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More to Come...
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Heads Up! Once More to the Lions
White House spokesman Joe Lockhart accuses Baptists of "religious
hatred." CBS News repeatedly associates the Catholic
Church with Hitlerism during the Pope's visit to the Holy Land.
Three Christians are killed and five wounded at a Kentucky high
school while standing in a morning-prayer circle.
In Roman times, early Christians were made to face lions for sport.
1,800 years later, America's rulers have declared a more subtle
war against Christians, who again face cultural, political, and-increasingly--physical
attacks.
Culturally, Christianity has long been an outcast. For decades,
Hollywood has pumped negative imagery of Christianity into our eyes
and ears. In film after film, a character's professed Christianity
routinely signals that he will be that film's hypocrite, liar,
or demagogue. So a Bible-thumping prison warden in "Shawshank
Redemption" proves to be murderously corrupted.
A repugnant Marine lieutenant in Rob Reiner's "A Few Good Men"
arrogantly testifies that the only law he follows is "the Lord's."
A sweet little girl is chased to her death by a priest's attack
dogs at a Catholic orphanage in "The Saint."
Christians receive such treatment in so many screenplays that
it simply must be a requirement for some film producers.
Television is likewise generally intolerant of Christians.
Sitcom writers compete for who can introduce the most positive homosexual
characters while ridiculing the most traditional father figures.
60 Minutes runs a ludicrously premised segment calling Pope Pius
XII "Hitler's Pope," after a book by the same title.
Papal visits and other Christian conferences are inevitably reported
with a false emphasis on a church's supposed "intolerance"
in matters related to abortion, homosexuality or women.
Popular music, severing its long connection to things beautiful,
began openly belittling Christianity decades ago. In 1965,
even a soft harmony group like the Mamas and the Papas knew that
a bit of church bashing in "California Dreamin'" was a
passport to coolness. This hip cynicism was so common and
so enduring that one didn't really notice later when formulaic Satanism
became the favored route for rock's pre-fab rebels. Before
today's Marilyn Manson or hate-rap music, there were death bands
like Black Sabbath and Megadeth, which have been around for twenty
years. A generation of potheads banged their heads to rock
band Judas Priest's heavy metal riffs, most only dimly aware
that Judas was the betrayer of Jesus. Like, devil worship
is cool, dude...
Politically, Christians are the only religious group in America
that can safely be despised. Bill Clinton, having found Jesus
politically useful during his Lewinsky troubles, nonetheless has
said that his only enemies are right-wing religious fundamentalists.
Little wonder that the president shrugged off the slaughter of 76
Branch Davidians at Waco as a sad but predictable end for "religious
extremists." Little wonder also, that Clinton felt free to
launch a paramilitary invasion of an openly Catholic Cuban home
in order to seize Elian Gonzalez for his friend, Fidel Castro.
Since at least 1978, the press has warned of the "Christian
Right," but no reporter dares speak similarly of an "Atheistic
Left." And now, aided by decades of media conditioning,
the White House feels secure to attack Baptists, who apparently
need to be taught that evangelizing non-Christians is no longer
kosher. Authoritarian nations like Nepal already have laws
against religious conversion. In America, too, spreading the
Gospel may soon be a crime.
Physically, the threat to Christians is increasing but is seldom
reported. When a 15 year-old boy shot those eight Paducah,
Kentucky students in 1997, the press chose to indict the "rural
gun culture" rather than ask why the boy targeted praying Christians.
Last year's murder of seven mostly teenage Christians in a Fort
Worth Baptist church caused only a minor media stir, directed--as
usual--at gun control. In contrast to the inattention to those
seven deaths, the wounding of several children at a Los Angeles
Jewish day care center earned far greater press coverage, including
follow-up stories and presidential cries for "hate crimes"
laws.
Similarly, the mass media tried several sensational "spins"
for their moronic coverage of the Columbine High School massacre:
The attackers targeted minorities. It was the "revenge
of the nerds" against the jocks. There was a nationwide
"Trench Coat Mafia." Nobody much noticed that at
least 8 of the 12 murdered students were known Christians--several
of them very openly so. This did not escape the knowledge
of the two gunmen, who asked at least one such Christian girl if
she believed in God before killing her. The teen killers'
nihilistic video also revealed contempt for the spiritual (one killer,
for example, griped about having to spend a Seder with his parents).
When transforming societies, the cultural agenda supports the political
agenda, and vice-versa. It is no accident that the media have
worked to undermine Christian culture or that politicians now
feel safe demonizing this spiritual pillar of our nation.
Psychopathic killers, whose imbalance makes them most sensitive
to simple and destructive messages, seem to understand America's
message toward Christianity. They are like the old coal miners' canaries
that once served to warn men of deadly yet odorless tunnel gases.
One wonders when "normal" people will clamor once
more for the lions.
Can You Spare a Few Dollars?
--------------------
Two college students, Frank and Matt, are riding on a New
York City subway when a beggar approaches them asking for
spare change.
Frank adamantly rejects the man in disgust.
Matt, on the other hand, whips out his wallet, pulls out a
couples of singles and gladly hands them over to the beggar
with a smile.
The beggar thanks him kindly and then continues on to the
other passengers. Frank is outraged by his friend's act of
generosity.
"What on earth did you do that for?" shouts Frank. "You
know
he's only going to use it on drugs or booze."
Matt replies, "And we weren't?"
SUPREME COURT IS NOT SUPREME!!!!
By Gary Weiand
Stenberg V. Carhart
(192 F. 3d 1142)
Don Stenberg, Attorney General of Nebraska, et al. Petitioners,
v. Leroy Carhart [abortionist]
On Writ of Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for
the Eighth Circuit.
June 28, 2000.
On June 28th, 2000, in Stenberg v. Carhart, the Supreme Court struck
down Nebraska's state law prohibiting partial birth abortions. This
calamitous decision is more than a wake-up call to pro lifers; it
is a three-alarm fire in the building next door. The closest approach
in American history is probably the passage of the Kansas Nebraska
Act in 1854, which repealed the Missouri compromise and reopened
the territories to slavery. That abomination aroused Abraham Lincoln,
recently retired from politics, like "the sound of a fire bell
at night," setting him on the path to the White House.
He arose, and others with him, because an historic effort to compromise
the issue of slavery had failed, making it an all or nothing proposition.
In his Ottawa debate with Douglas, Lincoln declared that, "we
shall not have peace . . .until the opponents of slavery . . . place
it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in
the course of ultimate extinction, or . . . that it shall become
alike lawful in all the states." Our generation now occupies
that same position respecting unrestricted abortions.
The historic compromise overturned by Stenberg was the Court's own
1992 decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Most observers,
(including Justice Kennedy, co-author of Casey) believed that, though
the old case affirmed Roe v Wade's constitutional right to abortion,
it also recognized the states' right to regulate and even discourage
them, so long as they did not impose an "undue burden"
on the right to choose.
This reversed nearly two decades of precedent which had gone far
beyond Roe to ignore the state's regulatory interests in preserving
life and health. By conceding that states might discourage abortions
(by requiring a brief waiting period, or the presentation of factual
information about risks) Casey legitimized state opposition to the
ethic of abortion on demand. This created hope that the states might
begin to contain abortion, or even set it on the path to ultimate
extinction. But on June 28th the Court sucked the brains out of
that interpretation.
Casey was a compromise. While justices Rehnquist, Thomas, and Scalia
oppose Roe, and Kennedy and O'Connor are middle of-the-road, Justice
Stevens is choice of choice. He advocates the unqualified right
to abortion, and with the additions of Ginsburg, Breyer, and Souter,
he has plenty of company. In their joint concurring opinion he and
Ginsburg stated, "it is impossible . . . to understand how
a state has any legitimate interest in requiring any procedure other
than the one he or she reasonably believes will best protect the
woman. . ."
Even at its best, Casey was hardly an ideal compromise. Justice
Scalia flatly denounced it as bad law. Writing in dissent,
he said, "those who believe that a 5-4 vote on a policy matter
by unelected lawyers should not overcome the judgment of 30 state
legislatures have a problem, not with the application of Casey,
but with its existence." Terms like "health," and
"undue burden," are too vague to keep a pro-abortion judge
from interpreting them away.
The overturned Nebraska statute stated that partial birth abortions
were prohibited "unless necessary to save the life of the mother
whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness,
or physical injury, including a life-endangering physical condition
caused by or arising from the pregnancy." The majority bore
out Scalia by ruling that these words, applied to a tiny percentage
of cases using a procedure that nearly all authorities consider
irrelevant to health, did not provide a health exemption for the
mother.
Justice Kennedy insisted Nebraska's statute was precisely the sort
Casey legitimated, and was outraged when the court defined "health"
as any marginal (and non-demonstrable) improvement in a woman's
care. Stenberg ruled that health determinations are to be
made exclusively by the woman's doctor, in this context an abortionist,
one who extracts your unborn child shortly after you've indicated
an ability to pay.
In a scathing twelve-page dissent Kennedy described the abortionist
who brought the suit. He has "no specialty certifications in
a field related to childbirth or abortion and lacks admitting privileges
at any hospital. He performs abortions throughout pregnancy, including
when he is unsure whether the fetus is viable." After noting
that better-qualified physicians had testified that partial-birth
abortion is never useful, Kennedy described the practice in such
bloodcurdling detail that most Americans will be unable to read
it. Concluding that state government had been vitiated, he said,
"Requiring Nebraska to defer to Dr. Carhart's judgment is no
different from forbidding Nebraska from enacting a ban [on partial-birth
abortion] at all."
All the pro-abortion justices (save possibly O'Connor) know well
that the "health exception," they champion is merely a
Trojan horse to smuggle unrestricted abortion into town without
alarming the citizens. Worse, one suspects that the apparent compromise
in Casey was merely a tactic to avoid the outright overturn of Roe.
Casey stated that Roe must be sustained because of the paramount
need to adhere to precedent, but Stenberg utterly ignores the precedents
set in Casey. It avoids pure constitutional incoherence only because
it does not acknowledge that it has overturned Casey.
Roe v. Wade began the chaos because it is bad law; not merely by
condoning an evil practice, nor even by weaving a constitutional
right out of virtually invisible material. It is unspeakably subversive
because it fundamentally contradicts the theory and practice of
republican government. By taking away the states' right to permit,
regulate, or prohibit abortions, it removed the issue from discussion,
negating self-government, and eliminating the possibility of reaching
consensus. In defending this legal monstrosity it has undermined
the rights of spouses, parents, and schools, sharply limited the
freedom of speech, and created numerous bad precedents for further
intrusions on society.
The Court's majority tells itself that in Roe it only carried constitutional
rights-
of women, and to privacy- to their logical conclusions. It fails
to realize that any valid logical proposition can be extended to
the point of silliness. It is called the reduction to the absurd,
and explains why Hegel's brilliant reasoning ended by extolling
Prussian statism, and why Marx could easily hijack his system for
the terminal silliness of Communism.
The Court's only defense against the danger of legal pedantry is
its control of its own docket; it selects the cases that it wishes
to hear. But when it chooses unnecessary cases out of a desire to
blaze constitutional trails, it ignores the essence of constitutional
rule, which is consent of the people. It's method is slow, indirect,
and effective. It accumulates a string of precedents by hearing
cases that should have been resolved without its intervention, such
as, say, Griswald, then argues that constitutional law has "developed,"
thus mandating court intervention on highly vexed but "related"
cases, like Roe.
The Court is one reason why America's worst political problem is
her citizen's loss of the right to govern themselves. There is no
right to abortion in the written Constitution. However, that Constitution
now represents nothing but the pious hopes of the Founders. The
real, the effective constitution, is the one created by Supreme
Court cases, because the court follows the principle of stare decisis,
(let the ruling stand) and treats its previous decisions as fundamental
law.
Thus a Supreme Court decision with philosophical holes is patched
with threads pulled from previous decisions, is, to most of the
Court, far more pertinent than either the meaning of the original
Constitution, or the strategy of self-government it implemented.
But the courts are the most autocratic branch of government, and
the powers that they seize from the people, instead of expanding
liberty, accrue to legal elites, and to their clients.
As we confront this reality, Thomas Jefferson's seemingly outlandish
wish that "the tree of liberty be refreshed from time to time,
with the blood of patriots and tyrants," becomes understandable.
Even laws born to protect liberty may grow to serve tyranny. And
the Supreme Court, the theoretical defender of liberty through law,
is often worse than no defender at all.
The quote, "A black man has no rights that a white man is bound
to respect," is not found in the Constitution, or a federal
statute; it was the (wholly gratuitous) commentary of Justice Taney
in the Dred Scott decision. "Separate but equal," arose
in Plessy v. Ferguson, the Court's establishment of segregation.
The Court also invalidated the first child labor laws, the first
limits on the workweek, and the first attempts to protect labor.
Such arrogance twice threatened the court's very existence, during
the Civil War, and again during the New Deal.
Now the court seeks to prohibit the states from imposing any real
limits on abortion. Gore supporters, desperate for a campaign issue,
shriek that there are four votes to overturn Roe. This is blatantly
false; Justice Kennedy supports Casey, which defines state's rights
within the context of Roe. Of the other three dissenters, Rehnquist
may well be too old to receive another major abortion case. We can
count on only two votes; Scalia and Thomas. But there truly are
five votes for unmitigated judicial imperialism. Even Justice O'Connor,
who at times has differed with Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Stevens,
insists on the "health of the mother" formula.
We have two possible paths to victory. We might, at last, secure
a majority of real constitutionalists on the Court. If that fails
we should use the amendment process to either (carefully) limit
the court's jurisdiction, or demand super majorities. This can be
done only when the majority of citizens identify the Court as an
incorrigible enemy of liberty, and that means broadening our base
to include those presently unwilling to hear us.
We cannot sit. The trumpet has sounded, not uncertainly, and the
time has come to fight, not just for the unborn, or the principle
of life, but for our right to govern ourselves. Some believe that
individuals have a rendezvous with destiny each morning, and that
each action is charged with spiritual significance. C. S. Lewis
argued that we are every moment choosing--God have mercy on us all--
to become, as he put it, "eternal glories or everlasting horrors."
But Stenberg embraces the destiny of the entire nation, perhaps
the world. In an age of emerging genetic engineering, we the people
must regain control of the government.
Should we fail, we of all generations will be called worst, perhaps
because our fore-bearers were best. Many cannot imagine themselves
called to battle, because they grew up thinking that victory had
been won; they thought the enemies of freedom were the Russians
and the Nazis, not laziness, pseudo-sophistication, lust, greed,
and ambition. Yet those external threats rallied us to the defense
of first principles, while those from within lull us slowly to sleep.
Today our visible opposition appears to originate in the liberal
wing of the Democratic party, but it is only another external foe
of freedom, (domestic, like the slave-owners) assuming we have the
wit to identify its true nature. But behind its adherents are camped
arrogance, complacency, and avarice, all clothed in lies, all awaiting
their chance to strut over the ruins of democracy. We must not place
too much confidence in our own righteousness, for they take root
every where; they are liberty's eternal enemy, and happy are we
if we are their foes.
Gary Weiand
.THIS tells us times are bad: Boy Scouts
sue Connecticut
The Boy Scouts of America has been forced to bring
a federal lawsuit against the state of Connecticut, arguing (rightly)
that the rights of the organization were violated because a bureaucrat
within the state removed the Boy Scouts from the list of charities
eligible for state employee deductions. The outstanding organization
was removed because it was trying to protect its young boy members
from the gay community,
How Cruel
If you are robbed and\or hurt by a criminal
and had grounds to sue the police or city for allowing
the terrible crime to happen, you will discover what all
other such victims have learned, to their sad amazement
-- the police have no legal obligation to protect
you.
Our city, state and national governments want to denied
you the means of self-defense with a gun and
simultaneously denied a duty to protect you from harm.
How absurdly cruel.
Public schools:
yuck
In a survey of 30,000 households in 55 cities in the US,
the Education Testing Service reported significant
customer dissatisfaction levels with public schools.
In more than half the cities surveyed, between 16% and
34% of households consider their public schools
unsatisfactory.
from School Reform News
Swimming Pools
Swimming pools kill more American children
per year than guns. Isn't it high time we did something
about this? So lets outlaw all swimming pools. Remember,
if we save one life, it's worth it!
Featured
Article....
WHO CARES FOR
CUBA?
Daily, over a thousand illegal aliens stream
across America's southern border, many for no reason but
to commit crimes. Douglas, Arizona has been a favorite
spot for such illegal crossings for well over a year. The
town's mayor has begged repeatedly for federal action to
stop the tide of illegals who trash the town, steal from
ranchers and force locals to barricade their homes for
safety. U.S. Border Patrol agents have evn been fired
upon from Mexico. Bill Clinton could care less.
*In fact, the latest approach of the Immigration and
Naturalization Service is essentially a "don't ask,
don't tell" policy toward illegal alliens, unless
they are wanted criminals. And even that is a stretch,
given the example of the Mexican "railroad
Killer." That illegal alien was captured and
released at least nine times in 18 months as he crossed
the US border during his serial killing of 8 Americans.
He was on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List, yet the Border
Patrol still freed him one last time in 1999-allowing him
to kill his last four American victims. So, let's be
clear: Regarding immigration. Bill Clinton does not care
about the "rule of law."
*So, why did the president mobilize his entire Justice
Department, spend millions of dollars and launch a
commando raid to seize one six-year-old Cuban refugee
from his relatives? Because snatching Elian Gonzalez was
good for Fidel Castro. And what's good for Castro is
apparently good for Clinton.
*By the time Clinton launched his Holy Saturday invasion
in Miami, many Americans were sick of the Elian story. As
always, television and the White House worked together to
squash any deep thought on the subject. "Send him
back, alreayd" and "It's the law" seemed
to be the conditioned responses of many.
*Yet the whole event was a truly shocking display of how
far America has slipped from her ideals under the Clinton
mis-rule. In the early 1960s, thousands of loving Cuban
parents sent their young children from Cuba to freedom in
America, where they were raised by relatives and church
organizations. Can anyone imagine then-President John F.
Kennedy sending these young orphans back to Cuba?
*My, how America's soul has darkened since then. And how
thuggish our government has become. How did it come to
the point where specialized INS forces could grag little
Elian at gunpoint? Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez,
could just have simply taken a commercial flight from
Washington to Miami to see his son and family and meet
the boy's rescuer. Was Bill Clinton too stupid to grasp
this simple idea?
*Hardly, for Mr.Clinton, this custody had special
personal importance. So he ordered INS assault goons to
smash into the Miami home where Elian stayed and take the
boy, by government jet, to Washington. The boy's assylum
case was awaiting appeal in a US Court of Appeals, making
Clinton's raid--in addition to a revolting display of
power--an apparent violation of the Fourth Amendment's
proscription against unreasonable search and seizure.
Clearly, the president desperately wants this particular
boy back in Castro's Cuba, court or no court. As Lloyd
Bentsen might say, "I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack
Kennedy loathed Fidel Castro. Bill Clinton is no Jack
Kennedy."
*In fact, by using paramilitary forces against Americans,
Bill Clinton was simply carrying Fidel Castro's water.
The Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, a foreign tyrant made
the decision. A real president would have told Castro:
"Iam not a king. In America, the central government
does not outrank our states like a general outranks his
field officers. Elian is in Florida, and authorities
there will handle things. Senor Gonzalez is free to
travel there if he wishes. If you won't permit him to do
so - Tough."
But this president has perhaps never met a communist he
wouldn't help. Consider the strange case of *Gregory
Craig. Part of Mr. Clinton's legal "attack
pack," Mr. Craig was a defense lawyer for the
president during his impeachment trial. Craig now
represents Juan Miguel Gonzalez, who does nothing without
Castro's permission. Surely it is no accident that one of
the president's lawyer pals travels to Cuba and ends up,
in effect, representing Fidel Castro. Who arranged that
connection? Who's paying?
*Let's connect the dots: Fifteen Cubans escape by boat
for America. Two adults and one little boy survive.
Dictator wants him back. Clinton's lawyer helps dictator.
Clinton sends shock troops to snatch boy from unarmed
Americans. Dictator gets prize. Boy loses freedom.
*On the surface it would appear that this president is
owned by the scruffy dictator of Cuba. This is an
illusion. Clinton is, of course, owned by somebody, but
it can hardly be the bankrupt Cuban government. After
all, Clinton has high taste and everyone knows you can't
live on good cigars -- about the only thing Cuba has to
offer. Mr. Clinton is beholden to those capable of
furnishing the whole meal and the cigar too. We must ask,
why he chooses to uphold immigration law
now as never before?
*Castro has maintained power over his sinking economy for
40 years, outlasting eight administrations. Cuba's
Maximum Leader obviously serves an international purpose;
or else one of our recent presidents would bombed him, as
they have bombed Sudan, Saddam Hussein, Slobodan
Milosevic, Noriega, and many others. Our leaders have
proven they are not shy about bombing people, and Clinton
has been the least squeamish of all!
The founders of the United
States believed that that there could be no order without
law, no law without morality, and no morality without
religion. Could we say that we are following the founders
today?
FEELING POETIC?
The latest version of cyberinnovator Ray
Kurzwell's Cybernetic Poet will help you compose your own
outstanding poetry. The digital barb gives hints on
rhymes, words and aliteration and will even complete a
fragmentary ode based on what is already written. You can
get your poetic license free at www.kurzweilcyberart.com
A featured article
THE SCREWTAPE STRATEGY
In his
1940 classic The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis had a
deep insight into modern times. Screwtape, the senior
devil, advises his apprentice Wormwood to seduce souls as
subtly as possible. Even idle and seemingly innocent
pastimes may take men's minds off God. "Murder is no
better than cards, if cards will do the trick." He
urges Wormwood to lead his victims down the gentle slope
to Hell, without markers or signposts, so they will never
realize their souls are in danger until it's too late.
In a short 1957 sequel, "Screwtape Proposes a
Toast," the veteran devil feasting with his peers on
the latest crop of damned souls, laments the lack of
great sinners on the scale of Henry VIII and Hitler, men
the devils could really savor; the modern world produces
souls who are hardly worth damning (or eating), insipid
puddles of mediocrity.
And yet, he says, there are ample compensations. The
great sinner may be a free soul with an unpredictable
will of his own who will surprise you with a sudden
conversion, wasting years of your precious diabolical
labor; whereas the envious little man produced by mass
democracy is too passive to struggle with his own
conscience. He hardly knows he has an individual soul. He
does what others do; seduce the mass, and you bring him
into the net too.
I sometimes try to imagine diabolical history. In the
Middle Ages, I suppose, Satan had to be content with
snagging individual souls. But with the Reformation he
learned to sow heresy, then, with the Enlightenment, he
won prestige for full apostasy.
In the 20th century he made full use of the secularized
nation-state to inspire hugh wars and the diabolical
regimes of communism and Nazism. But though short-term
profits were huge, from his point of view, they faded
fast. Such violence couldn't last long.
Finally, I surmise, Satan hit on a more stable system,
one that relied more on sensuality than raw force: mass
democracy, in which every appetite became a 'right.'
Instead of being tortured and condemned by a totalitarian
state, men - now called 'consumers' - would damn
themselves, while congratulating themselves on their
freedom, including sexual freedom. Their consciences
would become so torpid that they would see nothing wrong
with sexual perversity, pornography, fornication and
abortion; they would resent and ignore those who
persisted in calling them to a higher standard. Under
the influence of state schools, from which religion was
excluded, they would learn that they were only soulless
animals whose natural purpose was to seek pleasure and
avoid pain.
The state would provide for their needs, with a
welfare system funded by high taxes, inflated paper
money, and huge public debt. Instead of either guiding
them or punishing them, their ever-smiling rulers -
ordinary men like themslves, with no virtues that could
be called either Christian or heroic - would flatter them
and cater to their lowest desires. Christians who refused
to adapt to the new system would be defined as misfits
and enemies of democracy. But a new breed of Christians
would find no conflict between their religion and the new
social order.
Finally a test would come. A young elected leader,
rumored to be lecherous, would be caught defiling his
office with crude sexual acts. But by then the people
would be hard to shock, especially in a time of great
material prosperity, and he would keep his job. This
would signify that the population had sunk to a new level
of cynicism (alias 'tolerance'). Now Satan could look at
all he had created, and see that it was a job well done.
REMINDER:
June 3rd is the birthday of Jefferson Davis.
June 21 summer begins
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