Crazy Liberals
Dennis Prager on Iran`s Election to the U.N. Commission on Women`s Rights (Plus, Top-Ten 2013 UN Decisions)
Posted for categorizing on my blog:
The following is from U.N. Watch:
The Top 10 worst decisions by the U.N. in 2013 — UN Watch
1. The UN Human Rights Council elected Hezbollah supporter Jean Ziegler, founder and recipient of the Muammar Qaddafi Human Rights Prize, as a top advisor.
2. The UN General Assembly adopted 21 condemnatory resolutions against Israel, compared to 4 on the rest of the world combined.
3. The same UN General Assembly elected China, Cuba, Russia, and Saudi Arabia to the UN Human Rights Council. The dictatorships will take their new seats on January 1, 2014.
4. UN Human Rights Council expert Richard Falk blamed the Boston Marathon terror bombings on “the American global domination project” and “Tel Aviv.” Council members praised Falk and the president defended him.
5. The UN Special Committee on Decolonization, charged with upholding fundamental human rights and opposing the subjugation of peoples, elected the murderous Syrian regime to a senior post.
6. The UN Conference on Disarmament in May 2013 made Iran its president.
7. The UN Economic and Social Council, which oversees the UN women’s rights commission, elected genocidal Sudan as its vice-president.
8. The UN Human Rights Council elected slave-holding Mauritania to be its vice-president.
9. The UN chose Zimbabwe, a regime that systematically violates human rights, to host its world tourism summit.
10. UNESCO, which condemned no other country but Israel, and which was silent as Hamas bulldozed a world heritage site to make a terrorist training camp, allowed Syria to sit as a judge on UNESCO’s human rights committee.
Dana Loesch and Katie Pavlich Destroy Liberal Extraordinaire, Richard Fowler
Via Gateway Pundit:
Peaceful, Tolerant, Feminists at Work Spreading Understanding-To the Groin (Argentina)
Via HotAir:
This gives a new meaning to the phrase “crotch shots,” but it’s not a pleasant change, as you’ll see in this video from Argentina. Last week, pro-abortion activists marched on the cathedral in San Juan de Cuyo as Catholics surrounded the building in prayer to protect it from violence. The protesters took out their rage on the faithful, spray-painting their faces and, er, aiming lower in some cases.
The NYT`s Makes Mince Meat of History for an Ideology ~ JFK
Via NewsBusters:
The left will never get over the fact that Lee Harvey Oswald, a self-described Marxist who had previously claimed to be a communist, assassinated John Fitzgerald Kennedy on November 22, 1963.
The latest evidence of that detachment from reality came online Saturday evening at the New York Times, and appeared in today’s print edition. Writer James McAuley, described as “a Marshall scholar studying history at the University of Oxford,” wrote that Dallas collectively “willed the death of the president,” and that it has prospered disproportionately in the subsequent 50 years because of “pretending to forget.”
To give readers an idea of where McAuley is coming from when he isn’t engaging in dishonest guilt by association, he considers the financial meltdown of 2007-2008 a failure of the “neoliberal paradigm” of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher (yes, he calls them “neoliberals”). Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the U.S. government-sponsored enterprises whose mismanagement and comprehensive frauds by design actually caused the meltdown, are apparently irrelevant.
McAuley brings some personal issues into his anti-Dallas rant, as seen in the latter portions of the excerpts below. But what’s unreal is the late-in-the-game sentence which contradicts his opening premise (bolds and numbered tags are mine):
`most left-of-center political event in Oklahoma City mayoral history` ~ Ya think?
From the Okie:
….Soon after Shadid’s kick-off rally on August 15th, The McCarville Report published an in-depth examination of the rally, calling it “perhaps the most left-of-center political event in Oklahoma City mayoral history.”
Since that time, Shadid has continued the pattern.
On September 1st, an Oklahoma atheist leader who describes himself on Twitter as the co-host of the “Oklahoma Atheists Godcast” revealed that Shadid is actively and personally courting the atheist vote.
[….]
And this past weekend, Shadid Tweeted a photo of himself with a group of children wearing t-shirts that said “penis” or “vagina”.
Says one longtime Oklahoma politico of Shadid’s campaign so far, “It’s as if Shadid thinks he’s running for mayor of Berkeley. Promoting himself as the candidate for atheists and advocating property tax increases are things that I would normally consider political suicide. I have never seen a supposedly credible candidate break so many rules of Oklahoma politics.”….
The Friendly Atheist was driven to post,
Now if only Shadid would stop talking about how he wants to raise property taxes and taking pictures with children wearing shirts with the words “Penis” and “Vagina” on them, he might have a better chance of winning this thing.
I love politics.
Concepts: “Let Allah Sort It Out” ~ Sarah Palin
Firstly, I must applaud John for saying something not too many on the left say, and that is when he slighted the U.N. properly, “The mere fact that it is not even on the United Nations agenda shows how impotent that organization is in enforcing its own Charter due to the Security Council’s veto power.” Awesome. For those reading this, I recommend a great documentary entitled, “U.N.Me.” A great and actually funny look at the uselessness of that body.
Now, to discuss quickly John’s ending sentence.
- “I do feel sorry for Sarah though: she still thinks there is a difference between God and Allah.”
I know John is illiterate in his theology, comparative-religious studies, historical depth, and the like. Because there are huge differences between Allah and the God of the Bible. And they express themselves in their founders, Jesus, and Muhammad:
MUHAMMAD ordered his followers (and participated in) the cutting of throats of between 600-to-900 persons. Not all men, but women and children. He was a military tactician that lied and told others to use deception that ultimately led to the death of many people (taqiyya). We never see any depictions of Muhammad with children, we just know that he most likely acquired a gal at age 6 and consummated the “marriage” when she was 9. He was a pedophile in other words. While the Qu’ran states that a follower of this book should have no more than 4 wives, we know of course that he had many more. Many more.
JESUS, when Peter struck off the ear of the soldier, healed it. Christ said if his followers were of any other kingdom, they would fight to get him off the cross. Christ invited and used children as examples of how Jewish adults should view their faith… something culturally radical – inviting children into an inner-circle of a group of status oriented men as the Pharisees were and using them as examples to learn from. Jesus, and thusly us, can access true love because the Triune God has eternally loved (The Father loves the Son, etc. ~ unlike the unitarian God of Islam). Love between us then, my wife and I, the love in community/Body of Christ, has foundations in God. Even the most ardent Muslim still leaves his or her entrance into “heaven” as an arbitrary choice of “god.” The love of Christ and the relationship he offers is bar-none the center piece of our faith… something the Muslim does not have. Which is why the Church evolved because they have a point of reference in Christ to come back to. We would not want the Muslim to fall back to his point of reference but to look to Jesus as a referent.
Remember, in Christian theology, Jesus IS God. This is lost on an old-progressive soul like John however… so to my real reason for posting on this recent “Concepts.” And it is surely John’s, like most liberal Democrats, BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome) that is driving this painting of history the wrong way.
- “George W told us he obeyed a higher father than his earthly father, but we see what that accomplished: nothing.”
If you [the reader] are not familiar with this mantra John is referencing, deals with “Dubya” supposedly praying to God and getting confirmation to go into Iraq (the key back-and-forth begins at 1:35… listen to it all after that):
This mantra and myth is still alive in the likes of “Concepts,” where history and reasonable thought are something akin to the abundance of the Blackfin Cisco. The left leaning (really it fell over) Guardian Newspaper sums up the myth well:
George Bush has claimed he was on a mission from God when he launched the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, according to a senior Palestinian politician in an interview to be broadcast by the BBC later this month.
Mr Bush revealed the extent of his religious fervour when he met a Palestinian delegation during the Israeli-Palestinian summit at the Egpytian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, four months after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
One of the delegates, Nabil Shaath, who was Palestinian foreign minister at the time, said: “President Bush said to all of us: ‘I am driven with a mission from God’. God would tell me, ‘George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan’. And I did. And then God would tell me ‘George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq’. And I did.”
Mr Bush went on: “And now, again, I feel God’s words coming to me, ‘Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East’. And, by God, I’m gonna do it.”
And another headline from a progressive site should sum it up, “Bush: God Told Me to Invade Iraq — President ‘revealed reasons for war in private meeting‘” This is the junk John is spreading, and people take him serious? Seriously?
I bet John is also confused on some other mantras, like “nation building.” I will let Larry Elder take us out of the Looney Tunes known as “Concepts.”
A Refutation of a Liberal Mantra About Dubya and Nation Building from Papa Giorgio
Leaving a Church of Almost 10-Years | Tough Decisions for Faith
- My wife and I were reminissing about Northpark and figured that my time-line was off a bit — and that my date of initial attendance was a bit off. I (and then we) actually attended Northpark for 10-years, not 12… hence the change in the title.
Postmodern, Cultural-Marxism in the Church
My last semester at seminary introduced me to a previously unknown movement within evangelical circles known as the “Emergent Movement.” In reality, it is merely liberal theology repackaged to look like the core of the Gospel… when in fact, it is the jettisoning of core doctrines that are the foundational to the Gospel. 2 Timothy 2:15 reads: “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who doesn’t need to be ashamed, correctly teaching the word of truth.”
As I said, my introduction to this movement came about at Seminary because of some of the books recommended to me in my syllabus, which led me down a rabbit hole of reading. This trail sparked conversation between one of the new pastors and myself… he assured me that the movement wasn’t all that bad, and that I needed to read up on the topic. So, we had some coffee at my house and we had a cordial meeting and he left me an armful of books. (I will post some of the content and the authors thoughts on salvation — from this armful of books given to me by a pastor from an “conservative evangelical church — in an appendix at the end.)
I read them… Wasn’t all that “bad” ~ my ass.
In one of the books for instance, and this would be important to a well-liked sermon at my old church on core doctrines that one shouldn’t sway on,
This reading led me to other instances like the following November 2004 Christianity Today article written by Andy Crouch, titled “Emergent Mystique,” Rob Bell said,
Merton of course is famously known for saying that he sees “no contradiction between Buddhism and Christianity … I intend to become as good a Buddhist as I can” (David Steindl-Rast, “Recollection of Thomas Merton’s Last Days in the West” [Monastic Studies, 1969] 7:10).
I can list more instances that threw red-flags up for me, but needless to say I had a coffee infused meeting with my pastor, and I thought we were on the same page. I had a few more short discussions with him and some of the other deacons, but it wasn’t until a young man came up to me and mentioned the book the pastor who handed me the armload of counter-Christian books was using in the men’s college group that I knew I needed to protect my family from bad teaching.
- I do deal with many more of the books handed to me in that original encounter in my chapter on this topic, Emergen[t]Cy – Investigating Post Modernism In Evangelical Thought: But Who Do You Say I Am Rob Bell?
The book used by the leader of young men was Irresistible Revolution, by Shane Claiborne (there is a pretty in-depth review of Shane’s book here, A Humbled Resistance).
Much like the author I too wore Rage Against the Machine shirts (p. 97 – I think my oldest son still wears some of my old shirts) mainly because I genuinely like the music, and secondly, my reasoning behind wearing Rage Against the Machine shirts was that often times conversation would open up with young people that would lead to me talking about the bands radical Marxist leanings. It was a chance for me to lead these misguided persons towards a healthy-well-balanced understanding of American history and ideals, separated from the Howard Zinn type histories that many of those teaching them would infuse their young minds with. (See my RIP of Zinn’s passing.)
Shane, in contradistinction, wore the shirts of this band with full knowledge of and support for this class warfare idea found only in Marx and Engels manifesto.
I say this confidently only after reading Irresistible Revolution.
In his book, Shane makes the argument that you have to be an atheist to be a Marxist. Besides flying in the face of history this is only a small value in Marxism — granted an important one — however, Marxism is much more than merely a belief in disbelief. or disbelief,in the divine. In fact, the divine is merely transferred to this world in dialectical materialism, and a push for utopia creates the “divine” in man and his anthropogenic fundamentalism… as exemplified in Shane’s writings. Take note as well that I argue that Mormonism is a form of Dialectical materialism and is closer to atheistic Marxist philosophy than to Christianity. Last time I checked Mormonism is riddled with the Divine as is atheistic Buddhism. (In other words, to be “religious” does not require the Divine” as Shane posits.) Not to mention how the Communists (atheists) used religion:
Back to the story. After the young man told me about the book, I purchased my own copy, and began reading it, coming to page 34 I read the following:
This is how the footnote read:
- In appendix 1 at the back of the book, you will find a list of ordinary radicals with whom I enthusiastically redistribute the money I receive from the publication of this book through the Simple Way’s Jubilee Fund.
Here is that appendix:
It didn’t take much time in this appendix, unfortunately, I didn’t have to. The following is some of what I found merely by following the links Shane provided in his book. (I emboldened the main site referenced in Shane’s appendix. Following that I either a) include a quote that represents some positional statement of that site, or b) simply went to that sites “links” section and linked out to whom they recommend themselves. Although I could have listed many links, I think the few I chose make the point. I would say enjoy… but…
More recently, on a site Shane contributes to regularly, he said this in a post entitled, It’s Desperate in Guantanamo:
Obviously one can see the extreme political nature of this book and how it rejects history for one superimposed by Chomsky and Zinn, as well as in Shane’s continued commentary on the world around him. Lit-sen Chang many years ago foresaw this radical nature of the current emergent movement, as, it incorporates an old lie:
There seems to be a correlation as well in Shane’s book that some are saved because of their works. He mentions in this light, Mother Teresa. I do not know ultimately if Mother Teresa was truly saved or not… only God knows this… that being said, I can say that if Mother Theresa believed the following…
Among the all-too-accessible examples that could be cited, consider the following excerpts (chosen because they are representative of the genre, not because they are outstandingly bad) from Novena Prayers in Honor of Our Mother of Perpetual Help, a booklet published by the Sisters of St. Basil with official church approval (Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur):
Have pity, compassionate Mother, on us and our families; especially in this my necessity (here mention it). Help me, 0 my Mother, in my distress; deliver me from all my ills; or if it be the will of God that I should suffer still longer, grant that I may endure all with love and patience. This grace I expect of thee with confidence, because thou art our Perpetual Help (p. 5).
We have no greater help,
no greater hope than you,
O Most Pure Virgin; help us, then,
for we hope in you, we glory in you,
we are your servants.
Do not disappoint us (p. 16).
Come to my aid, dearest Mother, for I recommend myself to thee. In thy hands I place my eternal salvation, and to thee I entrust my soul. Count me among thy most devoted servants; take me under thy protection, and it is enough for me. For, if thou protect me, dear Mother, I fear nothing; not from my sins, because thou wilt obtain for me the pardon of them; nor from the devils, because thou art more powerful than all hell together; not even from Jesus, my Judge, because by one prayer from thee, He will be appeased. But one thing I fear, that in the hour of temptation, I may through negligence fail to have recourse to thee and thus perish miserably. Obtain for me, therefore, the pardon of my sins, love for Jesus, final perseverance, and the grace to have recourse to thee, 0 Mother of Perpetual Help (p. 19).
Elliot Miller and Keneth R. Samples, The Cult of the Virgin: Catholic Mariology and the Apparitions of Mary (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books/Academic, 1992), 57. An astute reader pointed out that the above actually comes from an Eastern Orthodox liturgy officially authorized for use by the Catholic Church.
…No matter what her good works are or would be, this dedication to other than Christ clearly — according to Scripture — negates the adherent from salvation. There is good evidence that this Marion worship was employed in Mother Teresa’s faith. Shane also talks of and quotes Gandhi approvingly, which seems odd. Odd because Gandhi was a racist and ordered, in racially tainted radio broadcasts, his followers to kill Zulu’s (blacks). Gandhi only used “peaceful” protests with the British because militarily India could not cope with the British and Gandhi was a good politician first and knew where to draw his lines and which strings to pull.
I wish I could say differently, but the book is just bad from beginning to end. Noteworthy as well is that it is not a proper resource for a church to use, at least a church that claims conservative Evangelical mores. Obviously no book is COMPLETELY bad, and there are noble points in it… I mean who wouldn’t want to stamp out poverty worldwide and stop all wars as Shane says? The question for me is: How has this worked in real life? Shane makes a myriad of claims about war and poverty that do not fit reality, but, rather, are closer to some make believe candy-land Utopian dream. To wit I wish to debunk some of Shane’s thinking:
Again, Shane exudes noble ideas in the book. Who could argue the goals? They just may not be very realistic, that’s all. On pages 123-124 you find a portion of what Shane’s “ministry” does on “an average day”:
Unfortunately, this “kingdom now theology” that so infects the Word-Faith Movement and the name it and claim it gospel, also infects the eschatology of the extreme theological Left. Both theologies have the view that Shane enumerates when he encourages us to “take courage, as you will then have more grace as you liberate others” (p. 32). I am sorry, no person can liberate me, they and I are fallen and cannot liberate even ourselves. A great example of this egalitarianism:
Obviously the political and theological tome of this book is very charged, to say the least. (If you need to understand more of my reasoning, or have questions about this post I will be more than happy to talk to you — my email is in my bio section.) As a Mennonite group of churches points out as well, not only is the book politically charged, but missing anything to do with the Gospel. In writing a reason why nine Mennonite churches were withholding their kids from an event that included Shane Claiborne, the The Mennonite Brethren Network mentions the following:
You see, when you forgo the plum-line of Scripture and include practice as your truth… problems tend to follow. As I was looking for new churches, I started to attend what was billed as a conservative Reformational/Bible based church. At this church I was attending to find a new home church I was in conversation with an elder/assistant pastor when I mentioned Thomas Merton, to which he replied he loved Merton! Not only that but that a class he was taking at Talbot was using a Merton “biography” (of sorts) in class. He then said he didn’t see anything wrong with the book or Merton. So, I purchased the book and read it.
- And this is the current state of the church apparently, not discerning enough on important doctrinal areas, and making some issues that are in house debates front-and-center.
Discussion/Questions
There was a gentleman, who I am still friends with from North Park (the church I left) who contacted me, this is our conversation on FaceBook that included a couple of people:
Part of Convo One:
Another friend mentioned that this should be handled in a more private manner I mentioned in parts the following:
Part of Convo Two:
Before we make it to my old “Afterward, I left all this up (above and below) because it is and has been a great help to those seeking a healthy-well balanced church in our Valley, as well as providing others who are in need of some resources to better respond to this nonsense in their home church. So I am both happy that this has been a good resource for some, but sad I even had to write it. Take note that both Pastor Dave and I agree on the facts of the case… but acting on and believing the facts are two entirely different things.
There was a final meeting between myself and pastor Dave White of NorthPark Community Church. After this meeting I wrote a caveat that I have not rejoined North-Park. The church has continued its slow decent away from doctrine and closer to unhealthy relationships.
APPENDIX
This armful of books given to me by pastor Bob Hudson had a very universalist stint to them. Here is an excerpt from my book where I discuss this aspect a bit more:
Ex-Democrat, Sen. Elbert Guillory of Louisiana, Calls for Black America To Destroy Liberalism!
Via Weekly Standard:
Republican state senator Elbert Guillory of Louisiana, who recently switched from the Democratic party, has announced the creation of a new political action committee with the goal of electing black conservatives. Guillory will serve as honorary chairman of Free At Last PAC, which purports to promote “Republican values in all communities.”
“Liberalism has nearly destroyed black America,” says Guillory. “And now it’s time for black America to return the favor.”
Faux Racist ~ Media Distorts
It is worse than a liberal-progressive radical lying… the Media knew that she was separated from the Zimmerman portion of the protest and clearly on the New Black Panther side of the line… yet, they still painted her as with the Zimmerman crowd. Here is the early reporting from the blogs about it, via Gateway Pundit:
That looked incongruent with the other reports from the pro-Zimmerman side. The NY Daily News, based on reporting from The Houston Chronicle, identified her as Renee Vaughan:
One woman in the Zimmerman group held a sign that said, “We’re racist & proud.”
Austin resident Renee Vaughan echoed the sign’s ugly sentiments by yelling, “We’re racist. We’re proud. We’re better because we’re white,” at the Martin group as they passed, according to the Chronicle.
The act to smear the Zimmerman supporters as racists with a leftist plant worked as the photo and comment was picked up and spread worldwide.
Scanning the internet we found that a “Renee Vaughn” from Austin worked for a far left environmental group, the Texas Campaign for the Environment.
Renee even has her photo linked to a far left environmental website.
Breitbart points out all the places where this person was touted as a genuine Zimmerman protestor:
…The Houston Chronicle’s Jayme Fraser wrote of the woman pictured above: “At one point, Renee Vaughan of Austin mocked protesters by chanting, “We’re racist. We’re proud. We’re better ’cause we’re white.” The language of the article was somewhat clumsy, allowing other media outlets to jump to the wrong conclusion.
The New York Daily News’ Philip Caulfield used the following caption for the above photo, from the Associated Press: “A George Zimmerman supporter holds a sign during a counter-demonstration of activist Quanell X’s group march in the River Oaks community in Houston on Sunday.” He also wrote: “One woman in the Zimmerman group held a sign that said, ‘We’re racist & proud,'” distorting the Chronicle story significantly.
The UK Daily Mail repeated the error, reporting that the sign was held by members of the pro-Zimmerman group in Houston, portraying it as a form of racist backlash against the New Black Panther Party march.
Democratic strategist Tara Dowdell then took to Fox News’ Hannity to repeat the false accusation, using the “racist and proud” sign story to push back against video evidence of intolerance at pro-Trayvon Martin rallies.
Well, Sean, do some people show up at protests with their own agenda? Absolutely. That happens all the time. There was a pro-Zimmerman rally in Texas where a woman showed up with a sign that said “Racist and Proud.” And that was in the newspaper today. So certainly there are people who show up who behave badly at protests, and that’s not something you can really control for.
[….]
Gateway Pundit concludes she was a “leftist plant” who intended to trick or otherwise deceive the media. As the interview reveals, however, she was quite honest and open about her intentions and what her sign meant. She also located herself quite clearly on the Trayvon Martin/New Black Panther Party-supporting side of the demonstration (this video shows the two sides were clearly separated and distinguished from each other).
[WHICH THE MEDIA SHOULD HAVE PICKE-UP!]
The reason the media simply picked this up as true is that it has a narrative it believes to be true — that is, the Zimmerman case was over race… and Republicans are racist. Ergo, ad hoc — and all that jazz — the sign must be true… PLUS, it is in Texas! Double-Jeopardy, it must be true. Renee Vaughan has since apologized:
Ralph Nader Excoriates Obama: `Has There Been a Bigger Con Man in the White House Than Barack Obama?`
Justice St. Rain Worried About Long List of Liberal Fears
I found this fascinating! Gay Patriot found a guy who parrots the left in a way Dennis Prager says, warps judgment — may I add, profoundly. So, I decided to dissect this post a bit to show how non-issues are conflated to the Left’s mind while important aspects of fighting a war on terror while not allowing a trampling of things like the 4th and 12th Amendments on our own body-politic (en masse).
So lets read and access the post by Justice St Rain
Lets unpack Global Warming a bit. Almost every point, literally every point, that anthropogenic warming extremists have put forward over the past decade[+] has fallen apart due to evidence.
1. A biologist who claimed that polar bears were drowning because of melting ice has been suspended and is being investigated for scientific misconduct following his “veracity” in emotionalizing a debunked topic. Get ready for Polarbeargate.
2. Today, new NASA data blows a gaping hole in global warming alarmism: “NASA satellite data from the years 2000 through 2011 show the Earth’s atmosphere is allowing far more heat to be released into space than alarmist computer models have predicted, reports a new study in the peer-reviewed science journal Remote Sensing.” [See the paper — it was pulled]
3. CERN physicists conducted a cosmic ray climate experiment that is said to directly contradict the climate change debate in the political arena. Apparently, so much so that the scientists have been gagged from discussing their findings reportedly proving that cosmic (space-based) energy has a far greater effect on the climate than previously believed.
4. A recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science found evidence that coal burning plants may actually be cooling the planet. The findings have been accepted to the point of suggesting using sulfur to combat global warming; “Sulfur’s ability to cool things down has led some to suggest using it in a geo-engineering feat to cool the planet.” If anything, this study proves that the science behind the anthropogenic global warming theory is unproven.
(Activist Post, I update a couple of the dead links)
Three posts I highly recommend exemplifying major failures in the predictive powers in the pro-man-caused (AGW) side are here:
✁ John Kerry vs. `The Warming[?] World`
From fraud in newspapers, to misunderstandings by reporters (put in their place by scientists), to CO2 not being the driver of warming — but rather a more cosmic driver (as well as a CFC correlation, maybe?), to hockey sticks evaporating and fraught with fraud, to thee most important prediction in the IPCC model failing — entirely, to activists going to the Antarctic to make a point but getting frost bite and cancelling the trip, to even “experts” saying that snow will be only a memory with children in this decade, to less tornadoes and hurricanes rather than more, and that “warming” [not man-caused] would decrease them, to even the Economist Magazine changing their position on the matter, as well as other AGW acolytes like Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Meteorology saying that the “prognoses confirm model forecasts…” warming postponed “hundreds of years,” or James Lovelock — creator of the GAIA theory — now rejecting man-cased global warming ~ the “consensus” is in free-fall, in other words, to people like Bill Nye being destroyed with facts, Hillary Clinton, as well as Al Gore. All leading to the idea that the Left is more religious in their political endeavors than the most fiery preacher, even having their own eschatology! (I say more, because while a Christian may have beliefs about how the world will end, they are not legislating taxes [confiscating labor] based on it.)
Every point that is parroted in that small statement by St. Rain’s is a bust, and shows how the left uses causes to minimize freedom. They latch onto these things to increase legislative control and thus put in place more progressive control… which leads us into the “rich” and the poor mentioned. With the stupid statement about the 1%, I would be concerned if the bottom 50% payed the lions hare of taxes AND controlled less than the 1%.
So if we were to “even the playing field,” I presume through forced redistribution, all those pet-programs that have put more people, than the entire population of Spain, on some sort of welfare that St. Rain surely supports, would disappear. No more safety net in other words. In fact, the food stamp program is not gutted? It is at an all-time-high? Is St. Rain saying that we cannot cut programs like this at all? We are at our most minimum RIGHT NOW? The rich would bring back this money if our tax system were fair, and not criminal. The Laffer Curve for instance, explained so well by UCLA Economics professor, Tim Groseclose, shows when the government starts to lose money through its tax policy. Which makes me want to show just how bad St. Rain’s thinking is and how he digests and parrots falsehoods in order to embolden his feelings on issues. When he says, “Secretaries paying more in taxes than billionaires”, you know he has sold his soul to the devil.
St Rain’s confusion about capital gains tax and income tax is astounding to me. Buffett’s secretary likely makes about $200,000 a year, and pays a high tax bracket on her INCOME. Buffett and Romeny already payed this high tax bracket on their earnings, invested that taxed money, increased it, and now pay 15% (minus any donations — which Romney did A LOT! getting his tax bracket down to about 13% — damn greedy conservative!). Some of the problem I see here is that St. Rain views wealth as a “zero-sum game,” that is, he thinks that when one person gets richer, another person gets poorer. But when a “Bill Gates” becomes uber rich, he provides jobs, charities, trusts, etc, that lift multiple thousands of lives out of a lower income bracket into a higher. Justice St. Rain’s also — I believe — falsely characterizes “income inequality myth”:
He also misunderstands the idea that the Republican party is the party of the rich and greedy. I doubt Rain’s even understands how greed can be good and create the most wealth for everyone.
I don’t have all-day, but another blatantly false statistic Rain’s puts forward when he says, “More black men in prison than in college.” Larry Elder deals with this as one of five mantras/myths on racism and blacks:
While there is a lot to unpack in Justice’s short paragraph, I will end with this look into worldviews, which I doubt is a topic of in-depth study by Justice. When he says, “The general lack of compassion in the world,” I liken this to a decrease in the Christian faith in the West. For instance, when dealing with issues of, say, rape, differing worldviews view this in completely different ways:
✂ theism: evil, wrong at all times and places in the universe — absolutely;
✂ atheism: taboo, it was used in our species in the past for the survival of the fittest, and is thus a vestige of evolutionary progress… and so may once again become a tool for survival — it is in every corner of nature;
✂ pantheism: illusion, all morals and ethical actions and positions are actually an illusion (Hinduism – maya; Buddhism – sunyata). In order to reach some state of Nirvana one must retract from this world in their thinking on moral matters, such as love and hate, good and bad.
So Christian theism produces people like Mother Theresa who goes into a foreign land and sacrifices her whole life to care for people who are rejected by their society. A well funded (rich) church makes this possible. To end I will expand on my thinking from an excerpt from my book:
[1] Dean Halverson, The Illustrated Guide to World Religions, 56-57, 98.
[2] Ron Carlson & Ed Decker, Fast Facts on False Teachings (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1994), 28-29.
[3] Ravi Zacharias, The Lotus and the Cross: Jesus Talks with Buddha (Sisters, OR: Multnomah, 2001), 23-24.
[4] Elliot Miller, A Crash Course on the New Age Movement, 209-210.