Alfie Evans and Prince Louis: A Tale of Two Britains

While the western world has been obsessed this week with a baby boy born into a family that to be perfectly honest lives in ultimate luxury while producing nothing but a tourism industry and fodder for gossip magazines, another little boy - born to parents who work hard to provide a happy home without need or desire for celebrity - was denied nourishment and life support by order of the High Court in Great Britain.

But few people outside of England, it seems, heard or ever bothered to hear about Alfie Hastings, who had a severe brain condition.

His parents and others tried their very best to save his life, but the judges of Britain decreed that Alfie was a lost cause and a drain on the system.  And so Alfie should die.

Which, he now has.  As of this past hour or so.

Louis and Alfie.  Baby boys born in the same country.  One will never know want or hunger or discomfort, the other has been taken from a Mommy and Daddy who loved him very much and did everything they could to give him a fighting chance to live.

If the situation had been reversed, and Prince William and Kate given birth to a child with the same medical condition as Alfie Evans... would the British courts have ordered and enforced a mandate that their baby boy must die?

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Lois Lerner of the IRS: Fifth Amendment for me but not for thee!

This is Lois Lerner, who headed the Internal Revenue Service's exempt organizations division during the time that the IRS was singling out "tea party"-affiliated groups and other politically conservative people with audits and intimidation...

Where do these people keep coming from?

Lois Lerner of the IRS invoked the Fifth Amendment so as not to potentially perjure herself during hearings in the House of Representatives investigating her agency's unethical and illegal activities.

Every year, you and I and millions of other Americans have to file 1040 forms with the IRS.  If we don't, we go to jail.  If we withhold information on the 1040 forms, we go to jail.  If we don't sign the forms, we go to jail.  At no time does the IRS afford us the right to invoke the Fifth Amendment so as not to incriminate ourselves. 

Lois Lerner in her capacity as a high-ranking official of the Internal Revenue Service is pleading the Fifth to a congressional committee and she expects to get away free and clear from this entire mess.

You and me and everyone else must answer the IRS under threat of perjury.  This IRS official doesn't want to answer to our elected representatives and is using the Fifth Amendment as an escape clause which her agency has not and never would afford the average citizen.

If Lerner gets away with this, then she has set a legal precedent and every tax-paying citizen in the United States should follow her example.  Come next April 15th, put "I PLEAD THE FIFTH JUST LIKE IRS OFFICIAL LOIS LERNER DID" in big bold red printed letters on your tax form and send that instead.

Remember folks: the Constitution applies to every citizen in this country, not just politicians and their cronies.

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Once again this blogger makes Cracked.com ("5 Famous Online Copyright Crusaders Who Are Total Hypocrites")

At this point I've lost count. It's at least the fourth or fifth time that my shenanigans have landed me on popular humor site Cracked.com.

This latest appearance comes courtesy of an article titled "5 Famous Online Copyright Crusaders Who Are Total Hypocrites".  With a title like that I just had to scan and tear it down and analyze it to see what I was doing that was so hypocritical... but I honestly can't find anything about my own part in that very strange episode from the fall of 2007.  In fact, the entire article is about corporations - as Viacom did in that incident - who cry and crow about copyright laws protecting their assets and then steal and violate the assets of everyone else without giving a damn!!

Anyhoo, my situation, "Viacom Lays Claim to a County Board of Education Campaign Video", made #2 on the list.  And if you wanna see the commercial that started it all, from my 2006 campaign for Rockingham County Board of Education, click here to watch "Christopher Knight for School Board TV Commercial #1".

(Personally, I'm still more proud of Commercial #2 and Commercial #3.  In fact, Commercial #3 has always been my favorite of that batch of ads.)

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"It's not a free-speech zone when we did it!"

I did not watch President Obama's inauguration today. There is nothing particularly interesting about a leader with no real vision. Sadly that's a trait that has been shared by every president since Reagan. But I digress...

It does interest me this afternoon however that President Obama continued the tradition established by former president George W. Bush of having a "free speech zone" marked off for the event...

Freedom Plaza is the site of one of the only authorized demonstration zones, where a strip of the plaza is designated a free speech zone.

The "free speech zones" were a routine and chronic practice of George W. Bush. Nobody who protested his policies was allowed anywhere close to him when he was president and out in public. There were many instances when protestors were limited to an area nearly a mile away from Bush.

The "free speech zones" were wrong then. They are just as wrong now on Obama's watch.

But that seems to be going clean over the heads of a lot of self-professed "conservatives" today, judging by how many at the above link on Politico.com are feigning outrage that Obama is keeping those who disagree with him out of sight and out of mind.

Here is what I wrote this past October about Obama continuing Bush's practice.

Now, I defy anyone to argue that it was any more right when Bush had the "free speech zones" than it is for Obama to do precisely the same.

This is but one reason why I have become so disgusted with politics. I like to think of myself as an honest person... and honest people have a problem with sullying their hands with such blatant hypocrisy.

That and as I said earlier: there is no leadership with clear and bold vision in America.

Sometimes I wonder if that might be on purpose. Or even if that's what we the people have come to embrace.

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Guilty as charged

What had been a terrific and fun-filled Saturday night with my girlfriend and two close friends ended up crashing hard with an e-mail I received shortly after returning home...

Chris, just wanted to let you know that I am de-friending you because basically you are not a friend. Like most other "christians" I know, you seem to be two-faced and unreliable... my "christian" friends seem to be about the most worthless and unreliable of any that I have. I have atheist and agnostic friends who I trust implicitly. At least you've shown me that "christians" truly are a lying, two-face bunch of hypocrits.

That was written by someone who I have known for over thirty years. I cannot be responsible for the choice that this person has made in severing our relationship.

But it is true: I am a hypocrite.

So is every other Christian. Every Christian who sincerely lives and strives to put God first and foremost in his or her life will admit to it, at least. And I would dare say that every Christian who ever lived has been a hypocrite in one way or another. Sometimes in plenty of ways... and I'll admit to being more guilty than most on that charge, too.

Yes, Christians are hypocrites. We are sometimes two-faced and we can be especially unreliable! We even lie sometimes. In short: we are every bit as stupid, scurillous and scoundrelous as any other human being. That we dare to be so ridden with faults while yet claiming to follow One who lived perfectly makes us out in the eyes of many as being the worst of low-life scum.

I know that I am a hypocrite. In more ways than I want to share here.

But neither am I afraid to admit that I am a hypocrite. And so long as I find myself convicted of hypocrisy... which will be until the final breath leaves my lungs in this fallen world... I will continue to confess that flaw in my character.

I am a hypocrite. But it is not what I want to be. And the only hope I have of being sanctified is to continually surrender that frailty to God.

Yes, those who seek mercy from God will be granted mercy. I have no reason to doubt that those who are secured in Him will remain secure forevermore. But rather than being reason to rest from our nature, to orient one's heart toward Christ entails the life-long process of sanctification... and as I have discovered during my own faith journey, that becomes the most difficult and painful part of all in this path we have chosen.

Why must it be so? I have thought about that much over the years. And nothing else makes as much sense as this:

That knowing how frail and fallen we are, we as Christians are not to persuade others to become Christians. We are however meant to persuade others of Christ. And there is no greater way than to show His work - that which is finished and that which He is still accomplishing - in our lives.

If evidence is demanded for conviction, then I will gladly plead guilty every time.

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Obama Administration brings back Bush-era "free speech zones"

Students at Wright State University who were protesting against Joseph Biden when he visited the campus last week were quarantined a quarter-mile away from the Vice President by the Secret Service. This happened not once, but twice. The rationale given by the Secret Service: they "didn't want the protesters to be too close to the motorcade."

Before any Republicans or Romney supporters cry "foul" about this, it would be well to remember that this exact same thing was routine policy during the presidency of George W. Bush! But that fact hasn't deterred a number of people on "conservative" websites from claiming that the Secret Service is violating the First Amendment, that Obama is violating the Constitution ad nauseum... when Obama's predecessor, a Republican president, was also insulating himself from public dissent with the very same methods, and on a much more chronic basis. Very many of Bush's following at the time had no problem whatsoever with the First Amendment rights of protestors being quashed. But now that the shoe's on the other foot...

"Free speech for me, but not for thee." I guess depending on who has the power, more animals really are more equal than others.

I don't want to hear any whining about Obama or Biden's use of "free speech zones" from past or present supporters of George W. Bush. As far as I'm concerned, come January we'll have had at least twelve years of regime by successive egomaniacs with narcissistic disorder. And I don't give a flying rat's butt which party either one belongs to.

So people: what's it going to take for us to quit supporting this sham?

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Obama's recess appointments: I smell hypocrisy

So it's coming out that a bunch of Republicans, including senators Orrin Hatch and Mitch McConnell, are expressing concern about President Obama making recess appointments when the Senate was not in session. Former U.S. Attorney General Ed Meese is saying that Obama is committing "a breathtaking violation of the separation of powers."

Oh please...

The Justice Department headed by Eric Holder is defending the appointments as legal. Y'know, just like the Justice Department under President George W. Bush defended his firing of the United States attorneys as being legal. Just like John Yoo went out of his way to argue why his boss Bush should be given powers of a dictator in everything but name. Just like Samuel Alito sought to increase the power of the President by means of redefining so-called "signing statements".

But now the shoe is on the other foot. It's a Democrat in the White House. It's a Democrat running the United States Department of Justice. And right on cue, the Republicans are feigning righteous indignation when we all know that they would have been totally down with helping "their own kind" get away with crap like this.

Just another reason why I cannot in any good conscience support either the Democrat or Republican parties.

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About Roger Clemens and Congress...

My final thought for the day:

Why is Roger Clemens in trouble for lying to Congress... when Congress lies to us ALL the time and always gets away with it?

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"What Does Spider-Man Say?"

Many egotisticial nutcases in history have had pastimes. Fidel Castro almost made it as a professional baseball player. Charles Manson wrote songs. Even Hitler painted roses.

And apprently local cult leader Johnny Robertson of the Martinsville Church of Christ (part of what many are now calling "Sons of Hell" and "Stalkers for Jesus") is not exempt.

Here's the original photo that was sent in by "Code Name Exelsior"...

This photo was taken inside Martinsville Church of Christ's sanctuary. That's Johnny Robertson himself in the left of the picture, and fellow cultist/stalker (and partner with recently found-guilty criminal trespasser Micah Robertson) Mark McMinnis in the plaid shirt sitting down.

Have you spotted it yet? Is your "Spider-Sense" tingling?

Well if not, behold true believers!

I count at least nine and possibly more Spider-Man comic books sitting in a pile on the pews of Martinsville Church of Christ. The headquarters of the cult that puts out What Does The Bible Say?, A Word From The Lord and Religious Review on WGSR: live TV broadcasts where Robertson and his cronies do nothing but condemn everyone else for such imagined slights and sins as having church car washes and bake sales, instrumental music and books during church worship that aren't the Bible.

Yet there it is, most presumably during a worship service at Martinsville Church of Christ: a heap of Marvel Comics and within arm's reach of its head magus. And not only that but Marvel Comics featuring Spider-Man: a character whose fathers include two Jewish comic book legends (Stan Lee and Jack Kirby)! I could also note that Spidey's co-creator Steve Ditko also created Doctor Strange and worked on the New Gods at DC for awhile, so it could be argued that Johnny Robertson is also allowing "eastern religions" and pagan worship inside as he puts it "the church that you read about in the Bible".

Johnny Robertson you damn hypocrite: sit down and SHUT UP, sir!

And you thought it was bad enough that Robertson gets the Bible all twisted and convoluted. Lord only knows how he would interpret the X-Men books.

But as one trusted associate put it when I showed this photo to him: "Of course, I did wonder if comic books is where Johnny Robertson gets his theology from."

Feel free to post whatever clever and snide captions and comments you can think of!

(P.S.: Speaking of hypocrisy, why is Johnny Robertson giving more than a quarter of a million dollars of his congregation's money per year to a multiple-convicted criminal, habitual thief and bisexual purveyor of "filthy" entertainment?)

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Some friendly advice

To certain "ministers" in this area who frequently visit this blog:

Quit going around harassing decent folks at their homes and their churches. You'll no doubt stay healthy longer for it.

Incidentally, why are you giving much of your congregation's money to a fornicating sexual deviant? Doesn't sound very much like being a good steward of the Lord's provision, but maybe that's just me.

Neither does it seem very consistent with your alleged piousness when one among you isn't even a married man but is driving around with women's underwear on display in the back seat of his car.

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What is "Chutzpah"?

Because I'm feeling extra cranky tonight (and have for the past 24 hours or so)...

"Chutzpah" is a Yiddish word meaning "shameless audacity". It's an olden Hebrew term that in his book The Joys of Yiddish author Leo Rosten describes as "gall, brazen nerve, effrontery, incredible 'guts,' presumption plus arrogance such as no other word and no other language can do justice to."

So what fits in the category of "chutzpah"?

One example of chutzpah is the child who kills both of his parents, and then throws himself down on the mercy of the court on the grounds that he is an orphan.

Another example of chutzpah is the "evangelist" who routinely rails against a television station for "promoting dancing, R-rated movies" as being somehow sinful behavior, yet is apparently not bothered by the fact that he gives more than a million dollars of his congregation's money to buy airtime at another television station whose general manager not only promotes the same stuff and worse... but is also a bisexual who regularly gets his jollies by enticing viewers to call in and talk about their sex lives (while never mentioning his own). That would be plenty of chutzpah too.

But right now at this moment, what comes most to mind when I think of chutzpah is the revelation that Congress has voted to impose Obamacare on everyone but NOT those who wrote the #@$%-ing law!

From the article at The New Ledger...

For as long as the political fight took over the past year, the abbreviated review process on the health care legislation currently pending on President Obama’s desk is unquestionably going to result in some surprises — as happens with any piece of mashed-up legislation — both for the congressmen who voted for it and for the American people.

One such surprise is found on page 158 of the legislation, which appears to create a carveout for senior staff members in the leadership offices and on congressional committees, essentially exempting those senior Democrat staffers who wrote the bill from being forced to purchase health care plans in the same way as other Americans.

There is much, much more in Ben Domenech's eyeball-popping writeup at the above link, dear readers.

I guess Orwell had it right: some people are more equal than others.

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Google accuses Viacom of secretly uploading its own videos to YouTube (WOW!!!)

This is gonna be a helluva fun thing to watch. I'm getting the popcorn ready even now...

Media conglomermonster Viacom - which has tied up the video hosting service in litigation for the past three years over "copyright infringement" - is now said to have been secretly uploading its own videos to the Google-owned website!

From the statement on the official YouTube blog, pertaining to court documents made public earlier today...

Because content owners large and small use YouTube in so many different ways, determining a particular copyright holder’s preference or a particular uploader’s authority over a given video on YouTube is difficult at best. And in this case, it was made even harder by Viacom’s own practices.

For years, Viacom continuously and secretly uploaded its content to YouTube, even while publicly complaining about its presence there. It hired no fewer than 18 different marketing agencies to upload its content to the site. It deliberately "roughed up" the videos to make them look stolen or leaked. It opened YouTube accounts using phony email addresses. It even sent employees to Kinko's to upload clips from computers that couldn't be traced to Viacom. And in an effort to promote its own shows, as a matter of company policy Viacom routinely left up clips from shows that had been uploaded to YouTube by ordinary users. Executives as high up as the president of Comedy Central and the head of MTV Networks felt "very strongly" that clips from shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report should remain on YouTube.

Viacom's efforts to disguise its promotional use of YouTube worked so well that even its own employees could not keep track of everything it was posting or leaving up on the site. As a result, on countless occasions Viacom demanded the removal of clips that it had uploaded to YouTube, only to return later to sheepishly ask for their reinstatement. In fact, some of the very clips that Viacom is suing us over were actually uploaded by Viacom itself.

Given Viacom’s own actions, there is no way YouTube could ever have known which Viacom content was and was not authorized to be on the site. But Viacom thinks YouTube should somehow have figured it out. The legal rule that Viacom seeks would require YouTube -- and every Web platform -- to investigate and police all content users upload, and would subject those web sites to crushing liability if they get it wrong.

Good. Lord.

If true, Viacom's actions are about the most boneheaded legal maneuver pertaining to digital entertainment that I can think of since Universal tried to sue Nintendo for using Donkey Kong to infringe on King Kong when Universal didn't own King Kong to begin with. That case became a huge victory for Nintendo and helped propel it to being the corporate giant that it is today. Might this allegation - if found to be true - prove to be a similar boon for YouTube? Yeah, I think it's possible.

Click here for more about this story, and the learned minds that are Slashdot readers are already contributing their trademark colorful thoughts to the matter.

EDIT 6:48 p.m. EST: Do not think for one moment that I am NOT hysterically giggling about this turn of events, for reasons that should be more than obvious :-)

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"...Only to God and woman."

Last week President Barack Obama met with Akihito, the titular Emperor of Japan. You might have heard about it: Obama made a ceremonial bow to Akihito and it's purportedly caused a lot of his political enemies to seethe with outrage...

Interestingly, many if not most of these same critics defended George W. Bush when in April 2008 (when he was still President) Bush not only held hands with but also gave a big fat slobbering fat kiss right on the lips to the visiting king of Saudi Arabia...

Bush's supporters at the time claimed that Bush was just "following protocol", exactly as Obama's defenders are doing now.

Me? I can't see a difference between what either of these two Presidents have done. And regardless of who's doing it, it sickens me to no end.

If either Bush or Obama had acted like this as private citizens, that would have been their right. But Bush and now Obama, as elected head of state of the United States of America, each ceremoniously capitulated their nation to a foreign sovereign power. This ain't about our home-grown assumption that the United States is "the greatest" country on Earth and everything with our understanding that in the roll call of nations ours is equal - no more and no less - to any other.

That's not a small matter, folks. And I can't see how it can be defended.

A little over a hundred and fifty years ago in 1859, John E. Ward arrived in China. Ward, a proud native of Georgia and former mayor of Savannah, had been dispatched by President James Buchanan to begin trade relations with China in accordance with the Treaty of Tientsin. But before such could happen Ward would have to come to Peking: a place that no American had been allowed to enter. Ward was allowed to proceed but on every step of the journey he asserted his native land as equal to China and not as a vassal state, as the Russians and the British and everyone else had done according to "diplomacy". The final act of "insolence" on the part of this American "barbarian" was his refusal to kow-tow: a low bow before the Emperor.

John E. Ward refused to bow. The representatives of the Emperor told Ward that he must bow not only for purposes of diplomacy but out of respect for the land's religion.

The reason Ward gave the Chinese: "I kneel only to God and woman."

True to his word, Ward did not bow to the Emperor of China. He never got the audience with the Emperor that he had been sent to have, but Ward wasn't fazed. He still delivered his letter about the treaty (to a minor official) and returned to America, his pride upheld... and China beginning to respect "the Country of the Flowery Flag". You can read more about John E. Ward at AmericanHeritage.com.

Y'know, I can't even begin to imagine either Bush or Obama getting up the nerve to think of something as brazenly principled as "I kneel only to God and woman." In the chronicle of American statesmanship, John E. Ward is certainly the greater man than our two or three or four most recent Presidents of the United States.

And if we had men (and women) of Ward's caliber and character, this nation would no doubt have more respect and standing among the countries of the world today.

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Yes Johnny Robertson, by all means let's talk about "honesty"

Say what one might about Bob Lawson, to the very best of my knowledge there was only one person in that "debate" on WGSR this past Tuesday night who has lied boldly and publicly when he accused not one but two churches, with no evidence whatsoever, of what can only be called child pornography.

And Bob Lawson wasn't that person.

More than a few people have told me that Johnny Robertson is "scum", "a dirty-minded individual", "a sick man", "a complete bastard", and numerous other epithets that I won't share here for sake of polity, for making those unfounded accusations against First Christian Church in Kernersville and Osborne Baptist Church in Danville. Interestingly, Robertson hasn't dared bring those accusations up any more since they have been chronicled by this and other bloggers in the area.

Based on the footage I have seen from Tuesday night's "debate" and now tonight, Robertson is certainly becoming increasingly unhinged from reality. Already tonight he has said that he has "loathing" for Baptists, that a full-blown war is going to be needed to get rid of "denominationalism", has called Bob Lawson a "whoremonger" because Lawson is divorced, has claimed that he is the only defender and upholder of "the truth in this area", has declared himself superior to everyone else in this area, and that the First Amendment somehow gives him the right to harass whoever he wants to.

(Robertson must have missed civics during what was likely his two or three trips through ninth grade: the First Amendment of the Constitution only guarantees that the government cannot stifle free speech. It says nothing about churches exercising their right to protect themselves against disrupters like Johnny Robertson and his cult.)

There's way more that I could comment about the extraordinary nuttiness that Robertson is descending into, but for now I'll just note that tonight I took a look for the first time at WGSR's streaming video feed. There's been one for the Reidsville station and from what I understand the one for the Martinsville station went live Tuesday night (just for the "debate" apparently). Bear in mind then that the Reidsville one has been established the longer of the two.

So how big an Internet audience does Johnny Robertson and his so-called "Church of Christ" cult have?

Eleven viewers. Only ELEVEN! So that's me, and at least three other friends of mine who are watching Robertson and his cult from across the country just to laugh at him.

How many "serious" viewers does Robertson have then?

I'll wager an RC Cola and a Moon Pie that this blog gets many more regular readers than Robertson does.

And I don't think any less of you, Dear Readers, either. Hell, I know that y'all - well most of you anyway - are smart enough to think for yourselves. And I will be the first to admit that I don't understand enough about God than to harass people with it.

I sure as frak won't ever accuse a church of pornography like Johnny Robertson has done.

(And Charles Roark raised eyebrows in some places with his comment that said church is filled with "perverts", but that's all I'll say about that.)

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Hypocrisy: Republicans launch site to track wild spending

So the House Republican Conference has just started up a new website dedicated to helping "the public and the press keep track of the billions of taxpayer dollars spent each year on government projects".

Who the hell do these people think they're kidding?

WHERE was this kind of concern from the Republicans about "billions of taxpayer dollars" between the years 2001 and early 2009, when they had the White House and for most of that time control of the House and Senate?

George W. Bush and his allies misspent more money from the public treasury than any other presidential administration in modern American history. Thus far the fiscal practices of Barack Obama have not been intrinsically different or substantially more wasteful than those of his predecessor. And it could be readily argued that Bush and his Republican colleagues certainly paved the way for whatever Obama will be doing for the next three or seven years.

The Republicans may complain about Obama's reckless abandon... but it was certainly the modern GOP that showed Obama and the Democrat party how to do it big and bold and without apology.

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I'm having a damned hard time harboring any sympathy for people being abused by Obama's goons

And lemme tell you why.

Because as much as it does bother me to see those who have expressed outrage at President Obama's health care plans being labeled as an "angry mob" by officials and now being officially targeted by what can only be called Obama's own army of brownshirts...

...I have to remember that much the same thing was happening during the previous eight years during George W. Bush's tenure, what with "free speech zones" and loyalty oaths and people getting arrested for showing dissent... and sometimes arrested for no clear reason at all.

Hell, I was threatened with physical violence by one of Bush's thugs before he was President, just because I was a reporter with an independent newspaper (i.e. outside the grasp of Bush's control-freak nature).

I remember all too well telling Bush supporters what kind of a man he really was, and how the way he was treating American citizens wasn't the way that an elected official beholden to the people is supposed to be. Almost invariably I got that "empty glazed look" back in return. Like they didn't want to hear about it.

And now many of these very folks are getting much the same treatment from Barack Obama... and have no problem showing anger and indignation about it.

The only reaction I can muster is "Cry me a river."

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Are there any consistent politicians left?

As I write this, Drudge Report has a red-colored link to a story about Governor Rick Perry of Texas vowing that he would assert that state's Tenth Amendment rights if he had to in order to oppose President Obama's plans to nationalize health care.

Hey, I'm all for that. I think every state should consider using that Tenth Amendment. But does Governor Perry seriously oppose Obama's mad medical plot on account of principle?

Because as recently as two and a half years ago Perry was very much for government-mandated medicine! It was in February of 2007 that he issued an executive order mandating that all girls entering the sixth grade be vaccinated against cervical cancer. The only vaccine available, Gardasil, is manufactured by Merck & Co.

And it soon turned out that Perry was more or less in Merck & Co.'s pocket, having received $6000 from the corporation's political action committee and that his former chief of staff was one of three registered lobbyists for Merck.

Ultimately the executive order was defeated by act of legislation, after a tremendous uproar from doctors, parents and others. Had it been enforced, that would have been all of Texas's young ladies having to get a shot at $120 each... with the money going to one of Perry's campaign contributors.

Rick Perry wanted to take a vital health care decision out of the province of families and their private practitioners, and hand it over to bureaucrats and government flunkies.

Sounds like Rick Perry was "for it before he was against it" when it comes to government-managed health care.

I am so damned sick and tired of these partisan #&@$ers who apparently have no virtues or principles that they aren't willing and able to sell out for the right price. And I mean both of the major parties that are dominating this country's politics.

How many elected officials in high office can I say that I respect? I'll only remark that I can number them all on one hand. And maybe only one of those is from my own home state of North Carolina.

It's not just a parliament of whores. It's a system-wide corruption.

So when the hell are we the people gonna stop falling for the "shuck and jive" of these bastitches and whip them all out of where they should have never been allowed in the first place?

Or to paraphrase that Nazi agent from Raiders of the Lost Ark: "Shoot them. Shoot them all!"

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Selective Myopia: James Dobson decries "utter evil" Congress

I still can't believe that I almost went to work for this guy...

James Dobson of Focus on the Family is telling his radio listeners that there is now "utter evil" coming out of Congress. What scares Dobson, he claims, is so-called "hate crimes" legislation: the proponents of which want tougher penalties for those convicted of criminal acts committed against others because of "sexual orientation".

Now folks, I'm against "hate crimes" legislation myself. Because in my mind there is no such thing as a "hate" crime. Does the motive honestly matter why somebody chooses to hurt another, if the end result is the same as any other circumstance? I have as much sympathy for a victim of a criminal act as I will for any other... but I'm not gonna consider one victim to be any more "special" than someone else because of alleged precipitating criteria. So as far as that goes, I will say that I have to agree with Dobson.

Where I can not agree with him however, is what is very apparently his underlying motivation for saying such a thing. Indeed, there is little doubting the motivation for much of Focus on the Family's "ministry"...

"I want to tell our listeners something has come up that is so shocking and so outrageous, we must make our friends out there aware of it," he said on his daily radio program.

"I'm going to speak very bluntly today because there's no other word for it: the utter evil that's coming out of Congress," he said. "I've been on the air 32 years and I've never seen a time quite like this.

"The radical left controls the executive branch through the president, and the Congress where the Democrats have control of both the House and the Senate," he said, adding the courts are expected to move even further to the left."

Anytime I hear phrases like "radical left" or "far right", those pop a honkin' big red flag in my head... 'cuz such words scream what this is all about. And his very tired hyperbole like "so shocking and so outrageous" isn't working in Dobson's favor either.

James Dobson is primarily interested in "his side" regaining political control of Congress and the White House.

Except James Dobson apparently fails to realize that "his side" had both for most of the past decade, and accomplished... what, exactly, in that time?

Professing Christians in America like James Dobson still believe - and very foolishly, I will add - that this country can be saved through politics.

They are so much more wrong about that, than I can possibly put into words.

These people have become blinded by might. They have placed more faith in their own understanding than they have placed in the Christ whom they claim to follow.

And as I have said before: people like James Dobson have no sincere interest at all in issues like "gay marriage" and abortion being defeated and going away. Opposition to them brings in a huge amount of money to organizations like Focus on the Family. Why else did the Republicans never make any serious attempt to pass an amendment to the Constitution protecting "traditional marriage" when they controlled Congress? Because so long as they can keep promising to oppose it, there'll always be plenty of well-meaning rubes gullible enough to keep voting for them.

This is all a game, folks. The politicians in both major parties have been playing us like pieces for too damned long. And people like James Dobson and too #@*&-ing many others don't care one whit about what is right: they just want to have a seat at "the king's table".

So if we can't put our faith in politics, what do we put our faith in, then?

Maybe... God?

And not the "God" that people like Dobson would have us believe has decreed that "Thou shalt not vote against any Republican", either.

I mean a serious and sincere turning away from what we want: rejecting any desire for worldly power, and heartfelt repenting of ever having lusted for such a thing.

If there is evil at work in the land, it is because we - all of us, including the professing "conservatives" and "Republicans" - let it happen by trusting in ourselves more than we trusted in God.

Yes, this demands that thing called "humility" which has become inordinately out of fashion among too many of those who claim to follow Christ. But that is what it is going to require.

And until I hear a call for that coming out of the mouth of James Dobson, I see no reason why any of us should consider him to be a real "Christian leader" at all.

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Arlen Specter's doublethink

So the senator from Pennsylvania today declared that his party affiliation "has not defined who I am".

And as an act of faith, the first thing Arlen Specter did to demonstrate his proclaimed values was... change parties.

Think about that for a moment.

Why should any person who claims to not be defined by party affiliation, even care enough to so grandiosely publicize that he or she is switching parties?

And wouldn't a person supposedly not defined by a party, in keeping with his or her principles, choose NOT to belong to any party at all?

All Specter is proving is that America has scarce few real leaders. What America does have is an excessive amount of damned fools who aren't shy about their willingness to be yanked around by their noses by whatever "the party" tells them. And Arlen Specter is one of 'em.

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Just one kiss

This was among the e-mails awaiting my perusal this morning. I should comment that the same issue has been raised considerably on various forums in recent weeks and months...

"Johnny Robertson and James Oldfield can't be the real church of Christ because they aren't obedient to Romans 16:16."

The writer is of course referring to local cultist Johnny Robertson and his lackey/second cousin James Oldfield, the leaders of what they proclaim is the "Church of Christ" (no relation to the real Churches of Christ). The two men who have been harassing the legitimate churches in this area, and even committing slander against some (like when Johnny Robertson accused one church in Kernersville, without evidence, of child pornography).

And in case you're wondering what Paul instructs in Romans 16:16, here it is from the King James version...

Salute one another with an holy kiss. The churches of Christ salute you.

You know, for all their demanding of "obedience" to the Bible, and their insistence that their own obedience makes them out to be the "one true church", I have never heard of Robertson and Oldfield saluting anyone with a "holy kiss". And they've been on television together plenty enough times: why haven't they kissed each other yet, as the Word of God clearly commands?

Maybe it's time for Robertson and Oldfield to give each other that holy kiss on live television, for everyone to witness, so that we can all see without a shred of uncertainty that they really do "practice what they preach" and that they honestly believe that they truly are in "the church that you read about in the Bible". The commandment to greet brethren with a "holy kiss" appears four times in the King James Bible... which is far more times than any scripture dictating that those who are not water baptized will go to Hell (which is none at all).

Hey, that's not necessarily my own opinion. I'm just the reporter here folks. I'm only sharing what a lot of other people have also been wondering.

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