Leftist Question: Why Are Conservatives Proud They're Not Progressives?

What Opposites Share

Why are Conservatives proud they're not Progressives? For many of the same reasons that Progressives are proud not to be Conservatives. Contrary to many opinions, both sides share the same human frailties and motives. Since the questioner is, presumably, in the Progressive camp, he/she/? already knows most of the answer. All he/she/? needs to do is answer why Progressives feel the same pride and apply the same reason to Conservatives.

It is true that extreme Conservatives resist any change, but extreme Progressives will accept any change (except when things really need to be changed back; then, they become the reactionaries). Both extremes share mindless attitudes about change.

Domanance

Unfortunately, among Progressives, the extreme has become mainstream, dominating entertainment, news media, education, the Democrat Party, and new-media giants such as Twitter, Google, and Facebook. If your grasp of reason, facts, and history arm you to resist all of that, you have something to be proud of.

Intellectual Honesty

Another difference is that Conservatives are not really that inflexible. They are willing to be convinced when proposed changes are specific, effective, and efficient, and will cause minimal unintended consequences such as chipping away at God-given rights. I don’t see willingness to learn from Progressives. For example, in debate after debate, Progressives repeatedly confuse semi-automatic with assault and confuse scary style with military performance. If there’s a way to obfuscate, they will use it. Conservatives can get things wrong, but since they cling to “outdated” values such as thou shalt not bear false witness, they lack the ability to intentionally spin language that way. And that is another thing Conservatives can take pride in.

Reason Versus Hysteria

Perhaps the biggest difference is that Conservatives rhetoric trends toward deductive, left-brain thinking whereas Progressives rhetoric leans toward inductive, right-brain thinking. And right-brain thinking is the gateway to hysterical, lizard-brained, fight-or-flight thinking. Progressivism is home to unions and Antifa (fight), and to snowflakes (flight). Recent studies have supported this, showing that Conservatives consider a significantly wider range of values and perspectives when thinking about an issue. For example, a Conservative will balance the suffering and loss of life when a child is vivisected during gestation against a few months inconvenience and comfort if nobody will help a mother kill her child. All the Progressive can see is the mother. The person who balances more values and perspectives has good reason to take pride in Conservative thinking.

Consistency Versus Hypocrisy

Conservatives tend to be far more consistent than Progressives. For example, a Progressive holds the lives of murderers sacred, as well as the temporary convenience of a mother who has engaged in risky reproductive behavior, but disregards the life of a pre-born child. They rescue the guilty and help kill the innocent. Progressives condemn racism against Blacks and then institute racism against Whites. Hate speech is speech that Progressives hate. For example, a Twitter user created two accounts and sent out identical rants. One set ranted against “Whites” and the other against “Blacks,” both saying the same words. Twitter censored the anti-black account and left the anti-White account alone. When Conservatives build out applications from principles and balance different perspectives in a consistent manner, they have reason to be proud.

Religion Versus Magic

Conservatives are rooted in reality. Religious Conservatives also look to time-tested tenets of the social contract. Progressives also are rooted in religion, but they hide it behind Relativism. Relativism has led to magical thinking such as, a boy can think himself into a girl, a baby not yet seen is not yet a baby, and if irresponsible reproductive behavior is right for you, then it’s OK. At least the religious Conservatives are honest about the supernatural element behind some of what they think, and it does not conflict with physical reality. Conservatives, even religious Conservatives, can take pride in refuting the delusions of Progressives.

Reasons for Pride

There are fanatics, quislings, idiots, fools, and evildoers in any movement, so this is all painted with a broad brush. Conservatives are standing against powerful cultural influences. They are teachable, more reasonable, more balanced in weighing more principles and perspectives, more honest and consistent, and more rooted in reality. These are all reasons for them to take pride.

Honor, Therefore, Conservatism

But perhaps we are looking at this backwards. Perhaps Conservatism attracts people who have pride, people who have enough honor to take responsibility for themselves instead of blaming others for their place in life.

I started life in abject poverty. I worked my way through college, taking ten years to finish a five-year degree. My career plateaued because less-qualified, favored-class people received the training I needed and the promotions I had sacrificed for. My career collapsed because the Democrat-caused housing bubble trapped me in a 180-mile per day commute. My career died when Democrats decimated my industry, right at the worst possible time, the depths of the recession in 2009. I have gone full circle, back to my roots in poverty.

It is tempting to think the government owes me for what it did to the career I sacrificed to achieve. It would be nice if being a White, educated male did not disqualify me from the benefits that allow my neighbors to live far better than me. But I have not discarded reason and pride, so I remain Conservative (though moderately Liberal by the standards of my parents’ generation). And thus, I retain my honor, too.

Is "moderate Islam" an oxymoron?

I received an email, with the above title, that makes the case that all Muslims are extremists. I have to disagree. The key to understanding my position lies in a look at Judaism and Christianity.

Judaism has what Christians call "apostates," those who have left the faith; and it has "heretics," those who were raised outside the faith and either through error or through hostility, undermine the faith. At the extreme, some of these people remain religious and follow cults such as Kabbala or (from their perspective) our Yeshua. In the middle, the vast majority follow some semi-agnostic variety of Judaism that is Jewish primarily by culture. The real Jews are the Orthodox Jews, whose males often wear some element of a uniform such as yarmulkes or beards to identify themselves.

Christians are the same way. There are plenty of heretical sects such as Mormons, The Watchtower (Jehovah's [false] Witnesses, and Unitarians. In the middle are the mainline denominations that use a Christian vocabulary but have lost the Christian faith. For example, in the United Methodist Church, a poll many years ago revealed that half the pastors denied the virgin birth and the resurrection. With so many holes cut in their Bibles, it's no surprise that most "mainstream" Christian churches cooperate in the ecumenical movement, whose aim is to join with all theologies, even including New Age religions, animist, aboriginal religions, and "moderate" Islam -- essentially, a precursor to the One World Religion of Antichrist. I would put  the apostate Westboro Baptist Church in that category. I think you might be willing to put the Liberation Theology branch of Catholicism in that category, too.

The main thing that ties together all those "heretical" and "apostate" varieties of Jewish and Christian beliefs is their treacherous lip service to The Bible. They either believe God isn't god, or God doesn't care enough to communicate truthfully with man and then preserve that communication. Functionally, they are agnostics who prefer to err on the faith side instead of erring on the side of atheism. They contrast with evangelical or fundamentalist believers, and they make up the majority of Christians. (The sense with which I mean "evangelical or fundamentalist" includes those who have a strict faith in Catholicism.)

Islam has a similar distribution of faith. I don't know whether the majority of Muslims are functional agnostics the way most Christians are, although I've met a lot who are. I've met a few who might compare to mainstream Christians that border the Evangelicals. They retain the culture and worship; but in practice, they don't treat the Koran as a reliable revelation of their god.

I've described a perspective that views a moderate in anything as falling short of "true believer." For example, if you disagree with the Constitution and the reasoning behind it, you are fooling yourself if you claim to believe in Americanism and be a patriot. Similarly, "moderate Islam" is an oxymoron, just like "mainstream Christian" or "non-Orthodox Jew" are oxymorons. If the words apply to one, they have to apply to the others.

The difference is that, in Islam's case, moderation is a very, very good thing.

What's So Bad about Being a Liberal?

First, not all that presents itself as conservative is actually conservative.

The Republican Party poorly represents conservatism. In fact, the GOP vacillates between moderately conservative on some issues and liberal economics and internationalism. I would guess that a third of the GOP is actually liberal, a third sticks a wet finger in the air, and a minority is actually conservative. For example, George W. Bush got tax cuts passed early in his administration, but cooperated with Democrat-led bail-outs of banks and GM.

So, let's not use Republicans to define the opposite of liberalism.

Second, being liberal is a good thing; and progress is good when the goal is good and the means are just. Being a liberal or a progressive, however, has a very peculiar meaning that does not necessarily connect to the root words, liberal and progress.

In my definitions (not necessarily standard, but offered for the sake of communication), conservatism seeks to preserve traditional values of liberty, self-reliance, and justice that does not respect persons.

Liberalism, or as the codeword is used today, progressivism, on the other hand, redefines a neutral term. Progress is good, right? Doesn't everybody love progress?

When you say change (as in hope and change) or progress, you have to pick a direction. You have to pick an origination and a destination. Depending on your definition of progress, it may or may not mean something good. The compass has only one North, but it has 359 degree-markers that point away from North.

Suppose your objective were to see far with an unobstructed view, so you climb the highest mountain. Progress would be pretty stupid if it meant trekking off that cliff to the West, wouldn't it? What else could you do? You could build a tower where you are, on your existing foundation. But would you leave the spot just because change is good?

The progressive compass points hard left, to 270 degrees, toward freedom for immorality and toward repression of traditional morality, toward collectivist statism, and toward "social justice" that bases rights on class, skin color, and sexual orientation.

American conservatives see progressive, liberal, socialist, and Marxist, as variations of a single philosophy. That philosophy derives from secular, materialist existentialism, in which interpretation is reality, objective truth is a myth, and the ultimate organism is the state.

Whereas Americanism states that authority flows from God through the People to the government, the progressive spectrum worships the Collective as the ultimate organism, whose people live at its pleasure. Americanism secures rights to the people and assigns responsibilities to the government, but progressivism gives the government rights and the people privileges. Conservative liberalism means personal tolerance and personal giving (to which the restaurant help will attest after any political convention), but Progressive liberalism forces promotion of the tolerable and gives at the expense of others.

If you believe black is white and right is wrong, then, I suppose, being a liberal is great.

What Fact Check Sites Do You Prefer?

Do you prefer Snopes, Factcheck, what? Thanks, L

The fact-check and urban legends sites have helped me avoid embarrassing myself many times. There's nothing like forwarding a request from a 7-year-old cancer victim, only to find that he's now 27, has to pay for his own zip code, and wishes people would stop sending him post cards for his collection.

 

When it comes to political or social issues, however, I don't trust any of them.

• PolitiFact is a project of the St. Petersberg Times, an extreme left-wing newspaper. Click HERE for an example of how their Lie of the Year with which they smeared Mitt Romney turned out to be true.
    
• FactCheck, FlackCheck, and FactCheckEd are a projects of Annenberg Public Policy Center and funded by the Annenberg Foundation. As board chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, Barack Obama (or was he still Barry Soetoro?) helped fund "educational" activities of Bill Ayers, the 1960s terrorist who murdered at least one policeman with a bomb. What does that tell you about FactCheck's neutrality?
    
• Snopes is funded by George Soros, a pro-socialist billionaire and currency manipulator who boasts that he has overthrown at least two European countries. The editors of Snopes are Obama bundlers and one has even held an appointment in the Obama administration.
    
• The Fact Checker is a project of The Washington Post, a veritable media outlet for the Democrat Party.

No short-cut around visiting various sources and weighing the arguments. However, find the following sites quite helpful:

• Media Research Center (MRC) and its network of sites keep tabs on media bias.
  NewsBusters
  CNSNews.com
  MRCTV
  Business and Media Institute
  Culture and Media Institute
  TimesWatch
  MRC Action

If you have a favorite site for checking the veracity of what you hear from the media or the politicians, please let us know in the comments.

When Liberals Get Tough on Crime....

I see a common trope in the news that I call, When Liberals 'get tough on crime....'

• A kindergartener takes a 3/4" rubber GI Joe knife to school
• Seven-year-olds shoot at each other with "finger guns" while playing cops and robbers
• A teenage girl gives Midol to a classmate having menstrual cramps

...and they get suspensions and juvenile records.

• Or an Olympic rifle champion gets arrested for having his target rifle (with trigger lock and a locked bag) locked in the trunk of his car when picking up his child from school.
•  A man shoots an armed home invader and is sent to prison for illegally using a gun.

 When Liberals 'get tough on crime....' predicts the following:

• SWAT teams knocking down the doors of anybody who has ever been diagnosed with depression or anxiety (information courtesy of Obamacare) and who has a record of having applied to purchase a firearm (information courtesy of background check applications)
•  "Clean shoots" by police officers reacting to people startled out of their sleep and pointing flashlights at the intruders.

The second prediction reminds me of a little boy in Modesto, California, who was killed a few years ago by the "accidental discharge" of a shotgun pointed at his back while he laid, hands bound, on the floor during a legal (but mistaken) search of his grandfather's house.

What difference does homosexual marriage make?

JP: What difference does homosexual marriage make? How would someone getting married to someone else affect you in anyway? Never understood why we as conservatives are so hell bent on less government, but then turn around and try to twist government into a watchdog for religious or social dogma. If we want less government, then stay out of the bedroom. What 2 consenting adults do, in their own time, is none of your, or my business.

"Twisting"? 

• JP, you twist government into a watchdog for so-called homosexual rights. That twists government into a bigger government.
   
• You want to twist homosexual acts (the bedroom privacy sham) into the same thing as homosexual marriage. That twists logic.
   
• You twist government recognition of families that can create children into the same thing as a police state. That twists truth into a lie.
   
• You twist the effects on insurance rates, employment rights, and freedom of association into having no affect on others. That twists short-sightedness into a gag order.
   

In short, your cliches are just plain twisted.

Obama: You Didn't Build That

People think that Me-me-me-my-my-my-I-I-I-bama's speech makes sense only because his speechwriters sugarcoat false reasoning. His error stems from the hidden socialist dogma that the business is not responsible for the roads, utilities, regulators, delivered in tones of fake outrage. Rather, he implies, the contributions of employees, utility workers, bureaucrats, etc, add significant value to the business. This assumption deceives for two reasons.

First, the business pays, through taxes to the government, wages to employees, interest and fees to lenders, and dividends to stockholders, for all those things Ibama says contributed to building the business. A new business may pay afterwards instead of before, but it still pays. It says that if you pay somebody to do make something you thought of, they get all the credit, as though you had nothing to do with it.

This couldn't be more wrong. If you buy a painting, you own it. If you buy a pizza, you have the right to eat it. Likewise, if you pay for all those ancillary contributions, then you get the credit for building the business.

Second, all those external factors would exist whether you build the business or don't. The contribution is mutual because, without the business, unused roads and utilities would be failures due to lack of use and would be failures due to lack of sponsorship. The electric company, the construction companies, employees, and bureaucrats profit from the presence of the business.

By Ibama's reasoning, when you build that business, you get to take credit for all those other things, too. But Ibama is a committed Marxist, so he loses his sense of reality amid all the big words and false intellectualism. "You didn't build that" is sophistic: It sounds brilliant, but when you slow down and think, you hear the foolishness.

In Business, Take Time to Do the Calculations


Reference:  Weiser, Matt . California Parks Director Resigns Amid Scandal. Sacramento Bee. Friday, 20 July 2012.

As California balances between eternal debt and bankruptcy, the Democrats in Sacramento look for excuses to raise taxes and spending. One such excuse, the shortfall of funds to keep California State Parks open, has forced many volunteers into fundraising and forced local governments into shifting their own funds into keeping state parks open to  draw tourist dollars.

The Sacramento Bee found that a deputy director at State Parks "carried out a secret vacation buyout program for employees at department headquarters last year. That buyout cost the state more than $271,000." This led to a much larger find: The State Parks department his hiding $54 million in unspent funds.

State Parks Director Ruth Coleman resigned after the Bee published news of the stash. The employee who bought back vacation time had already been demoted and later resigned. His crime, in my opinion, discriminated between his friends at the headquarters and those who work equally hard in the field.

I believe the withholding of funds could only happen in concert with Democrat attempts to extort more taxes from the public. That's how Democrats do things in California government.

The gem in the original story follows:  For the sake of argument, let's assume we have two employees:

1. Mr. Buyout sells his vacation time back to the state.
   Mr. Vacation enjoys taking time off to go protest with OWS.



2. Vacation is earned over the course of the year.
   Both employees make $50/hour.



3. Both have 160 hours/month x 12 months/year (rounding) and 40 hours vacation

This means

• Mr. Buyout works 1920 hours for 1960 hours' pay.
  Mr. Vacation works 1880 hours for 1920 hours' pay. 



• Mr. Buyout makes $98,000.
  Mr. Vacation makes $96,000. 



• Mr. Buyout has an effective pay rate of $51.042 per hour.
  Mr. Vacation has an effective pay rate of $51.064 per hour.

Mr. Buyout actually makes 2 cents per hour less.

Two cents/hour is not much, but consider a couple more factors.

First, when you add in the effects of benefits and overhead, the difference multiplies to 3 to 4 cents per hour.  Employers love forcing employees to work overtime because the benefits are paid for by the first 1920 hours' labor. With benefits costing 50% to 100% of the base pay, that means employee overtime effectively costs 33%-50% less (assuming pay at straight time rates, if any).

On a tangent, managers often put their directs in a position where overtime is forced and vacation is denied.  Both practices hinder productivity and morale.  When employees forced to work lose unused vacation, it amounts to stealing.  Therefore, vacation buyouts often form an ethically necessary action.

Second, if you multiply 2 cents/hour over a year and thousands of employees, the added productivity and lowered effective cost create a good deal for the taxpayers.

Conclusion:  The state punished the fellow who conducted the buyouts for doing a good thing. THAT, dear friend, is California government, just as much as hiding funds to force increased taxes.  The business-related point is, "do the math."  The worker who violates procedure may have done so because it was right for the company and simply, ethically right.

Liberals Misunderstand America's Melting Pot

The melting pot is just an implement. It brings to mind a stew, since it has been contrasted with a salad bowl. However, I think the correct image comes from metallurgy, where various ingredients should blend to form an alloy such as steel.

Staying with the stew pot (I think more people can relate to cooking than to metallurgy), we have three cooks brewing a terrible mess. 

One cook, the conservative, wants to maintain the stew's distinctive balance of flavors, the recipe that made the stew a distinctively American stew.

The second cook, the newcomer, comes in numbers that upsets the balance of flavors and, in fact, refuses to abandon the flavor that he left behind. He sees only the rich nutrient content of the American stew and fails to value the recipe that made it great. That is, he brings the values that caused the conditions from which he fled and clashes with values that made America great. While conservative cooks welcome newcomers, an excess of newcomers can turn the stew into a completely different dish.

The third cook, the liberal, rejects the Judeo-Christian broth on which the soup was based. He waters down and neutralizes the distinct American flavor. He tries every other continent's distinctive dish; after all "change is good." Doing so, he leaves a hole into which the newcomers add the flavors of their impoverished, oppressed, corrupt, fan-ruled countries of origin.

We don't have a situation where we neutrally teach children about other cultures' recipes. Liberals rule the State Church (the education system). They use their power to belittle and suppress the conservative flavor. In its place, they teach the recipes of materialistic humanism and even the recipes of the newcomers. Thus, we see generations of agnostics, pictures of schoolchildren bowing in Muslim prayer, and children becoming "gay" before it is even developmentally appropriate for them to know about sex.

By suppressing the conservative values that redirected rights from the state toward the individual and by encouraging those whose native cultures produce totalitarianism, liberalism -- both political and religious -- threatens to destroy American and that for which she stands -- or used to stand.

The analogy holds up for the metallurgical melting pot, too. With the right ingredients, the product can resist oxidation, spring back into shape, or separate a nucleus from its cell's membrane. With careless formulation, it can be easily dulled, can oxidize overnight, or can even be toxic -- but that's assuming you're willing to separate it from all the unmelted dross. And liberals aren't willing.

Birthers May Finally Get Their Day in Court

The question may turn out to be, “Which Republican candidate can best beat Hillary?”

According to an action letter from Proof Positive via Conservative Contacts and the web site of Attorney OrlyTaitz, a Georgia Judge has issued a subpoena demanding Barack Obama appear in court January 26 and produce his original long form birth certificate, passport records, college registration records, and more.

Georgia became the first state to pursue Obama ineligibility complaints, and the end result may keep Barack Obama off the Georgia 2012 ballot.  A number of Georgia voters filed lawsuits questioning Barack Hussein Obama's eligibility to appear on the Georgia Presidential ballot.

Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp's office decided to pursue five of the ineligibility complaints.  Each complaint argues that Barack Hussein Obama II is ineligible to appear on the 2012 Georgia Presidential ballot. Secretary Kemp assigned 5 different hearings under five different judges so that the complaints could move forward.

Failure to appear on the Georgia ballot could bring Obama devastating media and cost him 15 electoral votes.

Dr. Orly Taitz, attorney for one of the plaintiffs in the Georgia eligibility cases working their way rapidly through the courts, posted a copy of what is reportedly a subpoena, issued by Judge Michael Malihi of Georgia.

Georgia Judge Michael Malihi ordered Obama's attorneys to appear in court January 26, holding that, according to state law, every federal and state candidate must prove eligibility for office – including Barack Obama.

The White House's badly forged "birth certificate" has not ended the debate on Barack Obama's eligibility. Rather, it has opened the door for further allegations of fraud and ineligibility.  The subpoena demands that Barack Obama personally appear in court on January 26 and bring with him a a "birther's" dream list of official documents that will prove or disprove his eligibility for office.

Unlike previous cases, where only certain documents were requested or discussed, this subpoena issued by Judge Malihi includes every document that serious eligibility experts have been discussing from the beginning. 

The list requires Obama to produce each of the following:

• Any and all certified birth records including a long form birth certificate.
• Certified school/university registration records. Certified immigration/naturalization records.
• Certified passport records
• Redacted certified Social Security card applications for each of the aliases and other legal names used by Barack Obama, including but not limited to his legal surname when adopted by step-father Lolo Soetoro

In addition, Judge Malihi has reportedly also subpoenaed Hawaii Health Department officials and commanded them to produce an original certified copy of Obama's long form birth certificate.

In an order written January 3, 2012, Malihi ruled that Georgia state law is very clear – any candidate for federal or state office must meet the qualifications of that office and that Georgia electors have the right to challenge those qualifications in court.  Accordingly, Malihi flatly denied Obama's motion to dismiss and scheduled a hearing for January 26.

Obama has some of the highest-rent attorneys in the country working to keep the question of his eligibility for office out of court.  And no wonder, because whether he was born in Hawaii or not, according to binding precedents laid out by the Supreme Court, Barack Hussein Obama II does not qualify as a natural born Citizen.

Georgia resident Kevin R. Powell wrote in his complaint, "Barack Hussein Obama II has publicly admitted his father Barack Obama Sr. was a Kenyan native and a British subject whose citizenship status was governed by The British Nationality Act of 1948.  Barack Obama Sr. never became a U.S. citizen.  Therefore, Barack Hussein Obama II is not now and never can be a natural born citizen of the United States…"

The U.S. Constitution very clearly requires, in a unique usage and application of the term, that the president must be a "natural born Citizen" to be eligible for the nation's highest office.  "Natural born Citizen" is demonstrably held by the Founders in Article II, Section 1 as distinct and different from "Citizen" and even "native born Citizen" – that is, born under jus soli, on native soil.

In the Founding era, the common law view held that a natural born Citizen was born within United States territory to parents who were themselves United States Citizens.

In the 1875 unanimous Supreme Court ruling of Minor v. Happerset, the Supreme Court explicitly held a "natural born Citizen" to be a Citizen whose parents were both U.S. Citizens at the time of the person's birth. 

This finding was, and continues to be, fully consistent with U.S. history in Supreme Court case decisions and with laws enacted and enforced by the United States Congress.

By Barack Obama's own admission, his father was a native of Kenya and was NEVER a U.S. Citizen.  Therefore, Barack Hussein Obama II would, under long-standing custom, common law, and Supreme Court precedent, automatically be ineligible to hold the office of President of the United States.

The January 26th hearing should be a blockbuster.  It is the first in the nation that proposes to consider on the merits whether Barack Hussein Obama II is eligible to be President of the United States of America.

This article was re-written from a letter from Americans United for Freedom,

http://www.AmericansUnitedForFreedom.org.

New Word: Cacostocracy

An acquaintance asked me if I could beat a forwarded definition of an ineptocracy. It wasn't bad, but I don't give the crooks and traitors in charge of the White House and Senate enough credit to call them merely inept.

Coincidentally, I was thinking about my own word, cacostocracy, that morning while listening to Whistle-blower Wednesday during KSFO's morning commute show. I guess it's about time I defined it.

cacostocracy (cack'-o-stock'-ruh-see), from Gk. kakos "bad, evil":

A political process of putrefaction in which pernicious politicians

for personal empowerment, pursue profane payments proffered by the powerful for propitious and partial treatment, and

pawn profitable persons' futures to finance the favor of degraded, desperate, and dumbed-down demographics, thereby

protecting prolonged, perverted "progress"

• - by proliferating the pampered,
• - by planting pestiferous policies to oppress productive people, and
• - by paring proletarian producers into dispossessed, dis-empowered, dependent peasants.

The "Scientific" Laws of Islam

Reference: Iingam, Rama. Iddat, a Scientific Concept in the Islamic Law to Identify the Paternity. factoidz.com. Downloaded 18 December 2010.


Something surprised me while I looked at writing samples from a web site that pays writers for short articles. The article is Iddat, a Scientific Concept in the Islamic Law to Identify the Paternity. The web site identifies writer Rama Iingam as its #4 expert in Divorce and Family Law.

The writer wishes to convince readers that many of [Muslim Law's] concepts are logical, reasonable and above all... scientifically based and have withstood the test of time.

Before we proceed, we need to define Iddat:

Iddat is quite scientific and it is helpful to identify the paternity of a child. Iddat is nothing but a period of probation a Muslim woman has to undergo immediately after she was divorced by her husband or on his death.

By probation, he means isolation. The law prevents confusion over paternity by ensuring that no child is conceived immediately after divorce or after the death of a husband. Here's the interesting part:

When a Muslim wife below the age of 8 who is under the menopause stage, even if her marriage is consummated, she need not undergo Iddat, when she is divorced or when her husband died.

How many 8-year-olds have undergone menopause? Hopefully, the author meant 'puberty;' so we will let that slide.

I admire Rama Iingam's courage to expose Islam's allowance for consummation of pre-pubescent marriage. Or, I am thankful for his naive exposure of a law, Iddat, that should be spelled Idiot.

What kind of culture condones consummation of marriage to a little girl who is only seven years old, or even younger? Muslims get quite worked up over others' sacrilege toward their false god. Perhaps they should concern themselves more with the blasphemy that is Islam.

Censorship

Blanket, unqualified condemnation of censorship promotes verbal and visual anarchy. 

Anarchy can work only in a society of perfect people. 

I have yet to learn of any such culture.

Artsy-Fartsies Upset over "Censorship"

References

• Bigley, Michael. Artistic Censorship in DC. Washington Grantmakers Daily. (Undated; downloaded 4 December 2010).
• Starr, Penny.Smithsonian Christmas-Season Exhibit Features Ant-Covered Jesus, Naked Brothers Kissing, Genitalia, and Ellen DeGeneres Grabbing Her Breasts. Penny Starr. CNSNews.com. Monday, November 29, 2010.

Recap: One (1) display that displays intolerance toward the religious beliefs of many Americans gets pulled from a Smithsonian exihibit full of (debatably) pornographic displays; and we are supposed to feel threatened by this "censorship."

What does the above have to do with the Grant Applications and Philanthropic Revenue Streams LinkedIn forum on which it was posted? Let me rescue the author. If public reaction surprised the partnership -- that is, assuming the grant makers, the artists, and the Smithsonian did not intentionally bait the public -- the story illustrates a grant partnership that failed to recognize the environmental constraints of the project, undoubtedly due to the artistic fringe's insensitivity to, or disrespect for, the public.

Is this childishness hypocrisy or just faux indignation? Grown-up people get censored every day to protect the feelings of the Left. For example, I cannot fully expressing my opinion about the display's iconoclasm (to put it euphemistically) because it could cost me future employment. Do the artsy-fartsies think they have been censored? Awww, poor babies!

Is it "censorship" to refuse to force taxpayers to fund a venue for propagandists who have many alternate venues? Would it be "censorship" not to facilitate the violation of community standards of decency? Is it "censorship" to stop facilitating propaganda hostile to many citizens and to their religion?

If this is censorship, then at least some censorship is good.

Overwhelming the System

This article needs to circulate widely. Please click the link to read the whole article. I disagree on a major point, however: Occupant Obama lacks the intelligence to master-mind the Cloward-Piven plan. The "Progressives" (meaning, progress towards international socialism) have refined the plan over the last century. Occupant Obama serves only as a script-reading figurehead.

Overwhelm the System WAYNE ALLYN ROOT

...Barach Obama... is purposely overwhelming the U.S. economy to create systemic failure, economic crisis and social chaos -- thereby destroying capitalism and our country from within.

...Add up the clues below. Taken individually they're alarming. Taken as a whole, it is a brilliant, Machiavellian game plan to turn the United States into a socialist/Marxist state with a permanent majority that desperately needs government for survival ... and can be counted on to always vote for bigger government....

* Universal health care... had everything to do with unionizing millions of hospital and health care workers, as well as adding 15,000 to 20,000 new IRS agents (who will join government employee unions)....

* Cap and trade.... has nothing to do with global warming. It has everything to do with redistribution of income, government control of the economy and a criminal payoff to Obama's biggest contributors....

* Make Puerto Rico a state... to add two new Democrat senators, five Democrat congressman and a million loyal Democratic voters who are dependent on big government.

* Legalize 12 million illegal immigrants... adds 12 million reliable new Democrat voters who can be counted on to support big government. Add another few trillion dollars in welfare, aid to dependent children, food stamps, free medical, education, tax credits for the poor, and eventually Social Security.

* Stimulus and bailouts... went to Democrat contributors, organizations (ACORN), and unions.... The country goes broke, future generations face a bleak future, but Obama, the Democrat Party, government, and the unions grow more powerful. The ends justify the means.

* ...Obama wants to dramatically raise taxes to starve his political opposition.

With the acts outlined above, Obama and his regime have created a vast and rapidly expanding constituency of voters dependent on big government; a vast privileged class of public employees who work for big government; and a government dedicated to destroying capitalism and installing themselves as socialist rulers by overwhelming the system....

Team Democrat is a gang of monetary drug dealers who want you hooked and dependent on them. Yes, half of the Republicans share the Democrats' "progressive" (that is, Marxist) goals and will bump the country over the edge, sending us to hell in a hand-basket; but Democrats will intentionally send us there on a greased firepole. I "vote the candidate," but a candidate who belongs to Team Democrat will never, ever, ever! get my vote.

Writing: A Little Perspective Can Bring Out the Relevance

[Somebody tried to start the following off-topic discussion in a writers' group on LinkedIn, a social networking site organized by occupation. One writer responded, equally off-topic. Naturally, I just couldn't resist putting in my 200 cents.]



Original post: Heather Crouse
Executive Vice President at Ferrellok Life Sciences, LLC.


As a country, can we truly afford all of these outrageous bills the Obama Administration keeps pushing through?


The Obama Administration is constantly pushing bills costing billions and trillions of dollars. The last administration spent trillions on oil and war. Can we afford to keep borrowing money against ourselves?

Response: Grant Steen
Owner, Medical Communications Consultants, LLC

I dropped off the Ferrellok Life Sciences discussion group because this kind of useless political garbage kept popping up. Are you trying to trash another discussion group?

For the record, the Obama Administration was stuck with a broken country and a huge bill because George Bush tried to fight two wars while cutting taxes and deregulating industry. All of our problems right now are the result of moronic Republican policies. Get a grip!


Fifth Response: Richard M. Wheeler
Systems Engineer -- Available Now


Grant Steen, thank you SO MUCH for legitimizing Heather Crouse's off-topic message by turning it into a discussion.

For the record back at you, Mr. Genius: If Bush AND the Democrat House AND the Democrat Senate used our children as colateral, the Obama Administration hocked our grandchildren AND our great-grandchildren AND our great-great-grandchildren. Even Republicans pinched their noses when voting for Bush, so grip some perspective! You're smarter than to pass the buck with such a moronic, moral-equivalence-of-darts-and-bullets argment.

Heather Crouse, this is not the place, even if you're right. Better (and more relevantly phrased) questions to ask would include

o Besides watching only MFNBC, what is the best way to train for a lucrative and rewarding career at Czar Sunstein's Ministry of Information?

o How can writers stay motivated while writing laws that they know their bosses won't even bother to read?

o Can freelancers cash in on the boom in Democrat-media agit-prop?

o What is the best software for writing a 1,500-page bill to take over the rest of the economy?

o Is the Associated Press Style Guide the best reference when hiding subversive provisions in a reform bill?

o What great logician said, "You will never be... at the mercy... of a principled... uh... argument... uh... uh... when-you-can-come-back-with-a-tear-jerking-story"?

o How are writers enjoying the new Health Care Benefits that they are paying for?

See? You just have to put things in perspective.

Unemployment's Real Scope and Its Denied Contributing Causes

Despite improvement in unemployment rate, America’s workforce remains ill-prepared to compete with the world

Julian L. Alssid 
Posted on Workforce Developments web site by Bronwyn Mauldin on February 08, 2010
http://workforcedev.typepad.com/workforcedev/2010/02/unemployment-american-workforce.html

The unemployment rate fell below 10 percent in January to 9.7 percent. While this is positive news and a sign the stimulus may be kicking in, the mismatch between employer needs and the education and skills of much of the workforce remains.  (Click on the link above for the whole article.)

Starting with the media-friendly, official unemployment rate trend draws a false picture because its salient point is a decline, whereas we are left in the dark regarding the real trend that includes the discouraged and the underemployed.  Although Julian Alssid explains that the published rate is not the real rate, he fails to identify the trend of the "real" rate.

Tangent notes:

• I suspect that the "discouraged" include those who are not really discouraged, but rather have fallen under the radar because they have depleted their UIB.  I wonder, does it include black market employment such as undocumented of illegal immigrants?  And does it exclude full-time students?

• The trend of the unemployment rate also misleads if it includes growth in government.  A true stimulus must stimulate the economy as reflected by private employment.  Growth in government, such as hiring people to man new bureaucracies and to take the census, can mask the effects of stimulus legislation with false indicators of success.  Alssid's speculation that a declining unemployment rate is, therefore, unjustified.

I also suspect that we're missing a significant factor that contributes to the vocational education gap: the balkanization of our population.  Two major in-your-face groups live in my area.  Many in the urban Black subculture suffer an entitlement mentality and a set of fears (some legitimate, some self-prophetic) that encourage division and discouragement.  The resulting dialects and counter-cultural behavior (such as wearing the fashions of violent gangs) cause further isolation, friction, and hindrance to vocational success.

On the government's side, we continue to emphasize divisive affirmative action when we ought to moved on toward voluntary (not forced) integration and reconciliation.  (As one unintended consequence, White males not otherwise inclined to racism can easily react to being shoved aside in favor of those "less qualified" often react with bitterness and discouragement.)  Such attitudes and divisiveness can form insurmountable hindrances to gaining the knowledge and skill needed for success.

The other hard-to-miss subculture (actually, a group of subcultures) consists of a mixture of legal, illegal, temporary, and loophole immigrants (e.g., the "anchor baby" phenomenon), isolated by language barriers and many of the same problems that hold back the urban Black subculture.  Most legal immigrants commit to integrating into the culture at large.  They provide valuable contributions to our country.  Many, especially those who come via non-legal ways, however, make no such commitment.  Fear of immigration police, intention to return home, familial roles, and for Latinos, ancestral claim to the American Southwest, reinforce social barriers that isolate them from better education and vocational success.

Since the recent collapse of the lending and housing bubbles, news about current immigration trends has become scarce; but before that, the trend was rapidly upward.  The trade-offs between the benefits of having a diverse population and the cost, in divisiveness, self-imposed repression, and resultant social costs such as crime and dependency on the tax-payer, of providing incentives and protection for illegal immigration point to major flaws in the political left's platform.

The majority culture deserves much blame.  Parents lay the foundation for education with their examples, their values, and the quality of learning environment that they provide for their children.  Government usurps too much responsibility and too many parents willingly surrender it.  The mechanisms range from government's role as an enabler of broken homes to its hostility toward parental involvement and traditional values.  Ironically, our culture takes blame upon itself that it ought to address to the people and subcultures that exacerbate the problems.  (That is, we deserve blame because we excuse self-defeating behavior by blaming ourselves too much.)

We need to identify the true scope of unemployment and set aside our fears (for example, my fear of being called a racist for what I've said here) of identifying the causes.  We won't make substantial and permanent progress until we face the problem honestly and determine to move beyond our sympathies and resentments.

Could NAZI Germany Happen in America?

Ever wonder how a modern, sophisticated, Christian nation could birth the Nazi movement and allow themselves to be led by an Adolf Hitler? Could that ever happen here and now?

-- David Hanneke, Letters, Modesto Bee, 20 Jan. 2010

The Wiemar Republic -- Pre-NAZI Germany -- epitomized the modern, sophisticated nation, but it also epitomized the secular, post-Christian nation.  America follows dangerously close to Germany's footsteps.

Germany rejected Christianity in the mid-1800s, led by "scholars" who elevated materialist philosophy over the Bible. Declaring modern philosophy greater than Divine revelation, they believed the serpent's rhetorical question, "Yea, hath God said?" and ate the apple, planting the seeds that sprang up as the works of Marx, Mao, Hitler, Pol Pot, Catholic and Black Liberation Theologies... and yes, today's leaders of the Democratic Party.

Hitler's personal beliefs were closer to occultism or the New Age movement. Germany's national rejection of Christianity left a hole. Hitler filled that hole by building the NAZI cult upon an abandoned religion, Arianism.

Anyone who calls pre-fascist Germany or Hitler "Christian" has a huge hole in their knowledge of history. Only America's Judeo-Christian core has hindered her descent down the path Germany followed.

America's multicultural population would never accept a racist cult like Hitler's, but we are struggling to resist accepting Nazism's secular, neo-Marxist brother, Progressivism.

Emperor Obowma Does Obeisance Again

Emperor Obowma Does Obeisance Again

Originally posted 11/14/09

Updated 12/11/2009

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How low will he go? Obama bows to Japan's Emperor

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=116069

And here, all this time, we thought he was just helping that Arab king look for his lost contacts.

Fortunately, thanks to the comrades at The Peoples' Cube, you can set up a constant reminder to follow his example:

(See the whole ad at The Peoples' Cube.)

Thousands Rally Against Global Warming

Thousands rallied against global warming.

Proof that the global warming crowd is a bunch of flakes.

They may be all hot and bothered, but deep inside, they're colder than Hillary's... smile.

And yet, you can see why they might be paranoid about a warming climate.

THIS JUST IN: The ACLU has filed suit against SNAG (SNowmen Against Global warming) for color-based discrimination. They cite publicity photos of rallies as evidence that SNAG failed to include snowpersons of color in their organization. The suit seeks a $2.3 billion compensatory and punitive award as well as a court order to institute affirmative action under leadership of Jesse Jackson. A representative of SNAG commented, "Black snow persons get overheated in the sun and the Health Department keeps writing us citations whenever we bring in yellow snow persons."