Transcendent Commitments as 2013 Unfolds
Four years ago, I published on line a commentary entitled “Obama Claus is Coming to Town.” And come, he did. To countless many, Obama was viewed as “a messiah-like figure” ushering in “a quantum leap in American consciousness.” Regarding Obama’s ascension to the White House, movie director Spike Lee added, “Everything’s going to be affected by this seismic change in the universe.” Steve Davis noted that Obama “communicates God-like energy.” At his best, Obama is “able to call us back to our highest selves.”
His first term in office, Obama Claus fell somewhat short; but, then, we had George W. to blame for that. The nation has chosen to give the President yet another chance to fulfill its “I Want” list that includes, but is not limited to, expanded education, innovative renewable energy options, and universal health care. Laden with a bulbous bag of goodies hoisted over his proverbial shoulder, Obama Claus aims to deliver; and none is excluded from his seemingly endless bounty. Whether delivering generous federal funds for health care and education to illegal immigrants, or gifting fellow nation-states with incredibly extravagant global handouts, Obama Claus and his elves have harnessed the reindeer and loaded the sleigh in anticipation of the next big giveaways.
Options That Preclude Transcendence
Based on a report called “The Rise of Post-Familialism: Humanity’s Future,” the world is moving in essentially the same direction. Cultural and demographic shifts increasingly afford folks maximum personal freedom to do what they want simply by keeping their options open. Hence, folks increasingly live alone, forego having children, and eschew attachments threatening to impede their achievements tally.
Syndicated columnist for the New York Times, David Brooks documents transformation of the two-parent family worldwide—from America to Scandinavia, Spain, Germany, Singapore, and Taiwan. In reality, he concludes, people are not better off when given boundless freedom to do as they please, but they are better off when “enshrouded in commitments that transcend personal choice.” Said commitments include God, family, vocation, and country.
Case in point: This year, director Lauren Greenfield introduced a disturbingly telling documentary entitled The Queen of Versailles, which follows a billionaire couple’s building the largest single-family private home in America. Wealthy and politically influential, David Siegel heads the successful Westgate Resorts time-share business. His entrepreneurial prowess, hard work, and astonishing successes are to be commended.
Nevertheless, as his overly privileged family navigated the sub-prime mortgage collapse, Siegel’s unfinished, 90-thousand square foot Florida dream home (modeled after the French Palace of Versailles) stood as a monument for superficial, non-transcendent values. You see, by their own admission, devotion to God is starkly missing from the Siegel equation.
To realize their $100 million dream, David and his wife Jackie feverishly pursued every conceivable option. Even though the epilogue to this documentary shows Siegel as rebounding from the recession and moving forward with construction, one can only pity the Siegel family’s demonstrably hollow existence, driven compulsively by narcissistic overindulgence. True, the documentary serves as an allegory of America’s overreaching; but its post-familial lessons resonate worldwide.
Throwing Money at a Problem
While throwing money at a problem often paves the path to least resistance, it seldom cures what’s ailing. Take our public schools, for example. They have been, and remain, the best funded on earth, yet when competing with other industrialized nations, American students consistently score poorly in math and dead last in physics.
Increasingly, well-intentioned Americans view our nation as a sort of “boarding house for the world’s poor.” To them, proponents of legal, measured immigration are “nativists” and “racists.” The very term “illegal alien” stirs the ire of today’s politically correct crowd. Law breaking immigrants are categorized instead as “undocumented workers”; nevertheless, whatever the nomenclature, the key word is illegal. It stands to reason that enabling lawlessness invites even more of it.
Swelling numbers of America’s “undocumented workers” feel entitled to jobs and all the rights and privileges (minus responsibility) of American citizenship. Statistics reveal further that, after twenty years, even legal Mexican immigrants boast twice the welfare rates of naturalized citizens. Phyllis Schlafly of Eagle Forum further contends that amnesty for tens of millions is but “a drop in the bucket” when compared to “temporary guest workers,” for whom American citizens are expected to pay staggering entitlements. Steve Forbes rightly suggests that, while we are the land of the free, we are not the land of free loaders. But, then, if one believes society owes him, this is not an easy pill to swallow.
• Mitt’s Snafu
Siegel’s story is by no means typical of America’s wealthy; most are known for their philanthropy. Nor do all Americans expect handouts. Accordingly, it’s widely thought that a secret recording at a Romney fundraiser cost him the election. On tape, Romney was said to brush off nearly half the country as self-proclaimed "victims," who refuse to take personal responsibility. These forty-seven percent pay no income tax, suggesting that low- and middle-income Americans are under taxed. The candidate’s unfortunate comments added gristle to opportunistic partisan politicking—understandably so—but there remains a thread of truth to Mitt’s misstatement.
• “I Deserve It” Mindset
Let’s revisit the Queen of Versailles. A financial setback in no way slowed Jackie Siegel from raiding store shelves to overfill cartloads with toys that, when distributed to her children, evoked nothing more than a collective yawn. When “down on their luck,” David and Jackie self-identified with the “little folks” hurt by Wall Street. Both manifestly pouted and whined about “greedy” bankers who withheld from them their due. When money once again was “thrown” their way, David basked unashamedly in his financial comeback; and Jackie turned her sights to a possible career in reality television. The kids? They yawned.
Over-privileged Americans are not alone in embracing an “I deserve it” mindset. Now serving a mere twenty-one year sentence for having murdered seventy-seven people (mostly teens) in 2011, Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik presented his own 27-page wish list. Forget that outside Oslo his maximum-security prison affords the convicted murderer a three-cell suite equipped with television and exercise equipment. He now wants butter, hot (not tepid) coffee, hydrating skin cream, a new pen, more comfortable handcuffs, Internet access, and (get this) a view.
Who Pays?
The New Revelation presents an a-biblical, 15-word gospel: “We are all one. Ours is not a better way; ours is merely another way.” In today’s global economy, wealth redistribution (socialism) challenges allegedly greedy gain from free enterprise. Developed nations, as ours, purportedly owe those who “have not.” Never mind that Americans already shoulder trillions in debt, and experts warn that consumer installment debt is propelling our nation toward disaster. We’d best ante up.
Hope Springs Eternal
I affirm wholeheartedly that the affluent—Christians most particularly—have a moral mandate to reach out to the weak and poor of the world. Nevertheless, wisdom dictates that if we value entitlement over justice, we end up forfeiting both.
Hope springs eternal in the human heart, true; but unless that hope is fixed on what’s real, hope is but a vapor destined to dissipate. If not promise of government handouts, lengthy tally of personal successes, obsessively opulent living, or pantheistic unity in serving the common good, what is the basis of “real hope”?
For Christian believers, it’s found in a lowly manger. America’s biblical values transcend the self. Indeed, a Christian’s “lively hope” is in Jesus Christ and His resurrection from the dead—this, coupled with comfort derived from the Holy Scriptures. So then, as America opens a new chapter in her history, may we, as believers, anchor our hope aright, pray fervently for those who have rule over us, render to Caesar his due and, for the Lord’s sake, respectfully submit to every rightful ordinance of man. Finally, may we be “enshrouded in commitments that transcend personal choice” by assigning God, family, vocation, and country their rightful places. Then, and only then, will our nation be blessed to be the blessing God intends.
http://www.newswithviews.com/Rae/debra145.htm, Retrieved 20 November 2012.
Dinesh Sharma, http://www.opednews.com/author/author17607.html, Retrieved 20 November 2012.
Deepak Chopra, http://www.deepakchopra.com/, Retrieved 20 November 2012.
Ezra Klein, http://www.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2011/02/24/ABifXwI_page.html, Retrieved 20 November 2012.
David Brooks. “Families, Just Another Option.” The Seattle Times (Seattle, WA: The Seattle Times, 18 November 20, 2012): Opinion, A18.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2125666/, Retrieved 20 November 2012.
Phyllis Schlafly, July 2006.
http://www.newswithviews.com/Rae/debra19.htm, Retrieved 20 November 2012.
http://money.msn.com/politics/post.aspx?post=358695c0-0d2d-403a-bfa9-77b81fa2674a, Retrieved 20 November 2012.
Scott Sayare. “Treatment Isn’t Human.” The Seattle Times (Seattle, WA: The Seattle Times, 18 November 10, 2012): Opinion.
In Deuteronomy 16, Moses instructed the Israelites to appoint for each of their tribes those judges and officials who “hate dishonest gain.” To the contrary, God pairs true equity with righteousness, viewing a just weight as “His delight” and a false balance as “abomination” (Proverbs 2:9; 11:1).
1 Peter 3:15; Hebrews 6:19; Romans 15:4.
James 5:16; Matthew 22:21; Acts 23:5; 1 Peter 2:13.
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Rousseau Style Social Justice
New Social Contract; Old Strategy
Part 1: Rousseau Style Social Justice
Following the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Brazil (Rio+20, June 2012), UN Human Rights Chief Navi Pillay commended its broad inclusion of human rights provisions—i.e., rights to development, adequate standard of living, food, water, sanitation, health, education, social protection, labor, justice, equality, and sexuality.
For this, the Conference’s outcome earned a nickname, “the Rio surprise.” Rio+20 rethought development strategies and business practices toward ensuring a sustainable, equitable future for all world citizens. In effect, the conference introduced a new social contract compelling folks to rethink the nature of social relationships and interactions.
New Social Contract
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message to the 2012 World Day of Social Justice was this: "Let us work together to balance the global economy and build a new social contract for the 21st century. Let us chart a development path that leads to greater social justice and the future we want." The social contract theory to which he referred was taken from the playbook of 18th-century Swiss-French philosopher, Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Rousseau embraced two distinct social contract theories—the first an evolutionary, “naturalized” account; the second, “normative.” Viewed together they mirror our moral and political circumstances. Rousseau ceded that folks start out in solitary. Nature supplies their relatively few needs. Hence, their simple, non-competitive lives remain free from conflict; and goodwill prevails. Over time, folks band into families (later, communities), whereupon increased leisure time fosters comparisons one with the other. Along with public values, ownership of private property and social classes emerge and thereby foment greed.
The eventual establishment of government guarantees protection of private property, but the naturalized social contract, described above, bears responsibility for inequality. Afforded freedom and equality by nature, folks become corrupted and, as a result, they reconstitute politically. Employing strongly democratic principles, political structures govern how folks live together allegedly free of domination by others. It was Rousseau’s contention that this is accomplished only when we submit our individual wills to its collective counterpart serving the common good.
Social Justice
On the surface, social justice sounds magnanimous, even obligatory; however, sustainable development speaks to “spreading around” the benefits of greener products and services. In the name of fairness, the new social contract purposes to “balance the global economy” by employing the Robin Hood approach of taking from the “rich” to give to the “poor.”
The purported enemy to global social justice—namely, America’s free enterprise (or free market) system—uses private capital in business (no problem here), and profits go to private companies and individuals, rather than to the world’s needy (herein lies the problem). Today’s not-so-new global mindset is “from each according to ability; to each according to need.” You know, communism.
Today, world citizens by the millions voice discontentment with their lot in life, and they demand for themselves an equitable slice of the prosperity pie. They are, after all, entitled; but at a price. Although communism endorses redistribution of wealth and a sort of egalitarianism, it nonetheless elevates few elitists to the status of being “more equal” than others and thereby creates conditions for a Stalin or Hitler to come to power. Not a good plan. Recall that communists are responsible for more mass murders than the combined number of deaths tallied in all modern wars, and practices within Hitler’s Germany defy imagination.
Even so, the same tactic Hitler used to overcome Germany—namely, class struggle—is likewise being used today. Alinsky took the best of Gramchi and the Fabian Socialists in order to bring about the Cloward–Piven Strategy to destroy capitalism. Well known by radicals in the 1960s, the Crisis Strategy is to overload the system with unsustainable entitlements that accompany open borders.
Social Justice Issues (Culture of Abundance and Discrimination)
Ostensibly an American evangelical Christian writer, the Rev. Jim Wallis is best known as founding editor of Sojourners magazine, also the D.C.-based community of the same name. He is a political activist whose primary support is from the progressive religious left, focus for which is social justice. Wallis was involved in the radical, leftwing Students for a Democratic Society, and now serves as a spiritual advisor to President Barack Obama.
Wallis maintains that Christ resides in the poor, who are just waiting to be served; and ours is a global mandate to eliminate their poverty. Even though America has proven to be the most generous nation on earth, Wallis’ social justice platform is said by Deepak Chopra to represent “a quantum leap in American consciousness.”
Culture of Abundance
Canadian billionaire and Rio Earth Summit Secretary-general (1992), Maurice Strong accepts that global ecosystems will be preserved only when affluent nations lower their standards of living to counter the culture of abundance. This is because all human activities like eating meat, having air conditioning, and using appliances are, well, unsustainable.
Achieving social justice globally is integrally linked to realizing the agreed global development goals articulated at the Copenhagen Social Summit, the Millennium Summit, and elsewhere. To merit the coveted status of “sustainable,” enlightened communities first must limit growth, eliminate suburbs, establish ethnic/economic equality, and curtail consumption patterns consistent with America’s prosperous middle class.
Having written many brochures and speeches for the Fabian Society, George Bernard Shaw emerged as an accomplished orator in the furtherance of socialist causes. In the bogus name of gaining equal rights for men and women, alleviating abuses of the working class, and promoting healthy lifestyles, Shaw favored rescinding private ownership of productive land. Not only did he support Stalin, he also believed in Hitler’s eugenic dream to improve the human race through selective reproduction. All the same, Shaw’s tired ideals are being recycled to this day.
• Gender Discrimination
Recall President Barak Obama’s interactive web campaign ad, “The Life of Julia,” a mythical cartoon of “everywoman.” Rather than portray Julia as an autonomous, rugged individual capable of finding her own way, Julia instead views government as her national sugar daddy, delivering free money and goodies up and down the life cycle. To discriminate is to mark distinctions—i.e., between autonomy and dependency. That being the case, the real discrimination here is between a semi-helpless dependent and the Nanny State that claims to know what’s best for her.
• Discrimination Against Indigenous Peoples
A subsidiary body of the Economic and Social Council, the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues addresses economic and social development, as well as human rights, pertaining to indigenous peoples. So inclusive are universal rights, entitlements, and justice that, now, the forum has established a Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth. (Yes, Gaia has rights, too!)
Indeed, eco-theologian Father Thomas Berry affirms that every component of the earth community has three rights: (1) the right to be, (2) the right to habitat, and (3) the right to fulfill its role. Only when GNP (Gross National Product) is replaced with GNH (Gross National Happiness) will everyone’s rights be realized. Allegedly, this is accomplished by (1) spreading wealth, (2) mobilizing green jobs, and (3) combining Earth Rights with Keynesian economics (calling for big government).
• Race Discrimination
Started in South America in the turbulent 1950's, Black Liberation Theology likewise emphasizes wealth redistribution. Bolstered in 1968 at the Second Latin American Bishops Conference, Colombia, the movement today fights for social justice and calls for total liberation of black people from racism, capitalism, and imperialism. The theology’s primary architect in North America, Jim Cone recognizes the value of a Marxist critique of the capitalist system.
Civil religionists, as Cone, believe that “Black Power, even in its most radical expression, is Christ's central message to twentieth-century America." In Cone’s simplistic, highly inflammatory terms: “To be oppressed is to be black; and to be an oppressor is to be white.” Discarding biblical truth that, with God, there is no respect of persons (whether black or white, male or female), Black Liberation theologians effectively discriminate in the name of nondiscrimination.
• Homophobia
Considered by many to be the founder of the modern American gay rights movement, the late Henry "Harry" Hay started the Mattachine Society, the country's first gay rights organization that operated largely underground. In the 1970s, Hay formed a gay men’s spiritual group, the Radical Faeries. Now out of the proverbial closet, gays still portray themselves as victims of religious bigotry. Furthermore, upon demonstrating for their human right to marry, gays claim to have been unfairly subjected to economic boycotts. Truth told, gays are hard pressed to claim financial oppression in that they rank among America’s most educated and affluent subgroup. Though some call this characterization a myth, the “gay-friendly” marketing firm, Rainbow Referrals, confirms higher household incomes among gays.
To create this “New Paradigm,” US policy must yield to that of an allegedly superior, transnational federal government stripped of the worldwide system of checks and balances inherent in sovereign nation-states. History is clear: Though dusted off and recycled, the old collectivist strategy, when applied to a new social contract, is destined yet again to fail miserably.
More to follow in Part 2.
http://www.uncsd2012.org/rio20/
http://www.iep.utm.edu/soc-cont/
Celeste Friend. “Social Contract Theory.” Internet Encyclopedia: A Peer-Reviewed Academic Reference (USA: Hamilton College). October 15, 2004.
Karl Marx. “Part 1.” Critique of the Gotha Program (Germany). May 1875.
American Jewish agnostic, Saul Alinsky is credited as founder of modern community organizing. Student radicals used his book, Rules for Radicals, in strategizing to alter democratic ideals. In Alinsky’s words, this 1971 book “is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.”
Italian writer, politician, political theorist, linguist, philosopher, and atheist, Antonio Gramsci was a founding member and onetime leader of the Communist Party of Italy, known as a highly original thinker within the Marxist tradition. To hasten the revolution, Gramsci sabotaged culture—this, through his influence in the universities, Hollywood, books, novels, poetry, and music. His strategy included infiltrating churches and using them as “idiots.”
Fabian Socialists purposed to transform society by modeling clean, simplified living for others to follow.
Formulated in 1966 to end poverty, the left-wing Cloward-Piven Strategy called for a national system of guaranteed annual income in lieu of a welfare system.
Matthew 26:11.
Indian-born American physician, writer, and cosmologist, Deepak Chopra has taught at the medical schools of Tufts University, Boston University, and Harvard University. Dedicated to “improving health and well being, cultivating spiritual knowledge, expanding consciousness, and promoting world peace to all members of the human family,” the Chopra Foundation’s Mission is “to participate … in creating a critical mass for a peaceful, just, sustainable, and healthy world through scientifically and experientially exploring non-dual consciousness as the ground of existence and applying this understanding.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Strong
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1925/shaw-bio.html
http://www.barackobama.com/life-of-julia/
http://social.un.org/index/OurWork.aspx
Part 1: Rousseau Style Social Justice
Following the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Brazil (Rio+20, June 2012), UN Human Rights Chief Navi Pillay commended its broad inclusion of human rights provisions—i.e., rights to development, adequate standard of living, food, water, sanitation, health, education, social protection, labor, justice, equality, and sexuality.
For this, the Conference’s outcome earned a nickname, “the Rio surprise.” Rio+20 rethought development strategies and business practices toward ensuring a sustainable, equitable future for all world citizens. In effect, the conference introduced a new social contract compelling folks to rethink the nature of social relationships and interactions.
New Social Contract
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message to the 2012 World Day of Social Justice was this: "Let us work together to balance the global economy and build a new social contract for the 21st century. Let us chart a development path that leads to greater social justice and the future we want." The social contract theory to which he referred was taken from the playbook of 18th-century Swiss-French philosopher, Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Rousseau embraced two distinct social contract theories—the first an evolutionary, “naturalized” account; the second, “normative.” Viewed together they mirror our moral and political circumstances. Rousseau ceded that folks start out in solitary. Nature supplies their relatively few needs. Hence, their simple, non-competitive lives remain free from conflict; and goodwill prevails. Over time, folks band into families (later, communities), whereupon increased leisure time fosters comparisons one with the other. Along with public values, ownership of private property and social classes emerge and thereby foment greed.
The eventual establishment of government guarantees protection of private property, but the naturalized social contract, described above, bears responsibility for inequality. Afforded freedom and equality by nature, folks become corrupted and, as a result, they reconstitute politically. Employing strongly democratic principles, political structures govern how folks live together allegedly free of domination by others. It was Rousseau’s contention that this is accomplished only when we submit our individual wills to its collective counterpart serving the common good.
Social Justice
On the surface, social justice sounds magnanimous, even obligatory; however, sustainable development speaks to “spreading around” the benefits of greener products and services. In the name of fairness, the new social contract purposes to “balance the global economy” by employing the Robin Hood approach of taking from the “rich” to give to the “poor.”
The purported enemy to global social justice—namely, America’s free enterprise (or free market) system—uses private capital in business (no problem here), and profits go to private companies and individuals, rather than to the world’s needy (herein lies the problem). Today’s not-so-new global mindset is “from each according to ability; to each according to need.” You know, communism.
Today, world citizens by the millions voice discontentment with their lot in life, and they demand for themselves an equitable slice of the prosperity pie. They are, after all, entitled; but at a price. Although communism endorses redistribution of wealth and a sort of egalitarianism, it nonetheless elevates few elitists to the status of being “more equal” than others and thereby creates conditions for a Stalin or Hitler to come to power. Not a good plan. Recall that communists are responsible for more mass murders than the combined number of deaths tallied in all modern wars, and practices within Hitler’s Germany defy imagination.
Even so, the same tactic Hitler used to overcome Germany—namely, class struggle—is likewise being used today. Alinsky took the best of Gramchi and the Fabian Socialists in order to bring about the Cloward–Piven Strategy to destroy capitalism. Well known by radicals in the 1960s, the Crisis Strategy is to overload the system with unsustainable entitlements that accompany open borders.
Social Justice Issues (Culture of Abundance and Discrimination)
Ostensibly an American evangelical Christian writer, the Rev. Jim Wallis is best known as founding editor of Sojourners magazine, also the D.C.-based community of the same name. He is a political activist whose primary support is from the progressive religious left, focus for which is social justice. Wallis was involved in the radical, leftwing Students for a Democratic Society, and now serves as a spiritual advisor to President Barack Obama.
Wallis maintains that Christ resides in the poor, who are just waiting to be served; and ours is a global mandate to eliminate their poverty. Even though America has proven to be the most generous nation on earth, Wallis’ social justice platform is said by Deepak Chopra to represent “a quantum leap in American consciousness.”
Culture of Abundance
Canadian billionaire and Rio Earth Summit Secretary-general (1992), Maurice Strong accepts that global ecosystems will be preserved only when affluent nations lower their standards of living to counter the culture of abundance. This is because all human activities like eating meat, having air conditioning, and using appliances are, well, unsustainable.
Achieving social justice globally is integrally linked to realizing the agreed global development goals articulated at the Copenhagen Social Summit, the Millennium Summit, and elsewhere. To merit the coveted status of “sustainable,” enlightened communities first must limit growth, eliminate suburbs, establish ethnic/economic equality, and curtail consumption patterns consistent with America’s prosperous middle class.
Having written many brochures and speeches for the Fabian Society, George Bernard Shaw emerged as an accomplished orator in the furtherance of socialist causes. In the bogus name of gaining equal rights for men and women, alleviating abuses of the working class, and promoting healthy lifestyles, Shaw favored rescinding private ownership of productive land. Not only did he support Stalin, he also believed in Hitler’s eugenic dream to improve the human race through selective reproduction. All the same, Shaw’s tired ideals are being recycled to this day.
• Gender Discrimination
Recall President Barak Obama’s interactive web campaign ad, “The Life of Julia,” a mythical cartoon of “everywoman.” Rather than portray Julia as an autonomous, rugged individual capable of finding her own way, Julia instead views government as her national sugar daddy, delivering free money and goodies up and down the life cycle. To discriminate is to mark distinctions—i.e., between autonomy and dependency. That being the case, the real discrimination here is between a semi-helpless dependent and the Nanny State that claims to know what’s best for her.
• Discrimination Against Indigenous Peoples
A subsidiary body of the Economic and Social Council, the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues addresses economic and social development, as well as human rights, pertaining to indigenous peoples. So inclusive are universal rights, entitlements, and justice that, now, the forum has established a Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth. (Yes, Gaia has rights, too!)
Indeed, eco-theologian Father Thomas Berry affirms that every component of the earth community has three rights: (1) the right to be, (2) the right to habitat, and (3) the right to fulfill its role. Only when GNP (Gross National Product) is replaced with GNH (Gross National Happiness) will everyone’s rights be realized. Allegedly, this is accomplished by (1) spreading wealth, (2) mobilizing green jobs, and (3) combining Earth Rights with Keynesian economics (calling for big government).
• Race Discrimination
Started in South America in the turbulent 1950's, Black Liberation Theology likewise emphasizes wealth redistribution. Bolstered in 1968 at the Second Latin American Bishops Conference, Colombia, the movement today fights for social justice and calls for total liberation of black people from racism, capitalism, and imperialism. The theology’s primary architect in North America, Jim Cone recognizes the value of a Marxist critique of the capitalist system.
Civil religionists, as Cone, believe that “Black Power, even in its most radical expression, is Christ's central message to twentieth-century America." In Cone’s simplistic, highly inflammatory terms: “To be oppressed is to be black; and to be an oppressor is to be white.” Discarding biblical truth that, with God, there is no respect of persons (whether black or white, male or female), Black Liberation theologians effectively discriminate in the name of nondiscrimination.
• Homophobia
Considered by many to be the founder of the modern American gay rights movement, the late Henry "Harry" Hay started the Mattachine Society, the country's first gay rights organization that operated largely underground. In the 1970s, Hay formed a gay men’s spiritual group, the Radical Faeries. Now out of the proverbial closet, gays still portray themselves as victims of religious bigotry. Furthermore, upon demonstrating for their human right to marry, gays claim to have been unfairly subjected to economic boycotts. Truth told, gays are hard pressed to claim financial oppression in that they rank among America’s most educated and affluent subgroup. Though some call this characterization a myth, the “gay-friendly” marketing firm, Rainbow Referrals, confirms higher household incomes among gays.
- Conclusion
To create this “New Paradigm,” US policy must yield to that of an allegedly superior, transnational federal government stripped of the worldwide system of checks and balances inherent in sovereign nation-states. History is clear: Though dusted off and recycled, the old collectivist strategy, when applied to a new social contract, is destined yet again to fail miserably.
More to follow in Part 2.
http://www.uncsd2012.org/rio20/
http://www.iep.utm.edu/soc-cont/
Celeste Friend. “Social Contract Theory.” Internet Encyclopedia: A Peer-Reviewed Academic Reference (USA: Hamilton College). October 15, 2004.
Karl Marx. “Part 1.” Critique of the Gotha Program (Germany). May 1875.
American Jewish agnostic, Saul Alinsky is credited as founder of modern community organizing. Student radicals used his book, Rules for Radicals, in strategizing to alter democratic ideals. In Alinsky’s words, this 1971 book “is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.”
Italian writer, politician, political theorist, linguist, philosopher, and atheist, Antonio Gramsci was a founding member and onetime leader of the Communist Party of Italy, known as a highly original thinker within the Marxist tradition. To hasten the revolution, Gramsci sabotaged culture—this, through his influence in the universities, Hollywood, books, novels, poetry, and music. His strategy included infiltrating churches and using them as “idiots.”
Fabian Socialists purposed to transform society by modeling clean, simplified living for others to follow.
Formulated in 1966 to end poverty, the left-wing Cloward-Piven Strategy called for a national system of guaranteed annual income in lieu of a welfare system.
Matthew 26:11.
Indian-born American physician, writer, and cosmologist, Deepak Chopra has taught at the medical schools of Tufts University, Boston University, and Harvard University. Dedicated to “improving health and well being, cultivating spiritual knowledge, expanding consciousness, and promoting world peace to all members of the human family,” the Chopra Foundation’s Mission is “to participate … in creating a critical mass for a peaceful, just, sustainable, and healthy world through scientifically and experientially exploring non-dual consciousness as the ground of existence and applying this understanding.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Strong
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1925/shaw-bio.html
http://www.barackobama.com/life-of-julia/
http://social.un.org/index/OurWork.aspx
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Fiscal Cliff or Launch Pad?
Part 1: Keynesian v. Austrian Model
Particularly in an election year, every citizen’s mandate is to know the issues and become engaged in the political process, but where to start?
Econ 101: Back to Basics
Foundational worldviews determine fiscal policy. For example, our founders acknowledged God as the source of all prosperity.1 The basis for wealth is a solid work ethic2 that relinquishes exploitation, conspicuous consumption, selfishness, and shortsightedness. Not government stimulus, but rather “diligent hands bring wealth.”3
In the words of Thomas Friedman, “The Puritan ethic of hard work and saving still matters. … We need to get back to collaborating the old-fashioned way. That is, people making decisions based on business judgment, experience, prudence, clarity of communications and thinking about how—not just how much.”4 Engaging the free market to multiply goods and services—thereby expanding wealth and opportunity for all, rich and poor—distinguishes wise stewardship.
Blame Game Folly
Debating John McCain (2008), Obama admitted, “It’s true that nobody’s completely innocent here,” and lamented further, “We have had over the last eight years the biggest increases in deficit spending and national debt in our history.”5 Rather than reverse this disturbing trend, however, our nation today boasts the greatest deficit spending ever and, for the first time, the U.S. lost its “triple A” rating.6
Truth be told, both Presidents George W. Bush and President Obama espouse progressivism; furthermore, presidential candidate Mitt Romney is best characterized as a progressive neocon. Repeated, failed policies of both political parties have resulted in a $15-plus trillion debt, plus a $118 trillion unfunded liability. But forget the blame game. America needs answers. But hope, change, and the can-do spirit must be grounded in reality, not illusion; therefore, we best recommit to America’s foundational principles and review history for answers.7
Lessons from History (Supply-Side Austrian v. Demand-Side Keynesian Theory)8
Dr. Michael Coffman characterizes the first significant depression this twentieth century (1920-1921) as “the forgotten depression.” President Woodrow Wilson’s excessive non-defense and deficit spending, exacerbated by tax increases, backfired until, by 1920, unemployment jumped to about twelve percent.
After his election in 1921, Warren Harding cut the government’s budget in half; and by 1925, he had slashed taxes from seventy-three to twenty-five percent. As early as 1923, unemployment had fallen to 2.4 percent, thus signaling end of the depression. The Roaring Twenties were launched, not by progressive policies of Wilson and ilk, but rather by what has come to be known as the “Harding Miracle.”
A four-year research project of two distinguished UCLA economists, Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian, concludes that, had the government under FDR not intervened, the Great Depression that followed would not have persisted, as it did, for nearly fifteen years. Significant government intervention actually slowed the process of recovery. To blame were Roosevelt’s specific anti-competition and pro-labor measures—not capitalism.9
The Harding pattern was replicated when, under President Ronald Reagan, the nation’s worth more than doubled. President John F. Kennedy likewise cut all tax brackets by thirty percent (even for the rich). At the same time unemployment plummeted, the economy jumped by fifty percent.
Many remember with nostalgia the economic surplus under President Clinton’s watch, due in large part to the technology boom; but Charlie Gasparino of the New York Post traces seeds of today’s economic malady to Clinton’s mobilizing big government to ensure home ownership for all Americans (Recall the Community Reinvestment Act10).
Gasparino further contends that, as President, Clinton put “the final nail in the coffin of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act11,” thus ushering in “an era of wild risk-taking.” For this bipartisan folly, Bill Clinton shares blame for the financial crisis in 2008 with fellow progressive George W. Bush.12
Global Booms and Busts
A regular columnist for the New York Times, Paul Krugman insists that commitment to a non-Keynesian doctrine has proved to be false, even “disastrous,” in other countries.13 Not so. On the international stage, as Europe imposed excessive taxes/regulations and maintained unsustainable health and retirement-related benefits, Sweden pared back government and cut welfare spending and taxes (including property taxes for the rich). Her supply-side approach to the 2007-2009 recession ensured Sweden’s economic growth—the fastest in Europe—and her economy consistently outperforms the U.S. economy.
Rather than employ the Keynesian (government-controlled, demand-side) model lauded by progressives, Sweden applied the Austrian School of Economic Theory (laissez-faire economics constrained by a few necessary laws to protect businesses and consumers). Not to learn from history is to repeat it. If America persists in replicating Europe’s bankrupt welfare society, she’s next in line to fail.
Moral Consensus and Choice
Most of our nation’s founders accepted that God owns all; and man, empowered and blessed by God, stewards it. It’s the Lord who builds the proverbial house, lest they labor in vain who build it. 14 For this reason, the 2012 Republican mantra, “WE Built It!” is sadly flawed. King Nebuchadnezzar made a similar boast; in the end, he was profoundly humbled, and his great Babylon fell to ignoble ruin.15
Even so, Max Weber’s Doctrine of Vocation rightly honors human labor that yields prosperity.16 By contrast, Frederick Engels incited the proletariat to seize political power and, then, turn the means of production into state property, owned in common. In a Marxist system, major sectors of the economy are nationalized (e.g., bail outs), and wealth is redistributed. To ensure guaranteed income (not so much personal wealth), the “ends justify means.”
In Greek, economics speaks to “household management”—this with respect to production, distribution, and consumption of wealth based on goods and services. Biblically, the rich get richer—but not necessarily off the backs of the poor, as progressives contend. Recall the parable of the unprofitable servant who buried money entrusted to him, rather than put it to work to double its value. As a result, his Master rebuked him, denied him an “even cut” of what his fellows earned, and stripped him of what he had buried.17
The lesson? Equality of opportunity doesn’t ensure equality of prosperity. Even so, economic justice describes much of Barack Obama's platform for America.18 If the words of presidential hopeful Mitt Romney are to be believed: “President Obama's view of a free economy is to send your money to his friends. [Romney’s] vision for a free enterprise economy is to return entrepreneurship and genius and creativity to the American people.”19
1. Psalm 50:10.
2. Isaiah 65:21ff; Jeremiah 32:43ff.
3. Proverbs 10:4.
4. Thomas Friedman, New York Times, October 15, 2008.
5. http://www.ontheissues.org/2008_Pres_2.htm
6. www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/06/us-usa-debt-downgrade-idUSTRE...
7. US Debt Clock as of 12/15/11. http://www.usdebtclock.org/
8. Michael Coffman, Ph.D. Plundered: How Progressive Ideology Is Destroying America (Bangor, Maine: Environmental Perspectives, Inc., 2012): 9-20.
9. Sullivan. “FDR's Policies Prolonged Depression by Seven Years,” UCLA Newsroom, August 10, 2004.
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/FDR-s-Policies-Prolonged-Depression-5409.aspx
10. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Reinvestment_Act
11. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass–Steagall_Act
12. Joe Weisenthal. “The Untold Story of How Clinton’s Budget Destroyed the American Economy,” BUSINESS INSIDER Politics, September 5, 2012.
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-bill-clintons-balanced-budget-destroyed-the-economy-2012-9
13. Paul Krugman. “GOP is Dead Wrong on the Economy.” (Seattle: The Seattle Times, October 14, 2012): News A21.
14. Psalm 127:1.
15. Daniel 4:30.
16. Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, 1905. http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/protestantethic/summary.html
17. Matthew 25:14-30.
18. John R. Talbott. Obamanomics: How Bottom-Up Economic Prosperity Will Replace Trickle-Down Economics (New York: A Seven Stories Press First Edition, 2008): 29-31.
19. http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/mittromney430129.html
Particularly in an election year, every citizen’s mandate is to know the issues and become engaged in the political process, but where to start?
Econ 101: Back to Basics
Foundational worldviews determine fiscal policy. For example, our founders acknowledged God as the source of all prosperity.1 The basis for wealth is a solid work ethic2 that relinquishes exploitation, conspicuous consumption, selfishness, and shortsightedness. Not government stimulus, but rather “diligent hands bring wealth.”3
In the words of Thomas Friedman, “The Puritan ethic of hard work and saving still matters. … We need to get back to collaborating the old-fashioned way. That is, people making decisions based on business judgment, experience, prudence, clarity of communications and thinking about how—not just how much.”4 Engaging the free market to multiply goods and services—thereby expanding wealth and opportunity for all, rich and poor—distinguishes wise stewardship.
Blame Game Folly
Debating John McCain (2008), Obama admitted, “It’s true that nobody’s completely innocent here,” and lamented further, “We have had over the last eight years the biggest increases in deficit spending and national debt in our history.”5 Rather than reverse this disturbing trend, however, our nation today boasts the greatest deficit spending ever and, for the first time, the U.S. lost its “triple A” rating.6
Truth be told, both Presidents George W. Bush and President Obama espouse progressivism; furthermore, presidential candidate Mitt Romney is best characterized as a progressive neocon. Repeated, failed policies of both political parties have resulted in a $15-plus trillion debt, plus a $118 trillion unfunded liability. But forget the blame game. America needs answers. But hope, change, and the can-do spirit must be grounded in reality, not illusion; therefore, we best recommit to America’s foundational principles and review history for answers.7
Lessons from History (Supply-Side Austrian v. Demand-Side Keynesian Theory)8
Dr. Michael Coffman characterizes the first significant depression this twentieth century (1920-1921) as “the forgotten depression.” President Woodrow Wilson’s excessive non-defense and deficit spending, exacerbated by tax increases, backfired until, by 1920, unemployment jumped to about twelve percent.
After his election in 1921, Warren Harding cut the government’s budget in half; and by 1925, he had slashed taxes from seventy-three to twenty-five percent. As early as 1923, unemployment had fallen to 2.4 percent, thus signaling end of the depression. The Roaring Twenties were launched, not by progressive policies of Wilson and ilk, but rather by what has come to be known as the “Harding Miracle.”
A four-year research project of two distinguished UCLA economists, Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian, concludes that, had the government under FDR not intervened, the Great Depression that followed would not have persisted, as it did, for nearly fifteen years. Significant government intervention actually slowed the process of recovery. To blame were Roosevelt’s specific anti-competition and pro-labor measures—not capitalism.9
The Harding pattern was replicated when, under President Ronald Reagan, the nation’s worth more than doubled. President John F. Kennedy likewise cut all tax brackets by thirty percent (even for the rich). At the same time unemployment plummeted, the economy jumped by fifty percent.
Many remember with nostalgia the economic surplus under President Clinton’s watch, due in large part to the technology boom; but Charlie Gasparino of the New York Post traces seeds of today’s economic malady to Clinton’s mobilizing big government to ensure home ownership for all Americans (Recall the Community Reinvestment Act10).
Gasparino further contends that, as President, Clinton put “the final nail in the coffin of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act11,” thus ushering in “an era of wild risk-taking.” For this bipartisan folly, Bill Clinton shares blame for the financial crisis in 2008 with fellow progressive George W. Bush.12
Global Booms and Busts
A regular columnist for the New York Times, Paul Krugman insists that commitment to a non-Keynesian doctrine has proved to be false, even “disastrous,” in other countries.13 Not so. On the international stage, as Europe imposed excessive taxes/regulations and maintained unsustainable health and retirement-related benefits, Sweden pared back government and cut welfare spending and taxes (including property taxes for the rich). Her supply-side approach to the 2007-2009 recession ensured Sweden’s economic growth—the fastest in Europe—and her economy consistently outperforms the U.S. economy.
Rather than employ the Keynesian (government-controlled, demand-side) model lauded by progressives, Sweden applied the Austrian School of Economic Theory (laissez-faire economics constrained by a few necessary laws to protect businesses and consumers). Not to learn from history is to repeat it. If America persists in replicating Europe’s bankrupt welfare society, she’s next in line to fail.
Moral Consensus and Choice
Most of our nation’s founders accepted that God owns all; and man, empowered and blessed by God, stewards it. It’s the Lord who builds the proverbial house, lest they labor in vain who build it. 14 For this reason, the 2012 Republican mantra, “WE Built It!” is sadly flawed. King Nebuchadnezzar made a similar boast; in the end, he was profoundly humbled, and his great Babylon fell to ignoble ruin.15
Even so, Max Weber’s Doctrine of Vocation rightly honors human labor that yields prosperity.16 By contrast, Frederick Engels incited the proletariat to seize political power and, then, turn the means of production into state property, owned in common. In a Marxist system, major sectors of the economy are nationalized (e.g., bail outs), and wealth is redistributed. To ensure guaranteed income (not so much personal wealth), the “ends justify means.”
In Greek, economics speaks to “household management”—this with respect to production, distribution, and consumption of wealth based on goods and services. Biblically, the rich get richer—but not necessarily off the backs of the poor, as progressives contend. Recall the parable of the unprofitable servant who buried money entrusted to him, rather than put it to work to double its value. As a result, his Master rebuked him, denied him an “even cut” of what his fellows earned, and stripped him of what he had buried.17
The lesson? Equality of opportunity doesn’t ensure equality of prosperity. Even so, economic justice describes much of Barack Obama's platform for America.18 If the words of presidential hopeful Mitt Romney are to be believed: “President Obama's view of a free economy is to send your money to his friends. [Romney’s] vision for a free enterprise economy is to return entrepreneurship and genius and creativity to the American people.”19
1. Psalm 50:10.
2. Isaiah 65:21ff; Jeremiah 32:43ff.
3. Proverbs 10:4.
4. Thomas Friedman, New York Times, October 15, 2008.
5. http://www.ontheissues.org/2008_Pres_2.htm
6. www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/06/us-usa-debt-downgrade-idUSTRE...
7. US Debt Clock as of 12/15/11. http://www.usdebtclock.org/
8. Michael Coffman, Ph.D. Plundered: How Progressive Ideology Is Destroying America (Bangor, Maine: Environmental Perspectives, Inc., 2012): 9-20.
9. Sullivan. “FDR's Policies Prolonged Depression by Seven Years,” UCLA Newsroom, August 10, 2004.
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/FDR-s-Policies-Prolonged-Depression-5409.aspx
10. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Reinvestment_Act
11. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass–Steagall_Act
12. Joe Weisenthal. “The Untold Story of How Clinton’s Budget Destroyed the American Economy,” BUSINESS INSIDER Politics, September 5, 2012.
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-bill-clintons-balanced-budget-destroyed-the-economy-2012-9
13. Paul Krugman. “GOP is Dead Wrong on the Economy.” (Seattle: The Seattle Times, October 14, 2012): News A21.
14. Psalm 127:1.
15. Daniel 4:30.
16. Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, 1905. http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/protestantethic/summary.html
17. Matthew 25:14-30.
18. John R. Talbott. Obamanomics: How Bottom-Up Economic Prosperity Will Replace Trickle-Down Economics (New York: A Seven Stories Press First Edition, 2008): 29-31.
19. http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/mittromney430129.html
Sunday, October 7, 2012
Foxes in the Henhouse
Human Rights Council: Foxes in the Henhouse
Basic to American creed are inalienable rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” In his Second Treatise of Government, John Locke outlined the law of nature and nature’s God—i.e., rights of “life, liberty and estate.” Locke agreed with our founders that fundamental human rights are God-given. Thomas Jefferson characterized the Locke Model as “the People’s Law,” rightly balancing between tyranny, on one hand, and anarchy on the other.
The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The international community concedes that every person is entitled to fundamental rights that preclude abuses of discrimination, intolerance, injustice, and oppression. In 1948, following World War II, the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights was signed, thus establishing basis for world freedom, justice, and peace.
A plain-language version of this Declaration unambiguously touts rights to freedom of thought/speech, religion/conscience, assembly/voting for one’s preferred candidate or party slate. Fundamental human rights likewise include right to equality, privacy, marriage and family, needful sustenance, private ownership, safety, and more—all regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, religion, and socio-economic standing. If accused, one has the right to legal representation and a public trial; moreover, he is considered innocent until proven guilty. Furthermore, the Declaration expressly outlaws slavery, torture, unfair detainment/ false imprisonment, and killing.
The Human Rights Council
Charged with strengthening and protecting human rights worldwide, an inter-governmental body within the United Nations (the Human Rights Council) consists of forty-seven Member States elected by the U.N. General Assembly. One might reasonably expect those charged with reviewing, advising, and addressing human rights violation complaints themselves embrace the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as summarized above.
But composition of officials at the Council’s twenty-first session in Geneva (September 2012) suggests otherwise. Elected nation-states include Bangladesh (third largest Muslim country after Indonesia and Pakistan), Benin (13-15 percent Muslim), Burkina Faso (25 percent Muslim), Cameroon (25 percent Muslim), China (5 percent Muslim), Djibouti (94 percent Muslim), India (11 percent Muslim), Indonesia (87 percent Muslim), Jordon (92 percent Muslim), Kuwait (90 percent Muslim), Kyrgystan (52 percent Muslim), Libya (97 percent Muslim), Maldives (100 percent Muslim), Mauritania (99 percent Muslim), Mauritius (17 percent Muslim), Qatar (99.9 percent Muslim), Russian Federation (12 percent Muslim), and Saudi Arabia (100 percent Muslim).
Add to these an Advisory Committee representing Azerbaijan (87 percent Muslim), Nigeria (48-50% Muslim), Pakistan (95 percent Muslim), Morocco (99 percent Muslim, including Western Sahara), and Egypt (90 percent Muslim). Note, too, that Israel was strangely missing though, unlike the Muslim mindset, Israel’s biblical ethic uniquely features the dignity of human life. Furthermore, she is known broadly as the only true democracy in the region, allowing all Israeli citizens (Muslims included) the right to vote or run for office.
So … What’s the Problem?
Disturbingly, Hamas’ founding document proclaims war to be open “until Israel ceases to exist … and the last Jew in the world is eliminated.” In 2006, the Hamas even launched a terror web site for children to see cartoons and hear stories preaching the moral desirability of becoming a suicide terrorist.
Jamal Abdel Hamid Yussif has admitted: “Our people love death.” Furthermore, he added, “our goal is to die for the sake of God; and if we live, we want to humiliate Jews and trample on their necks.” Outspoken wives of terrorists express longing for Allah “to make Jewish women widows and their children orphans.”
• Muslim Record on Freedom from Force/Oppression
Islamic cultural imperialism imposes the religion and culture of seventh-century Arabia wherever it sets foot. The term “Islam” speaks to the “perfect peace resulting from total submission to Allah.” The Qur’an expressly forbids taking Jews and Christians as friends and protectors. Instead, it urges Muslim believers to war, fight, seize, and kill. The fatwa pronounces death to non-Muslims (i.e., infidels, likewise known as “cows”). If not properly submitted, whether by consent or conquest, the Dar al Hob (House of Infidels, including Jews and Christians) must be seized and slain wherever Muslims find them.
• Muslim Record on Women’s Rights
Both Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan have ratified an international treaty promising women “the exercise and enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms on a basis of equality with men.” While the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) sounds promising, reality flies in the face of its hollow precepts and vague language. Be sure, in Saudi Arabia, women still may not vote, drive a car, or travel alone; and some women in Afghanistan continue to set themselves ablaze in order to escape forced marriages. In fact, Muhammed referred to women as “toys” and “property” to be bought with “dowries” by men. Before marriage, women and girls undergo chastity tests, and an estimated three million are brutalized by forced female genital mutilation each year. Muslim husbands may beat wives for the flimsiest of reasons; and more often than not, physical abuse toward women and children goes unreported.
• Muslim Record on Human Dignity
Under Shariah law, a man can sequester his wife at home as punishment for disobedience; and maids and underlings are treated poorly. Up to 17,000 victims every year yield their God-given human dignity to “honor”-related kidnappings, sexual assaults, beatings, and murders. Activist-author Brigitte Gabriel of Lebanon reported that, in her experience, Muslim Palestinian students in the Old City of Jerusalem broke crosses, dug up bodies in Christian cemeteries, and threw acid in faces of Christian girls.
• Muslim Record on Equality
In no uncertain terms, Muslims are called to “fight those who do not believe in Allah … until they pay the tax in acknowledgement of superiority, and they are in a state of subjection.” Men are rewarded for marrying (thus evangelizing) non-Muslim women, but women who do the same face punishment by death. Fabulous rewards in Paradise await men. On the other hand, Qur’anic teaching is unclear as to a Muslim woman’s eternal state—perhaps because, in Islam, “the male has the equal of the portion of two females.”
The wife receives half the amount of inheritance enjoyed by her male siblings. Moreover, that inheritance is shared with additional wives, children, and extended family members. Divorce and remarriage are easy for men, but not for women. When a husband dies, the father’s uncle, not the mother, wins custody. Practically no social structure of support exists for widows outside their families; hence, their children are sent out into the streets begging for bakshish (“tips”).
• Muslim Record on Freedom of Speech/Press; Thought/Religion
To criticize Islam merits the death sentence—e.g., a human rights activist and women’s advocate Farag Foda was falsely accused, then gunned down in front of his Cairo office (1992). Forget about freedom of press. In Iran, Not Without My Daughter became one of the "most hated" books along with Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie. Both were banned.
Freedom of thought and religion? No way. A Shiite court ruled Kuwaiti Muslim-turned-Christian Robert Hussein an apostate worthy of death. Harsh religious court rulings violated even Kuwaiti civil law. Indeed, the court ruled that his wife should be divorced from him, and all his possessions distributed to heirs. Similarly, Mehdi Dibaj’s conversion from Islam to Christianity landed him in prison for ten years before an official execution order was issued. The leader of Evangelical Christians in Iran launched an international campaign to end civil rights violations of Iranian Islamic courts. At the eleventh hour, the government was forced to release Dibaj; but in exchange for his courage, Bishop Haik himself suffered martyrdom. Inconceivably, Egypt, Kuwait, and Iran were among U.N. foxes elected to oversee the henhouse of human rights.
Global Human Rights Applauded Disingenuously
Human rights are commonly understood to be “inalienable” and “fundamental.” However, given make up of the Human Rights Council and advisors, one wonders: Why would communist Cuba be among those reviewing, advising, and addressing complaints about the right to democracy? And what’s the wisdom in electing Saudi Arabia to address complaints about women’s rights?
Under China’s occupation, the Tibetan people are denied most rights guaranteed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights—namely, rights to self-determination, freedom of speech, assembly, movement, expression, and travel—yet China is among those reviewing, advising, and addressing complaints about freedom from foreign occupation. Similarly, in Uganda, Asian/Indian residents are assigned inferior status, yet Uganda is among nation-states speaking to complaints about racism.
For Iran, Pakistan, and Libya to be among those addressing freedoms from terrorism, hostage taking, and war defies common sense. Then there’s India, where gross human rights violations are commonly leveled against its indigenous population; yet India’s tasked with reviewing, advising, and addressing complaints about the very ones they marginalize.
Apparently, seventeenth-century French writer Francois de La Rochefoucauld was correct: “Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.”
1 Michael S. Coffman, Ph.D. Plundered: How Progressive Ideology Is Destroying America (Bangor, Maine: Environmental Perspectives, Inc. 2012). 25 and 29.
https://www.un.org/cyberschoolbus/humanrights/resources/plain.asp
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/Pages/HRCIndex.aspx
William Wagner. How Islam Plans to Change the World. (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications. 2004). 247-262.
http://str8tguy69.xanga.com/705968001/seven-principles-of-the-judeo-christian-ethic/
http://www.factsofisrael.com/en/democracy.shtml
www.Al-Fateh.net
Al-Tauba 9:29; Al-Nisa 4:89; Al-Anfal 8:65, Qur’an
Sura 4:89; 5:14, Qur’an
http://movies.nationalgeographic.com/movies/desert-flower/
Al-Nisa 4:34, Qur’an
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigitte_Gabriel
Al-Tauba 9:29, Qur’an
Al-Nisa 4:129, Qur’an
Betty Mahmoody. Not Without My Daughter. (New York: St. Martins Paperback. 1991).
Salmon Rushdie. The Satanic Verses, A Novel. (New York: Viking Penguin, Inc. 1989).
https://www.rutherford.org/
www.acryfromiran.com
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/f/francoisde124518.html
Basic to American creed are inalienable rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” In his Second Treatise of Government, John Locke outlined the law of nature and nature’s God—i.e., rights of “life, liberty and estate.” Locke agreed with our founders that fundamental human rights are God-given. Thomas Jefferson characterized the Locke Model as “the People’s Law,” rightly balancing between tyranny, on one hand, and anarchy on the other.
The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The international community concedes that every person is entitled to fundamental rights that preclude abuses of discrimination, intolerance, injustice, and oppression. In 1948, following World War II, the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights was signed, thus establishing basis for world freedom, justice, and peace.
A plain-language version of this Declaration unambiguously touts rights to freedom of thought/speech, religion/conscience, assembly/voting for one’s preferred candidate or party slate. Fundamental human rights likewise include right to equality, privacy, marriage and family, needful sustenance, private ownership, safety, and more—all regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, religion, and socio-economic standing. If accused, one has the right to legal representation and a public trial; moreover, he is considered innocent until proven guilty. Furthermore, the Declaration expressly outlaws slavery, torture, unfair detainment/ false imprisonment, and killing.
The Human Rights Council
Charged with strengthening and protecting human rights worldwide, an inter-governmental body within the United Nations (the Human Rights Council) consists of forty-seven Member States elected by the U.N. General Assembly. One might reasonably expect those charged with reviewing, advising, and addressing human rights violation complaints themselves embrace the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as summarized above.
But composition of officials at the Council’s twenty-first session in Geneva (September 2012) suggests otherwise. Elected nation-states include Bangladesh (third largest Muslim country after Indonesia and Pakistan), Benin (13-15 percent Muslim), Burkina Faso (25 percent Muslim), Cameroon (25 percent Muslim), China (5 percent Muslim), Djibouti (94 percent Muslim), India (11 percent Muslim), Indonesia (87 percent Muslim), Jordon (92 percent Muslim), Kuwait (90 percent Muslim), Kyrgystan (52 percent Muslim), Libya (97 percent Muslim), Maldives (100 percent Muslim), Mauritania (99 percent Muslim), Mauritius (17 percent Muslim), Qatar (99.9 percent Muslim), Russian Federation (12 percent Muslim), and Saudi Arabia (100 percent Muslim).
Add to these an Advisory Committee representing Azerbaijan (87 percent Muslim), Nigeria (48-50% Muslim), Pakistan (95 percent Muslim), Morocco (99 percent Muslim, including Western Sahara), and Egypt (90 percent Muslim). Note, too, that Israel was strangely missing though, unlike the Muslim mindset, Israel’s biblical ethic uniquely features the dignity of human life. Furthermore, she is known broadly as the only true democracy in the region, allowing all Israeli citizens (Muslims included) the right to vote or run for office.
So … What’s the Problem?
Disturbingly, Hamas’ founding document proclaims war to be open “until Israel ceases to exist … and the last Jew in the world is eliminated.” In 2006, the Hamas even launched a terror web site for children to see cartoons and hear stories preaching the moral desirability of becoming a suicide terrorist.
Jamal Abdel Hamid Yussif has admitted: “Our people love death.” Furthermore, he added, “our goal is to die for the sake of God; and if we live, we want to humiliate Jews and trample on their necks.” Outspoken wives of terrorists express longing for Allah “to make Jewish women widows and their children orphans.”
• Muslim Record on Freedom from Force/Oppression
Islamic cultural imperialism imposes the religion and culture of seventh-century Arabia wherever it sets foot. The term “Islam” speaks to the “perfect peace resulting from total submission to Allah.” The Qur’an expressly forbids taking Jews and Christians as friends and protectors. Instead, it urges Muslim believers to war, fight, seize, and kill. The fatwa pronounces death to non-Muslims (i.e., infidels, likewise known as “cows”). If not properly submitted, whether by consent or conquest, the Dar al Hob (House of Infidels, including Jews and Christians) must be seized and slain wherever Muslims find them.
• Muslim Record on Women’s Rights
Both Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan have ratified an international treaty promising women “the exercise and enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms on a basis of equality with men.” While the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) sounds promising, reality flies in the face of its hollow precepts and vague language. Be sure, in Saudi Arabia, women still may not vote, drive a car, or travel alone; and some women in Afghanistan continue to set themselves ablaze in order to escape forced marriages. In fact, Muhammed referred to women as “toys” and “property” to be bought with “dowries” by men. Before marriage, women and girls undergo chastity tests, and an estimated three million are brutalized by forced female genital mutilation each year. Muslim husbands may beat wives for the flimsiest of reasons; and more often than not, physical abuse toward women and children goes unreported.
• Muslim Record on Human Dignity
Under Shariah law, a man can sequester his wife at home as punishment for disobedience; and maids and underlings are treated poorly. Up to 17,000 victims every year yield their God-given human dignity to “honor”-related kidnappings, sexual assaults, beatings, and murders. Activist-author Brigitte Gabriel of Lebanon reported that, in her experience, Muslim Palestinian students in the Old City of Jerusalem broke crosses, dug up bodies in Christian cemeteries, and threw acid in faces of Christian girls.
• Muslim Record on Equality
In no uncertain terms, Muslims are called to “fight those who do not believe in Allah … until they pay the tax in acknowledgement of superiority, and they are in a state of subjection.” Men are rewarded for marrying (thus evangelizing) non-Muslim women, but women who do the same face punishment by death. Fabulous rewards in Paradise await men. On the other hand, Qur’anic teaching is unclear as to a Muslim woman’s eternal state—perhaps because, in Islam, “the male has the equal of the portion of two females.”
The wife receives half the amount of inheritance enjoyed by her male siblings. Moreover, that inheritance is shared with additional wives, children, and extended family members. Divorce and remarriage are easy for men, but not for women. When a husband dies, the father’s uncle, not the mother, wins custody. Practically no social structure of support exists for widows outside their families; hence, their children are sent out into the streets begging for bakshish (“tips”).
• Muslim Record on Freedom of Speech/Press; Thought/Religion
To criticize Islam merits the death sentence—e.g., a human rights activist and women’s advocate Farag Foda was falsely accused, then gunned down in front of his Cairo office (1992). Forget about freedom of press. In Iran, Not Without My Daughter became one of the "most hated" books along with Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie. Both were banned.
Freedom of thought and religion? No way. A Shiite court ruled Kuwaiti Muslim-turned-Christian Robert Hussein an apostate worthy of death. Harsh religious court rulings violated even Kuwaiti civil law. Indeed, the court ruled that his wife should be divorced from him, and all his possessions distributed to heirs. Similarly, Mehdi Dibaj’s conversion from Islam to Christianity landed him in prison for ten years before an official execution order was issued. The leader of Evangelical Christians in Iran launched an international campaign to end civil rights violations of Iranian Islamic courts. At the eleventh hour, the government was forced to release Dibaj; but in exchange for his courage, Bishop Haik himself suffered martyrdom. Inconceivably, Egypt, Kuwait, and Iran were among U.N. foxes elected to oversee the henhouse of human rights.
Global Human Rights Applauded Disingenuously
Human rights are commonly understood to be “inalienable” and “fundamental.” However, given make up of the Human Rights Council and advisors, one wonders: Why would communist Cuba be among those reviewing, advising, and addressing complaints about the right to democracy? And what’s the wisdom in electing Saudi Arabia to address complaints about women’s rights?
Under China’s occupation, the Tibetan people are denied most rights guaranteed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights—namely, rights to self-determination, freedom of speech, assembly, movement, expression, and travel—yet China is among those reviewing, advising, and addressing complaints about freedom from foreign occupation. Similarly, in Uganda, Asian/Indian residents are assigned inferior status, yet Uganda is among nation-states speaking to complaints about racism.
For Iran, Pakistan, and Libya to be among those addressing freedoms from terrorism, hostage taking, and war defies common sense. Then there’s India, where gross human rights violations are commonly leveled against its indigenous population; yet India’s tasked with reviewing, advising, and addressing complaints about the very ones they marginalize.
Apparently, seventeenth-century French writer Francois de La Rochefoucauld was correct: “Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.”
1 Michael S. Coffman, Ph.D. Plundered: How Progressive Ideology Is Destroying America (Bangor, Maine: Environmental Perspectives, Inc. 2012). 25 and 29.
https://www.un.org/cyberschoolbus/humanrights/resources/plain.asp
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/Pages/HRCIndex.aspx
William Wagner. How Islam Plans to Change the World. (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications. 2004). 247-262.
http://str8tguy69.xanga.com/705968001/seven-principles-of-the-judeo-christian-ethic/
http://www.factsofisrael.com/en/democracy.shtml
www.Al-Fateh.net
Al-Tauba 9:29; Al-Nisa 4:89; Al-Anfal 8:65, Qur’an
Sura 4:89; 5:14, Qur’an
http://movies.nationalgeographic.com/movies/desert-flower/
Al-Nisa 4:34, Qur’an
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigitte_Gabriel
Al-Tauba 9:29, Qur’an
Al-Nisa 4:129, Qur’an
Betty Mahmoody. Not Without My Daughter. (New York: St. Martins Paperback. 1991).
Salmon Rushdie. The Satanic Verses, A Novel. (New York: Viking Penguin, Inc. 1989).
https://www.rutherford.org/
www.acryfromiran.com
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/f/francoisde124518.html
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Recipe for Revolution
The late Chuck Colson said it well: “The culture war is not just about abortion, homosexual rights, or decline of public education. These are only skirmishes. The real war is a cosmic struggle between worldviews.” One’s worldview, or compass, entails ideologies or philosophies that offer overarching approaches to understanding God, the world, and humanity’s relations to both.
Any personally held worldview—whether biblical, secular, cosmic, or Marxist—is a broad, though targeted system of thought. Whereas a self-serving worldview seeks to feather one’s own nest, a principled worldview is guided by some developed belief system that works for good and more often than not acknowledges personal relationship with (and accountability to) God.
Intended Utopia: Globalism
That said globalism is a collectivist, one-world state that supplants the biblical worldview with alleged enlightenment. Globalists peddle their wares with undeliverable promise of an emerging egalitarian utopia that John Lennon himself could “only imagine.”
Cosmic citizens join dreamers, as Lennon, in visualizing a brotherhood of man living as one and therefore finding nothing to kill and die for (especially not religion). Smitten by the bug of “political cosmopolitanism,” global citizens willingly pledge allegiance, not to their nation-state of origin or residence, but rather to the world community at large and the euphonious vision it represents.
In the name of justice, globalization speaks specifically to redistribution of the world’s wealth but, then, concentrates that wealth—and power—into the hands of few. Head honchos are strategically postured to manage the world’s huddled masses—all “yearning to breathe free,” but instead destined to burdensome constraints of international law.
At risk are the rightful division of power between the federal government and that of states (Federalism), national sovereignty (exchanged for “harmonization”), personal liberties (exchanged for Earth servitude), and freedom to self-govern (exchanged for global law).
The Big Merge
Countless terms identify this “new order.” Despite subtle nuances in meanings, most can be used interchangeably to mean the collusion between big business (Super Capitalism) and big government (Communism).
Free enterprise capitalism is distinguished by private ownership of property and resources coupled with competitive free enterprise in supplying goods and services. In contrast, super-capitalism is highly concentrated finance capitalism that tends toward anti-capitalism.
Technically speaking, communism is the final phase and goal of socialism (i.e., big government). Based on the theories of the political philosophers Marx and Engels, communism is socialism distinguished by a planned economy (with common ownership of the means of production) and imposed by revolution.
In Managing Globalization in the Age of Interdependence, Harvard Business School Professor George C. Lodge coined the term, “communitarianism,” for what today has emerged as interdependent globalism. A prime example of merged capitalism and communism (communitarianism) evolved from the European Economic Community as the European Union.
In turn, American and Pacific Unions, to evolve from NAFTA and APEC respectively, are scheduled to follow. Said unions will mirror today’s form of Euro Marxism in the tradition of pre-World War II Marxist-philosopher, Antonio Gramsci. An Italian writer, political theorist, and avowed atheist, Gramsci was a founding member and onetime leader of Italy’s Communist Party.
Civil Society (NGOs)
Bear in mind that “the collective” serves us well on numbers of fronts. Churches, scouts, teams, clubs, neighborhood “watches,” extended family—all are integral facets of Americana at its best. America’s celebration of “individualism” is not about greedy super capitalists or Me-centric masses demanding endless entitlements.
Rather, it speaks to rugged individualism with freedom for all, unshackled by excessive governmental intrusion to pursue their own vision of the American Dream. In contrast, communitarianism is a collectivist social philosophy, political theory, legal system—even theology—that explicitly rejects and, in fact, is openly hostile to individualism.
New community governments quickly popping up nationwide feature civil society as the third element of social life (other than State or market). Known as the Third Way, or Third Sector, communitarianism is a sort of post-Marxist collectivism that seeks common ground based on efforts of unelected, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Through these voluntary associations and informal networks, a nation’s citizens link with the State.
Mandatory partnerships among the public-, private-, and social- sectors (i.e., government, business, community, and churches) manage the “common good” through standards and laws that national and international leaders initiate. The end goal is to establish absolute social, personal, and economic control in a collectivist, corporate, and feudalistic society of their making.
New Global Civic Ethic
Accepting that autonomous selves do not exist in isolation, but are shaped by community values, so-called “good society” activists embrace a new global civic ethic wherein individual rights are balanced with social responsibilities within civic society.
To collectivists, the State is god, and the world is a “global village” consisting of human resources committed to the common good and controlled by the State. The new ethic “clarifies” values conducive to a borderless, godless, politically correct, and bio-regionalized world community that excludes national sovereignty and private property rights while giving overriding priority to the world’s poor.
As determined by the community’s collective viewpoint, some speech is deemed abhorrent—i.e., “hate” speech—and therefore must be forbidden. Unless they fit prefabricated criteria of tolerance, social justice, and civic responsibility—i.e., community service—personal beliefs in the public square are silenced.
Hegelian Dialectic
To foster collectivism, communitarians (meaning “members of a commune”) employ Hegelian Dialectic, also known as conflict resolution or the Delphi technique. German philosopher George Frederick Hegel (1770-1831) achieved group consensus under peer pressure by (1) posing a thesis, (2) offering its antithesis, and then (3) synthesizing the two.
For example, the contradiction of concentrated money/ power with wealth/ property redistribution provides an enticing dynamic for effecting “change we can count on.” Case in point: Corporate monies fund socialist causes (thesis), ideological socialism counters it (antithesis), and voilà the “New Imperium” (communitarianism) emerges.
Besides dialect-driven consensus, communitarian policymakers employ visioning. They play the sustainable development card and, through crime-prevention efforts, seek to enforce communitarian regulations.
Local Partnerships for the Collective Good
To balance national and local laws against the common good, local communitarian councils and committees are created. Their communitarian goal is to create a postmodern, post-democratic feudal society run by a small coterie of the rich and powerful. To achieve this objective, it is imperative to destroy (1) the middle class (2) the sovereignty of our nation-state and (3) “archaic” constitutional laws.
• Middle Class
Cultural editor for World, Gene Edward Veith contends, rightly so, that “a fashionable disdain for middle-class values animates liberalism.” Accordingly, upper- and lower- crust folks snub the middle class—specifically for their work ethic, religious inclinations, and social respectability.
Even so, stereotypical middle-class norms appeal to most Americans—i.e., having kids, a dog or cat, home, appliances, car, and bank account. Hence, projected guilt is intended to shame middle-class Americans into questioning their rights to private property ownership, free enterprise, and manner of living to which they have grown accustomed.
Entitlement-seeking “have-nots” are incited to begrudge their own meager piece of the American pie and to “even the score.” Unfortunately, the “real change” today’s “third-America” class can count on is this: Minus her middle class, two classes remain—namely, the oppressed and their oppressors.
• Sovereignty of Nation-states
In his 1964 book, No Apologies, the late U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater characterized the Trilateral Commission as a “skillful, coordinated effort to seize control and consolidate the four centers of power—political, monetary, intellectual, and ecclesiastical.” Once sovereignty of nation-states is morphed into regional unions, the stage will be set globally for the new social order.
• Living Constitutionalism
Strict constitutionalism is deemed archaic because, rightly viewed, the Preamble of the U.S. Constitution speaks to forming a more perfect union (not a “Global Village”); establishing justice (not exclusively for the world’s downtrodden); and insuring domestic tranquility (not by militarizing the police force). It provides for the common defense (not under the UN banner); promotes general welfare (not excluding the unborn and elderly); and secures blessings of liberty (not least of which include private property and religious expression).
Conclusion
In 1921, leading American socialist Norman Thomas gave voice to the collectivist scheme. “Under the name of liberalism,” he explained, the American people will “adopt every fragment of the socialist program until one day America will be a socialist nation without knowing how it happened.”
Indeed, on Election Eve 2008, Barack Obama noted, “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” While not yet finished “remaking America” into his progressive, collectivist ideal, Obama stands poised throughout his second term to exercise “more flexibility” toward realizing dreams from his father.
Speaking of which, in a recently released documentary, Obama’s America 2016, best selling author and self-proclaimed “renegade conservative” Dinesh D'Souza explores Obama’s vision for America’s ever-evolving, collectivist future. Sadly, to quote the late publisher of Ēco-Logic, Henry Lamb, this collectivist, one-world state, unless curtailed, will result in America’s taking on “the lowest common denominator that forced equity demands.”
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
ABCs of ATT: Governmental Gun-trusion
Yet again, senseless gun violence left its unsuspecting victims bereaved, bloodied, stunned, and inconsolably shaken; some less fortunate moviegoers didn’t survive this month’s deadly attack in Aurora, Colorado. It stands to reason that high-profile incidents, as this, demand public debate regarding gun ownership and safety.
Given a documentable, nationwide pattern of annual gun abuse in America’s schools, it’s becoming increasingly indefensible to argue that mass shooting incidents are “rare.” Sharing the frustration of most, and parroting increasingly popular belief, my hairdresser offered his solution: “Guns shouldn’t be legal.” He added, “We need to confiscate them all.”
Compelling as this sounds, attorney Phyllis Schlafly notes that, despite widespread misconceptions, gun control will not reduce firearms violence. Case in point: Passed five years before the Columbine massacre, the last significant federal gun law (Assault Weapons Ban, 1994) failed to abate subsequent gun rampages.
Obvious Solution
While there’s no easy solution, there is an obvious one. Benito Mussolini understood that, to restore public order, it’s necessary to issue a categorical order to confiscate the largest possible number of weapons of every sort and kind. The result he described as “satisfactory.” But for whom?
In 1788, George Mason warned “to disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.” Hitler agreed. One of his first acts was to confiscate firearms from Jews. In Hitler’s view, "the most foolish mistake … would be to allow the subject races to possess arms.” Purporting "all political power comes from the barrel of a gun,” Chairman Mao insisted “the communist party must command all the guns; that way, no guns can ever be used to command the party."?
In contrast, when ratified in 1791, the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution established the right of Americans to keep and bear arms, a right “not to be infringed." Not by Hitler; not by Mao; not even by the President of the United States.
Terrorism on the Taxpayer’s Dime
Wearied by gun violence, often in normally peaceful communities, many believe instead that guns belong in the hands of authorities alone. Political correctness tramples common sense when Second Amendment naysayers accept that government can be trusted; but “we, the people” can’t.
Fostering this politically correct mindset, today’s public schools force children to endure realistic, very intense, and deeply traumatizing drills in preparation for potential gun attacks. Sometimes unbeknownst even to teachers, men in full military gear point guns, then fire blank rounds, at unsuspecting kids. Disturbingly, “children’s war games,” as this, are being mandated at the state level from coast to coast—annually, monthly, or several times a year.
Sometimes parents and teachers are notified in advance; sometimes not. Imagine the terror of finding local roads closed and emergency vehicles surrounding your child’s school and, then, discovering that your kid had been terrorized, shot at, instructed to feign gun injuries, forcefully relocated (some, temporarily housed elsewhere) away from parents with whom they’ve been denied cell phone contact.
Good Guys—or Bad?
Just when you think it can’t get any worse, you learn that in Muskegon County, Michigan, students and teachers are told that imaginary homeschoolers placed and detonated a bomb on a school bus. In New Jersey, they heard that “pretend” gunmen were "The New Crusaders"—specifically, rightwing, fundamentalist Christians who don't believe in separation of church and state.
Children under siege learn quickly that seemingly harmless neighbors and friends aren’t to be trusted, and government knows best. It’s been said, “When facts, truth and reality don't matter, critical thinking is an unnecessary skill.” Then again, facts, truth and reality DO matter. Think Castro, Qaddafi, Stalin, Idi Amin, Mao Tse-tung, and Pol Pot. To this list, I add the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
In June, a Greeley, Colorado woman filed a lawsuit—a legitimate one, in my view. While looking for a previous tenant who had left the address more than a year earlier, armed ATF agents violently stormed her home—without a warrant—broke down her son’s bedroom door, slammed her against a wall, then handcuffed and pointed multiple machine pistols at her eight-year old son and her. Upon emptying her purse for ID, the intruders realized she was not the person they were after. Those charged with protecting instead terrorized mother and child and, then, left the two unnerved and forever traumatized. No apologizes offered.
When the Indiana Supreme Court ruled “there is no right to reasonably resist unlawful entry” by gun-wielding police officers, the court admitted it was overturning hundreds of years of law going back to the Magna Carta, not to mention U.S. Supreme Court decisions. While authorities have a job to do, terrorizing unarmed, law-abiding citizens shouldn’t be one of them.
Infringement by Design
Even so, American citizens have a constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms; moreover, they have a right to defend themselves against crime and tyranny. Nevertheless, modern liberals believe that guns in the hands of law-abiding Americans pose more of a threat than, say, nuclear weapons in the hands of the Red Chinese. Forget the Reds; gun-toting civilians must be stopped.
Someone’s got to do something, and Obama’s just the man to do it! Ostensibly to fight against terrorism, insurgency, and international crime syndicates, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently announced that the Obama Administration is working with the United Nations on a globally enforceable Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) to regulate firearms and prevent their exportation.
Global Gun-trusion Under Fire
The ATT has been met with a firestorm of opposition. But, never fear: "Urban myth" tester, Snopes.com, has a word for viral e-mails that allege this treaty provides a "legal way around the Second Amendment." That word is "scarelore."
But what’s “scary” isn’t always “lore.” Guess who holds the conference’s top, elected post? You got it: Iran. The same Iran that (1) imposes (to quote Ahmadinejad) “burning in the fire of the Islamic nation's fury” on “anybody who recognizes Israel” and (2) supplies Syria with weaponry to massacre its own civilians. Yes, that Iran.
With Iran tasked to devise a treaty to regulate global trade of conventional arms, it’s no big stretch to imagine how the ATT scheme will unfold. First, it will require countries to inventory and, then, register all guns. Eventually, guns previously owned by private citizens will be banned. In the end, a newly created international gun registry will set the stage for full-scale gun confiscation. Urban myth? I think not.
“Scarelore” or “Scheme-antics”?
When nations of the world meet in New York this July 27, 2012, Hillary will be among the treaty’s likely signers. A goodly number of U.S. Senators oppose ATT—double the number needed—but that won’t stop her. If a ratification vote destines the treaty for defeat, why, then, would she sign? Be sure Hillary has a trick up her sleeve—namely, the Vienna Convention to which the United States is signatory.
According to the convention, an international treaty is enforceable unless (1) rejected by the Senate or (2) renounced by the President. With Obama’s reelection, four and one-half years of gun control will become established law; and U.S. District Courts will rule accordingly. Under the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, the ATT would wield power of a constitutional amendment. So: Bye-bye, Second Amendment.
Frankly, I don’t feel any safer for it.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0777958.html
http://townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/2004/09/22/anti-homeschooling_bigots_strike_again
WND EXCLUSIVE Published: 06/05/2012 at 8:55 PM. http://www.wnd.com/2012/06/atf-agents-point-gun-at-8-year-old/
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/un-arms-treaty-iran/2012/07/10/id/444942?s=al&promo_code=F6DE-1&utm_source=WEEKLY+WRAP-UP +7%2F20%2F12&utm_campaign=7%2F20%2F12&utm_medium=email
Yet again, senseless gun violence left its unsuspecting victims bereaved, bloodied, stunned, and inconsolably shaken; some less fortunate moviegoers didn’t survive this month’s deadly attack in Aurora, Colorado. It stands to reason that high-profile incidents, as this, demand public debate regarding gun ownership and safety.
Given a documentable, nationwide pattern of annual gun abuse in America’s schools, it’s becoming increasingly indefensible to argue that mass shooting incidents are “rare.” Sharing the frustration of most, and parroting increasingly popular belief, my hairdresser offered his solution: “Guns shouldn’t be legal.” He added, “We need to confiscate them all.”
Compelling as this sounds, attorney Phyllis Schlafly notes that, despite widespread misconceptions, gun control will not reduce firearms violence. Case in point: Passed five years before the Columbine massacre, the last significant federal gun law (Assault Weapons Ban, 1994) failed to abate subsequent gun rampages.
Obvious Solution
While there’s no easy solution, there is an obvious one. Benito Mussolini understood that, to restore public order, it’s necessary to issue a categorical order to confiscate the largest possible number of weapons of every sort and kind. The result he described as “satisfactory.” But for whom?
In 1788, George Mason warned “to disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.” Hitler agreed. One of his first acts was to confiscate firearms from Jews. In Hitler’s view, "the most foolish mistake … would be to allow the subject races to possess arms.” Purporting "all political power comes from the barrel of a gun,” Chairman Mao insisted “the communist party must command all the guns; that way, no guns can ever be used to command the party."?
In contrast, when ratified in 1791, the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution established the right of Americans to keep and bear arms, a right “not to be infringed." Not by Hitler; not by Mao; not even by the President of the United States.
Terrorism on the Taxpayer’s Dime
Wearied by gun violence, often in normally peaceful communities, many believe instead that guns belong in the hands of authorities alone. Political correctness tramples common sense when Second Amendment naysayers accept that government can be trusted; but “we, the people” can’t.
Fostering this politically correct mindset, today’s public schools force children to endure realistic, very intense, and deeply traumatizing drills in preparation for potential gun attacks. Sometimes unbeknownst even to teachers, men in full military gear point guns, then fire blank rounds, at unsuspecting kids. Disturbingly, “children’s war games,” as this, are being mandated at the state level from coast to coast—annually, monthly, or several times a year.
Sometimes parents and teachers are notified in advance; sometimes not. Imagine the terror of finding local roads closed and emergency vehicles surrounding your child’s school and, then, discovering that your kid had been terrorized, shot at, instructed to feign gun injuries, forcefully relocated (some, temporarily housed elsewhere) away from parents with whom they’ve been denied cell phone contact.
Good Guys—or Bad?
Just when you think it can’t get any worse, you learn that in Muskegon County, Michigan, students and teachers are told that imaginary homeschoolers placed and detonated a bomb on a school bus. In New Jersey, they heard that “pretend” gunmen were "The New Crusaders"—specifically, rightwing, fundamentalist Christians who don't believe in separation of church and state.
Children under siege learn quickly that seemingly harmless neighbors and friends aren’t to be trusted, and government knows best. It’s been said, “When facts, truth and reality don't matter, critical thinking is an unnecessary skill.” Then again, facts, truth and reality DO matter. Think Castro, Qaddafi, Stalin, Idi Amin, Mao Tse-tung, and Pol Pot. To this list, I add the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
In June, a Greeley, Colorado woman filed a lawsuit—a legitimate one, in my view. While looking for a previous tenant who had left the address more than a year earlier, armed ATF agents violently stormed her home—without a warrant—broke down her son’s bedroom door, slammed her against a wall, then handcuffed and pointed multiple machine pistols at her eight-year old son and her. Upon emptying her purse for ID, the intruders realized she was not the person they were after. Those charged with protecting instead terrorized mother and child and, then, left the two unnerved and forever traumatized. No apologizes offered.
When the Indiana Supreme Court ruled “there is no right to reasonably resist unlawful entry” by gun-wielding police officers, the court admitted it was overturning hundreds of years of law going back to the Magna Carta, not to mention U.S. Supreme Court decisions. While authorities have a job to do, terrorizing unarmed, law-abiding citizens shouldn’t be one of them.
Infringement by Design
Even so, American citizens have a constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms; moreover, they have a right to defend themselves against crime and tyranny. Nevertheless, modern liberals believe that guns in the hands of law-abiding Americans pose more of a threat than, say, nuclear weapons in the hands of the Red Chinese. Forget the Reds; gun-toting civilians must be stopped.
Someone’s got to do something, and Obama’s just the man to do it! Ostensibly to fight against terrorism, insurgency, and international crime syndicates, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently announced that the Obama Administration is working with the United Nations on a globally enforceable Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) to regulate firearms and prevent their exportation.
Global Gun-trusion Under Fire
The ATT has been met with a firestorm of opposition. But, never fear: "Urban myth" tester, Snopes.com, has a word for viral e-mails that allege this treaty provides a "legal way around the Second Amendment." That word is "scarelore."
But what’s “scary” isn’t always “lore.” Guess who holds the conference’s top, elected post? You got it: Iran. The same Iran that (1) imposes (to quote Ahmadinejad) “burning in the fire of the Islamic nation's fury” on “anybody who recognizes Israel” and (2) supplies Syria with weaponry to massacre its own civilians. Yes, that Iran.
With Iran tasked to devise a treaty to regulate global trade of conventional arms, it’s no big stretch to imagine how the ATT scheme will unfold. First, it will require countries to inventory and, then, register all guns. Eventually, guns previously owned by private citizens will be banned. In the end, a newly created international gun registry will set the stage for full-scale gun confiscation. Urban myth? I think not.
“Scarelore” or “Scheme-antics”?
When nations of the world meet in New York this July 27, 2012, Hillary will be among the treaty’s likely signers. A goodly number of U.S. Senators oppose ATT—double the number needed—but that won’t stop her. If a ratification vote destines the treaty for defeat, why, then, would she sign? Be sure Hillary has a trick up her sleeve—namely, the Vienna Convention to which the United States is signatory.
According to the convention, an international treaty is enforceable unless (1) rejected by the Senate or (2) renounced by the President. With Obama’s reelection, four and one-half years of gun control will become established law; and U.S. District Courts will rule accordingly. Under the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, the ATT would wield power of a constitutional amendment. So: Bye-bye, Second Amendment.
Frankly, I don’t feel any safer for it.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0777958.html
http://townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/2004/09/22/anti-homeschooling_bigots_strike_again
WND EXCLUSIVE Published: 06/05/2012 at 8:55 PM. http://www.wnd.com/2012/06/atf-agents-point-gun-at-8-year-old/
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/un-arms-treaty-iran/2012/07/10/id/444942?s=al&promo_code=F6DE-1&utm_source=WEEKLY+WRAP-UP +7%2F20%2F12&utm_campaign=7%2F20%2F12&utm_medium=email
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Fallacies of Logic
When Issues Ignite Ire
Part 2: Fallacies of Logic Do Not a Fair Fight Make
Especially throughout this season of campaigning for the highest office in the land, emotions run deep; and folks don’t always see eye to eye. Passionate exchanges are inevitable, even within the faith community. While engaging allies or adversaries, our charge as believers is to employ clear thinking, alongside conviction, because fallacies of logic do not a fair fight make.
Straw Man Fallacy
One way of strengthening a weak position is to respond in advance to the anticipated arguments of one’s opponents. In the straw man fallacy, the arguer sets up a wimpy version of the opponent's position and, then, knocks it down.
Consider, for example, a four-year legal fight in Washington State in which two individual pharmacists and a family-owned pharmacy could be forced out of their profession solely because of their religious beliefs. You see, plaintiffs correctly view moral choice as their constitutional right under the “free exercise” clause of the Constitution. They cannot in good conscience dispense Plan B or Ella because they believe human life begins at the moment of fertilization; and both drugs operate by destroying a fertilized egg, or embryo.
Opponents insist that for plaintiffs to exercise conscientious objection is to deny a woman her right to reproductive health. This is especially true, defendants argue, in the case of rural patients seeking Emergency Contraception. Reasonable as it sounds, this simply is not so. Even in remote, rural areas, resources are available to patients through Planned Parenthood, the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL), the prescribing physician, social services, the internet, and/or third party delivery services—e.g., collaborative agreements, remote telepharmacy programs, automated dispensing machines, and/or balancing systems for owners of pharmacy chains.
It can’t be emphasized enough that, with or without referrals, there’s no documented access problem for any drug in the State of Washington (Plan B included). A patient’s need for timely delivery is met effectively by “alternative” facilitated referral.
Summarily dismissing right to conscience, President Obama announced in January 2012 that most religious employers must provide full medical insurance coverage for contraceptives, including abortion-causing drugs like Plan B and Ella. Thereafter, the President “softened” his position; but Andrew Jackson understood what our current administration is slow to grasp: “As long as our government … secures to us the rights of persons and of property, liberty of conscience and of the press, it will be worth defending.”
False Dichotomy Fallacy
This election year, another popular fallacy is that of false dichotomy in which the arguer sets up a situation to look like there are only two viable choices when, in reality, many more exist. The arguer then eliminates one of the choices, so it seems that only one remains—namely, the one the arguer posed in the first place.
For example, worshippers at Congregation Kol Shalom on Bainbridge Island in Washington are told, rightly so, that amid “all the howling” on both sides of the issue, few take the time to see what the Bible actually says about same-sex marriage. I agree with the Rabbi, “Reflective Bible study doesn’t come easily.” However, it would seem, his treatment of scripture is more “defective” than it is “reflective.”
In a special article printed in the Seattle Times (21 January 2012), the Rabbi explains what he believes the Bible to say about the matter. First, he distinguishes between the Christian Bible and Hebrew Scriptures. Of the Torah’s nearly six thousand verses, the Rabbi offers two that prohibit a man from lying with another man, as he lies with a woman.
Significantly, in presenting his case on behalf of gay marriage, the Rabbi fails to reference Genesis 19:5-11, 24, 25; Deuteronomy 22:5; 23:17; 1 Kings 14:24; 22:46; or Judges 19:22; and he dismisses altogether applicable New Testament references.
Instead, he selects two Bible verses, which he presents as comprehensive. The first, Leviticus 18:22, reads, “Do not lie with a male as one lies with a woman.” According to Leviticus 20:13, to do so is a capital offense. Both, of course, cinch the biblical case opposing gay marriage; but these reasonably clear references apparently don’t qualify as definitive in the Rabbi’s view.
Begging the Question
The Rabbi sets up a situation to appear as if the Bible’s treatment of the subject is limited when, in fact, that is not the case. Then, he commences to “beg the question.” An argument that begs the question asks the reader simply to accept the conclusion without providing real evidence. The argument relies either on a premise that says the same thing as the conclusion ("being circular" or "circular reasoning"), or it simply ignores an important (but debatable) assumption upon which the argument rests—namely, that the Leviticus references expressly forbid gay marriage.
Rampant Rationalization
Next, the Rabbi rationalizes that, in prohibiting homosexuality, God fails to explicitly prohibit lesbianism. “If the Bible is to be our guide,” he adds, “we’ll be hard-pressed to find a reason to forbid women from marrying women.”
In attempting to strengthen his original position, the Rabbi introduces doubt by posing a provocative version of the serpent’s question to Eve, “Hath God said?” Literally, the Rabbi explains, a man isn’t supposed to “woman-lay.” Perhaps the Bible simply prohibits certain sexual positions (like the missionary position?), or maybe God doesn’t want sex between men to be patterned after sex between a man and woman—i.e., as an act of conquest.
Tellingly, the Rabbi grabs at straws by admitting same-sex marriage “hadn’t been invented back then.” In this, he unwittingly accepts its having been birthed from a human (carnal) mind—not as part of God’s plan outlined in the Book of Genesis. Finally, he offers the real crux of the issue: To prohibit same-sex marriage would be as successful as folks today attempting to stop Facebook. In other words, just go with the flow.
Once sanitizing homosexual marriage as inevitable, the Rabbi sanctions it as reflective of loving one another and treating others with dignity and respect. He reasons that, while we’re together on the journey of life, we must be nice and get along.
In this, Rabbi Mark S. Glickman presents a viewpoint popularly held among the religious left. For the sake of consensus, he precipitously dismisses Bible truth for “unnatural selection.” By posing the puzzling question (“Hath God said?”), the Rabbi suggests (wrongly so) that God is more “nice” than He is sovereign.
Problem is, being “nice” doesn’t qualify as fruit of the spirit, and the Bible doesn’t explicitly command adversaries to “get along.” Nor does either solve the same-sex marriage issue. No one argues that traditional marriages are free from attack. Many end in divorce. However, homosexual relationships are not the answer just because the practice is increasingly accepted in a culture that has lost spiritual mooring.
Whereas 85% of married women remain true to their marriage vows for lifetime, and 75% of married men do likewise, numerous studies show that male homosexual relationships are most accurately measured in months rather than years. Specifically, a Netherlands study published in AIDS pinpointed the "duration of steady partnerships" to be 1.5 years. In Male and Female Homosexuality, Saghir and Robins found that the average male live-in relationship lasts between two and three years; and a Journal of Sex Research study of the sexual practices of older homosexual men further found that only 2.7% of homosexuals had only one sexual partner in their lifetime (Paul Van de Ven et al). These facts undermine any argument attempting to equate gay marriage with marriage in the biblical tradition.
Tradition Under Fire
Forget that the Constitution never gave final say on constitutional matters to the Supreme Court. By February 2011, President Obama had instructed the Justice Department to stop defending DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act), which legally prohibits federal recognition of so-called same-sex marriages.
G.K. Chesterton wrote, “Any man who is cut off from the past … is a man most unjustly disinherited.” Throughout the course of history, marriage between one man and one woman has been the most fundamental institution of the whole of civilization. It represents the traditional building block of human society.
Embracing a homosexual neighbor or co-worker is not the same thing as normalizing homosexual marriage. For Lawrence v. Texas to protect sodomy under the Constitution’s so-called “right to privacy” demonstrates what a great Christian statesman, Lord Shaftesbury, famously argued: What is morally reprehensible cannot be politically right. Morality is more than a strategy for self-development, and the right to marriage is more than the right to state-defined benefits.
Serving as the prologue to homosexual marriage in America, this 2004 U.S. Supreme Court ruling was the prelude, as well, to legally sanctioned polygamy, incest, pedophilia, and bestiality.” Justice Antonin Scalia adds, the decision “effectively decrees the end of all moral legislation.”
Consequences of Moral Confusion
Arguably, our nation’s principles of ethical behavior and criminal justice are firmly rooted in Bible truth. Indeed, founders granted freedom conditionally, based upon a citizen’s constant exercise of religious responsibility.
Unfortunately, America today houses two irreconcilably opposing cultures. One is Bible based; the other, decidedly not. Unless and until our national mind is cleared of the cobwebs of fuzzy thinking, history is destined to repeat itself: Once a society forfeits moral absolutes, totalitarian power inevitably moves in to fill the vacuum and, then, to order resulting chaos.
Notable historian Arnold Toynbee fingered a clear indication of declining civilization: It’s when the elites mimic vulgarity and promiscuity of a “dominant minority” representing what he describes as “society’s bottom-dwellers.”
Unless Christians expose fallacies of logic, sexual “rights” will triumph over free expression of religion; academia will altogether silence politically incorrect speech; and ministers will be punished for preaching the Bible. In other words, the “grand experiment” we call America will have failed.
1. Stormans v. Selecky, a landmark case handled by the Becket Fund, a non-profit, non-partisan law firm that protects the
religious liberty of all faiths. Also on the legal team are lawyers Kristen Waggoner and Steve O’Ban with Seattle-based
law firm Ellis, Li & McKinstry. Plaintiffs are challenging the Washington State Pharmacy Board ruling that, despite religious objections, pharmacies must forfeit their prerogative to facilitated referral and stock/dispense early abortifacient drugs, as Plan B and Ella.
2. The First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, ratified effective 15 December 1791, follows: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
3. Leviticus 18:22; 20:13.
4. Romans 1:26-32, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, 1 Timothy 1:10, Jude 7,10.
5. Galatians 5:22-23—The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
6. Charles Colson. “Addressing Sexual Dis-Integration.” The Sky is Not Falling: Living Fearlessly in These Turbulent Times: 2011, p.51.
Part 2: Fallacies of Logic Do Not a Fair Fight Make
Especially throughout this season of campaigning for the highest office in the land, emotions run deep; and folks don’t always see eye to eye. Passionate exchanges are inevitable, even within the faith community. While engaging allies or adversaries, our charge as believers is to employ clear thinking, alongside conviction, because fallacies of logic do not a fair fight make.
Straw Man Fallacy
One way of strengthening a weak position is to respond in advance to the anticipated arguments of one’s opponents. In the straw man fallacy, the arguer sets up a wimpy version of the opponent's position and, then, knocks it down.
Consider, for example, a four-year legal fight in Washington State in which two individual pharmacists and a family-owned pharmacy could be forced out of their profession solely because of their religious beliefs. You see, plaintiffs correctly view moral choice as their constitutional right under the “free exercise” clause of the Constitution. They cannot in good conscience dispense Plan B or Ella because they believe human life begins at the moment of fertilization; and both drugs operate by destroying a fertilized egg, or embryo.
Opponents insist that for plaintiffs to exercise conscientious objection is to deny a woman her right to reproductive health. This is especially true, defendants argue, in the case of rural patients seeking Emergency Contraception. Reasonable as it sounds, this simply is not so. Even in remote, rural areas, resources are available to patients through Planned Parenthood, the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL), the prescribing physician, social services, the internet, and/or third party delivery services—e.g., collaborative agreements, remote telepharmacy programs, automated dispensing machines, and/or balancing systems for owners of pharmacy chains.
It can’t be emphasized enough that, with or without referrals, there’s no documented access problem for any drug in the State of Washington (Plan B included). A patient’s need for timely delivery is met effectively by “alternative” facilitated referral.
Summarily dismissing right to conscience, President Obama announced in January 2012 that most religious employers must provide full medical insurance coverage for contraceptives, including abortion-causing drugs like Plan B and Ella. Thereafter, the President “softened” his position; but Andrew Jackson understood what our current administration is slow to grasp: “As long as our government … secures to us the rights of persons and of property, liberty of conscience and of the press, it will be worth defending.”
False Dichotomy Fallacy
This election year, another popular fallacy is that of false dichotomy in which the arguer sets up a situation to look like there are only two viable choices when, in reality, many more exist. The arguer then eliminates one of the choices, so it seems that only one remains—namely, the one the arguer posed in the first place.
For example, worshippers at Congregation Kol Shalom on Bainbridge Island in Washington are told, rightly so, that amid “all the howling” on both sides of the issue, few take the time to see what the Bible actually says about same-sex marriage. I agree with the Rabbi, “Reflective Bible study doesn’t come easily.” However, it would seem, his treatment of scripture is more “defective” than it is “reflective.”
In a special article printed in the Seattle Times (21 January 2012), the Rabbi explains what he believes the Bible to say about the matter. First, he distinguishes between the Christian Bible and Hebrew Scriptures. Of the Torah’s nearly six thousand verses, the Rabbi offers two that prohibit a man from lying with another man, as he lies with a woman.
Significantly, in presenting his case on behalf of gay marriage, the Rabbi fails to reference Genesis 19:5-11, 24, 25; Deuteronomy 22:5; 23:17; 1 Kings 14:24; 22:46; or Judges 19:22; and he dismisses altogether applicable New Testament references.
Instead, he selects two Bible verses, which he presents as comprehensive. The first, Leviticus 18:22, reads, “Do not lie with a male as one lies with a woman.” According to Leviticus 20:13, to do so is a capital offense. Both, of course, cinch the biblical case opposing gay marriage; but these reasonably clear references apparently don’t qualify as definitive in the Rabbi’s view.
Begging the Question
The Rabbi sets up a situation to appear as if the Bible’s treatment of the subject is limited when, in fact, that is not the case. Then, he commences to “beg the question.” An argument that begs the question asks the reader simply to accept the conclusion without providing real evidence. The argument relies either on a premise that says the same thing as the conclusion ("being circular" or "circular reasoning"), or it simply ignores an important (but debatable) assumption upon which the argument rests—namely, that the Leviticus references expressly forbid gay marriage.
Rampant Rationalization
Next, the Rabbi rationalizes that, in prohibiting homosexuality, God fails to explicitly prohibit lesbianism. “If the Bible is to be our guide,” he adds, “we’ll be hard-pressed to find a reason to forbid women from marrying women.”
In attempting to strengthen his original position, the Rabbi introduces doubt by posing a provocative version of the serpent’s question to Eve, “Hath God said?” Literally, the Rabbi explains, a man isn’t supposed to “woman-lay.” Perhaps the Bible simply prohibits certain sexual positions (like the missionary position?), or maybe God doesn’t want sex between men to be patterned after sex between a man and woman—i.e., as an act of conquest.
Tellingly, the Rabbi grabs at straws by admitting same-sex marriage “hadn’t been invented back then.” In this, he unwittingly accepts its having been birthed from a human (carnal) mind—not as part of God’s plan outlined in the Book of Genesis. Finally, he offers the real crux of the issue: To prohibit same-sex marriage would be as successful as folks today attempting to stop Facebook. In other words, just go with the flow.
Once sanitizing homosexual marriage as inevitable, the Rabbi sanctions it as reflective of loving one another and treating others with dignity and respect. He reasons that, while we’re together on the journey of life, we must be nice and get along.
In this, Rabbi Mark S. Glickman presents a viewpoint popularly held among the religious left. For the sake of consensus, he precipitously dismisses Bible truth for “unnatural selection.” By posing the puzzling question (“Hath God said?”), the Rabbi suggests (wrongly so) that God is more “nice” than He is sovereign.
Problem is, being “nice” doesn’t qualify as fruit of the spirit, and the Bible doesn’t explicitly command adversaries to “get along.” Nor does either solve the same-sex marriage issue. No one argues that traditional marriages are free from attack. Many end in divorce. However, homosexual relationships are not the answer just because the practice is increasingly accepted in a culture that has lost spiritual mooring.
Whereas 85% of married women remain true to their marriage vows for lifetime, and 75% of married men do likewise, numerous studies show that male homosexual relationships are most accurately measured in months rather than years. Specifically, a Netherlands study published in AIDS pinpointed the "duration of steady partnerships" to be 1.5 years. In Male and Female Homosexuality, Saghir and Robins found that the average male live-in relationship lasts between two and three years; and a Journal of Sex Research study of the sexual practices of older homosexual men further found that only 2.7% of homosexuals had only one sexual partner in their lifetime (Paul Van de Ven et al). These facts undermine any argument attempting to equate gay marriage with marriage in the biblical tradition.
Tradition Under Fire
Forget that the Constitution never gave final say on constitutional matters to the Supreme Court. By February 2011, President Obama had instructed the Justice Department to stop defending DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act), which legally prohibits federal recognition of so-called same-sex marriages.
G.K. Chesterton wrote, “Any man who is cut off from the past … is a man most unjustly disinherited.” Throughout the course of history, marriage between one man and one woman has been the most fundamental institution of the whole of civilization. It represents the traditional building block of human society.
Embracing a homosexual neighbor or co-worker is not the same thing as normalizing homosexual marriage. For Lawrence v. Texas to protect sodomy under the Constitution’s so-called “right to privacy” demonstrates what a great Christian statesman, Lord Shaftesbury, famously argued: What is morally reprehensible cannot be politically right. Morality is more than a strategy for self-development, and the right to marriage is more than the right to state-defined benefits.
Serving as the prologue to homosexual marriage in America, this 2004 U.S. Supreme Court ruling was the prelude, as well, to legally sanctioned polygamy, incest, pedophilia, and bestiality.” Justice Antonin Scalia adds, the decision “effectively decrees the end of all moral legislation.”
Consequences of Moral Confusion
Arguably, our nation’s principles of ethical behavior and criminal justice are firmly rooted in Bible truth. Indeed, founders granted freedom conditionally, based upon a citizen’s constant exercise of religious responsibility.
Unfortunately, America today houses two irreconcilably opposing cultures. One is Bible based; the other, decidedly not. Unless and until our national mind is cleared of the cobwebs of fuzzy thinking, history is destined to repeat itself: Once a society forfeits moral absolutes, totalitarian power inevitably moves in to fill the vacuum and, then, to order resulting chaos.
Notable historian Arnold Toynbee fingered a clear indication of declining civilization: It’s when the elites mimic vulgarity and promiscuity of a “dominant minority” representing what he describes as “society’s bottom-dwellers.”
Unless Christians expose fallacies of logic, sexual “rights” will triumph over free expression of religion; academia will altogether silence politically incorrect speech; and ministers will be punished for preaching the Bible. In other words, the “grand experiment” we call America will have failed.
1. Stormans v. Selecky, a landmark case handled by the Becket Fund, a non-profit, non-partisan law firm that protects the
religious liberty of all faiths. Also on the legal team are lawyers Kristen Waggoner and Steve O’Ban with Seattle-based
law firm Ellis, Li & McKinstry. Plaintiffs are challenging the Washington State Pharmacy Board ruling that, despite religious objections, pharmacies must forfeit their prerogative to facilitated referral and stock/dispense early abortifacient drugs, as Plan B and Ella.
2. The First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, ratified effective 15 December 1791, follows: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
3. Leviticus 18:22; 20:13.
4. Romans 1:26-32, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, 1 Timothy 1:10, Jude 7,10.
5. Galatians 5:22-23—The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
6. Charles Colson. “Addressing Sexual Dis-Integration.” The Sky is Not Falling: Living Fearlessly in These Turbulent Times: 2011, p.51.
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