I TELL YOU -THE DEMS ARE KILLING THEMSELVES!
FROM THE AMERICAN FAMILY ASS'N:
A new bill, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), has been introduced in the House of Representatives by homosexual Congressman Barney Frank. The bill (HR 2015) would force organizations such as the Boy Scouts, Veterans of Foreign Wars, day care centers, Christian business owners, adoption agencies, public schools, municipalities and a host of other businesses and organizations to hire homosexual applicants.
ENDA would make it illegal to fire, refuse to hire or refuse to promote an employee based on his or her sexual orientation or "gender identity." Such acts would be considered crimes subject to severe penalties.
The same day that ENDA was introduced, another bill — commonly called the Hate Crimes Act (HR 1592) — cleared committee for a full vote by the House. The Hate Crimes Act criminalizes a vast array of state and local acts and threatens religious leaders with criminal prosecution for their thoughts, beliefs, and statements.
The intent of the Hate Crimes Act is to give special status to homosexuals. Republicans tried to expand the “protected class” in the bill to include senior citizens, pregnant women, prior victims, children under 18, the unborn, court witnesses, the military and more. Democrats defeated all amendments, projecting the welfare of homosexuals above other classes of citizens. The House Judiciary Committee then passed the bill on strict party lines —20 Democrats for and 14 Republicans against.
Take Action
Send an e-mail to President Bush asking him to veto ENDA (HR 2015) and the Hate Crimes Act (HR 1592) bills.
Call your representative and ask him or her to vote against ENDA and the Hate Crimes Act. You can reach your representative at 202-224-3121. If you don’t know your representative's name, simply give the operator your address and you will be given his or her name and connected with his or her office.
Forward this e-mail to your pastor, family and friends. Ask your pastor to urge members to send this e-mail and to call your Representative.
Send an email to President Bush
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As I predicted --figure skating gay couples in competition with hetero couples may be next. They don't want GENDER as a criterion in hiring either.
The challenge of course will be to prove that failure to hire had something or nothing to do with orientation or gender. The courts will be tied up with the new democrat-created legal messes.
"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible
Monday, April 30, 2007
Sunday, April 29, 2007
DEMS LEAVE US BREATHLESS! House Judiciary Committee Approves Hate Crimes Bill After Rejecting Proposed Amendments
Democrats are losing no time in reminding us of how far left they can be --and why we haven't had a democrat legislature for several years. I think they'll do themselves in with their anti-Biblical Christianity legislation. I hope so, anyway.
A link to the latest on hate crimes legislation:
Religion Clause: House Judiciary Committee Approves Hate Crimes Bill After Rejecting Proposed Amendments
Barb said...
I think the concern is legitimate about the possibility of associating hate crime with liberals' interp of hate speech --because people blogging have already been accused viciously of bigotry akin to racism and Imus-type racist remarks if they quote the Bible or teach any kind of understanding of homosexual origins other than what is considered PC by liberals.
People like Montel have derided ex-gays for suggesting that gays can really change --because, to social liberals, why SHOULD they change since there is nothing wrong or undesirable about homosexual orientation and acts--and since they erroneously believe the orientation is innate from birth rather than cultivated by life experience in formative years.
Talking heads in media and in gay community blast social conservs and Christians in particular for what happened to Matt Shepherd --not allowing anyone to blame homosexuals and their supporters for their crimes against others. Of course matt's killers were not the religious right but a couple of loaded blokes from a bar with a visceral dislike for anyone different from them --hate crime, sure, but would they have loved him any more or made him any less dead if he had not been gay?
Murder is murder and it doesn't matter whom you kill or why--the penalties should be severe --and hatred should be assumed. You don't kill those you love. I see no reason to punish more the killer of a homosexual than the killer of a neighbor or spouse. They all deserve the death penalty. There may be some extenuating circumstances to make courts more lenient --but there is no reason to say hating or killing a gay is worse than hating or killing anyone else.
In Canada and Sweden? it has been criminalized to preach the Bible on homosexuality --such preaching or statements against homosex are called "hate speech" by some college and corporate rules.
Therefore, it's no stretch to see Christians'free speech curtailed, to see persecution of Christians who take a pro morality stance by liberal definitions of "hate crime" as speech.
Sun Apr 29, 05:01:00 PM EDT
A link to the latest on hate crimes legislation:
Religion Clause: House Judiciary Committee Approves Hate Crimes Bill After Rejecting Proposed Amendments
Barb said...
I think the concern is legitimate about the possibility of associating hate crime with liberals' interp of hate speech --because people blogging have already been accused viciously of bigotry akin to racism and Imus-type racist remarks if they quote the Bible or teach any kind of understanding of homosexual origins other than what is considered PC by liberals.
People like Montel have derided ex-gays for suggesting that gays can really change --because, to social liberals, why SHOULD they change since there is nothing wrong or undesirable about homosexual orientation and acts--and since they erroneously believe the orientation is innate from birth rather than cultivated by life experience in formative years.
Talking heads in media and in gay community blast social conservs and Christians in particular for what happened to Matt Shepherd --not allowing anyone to blame homosexuals and their supporters for their crimes against others. Of course matt's killers were not the religious right but a couple of loaded blokes from a bar with a visceral dislike for anyone different from them --hate crime, sure, but would they have loved him any more or made him any less dead if he had not been gay?
Murder is murder and it doesn't matter whom you kill or why--the penalties should be severe --and hatred should be assumed. You don't kill those you love. I see no reason to punish more the killer of a homosexual than the killer of a neighbor or spouse. They all deserve the death penalty. There may be some extenuating circumstances to make courts more lenient --but there is no reason to say hating or killing a gay is worse than hating or killing anyone else.
In Canada and Sweden? it has been criminalized to preach the Bible on homosexuality --such preaching or statements against homosex are called "hate speech" by some college and corporate rules.
Therefore, it's no stretch to see Christians'free speech curtailed, to see persecution of Christians who take a pro morality stance by liberal definitions of "hate crime" as speech.
Sun Apr 29, 05:01:00 PM EDT
Friday, April 27, 2007
LIBERALS BLAST ABSTINENCE SEX ED --by not reporting the whole truth
Comments on the topic of Abstinence Sex Ed. by me and others from Noocular Option blog--starting with the FACTS re: World Magazine's April 26th issue on this topic.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here's the issue:
I saw in the blade an article that had a box inset showing the age of legality for gun ownership and directions on the process for getting guns, --in article telling how Cho got his guns and ammo --the point was to discuss gun procurement in Ohio and show how easy it is in US. I personally am pretty clueless about guns and never think of having one in my purse--to me this piece of info took me one step closer to knowing how to get started on buying one to protect myself from outraged bloggers --not that I will - but it suggested the idea to me in a motivating way --information is needed to take the next step in any new endeavor.
In the case of value-neutral, non-judgmental, information-only sex ed, they move students closer to the idea to become sexually active --where to get the condom and how to use it as though it's ok for them to become sexually active in jr. high and high school--6th grade or whenever. They BELIEVE religiously in being non-judgmental about any kind of sexual activity regardless of age. The moral they will teach, believe me, is that "you CAN say no." (not you OUGHT to say no for your own good.) They will teach that "no one can tell you what to do with your body" --despite parental and church efforts to do just that --and "Don't have sex until you are ready." ABSOLUTELY a triple whammy of condonement for someone of any age or marital status to have sex.
Here's an excerpt from "safer Choices, level 1" --the comprehensive,, medically accurate curriculum that Senate democrats in Iowa voted in with the help of 3 republicans to replace their abstinence-based curriculum:
"Explain that one person will read the direction on the worksheet while the other practices unrolling a condom over two fingers." Then the reader reads to the partner with the condom,
"As soon as erection occurs...pinch the tip of the condom between thumb and forefinger to get rid of any air pockets and to create a space for the semen during ejaculation. Put the condom against the head of the erect penis..." (I hope the kids are still demonstrating on their fingers?)
The article in World magazine about this (this week's, by the way) said everyone in senate seemed embarrassed, in the hushed chamber -- the reader continued to read aloud "about the genital mechanics that occur just after two people have sex." Someone noted the senators squirmed like red-faced schoolboys. Yet, they found this to be good education for mixed-company-sex-ed with students reading to demo partners; they passed the legislation.
ACTUALLY, the study which was used for media's recent condemnation of abstinence-based sex ed, did NOT say what Planned Parenthood types claimed. Senior researcher at Mathematica Policy who did the research said they found "no evidence" that abstinence programs increase rate of unprotected sex. And they did find that the students in the program COULD identify STD's better than a control group --(they learned about diseases one gets for unprotected sex) --and they knew better than the control group that birth control pills were no protection against the STD's, only pregnancy. This was based on evaluation of 4 programs out of 100's across the nation.
THIS DATA INCLUDED SCHOOLS WHERE AGE 9-11 WERE THE ONLY ONES TO HAVE THE ABSTINENCE EDUCATION --WHICH WAS NOT REINFORCED AT OLDER AGES. tHEY WERE TESTED about their sexual activity a year later and then 5 years later without reinforcing the program in the interim. Obviously, ages 9-11 are a little young to take it all in --the value of abstinence, since the boys aren't even in puberty yet.
The research group's conclusion was not that abstinence education failed --but that "targeting youth at young ages may not be sufficient." and said their findings "provide no info on the effects such programs might have if they were implemented for high school youth or began at the earlier ages, but ALSO served youth through high school."
Safer sex lobbyists used the study dishonestly to support their ideas that condoms are the panacea, providing safety while parenthetically telling kids "of course abstinence is safer but we want you to be comfortable knowing just how to use condoms correctly." so bring on the banana demo! --or in this case the sexually explicit, 2-fingered-partner-demo with erotic explicitness about erect penises.
You say, let the parents teach the values --I say, let the parents teach their own LACK of values to counterract the sex ed if that's the case --let the parents encourage their kids with condom demonstrations and put girls on the pill. the school could tell a kid if he's convinced he's going to have pre-marital sex to go see the school nurse and let her demonstrate the banana method. Don't do it to MY kid in mixed company AT ALL --no demonstrations. You can say that condoms are a method of birth control, the only one that provides any protection against disease --but don't demonstrate and don't be morally neutral if you're going to discuss sex with MY kid on my dollar. And that's what sex educators WANT to do all too often -as they march the whole class down to planned parenthood so they'll know where to go for their sex paraphernalia and abortions.
When abortion and pill came in (70's) we had PP as the authority on sex ed and used their approaches and we saw a sea change in our culture that has continued despite abstinence education which has at least helped reinforce the parents who want morality in their youth.
The TV show "Friends" --and many like it --are examples of the cultural result of value- neutral (half-truth)liberal sex ed philosophy--schools may teach abstinence but the tv shows and movies do not --they instead give a false impression that there is no negative fall-out to promiscuous extra-marital sex --that it's the married who have troubles and kill each other and have painful divorces --but the promiscuous just bed hop gleefully without consequence. Both sides of the debate agree that the culture promotes free sex --but we don't agree what our response should be with other people's kids.
The conclusion of the research group was that a one shot sex ed dose was not enough as in these programs --that they should have reinforcment at other grade levels. Because they did conclude that where these 4 programs were used, the programs did not delay age of first intercourse for most of them nor limit number of partners. (what if the control group was a church group and the abstinence study group was an inner city group --then the similarities in onset and number of partners would be commendable --both having been taught abstinence --one at home and one at school.)
Fact is that 15 previous evaluations supported the superior effectiveness of abstinence education in reducing promiscuity, pregnancies and raising age of first intercourse--compared to control groups --and compared to the youth prior to abstinence curriculum --during PP sex ed. I remember that Teen Aid was taught in a jr. high in CA. that had an extremely high pregnancy rate in jr. high --after Teen Aid, the stats turned around.
In "MY" ideal class, they would learn also that condoms don't cover broken hearts or HPV (venereal wart potential and the cervical cancer that comes with) and that women should have annual PAPs no matter what their activity level or partner's known history --and that condoms have a percentage of failure rate that would keep you off any airplane.
In my program, the girls in separate classes would also learn how to better protect themselves from predators and rapists, and to go to hospital immediately after a rape without bathing to prevent pregnancy and catch a rapist by collecting the dna. They would learn the value of birth and nursing babies --even in late teens rather than later provides optimal protection against breast cancer --but I would give them all the reasons to delay sex until marriage and achieve some educational goals first ideally --admitting that most today don't wait for the wedding and thus take some additional risks with their relationship by not waiting. the value of monogamous marriage would be stressed --the role of functional marriage as the best mental health unit in the country for the couple and their offspring--the harm and dangers of pornography --how porn and illicit sex can become addictive and harm chances for future happiness--the fact that a male, especially, is normal if he's thinking about sex most of the time --and wanting it --but how putting off the pursuit until maturity, after education and marriage, will pay big dividends --how early sexual activity can short-circuit one's marital and educational potential --and health.
At the same time, I would tell kids that it is preferable to marry earlier rather than co- habit or sleep together --even though all acadmeic and financial goals are not met. Couples used to marry right after high school or during college, either because a baby was on the way or they didn't want one to arrive before marriage and they couldn't wait for sex --opportunity being prevalent after they had cars and lack of chaperonage in homes, colleges, and boarding houses --all of which used to promote and chaperone for chastity to protect a young lady's reputation as a virgin.
I'd give a mini-marital relationship course --not to impose on their parents but to use for themselves in the future. And encourage churches as free resources for books, etc. on marrige.
April 26, 07 --the World magazine source.
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What follows is the rest of our discussion from the start-- about Nookular's cartoon of a pregnant girl in graduation gown.
Barb:
For awhile, the teen pregnancy rate DID go down after abstinence education replaced value-free, morally neutral sex ed and after welfare reform said girls would not be paid for every additional baby nor supported staying home indefinitely.
Even the Montel tv show took a stand --I remember when Montel faced off with a mom on welfare with several children. She said, "if the gov't can pay to send a man to the moon, why can't they pay me to stay home and make more and more beautiful children as I do?" --and Montel said, "Why should I work my behind off to support your kids in addition to my own?" or words to that effect.
There was a lot of protest of the LBJ Great Society and the epidemic of teen moms --yet a nat'l spokesperson for Planned Parenthood told a meeting of area school board members, "We can't tell kids to wait until they are married to have sex because their parents didn't. We'd be stepping on toes." I said at that meeting, that the welfare moms I knew wish they DID have a faithful, working, loving husband to help them raise their children and that this was an ideal worth advocating and waiting for. i said i didn't think most MOms would disagree. The gentleman sniffed dismissively, giggled and said HE was still exploring his sexuality and poo-poohed the idea of waiting for marriage.
Nevertheless, the abstinence programs came in with much nation-wide grass roots effort --and stats were really good with some programs --where schools REALLY taught it effectively (TEEN AID had great stats reducing jr. high pregnancies in one CA district) --which I suspect is not being done now with our worse stats. Another program was Sex Respect. Some of them involved take home pages to share with parents.
I've never thought we needed any million dollar programs, however, to just tell people the ideals to strive for which make for stable marriages and happy futures. A Creative and resourceful health teacher/sex educator ought to be able to make up good curriculum within certain guidelines. I used to observe that most sex ed. and other education monies got spent on staff dinners for the board, administration and later, the staff, with a speaker from the Red Cross or PP.
Also contributing to the increase in teen sex activity are family-watched TV programs like Friends and Seinfeld and some reality shows--which make casual (and promiscuous) sex seem natural, commonplace, inconsequential, inevitable and harmless.
I suggest that if the stats have slipped --if we have more teen moms again--it's the culture --and perhaps the way some schools implement their sex ed programs. For awhile, they were finding that a combined church effort with abstinence pledges and the school abstinence sex ed, the youth, on average, were at least delaying onset of sexual activity by a couple of years.
posted by: Barb on Sat, 4/21 01:19 AM EDT
PS--you guys are too young to remember when GRID ( gay-related-immune deficiency, now AIDs), HPV, Herpes were the epidemics that surprised the Sexual Revolution of the 70's. Previously, nearly all the most common STD's had been curable with penicillen.
Playboy clubs and the soft-core porn magazine suddenly were respectable and mainstream among the middle and upper class businessmen; sports illustrated had their swimsuit edition; Larry Flynn and Hugh Hefner were celebrity porn kings; Sex ed was value neutral (ed. message to teens: "No one can decide for you what is right for you." Parents said, "what? not your church or parents? --it's all your choice? from a smorgasbord of options?" the liberal credo prevailed -- "no one can define morality for others."
So we saw diseases galore --teens on birth control pills, and then came the condom emphasis ---but condoms weren't very reliable. The illustration was given by abstinence advocates --would you fly an airplane that had a 20 per cent (whatever it was) failure rate in preventing pregnancy, etc.? And also, condoms can't prevent or mend broken hearts.
Sexually active teens in love who get dumped are going through their own divorces --considered to be one of the higher causes of teen suicide. We knew of an attempted suicide that left a wonderful, bright girl blind --and I understood the issue was a broken love relationship.
I know this is long --but I think it's relevant and VERY important as we talk about sex ed policy.
posted by: Barb on Sat, 4/21 01:46 AM EDT
I agree it's important to discuss sex ed. What I don't agree with is abstinence only policies. Apparently when states agree to accept fed money for these programs, they give up the option of teaching safe sex practices in unison. Now that studies have shown that abstinence-only programs don't work, I think it's important that we stop wasting taxpayer money with these programs
posted by: Chris on Mon, 4/23 12:10 PM EDT
Problem is, Chris, the other kind of sex ed (value free and often explicit) and putting daughter on the pill --were in vogue when the teen pregnancy rates were highest. So condoning, non-judgmental methods of presenting birth control methods, do not work either.
I remember seeing a sex ed film where the guy had a key to his relative's vacant apartment and he wanted his girlfriend to go there with him. And the lesson was --that they were smart and responsible to go to the drugstore and get condoms and spermicide.
Another film for jr. high showed VD germs as little animated, villainous macho soldiers with evil grins --boys would identify with them, I figured.
Another featured a teen boy who had many contacts --and he was featured as responsible and good when he found out and told all of them that he had an STD.
Another film featured all these famous people throughout history who were said to have had STD's. message: it's common --inevitable --normal.
I really wonder how they teach the abstinence material --with what enthusiasm and thoroughness. If the teacher doesn't believe in it, that will be evident.
Will the sex educator teach that early sex activity is risky to their emotional health and their ability to stay happily and monogamously married some day? that they could wear out their "perma-bondability" --like sticky tape that has been used too much.
Will they teach that 2 virgins who marry one another will likely never have an STD --(granted other rare methods of getting AIDS, etc.)
What is the message with a 6th grade or jr. high sex ed class that demonstrates how to put a condom on a banana --or says the school nurse has condoms if you think you need them. Is it good to tell youth that they are expected to say yes early in adolescence --that condoms will make them safe?
Have you heard of the Boston sex ed conventions promoting dental dams for oral sex and various ways to have orgasmic activity "safely"? Absolutely without any suggestions that promiscuous, early sex activity is just plain foolish --harmful--dangerous -short-circuiting to your potential to be happily, monogamously married some day --will they tell them that having sex early feels like divorce when you break up? that condoms can't cure a broken heart.
We know now that condoms are the only protection from disease (and some vaccinations for hepatitis and now, hpv) --and condoms aren't that reliable--and using them correctly in the throes of passion is unlikely for the inexperienced --better to avoid the experience until much later.
It is better to teach that waiting for marriage is not only possible but best for your future happiness and health. And that if you are going to risk your future, at least use condoms, get vaccinations, and consider the pill in case of condom failure--which won't prevent disease. I would also recommend teaching to girls that rape victims should go straight to the ER immediately without bathing to prevent pregnancy and identify DNA of rapist.
Dobson also said to have sex ed separate for girls and boys because there are natural barriers of privacy that can be --but should not be --eroded by co-ed sex ed. It's also embarrassing --should be embarrassing --to discuss private body parts, developing breasts and acne in front of the opposite sex when you are young and obviously going through those changes while they talk about it on the films.
I remember the product of co-ed sex ed who went around the school bus asking 6th grade girls if they had pubic hair yet --on the field trip for gifted kids.
If anybody thinks my explicit language here is inappropriate --imagine it with the kids.
posted by: Barb on Mon, 4/23 01:53 PM EDT
By the way, the small type of your new blogsite is probably going to discourage or at least cause more eyestrain to the over 40 crowd --whose eyes start to change and become more far-sighted --
posted by: Barb on Mon, 4/23 01:54 PM EDT
Barb, your evidence on sex ed programs not working seems anecdotal. I think we need to look at the goals of the intended programs. Sex ed, I believe, isn't intended to tell children "don't do it". I think that's the parent's job. It's supposed to educate them on not getting diseases or getting pregnant. If there are studies showing that, for instance, children taking sex ed classes are just as likely to get diseases or pregnant than those that don't participate in these classes....then I would have to come to the same conclusion (they don't work). But I haven't seen such studies come out. But we have seen the contrary evidence on abstinece-only.
p.s. sorry for the small type!
posted by: Chris on Tue, 4/24 09:49 AM EDT
Let me add, and I'm sure Chris would agree, that any decent sex-ed program should promote abstinence as the first and best choice. What we're opposed to is abstinence-ONLY sex-ed, which is really not "sex-ed" at all. There are good and bad decisions to be made once a person decides to forgo cellibacy, and I think sex-ed should prepare young adults to make the better choices. Of course, in a perfect world, my daughter would wait 'till she's married. But, if she does not, and the odds are she won't, I'd prefer that her behaviors were as risk-averse as possible. That will involve knowledge of birth control methods, and measures to lower the risk of disease.
posted by: Don on Tue, 4/24 12:38 PM EDT
The anecdotal material I posted was about actual sex ed films I have seen in public schools in Lucas Co. during the value-neutral phase of sex ed. I've been reading reports on sex ed and results now for at least 20 plus years and I KNOW that value-free sex ed with the planned parenthood approach was a statistical disaster --in combination with LBJ's Great Society pay for every baby born out of wedlock to a teen --which became an intergenerational source of family income. During the sexual revolution of the 70's and the PP style sex ed, pregnancy rates among unmarried teens skyrocketed in comparison to the 50's.
If I recall, The rate was something like 1 out of 40 white girls in the early 60's --and that figure went to 1 out of 5 --from 2 1/2 % to 20 per cent. For afr. am. girls it was 4 out of 10 and it rose to 8 out of 10 --girls pregnant before marriage. 40 % to 80 %. approx. I used to have those figures memorized for sure --this is pretty close from the 60's to the 90's.
There are several issues here:
Really protective parents who manage to keep their children young, who monitor their tv and movies, music and internet use --don't want the public schools, on their tax monies, to "sophisticate" our children, give them sexual PERMISSION by their sex ed approaches --permission to be sexually active as a teen --by a NON-JUDGMENTAL approach which said, "Yes, abstinence is best --but you'll probably not wait, and here are the ways to use condoms, where to get them; we'll give them to you, --and by the way --you should wait until YOU ARE READY to have sex. No one can tell you what to do with your body --etc. etc. You can say no." Of course, kids "feel ready to have sex" before they SHOULD have sex. So what kind of advice was that??? Some feel ready at 13 and the sex educators imply that's ok AS LONG AS YOU USE PROTECTION.
Well, it's not ok in the view of responsible parents. We want them WARNED about sexual activity outside of marriage --and told all the BENEFITS of waiting for marriage --the importance of monogamy and fidelity --the perma-bondability factor --the fact that if you find it easy to take your pants off with a series of different people, this could be a problem for you forever. That chastity is the best road to a happy marriage with a good sex life. This is simply true for people who follow Biblical precepts of love and respect, who work at the marriages for their children's sake as well as their own.
I kept my kids out of co-ed sex ed classes in public school after I saw their lousy movies and listened to the counselors and Planned Parenthood-style (and Red Cross-style, also) sex educators and looked at the life skills courses they wanted to buy and did buy. I used Focus on the Family materials, a tape series, as I recall.
I want schools to do sex education --not co-ed --and not condoning pre-marital sex. Our society sanctions marriage as the rightful place for sexual activity. I said, "If you can't wait, get married." The other thing is chaperonage --but yes, anybody's kids can get around the parents and the rules and teachings.
So I would teach, if you are going to be sexually active, see your doctor for the birth control pill AND use condoms. But you will be wisest if you don't say yes to pre-marital sex. Once you have the first experience, you can not save it for your bride or groom. There is something wonderful about knowing that you and your spouse were the first and only --if you work to make a good marriage. There are no memories of other people in your marital bed.
today, most parents are blinded --especially by their daughters --seeing them as more mature and level headed than they are sometimes. They can't imagine their daughters wanting to have sex and they overly trust them because they LOOK and act virtuous and mature. They talk about their trust and their certainty that their kids couldn't get the cart before the horse --when, in fact, they have so much opportunity to indulge temptation these days --with parents out of the houses, colleges that make no pretense of being parentis in locis who try to protect virtue by curfews and chaperoning. At least the EFFORT of chaperoning by parents and school --sets a standard.
The lack of standards today is surely a factor in the high promiscuity and divorce rate, i imagine. I can't get over how many young women are leaving their husbands for other men--and husbands are getting custody. meanwhile, husbands are slaves to computer porn, which doesn't help monogamous marriage either.
posted by: Barb on Wed, 4/25 12:40 AM EDT
Barb, it sound like we are stuck on the issue of education vs. condonement. Surely schools can teach without condoning. I would bet that most responsible parents would favor sex ed taught in unison with an abstinence slant. I doubt that teaching only one or the other would be effective.
posted by: Chris on Wed, 4/25 10:42 AM EDT
Here's the issue:
I saw in the blade an article that had a box inset showing the age of legality for gun ownership and directions on the process for getting guns, --in article telling how Cho got his guns and ammo --the point was to discuss gun procurement in Ohio and show how easy it is in US. I personally am pretty clueless about guns and never think of having one in my purse--to me this piece of info took me one step closer to knowing how to get started on buying one to protect myself from outraged bloggers --not that I will - but it suggested the idea to me in a motivating way --information is needed to take the next step in any new endeavor.
In the case of value-neutral, non-judgmental, information-only sex ed, they move students closer to the idea to become sexually active --where to get the condom and how to use it as though it's ok for them to become sexually active in jr. high and high school--6th grade or whenever. They BELIEVE religiously in being non-judgmental about any kind of sexual activity regardless of age. The moral they will teach, believe me, is that "you CAN say no." (not you OUGHT to say no for your own good.) They will teach that "no one can tell you what to do with your body" --despite parental and church efforts to do just that --and "Don't have sex until you are ready." ABSOLUTELY a triple whammy of condonement for someone of any age or marital status to have sex.
Here's an excerpt from "safer Choices, level 1" --the comprehensive,, medically accurate curriculum that Senate democrats in Iowa voted in with the help of 3 republicans to replace their abstinence-based curriculum:
"Explain that one person will read the direction on the worksheet while the other practices unrolling a condom over two fingers." Then the reader reads to the partner with the condom,
"As soon as erection occurs...pinch the tip of the condom between thumb and forefinger to get rid of any air pockets and to create a space for the semen during ejaculation. Put the condom against the head of the erect penis..." (I hope the kids are still demonstrating on their fingers?)
The article in World magazine about this (this week's, by the way) said everyone in senate seemed embarrassed, in the hushed chamber -- the reader continued to read aloud "about the genital mechanics that occur just after two people have sex." Someone noted the senators squirmed like red-faced schoolboys. Yet, they found this to be good education for mixed-company-sex-ed with students reading to demo partners; they passed the legislation.
ACTUALLY, the study which was used for media's recent condemnation of abstinence-based sex ed, did NOT say what Planned Parenthood types claimed. Senior researcher at Mathematica Policy who did the research said they found "no evidence" that abstinence programs increase rate of unprotected sex. And they did find that the students in the program COULD identify STD's better than a control group --(they learned about diseases one gets for unprotected sex) --and they knew better than the control group that birth control pills were no protection against the STD's, only pregnancy. This was based on evaluation of 4 programs out of 100's across the nation.
THIS DATA INCLUDED SCHOOLS WHERE AGE 9-11 WERE THE ONLY ONES TO HAVE THE ABSTINENCE EDUCATION --WHICH WAS NOT REINFORCED AT OLDER AGES. tHEY WERE TESTED about their sexual activity a year later and then 5 years later without reinforcing the program in the interim. Obviously, ages 9-11 are a little young to take it all in --the value of abstinence, since the boys aren't even in puberty yet.
The research group's conclusion was not that abstinence education failed --but that "targeting youth at young ages may not be sufficient." and said their findings "provide no info on the effects such programs might have if they were implemented for high school youth or began at the earlier ages, but ALSO served youth through high school."
Safer sex lobbyists used the study dishonestly to support their ideas that condoms are the panacea, providing safety while parenthetically telling kids "of course abstinence is safer but we want you to be comfortable knowing just how to use condoms correctly." so bring on the banana demo! --or in this case the sexually explicit, 2-fingered-partner-demo with erotic explicitness about erect penises.
You say, let the parents teach the values --I say, let the parents teach their own LACK of values to counterract the sex ed if that's the case --let the parents encourage their kids with condom demonstrations and put girls on the pill. the school could tell a kid if he's convinced he's going to have pre-marital sex to go see the school nurse and let her demonstrate the banana method. Don't do it to MY kid in mixed company AT ALL --no demonstrations. You can say that condoms are a method of birth control, the only one that provides any protection against disease --but don't demonstrate and don't be morally neutral if you're going to discuss sex with MY kid on my dollar. And that's what sex educators WANT to do all too often -as they march the whole class down to planned parenthood so they'll know where to go for their sex paraphernalia and abortions.
When abortion and pill came in (70's) we had PP as the authority on sex ed and used their approaches and we saw a sea change in our culture that has continued despite abstinence education which has at least helped reinforce the parents who want morality in their youth.
The TV show "Friends" --and many like it --are examples of the cultural result of value- neutral (half-truth)liberal sex ed philosophy--schools may teach abstinence but the tv shows and movies do not --they instead give a false impression that there is no negative fall-out to promiscuous extra-marital sex --that it's the married who have troubles and kill each other and have painful divorces --but the promiscuous just bed hop gleefully without consequence. Both sides of the debate agree that the culture promotes free sex --but we don't agree what our response should be with other people's kids.
The conclusion of the research group was that a one shot sex ed dose was not enough as in these programs --that they should have reinforcment at other grade levels. Because they did conclude that where these 4 programs were used, the programs did not delay age of first intercourse for most of them nor limit number of partners. (what if the control group was a church group and the abstinence study group was an inner city group --then the similarities in onset and number of partners would be commendable --both having been taught abstinence --one at home and one at school.)
Fact is that 15 previous evaluations supported the superior effectiveness of abstinence education in reducing promiscuity, pregnancies and raising age of first intercourse--compared to control groups --and compared to the youth prior to abstinence curriculum --during PP sex ed. I remember that Teen Aid was taught in a jr. high in CA. that had an extremely high pregnancy rate in jr. high --after Teen Aid, the stats turned around.
In "MY" ideal class, they would learn also that condoms don't cover broken hearts or HPV (venereal wart potential and the cervical cancer that comes with) and that women should have annual PAPs no matter what their activity level or partner's known history --and that condoms have a percentage of failure rate that would keep you off any airplane.
In my program, the girls in separate classes would also learn how to better protect themselves from predators and rapists, and to go to hospital immediately after a rape without bathing to prevent pregnancy and catch a rapist by collecting the dna. They would learn the value of birth and nursing babies --even in late teens rather than later provides optimal protection against breast cancer --but I would give them all the reasons to delay sex until marriage and achieve some educational goals first ideally --admitting that most today don't wait for the wedding and thus take some additional risks with their relationship by not waiting. the value of monogamous marriage would be stressed --the role of functional marriage as the best mental health unit in the country for the couple and their offspring--the harm and dangers of pornography --how porn and illicit sex can become addictive and harm chances for future happiness--the fact that a male, especially, is normal if he's thinking about sex most of the time --and wanting it --but how putting off the pursuit until maturity, after education and marriage, will pay big dividends --how early sexual activity can short-circuit one's marital and educational potential --and health.
At the same time, I would tell kids that it is preferable to marry earlier rather than co- habit or sleep together --even though all acadmeic and financial goals are not met. Couples used to marry right after high school or during college, either because a baby was on the way or they didn't want one to arrive before marriage and they couldn't wait for sex --opportunity being prevalent after they had cars and lack of chaperonage in homes, colleges, and boarding houses --all of which used to promote and chaperone for chastity to protect a young lady's reputation as a virgin.
I'd give a mini-marital relationship course --not to impose on their parents but to use for themselves in the future. And encourage churches as free resources for books, etc. on marrige.
April 26, 07 --the World magazine source.
_________________________________
What follows is the rest of our discussion from the start-- about Nookular's cartoon of a pregnant girl in graduation gown.
Barb:
For awhile, the teen pregnancy rate DID go down after abstinence education replaced value-free, morally neutral sex ed and after welfare reform said girls would not be paid for every additional baby nor supported staying home indefinitely.
Even the Montel tv show took a stand --I remember when Montel faced off with a mom on welfare with several children. She said, "if the gov't can pay to send a man to the moon, why can't they pay me to stay home and make more and more beautiful children as I do?" --and Montel said, "Why should I work my behind off to support your kids in addition to my own?" or words to that effect.
There was a lot of protest of the LBJ Great Society and the epidemic of teen moms --yet a nat'l spokesperson for Planned Parenthood told a meeting of area school board members, "We can't tell kids to wait until they are married to have sex because their parents didn't. We'd be stepping on toes." I said at that meeting, that the welfare moms I knew wish they DID have a faithful, working, loving husband to help them raise their children and that this was an ideal worth advocating and waiting for. i said i didn't think most MOms would disagree. The gentleman sniffed dismissively, giggled and said HE was still exploring his sexuality and poo-poohed the idea of waiting for marriage.
Nevertheless, the abstinence programs came in with much nation-wide grass roots effort --and stats were really good with some programs --where schools REALLY taught it effectively (TEEN AID had great stats reducing jr. high pregnancies in one CA district) --which I suspect is not being done now with our worse stats. Another program was Sex Respect. Some of them involved take home pages to share with parents.
I've never thought we needed any million dollar programs, however, to just tell people the ideals to strive for which make for stable marriages and happy futures. A Creative and resourceful health teacher/sex educator ought to be able to make up good curriculum within certain guidelines. I used to observe that most sex ed. and other education monies got spent on staff dinners for the board, administration and later, the staff, with a speaker from the Red Cross or PP.
Also contributing to the increase in teen sex activity are family-watched TV programs like Friends and Seinfeld and some reality shows--which make casual (and promiscuous) sex seem natural, commonplace, inconsequential, inevitable and harmless.
I suggest that if the stats have slipped --if we have more teen moms again--it's the culture --and perhaps the way some schools implement their sex ed programs. For awhile, they were finding that a combined church effort with abstinence pledges and the school abstinence sex ed, the youth, on average, were at least delaying onset of sexual activity by a couple of years.
posted by: Barb on Sat, 4/21 01:19 AM EDT
PS--you guys are too young to remember when GRID ( gay-related-immune deficiency, now AIDs), HPV, Herpes were the epidemics that surprised the Sexual Revolution of the 70's. Previously, nearly all the most common STD's had been curable with penicillen.
Playboy clubs and the soft-core porn magazine suddenly were respectable and mainstream among the middle and upper class businessmen; sports illustrated had their swimsuit edition; Larry Flynn and Hugh Hefner were celebrity porn kings; Sex ed was value neutral (ed. message to teens: "No one can decide for you what is right for you." Parents said, "what? not your church or parents? --it's all your choice? from a smorgasbord of options?" the liberal credo prevailed -- "no one can define morality for others."
So we saw diseases galore --teens on birth control pills, and then came the condom emphasis ---but condoms weren't very reliable. The illustration was given by abstinence advocates --would you fly an airplane that had a 20 per cent (whatever it was) failure rate in preventing pregnancy, etc.? And also, condoms can't prevent or mend broken hearts.
Sexually active teens in love who get dumped are going through their own divorces --considered to be one of the higher causes of teen suicide. We knew of an attempted suicide that left a wonderful, bright girl blind --and I understood the issue was a broken love relationship.
I know this is long --but I think it's relevant and VERY important as we talk about sex ed policy.
posted by: Barb on Sat, 4/21 01:46 AM EDT
I agree it's important to discuss sex ed. What I don't agree with is abstinence only policies. Apparently when states agree to accept fed money for these programs, they give up the option of teaching safe sex practices in unison. Now that studies have shown that abstinence-only programs don't work, I think it's important that we stop wasting taxpayer money with these programs
posted by: Chris on Mon, 4/23 12:10 PM EDT
Problem is, Chris, the other kind of sex ed (value free and often explicit) and putting daughter on the pill --were in vogue when the teen pregnancy rates were highest. So condoning, non-judgmental methods of presenting birth control methods, do not work either.
I remember seeing a sex ed film where the guy had a key to his relative's vacant apartment and he wanted his girlfriend to go there with him. And the lesson was --that they were smart and responsible to go to the drugstore and get condoms and spermicide.
Another film for jr. high showed VD germs as little animated, villainous macho soldiers with evil grins --boys would identify with them, I figured.
Another featured a teen boy who had many contacts --and he was featured as responsible and good when he found out and told all of them that he had an STD.
Another film featured all these famous people throughout history who were said to have had STD's. message: it's common --inevitable --normal.
I really wonder how they teach the abstinence material --with what enthusiasm and thoroughness. If the teacher doesn't believe in it, that will be evident.
Will the sex educator teach that early sex activity is risky to their emotional health and their ability to stay happily and monogamously married some day? that they could wear out their "perma-bondability" --like sticky tape that has been used too much.
Will they teach that 2 virgins who marry one another will likely never have an STD --(granted other rare methods of getting AIDS, etc.)
What is the message with a 6th grade or jr. high sex ed class that demonstrates how to put a condom on a banana --or says the school nurse has condoms if you think you need them. Is it good to tell youth that they are expected to say yes early in adolescence --that condoms will make them safe?
Have you heard of the Boston sex ed conventions promoting dental dams for oral sex and various ways to have orgasmic activity "safely"? Absolutely without any suggestions that promiscuous, early sex activity is just plain foolish --harmful--dangerous -short-circuiting to your potential to be happily, monogamously married some day --will they tell them that having sex early feels like divorce when you break up? that condoms can't cure a broken heart.
We know now that condoms are the only protection from disease (and some vaccinations for hepatitis and now, hpv) --and condoms aren't that reliable--and using them correctly in the throes of passion is unlikely for the inexperienced --better to avoid the experience until much later.
It is better to teach that waiting for marriage is not only possible but best for your future happiness and health. And that if you are going to risk your future, at least use condoms, get vaccinations, and consider the pill in case of condom failure--which won't prevent disease. I would also recommend teaching to girls that rape victims should go straight to the ER immediately without bathing to prevent pregnancy and identify DNA of rapist.
Dobson also said to have sex ed separate for girls and boys because there are natural barriers of privacy that can be --but should not be --eroded by co-ed sex ed. It's also embarrassing --should be embarrassing --to discuss private body parts, developing breasts and acne in front of the opposite sex when you are young and obviously going through those changes while they talk about it on the films.
I remember the product of co-ed sex ed who went around the school bus asking 6th grade girls if they had pubic hair yet --on the field trip for gifted kids.
If anybody thinks my explicit language here is inappropriate --imagine it with the kids.
posted by: Barb on Mon, 4/23 01:53 PM EDT
By the way, the small type of your new blogsite is probably going to discourage or at least cause more eyestrain to the over 40 crowd --whose eyes start to change and become more far-sighted --
posted by: Barb on Mon, 4/23 01:54 PM EDT
Barb, your evidence on sex ed programs not working seems anecdotal. I think we need to look at the goals of the intended programs. Sex ed, I believe, isn't intended to tell children "don't do it". I think that's the parent's job. It's supposed to educate them on not getting diseases or getting pregnant. If there are studies showing that, for instance, children taking sex ed classes are just as likely to get diseases or pregnant than those that don't participate in these classes....then I would have to come to the same conclusion (they don't work). But I haven't seen such studies come out. But we have seen the contrary evidence on abstinece-only.
p.s. sorry for the small type!
posted by: Chris on Tue, 4/24 09:49 AM EDT
Let me add, and I'm sure Chris would agree, that any decent sex-ed program should promote abstinence as the first and best choice. What we're opposed to is abstinence-ONLY sex-ed, which is really not "sex-ed" at all. There are good and bad decisions to be made once a person decides to forgo cellibacy, and I think sex-ed should prepare young adults to make the better choices. Of course, in a perfect world, my daughter would wait 'till she's married. But, if she does not, and the odds are she won't, I'd prefer that her behaviors were as risk-averse as possible. That will involve knowledge of birth control methods, and measures to lower the risk of disease.
posted by: Don on Tue, 4/24 12:38 PM EDT
The anecdotal material I posted was about actual sex ed films I have seen in public schools in Lucas Co. during the value-neutral phase of sex ed. I've been reading reports on sex ed and results now for at least 20 plus years and I KNOW that value-free sex ed with the planned parenthood approach was a statistical disaster --in combination with LBJ's Great Society pay for every baby born out of wedlock to a teen --which became an intergenerational source of family income. During the sexual revolution of the 70's and the PP style sex ed, pregnancy rates among unmarried teens skyrocketed in comparison to the 50's.
If I recall, The rate was something like 1 out of 40 white girls in the early 60's --and that figure went to 1 out of 5 --from 2 1/2 % to 20 per cent. For afr. am. girls it was 4 out of 10 and it rose to 8 out of 10 --girls pregnant before marriage. 40 % to 80 %. approx. I used to have those figures memorized for sure --this is pretty close from the 60's to the 90's.
There are several issues here:
Really protective parents who manage to keep their children young, who monitor their tv and movies, music and internet use --don't want the public schools, on their tax monies, to "sophisticate" our children, give them sexual PERMISSION by their sex ed approaches --permission to be sexually active as a teen --by a NON-JUDGMENTAL approach which said, "Yes, abstinence is best --but you'll probably not wait, and here are the ways to use condoms, where to get them; we'll give them to you, --and by the way --you should wait until YOU ARE READY to have sex. No one can tell you what to do with your body --etc. etc. You can say no." Of course, kids "feel ready to have sex" before they SHOULD have sex. So what kind of advice was that??? Some feel ready at 13 and the sex educators imply that's ok AS LONG AS YOU USE PROTECTION.
Well, it's not ok in the view of responsible parents. We want them WARNED about sexual activity outside of marriage --and told all the BENEFITS of waiting for marriage --the importance of monogamy and fidelity --the perma-bondability factor --the fact that if you find it easy to take your pants off with a series of different people, this could be a problem for you forever. That chastity is the best road to a happy marriage with a good sex life. This is simply true for people who follow Biblical precepts of love and respect, who work at the marriages for their children's sake as well as their own.
I kept my kids out of co-ed sex ed classes in public school after I saw their lousy movies and listened to the counselors and Planned Parenthood-style (and Red Cross-style, also) sex educators and looked at the life skills courses they wanted to buy and did buy. I used Focus on the Family materials, a tape series, as I recall.
I want schools to do sex education --not co-ed --and not condoning pre-marital sex. Our society sanctions marriage as the rightful place for sexual activity. I said, "If you can't wait, get married." The other thing is chaperonage --but yes, anybody's kids can get around the parents and the rules and teachings.
So I would teach, if you are going to be sexually active, see your doctor for the birth control pill AND use condoms. But you will be wisest if you don't say yes to pre-marital sex. Once you have the first experience, you can not save it for your bride or groom. There is something wonderful about knowing that you and your spouse were the first and only --if you work to make a good marriage. There are no memories of other people in your marital bed.
today, most parents are blinded --especially by their daughters --seeing them as more mature and level headed than they are sometimes. They can't imagine their daughters wanting to have sex and they overly trust them because they LOOK and act virtuous and mature. They talk about their trust and their certainty that their kids couldn't get the cart before the horse --when, in fact, they have so much opportunity to indulge temptation these days --with parents out of the houses, colleges that make no pretense of being parentis in locis who try to protect virtue by curfews and chaperoning. At least the EFFORT of chaperoning by parents and school --sets a standard.
The lack of standards today is surely a factor in the high promiscuity and divorce rate, i imagine. I can't get over how many young women are leaving their husbands for other men--and husbands are getting custody. meanwhile, husbands are slaves to computer porn, which doesn't help monogamous marriage either.
posted by: Barb on Wed, 4/25 12:40 AM EDT
Barb, it sound like we are stuck on the issue of education vs. condonement. Surely schools can teach without condoning. I would bet that most responsible parents would favor sex ed taught in unison with an abstinence slant. I doubt that teaching only one or the other would be effective.
posted by: Chris on Wed, 4/25 10:42 AM EDT
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Letter from my attorney friend in India on Va. Tech --and My Response
Hello Barb. Ma'am !!
Its me John
..... I heard and read about the Korean student on a shooting rampage killing
33 innocent students for some personal grudge. I say that he was always a
potential fanatic and those who knew him should have taken due care to avoid
him. I'd go a step further in formulation of preventive arrests of potential
and dangerous-minded people. In most cases these people reveal their plan to
their peers who simply brush off the matter as fantasy. Two families from
India were told that [their]children who were victims shall soon be dispatched
to their homes for rites. Imagine being the parent of a child who set off
for a distant land for higher and better studies; and to forget about their
ever being there in the first place, they will never be seen again. It's . .
. it's very very sad, Ma'am.
Did the people fail to show sufficient love to the young boy, or was it
political hatred, or a host of combined reasons? Being a student of
psychology, we look for reasons as to what prompts these killers to go on
such a rampage, harming those with whom they never had strained relations --absolute strangers.
The consequences of such acts are felt by several families, some of whom are
unable to take it.
The message is simple. We must be prepared to lose our dear ones if and when
we have to. We must practice detatchment deep within our minds with those
who we love and feel for and care for. We must practice calmness of the mind
and avoid displaying our emotions publicly.
________________________
Dear John,
Yes, how very sad for the families --all of them --who sent their children to college at V. Tech with high hopes --so many very bright and beloved students and teachers. One was from Toledo here, a Catholic school grad, an exemplary student and person, now a prof at Va. Tech, who had worked on solutions for handicapped people and had much accomplishment to his name and left behind wife and 3 children.
About your last paragraph, which is Hindu philosophy, is it not? not only can we NOT detach from people we love, but according to the great teacher, Jesus, we should not detach in the way you describe. Detachment to me means distancing oneself --being remote from someone emotionally. The killer did that. That was his problem. He would not speak even to those who were trying to be friendly to him. He had come here as an Asian child at 8 and experienced ridicule from cruel school kids in elementary school for his difference (including language difficulty). His detachment led him to be totally self-focused and emotionally dead to the feelings of others --and sociopathic as a result. We should be on the lookout for such people but not to avoid them. As you said, he didn't know his victims, for the most part. The ridicule of him PLUS the detachment FROM him for his painful inability to relate-- both helped to push him over the edge. The angels weep. God weeps, for this was not HIs plan for this child or the others.
I can't imagine living as a dormitory suite mate with someone who would never speak to you or have courteous, polite exchange. I would want to do an intervention --and force him to receive caring interest --overwhelm him with genuine kindness and concern. I don't hear that anyone really tried very persistently to reach through his hateful, remote exterior. Instead, he retreated from people and was so scary in his isolation that they retreated--which is what you seem to be recommending as a solution. But just avoiding him did not help. He turned his wrath on strangers --just to make a statement. His real statement was: "I am sick! And I hate you all for not caring about me! I'll show YOU and the world that I was significant!"
Jesus called sinners the "sick who need the Physician" and said that was why he hung out sometimes with blatant sinners of his Hebrew culture--the "winebibbers and the harlots." For He was the Great Physician --the healer of our hurts, the forgiver of our sins.
In John 4:6, there is a story in which Jesus spoke to a woman at a well who was not a Jew, but a Samaritan, (sort of like Shia vs. Sunnis --because both claimed Abraham and Jacob as religious/cultural forefathers.) He told her HE knew she lived with a series of 5 husbands, the present man not being her husband. From that, SHE knew He was a prophet --for otherwise, she was a stranger to him. Yet he spoke knowledge of her life and also gave words of life to her about the Living water that only He could give.
He knows each of us the way He knew the Samaritan woman at the well. To her and to us, He says, "whosoever drinks the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life."
Jesus said to her, "You worship you know not what; we [Jews] know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth for the Father seeks such to worship him. God is a Spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth."
The woman said unto Him, "I know that the Messiah is to come who is called Christ; when He is come, He will tell us all things."
Jesus replied: "I that speak unto you am HE."
The tragedy from a Christian perspective is that people die everyday without being reconciled to God because they did not believe in Christ. The Creator sends His Living Word, His Living Message, in Jesus --His Son, the only begotten of the Father --the ONLY Savior --and tells the world to spread the news, that our escape from mortality is through believing in Jesus and confessing our sinful state to Him, in faith believing that He hears through His Holy Spirit present on the earth and in the hearts of believers.
This same Jesus tells us to NOT be detached from troublesome people but to love enemies, brothers, neighbors. We can never be snobbish, thinking ourselves better than others, and please God. We must NOT transcend beyond troublesome people through meditation --but, intstead, be PRO-ACTIVE; love them in Jesus' name --to tell them about HIM, so they may recognize their need and experience His love and forgiveness--for eternal life beyond the grave.
"Because I live, you shall also live." --said Jesus, to those who believe and receive. "I am the way, the Truth, and the Life; no man comes to the Father except by me." He is the Shepherd and the Gate, the Cornerstone of the Church and of LIfe.
We've all been given this choice and a greater tragedy than U.Va's is that so many of us are rejecting this free gift of salvation --choosing instead to join the mockers and the scornful who refused to believe even though they saw His miraculous powers and heard His claims and teachings.
the woman at the well? she believed --and ran home to bring the others to meet Jesus and he spent 2 days with these Samaritans--and they believed --and were saved by their faith.
The Samaritan woman? An unlikely missionary whose faith planted a church!
Its me John
..... I heard and read about the Korean student on a shooting rampage killing
33 innocent students for some personal grudge. I say that he was always a
potential fanatic and those who knew him should have taken due care to avoid
him. I'd go a step further in formulation of preventive arrests of potential
and dangerous-minded people. In most cases these people reveal their plan to
their peers who simply brush off the matter as fantasy. Two families from
India were told that [their]children who were victims shall soon be dispatched
to their homes for rites. Imagine being the parent of a child who set off
for a distant land for higher and better studies; and to forget about their
ever being there in the first place, they will never be seen again. It's . .
. it's very very sad, Ma'am.
Did the people fail to show sufficient love to the young boy, or was it
political hatred, or a host of combined reasons? Being a student of
psychology, we look for reasons as to what prompts these killers to go on
such a rampage, harming those with whom they never had strained relations --absolute strangers.
The consequences of such acts are felt by several families, some of whom are
unable to take it.
The message is simple. We must be prepared to lose our dear ones if and when
we have to. We must practice detatchment deep within our minds with those
who we love and feel for and care for. We must practice calmness of the mind
and avoid displaying our emotions publicly.
________________________
Dear John,
Yes, how very sad for the families --all of them --who sent their children to college at V. Tech with high hopes --so many very bright and beloved students and teachers. One was from Toledo here, a Catholic school grad, an exemplary student and person, now a prof at Va. Tech, who had worked on solutions for handicapped people and had much accomplishment to his name and left behind wife and 3 children.
About your last paragraph, which is Hindu philosophy, is it not? not only can we NOT detach from people we love, but according to the great teacher, Jesus, we should not detach in the way you describe. Detachment to me means distancing oneself --being remote from someone emotionally. The killer did that. That was his problem. He would not speak even to those who were trying to be friendly to him. He had come here as an Asian child at 8 and experienced ridicule from cruel school kids in elementary school for his difference (including language difficulty). His detachment led him to be totally self-focused and emotionally dead to the feelings of others --and sociopathic as a result. We should be on the lookout for such people but not to avoid them. As you said, he didn't know his victims, for the most part. The ridicule of him PLUS the detachment FROM him for his painful inability to relate-- both helped to push him over the edge. The angels weep. God weeps, for this was not HIs plan for this child or the others.
I can't imagine living as a dormitory suite mate with someone who would never speak to you or have courteous, polite exchange. I would want to do an intervention --and force him to receive caring interest --overwhelm him with genuine kindness and concern. I don't hear that anyone really tried very persistently to reach through his hateful, remote exterior. Instead, he retreated from people and was so scary in his isolation that they retreated--which is what you seem to be recommending as a solution. But just avoiding him did not help. He turned his wrath on strangers --just to make a statement. His real statement was: "I am sick! And I hate you all for not caring about me! I'll show YOU and the world that I was significant!"
Jesus called sinners the "sick who need the Physician" and said that was why he hung out sometimes with blatant sinners of his Hebrew culture--the "winebibbers and the harlots." For He was the Great Physician --the healer of our hurts, the forgiver of our sins.
In John 4:6, there is a story in which Jesus spoke to a woman at a well who was not a Jew, but a Samaritan, (sort of like Shia vs. Sunnis --because both claimed Abraham and Jacob as religious/cultural forefathers.) He told her HE knew she lived with a series of 5 husbands, the present man not being her husband. From that, SHE knew He was a prophet --for otherwise, she was a stranger to him. Yet he spoke knowledge of her life and also gave words of life to her about the Living water that only He could give.
He knows each of us the way He knew the Samaritan woman at the well. To her and to us, He says, "whosoever drinks the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life."
Jesus said to her, "You worship you know not what; we [Jews] know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth for the Father seeks such to worship him. God is a Spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth."
The woman said unto Him, "I know that the Messiah is to come who is called Christ; when He is come, He will tell us all things."
Jesus replied: "I that speak unto you am HE."
The tragedy from a Christian perspective is that people die everyday without being reconciled to God because they did not believe in Christ. The Creator sends His Living Word, His Living Message, in Jesus --His Son, the only begotten of the Father --the ONLY Savior --and tells the world to spread the news, that our escape from mortality is through believing in Jesus and confessing our sinful state to Him, in faith believing that He hears through His Holy Spirit present on the earth and in the hearts of believers.
This same Jesus tells us to NOT be detached from troublesome people but to love enemies, brothers, neighbors. We can never be snobbish, thinking ourselves better than others, and please God. We must NOT transcend beyond troublesome people through meditation --but, intstead, be PRO-ACTIVE; love them in Jesus' name --to tell them about HIM, so they may recognize their need and experience His love and forgiveness--for eternal life beyond the grave.
"Because I live, you shall also live." --said Jesus, to those who believe and receive. "I am the way, the Truth, and the Life; no man comes to the Father except by me." He is the Shepherd and the Gate, the Cornerstone of the Church and of LIfe.
We've all been given this choice and a greater tragedy than U.Va's is that so many of us are rejecting this free gift of salvation --choosing instead to join the mockers and the scornful who refused to believe even though they saw His miraculous powers and heard His claims and teachings.
the woman at the well? she believed --and ran home to bring the others to meet Jesus and he spent 2 days with these Samaritans--and they believed --and were saved by their faith.
The Samaritan woman? An unlikely missionary whose faith planted a church!
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Poor Vs. Rich --Liberals' Class Warfare
There are more similarities between poor and rich than some liberals realize.
In the U.S., we do all have free public education, and lots of college aid for needy people and minorities --but the liberal professors keep demanding and getting raises and the tuition climbs.
There is an american dream for those who want to work hard. There are people like me who have the advantage of a good, hard-working husband --too hard-working --and always hard-working from his youth until the present to pursue his education, necessary to attain and maintain his career; there is no state teachers' retirement system for him that promises to support him and me until we die. He gets what he makes and can put away for the future --at which time it will be taxed at a democrat's high tax rate, probably. If we were investors, and more shrewd about money, we would be better off than we are --but we both are wealthier than our parents were because of his education and hard work --and their legacy in parenting, the values they transmitted.
Liberals are right to observe that the poor ARE often handicapped by their environment--such as their goof-off peers, failing schools, lack of vouchers to escape those schools, lack of parental push and structure --and sometimes there may be I.Q. differences --but more often than not, the old adage holds --that success in any endeavor or pursuit is 95 % perspiration and 5% inspiration( or ability.)
Granted, some people are more creative and fortunate in money-making than others --but look at their lives. When people live by the values of the Hollywood and athletic rich, they just have more costly addictions, more divorces, more alimony, more fatherless and maladjusted kids --and only the very rich can get away with such lifestyles and still have some money left over--sometimes. Whereas, the middle class and poor who embrace Hollywood values, making babies with several partners and having multiple households to support--they find this to be a broad road that leads to poverty and destruction.
Poverty is NOT God's affliction. He commands generosity toward the poor --and wealth is not necessarily His direct blessing in exchange for our virtue. The virtuous may be poor or rich --the sinners may be poor or rich. (and for the record, we all have sinned --but some try to avoid it more than others.)
I have noticed, however, that some Christian poor people (and educated people with wholesome values) live wealthy lives because they value good things --I think of missionaries and ministers and school teachers (of any faith) --many of whom live excellently because they value learning, the free outdoors, the parks, the libraries, the free concerts, the church life, helping others, frugal use of money and stewardship of time, doing their own work instead of hiring --they practice virtue and love --and they know how to make their not-rich houses lovely by orderliness, cleanliness, practical skills and elbow grease.
I look up to many such people who are not rich in dollars --but rich in lifestyle in all the ways that really are valuable--and admirable.
Money is nice to have --but it doesn't buy happiness and can't guarantee good health. It seems that most people can't get enough --and are haunted by chronic insecurity with inflation and taxation and the longer lives we live in the US. Presumeably those democrat millionaires and billionaires are the only working people (if you call playing ball, making movies and being celebrities, work) who really won't feel and don't fear higher taxes coming via democrats.
In the U.S., we do all have free public education, and lots of college aid for needy people and minorities --but the liberal professors keep demanding and getting raises and the tuition climbs.
There is an american dream for those who want to work hard. There are people like me who have the advantage of a good, hard-working husband --too hard-working --and always hard-working from his youth until the present to pursue his education, necessary to attain and maintain his career; there is no state teachers' retirement system for him that promises to support him and me until we die. He gets what he makes and can put away for the future --at which time it will be taxed at a democrat's high tax rate, probably. If we were investors, and more shrewd about money, we would be better off than we are --but we both are wealthier than our parents were because of his education and hard work --and their legacy in parenting, the values they transmitted.
Liberals are right to observe that the poor ARE often handicapped by their environment--such as their goof-off peers, failing schools, lack of vouchers to escape those schools, lack of parental push and structure --and sometimes there may be I.Q. differences --but more often than not, the old adage holds --that success in any endeavor or pursuit is 95 % perspiration and 5% inspiration( or ability.)
Granted, some people are more creative and fortunate in money-making than others --but look at their lives. When people live by the values of the Hollywood and athletic rich, they just have more costly addictions, more divorces, more alimony, more fatherless and maladjusted kids --and only the very rich can get away with such lifestyles and still have some money left over--sometimes. Whereas, the middle class and poor who embrace Hollywood values, making babies with several partners and having multiple households to support--they find this to be a broad road that leads to poverty and destruction.
Poverty is NOT God's affliction. He commands generosity toward the poor --and wealth is not necessarily His direct blessing in exchange for our virtue. The virtuous may be poor or rich --the sinners may be poor or rich. (and for the record, we all have sinned --but some try to avoid it more than others.)
I have noticed, however, that some Christian poor people (and educated people with wholesome values) live wealthy lives because they value good things --I think of missionaries and ministers and school teachers (of any faith) --many of whom live excellently because they value learning, the free outdoors, the parks, the libraries, the free concerts, the church life, helping others, frugal use of money and stewardship of time, doing their own work instead of hiring --they practice virtue and love --and they know how to make their not-rich houses lovely by orderliness, cleanliness, practical skills and elbow grease.
I look up to many such people who are not rich in dollars --but rich in lifestyle in all the ways that really are valuable--and admirable.
Money is nice to have --but it doesn't buy happiness and can't guarantee good health. It seems that most people can't get enough --and are haunted by chronic insecurity with inflation and taxation and the longer lives we live in the US. Presumeably those democrat millionaires and billionaires are the only working people (if you call playing ball, making movies and being celebrities, work) who really won't feel and don't fear higher taxes coming via democrats.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Religious Right vs. Liberalism --some history of Religious Right
Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority --followed by Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition –were two back to back movements which encouraged Christians to use their strength in numbers at the ballot box and in lobbying -- regarding the liberals’ erosion of American morality via entertainment media, their legalization of abortion, (now the gay agenda which was not an issue at first), liberals’ push to legalize drugs and prostitution and tendency to glamorize both; their leniency on criminals, liberals’ weak response to crime, liberals’ advocacy of porn and sex establishments as civil rights (Playboy clubs and the "playboy philosophy" were in vogue then), liberals' taking over our schools with their Planned Parenthood style of sex ed, their value- neutral style of life skills ed., liberal opposition to prayer,and holy book gifts and religious songs at public school graduations (something previously unchallenged and acceptable), liberals' embrace of ACLU agenda re: religious values and prayer exercise, etc. in the public square. (We used to say a little prayer of gratitude for our first grade morning snack 55 years ago --in public school. Didn't hurt anyone to believe in a loving Supreme Being to whom we owed gratitude for our blessings. Just as it never hurt anyone to pray a blessing on the graduates.)
It wasn’t the Religious Right that wanted to PLACE the Ten Commandments and the Christmas crèches where they had never been—they had ALREADY BEEN THERE --since the country’s beginnings. the Ten C’s were on the Supreme Court walls –with Moses and the tablets in the art work –long before the start of the current “religious right.”
It was LIBERALS who wanted to REMOVE the Ten C’s from public squares.
Zion, Illinois, was founded by a religious group of people –and they had a town insignia with religious symbols in it. The liberal ACLU has fought and too often succeeded to remove all such historical remnants of our religious history from public property.
So THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT IS NOT THE CHANGE AGENT –they are the status quo protectors of things that make for a nation that is life-revering, wholesome, family-friendly, and respectful of the Golden Rule and Ten C’s.
I don’t know that either Falwell or Robertson ever defended racism (as accused on liberal blogs) –such as would have been practiced at a school that wouldn’t let Afr.-Americans attend or use the same facilities, etc. Bob Jones U. is not a typically evangelical institution –much more fundamentalist/conservative than most evangelical colleges. They had a religious belief that God wanted races to remain distinctive and marry within the race. What happened to them regarding their prohibition of interracial dating will happen to all churches and Christian institutions, including the boy scouts, if liberals control both the courts and legislatures and presidency. We will have to hire practicing homosexuals in religious institutions if liberals prevail, even though their lifestyle is contrary to Biblical faith and practice --whereas equality of races IS supported by the Bible; interracial marriage was never prohibited by the Bible. Homosex is a different issue than race; it's a lifestyle choice influenced by upbringing and sexual temptation just like adultery. IF liberals prevail on this issue, the church will not be able to preach what the bible clearly teaches about homosexual acts. And that would violate both church –state separation, free exercise of belief and the Bible.
It’s absolutely dishonest to say the Religious Right wants to force everyone to be Christian or to even be moral. They are never about coercion of religious belief, as radical Muslims have been. Christians know that Christians are made by repentance and heart’s desire to follow Christ –voluntary faith. There is no conversion with coercion.
And finally, one more issue: the Religious Right was also against policies that caused the erosion of marriage among the poor through LBJ’s Great Society agenda which began to pay single women to keep fathers out of the home and make more fatherless babies --i.e. a welfare mom could get paid more per month for every kid –as long as Dad was not home. It became more profitable for a woman to make kids than to marry or get a low-paying job for which she was qualified. After welfare reform, the low income tax credits helped to motivate the poor and unskilled to work, also giving some kind of aid allowing fathers to be present in their homes. Liberal welfare policy had taken responsibility and value away from the minority dads –giving support for an already matriarchal society whose sons got into gangs and looked to prostitution and drugs to make their livings. Gov't had replaced the fathers.
I went to a meeting of school board members at the Toledo Club –where a national spokesman for Planned Parenthood was speaking. The speaker said we don’t want to tell youth they ought to “wait for marriage” for sex because so many of their parents did not. “Why, I myself am still exploring my sexuality and learning new things” , he said –and that was a man setting a tone for our sex ed policies. It took the Religious Right to turn that around and get a little more common sense into the sex ed approaches. And for awhile, stats were showing delay in sexual activity by youth –and more kids placing a value on virginity –and reduction in teen-age pregnancy rate --but our tv shows like Friends undo all the good of sensible sex ed. –showing young adults sleeping around without any emotional toll or disease --without the reality of casual, promiscuous serial sex relationships.
Abstinence education means chastity before marriage, restoring the preferred value of virginity until one is married –and I certainly don’t mind, myself, if students know that birth control methods are available –but the Religious Right (including orthodox Jews and Muslims ) would resent any sex ed that suggests birth control and condoms make pre-marital sex safe, good , responsible, and free of negative consequences. That’s not true and we don’t want liberals teaching our kids otherwise--but they do when they can get away with it --and TV entertainment with its disrespect for marriage is their best medium.
It wasn’t the Religious Right that wanted to PLACE the Ten Commandments and the Christmas crèches where they had never been—they had ALREADY BEEN THERE --since the country’s beginnings. the Ten C’s were on the Supreme Court walls –with Moses and the tablets in the art work –long before the start of the current “religious right.”
It was LIBERALS who wanted to REMOVE the Ten C’s from public squares.
Zion, Illinois, was founded by a religious group of people –and they had a town insignia with religious symbols in it. The liberal ACLU has fought and too often succeeded to remove all such historical remnants of our religious history from public property.
So THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT IS NOT THE CHANGE AGENT –they are the status quo protectors of things that make for a nation that is life-revering, wholesome, family-friendly, and respectful of the Golden Rule and Ten C’s.
I don’t know that either Falwell or Robertson ever defended racism (as accused on liberal blogs) –such as would have been practiced at a school that wouldn’t let Afr.-Americans attend or use the same facilities, etc. Bob Jones U. is not a typically evangelical institution –much more fundamentalist/conservative than most evangelical colleges. They had a religious belief that God wanted races to remain distinctive and marry within the race. What happened to them regarding their prohibition of interracial dating will happen to all churches and Christian institutions, including the boy scouts, if liberals control both the courts and legislatures and presidency. We will have to hire practicing homosexuals in religious institutions if liberals prevail, even though their lifestyle is contrary to Biblical faith and practice --whereas equality of races IS supported by the Bible; interracial marriage was never prohibited by the Bible. Homosex is a different issue than race; it's a lifestyle choice influenced by upbringing and sexual temptation just like adultery. IF liberals prevail on this issue, the church will not be able to preach what the bible clearly teaches about homosexual acts. And that would violate both church –state separation, free exercise of belief and the Bible.
It’s absolutely dishonest to say the Religious Right wants to force everyone to be Christian or to even be moral. They are never about coercion of religious belief, as radical Muslims have been. Christians know that Christians are made by repentance and heart’s desire to follow Christ –voluntary faith. There is no conversion with coercion.
And finally, one more issue: the Religious Right was also against policies that caused the erosion of marriage among the poor through LBJ’s Great Society agenda which began to pay single women to keep fathers out of the home and make more fatherless babies --i.e. a welfare mom could get paid more per month for every kid –as long as Dad was not home. It became more profitable for a woman to make kids than to marry or get a low-paying job for which she was qualified. After welfare reform, the low income tax credits helped to motivate the poor and unskilled to work, also giving some kind of aid allowing fathers to be present in their homes. Liberal welfare policy had taken responsibility and value away from the minority dads –giving support for an already matriarchal society whose sons got into gangs and looked to prostitution and drugs to make their livings. Gov't had replaced the fathers.
I went to a meeting of school board members at the Toledo Club –where a national spokesman for Planned Parenthood was speaking. The speaker said we don’t want to tell youth they ought to “wait for marriage” for sex because so many of their parents did not. “Why, I myself am still exploring my sexuality and learning new things” , he said –and that was a man setting a tone for our sex ed policies. It took the Religious Right to turn that around and get a little more common sense into the sex ed approaches. And for awhile, stats were showing delay in sexual activity by youth –and more kids placing a value on virginity –and reduction in teen-age pregnancy rate --but our tv shows like Friends undo all the good of sensible sex ed. –showing young adults sleeping around without any emotional toll or disease --without the reality of casual, promiscuous serial sex relationships.
Abstinence education means chastity before marriage, restoring the preferred value of virginity until one is married –and I certainly don’t mind, myself, if students know that birth control methods are available –but the Religious Right (including orthodox Jews and Muslims ) would resent any sex ed that suggests birth control and condoms make pre-marital sex safe, good , responsible, and free of negative consequences. That’s not true and we don’t want liberals teaching our kids otherwise--but they do when they can get away with it --and TV entertainment with its disrespect for marriage is their best medium.
Monday, April 16, 2007
On Global Warming
We should do what we can to have a clean environment and preserve a healthy planet --as much as it is in our power to do so --which is the question.
There have been a lot of theories pronounced as possible truths by various scientists in various universities, etc. regarding global future.
Speculations by scientists have become probabilities in the public mind--or as on blogger called it, "mythic popular science." Just because a scientist speculates, doesn't make it so. I remember that when they thought we were cooling, they speculated it might be because of a change in the sun.
We are a marvelous planet delicately balanced in all ways --and do well to look to a Creator for guidance in all ways --because He really DOES hold "the whole world in His hands." And I don't mean to say that science is doing a bad thing to watch for destructive trends and want to correct them.
But is this also mythic popular science --that Al Gore helped to quash development of nuclear power resulting in the continuation of coal use?
Yes, make the housing industry make new houses "green" --and new cars "green" --and support nuclear energy and more safety for it if that's better than coal.
But we don't want to be like Chicken Little about every temperature flux.
If God be for us, who can prevail against us? Not even nature. the problem is that our atheists and liberals don't care about God -or the fact that HIs Word says HE does control the weather/climate. Jesus calmed a storm on the Sea of Galilee. He can do whatever He wants with our planet. "Without Him (Jesus, the Incarnate Word of God) was not anything made that was made."
"The prayer of a righteous man availeth much." We need more righteous folks to pray about the planet and any reason God might have for bringing us to our knees through fear.
The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom --after all.
I'm not saying prayer is ALL we need to do --God would always have us put minds and feet to our prayers. Many of the world's greatest scientists have been devout in their faith in God.
If I believed that we should do nothing, I would not believe in medical science either --just trusting that God will miraculously heal all illness.
I know we have work to do.
Liberals are actually on a high road to say we should protect earth--but they need to go about it constructively and not just use it as a campaign issue to make a false claim as democrats that they can save the planet through laws --when laws may make NEW problems. We can't just kill companies and people's jobs and put our economy (and self-defense capability) in a tail spin --because we think our laws will save the planet.
Get the lawyers to quit suing companies out of business --then the companies will have more money to work on planet-saving strategies.
And otherwise, let us, the Church of Christ, pray, that God will guide us in our responsibilities as stewards of his Creation.
There have been a lot of theories pronounced as possible truths by various scientists in various universities, etc. regarding global future.
Speculations by scientists have become probabilities in the public mind--or as on blogger called it, "mythic popular science." Just because a scientist speculates, doesn't make it so. I remember that when they thought we were cooling, they speculated it might be because of a change in the sun.
We are a marvelous planet delicately balanced in all ways --and do well to look to a Creator for guidance in all ways --because He really DOES hold "the whole world in His hands." And I don't mean to say that science is doing a bad thing to watch for destructive trends and want to correct them.
But is this also mythic popular science --that Al Gore helped to quash development of nuclear power resulting in the continuation of coal use?
Yes, make the housing industry make new houses "green" --and new cars "green" --and support nuclear energy and more safety for it if that's better than coal.
But we don't want to be like Chicken Little about every temperature flux.
If God be for us, who can prevail against us? Not even nature. the problem is that our atheists and liberals don't care about God -or the fact that HIs Word says HE does control the weather/climate. Jesus calmed a storm on the Sea of Galilee. He can do whatever He wants with our planet. "Without Him (Jesus, the Incarnate Word of God) was not anything made that was made."
"The prayer of a righteous man availeth much." We need more righteous folks to pray about the planet and any reason God might have for bringing us to our knees through fear.
The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom --after all.
I'm not saying prayer is ALL we need to do --God would always have us put minds and feet to our prayers. Many of the world's greatest scientists have been devout in their faith in God.
If I believed that we should do nothing, I would not believe in medical science either --just trusting that God will miraculously heal all illness.
I know we have work to do.
Liberals are actually on a high road to say we should protect earth--but they need to go about it constructively and not just use it as a campaign issue to make a false claim as democrats that they can save the planet through laws --when laws may make NEW problems. We can't just kill companies and people's jobs and put our economy (and self-defense capability) in a tail spin --because we think our laws will save the planet.
Get the lawyers to quit suing companies out of business --then the companies will have more money to work on planet-saving strategies.
And otherwise, let us, the Church of Christ, pray, that God will guide us in our responsibilities as stewards of his Creation.
Friday, April 13, 2007
Hiding Behind God? by calling homosex a sin? More Mudball Blasts on Mudville
LD is over there wallowing in Mudville blasting away at two Blade writers --one who defended the war in Iraq as necessary to preserve our western way of life --and one who defended the Blade writer named Barb who defended General Pace in his comments on homosexuality and adultery in the military.
One of the new commenters in Mudville said people like Barb, in her Blade letter, were hiding behind God. Below is MY response to that:
People who see homosexuality as I do aren't hiding behind God, as one blog commenter said. People either believe the Bible on the subject of human sexuality or they do not. And the Bible doesn't incline me to hate or give me license to hate those who disagree. We are even to "love your enemies" and be willing to be "persecuted for righteousness' sake" --which only happens when we stand up for righteousness --and who more than the Bible has a right to define righteousness and sin -- at least for those who believe in the God of Judeo-Christianity --which is probably most Americans.
Public policy does and should reflect the majority's view of right and wrong. Otherwise, we sanction anything that the minority believes is OK for them. So there IS a cultural war going on--a battle over definition of good and evil --and how far personal liberty can go in a humane and decent society, fit for the rearing of good and functional citizens.
The Bible says all sex outside hetero marriage is sin --and people who sin sexually (and Jesus said everyone has done so in his heart/mind) need to flee temptation that starts in the mind --and pursue that which God has sanctioned/ordained --celibate single-hood or monogamous marriage --for which our bodies are designed. the first is a difficult road, i think, and the priests of the catholic church have found it so. The second is also difficult, judging by our divorce rate, but not when both spouses are committed to Biblical precepts and practice them.
God said it is not good for man to be alone --and so made him woman --so they could procreate and not be alone. "Male and female, created He them" --"in His image." We are marvelously designed for this union--a union which Jesus says joins our souls --at least temporarily. He said this in regard to using a prostitute which he condemned --as does the Old Testament --over and over in the Book of Proverbs, for one.
If we follow the research at the u. of Ga. --that said 80 percent of one group and 44 percent? of another group of presumed-to-be straight men responded to both gay and straight porn, and conclude that's an indicator of latent homosexual attraction for those men --then where would the human race be --if 62% of the men were preferring homosex? (80% in the one group --44 % in the other) (feel free to correct my math) we'd be husbandless and childless, most likely. Because, despite the push for gay adoption, MOST men haven't the desire to be "moms" in every sense of the word, doing a good job at that --can't seem to wake up in the middle of the night for the feedings--and also work hard during the day to make a living. Two parents are better with different roles. Heck, that's why so many women dump so many husbands --because they are fixated on their computer porn and their video games --and not helping with the kids and the house. If both have to work, both need to help at home. That’s fairness. I've always said that both should help with kids until they are in bed, no matter who is winning the bread. Children benefit by involvement with both the male and the female parent.
My life as a Mom and Wife is full -though they are grown and only one is still hanging on here at home-finishing a 2nd degree that hopefully gives a career --the functional home ideally is a loving mental health center like no other. Marriages work when men and women follow the biblical precepts on marriage --he loves her sacrificially --she respects and submits to his leadership. If he loves sacrificially that means she gets her way and ALSO leads A LOT! Because she is the "helpmeet" --not the slave to be subjugated. As he does, she has a brain, too. If she respects him, he's not apt to look outside the marriage for sex, love, OR respect --because it's in his house. that is, if HE'S following biblical precepts of fidelity and fleeing temptation to adultery of any orientation. (Sobriety, being free of alcohol's dulled inhibitions and poor judgment and nicotine's irritability helps.)
The man who is strong against temptation to sin is the strongest man of all. God wants to help us all be strong like that --even in this area of first homosexual thought and involvement.
You say you don't mind people being homosexual --but if you are raising children --do you really not care if someone tells them at school or on tv that they might happen to be homosexual --and should explore the possibility --and then would you not TRY to teach and chaperone such that your child will have a normal, hetero- sexual self-image --and incline him/her to make a hetero choice instead of allowing him to get involved during his immaturity with same-sex (or other)sexual exploration?? --especially with an experienced homosexual who sets out to teach him about gay sex? before he's even had a chance to find some confidence as a person? when he's adolescent? Do you want a confused pubescent/adolescent child whose libido is driving him all over the place to be craving and finding sexual experience of anykind? in particular, homo-sex?
Liberals think if we just condone all sexual lifestyles, that all will be well --no guilt. Fact is, people who go that route find it holds a lot of misery, social, physical, emotional, often economic -- that can't be covered with a leaky or fullproof condom.
According to one study (on NARTH website) the gays living in Europe, in more gay-tolerant countries, have just as much mental illness and use of counselors as the ones living here --who blame their troubles on society's homophobia.
Jesus gave us good advice: "A man should leave his parents and cleave to his wife."
An MD I know says homosexual orientation is not proven to be genetic by any research thus far. A father's role is critical in development of both boys and girls --and mothers, too, can do a lot of damage if they make their sons their 'girlfriends.' See my blogs on the topic. Homosexuals don't procreate in sufficient numbers to pass homosexual genes along. Science has explored all sorts of genetic rabbit trails and can't find the "missing link."
Maybe we have a gene for immorality and sin tendency--because, according to the Bible --we ALL got it in our human nature because of the first rebellion against God's expressed will.
We do know now that addictive substances and activities cause brain changes --my husband just told me about a patient who got over all his serious drug addictions immediately when he accepted Christ as his Savior --believed and repented and called on the Lord --in the context of pentecostal revival, i believe. His own grandfather gave up a nicotine habit easily--the cravings were just removed --when HE converted to Christ. The Bible does say, "Be ye transformed (changed?) by the renewing of your mind." This reformed smoker was a man of prayer who would rise early in the morning, every day, and pray for his family, friends, enemies and world.
"There is none righteous, no not one." "all have sinned and come short of God's glory."
For which we all need to repent. To do so, we need to agree about our sinful states --not condoning sin --not having pride parades for any of it.
God knows our struggles against sin and is willing to help by renewing our minds. Remorse is the first step. He'll do the rest.
One of the new commenters in Mudville said people like Barb, in her Blade letter, were hiding behind God. Below is MY response to that:
People who see homosexuality as I do aren't hiding behind God, as one blog commenter said. People either believe the Bible on the subject of human sexuality or they do not. And the Bible doesn't incline me to hate or give me license to hate those who disagree. We are even to "love your enemies" and be willing to be "persecuted for righteousness' sake" --which only happens when we stand up for righteousness --and who more than the Bible has a right to define righteousness and sin -- at least for those who believe in the God of Judeo-Christianity --which is probably most Americans.
Public policy does and should reflect the majority's view of right and wrong. Otherwise, we sanction anything that the minority believes is OK for them. So there IS a cultural war going on--a battle over definition of good and evil --and how far personal liberty can go in a humane and decent society, fit for the rearing of good and functional citizens.
The Bible says all sex outside hetero marriage is sin --and people who sin sexually (and Jesus said everyone has done so in his heart/mind) need to flee temptation that starts in the mind --and pursue that which God has sanctioned/ordained --celibate single-hood or monogamous marriage --for which our bodies are designed. the first is a difficult road, i think, and the priests of the catholic church have found it so. The second is also difficult, judging by our divorce rate, but not when both spouses are committed to Biblical precepts and practice them.
God said it is not good for man to be alone --and so made him woman --so they could procreate and not be alone. "Male and female, created He them" --"in His image." We are marvelously designed for this union--a union which Jesus says joins our souls --at least temporarily. He said this in regard to using a prostitute which he condemned --as does the Old Testament --over and over in the Book of Proverbs, for one.
If we follow the research at the u. of Ga. --that said 80 percent of one group and 44 percent? of another group of presumed-to-be straight men responded to both gay and straight porn, and conclude that's an indicator of latent homosexual attraction for those men --then where would the human race be --if 62% of the men were preferring homosex? (80% in the one group --44 % in the other) (feel free to correct my math) we'd be husbandless and childless, most likely. Because, despite the push for gay adoption, MOST men haven't the desire to be "moms" in every sense of the word, doing a good job at that --can't seem to wake up in the middle of the night for the feedings--and also work hard during the day to make a living. Two parents are better with different roles. Heck, that's why so many women dump so many husbands --because they are fixated on their computer porn and their video games --and not helping with the kids and the house. If both have to work, both need to help at home. That’s fairness. I've always said that both should help with kids until they are in bed, no matter who is winning the bread. Children benefit by involvement with both the male and the female parent.
My life as a Mom and Wife is full -though they are grown and only one is still hanging on here at home-finishing a 2nd degree that hopefully gives a career --the functional home ideally is a loving mental health center like no other. Marriages work when men and women follow the biblical precepts on marriage --he loves her sacrificially --she respects and submits to his leadership. If he loves sacrificially that means she gets her way and ALSO leads A LOT! Because she is the "helpmeet" --not the slave to be subjugated. As he does, she has a brain, too. If she respects him, he's not apt to look outside the marriage for sex, love, OR respect --because it's in his house. that is, if HE'S following biblical precepts of fidelity and fleeing temptation to adultery of any orientation. (Sobriety, being free of alcohol's dulled inhibitions and poor judgment and nicotine's irritability helps.)
The man who is strong against temptation to sin is the strongest man of all. God wants to help us all be strong like that --even in this area of first homosexual thought and involvement.
You say you don't mind people being homosexual --but if you are raising children --do you really not care if someone tells them at school or on tv that they might happen to be homosexual --and should explore the possibility --and then would you not TRY to teach and chaperone such that your child will have a normal, hetero- sexual self-image --and incline him/her to make a hetero choice instead of allowing him to get involved during his immaturity with same-sex (or other)sexual exploration?? --especially with an experienced homosexual who sets out to teach him about gay sex? before he's even had a chance to find some confidence as a person? when he's adolescent? Do you want a confused pubescent/adolescent child whose libido is driving him all over the place to be craving and finding sexual experience of anykind? in particular, homo-sex?
Liberals think if we just condone all sexual lifestyles, that all will be well --no guilt. Fact is, people who go that route find it holds a lot of misery, social, physical, emotional, often economic -- that can't be covered with a leaky or fullproof condom.
According to one study (on NARTH website) the gays living in Europe, in more gay-tolerant countries, have just as much mental illness and use of counselors as the ones living here --who blame their troubles on society's homophobia.
Jesus gave us good advice: "A man should leave his parents and cleave to his wife."
An MD I know says homosexual orientation is not proven to be genetic by any research thus far. A father's role is critical in development of both boys and girls --and mothers, too, can do a lot of damage if they make their sons their 'girlfriends.' See my blogs on the topic. Homosexuals don't procreate in sufficient numbers to pass homosexual genes along. Science has explored all sorts of genetic rabbit trails and can't find the "missing link."
Maybe we have a gene for immorality and sin tendency--because, according to the Bible --we ALL got it in our human nature because of the first rebellion against God's expressed will.
We do know now that addictive substances and activities cause brain changes --my husband just told me about a patient who got over all his serious drug addictions immediately when he accepted Christ as his Savior --believed and repented and called on the Lord --in the context of pentecostal revival, i believe. His own grandfather gave up a nicotine habit easily--the cravings were just removed --when HE converted to Christ. The Bible does say, "Be ye transformed (changed?) by the renewing of your mind." This reformed smoker was a man of prayer who would rise early in the morning, every day, and pray for his family, friends, enemies and world.
"There is none righteous, no not one." "all have sinned and come short of God's glory."
For which we all need to repent. To do so, we need to agree about our sinful states --not condoning sin --not having pride parades for any of it.
God knows our struggles against sin and is willing to help by renewing our minds. Remorse is the first step. He'll do the rest.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Blades of Glory --Implications for the Arts
One of my kids saw Blades of Glory, the movie starring Will Farrel and Jon Heder? (Napoleon Dynamite) --which is not about gays at all --and no humor to that effect, she said.
But she said it does show how incongrous and funny it is to see 2 men as a figure-skating pair.
Well it used to be just as funny to think of two men marrying --but now we are expected to take that seriously and not giggle at the incongruity because they are serious about their attractions.
I expect therefore, that gays WILL begin to wonder why they cannot be a figure skating pair, a ball-room dancing pair, etc. Why not!? If we are going to treat them same as female-male couples in all other ways, we shall also be expected to take them seriously in the arts heretofore reserved for hetero couples. We'll also have transgenders competing in female competitions and having advantage of their male origins --which is why we have females compete with each other and not against the bigger, stronger males.
There is no end to the silliness coming....
April 11, 2007 1:16 PM
But she said it does show how incongrous and funny it is to see 2 men as a figure-skating pair.
Well it used to be just as funny to think of two men marrying --but now we are expected to take that seriously and not giggle at the incongruity because they are serious about their attractions.
I expect therefore, that gays WILL begin to wonder why they cannot be a figure skating pair, a ball-room dancing pair, etc. Why not!? If we are going to treat them same as female-male couples in all other ways, we shall also be expected to take them seriously in the arts heretofore reserved for hetero couples. We'll also have transgenders competing in female competitions and having advantage of their male origins --which is why we have females compete with each other and not against the bigger, stronger males.
There is no end to the silliness coming....
April 11, 2007 1:16 PM
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Senators Debate Stem Cell Research Funding
C-Span featured Feinstein, Kennedy, Brownback and others on stem cell research today. Kennedy was most divisive, blasting Bush for previously vetoing federal funding for this questionable project. A typical, grumpy, obnoxious, divisive, disrespectful, missing-the-point democrat.
We ALL need to call Sherrod Brown (our democrat senator) and remind him this is not about the research itself but about funding it with federal dollars. We have no business funding this research any more than we should be funding abortion itself. Both are legal by current laws, but neither should be supported by public funding.
Let democrats make donations for both abortion and the private research projects of their choice. There IS such research by people hoping to make a killing on stem cell remedies, but don't make ALL of us support this dubious technology which could lead to cloning ourselves and killing our genetic twin/clone to replace our bodyparts. This is MAD science. What if the clone or your spouse decides YOU should be replaced by your younger clone? Defenders of Senate Bill 5 say this is not about cloning, but there IS a question of what madness such research could produce and whether or not God would even allow us to benefit.
MOst success in stem cell research and therapy has been with our own adult stem cells. Also ethical in research is the use of umbilical cord cells.
Contrary to popular opinion, CONSERVATIVES ARE NOT, BY OPPOSING THIS LEGISLATION, VOTING TO STOP ANY AND ALL STEM CELL RESEARCH --JUST FEDERAL FUNDING for any research which kills innocent life. So far, no one has moved to make any such research illegal, that I know of. Conservs and Bush just refused to fund any research on viable, so-called excess embryos--who could be implanted and survive. Such embryos ARE "whos" --potential people--and so far there is less potential for remedies from their cells than from adult stem cells from one's own body.
We need to put tax dollars into research that has the most potential for good. The conservative senators told us about many research projects for cutting edge remedies that do not kill one person to help another.
We ALL need to call Sherrod Brown (our democrat senator) and remind him this is not about the research itself but about funding it with federal dollars. We have no business funding this research any more than we should be funding abortion itself. Both are legal by current laws, but neither should be supported by public funding.
Let democrats make donations for both abortion and the private research projects of their choice. There IS such research by people hoping to make a killing on stem cell remedies, but don't make ALL of us support this dubious technology which could lead to cloning ourselves and killing our genetic twin/clone to replace our bodyparts. This is MAD science. What if the clone or your spouse decides YOU should be replaced by your younger clone? Defenders of Senate Bill 5 say this is not about cloning, but there IS a question of what madness such research could produce and whether or not God would even allow us to benefit.
MOst success in stem cell research and therapy has been with our own adult stem cells. Also ethical in research is the use of umbilical cord cells.
Contrary to popular opinion, CONSERVATIVES ARE NOT, BY OPPOSING THIS LEGISLATION, VOTING TO STOP ANY AND ALL STEM CELL RESEARCH --JUST FEDERAL FUNDING for any research which kills innocent life. So far, no one has moved to make any such research illegal, that I know of. Conservs and Bush just refused to fund any research on viable, so-called excess embryos--who could be implanted and survive. Such embryos ARE "whos" --potential people--and so far there is less potential for remedies from their cells than from adult stem cells from one's own body.
We need to put tax dollars into research that has the most potential for good. The conservative senators told us about many research projects for cutting edge remedies that do not kill one person to help another.
PART II --World War III --right now --same stakes! our existance--our way of life
I divided the previous post today --as it is so long. This is part II by Ray Kraft. My aunt who sent this to me --her husband was in the Navy in WWII --and brother in law in the army then.
There is a very dangerous minority in Islam that either has, or wants, and may soon have, the ability to deliver small nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons, almost anywhere in the world .
The Jihadis, the militant Muslims, are basically Nazis in Kaffiyahs -- they believe that Islam, a radically conservative form of Wahhabi Islam, should own and control the Middle East first, then Europe, then the world. To them, all who do not bow to their will of thinking should be killed, enslaved, or subjugated. They want to finish the Holocaust, destroy Israel, and purge the world of Jews. This is their mantra. (goal)
There is also a civil war raging in the Middle East -- for the most part not a hot war, but a war of ideas. Islam is having its Inquisition and its Reformation, but it is not yet known which side will win -- the Inquisitors, or the Reformationists.
If the Inquisition wins, then the Wahhabis, the Jihadis, will control the Middle East, the OPEC oil, and the US, European, and Asian economies.
The techno-industrial economies will be at the mercy of OPEC -- not an OPEC dominated by the educated, rational Saudis of today, but an OPEC dominated by the Jihadis. Do you want gas in your car? Do you want heating oil next winter? Do you want the dollar to be worth anything? You had better hope the Jihad, the Muslim Inquisition, loses, and the Islamic Reformation wins.
If the Reformation movement wins, that is, the moderate Muslims who believe that Islam can respect and tolerate other religions, live in peace with the rest of the world, and move out of the 10th century into the 21st, then the troubles in the Middle East will eventually fade away. A moderate and prosperous Middle East will emerge.
We have to help the Reformation win, and to do that we have to fight the Inquisition, i.e., the Wahhabi movement, the Jihad, Al Qaeda and the Islamic terrorist movements. We have to do it somewhere. We can't do it everywhere at once. We have created a focal point for the battle at a time and place of our choosing . . . in Iraq. Not in New York , not in London , or Paris or Berlin, but in Iraq, where we are doing two important things.
(1) We deposed Saddam Hussein. Whether Saddam Hussein was directly involved in the 9/11 terrorist attack or not, it is undisputed that Saddam has been actively supporting the terrorist movement for decades Saddam is a terrorist! Saddam is, or was, a weapon of mass destruction, responsible for the deaths of probably more than a 1,000,000 Iraqis and 2,000,000 Iranians.
(2) We created a battle, a confrontation, a flash point, with Islamic terrorism in Iraq. We have focused the battle. We are killing bad people, and the ones we get there we won't have to get here. We also have a good shot at creating a democratic, peaceful Iraq, which will be a catalyst for democratic change in the rest of the Middle East, and an outpost for a stabilizing American military presence in the Middle East for as long as it is needed.
WW II, the war with the Japanese and German Nazis, really began with a "whimper" in 1928. It did not begin with Pearl Harbor. It began with the Japanese invasion of China. It was a war for fourteen years before the US joined it. It officially ended in 1945 -- a 17 year war -- and was followed by another decade of US occupation in Germany and Japan to get those countries reconstructed and running on their own a gain... a 27 year war.
WW II cost the United States an amount equal to approximately a full year's GDP -- adjusted for inflation, equal to about $12 trillion dollars. WW II cost America more than 400,000 soldiers killed in action, and nearly 100,000 still missing in action.
The Iraq war has, so far, cost the United States about $160,000,000,000, which is roughly what the 9/11 terrorist attack cost New York. It has also cost about 3,000 American lives, which is roughly equivilant to lives that the Jihad killed (within the United States) in the 9/11 terrorist attack .
The cost of not fighting and winning WW II would have been unimaginably greater -- a world dominated by Japanese Imperialism and German Nazism .
This is not a 60-Minutes TV show, or a 2-hour movie in which everything comes out okay. The real world is not like that. It is messy, uncertain, and sometimes bloody and ugly. It always has been, and probably always will be .
The bottom line is that we will have to deal with Islamic terrorism until we defeat it, whenever that is. It will not go away if we ignore it.
If the US can create a reasonably democratic and stable Iraq, then we have an ally, like England , in the Middle East, a platform, from which we can work to help modernize and moderate the Middle East. The history of the world is the clash between the forces of relative civility and civilization, and the barbarians clamoring at the gates to conquer the world.
The Iraq War is merely another battle in this ancient and never ending war. Now, for the first time ever, the barbarians are about to get nuclear weapons. Unless some body prevents them from getting them.
We have four options:
1. We can defeat the Jihad now, before it gets nuclear weapons.
2. We can fight the Jihad later, after it gets nuclear weapons (which may be as early as next year, if Iran 's progress on nuclear weapons is what Iran claims it is).
3. We can surrender to the Jihad and accept its dominance in the Middle East now; in Europe in the next few years or decades, and ultimately in America.
OR
4. We can stand down now, and pick up the fight later when the Jihad is more widespread and better armed, perhaps after the Jihad has dominated France and Germany and possibly most of the rest of Europe. It will, of course, be more dangerous, more expensive, and much bloodier.
If you oppose this war, I hope you like the idea that your children, or grandchildren, may live in an Islamic America under the Mullahs and the Sharia, an America that resembles Iran today.
The history of the world is the history of civilization clashes, cultural clashes. All wars are about ideas, ideas about what society and civilization should be like, and the most determined always win.
Those who are willing to be the most ruthless always win. The pacifists always lose, because the anti-pacifists kill them.
Remember, perspective is every thing, and America's schools teach too little history for perspective to be clear, especially in the young American mind.
The Cold War lasted from about 1947 at least until the Berlin Wall came down in 1989; forty-two years!
Europe spent the first half of the 19th century fighting Napoleon, and from 1870 to 1945 fighting Germany!
World War II began in 1928, lasted 17 years, plus a ten year occupation, and the US still has troops in Germany and Japan. World War II resulted in the death of more than 50,000,000 people, maybe more than 100,000,000 people, depending on which estimates you accept.
The US has taken more than 3,000 killed in action in Iraq. The US took more than 4,000 killed in action on the morning of June 6, 1944, the first day of the Normandy Invasion to rid Europe of Nazi Imperialism.
In WW II the US averaged 2,000 KIA a week -- for four years. Most of the individual battles of WW II lost more Americans than the entire Iraq war has done so far.
The stakes are at least as high... A world dominated by representative governments with civil rights, human rights, and personal freedoms... or a world dominated by a radical Islamic Wahhabi movement, by the Jihad, under the Mullahs and the Sharia (Islamic law).
It's difficult to understand why the average American does not grasp this. They favor human rights, civil rights, liberty and freedom, but evidently not for Iraqis.
"Peace Activists" always seem to demonstrate here in America , where it's safe. Why don't we see Peace Activist demonstrating in Iran, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, North Korea, in the places that really need peace activism the most? I'll tell you why! They would be killed!
The liberal mentality is supposed to favor human rights, civil rights, democracy, multiculturalism, diversity, etc., but if the Jihad wins, wherever the Jihad wins, it is the end of civil rights, human rights, democracy, multiculturalism, diversity, etc.
Americans who oppose the liberation of Iraq are coming down on the side of their own worst enemy!
Please consider passing along copies of this article to students in high school, college and university as it contains information about the American past that is very meaningful today -- history about America that very likely is completely unknown by them (and their instructors, too). By being denied the facts of our history, they are at a decided disadvantage when it comes to reasoning and thinking through the issues of today. They are prime targets for misinformation campaigns beamed at enlisting them in causes and beliefs that are special interest agenda driven.
Raymond S. Kraft is a writer living in Northern California who has studied the Middle Eastern culture and religion.
There is a very dangerous minority in Islam that either has, or wants, and may soon have, the ability to deliver small nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons, almost anywhere in the world .
The Jihadis, the militant Muslims, are basically Nazis in Kaffiyahs -- they believe that Islam, a radically conservative form of Wahhabi Islam, should own and control the Middle East first, then Europe, then the world. To them, all who do not bow to their will of thinking should be killed, enslaved, or subjugated. They want to finish the Holocaust, destroy Israel, and purge the world of Jews. This is their mantra. (goal)
There is also a civil war raging in the Middle East -- for the most part not a hot war, but a war of ideas. Islam is having its Inquisition and its Reformation, but it is not yet known which side will win -- the Inquisitors, or the Reformationists.
If the Inquisition wins, then the Wahhabis, the Jihadis, will control the Middle East, the OPEC oil, and the US, European, and Asian economies.
The techno-industrial economies will be at the mercy of OPEC -- not an OPEC dominated by the educated, rational Saudis of today, but an OPEC dominated by the Jihadis. Do you want gas in your car? Do you want heating oil next winter? Do you want the dollar to be worth anything? You had better hope the Jihad, the Muslim Inquisition, loses, and the Islamic Reformation wins.
If the Reformation movement wins, that is, the moderate Muslims who believe that Islam can respect and tolerate other religions, live in peace with the rest of the world, and move out of the 10th century into the 21st, then the troubles in the Middle East will eventually fade away. A moderate and prosperous Middle East will emerge.
We have to help the Reformation win, and to do that we have to fight the Inquisition, i.e., the Wahhabi movement, the Jihad, Al Qaeda and the Islamic terrorist movements. We have to do it somewhere. We can't do it everywhere at once. We have created a focal point for the battle at a time and place of our choosing . . . in Iraq. Not in New York , not in London , or Paris or Berlin, but in Iraq, where we are doing two important things.
(1) We deposed Saddam Hussein. Whether Saddam Hussein was directly involved in the 9/11 terrorist attack or not, it is undisputed that Saddam has been actively supporting the terrorist movement for decades Saddam is a terrorist! Saddam is, or was, a weapon of mass destruction, responsible for the deaths of probably more than a 1,000,000 Iraqis and 2,000,000 Iranians.
(2) We created a battle, a confrontation, a flash point, with Islamic terrorism in Iraq. We have focused the battle. We are killing bad people, and the ones we get there we won't have to get here. We also have a good shot at creating a democratic, peaceful Iraq, which will be a catalyst for democratic change in the rest of the Middle East, and an outpost for a stabilizing American military presence in the Middle East for as long as it is needed.
WW II, the war with the Japanese and German Nazis, really began with a "whimper" in 1928. It did not begin with Pearl Harbor. It began with the Japanese invasion of China. It was a war for fourteen years before the US joined it. It officially ended in 1945 -- a 17 year war -- and was followed by another decade of US occupation in Germany and Japan to get those countries reconstructed and running on their own a gain... a 27 year war.
WW II cost the United States an amount equal to approximately a full year's GDP -- adjusted for inflation, equal to about $12 trillion dollars. WW II cost America more than 400,000 soldiers killed in action, and nearly 100,000 still missing in action.
The Iraq war has, so far, cost the United States about $160,000,000,000, which is roughly what the 9/11 terrorist attack cost New York. It has also cost about 3,000 American lives, which is roughly equivilant to lives that the Jihad killed (within the United States) in the 9/11 terrorist attack .
The cost of not fighting and winning WW II would have been unimaginably greater -- a world dominated by Japanese Imperialism and German Nazism .
This is not a 60-Minutes TV show, or a 2-hour movie in which everything comes out okay. The real world is not like that. It is messy, uncertain, and sometimes bloody and ugly. It always has been, and probably always will be .
The bottom line is that we will have to deal with Islamic terrorism until we defeat it, whenever that is. It will not go away if we ignore it.
If the US can create a reasonably democratic and stable Iraq, then we have an ally, like England , in the Middle East, a platform, from which we can work to help modernize and moderate the Middle East. The history of the world is the clash between the forces of relative civility and civilization, and the barbarians clamoring at the gates to conquer the world.
The Iraq War is merely another battle in this ancient and never ending war. Now, for the first time ever, the barbarians are about to get nuclear weapons. Unless some body prevents them from getting them.
We have four options:
1. We can defeat the Jihad now, before it gets nuclear weapons.
2. We can fight the Jihad later, after it gets nuclear weapons (which may be as early as next year, if Iran 's progress on nuclear weapons is what Iran claims it is).
3. We can surrender to the Jihad and accept its dominance in the Middle East now; in Europe in the next few years or decades, and ultimately in America.
OR
4. We can stand down now, and pick up the fight later when the Jihad is more widespread and better armed, perhaps after the Jihad has dominated France and Germany and possibly most of the rest of Europe. It will, of course, be more dangerous, more expensive, and much bloodier.
If you oppose this war, I hope you like the idea that your children, or grandchildren, may live in an Islamic America under the Mullahs and the Sharia, an America that resembles Iran today.
The history of the world is the history of civilization clashes, cultural clashes. All wars are about ideas, ideas about what society and civilization should be like, and the most determined always win.
Those who are willing to be the most ruthless always win. The pacifists always lose, because the anti-pacifists kill them.
Remember, perspective is every thing, and America's schools teach too little history for perspective to be clear, especially in the young American mind.
The Cold War lasted from about 1947 at least until the Berlin Wall came down in 1989; forty-two years!
Europe spent the first half of the 19th century fighting Napoleon, and from 1870 to 1945 fighting Germany!
World War II began in 1928, lasted 17 years, plus a ten year occupation, and the US still has troops in Germany and Japan. World War II resulted in the death of more than 50,000,000 people, maybe more than 100,000,000 people, depending on which estimates you accept.
The US has taken more than 3,000 killed in action in Iraq. The US took more than 4,000 killed in action on the morning of June 6, 1944, the first day of the Normandy Invasion to rid Europe of Nazi Imperialism.
In WW II the US averaged 2,000 KIA a week -- for four years. Most of the individual battles of WW II lost more Americans than the entire Iraq war has done so far.
The stakes are at least as high... A world dominated by representative governments with civil rights, human rights, and personal freedoms... or a world dominated by a radical Islamic Wahhabi movement, by the Jihad, under the Mullahs and the Sharia (Islamic law).
It's difficult to understand why the average American does not grasp this. They favor human rights, civil rights, liberty and freedom, but evidently not for Iraqis.
"Peace Activists" always seem to demonstrate here in America , where it's safe. Why don't we see Peace Activist demonstrating in Iran, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, North Korea, in the places that really need peace activism the most? I'll tell you why! They would be killed!
The liberal mentality is supposed to favor human rights, civil rights, democracy, multiculturalism, diversity, etc., but if the Jihad wins, wherever the Jihad wins, it is the end of civil rights, human rights, democracy, multiculturalism, diversity, etc.
Americans who oppose the liberation of Iraq are coming down on the side of their own worst enemy!
Please consider passing along copies of this article to students in high school, college and university as it contains information about the American past that is very meaningful today -- history about America that very likely is completely unknown by them (and their instructors, too). By being denied the facts of our history, they are at a decided disadvantage when it comes to reasoning and thinking through the issues of today. They are prime targets for misinformation campaigns beamed at enlisting them in causes and beliefs that are special interest agenda driven.
Raymond S. Kraft is a writer living in Northern California who has studied the Middle Eastern culture and religion.
Monday, April 9, 2007
From my aunt--PART I --an article on WWII and Comparison to the War on Terrorism --a MUST READ!
SOME OF YOU ARE NOT OLD ENOUGH TO REMEMBER THAT NEARLY EVERY FAMILY IN AMERICA WAS GROSSLY AFFECTED BY WW II. MOST OF YOU DON'T REMEMBER THE RATIONING OF MEAT, SHOES, GASOLINE, AND SUGAR. NO TIRES FOR OUR AUTOMOBILES, AND A SPEED LIMIT OF 35 MILES AN HOUR ON THE ROAD, NOT TO MENTION, NO NEW AUTOMOBILES. READ THIS AND THINK ABOUT HOW WE WOULD REACT TO BEING TAKEN OVER BY FOREIGNERS IN 2007.
This is an EXCELLENT essay by Raymond Kraft of CA. Well thought out and presented
Historical Significance
Sixty-three years ago, Nazi Germany had overrun almost all of Europe and hammered England to the verge of bankruptcy and defeat . The Nazis had sunk more than 400 British ships in their convoys between England and America taking food and war materials .
At that time the US was in an isolationist, pacifist mood, and most Americans wanted nothing to do with the European or the Asian war .
Then along came Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and in outrage Congress unanimously declared war on Japan, and the following day on Germany, who had not yet attacked us. It was a dicey thing. We had few allies.
France was not an ally, as the Vichy government of France quickly aligned itself with its German occupiers. Germany was certainly not an ally, as Hitler was intent on setting up a Thousand Year Reich in Europe. Japan was not an ally, as it was well on its way to owning and controlling all of Asia.
Together, Japan and Germany had long-range plans of invading Canada and Mexico, as launching pads to get into the United States over our northern and southern borders, after they finished gaining control of Asia and Europe.
America's only allies then were England, Ireland, Scotland, Canada, Australia, and Russia. That was about it All of Europe, from Norway to Italy (except Russia in the East) was already under the Nazi heel.
The US was certainly not prepared for war. The US had drastically downgraded most of its military forces after WW I because of the depression, so that at the outbreak of WW II, Army units were training with broomsticks because they didn't have guns, and cars with "tank" painted on the doors because they didn't have real tanks. A huge chunk of our Navy had just been sunk or damaged at Pearl Harbor.
Britain had already gone bankrupt, saved only by the donation of $600 million in gold bullion in the Bank of England (that was actually the property of Belgium ) given by Belgium to England to carry on the war when Belgium was overrun by Hitler (a little known fact).
Actually, Belgium surrendered on one day, because it was unable to oppose the German invasion, and the Germans bombed Brussels into rubble the next day just to prove they could.
Britain had already been holding out for two years in the face of staggering losses and the near decimation of its Royal Air Force in the Battle of Britain, and was saved from being overrun by Germany only because Hitler made the mistake of thinking the Brits were a relatively minor threat that could be dealt with later. Hitler, first turned his attention to Russia, in the late summer of 1940 at a time when England was on the verge of collapse.
Ironically, Russia saved America's butt by putting up a desperate fight for two years, until the US got geared up to begin hammering away at Germany .
Russia lost something like 24,000,000 people in the sieges of Stalingrad and Moscow alone... 90% of them from cold and starvation, mostly civilians, but also more than a 1,000,000 soldiers.
Had Russia surrendered, Hitler would have been able to focus his entire war effort against the Brits, then America. If that had happened, the Nazis could possibly have won the war.
All of this has been brought out to illustrate that turning points in history are often dicey things. Now, we find ourselves at another one of those key moments in history.
Raymond S. Kraft is a writer living in Northern California who has studied the Middle Eastern culture and religion.
This is an EXCELLENT essay by Raymond Kraft of CA. Well thought out and presented
Historical Significance
Sixty-three years ago, Nazi Germany had overrun almost all of Europe and hammered England to the verge of bankruptcy and defeat . The Nazis had sunk more than 400 British ships in their convoys between England and America taking food and war materials .
At that time the US was in an isolationist, pacifist mood, and most Americans wanted nothing to do with the European or the Asian war .
Then along came Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and in outrage Congress unanimously declared war on Japan, and the following day on Germany, who had not yet attacked us. It was a dicey thing. We had few allies.
France was not an ally, as the Vichy government of France quickly aligned itself with its German occupiers. Germany was certainly not an ally, as Hitler was intent on setting up a Thousand Year Reich in Europe. Japan was not an ally, as it was well on its way to owning and controlling all of Asia.
Together, Japan and Germany had long-range plans of invading Canada and Mexico, as launching pads to get into the United States over our northern and southern borders, after they finished gaining control of Asia and Europe.
America's only allies then were England, Ireland, Scotland, Canada, Australia, and Russia. That was about it All of Europe, from Norway to Italy (except Russia in the East) was already under the Nazi heel.
The US was certainly not prepared for war. The US had drastically downgraded most of its military forces after WW I because of the depression, so that at the outbreak of WW II, Army units were training with broomsticks because they didn't have guns, and cars with "tank" painted on the doors because they didn't have real tanks. A huge chunk of our Navy had just been sunk or damaged at Pearl Harbor.
Britain had already gone bankrupt, saved only by the donation of $600 million in gold bullion in the Bank of England (that was actually the property of Belgium ) given by Belgium to England to carry on the war when Belgium was overrun by Hitler (a little known fact).
Actually, Belgium surrendered on one day, because it was unable to oppose the German invasion, and the Germans bombed Brussels into rubble the next day just to prove they could.
Britain had already been holding out for two years in the face of staggering losses and the near decimation of its Royal Air Force in the Battle of Britain, and was saved from being overrun by Germany only because Hitler made the mistake of thinking the Brits were a relatively minor threat that could be dealt with later. Hitler, first turned his attention to Russia, in the late summer of 1940 at a time when England was on the verge of collapse.
Ironically, Russia saved America's butt by putting up a desperate fight for two years, until the US got geared up to begin hammering away at Germany .
Russia lost something like 24,000,000 people in the sieges of Stalingrad and Moscow alone... 90% of them from cold and starvation, mostly civilians, but also more than a 1,000,000 soldiers.
Had Russia surrendered, Hitler would have been able to focus his entire war effort against the Brits, then America. If that had happened, the Nazis could possibly have won the war.
All of this has been brought out to illustrate that turning points in history are often dicey things. Now, we find ourselves at another one of those key moments in history.
Raymond S. Kraft is a writer living in Northern California who has studied the Middle Eastern culture and religion.
About the Boy Scouts and Their "Intolerance" for Homosexuals in Scouting
From Sepp of www.Uncommon Sqalor.blogspot.com
I read an article yesterday...obviously written by a hard core liberal...who called the Boy scouts a "hate group". Thinking back, we hatemongers of troop 79 must have really been a bane to society. Courteous, kind, obedient, cheerfull, thrifty, brave, clean and, reverent...yeah, I can see where those values would piss off liberals since those values are the carbon negative of what liberalism is all about anymore. Maybe if we were all about drugs, porn, athiesm, laziness, excuses and, homosexuality we wouldn't seem so hateful.
I see this as pretty much a validation of the liberal credo where "everything that is good is bad and bad is good". I guess that any organization that has morality in its credo and family values would be deemed an imediate threat to the left.
I learned outdoor skills, community involvement, ecological responsibility, American Indian folklore, American folklore, respect for other cultures and, adults. This may shock even the most hard-core liberal out there...we learned diversity! Firsthand too! We met other scouts from all over the world who, although different from us culturaly and ethnicly, shared the same positive goals and attitudes...God forbid!When I look at rabies symptoms in animals, I can see the exact same symptoms in liberalism in some people.
posted by -Sepp at 12:18 AM on Apr 3, 2007
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I appreciated this post because the scouts have been under attack for their stance on homosexuals in scouting--as well as their pledge of loyalty to God and country and requirement that scouts say it.
I don't think there are really gay scouts --or gay boys --before they actually get involved with gay acts--and even then, they may not be convinced this means they are gay. There ARE boys with poor self-image as males who crave attention from men they admire,sometimes lacking a close bond with or affirmation as males from their own fathers. If they are drawn into gay activities by an admired homosexual --which could be sexually stimulating--they MAy conclude they are gay.
There also may be boys with a feminine self-image --with effeminent mannerisms, because of over-identification with their mothers who may have treated them like girlfriends --in the absence of an involved father figure. This can be unconscious on the child's part --but peer rejection and ridicule enters in to confirm a gay self-image for such kids.
It's painful enough going through adolescence and it's not easy to feel "normal" and most don't --at the jr. high stage. Dobson called it the "canyon of inferiority"
Such kids don't need to ponder if they might be gay because they aren't fitting in. At such vulnerable ages, kids don't need a homosexual scoutmaster or even a predatory peer in their tent --anymore than the girls need a guy scoutmaster or any guy in THEIR tent. We usually wouldn't allow the latter; we shouldn't allow the former ---even if in both cases the scoutmaster or person of opposite sexual attraction is thought to be of good character.
10:23 PM
I read an article yesterday...obviously written by a hard core liberal...who called the Boy scouts a "hate group". Thinking back, we hatemongers of troop 79 must have really been a bane to society. Courteous, kind, obedient, cheerfull, thrifty, brave, clean and, reverent...yeah, I can see where those values would piss off liberals since those values are the carbon negative of what liberalism is all about anymore. Maybe if we were all about drugs, porn, athiesm, laziness, excuses and, homosexuality we wouldn't seem so hateful.
I see this as pretty much a validation of the liberal credo where "everything that is good is bad and bad is good". I guess that any organization that has morality in its credo and family values would be deemed an imediate threat to the left.
I learned outdoor skills, community involvement, ecological responsibility, American Indian folklore, American folklore, respect for other cultures and, adults. This may shock even the most hard-core liberal out there...we learned diversity! Firsthand too! We met other scouts from all over the world who, although different from us culturaly and ethnicly, shared the same positive goals and attitudes...God forbid!When I look at rabies symptoms in animals, I can see the exact same symptoms in liberalism in some people.
posted by -Sepp at 12:18 AM on Apr 3, 2007
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I appreciated this post because the scouts have been under attack for their stance on homosexuals in scouting--as well as their pledge of loyalty to God and country and requirement that scouts say it.
I don't think there are really gay scouts --or gay boys --before they actually get involved with gay acts--and even then, they may not be convinced this means they are gay. There ARE boys with poor self-image as males who crave attention from men they admire,sometimes lacking a close bond with or affirmation as males from their own fathers. If they are drawn into gay activities by an admired homosexual --which could be sexually stimulating--they MAy conclude they are gay.
There also may be boys with a feminine self-image --with effeminent mannerisms, because of over-identification with their mothers who may have treated them like girlfriends --in the absence of an involved father figure. This can be unconscious on the child's part --but peer rejection and ridicule enters in to confirm a gay self-image for such kids.
It's painful enough going through adolescence and it's not easy to feel "normal" and most don't --at the jr. high stage. Dobson called it the "canyon of inferiority"
Such kids don't need to ponder if they might be gay because they aren't fitting in. At such vulnerable ages, kids don't need a homosexual scoutmaster or even a predatory peer in their tent --anymore than the girls need a guy scoutmaster or any guy in THEIR tent. We usually wouldn't allow the latter; we shouldn't allow the former ---even if in both cases the scoutmaster or person of opposite sexual attraction is thought to be of good character.
10:23 PM
Reagan was So Right! Misleading Propaganda Comes from the Left
"The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant: It's just that they know so much that isn't so." - Ronald Reagan
The Toledo Libs in their snake pit are snarling about the faith-based initiative and monies one of them says was wasted by Pat Robertson's Operation Blessing. There weren't any facts posted that I could find. (I'm operating on memory here in my Blog watching.) They see support for religious groups, such as Pat's charity, various religious schools, homeless missions and the optional Christian prison in Texas, as a violation of church and state.
It never occurs to them that such support is only equal access to funding for worthy causes that have a good track record--since Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, Public Broadcasting and many others have anti-religious agendas and DO receive our taxes. (PBS has had to appear to improve in balance because of threat of legislative defunding.)
The whole point of faith-based initiatives was to give some of our tax monies to groups that really did some good --instead of --or in addition to -- groups whose so-called "secular" agenda is to undermine our faith and morals--as with many secular university programs. We fund a whole lot of nonsense, liberal-based research --like the homophobic peter meter readers in university studies --(see yesterday's post here.) Of which, my husband said, he would not submit to be in any research requiring him to watch porn. It's a sin to make it and to watch it and it is a major temptation to millions, the biggest money maker online. Much such tax-funded research has just exacerbated the problem of porn addiction and immoral behavior.
It's time we gave funding to wholesome agencies who do only good. Or defund all those who are not just secular --but actually anti-Christian in their agendas.
The Toledo Libs in their snake pit are snarling about the faith-based initiative and monies one of them says was wasted by Pat Robertson's Operation Blessing. There weren't any facts posted that I could find. (I'm operating on memory here in my Blog watching.) They see support for religious groups, such as Pat's charity, various religious schools, homeless missions and the optional Christian prison in Texas, as a violation of church and state.
It never occurs to them that such support is only equal access to funding for worthy causes that have a good track record--since Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, Public Broadcasting and many others have anti-religious agendas and DO receive our taxes. (PBS has had to appear to improve in balance because of threat of legislative defunding.)
The whole point of faith-based initiatives was to give some of our tax monies to groups that really did some good --instead of --or in addition to -- groups whose so-called "secular" agenda is to undermine our faith and morals--as with many secular university programs. We fund a whole lot of nonsense, liberal-based research --like the homophobic peter meter readers in university studies --(see yesterday's post here.) Of which, my husband said, he would not submit to be in any research requiring him to watch porn. It's a sin to make it and to watch it and it is a major temptation to millions, the biggest money maker online. Much such tax-funded research has just exacerbated the problem of porn addiction and immoral behavior.
It's time we gave funding to wholesome agencies who do only good. Or defund all those who are not just secular --but actually anti-Christian in their agendas.
WHAT WOULD JESUS WANT? CNN special with Roland Martin
I saw the program tonight, "What would Jesus want?" with the CNN guy Roland Martin. It was excellent, overall. Loved Rick Warren's remarks. I'll bet martin was a little disappointed that the preachers didn't say quite what he'd hoped. Falwell and T.D. Jakes were also featured, as well as some woman I've never heard of whose plastic surgery looked a little tight. But she and Jakes were ok, too.
Falwell and Warren did the best on the war question--saying there is such a thing as "a just war" that is Biblically defensible. Both said freedom and security were worth dying for. They both said our war on terrorism was not a war on Islam. Neither said what they could have on that point --that we were, in fact, helping Muslims in both Afghanistan and Iraq who wanted democracy, freedom, and peace and they needed our help to achieve it.
One of them said the meaning of martyr had been distorted --that a martyr was one who was killed for his faith --not one who died by blowing up others--that no religion tells us to "blow up yourself!"
Rick said the AIDS victims were today's lepers and Jesus would be working among them. I agree that he would and we should. However, I don't know where they are or how to help them. I've seen no call for our help--except for money for their healthcare --and gov't and insurance companies have undertaken those expenses. Most of them, as I understand it, are doing pretty well with the drugs available to them. According to one blogger, they are favored in insurance policies and benefits as homosexual partners --getting benefits that unmarried heteros don't get. I don't know of any move among Republicans to deny care for AIDS victims. IN fact, Bush ordered tons of aid for AFrican AIDS.
Pastor Warren also said he was pro-life and for the Bible's view on homosexuality vs hetero marriage --but just didn't want evangelicals known for only those 2 things. Didn't like being called "right wing" because of the 2-issue connotations --because he wants to be a pastor to all people.
Being known for just two issues isn't primarily our doing --it's the two issues where liberals and social conservs are most polarized --so liberals are just as vocal about these two issues--except when they are trying to ride the fence for votes. I write on the gay issue a lot --and abortion some --because they ARE the most controversial issues and the liberals are winning, I think --because they repeat misinformation/propaganda over and over, emotionally, and people assume it's the truth.
You know I have observed in the blogsphere before that the two most important issues to the democrats are homosexuality and abortion. Truth be told, they are the dividing issues today between the parties. They'd rather play up the war, however, in order to get a Democrat in the White House. I'm betting they'll overplay their hand. they are so afraid that if we start to succeed in Iraq --that the Republicans will win the presidency and regain the house and senate --which could happen after we are all sick of pelosi.
Look how many of Mudville's posts are dedicated to attack on Christians for these two issues. He accuses me of not caring about any other social issues --but we do agree that we want improvement in social problems of concern to the left(poverty, economy, jobs, environment, education). We just don't agree about solutions and how to get the money. We say stimulate the economy with low taxes and there will be more tax revenue. They think we should just rob the rich and middle class with more taxes to pay for all their big ideas, which are more government, more regulation, more big brother.
I think we also differ with liberals about drugs, porn, immigration,campaign financing law, grassroots role, etc.
I do think social conservs. are more concerned about what kind of world we will bequeathe to the kids--not just earth issues and the economy --but moral issues.
The radical left is dangerous on these issues --more dangerous to kids than the religious right.
Another consideration, many of us don't know WHAT should be done about environment or the war, education, etc. Some of us don't think gov't can fix everything even if they try and don't have solutions to recommend. But they KNOW how they feel about the moral/social issues. That's another reason for the perception that the religious right cares about just the 2 issues. We know that sinning is not the way to have God's protection on our nation--whereas other issues may not be as clear.
Falwell and Warren did the best on the war question--saying there is such a thing as "a just war" that is Biblically defensible. Both said freedom and security were worth dying for. They both said our war on terrorism was not a war on Islam. Neither said what they could have on that point --that we were, in fact, helping Muslims in both Afghanistan and Iraq who wanted democracy, freedom, and peace and they needed our help to achieve it.
One of them said the meaning of martyr had been distorted --that a martyr was one who was killed for his faith --not one who died by blowing up others--that no religion tells us to "blow up yourself!"
Rick said the AIDS victims were today's lepers and Jesus would be working among them. I agree that he would and we should. However, I don't know where they are or how to help them. I've seen no call for our help--except for money for their healthcare --and gov't and insurance companies have undertaken those expenses. Most of them, as I understand it, are doing pretty well with the drugs available to them. According to one blogger, they are favored in insurance policies and benefits as homosexual partners --getting benefits that unmarried heteros don't get. I don't know of any move among Republicans to deny care for AIDS victims. IN fact, Bush ordered tons of aid for AFrican AIDS.
Pastor Warren also said he was pro-life and for the Bible's view on homosexuality vs hetero marriage --but just didn't want evangelicals known for only those 2 things. Didn't like being called "right wing" because of the 2-issue connotations --because he wants to be a pastor to all people.
Being known for just two issues isn't primarily our doing --it's the two issues where liberals and social conservs are most polarized --so liberals are just as vocal about these two issues--except when they are trying to ride the fence for votes. I write on the gay issue a lot --and abortion some --because they ARE the most controversial issues and the liberals are winning, I think --because they repeat misinformation/propaganda over and over, emotionally, and people assume it's the truth.
You know I have observed in the blogsphere before that the two most important issues to the democrats are homosexuality and abortion. Truth be told, they are the dividing issues today between the parties. They'd rather play up the war, however, in order to get a Democrat in the White House. I'm betting they'll overplay their hand. they are so afraid that if we start to succeed in Iraq --that the Republicans will win the presidency and regain the house and senate --which could happen after we are all sick of pelosi.
Look how many of Mudville's posts are dedicated to attack on Christians for these two issues. He accuses me of not caring about any other social issues --but we do agree that we want improvement in social problems of concern to the left(poverty, economy, jobs, environment, education). We just don't agree about solutions and how to get the money. We say stimulate the economy with low taxes and there will be more tax revenue. They think we should just rob the rich and middle class with more taxes to pay for all their big ideas, which are more government, more regulation, more big brother.
I think we also differ with liberals about drugs, porn, immigration,campaign financing law, grassroots role, etc.
I do think social conservs. are more concerned about what kind of world we will bequeathe to the kids--not just earth issues and the economy --but moral issues.
The radical left is dangerous on these issues --more dangerous to kids than the religious right.
Another consideration, many of us don't know WHAT should be done about environment or the war, education, etc. Some of us don't think gov't can fix everything even if they try and don't have solutions to recommend. But they KNOW how they feel about the moral/social issues. That's another reason for the perception that the religious right cares about just the 2 issues. We know that sinning is not the way to have God's protection on our nation--whereas other issues may not be as clear.
Sunday, April 8, 2007
A BOOK PROMOTION : The Gay Agenda by Dr. Ronnie W. Floyd
None of the this post is my writing--but the bookseller's review:
The Gay Agenda
It's Dividing the Family, the Church, and a Nation
By Dr. Ronnie W. Floyd
The issue of homosexual marriage seems to have exploded on the national scene in 2004, but this is an organized effort that has been ongoing for over 30 years. It is now affecting every level of our society. Families agonize over this issue, while the church has been rocked with the ordination of homosexual clergy and same-sex marriage ceremonies.
The nation remains divided as states struggle to define their own laws on gay marriage while litigation is pressed in the courts often ruled by activist judges with their own judicial agendas.
A proposed marriage amendment to protect the traditional family unit has highlighted the confusion and shifting positions of politicians from every political party on this flashpoint issue. You and your family cannot afford to remain in the dark on this issue — it is simply too important to your future.
This compelling and compassionate new book, "The Gay Agenda" by Dr. Ronnie W. Floyd, answers pivotal questions on this issue such as:
The "gay agenda" — what are the effects within our society?
What does this issue mean for the traditional family?
How will the church be affected as the divisions within denominations and congregations grow?
What impact will this have on the character of our nation?
Where do individual rights and freedoms begin and end with this issue?
Dr. Floyd provides an in-depth overview of this issue as he discusses its impact and cultural consequences frankly and with compassion in this groundbreaking book.
A pastor for over 27 years, Dr. Floyd highlights the importance of the traditional family, and challenges everyone to approach the issue first with love and respect — loving the individual while disagreeing with their choice of lifestyle.
Struggling with these issues of fairness and morality? Unsure of where you stand on this issue and why? Learn why state laws governing marriage may mean little in federal courts, and how this issue already impacts our schools, workplace, and neighborhoods. It is an issue that will not be going away, and it will affect your family in numerous ways.
While Dr. Floyd encourages the church to stand strong, but with love, in upholding the clear, unambiguous message of the faith regarding homosexuality and the sanctity of marriage, he challenges everyone to consider the profound changes the decisions on this issue will have on the future of families within our nation.
The Gay Agenda
It's Dividing the Family, the Church, and a Nation
By Dr. Ronnie W. Floyd
The issue of homosexual marriage seems to have exploded on the national scene in 2004, but this is an organized effort that has been ongoing for over 30 years. It is now affecting every level of our society. Families agonize over this issue, while the church has been rocked with the ordination of homosexual clergy and same-sex marriage ceremonies.
The nation remains divided as states struggle to define their own laws on gay marriage while litigation is pressed in the courts often ruled by activist judges with their own judicial agendas.
A proposed marriage amendment to protect the traditional family unit has highlighted the confusion and shifting positions of politicians from every political party on this flashpoint issue. You and your family cannot afford to remain in the dark on this issue — it is simply too important to your future.
This compelling and compassionate new book, "The Gay Agenda" by Dr. Ronnie W. Floyd, answers pivotal questions on this issue such as:
The "gay agenda" — what are the effects within our society?
What does this issue mean for the traditional family?
How will the church be affected as the divisions within denominations and congregations grow?
What impact will this have on the character of our nation?
Where do individual rights and freedoms begin and end with this issue?
Dr. Floyd provides an in-depth overview of this issue as he discusses its impact and cultural consequences frankly and with compassion in this groundbreaking book.
A pastor for over 27 years, Dr. Floyd highlights the importance of the traditional family, and challenges everyone to approach the issue first with love and respect — loving the individual while disagreeing with their choice of lifestyle.
Struggling with these issues of fairness and morality? Unsure of where you stand on this issue and why? Learn why state laws governing marriage may mean little in federal courts, and how this issue already impacts our schools, workplace, and neighborhoods. It is an issue that will not be going away, and it will affect your family in numerous ways.
While Dr. Floyd encourages the church to stand strong, but with love, in upholding the clear, unambiguous message of the faith regarding homosexuality and the sanctity of marriage, he challenges everyone to consider the profound changes the decisions on this issue will have on the future of families within our nation.
To the Blockheads of Mudville --porn studies DON'T prove genetic cause of HS
A THREAD FROM POLITICS IN MUDVILLE --HIS POST FOLLOWS WITH COMMENTS BY UPTHEFLAG AND LIBERAL DEMOCRAT. Mine is last and probably will not be printed by him on his blog because he censors out facts on the topic homosexuality.
LiberalDemocrat says: Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) knows what's best for Americans. Just ask them. They'll be happy to tell you everything that there is to know about morality. In Jesus' time, they were called Pharisees.
The Washington Spectator has a primer on the ADF. Seems they've got their righteous nose into the bedrooms of America. But, of course,they are right; just ask them.
If you've never heard of the ADF, read the Spectator's article, "ARMY OF GOD: The Legal Muscle Leading the Fight to End the Separation of Church and State"
posted by liberal_dem at 11:06 PM on Apr 7, 2007
uptheflag said... The included article discussed homosexuality and the religious fundamentalists. This is my reaction to it.
If one wishes to get the religious fundamentalists upset, all you need to do is push the homosexuali
ty button(HS). Then their rage can be raised by suggesting that scientific evidence points to a genetic causation for HS. They believe HS is a choice. It just has to be. What is interesting is that it's men who get the most up
set about gaydom. They protest so vehemently that they are suppress
ing HS desires themselves. Indeed, in the mid-1990s the Univ of GA Psychology Department researc
hed this theory. They had a study group of homophobic men and non-hom
ophobic men. All subjects were white, and none had engaged in a homosexual act. The men were hooked up to a device that could scientifically measure male erction
It was called the "peter-meter. The questionnaire had been prepared
at BGSU, www.bgsu.ed/downloads/sa/file 14259.pdf The men were shown three
types of x-rated movies: one hetero
sexual, one lesbian, and one HS.All
were graphic. Both study groups registered the same reaction to the heterosexual and lesbian movies
When shown the third movie, they didn't have the same reaction. The homophobic men became much more excited than the non-homophobic. 54% of the homophobic men showed strong excitement, and another 26% had moderate arousal. Do the math,
80% oh homophobic men displayed gayness. 66% of the non-homophobic men showed nothing. The results of
the study demonstarted that most homophobic men have REPRESSED homosexual desires(there are many more of these studies). The reason open-minded people are attacked so viciously is because closed-minded biblical literalist don't like to be reminded of their SUPPRESSED urges. Scientific evidence points to HS being a matter of genetics. HS is a sin of free-will and is sodomy.In other words, HM is NOT a choice.
the fundamentalist right will never accept a genetic basis for HS
They claim it is a complete choice.
("Choice" is okay here, but not okay for the health of women, inter
esting?). They refuse to accept all the evidence to the contrary. Just do a google search and see study after study that shows HS is not a chosen sexual orientation. Look at it this way: at what point in our heterosexual development did we decide we were going to be hetero? We would know when we made that decision. It is a decision whether or not we would have child
ren or not. Is the day that we chose heterosexuality burned into our memory? What was our decision making process? Golly, I think I will be a heterosexual! Did we agonize over it? Thinking about it for weeks? Thought about the ridicule, pointed at, attacked and beaten, murdered? Yep, I am going to be straight! We all remember doing that? We chose our hetero-
sexuality. Yep, that's it! If we don't support the fundamentalist right then we are accused of being atheists, secularists, or liberals.
So, if a hetero goes through that thought process, a gay person does to. He will know why he chose gay lifestyle. He wanted to be discrim
inated against by his church, on the job, in the family, beaten, condemned, and murdered for freely making a decision of choice. A decision that forever calls him a child molester. Where is my nonsense stamp pad? Gay sex is perfectly normal for homosexuals, just as hetero is for heteros. Who doesn't remember former PA Senator Rick Santorum and his stupid remarks. Once he said, "gay is okay, just so long as you don't have sex." Bless his pointed head!
So, it's okay to be gay just so long as you keep it in your pants.
Let's suppose that heterosexuality is okay as long as they don't have sex. The problem is not HS, it's the people who spew their hate and poison in a campaign, a war, aginst
them. As people begin to under
stand the GA study and the plethora
of other scientific studies, the denyers won't be able to stay in the closet much longer. As we know, this past week and today marks the Christian holy season. During this week 2000 years ago, Peter denied his leader three times. Yet, he came out of the closet.
9:31 AM EDT
liberal_dem said... UTF, you cite 'scientific studies.' Do you not know that science is anathema to a fundamentalist?
All the science that they need to know is between the covers of that ancient Hebrew diary.
9:41 AM EDT
uptheflag said...
I always hope they will be converted some day. I was a good
boy this season. I filled my mission box to the top and now I can give to ransom these poor lost souls.......
9:55 AM EDT
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BARB SAYS: What's the use --you guys are so blockheaded ignorant about the genetic data. i've posted some --you don't get it. You won't even post the facts, LD--that's how bull-headed you are on the topic.
It DOES make me angry, uptheflag, that you and LD IGNORE the evidence that homosexuality is NOT genetic. Your study here doesn't prove it is.
You compare opposition to homosexual acts --to racism --when the former are behaviors, chosen but influenced by external factors and by inner temptations to do things we ought not --
whereas the other (race) is a genetic inevitability, a state of being and not a chosen behavior.
You think if you keep repeating the lie of genetic cause for homosex that people will believe it --and you are right. Look at poor Up the Flag here --benighted on this topic and no one to enlighten him on this thread because you, LD, censor out opposing views.
Now just imagine that all these men in utf's study--non homophobes and homophobes --would act on their repressed temptations --where would we be? No kids? Or the vast majority of married men running around all hours of the night doing each other while the wives raise the kids themselves --and wait at home for dads to bring home HIV, hepatitis, venereal warts, and what else. IN FACT, BY THE STUDY, ALMOST ALL MEN ARE REPRESSED GAYS.
I think a man wearing a "peter-meter" as you called it --would be likely to get stimulated in the presence of any kind of porn. I'm surprised if the petermeter itself doesn't arouse. Erotic arousal in the presence of gay porn doesn't prove he goes around wallowing in homosexual lust at all--if he represses temptation of any kind, good for him! If it makes him mad that the gay world is out to get him into their world or claim him, no wonder. I've heard them on tv talk shows (not lately --they've changed tactics) saying they can make any man gay. I have a teacher friend who said a military officer tried to put the moves on him. They don't distinguish between straight or gay when they pursue someone. My daughter was pursued by a lesbian. My daughter is not lesbian --she is attractive to anyone.
Well, any man may get aroused given forbidden pornographic stimulation of any kind--that doesn't make him a repressed homosexual. It means erotic and sexual images arouse him --and the homophobes --the ones opposed to homosexuals waving their flags in public --probably don't want to be solicited by prostitutes and seducers/molesters/temptors of any orientation --and rightly so. So you call them homophobes.
Righteous men don't want to go to prostitutes or indulge in porn --but if you put a peter meter on him and he sees the porn --he'll probably respond unless he's playing some mental tricks to keep from thinking about what he's seeing ("they" say--maybe women say-- a man can't be aroused as easily if the woman asks him questions that make him think about something other than sex.)
If my math is correct, UTF's data says 62% of all the men in their study responded positively to gay porn though they had never had gay sex. How many men in the study in each group any way? and so 80 percent of the one group and 44 percent of the other group responded to gay porn --and almost twice as many in the group most opposed to homosex.
It may be that the so-called homophobes understand more than anyone else that it IS a choice --they understand that erotic images of anykind can elicit response from them and thus sucker in their sons --or yes, push their buttons and arouse them --and they do not want it to happen.
If HS is NOT a choice --then why did the homophobic men respond the same to female and lesbian porn as the other group? It would seem that all the men in the study responde to porn of women. Therefore, if they responded to the other ALSO--and call themselves heterosexual --then it IS A CHOICE! YOU MAKE OUR CASE!
In any case, the peter meter reader has told us NOTHING about genetic cause for homosexuality. There is no evidence here of genetic tendency.
Boy you guys would make SOME scientists!! As does the whole pscych dep't of these schools if they came to the conclusions as you interpret them here.
LiberalDemocrat says: Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) knows what's best for Americans. Just ask them. They'll be happy to tell you everything that there is to know about morality. In Jesus' time, they were called Pharisees.
The Washington Spectator has a primer on the ADF. Seems they've got their righteous nose into the bedrooms of America. But, of course,they are right; just ask them.
If you've never heard of the ADF, read the Spectator's article, "ARMY OF GOD: The Legal Muscle Leading the Fight to End the Separation of Church and State"
posted by liberal_dem at 11:06 PM on Apr 7, 2007
uptheflag said... The included article discussed homosexuality and the religious fundamentalists. This is my reaction to it.
If one wishes to get the religious fundamentalists upset, all you need to do is push the homosexuali
ty button(HS). Then their rage can be raised by suggesting that scientific evidence points to a genetic causation for HS. They believe HS is a choice. It just has to be. What is interesting is that it's men who get the most up
set about gaydom. They protest so vehemently that they are suppress
ing HS desires themselves. Indeed, in the mid-1990s the Univ of GA Psychology Department researc
hed this theory. They had a study group of homophobic men and non-hom
ophobic men. All subjects were white, and none had engaged in a homosexual act. The men were hooked up to a device that could scientifically measure male erction
It was called the "peter-meter. The questionnaire had been prepared
at BGSU, www.bgsu.ed/downloads/sa/file 14259.pdf The men were shown three
types of x-rated movies: one hetero
sexual, one lesbian, and one HS.All
were graphic. Both study groups registered the same reaction to the heterosexual and lesbian movies
When shown the third movie, they didn't have the same reaction. The homophobic men became much more excited than the non-homophobic. 54% of the homophobic men showed strong excitement, and another 26% had moderate arousal. Do the math,
80% oh homophobic men displayed gayness. 66% of the non-homophobic men showed nothing. The results of
the study demonstarted that most homophobic men have REPRESSED homosexual desires(there are many more of these studies). The reason open-minded people are attacked so viciously is because closed-minded biblical literalist don't like to be reminded of their SUPPRESSED urges. Scientific evidence points to HS being a matter of genetics. HS is a sin of free-will and is sodomy.In other words, HM is NOT a choice.
the fundamentalist right will never accept a genetic basis for HS
They claim it is a complete choice.
("Choice" is okay here, but not okay for the health of women, inter
esting?). They refuse to accept all the evidence to the contrary. Just do a google search and see study after study that shows HS is not a chosen sexual orientation. Look at it this way: at what point in our heterosexual development did we decide we were going to be hetero? We would know when we made that decision. It is a decision whether or not we would have child
ren or not. Is the day that we chose heterosexuality burned into our memory? What was our decision making process? Golly, I think I will be a heterosexual! Did we agonize over it? Thinking about it for weeks? Thought about the ridicule, pointed at, attacked and beaten, murdered? Yep, I am going to be straight! We all remember doing that? We chose our hetero-
sexuality. Yep, that's it! If we don't support the fundamentalist right then we are accused of being atheists, secularists, or liberals.
So, if a hetero goes through that thought process, a gay person does to. He will know why he chose gay lifestyle. He wanted to be discrim
inated against by his church, on the job, in the family, beaten, condemned, and murdered for freely making a decision of choice. A decision that forever calls him a child molester. Where is my nonsense stamp pad? Gay sex is perfectly normal for homosexuals, just as hetero is for heteros. Who doesn't remember former PA Senator Rick Santorum and his stupid remarks. Once he said, "gay is okay, just so long as you don't have sex." Bless his pointed head!
So, it's okay to be gay just so long as you keep it in your pants.
Let's suppose that heterosexuality is okay as long as they don't have sex. The problem is not HS, it's the people who spew their hate and poison in a campaign, a war, aginst
them. As people begin to under
stand the GA study and the plethora
of other scientific studies, the denyers won't be able to stay in the closet much longer. As we know, this past week and today marks the Christian holy season. During this week 2000 years ago, Peter denied his leader three times. Yet, he came out of the closet.
9:31 AM EDT
liberal_dem said... UTF, you cite 'scientific studies.' Do you not know that science is anathema to a fundamentalist?
All the science that they need to know is between the covers of that ancient Hebrew diary.
9:41 AM EDT
uptheflag said...
I always hope they will be converted some day. I was a good
boy this season. I filled my mission box to the top and now I can give to ransom these poor lost souls.......
9:55 AM EDT
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BARB SAYS: What's the use --you guys are so blockheaded ignorant about the genetic data. i've posted some --you don't get it. You won't even post the facts, LD--that's how bull-headed you are on the topic.
It DOES make me angry, uptheflag, that you and LD IGNORE the evidence that homosexuality is NOT genetic. Your study here doesn't prove it is.
You compare opposition to homosexual acts --to racism --when the former are behaviors, chosen but influenced by external factors and by inner temptations to do things we ought not --
whereas the other (race) is a genetic inevitability, a state of being and not a chosen behavior.
You think if you keep repeating the lie of genetic cause for homosex that people will believe it --and you are right. Look at poor Up the Flag here --benighted on this topic and no one to enlighten him on this thread because you, LD, censor out opposing views.
Now just imagine that all these men in utf's study--non homophobes and homophobes --would act on their repressed temptations --where would we be? No kids? Or the vast majority of married men running around all hours of the night doing each other while the wives raise the kids themselves --and wait at home for dads to bring home HIV, hepatitis, venereal warts, and what else. IN FACT, BY THE STUDY, ALMOST ALL MEN ARE REPRESSED GAYS.
I think a man wearing a "peter-meter" as you called it --would be likely to get stimulated in the presence of any kind of porn. I'm surprised if the petermeter itself doesn't arouse. Erotic arousal in the presence of gay porn doesn't prove he goes around wallowing in homosexual lust at all--if he represses temptation of any kind, good for him! If it makes him mad that the gay world is out to get him into their world or claim him, no wonder. I've heard them on tv talk shows (not lately --they've changed tactics) saying they can make any man gay. I have a teacher friend who said a military officer tried to put the moves on him. They don't distinguish between straight or gay when they pursue someone. My daughter was pursued by a lesbian. My daughter is not lesbian --she is attractive to anyone.
Well, any man may get aroused given forbidden pornographic stimulation of any kind--that doesn't make him a repressed homosexual. It means erotic and sexual images arouse him --and the homophobes --the ones opposed to homosexuals waving their flags in public --probably don't want to be solicited by prostitutes and seducers/molesters/temptors of any orientation --and rightly so. So you call them homophobes.
Righteous men don't want to go to prostitutes or indulge in porn --but if you put a peter meter on him and he sees the porn --he'll probably respond unless he's playing some mental tricks to keep from thinking about what he's seeing ("they" say--maybe women say-- a man can't be aroused as easily if the woman asks him questions that make him think about something other than sex.)
If my math is correct, UTF's data says 62% of all the men in their study responded positively to gay porn though they had never had gay sex. How many men in the study in each group any way? and so 80 percent of the one group and 44 percent of the other group responded to gay porn --and almost twice as many in the group most opposed to homosex.
It may be that the so-called homophobes understand more than anyone else that it IS a choice --they understand that erotic images of anykind can elicit response from them and thus sucker in their sons --or yes, push their buttons and arouse them --and they do not want it to happen.
If HS is NOT a choice --then why did the homophobic men respond the same to female and lesbian porn as the other group? It would seem that all the men in the study responde to porn of women. Therefore, if they responded to the other ALSO--and call themselves heterosexual --then it IS A CHOICE! YOU MAKE OUR CASE!
In any case, the peter meter reader has told us NOTHING about genetic cause for homosexuality. There is no evidence here of genetic tendency.
Boy you guys would make SOME scientists!! As does the whole pscych dep't of these schools if they came to the conclusions as you interpret them here.
Saturday, April 7, 2007
GUESS WHOSE HOUSES THESE ARE!
My brother sent me this --source unknown.
Revealing.....but not surprising.
Here's a tale of two houses. Read the description of each, and then try to guess who its owner must be. Hint: One of the homes was built by one of most hated men alive today. The other belongs to a respected leader in
the environmental movement.
Our first home is a great example of conspicuous consumption and wasted resources. It's a mansion in an upper-class suburb, with just under two dozen rooms and 8 bathrooms. Combined with its guest house, the home consumed 16,000 kWh per month in 2005. Then An Inconvenient Truth came out ... so how did this homeowner respond? In 2006 the energy usage rose above 18,000 kWh per month. This is over 20x the national average! This home consumes more energy in 30 days than most US households do in a year and a half! In total, the owners paid nearly $30,000 in combined electricity and natural gas bills for this estate in 2006. The owners of the home claim they offset their usage by purchasing carbon credits. If global warming were a religion, this would be like the indulgences paid to the Catholic church before the Reformation. The overly wealthy can pay a small (for them) fine, and then be allowed to break rules (such as saving energy) the common folk are supposed to
obey. It may work, but it sets a bad example, and in the end holds poor people to a different, unfair standard. And it does little to stop pollution, because the person paying the carbon credits is only paying an extra fee --
they're not changing their habits. By most accounts, this home is an example of how people in this climate-aware era SHOULD NOT be living.
Our second home is the polar opposite. Situated on a 1600 acre plot of hot, dry prairie land, it's a modest home of 4,000 square feet. Below the home is a network of pipes descending 300 feet into the earth, where the dirt and rock keep a constant temperature of 67 degrees. Pumping this water back up into the home helps to cool it during the summer, and to heat it during the winter. It's a closed network, so the water is simply recycled.
"Passively solar," the home is positioned to allow for maximum absorption of the sun's heat in winter. Thanks to the geothermal system, the home operates on a mere 25% of the electricity it might otherwise require. The
geothermal system even heats the home's outdoor pool--so efficiently, in fact, that original plans for additional solar paneling were cancelled. Various gardens and grounds on the property are irrigated by a
graywater system that channels shower, sink, toilet water and rainwater into enormous, underground purifying tanks. And as icing on the cake, the walls of the home were built from cheap Luders limestone scrap material, quarried locally, that other homebuilders had thrown away. And while conservation was kept in mind, these were also practical and financially-advantageous choices, for a hot and relatively-isolated region where water is scarce. Construction of the home started in 1999 and completed in 2001. It was financed privately -- no taxpayer dollars were spent in its construction. You'd be hard-presed to find a more illustrative model for
market-driven sustainability. The home is a green utopia, and is so thoroughly off the grid that the green celebrity blog Ecorazzi and the renewable energy website Off-Grid both recently devoted in-depth profiles to it.
The first property is a mansion in an upscale neighborhood. It consumes over twenty times the amount of energy as the average US household. Clearly, this is someone who does not wish to reduce consumption, or to save energy. It must be owned by an oil executive, or an energy-company tycoon. Or a media mogul. Perhaps the CEO of Halliburton - they're all supposed to be evil, right?
The second property, on the other hand, is an example of green building and sustainability. It definitely must be owned by a great environmental leader. A rich scientist, perhaps. Or the chairman of the National Resources
Defense Council. Or of the EPA. Greenpeace, maybe.
Who'd you pick? You'd be surprised.
The first mansion, guzzling electricity and paying carbon-credit "indulgences" for it, is in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville, Tennessee. It belongs to Mr. Al Gore.
The second home, an example of green building and reduced energy consumption, is the western White House in Crawford, Texas. It belongs to President George W Bush.
Obviously, this message was NOT brought to you by the drive-by media.
Revealing.....but not surprising.
Here's a tale of two houses. Read the description of each, and then try to guess who its owner must be. Hint: One of the homes was built by one of most hated men alive today. The other belongs to a respected leader in
the environmental movement.
Our first home is a great example of conspicuous consumption and wasted resources. It's a mansion in an upper-class suburb, with just under two dozen rooms and 8 bathrooms. Combined with its guest house, the home consumed 16,000 kWh per month in 2005. Then An Inconvenient Truth came out ... so how did this homeowner respond? In 2006 the energy usage rose above 18,000 kWh per month. This is over 20x the national average! This home consumes more energy in 30 days than most US households do in a year and a half! In total, the owners paid nearly $30,000 in combined electricity and natural gas bills for this estate in 2006. The owners of the home claim they offset their usage by purchasing carbon credits. If global warming were a religion, this would be like the indulgences paid to the Catholic church before the Reformation. The overly wealthy can pay a small (for them) fine, and then be allowed to break rules (such as saving energy) the common folk are supposed to
obey. It may work, but it sets a bad example, and in the end holds poor people to a different, unfair standard. And it does little to stop pollution, because the person paying the carbon credits is only paying an extra fee --
they're not changing their habits. By most accounts, this home is an example of how people in this climate-aware era SHOULD NOT be living.
Our second home is the polar opposite. Situated on a 1600 acre plot of hot, dry prairie land, it's a modest home of 4,000 square feet. Below the home is a network of pipes descending 300 feet into the earth, where the dirt and rock keep a constant temperature of 67 degrees. Pumping this water back up into the home helps to cool it during the summer, and to heat it during the winter. It's a closed network, so the water is simply recycled.
"Passively solar," the home is positioned to allow for maximum absorption of the sun's heat in winter. Thanks to the geothermal system, the home operates on a mere 25% of the electricity it might otherwise require. The
geothermal system even heats the home's outdoor pool--so efficiently, in fact, that original plans for additional solar paneling were cancelled. Various gardens and grounds on the property are irrigated by a
graywater system that channels shower, sink, toilet water and rainwater into enormous, underground purifying tanks. And as icing on the cake, the walls of the home were built from cheap Luders limestone scrap material, quarried locally, that other homebuilders had thrown away. And while conservation was kept in mind, these were also practical and financially-advantageous choices, for a hot and relatively-isolated region where water is scarce. Construction of the home started in 1999 and completed in 2001. It was financed privately -- no taxpayer dollars were spent in its construction. You'd be hard-presed to find a more illustrative model for
market-driven sustainability. The home is a green utopia, and is so thoroughly off the grid that the green celebrity blog Ecorazzi and the renewable energy website Off-Grid both recently devoted in-depth profiles to it.
The first property is a mansion in an upscale neighborhood. It consumes over twenty times the amount of energy as the average US household. Clearly, this is someone who does not wish to reduce consumption, or to save energy. It must be owned by an oil executive, or an energy-company tycoon. Or a media mogul. Perhaps the CEO of Halliburton - they're all supposed to be evil, right?
The second property, on the other hand, is an example of green building and sustainability. It definitely must be owned by a great environmental leader. A rich scientist, perhaps. Or the chairman of the National Resources
Defense Council. Or of the EPA. Greenpeace, maybe.
Who'd you pick? You'd be surprised.
The first mansion, guzzling electricity and paying carbon-credit "indulgences" for it, is in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville, Tennessee. It belongs to Mr. Al Gore.
The second home, an example of green building and reduced energy consumption, is the western White House in Crawford, Texas. It belongs to President George W Bush.
Obviously, this message was NOT brought to you by the drive-by media.
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