Disrupting the Narrative of the New Left, its allies in Academia, Hollywood and the Establishment Media, and examining with honesty the goals of cultural Marxism and the dangers of reactionary and abusive political correctness.
THE NARRATIVE AND POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
“Threats to freedom of speech, writing and action, though often trivial in isolation, are cumulative in their effect and, unless checked, lead to a general disrespect for the rights of the citizen.”-George Orwell
A young Iowa atheist recently asked Marco Rubio about why he's talking about his faith on the campaign trail.
Marco's response was moving to believers and non-believers alike.
As conservatives across the country shared Marco's answer, it's become a sensation.
It's a showcase for Rubio's particular political talent. He
refuses to let this guy, who's civil but deliberately provocative, to bait him
into antagonism towards atheists. Us-against-them cultural shtick is
Cruz's game, per "New York values." Teddy is the divider while Marco is
the uniter.
The most effective part is the last 45 seconds where Rubio makes the case that even atheists should hope that he's influenced in office
by his Christian faith. As a scripted response, it would be sharp. Off
the cuff, in reply to a loaded question, it's superb. His
skill and tone here are why people like him even if they don't share his
beliefs. It's exactly what a principled conservative needs to have in order to win a general election.
This isn't the first time that he's thrilled Christians
with a defense of his faith either. In Iowa last November he went for 10
full minutes on the subject to a roomful of pastors, leaving CBN
contributor David Brody praising his answer as a "thing of beauty."
Instead, Rubio did something remarkable and did it in a very civil
way. He shared the gospel and the impact it has had in Marco's own
life. It was calm, civil, respectful, and powerful.
Rubio's presentation of his beliefs - beliefs that I share - was
winsome, compassionate, and - above all - true. American democracy,
featuring so many direct, personal encounters between voters and
candidates, can yield its profound moments. This was one.
"I think it's the first time I ever heard a candidate present his
faith as deeply and extensively as he did," said the 64-year-old [Deb
Berstler], noting Rubio answered the atheist's question respectfully.
"That's going to set him apart."
Marco Rubio believes in religious liberty but also the right of Americans to not have any religious faith at all. As for Marco himself, he will never hide his faith, and it will continue to guide every aspect of his life.
At the end of Friday's Real Time With Bill Maher, HBO's sneering star uncorked another tirade against God and the Bible. His unbelieving guests - including Seth MacFarlane and Andrew Sullivan - yucked it up alongside him.
The smug atheist is already hating the forthcoming movie "Noah," first that so many "stupid" Americans believe in the story, and second, if you believe that, then God is our world's most psychotic mass murderer.
It's about a psychotic mass murderer who gets away with it, and his name is God. Genesis says God was so angry with himself for screwing up when he made mankind so flawed, that he sent the flood to kill everyone, everyone - men, women, children, babies. What kind of tyrant punishes everyone just to get back at the few he's mad at? I mean, besides Chris Christie. [Applause]
Hey God, you know you're a dick when you're in a movie with Russell Crowe and you're the one with anger issues! [Laughter, applause]
You know, conservatives are always going on about how Americans are losing their values and their morality. Well, maybe it's because you worship a guy who drowns babies!
Maher insisted "If we were a dog and God owned us, the cops would come and take us away."
Ms Harris passes the time in her Murmansk cell desperately trying to keep her mind occupied.
''I try to keep myself 'busy' with little things like doing the laundry, sweeping the floor and doing exercises,'' she wrote in her first letter to Australia. ''We're allowed to leave our cell and walk for one hour each day. We're locked in what can be described as an outdoor chicken pen [to walk]. It's horrible. But yesterday I saw that someone had scratched 'Save the Arctic' into the wall. It made me laugh.''
In a letter written on October 10, a week before she appeared in court and her bid for bail was denied, Ms Harris told Mr Lorenz she had begun to pray. ''I honestly believed I'd be out of prison by now,'' she said. ''I'm slowly coming to terms with the prospect of spending two months here. But it's not knowing what will happen after that that I find really hard. I prayed for the first time in my life the other day. I prayed for freedom and courage.''
To be fair, I don't know for sure if Alexandra Harris is, in fact, an atheist, an agnostic or merely non-religious. Given her left-wing associations and the fact that by her own admission she has never before prayed in her life, it would seem very likely that she is an atheist. For argument's sake, I'm going to assume that she is a person who has considered herself an atheist. I don't know exactly to whom she was praying. She may not have a clear idea herself. Obviously, however, with frightening uncertainty enveloping her in those harsh surroundings she has felt the need to seek comfort and hope from a higher power. It's not quite a foxhole in wartime but it's a similar dynamic and another example of the aphorism "There are no atheists in foxholes." This statement irritates atheists precisely because it's so often true. But if you read the Wikipedia page at the link above you'll notice that they have basically turned it into an attack on the phrase. It's a rather silly attempt to debunk the aphorism by "proving" that there actually have been atheists in foxholes (I'm sure there have been a few). There are no links to sites that explain or support the idea, only ones that make the atheist "argument" against it. This is not a coincidence.
The phrase is merely intended to point out that when it's a matter of life and death, many people who didn't realize it before come to find out that a devotion to Darwinism simply isn't sufficient comfort. They need more. They pray to God. But so fanatical are atheists to prove their point, that they've even built themselves a monument to celebrate their contrarian view. For the record, I have no problem with that. It's amusing to see them erect monuments to their lack of faith. I'd rather have them erecting their own monuments than constantly attacking our Christian ones. The eliminationist nihilism of rabid atheists is what I find disturbing, not their curiously fervent belief in their own non-belief. More malignant is their compulsive need to attack people of faith, especially those who serve in the military. This summer there was a disturbing report concerning an essay written by Lt. Colonel Kenneth Reyes, a chaplain at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska. Reyes was ordered to remove the column, titled, "No Atheists in Foxholes: Chaplains Gave all in World War II," because it allegedly offended atheists serving on the Air Force base.
Col. Brian Duffy, the base commander told Fox News the column was removed "out of respect for those who considered its title offensive."
"The 673d Air Base Wing does not advocate any particular religion or belief set over another and upon learning of the complaints from some readers, the article was promptly removed," he said. "We regret any undue attention this article may have brought to any particular group or individuals."
Lt. Col. Kenneth Reyes confirmed to Fox News that he wrote the original essay that appeared in his "Chaplain's Corner" column on the base website.
Reyes recounted the origin of the phrase "There is no such thing as an atheist in a foxhole." Father William Cummings has largely been credited with uttering the phrase in Bataan during World War II.
President Eisenhower referenced the phrase during a speech to the American Legion in 1954, noting "I am delighted that our veterans are sponsoring a movement to increase our awareness of God in our daily lives. In battle, they learned a great truth that there are no atheists in the foxholes."
Reyes ended his essay with a reflection on faith.
"Everyone expresses some form of faith every day, whether it is religious or secular," he wrote. "Some express faith by believing when they get up in the morning they will arrive at work in one piece, thankful they have been given another opportunity to enjoy the majesty of the day, or express relief the doctor’s results were negative."
Reyes did not attack or insult atheists or non-believers in his column.
Of course he didn't. No reasonable person would take offense at the chaplain's essay. Unfortunately, we're not talking about reasonable (or rational) people. We're talking about Mikey Weinstein and his gang of haters and misfits. In a really pathetic attempt at portraying themselves as victims, Weinstein's group, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation accused Reyes of going on an "anti-secular diatribe" and publicly denigrating "those without religion."
According to Weinstein's fanatical organization, 42 airmen (all anonymous, of course) allegedly complained about the essay. In an alarming example of moral cowardice in the face of a ridiculous PC attack on the First Amendment, Colonel Duffy ran up the white flag of surrender.
"In the civilian world, such anti-secular diatribe is protected free speech," wrote MRFF's Blake Page in a letter to Col. Duffy. "Beyond his most obvious failure in upholding regulations through redundant use of the bigoted, religious supremacist phrase, 'no atheists in foxholes,' he defiles the dignity of service members by telling them that regardless of their personally held philosophical beliefs they must have faith."
The Air Force agreed and approximately five hours after the MRFF complained, they removed the chaplain’s essay.
"While certainly not intended to offend, the article has been removed from our website," Col. Duffy wrote in an email to the MRFF. "We remain mindful of the governing instructions on this matter and will work to avoid recurrence."
But that's not good enough for the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. They want the chaplain punished for what he wrote.
"Faith based hate, is hate all the same," Page wrote. "Lt. Col. Reyes must be appropriately reprimanded."
Where, exactly, is the "hate" in the chaplain's essay? It's a question for which they have no honest answer. Perhaps Weinstein and his mob should take a good long look in the mirror if they want to discover who is injecting hate into the situation. So let them babble on about Ted Williams. I will continue to be inspired by the remarkable life of Army chaplain Father Emil Kapaun. Liberals these days love to invoke Eisenhower's name and his words as a way to demonstrate what a "good Republican" should be like. They have always loved to quote from his farewell address in 1961. They are, however, much less enthusiastic about the speech he gave on February 7, 1954 in which he said:
AS A FORMER SOLDIER, I am delighted that our veterans are sponsoring a movement to increase our awareness of God in our daily lives.
In battle, they learned a great truth--that there are no atheists in the foxholes. They know that in time of test and trial, we instinctively turn to God for new courage and peace of mind.
All the history of America bears witness to this truth.
Out of faith in God, and through faith in themselves as His children, our forefathers designed and built this Republic.
We remember from school days that, aboard a tiny ship of destiny called the Mayflower, self-government on our continent was first conceived by the Pilgrim Fathers. Their immortal compact began with the words, "In the name of God, Amen."
What a surprise! Richard Dawkins, a world-renowned, hate-filled bigot, can't bring himself to condemn pedophilia. This despite the fact that he uses the issue as cover for his never-ending rants against the Church. And his mindless, sycophantic followers don't have the intellectual capacity to recognize the hypocrisy or the common decency to reject it.
In a recent interview with the Times magazine, Richard Dawkins attempted to defend what he called "mild pedophilia," which, he says, he personally experienced as a young child and does not believe causes "lasting harm."
Dawkins went on to say that one of his former school masters "pulled me on his knee and put his hand inside my shorts," and that to condemn this "mild touching up" as sexual abuse today would somehow be unfair.
"I am very conscious that you can't condemn people of an earlier era by the standards of ours. Just as we don't look back at the 18th and 19th centuries and condemn people for racism in the same way as we would condemn a modern person for racism, I look back a few decades to my childhood and see things like caning, like mild pedophilia, and can't find it in me to condemn it by the same standards as I or anyone would today," he said.
Plus, he added, though his other classmates also experienced abuse at the hands of this teacher, "I don't think he did any of us lasting harm."
Child welfare experts responded to Dawkins' remarks with outrage - and concern over their effect on survivors of abuse.
As noted by the Religion News Service, Peter Watt, director of child protection at the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, called Dawkins' defense of sexual assault "a terrible slight" to victims of such abuse.
"Mr. Dawkins seems to think that because a crime was committed a long time ago we should judge it in a different way," Watt continued. "But we know that the victims of sexual abuse suffer the same effects whether it was 50 years ago or yesterday."
I've been meaning to write about this for a couple of weeks. I came across an articlewritten by somebody named Jeffrey Weiss. He was reacting to a couple of articles he'd read and felt the need to weigh in on the problem of whining Christians, describing them as "wannabe victims."
Apparently a bunch of priests from nearby Catholic churches - this is Boston, after all - rushed to the scene seeking to offer spiritual succor to their faithful. Only to be turned away from the actual blast site. She quotes a priest who had been turned away; "Once it was clear we couldn't get inside, we came back here to St. Clement's, set up a table with water and oranges and bananas to serve people, and helped people however we could."
To which Lawler said: "Doesn't that nicely capture what a once-Catholic, now-secular culture expects from the Church? It's not essential for priests to administer the sacraments; in fact it's unwelcome. But if they could just stay out of the way, and give people something to eat, that would be fine."
Proof that anti-Catholicism has wormed its way back into American culture? You have got to be kidding.
Then he elaborates on his objection:
Did you watch any of the video of the blast scene? Chaos and danger and hundreds of wounded for whom any delay in care could have meant the difference between life and death. Anybody who rushed to help get the wounded to safety and medical attention were welcome. Prayer dispensers - Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster - not so much.
Yeah, I know some Catholics want to claim that their sacraments are so important that an exception should have been made. But to non-Catholics, that's just so much abracadabra. Many faiths have their own rituals for the dying just as important as [sic] them as the Last Rites are to Catholics. And first responders had no time to sort them out.
Yes, there were victims in Boston that terrible day. None of them happened to be Catholic priests.
This, of course, is asinine.Nobody is claiming that the priests were the "victims." Certainly not the priests themselves. No, the victims here were the blast victims who were denied the comfort and reassurance of a priest or other clergy. Some of those victims may very well have been the kind of Catholics who take the sacraments seriously. That was the point of the article that soirritated Weiss. Here's a sample of the egregious "whining":
Father Carzon, the seminary rector, said he was "disappointed" when he wasn't allowed at the scene of the bombing, but he understood the reasoning and left without protest. "Once it was clear we couldn't get inside, we came back here to St. Clement's, set up a table with water and oranges and bananas to serve people, and helped people however we could."
By that point, spectators and runners who had been unable to finish the marathon were wandering around, "frightened, disoriented, confused and cold," he said. Father Carzon was able to minister to a runner who wasn't injured but had assisted a bystander with catastrophic injuries. Two hours later, the runner, a Protestant, was still walking around the area in shock and disbelief.
"He came over, and said, 'You're a priest, I need to talk to someone, I need to talk,' and he was able to pour out some of the story of what had happened," Father Carzon said. "Then there was an off-duty firefighter who was there as a spectator, and he, too, got pushed out of the perimeter, and he ended up here to pray. There was a feeling of helplessness we had when we couldn't get close. But doing the little that we could - putting out a table with water and fruit, being there - I realize how much that 'little' was able to do."
Boy, that priest sure isobnoxious! No wonder Jeffrey Weiss is annoyed... The Wall Street Journal article concludes this way:
In light of the devastation in Boston, the denial of access to clergy is a trifling thing, and it might even have been an individual's error. (The Boston Police Department did not respond to a request for comment on its policy regarding clergy at the scenes of emergencies.)
But it is a poignant irony that Martin Richard, the 8-year-old boy who died on Boylston Street, was a Catholic who had received his first Communion just last year. As Martin lay dying, priests were only yards away, beyond the police tape, unable to reach him to administer last rites - a sacrament that, to Catholics, bears enormous significance.
As the Rev. Richard Cannon, a priest in Hopkinton, Mass., where the marathon begins, said in a homily on the Sunday after the bombings, "When the world can seem very dark and confusing, the presence of a priest is a presence of hope."
How DAREthey! How DARE those priests want to minister to the wounded and the distraught! Those heartless bastards!!!
All kidding aside, I do find it fairly pathetic that some guy in Dallas, far removed from the scene of the terrorist bombing in Boston, felt the need to write such an article in the first place. Who is the real "wannabe victim" here? I'd say it's the clown who feels compelled to complain about a priest who simply wants to do what priests are called by God and trained to do: minister to those in need of spiritual comfort.
Now let me introduce you to the true "wannabe victim." His name is Mikey Weinstein and he has a bug up his ass about Christians in the military. A clown like Weinstein would be good for a few laughs if it weren't for the media and military types who actually take him seriously.
Mikey Weinstein
This guy has a slightly different outlook than a Fred Phelps or a Terry Jones (in fact, he undoubtedly sees them in his mind whenever he thinks about Christians in general) but the reality is that he's no better than they are. They are lunatics who go out of their way to be as offensive as possible. That's what he does, the disturbing difference being that unlike the other nutjobs, he has had the opportunity to meet with generals at the Pentagon!
Weinstein is a guy who goes around calling himself a Republican, based apparently on his claim that he was a low-level staffer in the Reagan White House. Who really knows if that's true or not.But to give you a taste of just how confused this creep really is, here's what he told an interviewer from The Advocate back in 2010:
We thought to be a good soldier you had to shoot straight, not be straight. I felt this was a huge cop-out by Clinton, and we are furious with the Obama administration. I'm a Republican, but I'm also a Republican who voted for Clinton twice, Gore and Kerry, and for Obama. I get the fact that our economy and health care are important. However, the concept of "don't ask, don't tell" is the most pernicious, evil thing that I've seen come out in regard to privacy in America ever.
Got that? He's a "Republican" who hasn't voted for a Republican presidential candidate in more than 20 years. (Note that in the article he also claims to have been an "adviser" to Ross Perot...but apparently didn't vote for him, either.) He claims he voted for Clinton twice, despite the fact that in Clinton's first term he signed "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," which Weinstein describes as "the most pernicious, evil thing" that he's ever seen. And yet the so-called "Republican" still voted for Clinton rather than Dole in 1996.
Is Weinstein insane? A pathological liar? Or some bizarre combination of both? Whatever his problems are, they clearly render him totally unfit for an audience with Pentagon officials. Would anyone let Fred Phelps or Terry Jones have a meeting with military officials? Of course not.
But, hey...maybe I'm getting a little carried away with my descriptions of him. Surely he can't be as bad as all that...right? Via David French at National Review:
In describing Weinstein, I don't use the word "extremist" lightly. In fact, I hate how the word is over-used — often to dismiss truly mainstream opposing views as a means of avoiding argument. But how else can one describe a person who would make statements like this:
Our Pentagon has been turned into a Pentacostalgon, and our DOD has been turned into an imperialist, fascistic contagion of unconstitutional triumphalism by people that want to kill us – or have their version of Jesus kill us if we don’t accept their Biblical world view.
or this:
The dominionist Christian will say, "Nothing can constrain me from proselytizing my version of Christianity." And these people we find have several particular malodorous stenches about them. It’s like walking into a stench in my native state of New Mexico here on a hot August afternoon and having your nostrils assaulted by the stenches of 10,000 rotting swine it's so bad. The first stench is viral misogyny. The fact that women should be consigned to selecting food, preparing food, cleaning up after meals, spreading their legs, getting pregnant and raising children. The next [stench] is virulent anti-Semitism. The next is virulent Islamophobia.
or this:
We're fighting al-Qaeda. We're fighting the Taliban, and we're turning our own military in the exact same thing.
or this [speaking of Jerry Falwell]:
The dead guy – Jerry Falwell, and I'm sorry but I’m very glad he's dead. [applause] I'm very sorry if anyone is upset about that.
or this:
Today, we face incredibly well-funded gangs of fundamentalist Christian monsters who terrorize their fellow Americans by forcing their weaponized and twisted version of Christianity upon their helpless subordinates in our nation’s armed forces.
I'm sorry, but these are just ravings. And he met with generals? And the Washington Post, CNN, ABC News and others treats him as a serious commentator on faith in the military? Substitute "Muslim" for "Christian" in any of these comments and the brass wouldn't let him darken the Pentagon's doors.
Fortunately, the House GOP is aware of this nutjob and they are looking into his questionable activities. As with most cockroaches, when the light gets turned on him, he'll scurry back to his nest, where he can spew hate speech to his heart's content.
