Barry Lynn: investigate those churches-- I mean the right-wing ones.

Anti-Christian censor Barry Lynn thinks the IRS was too easy on Franklin Graham's "Pulpit Freedom Sunday":

The problem isn’t that the IRS is being too aggressive in this area. It’s that its enforcement efforts have been sporadic, unfocused and tepid. Instead of putting applications from Tea Party groups under a microscope, the IRS would do better to crack down on Graham and the religious leaders like him who openly flout federal tax law. 

Every year, the Alliance Defending Freedom, a Religious Right legal group founded by radio and TV preachers, hosts “Pulpit Freedom Sunday.” During this euphemistically named and highly choreographed event, a handful of misguided pastors openly break the law by endorsing or opposing candidates from the pulpit. Some send their sermons to the IRS and occasionally even send me a copy so I can forward them to the IRS. These churches didn’t just go up to the line, they leaped right over it. 

What has the IRS done about this flagrant law-breaking? Precious little. The agency has even refused to alter a simple regulation that would smooth the process for audits of churches, which is a necessary first step in these investigations. 

The IRS can’t claim it doesn’t know this is happening. Americans United sent the agency numerous examples of religious organizations getting partisan.

Of course, there is massive political organizing out of left-wing churches. Here's Obama's spiritual father Jeremiah Wright, preaching about Barack and Hillary (anti-white racism starts it off-- although Obama slept through all of that racist stuff for 20 years. Explicit politics starts at 9:15):

Good for Wright. He's an odious fraud and bigot, but he has every right to speak his demented mind-- from the pulpit. Free speech means free speech.

Lynn's organization of leftist anti-Christian bigots never mentions Wright, or the thousands of leftie preachers who brazenly organize Democrat Party politics from their churches. 

A fine documentary on Communism and its intimate relationship to Nazism

At The People's Cube.

You're not likely to see the video in the new Common Core curriculum, but it should be required viewing for all high school students.

Che Guevara t-shirt sales would drop off considerably. 

Dear Prudence...

From Dear Prudence, on Slate:

Dear Prudence, 

I am 40 years old and until recently a single father. A little over a year and a half ago, I met a woman who totally changed my perspective on life. I’d never believed in soul mates, but she made me a believer. We could complete each other’s sentences and had the kind of love that I’d never felt for anyone. After six months we bought a house together, merged families, and I proposed. Three months ago my fiancée had a major stroke, lost all function on one side of her body, lost her speech, and is disabled. She will likely never return to work or the life she had. She can now walk some and has regained some speech, but it is limited. Her arm still has no function. This has created a future that I had not envisioned nor signed up for. Every day is a reminder of what once was, and so is a constant source of hurt and pain. I am committed for at least a year, which is how long I knew her before her stroke, to assist her in regaining as normal a life as possible. But I cannot envision going through the rest of my life like this. I know she will be devastated if I leave, but I will be devastated if I stay. Additionally, I do not think it fair to my own child, who has a limited number of years remaining at home. This is a tragedy no matter what choice is made. I welcome your thoughts.

—Life Changes in a Minute

Prudence was easy on the guy, taking the "who's to judge" perspective. 

:-/

What can I say. Every once in a while, you hear something that so clearly confirms Original Sin-- something that so clearly shows a deep evil in the human soul-- that it takes your breath away.

May God help the poor woman, and may He forgive (and change the heart of) the guy who wants to dump her. 

"Possible 'Cure' for Down Syndrome Seems So Wrong"

There have been reports of a treatment for Down's syndrome in mice that seems to reverse some of the cognitive disabilities.

Mary Fischer comments:

In what is no doubt very interesting news, a new scientific breakthrough has found a molecule to "reverse" the effects of Down syndrome in mice. 

The mice involved in the research were genetically altered to mimic the characteristics of Down syndrome, and when they were born, they were given injections of the molecule, called sonic hedgehog pathway agonist. It urges on a gene that generates a protein shown to normalize the growth of the cerebellum -- a part of the brain that is typically 60 percent of its normal size in people who have Down syndrome. 

The injections were also shown to improve memory and learning, which are controlled by thehippocampus. 

And while there are no plans to attempt this sort of treatment on human newborns -- it does raise the question of whether or not parents would want the injections for their babies if it ever did become an option. 

After thinking long and hard about what I would do if I had a baby with Down syndrome and there was the option of trying to reverse it -- the decision suddenly became crystal clear. I'm just not sure I could bring myself to do it -- unless I knew 100 percent that there were absolutely no risks involved -- and that I wasn't necessarily "changing" who my baby was by allowing the treatment. 

Here's the thing -- I'm an "everything happens for a reason and things are meant to be" type of person. And when it comes to babies, I firmly believe that you get the child you are supposed to have -- and you love that baby unconditionally no matter what.

She raises very real ethical questions: what are the ethical limits to human "improvement"? Should we give short people growth hormone? Should we cure disorders like Down syndrome that impair intellectual function? Is Down's syndrome really a disorder, and not merely a difference?

It's a valid and important question, and shouldn't be passed off as ridiculous.

But I would answer that we should cure a baby with Down's syndrome, as long as the treatment was reasonably safe and the likelihood of effectiveness substantial. Cognitive impairment is a real disability, and does cause people with Down's syndrome real problems in life. There are also physical disabilities associated with Down's (heart problems, propensity to certain kinds of cancer) that could be prevented.

From a Christian perspective, it's worth noting that the Lord seemed to have no fondness for disease or disability-- He healed continuously, with mercy and with passion. With each healing, He seemed to say: "I will not let evil do this to My children".

If Down's syndrome can be healed, it should be. What is never ethical is to kill the person with the disease, and equate it with healing. 

A prayer covered with a tarp is a statement of atheist belief

A New York Times editorial, with my commentary:

EDITORIAL

A Brave Stand in Rhode Island

Published: January 31, 2012

Jessica Ahlquist, an 11th grader at Cranston High School West in Rhode Island, has endured verbal abuse because, as an atheist, she objected to the “School Prayer” that has been on the school’s auditorium wall since 1963.

Her friends, classmates, and neighbors endured legal abuse and have been denied their Constitutional right to free exercise of religion. A flawed and irrational federal court order based on transparent bigotry is also a denial of due process of law.

"Verbal abuse"-- free speech on the part of the justifiably angry citizens of Cranston-- is actually a legal right.

It is now covered with a tarp after Judge Ronald Lagueux of Federal District Court in Providence properlyruled last month that displaying it violated the First Amendment’s prohibition against “establishment of religion.”

A tarp covering a prayer is, in this Orwellian farce, the result of "enforcement" of the First Amendment, which is our charter of freedom.

The anger and hatred directed at Ms. Ahlquist — she was called “an evil little thing” on talk radio by a Cranston state representative — helps explain why the judge, responding to her brave lawsuit, did his duty under the Constitution and ordered immediate removal of the prayer, which begins “Our Heavenly Father” and concludes “Amen” and was visible throughout the auditorium.

The Times dissembles. "Our Heavenly Father" and "Amen" were virtually the only religious words on the mural (it also said "a prayer"). The other eighty or so words were exhortations to good citizenship. That fact alone complied with the second prong of the Lemon Test, which requires that an government act (which the mural is, marginally) not have an advancement of religion as its primary purpose.

The primary purpose of the mural was to encourage good citizenship, and the banal few religious words of the "prayer" obviously didn't advance religion in any meaningful way.

The judge's bigoted ruling obviously advances mandatory civic atheism, in a way only a federal court order can.

Dozens of speakers at school committee meetings agreed it is a Christian prayer. As Judge Lagueux wrote, “The guiding principle of Establishment Clause jurisprudence has been government neutrality,”

Bullshit. The Establishment clause nowhere states that "neutrality" is required, and no sane interpretation of the clause concludes that. Religious expression of a very un-neutral sort has characterized our civic discourse for two centuries. Our civic arena-- public buildings, national monuments, national cemeteries, military missions, and civic documents-- are saturated with religious expression that is not the least bit neutral.

No where does the Constitution require that American civic life be a Unitarian Church soiree.

and the prayer fails all tests of neutrality set by the Supreme Court.

The prayer is utterly banal. It is as neutral as it could be and still be a prayer.

It was “clearly religious in nature” when installed.

There is no Constitutional prohibition on installing a religious statement in a government building. If there were, no building on the National Mall would be open.

The prayer mural is much less "religious in nature" than Lincoln's Second Inaugural, which is etched in huge letters across the north wall of the Lincoln Memorial.

While the school committee’s 4-to-3 vote last March to keep it was based partly on its importance to the school’s “history and tradition,” “no amount” of either “can cure a constitutional infraction,” the judge wrote. 

It's not a Constitutional infraction. The judge's ruling-- a piece of raw anti-Christian bigotry that is a government act that has the primary purpose of inhibiting religion--  is a Constitutional infraction.

The judge's ruling should be covered with a tarp.

Recent meetings in Cranston about the prayer involved the kind of “excessive entanglement with religion” the court has warned against, with prayer backers reading from the Bible.

We have a right to do that. Basing a judicial ruling on our public expression of our religious belief is raw bigotry.

The meetings showed why what believers consider a harmless request to respect a prayer can feel like coercion to nonbelievers.

No one asked Jessica to "respect" the prayer mural. She was asked to ignore it, if she didn't like it.

There was no compulsion of any sort involved, until Jessica called the police.

As Ms. Ahlquist explained to The Times about her response to the prayer: “It seemed like it was saying, every time I saw it, ‘You don’t belong here.’ ”

Now the prayer mural is talking to Jessica.

The kindness, friendship and other values the prayer champions are universal, but a statement of religious belief has no place in a public high school auditorium.

"You don't belong here"-- a precis of the judge's opinion-- is a finger in the chest of Christians in the school and in the community. The ruling is mere bigotry, guised as a court ruling. It is a bald assertion of mandatory civic atheism, enforced by government power, a plainly unconstitutional violation of the rights of the people of Cranston, Rhode Island.

A tarp over a prayer, or a fresh empty spot on a wall, is a government-enforced "statement of religious belief". 

Censorship is atheism's immune system

The irony of intolerant atheists is remarkable. They proudly declare their open-mindedness, and in the same breath they work feverishly to extinguish by force every mention of God from civic life.

When we lack recourse to a Creator, rights become mere assertions of power. Those who have power do what they want to do-- and call it a "right". Without transcendence there are no rights, because without transcendence there can be no objective moral truths-- no rights-- at all.

Atheism cannot withstand reasoned examination. The assertion that everything came from nothing, without reason and without moral law, isn't defensible in rational discourse, so forced silent assent is necessary for atheism to hold sway over culture. Censorship is in the marrow of the godless. There are to be no questions that might lead to a Source for existence or to objective moral truth.

Atheists can't really use reason, in any coherent way. Reasoning itself depends on objective truth, a concept denied by atheist dogma. Reasoned discourse is anathema to atheists, because a world without purpose is a world without reason.

Censorship is the core manifestation of atheism-- all of atheism's power depends on making atheism immune to questions. 

The not-so-hidden racism of Progressives

Interesting essay about the occult racist motives for Progressive political positions:

Progressive Racism: The Hidden Motive Driving Modern Politics

Quite plausible. I've noted that a common tactic of Progressives-- actually the core tactic of Progressives-- is to accuse their opponents of doing exactly what they're doing. Projection is what Freud called it. It's an effective tactic, because it puts conservatives on the defensive and it seems the best conservatives can do is say "it's really you who do/think that, not us".

Perhaps the clearest evidence for Progressive racism is:

1) Progressivism has always been racist-- Jim Crow and segregation were archetypal Progressive social programs. The second iteration of the Ku Klux Klan had extensive links to Progressivism, and the first Democrat Progressive President (Woodrow Wilson) was a seething racist who re-segregated the federal government after Republicans had desegregated it for generations.

2) Progressives show an astonishing lack of concern about the real world harm their policies do to black people. Note the lack of concern about the catastrophic effect Progressive government has on crime-and-corruption-infested cities like Detroit, Chicago, New Orleans, etc. has on actual (not just theoretical) black people. Progressives whine about "racist dog-whistles" yet they impose corrupt incompetent government on blacks and cause more misery among black Americans in any city block in Detroit than "racist" Republicans have "caused" black misery in the entire country.

Who hurt black people more: the corrupt mayors of Chicago and Detroit and Washington D.C., or Ronald Reagan?

There is a curious lack of interest among Progressives about improving the lives of black people who live under their governance. The Trayvon Martin circus was a fine example. The people who govern Democrat-Progressive municipal war zones in which young black men are slaughtered on a daily basis got the vapors about a self-defense shooting of a black man by a hispanic guy in Florida, blaming it on "white racism".

Why isn't the half-century black murder epidemic in Democrat-Progressive cities "white racism"?

A logical place to start in protecting and improving the lives of black people would be in the violent slums owned and governed by Progressive Democrats. Don't hold your breath. When you remember the history of Democrats/Progressives-- slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, the KKK-- it's not surprising that black folks still suffer under their policies.