This is beyond parody

For the first couple of seasons Star Trek - The Next Generation was quite lame because of Gene Roddenberry's absurd decision that by the 24th century we had moved beyond violence and he wanted no violence on the show. Mad Magazine had a lot of fun with that in their satire Star Blech -- The Next Degradation. First off a member of the crew was being killed by aliens and "Captain Retard" refused to do anything to save him because they respected the religious beliefs of other cultures. Then a crew member was being assaulted on the bridge of the ship and the captain threatened him with "We'll have our ship's lawyer write them a strong letter."

Fortunately Star Trek TNG managed to shake itself a little bit and after about 3 Seasons started producing some very good stuff.

The writers of that show learned their lesson but it seems some civil servants never do.

Some cities have found a new way to deal with Gangs: SUE THEM!

Bet that works out very well.

It's common sense. A gang that has no respect for the law is not going to be concerned with a lawsuit. You need to get tough with them and you need to get violent with them. Sure a preacher can go on his own and attempt to convert and change them but the city must be uninvolved with that (separation of Church and state remember!)

I don't know why the ACLU is concerned about this. It seems to be the way they would handle it.

It has supposedly worked but to be honest, I am very skeptical of its long term results.

A Few Things.

First off: The Private Beauchamp affair. This seems to be a shining example of my previous post. 35 years ago this guys story would have been on all the networks and would have been published as the absolute truth and very few would have known otherwise. Instead the "alternative media" is tearing him a new one.

I am guessing that the The New Republic planted this guy in the army specifically to do this story. You might say that that's a bit extreme but the fact that he is married to a staffer on that magazine draws considerable thought into that direction. Equally disturbing is the fact that he claimed to have done these things himself. That boy is in serious trouble either way (malicious lying and war crimes are both forbidden by the UCMJ.) Looks like we were ready for this war's fraudulent "winter soldiers" (those whose lies undermined our troops Vietnam.)

Secondly
Bloviating Zeppelin has an interesting story regarding the constitutionality of the IRS and income tax in general. While I would not jump to conclusions too quickly, and certainly not do anything foolish, this case does bear watching very closely. Personally I do not feel that a reasonable income tax is a bad thing but the IRS is not sufficiently overseen and they do miscarry quite a few cases, and they are not held accountable when they do. (Also Bill Clinton used the IRS to harass and intimidate his political enemies and you can be certain that if, God forbid, she wins Madam Hillary will do the same thing.)


Thirdly
I made this chart a couple of years ago, but I don't remember why. Yesterday I refered to liberal elitists and populists, as well as conservative elitists and populists. Some people use the words interchangeably (one way or the other) but I don't.

What the Left Truly Fears

Actually, politicians in general are uncomfortable with it, but it is a much bigger threat to the left.

The liberals for years depended on their absolute control of the media and academia to control what the public knew and believed. CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, PBS and NPR were (and still are) in thrall to the left.

That monopoly, while still fairly strong, is not as absolute as it was.

Sadly the alternatives aren't always that good either.

Fox News is "right wing" only compared to the lunacy of the other networks.

Rush Limbaugh was once a great man but, in my opinion, his success has caused him to become a parody of himself. Still we owe him a debt of gratitude for breaking the liberal stranglehold on the media.

The real threat is when the ordinary people know what is really going on. Be it by talk radio or the blogs, the people of America are getting news the elitists don't want us to have. They allowed us as a group to shut down the "shamnesty" for illegal aliens. It caused congress to recently back down on eliminating the "John Doe" protection laws and will hopefully do the same thing to the fairness doctrine. The elitists of both parties are squawking, but the populists are gaining traction in both parties. For years the liberal populists have been drowned out by the liberal elitists who have had total control of the Democratic Party (while the GOP too often ignores the populists except at elections and when they are forced to listen.)

The real threat to their power is the access to information by the internet.

It was blogs that destroyed Dan Rather when he tried to pull a fast one on America. Other blogs have posted and published stories that the powers-that-be wanted hushed up. While I will probably never post an earth-shattering post, others will and it will make a difference. When the media and the government realizes that we are no longer like the sheep in Animal Farm mindless bleating "Liberal Good . . . Conservative Ba-a-a-ad!" (or the other way around) they will be forced to listen to us.

The only real danger is if they start to effectively patrol and censor the internet.

They will try. As the printing press revolutionized the world, the internet has taken it one step further, and to the elitists, an informed public is a dangerous public.

It is ironic that in 1984 Big Brother used something similar to the internet to control the public while in reality, the net gives us our best weapon against Big Brother.

Can't Have This Now Can We?

I have a close relative currently spending a little bit of time behind bars. His crime? Driving on a suspended license. While I care for him immensely he knew he had no license to drive when he got behind the wheel, and since this was not his first offense I acknowledge that the punishment he is receiving is justified.

A car is a device that one needs to understand and know how to use safely and it must be used safely. Those who don't do this will not get a license, simple enough. Those without licenses should not be allowed to drive and if they're caught driving they should receive a reasonable yet substantial punishment.

California is cracking down on unlicensed drivers and civil rights groups are up in arms.

Their complaint is that this crackdown is targeting the Latino community. A simple question is this. What group has the largest number of unlicensed drivers in California? Answer: Illegal immigrants.

Let's suppose that we had a law against burning crosses on other peoples' private property. Wait a minute! We do! Now when was the last time a black or Hispanic person was prosecuted under this law? (which by the way is a law I support.) It is a law that targets a specific group of people who happen to be white, not white people in general. This is not unrelated.

The cross burning ordinances were designed to prevent illegal activity (harassing and threatening non-whites in this case) and so was the crackdown on unlicensed drivers (all ethnic issues aside, an unlicensed driver is more often than not a dangerous driver.) If it is designed to target illegal immigrants, so what? There are also non-Hispanic illegals in this country (Chinese - though I don't know why - Muslims, and even a few Europeans - -) but they don't have advocacy groups so if they get caught they are deported -- end of story. The crackdown is not against Hispanics in general, who are citizens and are as American as I am; it is against a group of people who are here illegally, who just happen to be largely Hispanics.

The rights enumerated in the Constitution are for citizens of this country, regardless of ethnicity, and legal guests. Illegal visitors of any sort have no rights beyond the minimal basic human rights.

So Let's Do It Legally

It seems that a lot of farmers want migrant workers because Americans won't do the hard, labor intensive, relatively low pay work in the hot sun. Fair enough but let's do it legally and with some sense of order.

I am not worried about the ones that come here to honestly work and are willing to work within our system. It's the troublemakers and parasites that come mixed in with them that I am concerned about. (Gang members, "reconquistodors", Islamic terrorists, welfare hunters etc.) These are the ones we need to keep out and the joke of a reform bill offered by congress was not the answer.

If they want to come to America to work then they should enter legally. They need to understand some basic rules and follow them.

1. They need to obey the law and pay taxes on their income.

2. The authorities need to know where they are, who they are working for, and what they are doing.

3. The wages being paid must be non-exploitive, though it doesn't have to be union wages.

4. Those who seriously violate the law must be deported and never be allowed back in.

5. We must be allowed to do a background check on them and if they do not want background checks they don't need to be here.

6. Those who intend to spend a lot of time here MUST learn English.

However first things first. We need to seal the border and get the migrant worker situation under control then we can be a little bit tolerant of those who are willing to play by the rules and those who feel like they can ignore our laws can go home and stay there.

It's kind of curious, and I don't know if Sid Meiers who created Civilization III has a sense of humor or if I am just kidding myself, but it seems to me that when I play the Americans, and the Aztecs border me, I invariably have to put a single unit on every square of my border with the Aztecs to keep them out of my territory and wandering around at will, but not doing anything. I don't have to do that with any other nation.

Done Reading It

Got in line Friday night around 11:15 and there were about a dozen in line (some of whom had been there a few hours). I timed it well because about 30 more people were in line by 11:30 and the line almost tripled again by midnight.

I read until about 2:30, got some sleep, read some more, went to help with my niece's open house (graduation) for most of Saturday, but read about half of the book Saturday night and finished a couple of hours ago.

It was good. I don't want to give any spoilers so I won't give analysis yet.

There were some rough spots in the book where the narrative was a little confusing, but by and large it read smoothly and went to an amazing climax.

Curiously enough Harry visited his parents' grave and this was their epitaph.

and the last enemy to be defeated shall be death.

Dumbledore's mother was buried nearby and her epitaph was also surprising (pleasantly so!)

Where your treasure is there your heart shall be also.

Curious that both quotes are from the New Testament.

Already!!!!

I passed the local book store about an hour ago on an unrelated errand.

The Harry Potter book will be available at Midnight.

Local time 6:30 PM.

I intend to pick my copy up tonight but won't get in line until about 11 or so.

Line's already forming.





On another note:
Chatterbox at Conservativsm With Heart links to place where you can recreate yourself for the Simpsons' world. I couldn't resist.

Another Bad Emotion

I spoke of hatred a few days ago. Now I wish to discuss another serious negative emotion that can have horrid consequences.

Anger.

Anger is built into us to help us serve a purpose and it is very useful when used properly. At its simplist it's an adrenaline rush that allows us to deal with a difficult situation and is very similar to fear. It should work like this: A situation causes us to get angry, we get angry, we deal with it, we get over the anger.

Or as the Apostle Paul said Get angry but do not sin and do not let the sun go down on your anger. (Ephesians 4: 26) or to paraphrase it If something is wrong and anger is appropriate do so, but don't do something stupid or wrong and then get over it.

When we don't get over it, it grows and grows until it consumes your entire soul. Even justified anger, if it is allowed to fester, can spiritually destroy you. That's part of the reason forgiveness is so important. We do not forgive only for their sake, but for our own as well, for it puts the wrong-doing completely behind us. When we truly forgive we let go of the anger.

I used to work with a woman who died of cancer a few years ago. No one in the plant liked her (including, I am sorry to say, me). She was always angry and bitter about everything. She was the end result of what happens when you allow your anger to control you until in the end it defines you.

I know another guy who used to be quite likable until Bush won in 2000 and he got the worst case of Bush Derangement Syndrome that I personally know of. His son told a friend of mine that he got a flat tire and blamed it on Bush being in the White House. Being angry at one point, rightly or wrongly, at one point was quite understandable, but he held on to his anger and let it grow and grow until it has now consumed him. His anger has poisoned every word and every thought.

Anger, justified or not, if it is allowed to grow will consume your soul until there is nothing that it does not effect.

How do you let anger go, especially when you feel you were genuinely wronged? It's not easy but it can be done.

I had to do it years ago.

"Love" That Destroys & Love That Heals

I was at YouTube looking for specific scene from the old soap Dark Shadows which I wanted for illustrative purposes. While there was a lot of stuff from the series, the scene I was looking for wasn't there. However I found a couple of musical videos posted by different people that were similar and yet very different portraying two very different women who each had a very different "love" for the vampire protagonist, Barnabas Collins.

Angelique was a witch who loved Barnabas and when he spurned her all Hell broke loose. She destroyed his family, ruined the lives of other people he cared about and in the end turned him into a vampire. Her love was childish and selfish, not worthy of being called love. (Keep in mind that Soap Operas in the late 60s didn't have a lot money to spend on special effects.)



There was another woman, named Julia Hoffman who was a psychiatrist. She figured out that Barnabas was a vampire, yet she still fell in love with him. While she never said it that I remember, it was pretty obvious that she did. Unlike Angelique's "love", Dr. Hoffman's love was selfless and she reached underneath the vampire and found the man he once was and ultimately led him to reclaim his own soul from the curse of vampirism.



Now neither love was perfect, and Dark Shadows was hardly a gospel show, yet I must ask which love came closest to I Corinthians 13? And our own loves, do we love as the witch Angelique, or do we love Dr. Hoffman did? One destroys and the other heals and gives life.

Harry Potter and the Future. Who Dies?

I saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix this weekend at it was actually quite good. I do recommend it and its parallels with the Global War on Terror are interesting, if probably unintentional.

The final book of the series is due out in a few days and rumors say that two main characters are going to die in it. I really don't know who but I will venture some guesses.

Ron Weasley is almost certainly one of the two. He is being set up as a tragic character and it looks like he might be a goner.

Harry Himself is very possibly going to die and fits with his scar and what was exposed about theDark Lord's power in The Half-Blood Prince. Yet something inside of me says he is going to live. I could be wrong.

Since Harry's father figures all seem to die I would consider them likely prospects. Arthur Weasley and Hagrid are both father figures to Harry and I wouldn't give either of them a life insurance policy right now.

I also suspect that Snape will meet the Grim Reaper but I don't think he is one of the intended.


On another note, a creditor seized and shut down my employer so I am currently unemployed. A situation I intend to remedy as quickly as I can. Please say a prayer or two, not only for me but my co-workers as well.

Who Do I Hate?

Actually no one!

What do I hate? I hate destructive ideas and false beliefs. I hate Socialism but I love socialists and grieve for the lie that is consuming them. I hate war but know that it is an unavoidable and sometimes necessary evil. I hate Islam but love Muslims and pray that their eyes will opened to the Son of God so we can share eternity in Heaven.

You cannot love someone and also love the thing that is destroying them. You cannot love an alcoholic without hating alcoholism; you can't love a drug addict without hating their addiction. I could go on and on. I feel the same way about Islam.

So what is Hate?

My Random House College Dictionary defines it as to dislike intensely or passionately; detest.

One problem of definitions is to use one define a word by synonyms. I would prefer a more practical definition. It is often seen as the opposite of love. That too creates a problem as the word "opposite" has two meanings.

You can have polar opposites such as North and South which actually compliment each other (ie one cannot exist without the other), or you can have an opposite in which one is the absence of the other ie. light and darkness. (Darkness is not the compliment of light, but the absence of light.) Now is hate the compliment (ie polar opposite whose existence is made necessary by the existence of love) or is it the total absence of love? Or is it something else?

One of the best secular definitions of love I ever read was in Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, where he defined love as a state where the happiness of the beloved is a prerequisite for happiness of the lover. If the beloved is unhappy then the lover cannot be happy. There are a couple of philosophical problems with this but on the whole it is a very workable definition.

If hate is the opposite of love, then perhaps it should be defined like this:

A state of mind where the hater's and the recipient's happiness are mutually exclusive. What pains one brings pleasure to other and brings pleasure to one brings displeasure to the other.

Wanting someone to become a Christian and adopt our worldview is not hatred. It is wishing to share the joy of Christ and how can that ever be seen as hatred. Expecting change in people comes with the territory as you cannot go to Him and not change.

If I hated someone, I would wish for and take delight in their damnation, and feel wronged if they were redeemed. I hope I never sink that low.

A Couple of Thoughts

First off is Global Warming.

Is it happening? Yes on earth (where it's blamed on greedy capitalists and the unthinking unwashed masses who need to be led to utopia by His Supreme Holiness, the High Priest of Mother Earth, Al Gore by obeying his edicts from on high.) It's also happening on Mars which His Holiness, Al Gore, conveniently chooses to ignore because it can't be blamed on Americans.

The American Thinker has an intriguing essay on the history of global warming and the fact that at the moment, earth's mean temperature is lower than it has been through much of history, and what is now happening (on both Earth and Mars) may be a return to normal. Temperatures have been rising since the end of the Little Ice Age some 250 years ago.

On another note, the Pope who has made some very wise proclamations, has now said something very, very foolish. He claims that churches that don't recognize his primacy are not true churches.

I beg to differ with him. When I was much younger I believed that only Protestants, preferably of my own denomination, were truly saved and that the Pope was the beast of Revelation 13 (which was a common belief in the 18th through early 20th century, as described in Alexander Hislop's book The Two Babylons.) I later got to know a lot of Catholics who were faithful Christians and my beliefs did not so much change as they grew.

If I wished to further this divide I could demonstrate through the Scriptures and ecclesiastical history that Jesus never ordained the Papacy but that it is a human institution superimposed on the Church. Jesus is the only head of the Church and there is no earthly head of one person authorized to speak ex cathedra on His behalf. He speaks through the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit.

I believe the Pope is a sincere and dedicated believer but he is wrong on this issue and when the Church is facing a murderous foe on the outside, we do not need this on the inside.

He'll apologize to Muslims for telling the truth. Will he apologize to Protestants when he is wrong?

Old Advertisements.

Been kind of busy the last few days but I received an E-mail from my brother who lives in Florida which was just some old advertisement. They were all amazing but three in particular were real eye openers. I thought I'd share these three.

H/T My brother




The real scary thing is that people believed some of these ads.

A Clarification

There seems to be some confusion on the last paragraph of my previous post. I tried to find the initial article that I was referring to (it was in World Net Daily) but I couldn't find it.

Some time ago I came across a new look at liberalism. I can't remember who wrote it but it was fascinating. It said basically that socialism was a philosophy based on envy that gave legitimacy to theft while liberalism was not so much a philosophy as it was a defense mechanism and survival strategy designed to deflect that envy to others and protect one's own property from being confiscated by the socialists. It was long article but I think it needs to be looked at, as this "defense mechanism" is now getting in the way of our cultural and national survival.

Perhaps I worded it wrongly but I need to clarify.

Socialism is nothing more than an envy based legalized form of theft through government action. There seems to be very little problem with that.

Liberalism is a defense mechanism to deflect that envy. I do not mean a psychological defense mechanism but rather a cultural, economic and political defense. Many liberals are affluent if not outright rich, yet they favor socialism for others. Now if they were serious about believing socialism was the right thing to do and they wanted to do it, they would start with their own property. The fact that they do not is proof that they are not serious about socialism but, being rich, they know they would be the target of a socialist takeover. By liberal they are telling the threatening socialists "Look! I don't want you to be poor! I favor socialism! I'm one of the good guys! Not like those nasty conservatives! I'm your friend." Thus they believe they will be spared the wrath of the masses.

Perhaps it also a psychological defense mechanism as well. They see the poor and feel guilty about having so much. By endorsing liberalism they can soothe their consciences and feel good about themselves without having to personally give anything up.

The thing is that their liberalism hurts the middle and working classes more than it hurts them and it helps the government bureaucrats more than it helps the poor. They have to know this. Simply giving money to these people to improve their lives doesn't work for a very good reason; you cannot improve a person's life without first improving the person. The Salvation Army understood this and while they fed the poor, they concentrated on improving the person so that they could eventually help themselves. (This is the difference between Christian Charity and secular welfare!) Great Society welfare with its "no strings attached" mentality only threw money at the problems with no attempt to improve the personal quality of the people receiving it; that's why it failed. If they truly cared about the poor then they would be finding a better solution.

They Will Never Admit It.

I recently watched, for the first time, Squanto, A Warrior's Tale and was, for the most part, totally unimpressed with it. Basically it was little more than politically correct "the world was a paradise until the White Man and Christianity came along!" hogwash. One thing that did strike me though was the leader of the monastery where Squanto was hiding could not acknowledge that Squanto came from across the Atlantic because there was nothing over there and everyone who claimed to visit the New World was a liar. The world was flat and that was that.

Part of his problem of course was that his world-view required that the world be flat. That was based on a misunderstanding of the Bible (in fact, if you read it in the Hebrew, Isaiah 40:22, where most translations say God sits above the vault of the earth, actually says He Who sits above the BALL of the earth.) If the earth was not flat than his beliefs were wrong, and his life and purpose were all wasted. (Again most Christians had no problem with the world being round, but hey, this is Hollywood.)

We have a similar problem with today's leftists. They have devoted their entire lives to a Class Struggle ideology and believe that all conflict can be reduced to the struggle between the rich and the poor, the powerful and weak. Now along comes the Islamic Jihad which is an attempt to enforce a religious view on the world by swordpoint and it has nothing to do with the class struggle. The left cannot conceive of this because, by their understanding, all conflict must be class struggle oriented; it is impossible for any other type of violence to exist. As long as they insist on this being a conflict between the oppressed Muslims and the oppressive West they are going to fail to see what is really happening.

When it comes to the Class Struggle there are two kinds of idiots. The first kind of idiot totally dismisses it and says it isn't happening at all. (It is happening, but the left totally misunderstands it as it is part of a matrix of many struggles that interact with each other in different ways.) The other kind of idiot believes that the class struggle is the defining struggle of history and human existence. Because of this philosophical tunnel vision, our liberal college professors, our unthinking Hollywood celebrities, and our progressive media voices will never see or acknowledge what is truly happening. If there is a violent conflict that involves something other than the class struggle then their entire world-view is wrong and every thing they believe is false. They cling to the class-struggle ideology in spite of the mountain of evidence against it because their self-value and self-image is wrapped up in it.

Some time ago I came across a new look at liberalism. I can't remember who wrote it but it was fascinating. It said basically that socialism was a philosophy based on envy that gave legitimacy to theft while liberalism was not so much a philosophy as it was a defense mechanism and survival strategy designed to deflect that envy to others and protect one's own property from being confiscated by the socialists. It was long article but I think it needs to be looked at, as this "defense mechanism" is now getting in the way of our cultural and national survival.

A Couple of Quizes

I am a "right wing kook" and I am only 68% Capitalist?

You Are 68% Capitalist, 32% Socialist

In general, you support a free economy and business interests. You tend to think people should fend for themselves, even when times get tough. However, do think the government should help those who are truly in need.

Are You a Socialist or Capitalist?

I do not believe that I am 32% Socialist. I am a Capitalist who believes that people and organizations have responsibilities and those of integrity will fulfill them.

The quiz itself has the usual flaws including the definition of Socialism. A Yes-No response is inadequate for some questions. There also seems to be some question of what Socialism is as the questions seem to be oriented toward a welfare state vs sink-or-swim economy instead of true Socialism (ie state owns and controls the industry)

H/T to PJC over at Born Again Redneck Yogi

Here is an even better quize. How lustful am I? Actually the questions have less to do with lust and a lot to do with morality.

Your Lust Quotient: 35%

You are a fairly lustful person, but nothing out of the norm. You usually keep your lust under control, but sometimes it gets the better of you.

How Much Lust Do You Have?