Senator’s full remarks displayed a greater understanding than his questioner, Democrat operative and pretend journalist George Stephanopoulos, wanted people to grasp.  First, the full exchange regarding John F. Kennedy’s Church and State Speech:

STEPHANOPOULOS: You have also spoken out about the issue of religion in politics, and early in the campaign, you talked about John F. Kennedy’s famous speech to the Baptist ministers in Houston back in 1960. Here is what you had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SANTORUM: Earlier (ph) in my political career, I had the opportunity to read the speech, and I almost threw up. You should read the speech.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: That speech has been read, as you know, by millions of Americans. Its themes were echoed in part by Mitt Romney in the last campaign. Why did it make you throw up?

SANTORUM: Because the first line, first substantive line in the speech says, “I believe in America where the separation of church and state is absolute.” I don’t believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute. The idea that the church can have no influence or no involvement in the operation of the state is absolutely antithetical to the objectives and vision of our country.

This is the First Amendment. The First Amendment says the free exercise of religion. That means bringing everybody, people of faith and no faith, into the public square. Kennedy for the first time articulated the vision saying, no, faith is not allowed in the public square. I will keep it separate. Go on and read the speech. I will have nothing to do with faith. I won’t consult with people of faith. It was an absolutist doctrine that was abhorrent (ph) at the time of 1960. And I went down to Houston, Texas 50 years almost to the day, and gave a speech and talked about how important it is for everybody to feel welcome in the public square. People of faith, people of no faith, and be able to bring their ideas, to bring their passions into the public square and have it out. James Madison—

STEPHANOPOULOS: You think you wanted to throw up?

(CROSSTALK)

SANTORUM: — the perfect remedy. Well, yes, absolutely, to say that people of faith have no role in the public square? You bet that makes you throw up. What kind of country do we live that says only people of non-faith can come into the public square and make their case? That makes me throw up and it should make every American who is seen from the president, someone who is now trying to tell people of faith that you will do what the government says, we are going to impose our values on you, not that you can’t come to the public square and argue against it, but now we’re going to turn around and say we’re going to impose our values from the government on people of faith, which of course is the next logical step when people of faith, at least according to John Kennedy, have no role in the public square.

Now, to begin with, Kennedy was trying to address a different brand of religious bigotry at the time he made the speech Santorum was talking about.  In 1960, we had never had a President who had been Catholic, and there was, predictably, some concern regarding how he would govern as President (Mitt Romney, you have a call on the white courtesy phone).  And Kennedy recognized this in the body of the speech that Senator Santorum was talking about:

While the so-called religious issue is necessarily and properly the chief topic here tonight, I want to emphasize from the outset that I believe that we have far more critical issues in the 1960 campaign; the spread of Communist influence, until it now festers only 90 miles from the coast of Florida — the humiliating treatment of our President and Vice President by those who no longer respect our power — the hungry children I saw in West Virginia, the old people who cannot pay their doctors bills, the families forced to give up their farms — an America with too many slums, with too few schools, and too late to the moon and outer space. These are the real issues which should decide this campaign. And they are not religious issues — for war and hunger and ignorance and despair know no religious barrier.

But because I am a Catholic, and no Catholic has ever been elected President, the real issues in this campaign have been obscured — perhaps deliberately, in some quarters less responsible than this. So it is apparently necessary for me to state once again — not what kind of church I believe in, for that should be important only to me — but what kind of America I believe in.

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute; where no Catholic prelate would tell the President — should he be Catholic — how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference, and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him, or the people who might elect him.

I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accept instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials, and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.

For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been — and may someday be again — a Jew, or a Quaker, or a Unitarian, or a Baptist. It was Virginia’s harassment of Baptist preachers, for example, that led to Jefferson’s statute of religious freedom. Today, I may be the victim, but tomorrow it may be you — until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped apart at a time of great national peril.

Kennedy, then, much like Santorum now, was faced with questions that focused not on the issues he came to address, but on his character, and how some believed it threatened the integrity of the Republic.  That said, while he qualified the premise that he set forth, that is that the “separation between church and state should be absolute”, he went on to tell us what that meant, and in his day and age, the militant atheist movement had not yet coalesced into the movement that today expends so much effort to remove the influence of religion (specifically Christianity) from any discussion regarding government, on the basis of that deliberately misconstrued phrase that has no home in the Constitution.  Yet this is the phrase seized on by those in today’s society who are determined to ignore the fact that the current understanding would have been completely foreign to those who argued the contents of the Constitution and who signed the finished product, let alone the man who wrote it so long ago to a Christian sect complaining of the favor given to another sect by the state,  to their detriment.

But then, there is little reason to believe that then Senator Kennedy would object to a town council opening a meeting with a prayer, when Congress had been doing it pretty much from inception.  Or that posting the Ten Commandments in a courthouse would so violate this concept of separation when it is part of the building that houses the Supreme Court.  Or that a prayer at a high school football game is contrary to the principle, when Washington and Madison declared days of prayer and thanksgiving when President.  Or that it should be impermissible to let a church meet in a public school building when the author of the storied phrase himself attended Sunday worship services on a regular basis in the US Capitol with members of Congress during his Presidency.

The fact is that Senator Santorum was correct.  The application of this “wall of separation between church and state” has far advanced any discernible original meaning, and now is a means to delegitimize an entire viewpoint by people who fail to understand that excluding and marginalizing it from the national dialogue has not resulted in a healthier society, but one in which we enjoy fewer freedoms than our parents and grandparents, because of the attempt to replace the restraint and prudence that too many today eschew for instant gratification and selfish pursuits.  It is a world where people who can ill-afford them will riot over new tennis shoes, and violence and hypersexualized predators stalk our children wherever they can be found.

Santorum’s crime is not that he tries to “impose” his views on anyone.  It is that he tries to reinject a voice that itching ears do not want to heed and consider.  I’m sure I could find legitimate reasons for not liking him, and I much prefer that idea than disliking him for being right without understanding that I’m being fed a line by a media that has its own story to tell, and hopes that I’ll be too lazy to suss out the truth.

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Sunday Palin

I am a student of history and politics, which is for me, a fascinating study for many reasons.

I can think of no other political figure that has inspired so much hate and vitriol as Sarah Palin.

 

 

From the moment that she was announced to be the running mate of John McCain, the outcry began.  I don’t need to recap it all here.  If you’re reading this and not swearing at me, you know what was said.  And if you are reading this and swearing at me, you’re probably repeating it as fast as your lips will allow.

Never mind the fact that many of the complaints were shallow, untrue, or didn’t reflect what the complainer’s real problem with her was, they were said anyway, and repeated ad nauseam, especially by people who had the public’s ear, even if they didn’t have the public’s mind.  And it didn’t stop there.

A media that never spares the horses when it feels obliged to lecture others about their lack of tolerance couldn’t wait to rush to make targets of her family too.

In a campaign where a stern-faced, left leaning object of worship lectured the press about leaving his family alone after his wife made provocative remarks while campaigning for him, the media happily turned and redoubled its scrutiny on Palin’s children, happily reporting rumors that the latest addition to the family was not her’s, finding fault with her daughter Bristol, who had unprotected sex with a publicity seeking, self-centered douchebag, and becoming pregnant in the process (marking one of the rare instances where liberals have considered it bad in recent memory for a teenager to become pregnant out of wedlock…perhaps the real crime was that she didn’t rush to her local Planned Murderhood™ Center to snuff her child in her womb?), and cracking wise with creepy sex jokes about her daughters, a la David Letterman. At least when noted dignitaries and cultural icons like Sandra Bernhard wasn’t on stage talking about how they’d like to see Palin gang-raped by a bunch of black men, showing that nuanced and brilliant wit and tolerance that the left is always telling the rest of us we should have…just like them.

And McCain’s loss in that election didn’t silence these critics.

Think about that. First, I cannot recall a single instance when there has been a single outpouring of sheer, unrefined hatred for a Vice Presidential candidate. From the ferocity of the attacks, if you had just crawled out from under a rock in the last few weeks of the campaign, you’d swear that the ticket had been reversed, based on the reporting that was going on. And then to have it continue after the election had ended? Unprecedented.

Seriously. Between the everlasting meme that “Sarah Palin is Stupid” that was the Left’s default position that has fed the myth of her unelectability repeated in some quarters on the right, you’d think that there would be no need to repeat her name ever again, and that if never given another line of print by the media, she would simply become a footnote in the history of Presidential politics, like Geraldine Ferraro. But if anything, the attacks intensified and continued. No attack too stupid, and no dismissal spoken from one of “ours” too illogical (like Michael Medved’s recent “The only reason she’s a national political figure at all is because she is kind of pretty. If she looked like Olympia Snowe or Susan Collins, do you think anyone would pay attention to her?”) The NYT’s recent “Help us data-mine all of Governor Palin’s emails because the dirt HAS to be there” campaign is only the most recent example that she cannot possibly be as easily dismissed as some want so desperately for us to believe. Why?

Because she turns every single lie the left has tried to enshrine as truth in the last 40 years on its ear.

1. Women can’t be mothers and be fulfilled. Children are an impediment to having a career.

Except when this isn’t true. Which then lead to the contradiction of a few feminists criticizing her mothering skills, and suggesting that she shouldn’t be governor since Bristol managed to get pregnant, and Trig was born. To this, I say, parents would love it if their children would always reflect the wisdom we try to impart upon them, and not do things that we have counseled them against. I know of no account of Bristol’s pregnancy that boiled down to Palin saying to her daughter “Has that ne’er do well knocked you up yet? No? Well drag his ass down to the bedroom! Todd and I can’t wait to be grandparents! C’mon ya little tramp. Start gettin’ busy!”

I didn’t have to be a parent to know two things. First is that no matter how smart your kid may be, or how much might have told them not to do something because of the impact it might have on their life, kids are rebellious. Just ask Billy and Franklin Graham. Second, if teenagers want to have sex, they will find a way, and they will manage to pull it off right under your nose. I used to be a teenager long ago. I know this to be true. And at some point, no matter what you say, or how often you say it, your kids will make their own choices. And that is what happened here. Instead of making lame attempts to berate the Governor, people ought to be noting that she didn’t ramble on in front of an open mic about her grandchild being a punishment to her daughter. As much as the word “Hypocrisy” was tossed around in relation to the matter, very few people in the media took note of the consistency that didn’t have Bristol killing her child, like Barry Sotero would have insisted on for his own children.

2. Sarah Palin exposes the myth of feminist solidarity.

The Governor ran against her own party to get elected to the governorship of her state. You’d think that such a feat would be a victory for women. And you’d be correct. But Sarah Palin also did it not just with the help of her family, which in fact, did not hold her back, but with the help of her husband, who she has remained married to for many, many years. This was in contravention to the declarations of feminists over the past decades, the conventional wisdom of which boiled down to “Children are a burden, and men degrade and demoralize women.” This was the reason for the knee-jerk attacks from the word “Go!”, and why they haven’t let up since. It is the reason why this

was not decried in the strongest terms by women regarded by the left to be leadership figures, and when not applauded by them, at least greeted with the stony silence of tacit approval.

This is the reason why the usual suspects HAVE to destroy her. And this is why they will look the other way when attack dogs like Bernhardt say things that reveal a less-than favorable perception of black men (which would have been denounced as RACISM! thirty seconds after uttered if said by a conservative). That is why they pounce on any remark that strikes them as wrong, such as the Governor’s recent remarks about Paul Revere warning the British about us, even if it is in fact correct, which causes the party to straighten up, and act as if all the cool kids have chosen to wear egg on their face in the same fashion that they are. (And frankly, I like her take on it. It was a time when the world was about to change, in no small part because of the way that we do things here, and ordinary people defied conventional wisdom by standing up to the world’s most powerful military power and saying that things were going to be different. It reveals the thinking of a person who has a fire in their belly that has been long absent in the federal government, and a willingness to take a fresh look at something that hadn’t been seen that way in well…ever.) It’s why pseudo-intellectuals like the insufferable Martin Bashir can wax poetic about how Palin having a flag on the front of her tour bus might possibly be a violation of the US Flag Code without a trace of irony, or reflection on the Obama campaign’s out-and-out defacement of the flag by placing Dear Leader’s countenance on it in the last election.

I don’t know if Sarah Palin is going to run for President. I don’t know if she would. I do know that we owe her a debt of gratitude for first changing the game, and second for making the Left gleefully expose its own inconsistencies and hatreds. The best part is that they still cannot even see it, but the message is most definitely out. And it is spreading.

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This Is Why I Don’t Watch MSNBC…

…Lean Forward a little bit more, you lunkhead.

I want you to receive the full benefit of the brainduster.

And we’re the stupid ones…riiiigggghhhttt.

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