Gay Patriot

IRS Admits Helping Gay Activists To Attack “Pro-Marriage” Group

Published by Papa Giorgio

(I wish to explain my chosen head-line.) I say “pro-marriage” because, as Gay Patriot notes, “the Obama State Department recently honored Masha Gessen, a lesbian activist who had this to say on the topic of gay marriage:”

I agree that we should have the right to marry, but I also think equally that it is a no-brainer that the institution of marriage should not exist. . . . Fighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we’re going to do with marriage when we get there, because we lie that the institution of marriage is not going to change, and that is a lie. The institution of marriage is going to change, and it should change, and again, I don’t think it should exist. (See: National Review)

Fox News has this interview of the chair of National Organization of Marriage from just two weeks ago:

This quick addressing of the issue via Gateway Pundit:

The conservative group National Organization of Marriage accused the IRS of leaking documents to the Obama Campaign in 2012. A top Obama campaign official Joe Solomese used the information to attack Mitt Romney during the 2012 election.  The Huffington Post used the leaked documents in a story questioning former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s support for traditional marriage. The document showed Romney donated $10,000 to NOM.

The IRS agreed this week to pay only $50,000 in damages to the National Organization for Marriage after leaking confidential information to a leading gay marriage group….

The Right Scoop continues with the story via The Daily Signal:

Geez. Talk about targeting conservative groups.

DAILY SIGNAL – Two years after activists for same-sex marriage obtained the confidential tax return and donor list of a national group opposed to redefining marriage, the Internal Revenue Service has admitted wrongdoing and agreed to settle the resulting lawsuit.

The Daily Signal has learned that, under a consent judgment today, the IRS agreed to pay $50,000 in damages to the National Organization for Marriage as a result of the unlawful release of the confidential information to a gay rights group, the Human Rights Campaign, that is NOM’s chief political rival.

“Congress made the disclosure of confidential tax return information a serious matter for a reason,” NOM Chairman John D. Eastman told The Daily Signal. “We’re delighted that the IRS has now been held accountable for the illegal disclosure of our list of major donors from our tax return.”

In a separate posting, Gay Patriot notes the following:

Fact:  The IRS Targeted 104 Conservative and Tea Party groups to deny them tax exempt status during the 2012 election cycle. 

Fact: Not a single progressive group (of the 7 audited) was denied tax exempt status in this period.

Fact: Lois Lerner’s computer hard drive “crashed” within ten days of Congress beginning an inquiry into the IRS targeting of Conservative groups. According to the IRS, this resulted in the loss of all of her emails to outside agencies… including the White House.

Fact:  Six other people with close ties to the IRS targeting of Conservative groups also had all of their emails destroyed.

Fact: The IRS abruptly canceled its contract with a company that backed up its emails externally after Congress initiated an inquiry.

Now, a reasonable person looking at the above set of facts might say that the pattern is consistent with an agency that did something wrong and then undertook to destroy the evidence of wrongdoing.

But according to the Democrats, to draw such a conclusion from that set of facts is akin to believing that the Earth is Secretly Run by Alien Lizard People….

I sit here daily and wag my head at the Democrats ability to obfuscate justice in their unnerving support for the first gay president.

Breathing Causes Asthma? Making CO2 Illegal via Imperil Presidency

Published by Papa Giorgio

See Also, “Dr. William Happer Speaking To The Benefits Of CO2.”

This is via Gay Patriot, and shows how scientific the party of science is:

Bypassing Congress yet again, Obama today announced a unilateral imposition of carbon dioxide emission limits for electrical power plants.

Even the NYTimes admits the regulations will have no discernible impact on Global  CO2 levels. They will, however, cost $50 Billion per year in regulatory costs, raise energy bills an average of $1,200 per family per year, and destroy 224,000 jobs annually through 2030.

The Administration promises none of those outcomes will happen, but then, they also promised “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan,” and “We will be the most transparent administration in history.”

Obama is justifying his dictatorial imposition of carbon dioxide regulations partly on the basis that carbon causes asthma and heart attacks.

You read that right. Carbon. Causes. Asthma.

Party of science my ass.

Krauthammer Notes The Disconnect Of The Admin (Updated)

Published by Papa Giorgio
Obama Inspired Taliban To Kidnap More

…For the Taliban, it doesn’t matter. They see the exchange as an unmitigated victory. “Our talks finally proved successful for the prisoners’ swap,” says the commander. “We returned our valued guest to his people and in return, they freed our five heroes held in Guantanamo Bay since 2002.”…

…“I cannot explain how our people are happy and excited over this unbelievable achievement.” (He too has been known to TIME for several years). “This is a historic moment for us. Today our enemy for the first time officially recognized our status.”…

….Asked whether the Taliban would be inspired by the exchange to kidnap others, he laughed. “Definitely,” he says. “It’s better to kidnap one person like Bergdahl than kidnapping hundreds of useless people. It has encouraged our people. Now everybody will work hard to capture such an important bird.”

(Time Magazine, HotAir, andThe Hill)

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: But that’s not a messaging problem, that’s a conceptual problem. They have no idea what they actually did. Even those of us who might grudgingly accept the cost of that swap would understand that this is a defeat for the United States. This is a moment of solemn solemnity and sorrow that we had to make this deal endangering our country as a result but in the name of saving someone. But the president thought of it as a victory lap, shows up in the Rose Garden, he has his acolytes speaking about this being a happy day, Harry Reid, it’s a day we ought to celebrate. This is insane. This is a defeat for the United States, and, if anything, you regretfully announce it solemnly and you move on.

Gay Patriot provides this UPDATE:

As the Bergdahl Narrative Falls Apart, Obama Administration Turns Its Venom on the Troops

One might have been tempted to think the Obama Administration had hit rock-bottom when they called Bowe Bergdahl’s fellow soldiers liars and “swift-boaters*” for disputing the Administration’s official line that Bergdahl served with “honor and distinction.” (Maybe with the Taliban.) That seemed to be as low they could go.

Then, somebody went and tossed them a shovel.

An administration spokesman (for the Department of Housing and Urban Development) took to Teh Twitters and called those soldiers (the ones that didn’t desert and collaborate with the Taliban)… “psychopaths.” 

…read it all…

The Woody Show Responds to P.C. B.S. (Update via GayPatriot!)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Video Description:

I do not usually listen to radio, outside of talk radio, if I listen to music it is my iPod or Pandora. But my wife likes to listen to the radio. We have settled on 98.7, and I have been pleasantly surprised with the commentary by the morning crew, The Woody Show.

Just a couple of days ago they have had to respond to “trigger words” that some modern feminist (really, a graduate student) had her feelings hurt over. A great response that I want to share with my larger audience.

UPDATED

Firstly, one should view my resources on this: my chapter in my book, “Gnostic Feminism: Empowered to Fail“; Some great quotes in the second half of this post, “Obama Gives Highest Civilian Medal To Eugenics“; and a VERY recent post on #YesAllWomen, “Why Not Discuss Elliot Rodger’s Secularism? (Misogyny Claims)“.

While there are great quotes below, and I may update my “Feminism Quotes” with VtheK links, this is still my favorite:

The Feminist Dictionary, published by the University of Illinois, gives the following definitions:

  • Male: “… represents a variant of or deviation from the category of female. The first males were mutants… the male sex represents a degeneration and deformity of the female.”
  • Man: “… an obsolete life form… an ordinary creature who needs to be watched … a contradictory baby-man.”
  • Testosterone Poisoning: “Until now it has been thought that the level of testosterone in men is normal simply because they have it. But if you consider how abnormal their behavior is, then you are led to the hypothesis that almost all men are suffering from ‘testosterone poisoning.’”

(Cheris Kramarae and Paula A. Treichler, eds., Feminist Dictionary [Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1986], cf. male, 242; cf. male, 246; cf. testosterone poisoning, 446.)

Here is the UPDATE via Gay Patriot:

Feminists are blaming the Men’s Rights Movement for the murders committed by psycho whackjob Elliot Rodger in San Diego; primarily on the basis that wedging Rodger into the “War on Women” narrative is useful to the feminist left’s agenda; and admitting that he was a deranged sociopath is not. A typical, albeit mild, response is from the Washington Post’s Caitlin Dewey.

Rodger’s misogynistic rhetoric seems undeniably influenced by the manosphere, and his manifesto has kicked off a loud debate about how modern society treats women, online and off. If there was ever a time to take a closer look at online misogyny, it’s now.

….the Women’s Movement has produced some extremely hate-filled feminist rhetoric that is widely embraced by the progressive left.

  • “I feel that ‘man-hating’ is an honourable and viable political act, that the oppressed have a right to class-hatred against the class that is oppressing them.”  ~ Robin Morgan, Ms. Magazine Editor
  • “To call a man an animal is to flatter him; he’s a machine, a walking dildo.”  ~ Valerie Solanas
  • “I want to see a man beaten to a bloody pulp with a high-heel shoved in his mouth, like an apple in the mouth of a pig.” ~ Andrea Dworkin
  • “Rape is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear” ~ Susan Brownmiller
  • “The more famous and powerful I get the more power I have to hurt men.” ~ Sharon Stone
  • “The proportion of men must be reduced to and maintained at approximately 10% of the human race.” ~ Sally Miller Gearhart
  • “All men are rapists and that’s all they are” ~ Marilyn French

And there is more. Much, much more. It’s not limited to a few websites at the back of the internet; deranged feminist misandry permeates academia, politics, and pop culture. Entire cable networks like Lifetime and Oxygen are devoted to spreading the message that men are terrible. Womyn’s studies programs exist at every major university. A feminist professor or politician can express the idea that the world would be better off without men and be praised as a visionary, but let a man say the same thing about women and he’s branded a hater and bigot….

…read more…

Gay Repub Running for Cali’s 52nd Congressional District – Harassed

Published by Papa Giorgio

The Inquisitr brings us up to speed on the main issue at hand, and it is this — totalitarian thinking of the LEFT, which includes the Gay Laeft:

Gay Republican congressional candidate Carl DeMaio feels he is being attack by liberal groups and LGBT-friendly organizations simply because he is a Republican. Ads mocking DeMaio have included putting his likeness on the body of a drag queen.

Dana Perino of Fox News first brought the Carl DeMaio race to national attention after flying to the state to meet the man who might become the first openly gay Republican to be elected to the state Congress. Perino was moved by Demaio’s life story and achievement working across the aisle to foster economic growth when serving in other elected positions. The man referred to by many as “the gay Republican” was orphaned at 13 when his dad left the family a few weeks for his mother died. He and his brothers and sisters were separated into different foster homes by social services.

As a young adult, Carl DeMaio worked to put himself through a top-tier college and ultimately went on to build and then sell two multi-million dollar companies. The Californian’s story sounds like the embodiment of the American dream, but the attack ads he has endured since throwing his hat into the ring for a congressional seat have been deemed as demonizing, demoralizing, and full of “gay-baiting” hate speech. Media Matters is among those who appear to not support DeMaio and have mocked Fox News for supporting the candidate. The gay Republican was also booed during a gay pride parade in California…

…read more…

The story was brought to my attention (and the video starting out the post) are with thanks to Gateway Pundit. GP puts it thus:

Carl DeMaio was orphaned when he was 14. He was taken in by Jesuits and earned his way to Georgetown University. After college, Carl founded two successful businesses before the age of thirty. He sold the businesses and was elected to San Diego City Council. Now Carl DeMaio is running for Congress.

That’s why the liberal gay groups hate him. Ads mocking DeMaio, by far left groups, have included putting his likeness on the body of a drag queen.

On Wednesday Carl DeMaio’s San Diego office was vandalized. Computers were destroyed and electrical cords were cut only six days before the primary election.

Another recent story that encapsulates the totalitarianism (total thought) of the LEFT is this story via Gay Patriot about a law professor at the University of Virginia, WHO ACTUALLY SUPPORTS GAY MARRIAGE, has a campaign by the gay-left against him because his thinking also includes “religious freedom.” This apparently is not “total” enough for the left:

Douglas Laycock is a law professor at the University of Virginia, a supporter of gay marriage, but also a supporter of religious liberty. Therefore, he is now the target of an intimidation and harassment campaign from the intolerant gay left.

An outfit called GetEQUAL (led by its co-director Heather Cronk) has launched a national e-mail campaign attacking Laycock for his role in shoring up the legal arguments of those who support what it calls “religious bigotry.”

GetEQUAL has also recruited a University of Virginia law student (Greg Lewis) and an alum (Stephanie Montenegro) to send an open letter to Laycock asking him to consider the “real-world consequences that [his] work is having.” And they have submitted a Freedom of Information Act request seeking e-mails between Laycock and various right-wing and religious liberty groups.

Laycock has apparently committed the unforgivable Thoughtcrime of valuing religious liberty and freedom over the oh-so-delicate feelings of … I’m just going to say it… pansies. (Not used as a pejorative against their sexuality, but against their mewling, whiny, complete lack of emotional strength.)…

…read more…

Our Pandering President Ignores “Armed Service Day”

Published by Papa Giorgio
What Presidents Do on Armed Forces Day

(Above photo) Former president George W Bush was in Bentonville, Arkansas attending a separate ceremony for 14 living recipients of the Medal of Honor. The event also raised money for the Congressional Medal of Honor Society and Foundation. He chose to not be at the opening ceremony of the September 11 Memorial Museum because he didn’t want to stir emotions.

(GayPatriot — V the K) Saturday was Armed Forces Day. But instead of expressing gratitude to the men and women who serve in uniform, the Obama Administration chose to honor ‘Pander to Gay Victimhood Day,’ a.k.a. ‘International Day Against Homophobia Or Transphobia.’ In addition to the Administration’s usual policy tools of Tweets and #Hashtags, U.S. Embassy in non-Muslim countries were instructed to raise rainbow flags in gratitude to wealthy gays and lesbians who donate so generously to the Democrat Party…

…read more…

This is what are embassies were doing on Amred Forces Day, via the Obama admin, Via Moonbattery: At least Old Glory still flies above the apparently larger rainbow flag. For now, anyway. Small wonder our adversaries don’t take us seriously anymore.

Conservative Firing Line noted the following as well:

It seems Obama really doesn’t think much of those who serve in our military. Saturday, May 17, is Armed Forces Day — a day created by Harry Truman in 1949 to celebrate all the branches of the military.

Obama, however, failed to mention Armed Forces Day on Twitter, Weasel Zippers noted. Instead, he chose to mark “International Day Against Homophobia Or Transphobia,” even using the #IDAHOT hashtag. He also marked the 60th anniversary of the Supreme Court Brown vs. Board of Education ruling.

“Are You Now, Or Have You Ever…” Leftist McCarthyism

Published by Papa Giorgio

Gay Patriot has this great post with commentary by Steyn Online! (BTW, the links that look bad — with a line through them — are still good.) The Left hates free speech, free-thought, and the like. They bow to ideology, not liberty.

What with Brendan Eich being ousted from Mozilla for not agreeing with the Progressive Left on gay marriage, university professors calling for “climate change deniers” to be thrown in prison for their heresies (Galileo Galilei would be having a good chuckle about that), and the University of Michigan and Brandeis University caving to Islamist demands not to let a feminist atheist critic of Islam speak on their campuses… it’s pretty clear the Progressive … and especially, the “Academic” … Left has adopted a Zero Tolerance policy for speech that falls outside their Dogma.

The brilliant Mark Steyn wrote a brilliant essay on the topic.

I heard a lot of that kind of talk during my battles with the Canadian ‘human rights’ commissions a few years ago: of course, we all believe in free speech, but it’s a question of how you ‘strike the balance’, where you ‘draw the line’… which all sounds terribly reasonable and Canadian, and apparently Australian, too. But in reality the point of free speech is for the stuff that’s over the line, and strikingly unbalanced. If free speech is only for polite persons of mild temperament within government-policed parameters, it isn’t free at all. So screw that. [Emphasis Mine]

But I don’t really think that many people these days are genuinely interested in ‘striking the balance’; they’ve drawn the line and they’re increasingly unashamed about which side of it they stand. What all the above stories have in common, whether nominally about Israel, gay marriage, climate change, Islam, or even freedom of the press, is that one side has cheerfully swapped that apocryphal Voltaire quote about disagreeing with what you say but defending to the death your right to say it for the pithier Ring Lardner line: ‘“Shut up,” he explained.’

…read more…

The “Gay Gestapo” Needs to Be Routed, Liberty Demands It!

Published by Papa Giorgio

“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.” ~ Last Line, Animal Farm, George Orwell. (h/t, GayPatriot)

This comes way of a h/t by a friend, and is Robert George (via First Things), and was originally linked by Denny Burk:

Mozilla has now made its employment policy clear.

  • No Catholics need apply.
  • Or Evangelical Christians.
  • Or Eastern Orthodox.
  • Or Orthodox Jews.
  • Or Mormons.
  • Or Muslims.

Unless, that is, you are the “right kind” of Catholic, Evangelical, Eastern Orthodox Christian, observant Jew, Mormon, or Muslim, namely, the kind who believes your religious or philosophical tradition is wrong about the nature of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife, and the view now dominant among secular elites is correct. In that case, Mozilla will consider you morally worthy to work for them. Or maybe you can work for them even if you do happen to believe (or should I say “believe”) your faith’s teaching—so long as you keep your mouth shut about it: “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”

You are disqualified from employment, however, if you reveal your alleged “bigotry” and “cause pain” by stating your convictions. And you are certainly disqualified if you do anything to advance the historic understanding of marriage as a conjugal union in the public square.

[….]

You can bet it’s not just Mozilla. Now that the bullies have Eich’s head as a trophy on their wall, they will put the heat on every other corporation and major employer. They will pressure them to refuse employment to those who decline to conform their views to the new orthodoxy. And you can also bet that it won’t end with same-sex marriage. Next, it will be support for the pro-life cause that will be treated as moral turpitude in the same way that support for marriage is treated. Do you believe in protecting unborn babies from being slain in the womb? Why, then: “You are a misogynist. You are a hater of women. You are a bigot. We can’t have a person like you working for our company.” And there will be other political and moral issues, too, that will be treated as litmus tests for eligibility for employment. The defenestration of Eich by people at Mozilla for dissenting from the new orthodoxy on marriage is just the beginning.

Catholics, Evangelicals, Orthodox Christians, Mormons, observant Jews… and others had better stand together and face down the bullies, and they had better do it now, or else they will be resigning themselves and their families to a very unhappy status in this society. A very unhappy status indeed. When tactics of intimidation succeed, their success ensures that they will be used more and more often in more and more contexts to serve more and more causes. And standing up to intimidation will become more and more difficult. And more and more costly. And more and more dangerous.

…read more…

As I see it, those who are on the right who are religious better also become familiar with those who are conservatively libertarian who happen to be gay ~ like the people at gaypatriot.net. In other words, Catholics, Evangelicals, Orthodox Christians, Mormons, observant Jews, and the like shouldn’t be all whom we should join hands with. There are gay men and women who want the Constitutional Republic to succeed, UNLIKE their counter-parts on the left (a majority of leftists in fact). And to my friends who are of the right-leaning/homosexual persuasion, do not dismiss resources like What Is Marriage?, or people who may have a religious worldview that considers the full approval from society on same-sex relations immoral. We fall into the Reagan line of demarcation when he said, “somebody who agrees with you 80% of the time is an 80% friend not a 20% enemy.”

To wit I will post again a paragraph written by Gay Patriot I loved, and that gets to the bottom of the matter… and it is this: don’t be so myopic to see this as an attack of gays, see it as the rotten fruit which infects all conservatively minded views of society, theology, liberty, and what constitutes happiness ~ e.g., LEFTISM.

Since marriage is no longer about creating a stable environment for children, and has become (and this mainly the fault of heterosexual liberals) about personal fulfillment, validation, and access to social benefits, there literally is no constraint on how much more broadly it can be redefined.

My compatriots who are conservatively minded will hear–for instance–Tammy Bruce (above) mention she is FOR gay-marriage… and they simply dismiss her (some will). What she means when she states such a thing and what Andrew Sullivan means are two VERY different things. The former wants the people, state-by-state to be persuaded enough that this is the right step for society in their state/country. She rejects the abuses by judges to usurp the will of the people.

The latter wants it effectively shoved down our throat while acting surprised that the progressive establishment he has supported during his career has — gasp — tyrannical tendencies. (One need only view history and see that pretty much any totalitarian movement in the 20th century have been leftists.) Yesterday, Dennis Prager had some great commentary that builds on this these somewhat:

Some compatriots in the fight for liberty… not totalitarian equality:

Newest attack on freedom: Gay Mafia Targets Oregon Grocer Over Anti-Gay Marriage Facebook Statements

New Orwellian Attack Makes the Word “Homosexual” a Slur

Published by Papa Giorgio

Gay Patriot writes about how the Left fights the BIG battles facing our nation: over spending, foreign policy pressures, terrorism, freedom, etc. Hahahahaha… just joking:

As noted before, on the right, we worry about actual issues: regulation-fueled economic decline, corruption in Government, the erosion of individual liberty, the unsustainable fiscal path of the national Government.

On the left, they worry about vocabulary.

In part, this is a mark of desperation, David Brock and his merry band of Soros-paid nutjobs desperate for anything they can fling against the one news outlet that airs opposition views to leftist hegemony. There is no real racism, sexism, or homophobia on the right. So the left, in its desperation to remain peeved and aggrieved, must constantly lower the bar and change the rules. Hence, they declare that a previously inoffensive word is now offensive, so they can have their self-righteous tantrums about it. Also, note the new phenomenon of the “micro-aggression,” defined as a behavior that would not bother a normal person, but sends a politically correct leftist into paroxysms of outrage.

Read More ~ Good stuff V-to-the-K! I loved the “micro-aggression” addition.

Supports the Muslim Brotherhood, Rejects the Green Revolution ~ New Partners? Iran (Looking Forward to 2016)

Published by Papa Giorgio

This comes via Gay Patriot

So, over the weekend, the Obama Regime came to an agreement with the gay-killing, terrorist-supporting Iranian regime. The agreement is that sanctions will be lifted, and Iran will be allowed to continue to enrich uranium. And in return, the Obama Regime gets a distraction from the Obamacare debacle and the predictable adulation of their sycophants in the press.

The agreement is strikingly similar to the deal Jimmy Carter negotiated with the Norks in 1994. And we all know what a brilliant success that was.

Obama is happily willing not only to negotiate with the gay-killing, terrorist supporting regime in Iran, but eagerly grants them major concessions. But he will not negotiate with Congressional Republicans.

Jack-Booted Thugs (Figures: Obama Shutdown Most Expensive)

Published by Papa Giorgio

I cannot pass up this post by Gay Patriot, here it is in whole:

Sen. Harry Reid’s refusal to negotiate on anything leads to his own elderly constituents being thrown out of their homes.

America’s veterans will rally October 13 to storm the Barackades at the nation’s war memorials, if things don’t get better first.

Veterans got through the Barackades at the Iwo Jima memorial. But President Obama still has a tight grip on the Jefferson memorial (where the guards physically manhandle the tourists), the Lincoln memorial and many others.

Park rangers, acting effectively as jack-booted thugs, Barrycade an inn that has operated seasonally since 1919.

Mark Steyn is not to be missed, as usual. “The World War II Memorial exists thanks to some $200 million in private donations…But the thug usurpers of the bureaucracy want to send a message: In today’s America, everything is the gift of the government, and exists only at the government’s pleasure, whether it’s your health insurance, your religious liberty, or the monument to your fallen comrades.”

Video of Sen. Ted Cruz reminding his Democrat colleagues that civility is a two-way street, something they need to think about.

Jonah Goldberg reminds us that President Obama has “set out to create problems for the American people, just to prove how great government is” at least since the ‘sequester’ fight earlier this year, when “The Department of Homeland Security announced it might not be able to protect the nation’s borders, and in an effort to prove the point summarily released a couple thousand of immigrant detainees, many of them with criminal records.”

Tweet of the day: from Sean M. Davis, “If you think this gangster gov’t. shutdown nonsense is bad, just wait until these people decide that your medical procedure isn’t necessary.”

…read comments…

You could still go and see the national treasures, well, because they belong to the people. While they were officially shutdown, you could still visit them because they were not staffed with guards keeping people away from them like today… see the graphic below.

Then vs Now

(1995 blurb in paper)

Via William Jacobson, NBC’s affiliate in Washington, D.C. reports that police ordered tourists and Vietnam war veterans who were visiting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall to leave the memorial at one point on Friday.

After one group of veterans went around the barricade, “the park ranger told them the wall was closed,” NBC’s Mark Seagraves reported. “Later another group of vets showed up and moved the barricades. At that point, the memorial filled with vets and tourists. That’s when police came and moved everyone out.”

Gay Patriot also posted on the 1995 vs. the 2013 shutdown.

1995 shutdown: the Lincoln Memorial kiosk is closed, but people can still visit the good Mr. Lincoln.

….

Both images above courtesy of The Daily Caller, which states, “It is not clear how much taxpayer money the Obama administration is paying to ensure that government sites and services remain shuttered to taxpayers. Popular Washington spots such as the World War II memorial are now guarded by more security personnel than they are during normal operations, while federal employees have been dispatched to put up barricades on capital bike paths and other public grounds that are not usually patrolled at all.”

The public is rebelling against these barriers, which are starting to be called “barrycades” or “barackades”.

…read more…

The Washington Examiner has some history for the historically inept… and remember… open air monuments and memorials were kept open during all these previous shutdowns, and again, I will quote GP:

  • “It is not clear how much taxpayer money the Obama administration is paying to ensure that government sites and services remain shuttered to taxpayers. Popular Washington spots such as the World War II memorial are now guarded by more security personnel than they are during normal operations, while federal employees have been dispatched to put up barricades on capital bike paths and other public grounds that are not usually patrolled at all.”

Via Pat Dollard pointing out that only 17% of the government is shutdown… leave to these Democrats to spend the most during a shutdown!

“Based on estimates drawn from CBO and OMB data, 83 percent of government operations will continue. This figure assumes that the government pays amounts due on appropriations obligated before the shutdown ($512 billion), spends $225 billion on exempted military and civilian personnel, pays entitlement benefits for those found eligible before the shutdown (about $2 trillion), and pays interest costs when due ($237 billion). This is about 83 percent of projected 2014 spending of $3.6 trillion.” So the government shutdown, at least as measured by money spent, is really a 17 percent government shutdown.

RELATED: What Government Shutdown? – $63B Spent, $26B Taxed, $1.6B Borrowed In First 2 Days

Not Agnostic To How the State Ruins Contractual Agreements Between Individuals ~ Modern Progressive Power Grab (Same-Sex Marriage)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Gay Patriot hit the ball out of the park with this one… and it really speaks to how the [professional] Left infects the regular “market regulating itself without the state getting involved,” BECAUSE, the state is none of these things that the Left thinks it is: loving, nurturing or supportive.  

….I think it is well-known to most regular readers that several of the contributors at GayPatriot, for instance, are either ambivalent or agnostic about the policy questions regarding same-sex marriage.  I, for one, feel that the courts are the wrong place for the argument over so-called “marriage equality” to proceed and that it is better taken up through the legislative process.  Likewise, I don’t feel that one needs to call it marriage if doing so antagonizes a significant portion of the populace who feel that marriage has a traditional meaning which they would rather not modify.  I’ve said before and I’ll say again that what we’re really talking about when we talk about same-sex marriage is a matter of  1). how the state recognizes a contractual relationship between two individuals, and 2). whether or not it has any business granting special privileges to those in a “traditional marriage” which it does not grant to others.  I’d argue that a debate that focused on the desirability of certain policy choices would be much more productive and much more worthwhile than one centered on emotional claims about “rights” and “equality.”  I’d also say that a more dispassionate debate about the implications of policy is more in keeping with both conservative and libertarian principles.

My aim today, though, is not to revisit that debate or to consider the implications of the recent Supreme Court decisions on those issues (though I’m still planning to do so in a future post), but to bring up some of the questions raised by the fact that today New Jersey became the second state (after California) to ban “conversion therapy” for gay youths.  My personal view on the issue is that “conversion therapy” doesn’t work in most cases and, to the extent that it is practiced, it should really only be viewed as an option for adults who choose to willingly commit to it.  In other words, New Jersey’s ban is in accord with my personal view on the matter, and yet, for philosophical reasons, I’m still bothered by some aspects of the legislation.

Neo-neocon expresses reservations similar to mine when she writes:

It is no use pretending that therapy—and the licensing of therapists by the state—is not at least partly a political endeavor subject to political fashion rather than a science. Nor should therapists be completely unrestricted. For example, therapists are already prohibited from sexual contact with patients—even willing patients, even adult patients—because it is considered inherently exploitative. But the most harmful practices that could be used by conversion therapists (for example, electric shock) could be banned without banning the entire enterprise. And as the articles point out, mainstream therapy organizations have already condemned conversion therapy and do not advocate it.

But apparently none of that would be enough for the advocates of this bill; the therapy itself must be defined by the government as inherently and unfailingly abusive (what’s next, taking children away from parents who don’t applaud and celebrate their gayness?) As the nanny state grows, so will these essentially political moves by the government. This bill opens the door for a host of governmental abuses in which the state dictates the enforcement of politically correct thought through the mechanism of so-called therapy, and therapists become the instruments by which the public is indoctrinated in what is currently politically acceptable and what is verboten.

Chilling, indeed.

At the risk of invoking the “slippery-slope” argument, I can’t see a way around the concerns that Neo-neocon expresses.  I’d have preferred to let the market regulate itself without getting the state involved in this way.  Once the state has weighed in on this question, though, where can we expect it to weigh in next, and will it ever stop trying to regulate the way parents raise their children?  I can’t see that it ever will.

It’s an unfortunate reality that many gay kids grow up in homes that are not especially loving, nurturing or supportive.   The state, though, is none of those things, either, no matter what the expressed intentions of lawmakers might be.  Increasing the reach of the state into individual lives should not be a comfort to any of us.

Another good, honest post reflecting not on emotion, but on the proven track record of the ideal that when government gets larger, the individual gets smaller. For the record… there is a compelling reason for the state to uphold [either] natures honing over eons — or — God’s design of the relationship best to raise children in, which is best for a healthy society. To support Natural Law in this regard (the male/female relationship in marriage) is then nothing worse than the Natural Law accessed by the Founders in writing the founding documents of our Republic. Like GP tho, my goal in this post “is not to revisit that debate.”

Shared Misery

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. Their very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be ‘cured’ against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.” ~ CS Lewis