“Sometimes the only purpose of your life is to serve as a warning to others.”

Louis Woodhill on Detroit:

[T]he big lie that drove Detroit into bankruptcy is liberalism itself. 

The great strength of liberalism is that it attempts to address the real problems of ordinary people. The great weakness of liberalism is that its “solutions” are based upon lies, double standards, and wishful thinking. 

The main reason that, in Detroit, per capita income is so low and crime rates are so high is that more and more of Detroit’s remaining population consists of members of America’s urban underclass. Most of the people fleeing Detroit have been productive, taxpaying citizens. 

Liberal programs created America’s urban underclass, and they perpetuate it by encouraging and sustaining a breathtaking progressive social innovation called the “zero parent family.” 

In a zero parent family, there is no one that has demonstrated, by fully meeting adult responsibilities (including paying his or her own way in the world), that he or she is a functioning adult. 

Progressives favor using taxpayer money to incentivize children to have children, and then using more taxpayer money to sustain the zero parent family units that get created. In this way, old-fashioned, married, functioning adult fathers and mothers get replaced by welfare programs and occasional visits from government social workers. 

To believe in 1960 that people would ignore government incentives to form zero parent families was wishful thinking. To assert the same thing in 2013 is a lie. 

Liberals believe that government spending matters, and that the incentives facing private sector decision makers do not matter. Present day Detroit is a monument to the folly of this progressive position. 

Should Detroit be bailed out? No. Like Greece, Detroit actually can’t be bailed out, because its economy is shrinking. A money-losing enterprise with declining revenues can’t support any debt at all. 

Detroit’s productive citizens have been running for the hills (in this case, Bloomfield Hills), and they have been taking Detroit’s tax base with them. If this exodus is not stopped, nothing else will make any difference. 

Detroit should do now what Greece should have done in 2009: suspend debt payments, and cut taxes and regulations to restore economic growth. In addition, Detroit must at the same time (somehow) cut its crime rate by about 80% and turn around its failed schools.
Is it likely that all of these things will happen? No. The most likely outcome is that Detroit will continue to sink into the liberal/progressive dystopian ooze, while its remaining productive citizens take their human and financial capital and flee. 

There is a great “Demotivators” poster whose caption is, “Sometimes the only purpose of your life is to serve as a warning to others.” With Detroit serving as a shining example of the end result of liberal/progressive policies, we have definitely been warned.

The problem with liberalism is that it is not self-limiting. Liberalism creates crime, social disintegration, and moral chaos.

Crime, social disintegration, and moral chaos provide the pretext for more liberalism.

Ralph Cloward and Frances Fox Piven understood.

Liberalism crushes civilization, and then uses the debris as fuel.

"Who am I to judge him?"

Pope Francis on homosexuality:

"If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge him? 

"The problem is not having this orientation. We must be brothers. The problem is lobbying by this orientation, or lobbies of greedy people, political lobbies, Masonic lobbies, so many lobbies. This is the worst problem."

Precisely. A person who is a sinner (like each of us) and who seeks God and who has good will should not be judged by any of us. The sin itself can be judged, but with discretion and compassion, and with the recognition that all sins-- ours and others'-- are subject to judgement, by God and by men.

People, on the other hand, are created in God's image and should not be judged by men. For gay people who seek God and have good will, the Holy Father says we should temper and even withhold our criticism, as we would hope others would do for us, while the Lord transforms souls.

That does not mean we condone sin. It means that we refrain from creating scandal about others, while they are working out their liberation from sin through Christ.

The Holy Father adds a crucial proviso: the problem is not our brothers and sisters who are gay. The problem is lobbying by radicals who are gay, why work to twist our society and deny natural law and drive Christians from the public square. These ideas and acts are to be opposed with vigor.

Love of sinners, and hatred of sin, is basic Catholic doctrine, and what the Pope is saying is nothing new.

But he says it beautifully, with compassion and gentle candor, which seems to be his way. 

The truth about the release of the Lockerbie killer

Several of the Syracuse University students murdered
in the Lockerbie bombing. 

From the Telegraph:

Lockerbie bomber release linked to arms deal, according to secret letter

An email sent by the then British ambassador in Tripoli details how a prisoner transfer agreement would be signed once Libya “fulfils its promise” to buy an air defence system.

The disclosure is embarrassing for members of the then Labour government, which always insisted that Abdelbaset al-Megrahi’s release was not linked to commercial deals.

The email, which contained a briefing on the UK’s relations with Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s regime, was sent on June 8 2008 by Sir Vincent Fean, the then UK ambassador, to Tony Blair’s private office, ahead of a visit soon after he stepped down as prime minister.

Mr Blair flew to Tripoli to meet Gaddafi on June 10, in a private jet provided by the dictator, one of at least six visits Mr Blair made to Libya after quitting Downing Street.

The briefing, which runs to 1,300 words, contains revealing details about how keen Britain was to do deals with Gaddafi. It also suggests that: 

Þ the UK made it a key objective for Libya to invest its £80 billion sovereign wealth fund through the City of London 

Þ the UK was privately critical of then President George Bush for “shooting the US in the foot” by continuing to put a block on Libyan assets in America, in the process scuppering business deals 

Þ the Department for International Development was eager to use another Libyan fund worth £130 million to pay for schemes in Sierra Leone and other poverty-stricken countries.

Please read the whole thing.

The Lockerbie bomber-- and his Libyan employers-- murdered 270 people-- including 189 Americans, including 35 kids from Syracuse University returning home for Christmas.

It was always obvious that the fix was in when Al-Megrahi was released. The only question was: what fix?

We probably know now. The Brit Labor government, most prominently Tony Blair, along with his wealthy buddies, cut a deal to let the murderer of several hundred innocents go free for some pretty cash.

The U.S. should prosecute these vermin, including Blair.

Except our government is run by gangsters, too.

Why does the theist have the burden of proof?

From James Chastek at Just Thomism:

Why is it that if we are unsure whether God exists or not we tend to think we don’t need to worship him?... Hopefully, we don’t try to defend our link between agnosticism and practical atheism on the flimsy premise that the positive claim has the burden of proof. Even if arguments came with proof burdens a priori (they don’t), the claim that the positive one always has the proof burden would allow us to shoot bullets into a place so long as we didn’t know if there were any persons inside.

I like the analogy. If we assume that the positive assertion necessarily has the burden of proof, we can shoot into any building in which we do not see people, or drive at 90 miles per hour through our neighborhood, as long as we see no one in the street.

On what basis do atheists claim that the positive claim--theism-- has the burden of proof?

There is of course nothing about the theist-atheist debate that requires that. The view that the universe came from nothing is no more fundamental and no less in need of justification than the view that the universe came from  something. I would suggest that the-universe-came-from-nothing is in more need of justification than the-universe-came-from-something, especially if one understands "something" to be supernatural.

The assertion that "the universe came from nothing" is a logical error. "From nothing" is illogical. "Nothing" is not an agent nor a place, so it is impossible that something can come from it.

The assertion that "the universe came from something" is in need of explication (e.g. the Five Ways), but contains no error.

There is no justification for exempting atheists from burden of proof. The standard in the theist-atheist debate should be inference to best explanation and deductive proof based on obvious premises.

Russell's "teapot orbiting the sun" argument makes the theist, not the atheist, point. The burden of proof in the argument on whether "there's a teapot orbiting the sun" is on the man who argues that there is such a teapot, because experience argues against it and it is illogical to argue that the teapot would appear in orbit uncaused. In just the same manner, the argument that the universe came from nothing has the burden of proof, because experience argues against things coming from nothing, and "from nothing" isn't even a coherent concept.

There is no justification for the atheist assertion that atheism is the default belief, only to be rejected if incontrovertible "evidence" for theism is demonstrated.

Universe-from-nothing is not even coherent, let alone a default. 

"Will you sign this petition to legalize fourth trimester abortions?"

From Campus Reform:

Several students at George Mason University (GMU) signed a petition on Wednesday demanding lawmakers legalize “fourth trimester” abortions. 

The petition, which was circulated on GMU’s flagship campus in Fairfax, VA., just outside Washington D.C., by Media Research Center reporter Dan Joseph said it was aimed at sending “a message to our lawmakers that women have the right to choose what to do with their bodies and babies” even “after their pregnancies.” 

“If you don’t know what fourth trimester is, it’s after the baby is already born,” Joseph added in a video showing him collect the signatures.

Remember: this is a college campus. These folks are the smart liberals.

A good start.

Planned Parenthood Closing Down 3 Abortion Clinics Following New Texas Law

Just days after laws were passed to protect children and mothers, the crematoriums are shuttering.

Thank the Lord.

More please, faster...

Correction

In my previous post, I asserted that Renee Vaughan had overtly pretended to be a pro-Zimmerman demonstrator when she carried a sign proclaiming "Racist and Proud!".

As best I can tell, I was wrong. It seems that she did make it clear to some participants in the demonstration at the time that she was mocking the pro-Zimmerman protesters, but wasn't claiming to be one of them.

Nonetheless, the news media repeatedly portrayed her as pro-Zimmerman.

She has apologized, although many news outlets have not corrected their false stories.

It seems likely to me that Vaughan knew that misleading photos of her would appear in the press, which has been very eager to inflame racial hatred. In fact, Ms. Vaughan was inflaming racial hatred herself.

I retract my assertion that she overtly pretended to be a pro-Zimmerman demonstrator. What is likely is that she knew that her photo would be used by the press to smear Zimmerman supporters, but she did not explicitly claim to be one.

Which would increase her moral culpability, by using craft to accomplish evil while leaving herself plausible deniability.

Thanks to commentors who pointed out the mistake in my post.  

The face of the Left

Ann Althouse:

I could tell she was a lefty from the way she wrote the ampersand. 

Here's a woman at a pro-Zimmerman rally, giving the pro-Zimms bad PR... 

Was anyone fooled by that? I hope not, but Renee Vaughan — an Austin activist —is getting reamed for her evil prank. Instapundit says: 

Her name is Renee Vaughan. Her employer, the Texas Campaign For The Environment, has also apologized. Nonetheless, I hope the picture of her standing with a sign reading "We’re Racist And Proud" winds up being tagged to both....It's a harsh consequence to become — for all time, on the web — Renee "Racist and Proud" Vaughan. She's apologized — sorry she got busted. You know how apologies are. But I doubt that she'd be sorry if her trick had worked and amplified the legend of the racism of Zimmerman and his defenders. 

It's entirely fitting that her name should be forever linked to the motto "Racist and Proud," because that isn't a lie. It's true. It is racist to press the racism template onto the Zimmerman story, and it is done with full intent to stimulate feelings of race-based anxiety in vulnerable minds. That is heartless and evil.

This woman is a far-Left loon who pretended to be a Zimmerman supporter at a rally. She made the sign to make people think that the pro-Zimmerman folks at the rally were racists.

She was widely identified by the press as "a George Zimmerman supporter".

This is the Left. Remember this when some leftie asshole complains about "racist" anonymous commentors, racist demonstrators, racist catcalls, etc. It is certainly possible that much of the "racism" they bleat about is fabricated by them. These people lie like they breathe. They have no qualms about lying about people who don't share their vile opinions, and no qualms about stirring up racial hatred to gain dishonest polemical ground.

Have no illusions about these people. They are utterly amoral. They are also rather clever. It's amazing what clever stratagems you can concoct whey you're unencumbered by integrity.

Jerry Coyne collaborates with Holocaust deniers

Ohio billboard put up by the Freedom From Religion Foundation,
which now demands the removal of the Star of David
from the Ohio Holocaust museum.

Atheist Jerry Coyne has called in the Freedom From Religion Foundation in his personal crusade against a Christian astronomy professor at Ball State University who teaches a course on the philosophical implications of modern science.

The Freedom from Religion Foundation is a militant anti-religious hate group that specializes in dragging Christians into court in order to silence them.

The FFRF now demands that the State of Ohio remove Stars of David from its planned Holocaust memorial.

The Star of David is a symbol of enormous historical and spiritual salience for Jews. It is supremely relevant to the Holocaust-- a religious symbol cherished by the Jewish people under oppression and a patch that Nazis required Jews to wear.

To ban the Star of David from a Holocaust memorial is to deny a very real part-- in many ways the core-- of the Holocaust.

The term "Holocaust denial" should be used cautiously, but the FFRF's demand that the Star of David be banned from a Holocaust museum is clearly a form of Holocaust denial. A demand that the government remove the Star of David is a demand that an important part of the truth about the Holocaust be concealed. That is genuine Holocaust denial-- not the denial that the Holocaust occurred, of course, but the denial of an essential symbol of the Jewish experience of the Holocaust.

Jerry Coyne is now collaborating with an organization that is actively engaged in Holocaust denial.

No surprise there. It is important for the haters of religion like Coyne to deny the anti-religious factors at work in genocidal anti-Semitism, just as he denies his own barely-disguised hatred of Christians.

Coyne recently compared people who support academic freedom and college courses that examine the philosophy of science from perspectives that include theism with Holocaust deniers:

Prominent Professor: teaching creationism is like Holocaust denial

Yet to deny the academic freedom of professors and students to discuss theistic understandings of science, Coyne enlists actual Holocaust deniers.

Don't you love the irony? 

Pope Francis in Brazil

The Holy Father has arrived in Brazil for a week-long pilgrimage and celebration of World Youth Day.  It's beautiful to see the huge crowds and so many people hungry for Christ. The Pope will visit a little chapel in a Brazilian slum and will preside over Mass at Copacabana beach with a million people.

May God bless and protect him and make his visit fruitful in the Holy Spirit. 

It's a Boy!

Congratulations to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on the birth of their son! The little guy-- 8 pounds 6 ounces-- is third in line for the throne.

They haven't named him yet, but "Michael" has a nice ring.

And congratulations to all of our friends in England and the Commonwealth. This is a special baby born in a great nation with a venerable monarchy that dates back over a thousand years. He's a blessing, like every baby, and should be welcomed with joy. 

Atheists demand removal of Star of David from Holocaust memorial

From Breitbart:

ATHEIST GROUP SEEKS TO BLOCK STAR OF DAVID ON HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL

An atheist activist organization wants a proposed Ohio statehouse Holocaust memorial to remove the Star of David symbol, which, the group claims, is an “exclusionary” religious symbol. 

According to The Columbus Dispatch, the non-profit Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), known for its activism concerning church-state separation, claimed that the inclusion of the Judaic symbol is a breach of the U.S. Constitution...

Just in case you were beginning to forget that atheists are despicable assholes. 

"Do me a favor, and look at Detroit"

Pastor Douglas Wilson has a message for Christians who substitute leftist nostrums for Christian charity, prudence, justice, temperance and fortitude:

The government does not make, and in order to have, must therefore take. Here are the basic ways in which such a taking can happen. The government can wage war on other countries, and take from them. The government can raise taxes, and take that way. The government can debase the currency, and take that way. The government can run up a big debt which it finds itself unable to pay, and take that way. And of course, given the realities of the ongoing political circus, the government can stagger between these options, like a drunk trying to make it to the next lamp post... 

... I would like to address a few words to those evangelicals who have been seduced by leftist economics, or who are in some way flirting with leftist economics. You may have cannonballed into the deep end, like Jim Wallis, or you may just be sidling sheepishly in that direction, with some cover provided by distributist literature. You think that the language of compassion is more biblical, and the idea of communitarian sharing makes you feel warm all over. You think that businessmen who know how to add and subtract are those who are in the grip of mammon-lust. You don’t like the hard lines of clear thinking, and the blinking sums on their calculators do nothing but harsh your mellow. 

Do me a favor, and look at Detroit. Look at the failure of all the compassionate nostrums. Look at the collapse of real integrity. Look at the grasping and demented idiocy of the unions. Look at the abandonment of government’s true functions. Look at the wreckage of human lives. Look at the ruin of a once great city. Look at what aching greedlust does. Behold the handiwork of your compassion.

The Gospel is not a government program. Real Christian charity is directed at what people need, not what people want. In America, people don't need big government and very few people need government checks in the mail. People need God (Who is increasingly banned from our public square), intact families, real jobs, safe communities, and they need to keep much more of their hard-earned wages so they can care for their own families and can help others through private charity. 

People don't need leftist public policy-- big government redistributionism-- which has been profoundly destructive of life in America. It has bred family destruction, greed, envy, corruption, and crime. 

Detroit is leftism, which is a Christian heresy, incarnated as a city. 

Barack Obama: If I had a city, it would look like Detroit

Steven Crowder:



Fifty years of pure Democrat/union governance bears fruit. 

Democrats losing another key demographic

The UK Church of Satan follows up on its tweet disavowing pro-abortion advocates in Texas:

"Why wouldn't Satanism be pro-life? What else is there? We are all free to make choices. Agreeable or not. Everyone is entitled to choice." — UK Church of Satan (@UKChurchofSatan)

A bit confused, but it's Satanists.

Tim Stanley:

Even devil worshippers want nothing to do with the abortion lobby – even people who sacrifice chickens to the moon goddess and dream of eternal damnation with the Lord of Flies find abortion ethically distasteful. Time for Nancy Pelosi to rethink her stance on the issue. Otherwise, she’s at risk of losing a key demographic in 2014…

Heh.

Democrats had better be careful. Without Satanists in the blue column, elections in San Francisco might be pretty close... 

This must be Democrat history month.

In case you forgot, Michael Barone reminds us:

MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, who seems like a nice person, got caught making a huge historical mistake; he said George Wallace, the Alabama Governor who defied a desegregation order 50 years ago, was a Republican. Nope. He was a Democrat and ran in the Democratic presidential primaries in 1964, 1972 and 1976; he also ran for president as a third party candidate in 1968. Hayes either didn’t know that–surprisingly for a political commentator–or temporarily and perhaps conveniently forgot it. Or maybe he just figures that all political villains are Republicans. In any case he apologized for what he, appropriately, called a "stupid, inexcusable, historically illiterate mistake."

Here’s another fact he and others may want to keep in mind as we remember the climactic events of the civil rights movement 50 years ago: Bull Connor, the Birmingham police commissioner who turned fire hoses and police dogs on peaceful civil rights demonstrators, was a Democrat too. In fact, he was Democratic National Committeeman from Alabama, at a time when each state and territory had just one male and one female member on the Democratic National Committee. 

One more reminder: President John Kennedy’s endorsement 50 years ago this month of what became the Civil Rights Act of 1964 came in the third year of his presidency, in response to events in Birmingham and elsewhere; previously he had been reluctant to raise the issue for fear he would antagonize Southern Democratic officeholders and voters. Some on the left evidently want to depict the civil rights battle as a struggle between benificent Democrats and evil Republicans. It was no such thing.

There was a "switch" of the parties following the 1960's on race. It wasn't a switch on policy, it was a switch on history. The Democrats, who for two centuries had been racists or who had eagerly collaborated with racists to hold power, went all out to portray Republicans as racially bigoted, and themselves as eternally racially enlightened. The memory hole got a lot of use in the late 20th century.

Of course, basic party ideology actually changed very little. Republicans remained the party of color-blind policy. They refused to pander to racial favoritism or racial hate. Republican policy has always been equality under law, regardless of race. 

Democrats, newly in black-face, remained the party of race-baiting. They continued to use race to gain political advantage. By the 1960's they understood that their centuries of slavery and Jim Crow were no longer useful to them, so they baited a different race, promising favors and distributing dependence, all in exchange for votes. Their policies, on display in America's great cities, reduced blacks to penury, family disintegration and endemic crime. But their policies produced a reliable black voting block, which replaced their reliable bigot voting block that was disintegrating because of Republican victories on civil rights.

Black families had withstood Democrat slavery, segregation and lynching. The black family did not survive Democrat dependency.

The cost of Democrat vote-buying to black Americans was the decimation of black families and neighborhoods that made the innumerable Klansmen who still carried their Democratic Party I.D. cards quite satisfied, deep in their Progressive hearts.

When Harry Truman courageously tried to dismantle segregation, Republicans were his allies and Democrats were his foes. While Barry Goldwater was founding the Arizona NAACP and Dwight Eisenhower was passing the first civil rights act (in 1957) since Reconstruction, Democrat majorities were fighting against desegregation and against voting rights and even against federal anti-lynching laws:

Congressman Lyndon B. Johnson:

"[Truman's civil rights program is] a farce and a sham -- an effort to set up a police state in the guise of liberty." He continued: "I am opposed to that program. I have voted against the so-called poll tax repeal bill. ... I have voted against the so-called anti-lynching bill."

Senator Lyndon B. Johnson:

“These Negroes, they’re getting pretty uppity these days and that’s a problem for us since they’ve got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we’ve got to do something about this, we’ve got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference.”

Meanwhile Senator John F. Kennedy was establishing his presidential bona fides with southern Democrats by voting against Eisenhower's civil rights bill.

After President Kennedy's assassination, Democrats enacted Great Society programs that deepened black dependency on government and replaced black fathers with government checks:

President Lyndon B. Johnson:

“I’ll have those niggers voting Democratic for the next 200 years." 

The racial struggle in America is not between those who love black people and those who hate black people, nor between those who love white people and those who hate white people. It is between those who work for a color-blind society on one side, and on the other side those who work for a society in which skin color is the coin of the realm and racial hate and fear are the down-payment on political power.

Our Girardian carnival

I've written before about Rene Girard, a Catholic literary scholar, cultural anthropologist and philosopher who is in my view the seminal cultural thinker of the past couple of centuries.

Girard's theory of man-- Mimetic Theory-- has much to tell us about the tempest over the killing of Trayvon Martin and about the agitators and politicians who are manipulating it.

If you are not familiar with Mimetic Theory, I give a synopsis at the linked post.

In the black community, as in much of America in these hard times, there is much turmoil. There is resentment, bitterness, envy, anger. Such ferment gives rise to mimetic contagion-- an irrational war of all against all, usually violent, always destructive.

This periodic turmoil is a normal dynamic in human culture. It characterizes human culture, Girard points out. The natural and common resolution of this fratricide is through the mechanism of scapegoating-- picking out a person or group who is held to blame, or held as a symbol, for all that ails the community. The resolution of the conflict is the uniting of the people against the scapegoat, who is sacrificed or banished by the mob.

Mimetic contagion is spreading rapidly in the black and leftist community. Leftism has long been a hotbed of Girardian conflict. The scapegoat obviously is George Zimmerman. Zimmerman, who is innocent of any crime, is bizarrely held responsible in a not so subtly symbolic way for all of the violence that afflicts black America, which is a lot of violence.

Girard points out that it is Christianity that most effectively defeats mimetic contagion and scapegoating. Mercy, forgiveness, and refusal to take part in mob hate and violence is the antidote to mimetic contagion.

I have noted in an earlier post that Zimmerman's acquittal is an enormous victory for those who are busily escalating this violence. The Obama administration is plainly using Martin's death to stoke hate and fear, for obvious electoral advantage.

Although it's doubtful that Chicago political gangsters like Obama and Holder know anything about Girard's work, they clearly have a powerful intuitive grasp of mimetic conflict, scapegoating, and the political uses for hate and fear.

Obama and Holder understand that it is premature to allow sacrifice of the scapegoat (Zimmerman). It is useful to identify the scapegoat, which they have done at trial, but actually convicting and jailing Zimmerman (sacrificing the scapegoat) would quell violence, which is antithetical to their goal.

The Zimmerman acquittal-- the perpetuation of the hate and violence and scapegoating-- was the goal of the prosecution. Zimmerman's conviction-- the sacrifice of the scapegoat-- would have calmed the violence and hate.

For Democrats, the scapegoating must be redirected in order to be of maximal political use. It is Republicans, not Zimmerman, who must be the scapegoats sacrificed, at the polls.

Democrats will keep the contagious hate and violence going, and use it for political ends. It is their most effective strategy for 2014, and it's working nicely.

It's Girard's world, and the leftist gangsters in Washington and elsewhere who are orchestrating the Trayvon Martin carnival of hate understand it frighteningly well.

Zimmerman prosecutors considered using defendant's telegram in court

[Dissociated Press] Prosecutors for the George Zimmerman murder trial today admitted that they considered using a telegram sent by the defendant as evidence in their ultimately unsuccessful bid to convict the Florida man of murdering Trayvon Martin.

Florida State Attorney Angela Corey (above) told reporters at a press conference today that the crucial piece of evidence was rejected only after careful deliberation.

"We realized that the telegram, in which the defendant tried to incite war between Mexico and the United States, really spoke to the defendant's state of mind, and to the malice of which he was capable" Corey said to a room of stunned journalists. "If he can plan a war, he can certainly kill a black child with malice aforethought."

Prosecutors discussed the introduction of Zimmerman's telegram into evidence with presiding Judge Debra Nelson. "In consultation with the judge, we decided not to use it because we were unsure of the impact that a proposed Mexican-American war would have on the Hispanic vote in the 2014 election." 

That aside, Corey did say that it was a brilliant legal strategy. 

Corey told reporters "The telegram is even more convincing than the other evidence we presented at trial."

The Zimmerman acquittal was a massive victory for the prosecution

Yea. The prosecution won this one, big.

How so?

Consider:

1) The prosecution has behaved bizarrely from a legal standpoint. Why did they bypass the grand jury, and indict without it? After all, a grand jury would be a test run, a way for the prosecution to find what charge-- 2nd degree murder, manslaughter, 3rd degree murder, whatever-- would stick. It would make a lot more sense to have run the question of charging through a grand jury, and get a charge that might be sustainable before a criminal jury. It's almost as if the prosecution didn't want to be successful.

2) The prosecution chose the most serious charge-- 2nd degree murder. Why? Every objective legal analyst has noted that the evidence does not in any way support 2nd degree murder. Even the lesser charges go beyond the evidence, but 2nd degree murder means that Zimmerman pursued Martin with malice aforethought-- he carefully and deliberately planned to kill him. There is no evidence whatsoever to support that allegation, let along enough evidence to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. It's almost as if the prosecution didn't want to be successful.

3) In trial, the prosecution witnesses were catastrophic for the prosecution. They clearly helped the defense case, again and again. One of Zimmerman's attorneys quipped that the defense proved Zimmerman not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The prosecution's case was so weak that the defense took all the initiative.

It's almost as if the prosecution didn't want to be successful.

So let's take seriously the suggestion that the prosecution intentionally lost the case.

Why would they do so?

We conservatives misunderstand the Zimmerman affair. We think of it as a criminal prosecution, gone awry. But I think we're wrong.

The Zimmerman prosecution is a political affair, wholly, and has nothing to do with law.

The Zimmerman case is a perfect political storm for the Obama administration. The 2012 election hinged on voter enthusiasm. Obama had to motivate his base-- blacks and leftists-- and discourage Romney's base-- cultural conservatives and Tea Partiers. The suppression of conservatives and Tea Partiers by the IRS and associated alphabet agencies is a matter of record. And the Zimmerman case enraged and motivated blacks, who voted in 2012 in record numbers and whose turn-out at the polls exceeded that of whites, which is unprecedented.

Why was the Zimmerman case so effective for Democrat political leverage? Democrats needed an issue that enraged and motivated blacks, but just as importantly they needed an issue without cloture. If Democrats chose a cold-blooded deliberate murder of a black man-- the horrendous James Byrd case in Texas is an example-- the outrage would be intense, but short-lived. The perpetrators were caught, promptly tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. In the political calculus of the Washington-Chicago mob, the Byrd case peaked too soon, and left blacks with the reassurance that they could count on the justice system.

The Zimmerman case is perfect Democrat politics. The opportunity for race-baiting is endless. Seventeen year old black kid, incessant TV pictures of Trayvon as a twelve-year old, the fact that Trayvon was genuinely minding his own business before the incident all buttress the victimology necessary to stoke fear and hate. Zimmerman's enthusiasm in following Martin, his 'wanna-be-cop' persona, all played into the race-baiting stereotypes.

It was essential for Democrats that the Zimmerman case not be resolved with a conviction. Zimmerman's acquittal is what makes this case so valuable for Democrats. The outrage among blacks needs to be stoked. And nothing stokes black outrage like Zimmerman walking out of the courtroom, a free man.

So why exactly would the prosecution, which clearly was led from Washington (the Seminole County prosecutors were sock puppets), want to win the case? To calm fears, bring justice, secure civic harmony? Why the hell would they want that? A conviction would placate blacks. Of what political value are happy blacks for Democrats?

For Trayvon Martin's death to continue to be of value to Democrats, the prosecution needed to lose.

There will now be a federal civil rights investigation and civil litigation. More trials, more headlines, more spin about how blacks are victims and get no justice. There will be get-out-the-vote campaigns in black neighborhoods in 2014-- "Do it for Trayvon! Vote!" The race-baiting engine that moves Democrat Party politics needs fuel, and an acquitted Zimmerman, like a fugitive Emmanuel Goldstein and a globe-trotting Trotsky, is political high-test.

Zimmerman's prosecutors-- the real ones in Washington and the tools in Florida-- threw this case. That's why they overcharged and provided the defense with witness after witness. A conviction would have been a political catastrophe for Democrats. They don't want cloture. With a conviction, blacks would have felt that justice had prevailed, and the system worked. Confident hopeful black Americans are an electoral catastrophe for the Democratic Party.

The prosecution won this case, by losing. Deliberately. The trial was not about law. It was politics, by other means. The 21st century now has its Emmett Till and Medgar Evers, although the comparison is not precise: Till and Evers were killed by Democrats, whereas Martin's death is merely exploited by Democrats.

The Zimmerman prosecution's deliberate victory-by-defeat will reverberate through the next several election cycles and will reap millions of Democrat votes.

This is brilliant political theatre. 

San Francisco T.V. station gets pranked on crash pilots' names

It's sick, but I can't stop laughing. Goodness gracious, newscasters are so stupid. 

"Evil talks about tolerance only when it’s weak"

Archbishop Chaput of Philadelphia:

As the historian Gertrude Himmelfarb observed more than a decade ago, “What was once stigmatized as deviant behavior is now tolerated and even sanctioned; what was once regarded as abnormal has been normalized.” But even more importantly, she added, “As deviancy is normalized, so what was once normal becomes deviant. The kind of family that has been regarded for centuries as natural and moral – the ‘bourgeois’ family as it is invidiously called – is now seen as pathological” and exclusionary, concealing the worst forms of psychic and physical oppression. 

My point is this: Evil talks about tolerance only when it’s weak. When it gains the upper hand, its vanity always requires the destruction of the good and the innocent, because the example of good and innocent lives is an ongoing witness against it. So it always has been. So it always will be. And America has no special immunity to becoming an enemy of its own founding beliefs about human freedom, human dignity, the limited power of the state, and the sovereignty of God.

1Peter 4:4

Not guilty

The show trial is over. Thank goodness for the jury system.

The prosecutors should be disbarred. This case was a fraud from the start. The judge was corrupt-- in the tank for the prosecution-- and should be removed from the bench.

There may now be violence (I just called my relatives in Miami and suggested they stay home for a few days).

The blood of anyone killed or injured by rioting now is on the hands of the race-baiting bastards who hijacked this tragic but obvious case of self-defense to stir up race hatred.

A sickening spectacle.

My prayers go out to Trayvon Martin's family, to Mr. Zimmerman and his family, to the defense attorneys who did a superb job and to the jury for their honest and courageous verdict. Let there now be peace, please.

An amusing video on Richard Dawkins' fear of debating William Lane Craig

New Atheists are intellectual frauds.



It seems that Jerry Coyne is hiding behind his mother's skirt as well. He uses legal threats to silence people who disagree with him, but he won't meet them face-to-face to debate.

New Atheists are just frauds and cowards, and bullies. 

The show trial is winding down in Maycomb County

The Zimmerman trial is reaching its final stages. The case is about to go to the jury.

Observations:

Zimmerman is obviously innocent of any crime. He killed Martin in self-defense. Period. Not a shred of credible evidence has been presented by the prosecution that Zimmerman committed any crime whatsoever, let alone second degree murder. Nor has there been any evidence that Zimmerman was motivated in any way by racism.

The evidence shows that only one crime was committed: Martin assaulted Zimmerman. The evidence shows only one instance of racism: Martin referred to Zimmerman as "a crazy-ass cracker".

What is amazing about the case is that the prosecution brought it at all. Now you can see why the prosecutors bypassed a grand jury. A grand jury would never have returned an indictment.

What is extraordinarily disturbing is that it is obvious why this case was brought: there was intense pressure from the federal government to gin up racial strife (the DOJ actually funded some of the racist anti-Zimmerman mobs) in order to motivate blacks in the 2012 election. It worked.

The prosecutors in this case are corrupt, and the judge seems to be corrupt as well. This is a show trial, fabricated for political purposes.

But things like this have happened before in America. Many times. For more than a century bigots railroaded innocent blacks into court. It was done not merely out of racism but out of a desire to advance political agendas, to keep the whites outraged and the blacks frightened.

Show trials have been an instrument of Democrat Party politics since Reconstruction. Harper Lee fictionalized one such show trial in her masterpiece, which is the greatest American novel. She told the truth about race baiting and corruption in our justice system and in our politics and in our hearts.

Tom Robinson is on trial again in Seminole County Florida. Let's hope the outcome is more just, this time. 

The War On Women

Abortion restrictions that are even more draconian than those passed in Texas:

Between 12 and 18 weeks of gestation, the women must discuss the procedure with a social worker. After 18 weeks, permission must be obtained from the... Board of Health and Welfare. 

Abortions must be performed by a licensed medical practitioner and, except in cases of emergency, in a general hospital or other approved healthcare establishment.

When... when... will Sweden stop its war on women?

An interview with Planned Parenthood's Director of Marketing...

"Constitution? What Constitution? My ruling is that
you oughta' snip'em right behind the neck..."

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Roe v. Wade:

CHICAGO (AP) — One of the most liberal members of the U.S.Supreme Court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg could be expected to give a rousing defense of Roe v. Wade in reflecting on the landmark vote 40 years after it established a nationwide right to abortion. 

Instead, Ginsburg told an audience Saturday at the University of Chicago Law School that while she supports a woman's right to choose, she feels the ruling by her predecessors on the court was too sweeping and gave abortion opponents a symbol to target. Ever since, she said, the momentum has been on the other side, with anger over Roe fueling a state-by-state campaign that has placed more restrictions on abortion. 

"That was my concern, that the court had given opponents of access to abortion a target to aim at relentlessly," she told a crowd of students. "... My criticism of Roe is that it seemed to have stopped the momentum that was on the side of change." 

The ruling is also a disappointment to a degree, Ginsburg said, because it was not argued in weighty terms of advancing women's rights. Rather, the Roe opinion, written by Justice Harry Blackmun, centered on the right to privacy and asserted that it extended to a woman's decision on whether to end a pregnancy. 

Four decades later, abortion is one of the most polarizing issues in American life, and anti-abortion activists have pushed legislation at the state level in an effort to scale back the 1973 decision. 

Ginsburg would have rather seen the justices make a narrower decision that struck down only the Texas law that brought the matter before the court. That law allowed abortions only to save a mother's life. 

A more restrained judgment would have sent a message while allowing momentum to build at a time when a number of states were expanding abortion rights, she said. She added that it might also have denied opponents the argument that abortion rights resulted from an undemocratic process in the decision by "unelected old men." 

Ginsburg told the students she prefers what she termed "judicial restraint" and argued that such an approach can be more effective than expansive, aggressive decisions. 

"The court can put its stamp of approval on the side of change and let that change develop in the political process," she said. 

A similar dynamic is playing out over gay marriage and the speculation over how the Supreme Court might act on that issue. 

The court decided in December to take up cases on California's constitutional ban on gay marriage and a federal law that denies to gay Americans who are legally married the favorable tax treatment and a range of health and pension benefits otherwise available to married couples. 

Among the questions now is whether the justices will set a nationwide rule that could lead to the overturning of laws in more than three dozen states that currently do not allow same-sex marriage. Even some supporters of gay marriage fear that a broad ruling could put the court ahead of the nation on a hot-button social issue and provoke a backlash similar to the one that has fueled the anti-abortion movement in the years following Roe. 

The court could also decide to uphold California's ban — an outcome that would not affect the District of Columbia and the 11 states that allow gay marriage. 

Ginsburg did not address the pending gay marriage cases. 

Asked about the continuing challenges to abortion rights, Ginsburg said that in her view Roe's legacy will ultimately hold up. 

"It's not going to matter that much," she said. "Take the worst-case scenario ... suppose the decision were overruled; you would have a number of states that will never go back to the way it was."

If you really think about what she said, you'll spit your coffee.

1) She apparently has no regrets about the killing of 50 million children because of Roe v Wade. Roe was just a bad 'tactic'. It's hasn't made things easier for abortionists. Sniff.

2) Ginsburg's job is not to parse "tactics" in order to hawk abortions. She is a Supreme Court justice, not director of marketing for Planned Parenthood. Her job is to objectively interpret the Constitution and uphold the law.

Note that she made no assertion that Roe was rightly (or wrongly) decided, as a matter of law, which is the only matter that is any of her professional business. Is she admitting that Roe was a Constitutional joke, unfounded in any logic or law? Is she admitting that it was a tactical ruling, albeit imprudent?

What do tactics, rather than law, matter to a Supreme Court justice? If Roe was a Constitutionally sound decision (I know... I know... stay with me...), why is its tactical value of interest to her? Should it have been decided differently for tactical, not legal, reasons?

What does that say about the integrity of the Court's deliberative process, when tactics, not law, are the concern of justices?

The abortion issue before the Supreme Court is whether states have the legal authority under the Constitution to regulate abortion, not whether access to abortion is good or bad or whether guaranteeing or denying that access is wise or foolish. The wisdom and tactics of abortion is a decision for legislators, not justices.

Ginsburg makes my skin crawl. The more you get to know these abortion-mongering bastards, the more amoral and reptilian they seem.

Eugenics 2013

California prison doctors sterilized women to cut welfare costs

California prison doctors sterilized almost 150 women over a four-year period because they didn’t want the state to have to provide welfare funding to any children they might have in the future, one of the top doctors admitted this week. 

California taxpayers spent $147,460 on the procedures between 1997 and 2010. ”Over a 10-year period, that isn’t a huge amount of money,” Dr. James Heinrich, the OB-GYN at Valley State Prison for Women, told the Center for Investigative Reporting, “compared to what you save in welfare paying for these unwanted children – as they procreated more.”
Heinrich’s argument recalls progressive Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who declared “three generations of imbeciles are enough” in the opinion he wrote for the majority inBuck vs Bell (1927), in which the Supreme Court ruled that women could be forcibly sterilized. 

“We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives,” Holmes wrote. “It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the state for these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, in order to prevent our being swamped with incompetence.” 

Unlike Carrie Buck, these women agreed to the sterilizations, but only because they felt pressured by the doctors. ”I figured that’s just what happens in prison – that that’s the best kind of doctor you’re going get,” a former inmate told CIR.The doctors flouted a regulation requiring state approval for each procedure, as the prison medical manager told CIR she signed off on the sterilizations as long as Heinrich “document[ed] it as a medical emergency.”

An egregious violation of human rights and human dignity.  One of the most fundamental of human rights is the right to found a family. These women retain their basic human dignity even in prison, and they retain the right to found a family once they are out of prison.

The sterilization of prisoners, even with "consent", is inherently coercive, and is never moral.

The doctors should lose their licenses, and doctors and administrators involved should be criminally prosecuted and should face civil action.

This reeks of eugenic sterilization in the early 20th century-- California was a hotbed of eugenics and carried out more involuntary sterilizations than any other state. It even has echoes of Nazi abuses.

I hope and pray there is justice here. 

'We're... we're... blowing this gun control opportunity!'

Nicholas Kristof:

How Could We Blow This One?
I just finished a five-month leave from this column, writing a book with my wife, Sheryl WuDunn, and what struck me while away from the daily fray is a paradox that doesn’t seem quite patriotic enough for July Fourth.

But I’ll share it anyway: On security issues, we Americans need a rebalancing. We appear willing to bear any burden, pay any price, to confound the kind of terrorists who shout “Allahu akbar” (“God is great”) and plant bombs, while unwilling to take the slightest step to curb a different kind of terrorism — mundane gun violence in classrooms, cinemas and inner cities that claims 1,200 times as many American lives.

When I began my book leave, it seemed likely that the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut would impel Congress to approve universal background checks for gun purchases. It looked as if we might follow Australia, which responded to a 1996 gun massacre by imposing restrictions that have resulted in not a single mass shooting there since.

Alas, I was naïve. Despite 91 percent support from voters polled in late March and early April, Congress rejected background checks. Political momentum to reduce gun killings has now faded — until the next such slaughter.

Oh, the horror! How could the gungrabbers lose, despite a classroom of dead kids in a gun-free zone in a gungrabber state with gungrabber laws that didn't work?

Why would anybody conclude that a mass shooting in a gun control utopia like Connecticut is evidence against, not for, gun control?

It's a tough loss to take. Logic (gun-free zones make mass shootings easier), evidence (gun control doesn't work) and the #*^# Second Amendment keep getting in the way of moral preening!

So sad.

But keep the faith, Nick. Some of us are quite successfully applying the actual lessons of recent atrocities to passing new laws, quietly and quite effectively.

The difference between us and you, Nicky, is that when we win, we actually save thousands of lives.

Religion of Peace is at it again

30 KILLED IN SCHOOL ATTACK IN NORTHEAST NIGERIA

POTISKUM, Nigeria (AP) -- Islamic militants attacked a boarding school before dawn Saturday, dousing a dormitory in fuel and lighting it ablaze as students slept, survivors said. At least 30 people were killed in the deadliest attack yet on schools in Nigeria's embattled northeast.
Authorities blamed the violence on Boko Haram, a radical group whose name means "Western education is sacrilege." The militants have been behind a series of recent attacks on schools in the region, including one in which gunmen opened fire on children taking exams in a classroom.

"We were sleeping when we heard gunshots. When I woke up, someone was pointing a gun at me," Musa Hassan, 15, told The Associated Press of the assault on Government Secondary School in Mamudo village in Yobe state. 

He put his arm up in defense, and sustained a gunshot that blew off all four fingers on his right hand, the one he uses to write. His life was spared when the militants moved on after shooting him. 

Hassan recalled how the gunmen came armed with jerry cans of fuel that they used to torch the school's administrative block and one of the dormitories. 

"They burned the children alive," he said, the horror showing in his wide eyes.
He and teachers at the morgue said dozens of children from the 1,200-student school escaped into the bush, but have not been seen since. 

On Saturday, at the morgue of Potiskum General Hospital, a few miles from the scene of the attack, parents screamed in anguish as they attempted to identify the victims, many charred beyond recognition. Some parents don't know if their children survived or died.
Farmer Malam Abdullahi found the bodies of two of his sons, a 10-year-old shot in the back as he apparently tried to run away, and a 12-year-old shot in the chest. 

"The gunmen are attacking schools and there is no protection for students despite all the soldiers," he said as he wept over the two corpses. He said he is withdrawing his three remaining sons from another school. 

By Saturday afternoon, thousands` of students had fled several boarding schools around Potiskum, leaving deserted campuses in fear of more attacks. 

Former colonizer Britain condemned the "senseless atrocity," with Mark Simmonds, Minister for Africa, promising his country "will do what it can to help Nigeria tackle terrorism." 

Islamic militants from Boko Haram and breakaway groups have killed more than 1,600 civilians in suicide bombings and other attacks since 2010, according to an Associated Press count. 

President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency May 14 and deployed thousands of troops to halt the insurgency, acknowledging that militants had taken control of some towns and villages. 

Saturday's attack killed 29 students and English teacher Mohammed Musa, who was shot in the chest, according to another teacher, Ibrahim Abdu. Police officers who arrived after the gunmen left and transported the bodies to the hospital confirmed at least 30 people were killed. 

Boko Haram, whose stronghold is 230 kilometers (about 145 miles) away in Maiduguri city, capital of neighboring Borno state, has been behind scores of attacks on schools in the past year. 

On Thursday, gunmen went to the home of a primary school headmaster and gunned down his entire family. Witnesses said they attacked at 7 a.m. as the owner of the private Godiya Nursery and Primary School was preparing to leave his home in the town of Biu, about 180 kilometers (110 miles) from Maiduguri. 

Resident Anjikwi Bala told the AP that Hassan Godiya, his wife and four children all were killed. He said the assassins, suspected Boko Haram fighters, got away. 

People from Yobe state this week appealed for the military to restore cell phone service in the area under a state of emergency, saying it could have helped avert a June 16 attack on a school that the military said killed seven students, two teachers, two soldiers and two extremists in Damaturu, capital of Yobe state.

Looks like rampant Islamophobia is really taking its toll on these peaceful Muslims, and they have no choice but to act out.

Christians should be ashamed of themselves for causing all of this.

I wonder, by the way, what religion the victims were. The press is strangely silent on that.  

Pope Francis' first encyclical

Lumen Fidei:

The Pope notes that the family, not the individual, is the fundamental unit of human society, the...

“... first setting in which faith enlightens the human city.”

“I think first and foremost of the stable union of man and woman in marriage. This union is born of their love, as a sign and presence of God’s own love, and of the acknowledgment and acceptance of the goodness of sexual differentiation, whereby spouses can become one flesh (cf. Gen 2:24) and are enabled to give birth to a new life, a manifestation of the Creator’s goodness, wisdom and loving plan.

“Grounded in this love, a man and a woman can promise each other mutual love in a gesture which engages their entire lives and mirrors many features of faith. Faith also helps us to grasp in all its depth and richness the begetting of children, as a sign of the love of the Creator who entrusts us with the mystery of a new person.”

Marriage is a sacrament. It is a reflection of God's interior life, His love, a gift to us. It is the eternal love between a man and a woman, open to new life.

Marriage is prior to man, prior to society, prior to government.

We need more of this truth.

Gay tolerance

A gay Pridefest mob attacks two nonviolent street preachers in Seattle:



KOMO News:

SEATTLE -- A protester holding a sign reading "Repent or Else" was attacked by a group of people following a loud argument during Pridefest Sunday, according to the Seattle Police Department. 

Bicycle officers heard a loud debate between two groups of people near Fourth Avenue North and Broad Street but continued on their way.

According to video shot by a witness, after officers leave the crowd continues to yell at and shove two religious protesters, one of whom is holding a sign that reads "Repent or Else" and "Jesus Saves from Sin." 

At one point, the video shows a 36-year-old Marysville man taking off his shirt and threatening the sign-holding protester. The man eventually starts leaving, saying, "Cops are coming; let's roll." 

After a group of women try unsuccessfully to steal the protester's sign, a group of men grab onto it and pull him to the ground while the crowd applauds. That's when the video shows the 36-year-old run back toward the fight and punch the sign-holder in the back of the head multiple times. 

Officers returned to the scene after the fight was broken up and arrested the 36-year-old, who was booked into King County Jail. A 22-year-old, also from Marysville, who the video shows grabbing the protester's sign and kicking him while on the ground was arrested and later released. Both men are facing possible misdemeanor assault charges.

UPDATE: Jason Queree, the man suspected of punching the protester multiple times, has been arrested 29 times since 1995. He has been convicted or otherwise found against for nine felonies, including forgery, stolen property, unlawful firearm possession and theft, and 12 misdemeanors, including driving with a suspended license, vehicle prowl, domestic violence, assault, DUI and criminal trespass.

Looks like real bullying, eh?

Anti-Christian violence in the United States is just beginning. Of course unprecedented violence against Christians by atheists (in communist countries, in republican Spain and revolutionary Mexico) and by Muslims has been a hallmark of the 20th century, and it's continuing in the 21st century. 

The hate against Christians that you see here is very real, as any glance at the comboxes of atheist websites will attest. 

Anti-Christian violence is coming to the United States. Homosexual violence against Christians is going to be particularly brutal, I suspect. Christ-haters won't stop at dragging us into federal court for failing to pay homage to their creation myth and for failing to cooperate in their cultural debauchery. 

Something in our culture is being unleashed. Yeats saw it.

Clintons will be Clintons

Charming

Pro-abortion protestor in Texas enlists her little girls.

"Every Child a Wanted Child" is a slogan coined by eugenicist Fredrick Osborne in the 1950's in his successful drive to rebrand eugenics, after the p.r. hit it took when the Nazis carried eugenics to its logical conclusion. It is now Planned Parenthood's mantra.

"If I wanted the government in my womb, I would *** a Senator" is a great sign for a little pre-teen girl to be carrying, don't you agree?

Pro-abortion politics brings out the worst in humanity. 

Stirring up the sand(walk)

In the unlikely event anyone is interested, I had some fun in the combox on Larry Moran's Sandwalk.

The fun starts about half-way down.

I challenged Moran to a blog debate. He's running away, it seems.

It's always refreshing to remind oneself just what vile morons these people are.

Satanists: how dare you associate us with abortion!

Heh:

HILARIOUS: Real Satanists Want Nothing To Do With Abortion Supporters
JULY 3, 2013

In case you missed it, abortion supporters chanted “Hail Satan” in Texas yesterday, leading to the tweet below from the UK Church of Satan. 

This might be the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.

Tweet from the UK Church of Satan:

UK Church of Satan
@UKChurchofSatan 

Unfortunate to see Satan's name used in such a diabolical manner. Another example of what "'Satanism' doesn't represent. #HailSatan 

6:33 PM-3 Jul 2013

 

Defending freedom of speech

Appropriate for this Fourth of July, the Discovery Institute has sent a letter and a petition with 7000 signatures to Ball State University, which is conducting a plainly biased inquisition of Professor Eric Hedin, who teaches a course on the philosophical and theological implications of science in the astronomy department.

The letter is here.

Great job. Let's keep up the pressure to defend Hedin. We can't let the bastards get him.

Happy Fourth

Jeff Jacoby:

Words to transform the world
America was the first nation self-consciously founded as the embodiment of an idea — the “self-evident” truth that “all men are created equal” and endowed by God with an “unalienable” right to life and liberty. In a world that had always connected nationhood and citizenship to blood, soil, and ethnicity, the democratic republic born in 1776 presented a prospect that was revolutionary in the profoundest sense imaginable — and Americans from the outset were certain that their model of self-government was destined to radiate outward, shaping the course of human events.

To Tocqueville, this was more than mere patriotic braggadocio. He could see that the world was ultimately going to be transformed by the enlightened doctrines of democratic liberty and individualism. But in America — remarkably — this great transformation had already “been effected with ease and simplicity.”

Keeping it is not turning out to be easy and simple. This is becoming a big struggle-- the struggle between people who believe in limited constitutional government and people who believe in unlimited government with little constitutional check-- as little as a "living" constitution allows, which is none, really.

For the first time in my life I am worried about the survival of our constitutional democratic government. We are governed by a crime syndicate that infests not only the White House and many seats in Congress, but reaches into countless crevices in our alphabet federal agencies. This syndicate collects massive data on each of us each day, and lies to us about it, openly and without consequence. It has shown no reluctance whatsoever to use unlawful and unconstitutional means to hold power and to corrupt democracy, when it suits their ends. It is maintained in power by what is essentially a state-run mainstream media and an immense labyrinth of crony capitalism for the collaborating rich and Obamaphones for the collaborating poor.

We are increasingly ruled by the elites and by people who are useful to the elites. The corrupt 2012 presidential election, in which at least one powerful arm of the federal government systematically attacked and supressed a large portion of the electorate, is a stark example.

Angelo Codevilla still has the best analysis of what is happening to us-- the struggle between the ruling class and the country class.

But America remains a very beautiful thing. These are still the best words (outside of the Bible) ever written:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Our unalienable rights are from God, and are prior to government. Government cannot legitimately take away what it did not bestow.

 Just as relevant to our crisis today are Jefferson's words that follow:

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government...

We're getting closer to that.

Today let's celebrate our Declaration. But we must celebrate it for what it is. We must not forget, notwithstanding the eloquent prose, that it is a Declaration of war.

At least they've given up chanting about women's health

From Ed Morrissey:

Classy: Pro-abortion protesters drown out “Amazing Grace” with chants of “Hail Satan”

I admit I was skeptical of this story when it came across my e-mail yesterday evening. Generally speaking, stories that are either too good or too bad to be true aren’t. Even at the beginning of this short clip, it’s nearly impossible to make out what the pro-abortion protesters are yelling — at least until the camera swings around, and a young woman helpfully boosts the message. 

It’s been a very interesting day at the Texas State Capitol. Cahnman’s Musings hasn’t been following the hearing. Instead, we’ve been participating in the surrounding events. LetTexasSpeak has been doing a live broadcast from the rotunda where women have been sharing their abortion related testimonies. The pro-abortion crowd has responded with repeated chants of “hail Satan.” It’s taken us all day to get a video recording, but here it is … For the record: They’ve been doing this all day, this is just the first time we caught it on video.

It is hard to tell what the aborties are chanting in the background, but the young woman chants "Hail Satan", and it seems to be what at least some of them were saying.

Honesty does count for something.  

Wow

This looks like a movement even the IRS is gonna have trouble suppressing.

From Doug Ross:

15 Photos From the Tahrir Square Protests You'll Never See In Legacy Media. #Egypt #Morsi #Obama

Curiously, a massive wave of anti-Obama sentiment in Egypt has been utterly ignored by vintage media, even though the protests may be the largest in all of human history.

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