Woodsy On The Rampage: The Ecology Of Radical Environmentalism

In this era of hyperterrorism where every Tom, Dick, and Abdul with a grudge against society because of a rotten childhood blows up a bus or shoots up a post office, many are not too concerned about the activities of other outcasts striving to save the spotted owl or kangaroo rat with methods outside accepted political procedure since the most violent terrorists create the more pressing security concerns. However, simply because radical environmentalists aren’t known for eliminating their opposition with explosives, that does not mean that this movement challenging many of the presuppositions of modern technocratic society is not worthy of our attention.

The radical environmental movement began in opposition to the growing establishmentarian attitude of mainstream environmental groups such as the Audubon Society, the Sierra Club, the Wilderness Society, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the National Wildlife Federation, the Izaak Walton League, the Defenders of Wildlife, the Environmental Defense Fund, the National Parks & Conservation Association, and the Environmental Policy Institute who are collectively referred to as “the Group of Ten (Scarce, 16). These organizations take a relatively pragmatic stand towards the preservation of the nation’s environmental treasures. For example, some of these mainstream groups agreed to let the government construct Glenn Canyon Dam in Arizona, and in other instances, these groups have been modest in the amount they demand be set aside for preservation.

This sense of compromise with government authorities in order to preserve at least a modicum of the nation’s natural resources has created a rift of ambiguity between the mainstream and the more radical environmentalist groups. On the one hand, radical environmentalists oppose compromise in the name of the environment on philosophical grounds. However, their own unreasonable demands are also part of an orchestrated strategy designed to make public officials more cooperative with the demands made by groups like the Sierra Club whose demands look reasonable in comparison to the ultimatums made by the radicals.

However, the radical environmental movement is more than a marketing ploy designed to win demands from government officials. It is also a school of thought drawing inspiration from various philosophical sources. One of the main philosophical schools that radical environmentalists draw upon is known as "Deep Ecology". According to this set of ideas, the conservation policies pursued by more mainstream environmental groups are incorrect because man is still used as the primary measure of all things, at least when it comes to environmental protection (Manes, 56). To the Deep Ecologist, every natural thing is on equal footing. Human beings are no better than moss or a pine cone.

Any assertion to the contrary is labeled anthropocentrism, which is an offense as allegedly as vile as racism. While this philosophy may make one feel neighborly towards the chipmunks down at the park, this way of thinking is fraught with a number of dangers. For example, it was asserted in one media account of a couple attacked by a rabid cougar, it was commented that no one had the right to kill the beast even though one of the mauled individuals lost several fingers in the attack. Needless to say, the person making the comment had never faced similar circumstances.

Coupled with this bio or eco-centrism is a disdain for technological development. Following in the footsteps of Herbert Marcuse's One Dimensional Man, radical environmentalists believe that technology allows man to dominate nature (Manes, 26). As such, he is dehumanized by his own inventions as existence is reduced to production and consumption. Never mind the fact that it is modern technology that allows individuals feeling this way to have the leisure time to devise and disseminates these thoughts. If dependence on technology can be reversed, it is thought, man will be able to reestablish his proper place in the natural world.

However, there is more to this worldview than abstract thinking and philosophical posturing. Being a physically active lot as many of the movement's adherents are avid outdoorsmen, much of the movement's theoretical underpinnings are based upon action and deed.

The primary action oriented text inspiring radical environmentalism is The Monkeywrench Gang by Edward Abbey who considered himself a "literary bum" destined to stand against the technological and industrial forces simultaneously arrayed against human freedom and environmental preservation (Scarce, 240). The Monkeywrench Gang is a novel about a group of live-hard outdoorsmen who roam the countryside in an old van performing various acts of ecological sabotage such a burning billboards, driving bulldozers over cliffs, pulling up survey stakes, and yanking out railroad tracks. The sequel to The Monkeywrench Gang, written shortly before Abbey's death, is Hayduke Lives! in which the gang reunites for one more spate of neo-Luddite shenanigans.

While these works help define the action-oriented aspects of radical environmentalism in a highly entertaining format, they also expose the inconsistencies at the heart of the movement. For example, throughout The Monkeywrench Gang, the characters rail against highways while tossing empty beer cans on to the side of the road; and while claiming to be at one with nature, the characters long for the showers and coffee at the Holiday Inn (Scarce, 240).

Another book with widespread popularity among radical environmentalists is Ecodefense: A Handbook For The Militant Defense Of Earth. Ecodefense is a how to on radical environmentalist tactics. In a sense, it is comparable to The Anarchist's Cookbook as it elaborates how to perpetrate mayhem by decommissioning bulldozers, pulling up survey stakes, and spiking trees as well as other tactics designed to stop the hordes of civilization seeking to pillage the wilderness (Scarce, 74).

Written by Earth First! founder Dave Foreman, Ecodefense was an immediate success with it being read by young environmental radicals from around the world. The book became so influential that the supervisor of the Williamette National Forest in Oregon testified in a Congressional hearing that he would consider closing the area under his jurisdiction if the tactics described in the book were carried out within the forest's boundaries (Manes, 83). And on a lighter note, "Ecodefense" was published by a firm called "Nedd Ludd Books" named in honor of the 19th century worker who participated in a campaign to destroy various forms of factory machinery.

The group that probably first and foremost put the principles embodied by this ideology into practice was Earth First!. The exclamation point is part of the groups name and not a grammatical construct symbolizing this author’s enthusiasm for the organization

Earth First! was founded by an assortment of individuals coming from a variety of backgrounds. Dave Foreman, who would later go on to write the aforementioned “Ecodefense”, started off surprisingly as a Republican and member of the Young Americans For Freedom as a supporter of Barry Goldwater. Foreman joined the Marines, but eventually went AWOL. He worked for a time for the Wilderness Society, only to leave the group disenchanted with what he perceived as the organization's moderation. Howe Wolke, who was considered by some as somewhat more of a libertarian, was a forestry student, bouncer, and oilfield hand, came to Earth First! from Friends of the Earth where he worked as a field representative attending public meetings and handling press relations. He quit that organization because that organization cut his $75 per month salary (Manes, 66). Mike Roselle was a radical involved with Abbie Hoffman's and Jerry Rubin's Yippy counterculture organization who himself later left that group because of its perceived political opportunism in order to establish the "Zippies". Other founding members of Earth First! included Bart Kochler, a former Wyoming Wilderness Society staff member with a knack for political organization as well as song writing, and Ron Kezar, a former seasonal U.S. Park Service employee who was trained as a librarian and an expert on the history of American military strategy (Manes, 68).

Groups such as Earth First! believe that the earth will be saved via anarchy which will topple modern industrialized technocratic civilization. In such a context, anarchy is defined as, "...the maximum possible dispersal of power; political, economic...and military power. An anarchist society would consist of a voluntary association of self-reliant self-sustaining autonomous communities (Scarce, 88)."

However, within the ranks of Earth First! there was a rift just how much anti-Americanism that the notion entailed. One faction led by group founder Dave Foreman held that anarchy was merely a means to an end which was the preservation of the biosphere. As such, flag burnings, an act of defiance preferred by some in the group, was seen as uncalled for (Scarce, 88). The other side of the dispute was led by ecofeminists, who combined the struggle against environmental degradation with the struggle against the patriarchy, and a splinter group originally called "Stumps Suck" but which ultimately settled on the name "Live Wild Or Die". Both of these submovements used their Earth First! activism as a broader platform to attack the wider consumer culture (Manes, 103).

Though often classified as "soft-core terrorist groups" by the FBI, many of the deeds committed by these kinds of organizations often border more on the juvenile than on the outright dangerous though still unquestionably criminal. Since many of these groups claim to ascribe to a code of nonviolent ethics based upon their own interpretation of Gandhian principles, many of these groups have turned to alternative forms of political behavior.

For example, one group calling itself the Revolutionary Ecoterrorist Pie Brigade tossed pies at timber industry spokesman at a convention. Another group put cow patties atop a Forest Service office building’s air conditioners in Washington State’s Okanogan National Forest (Manes, 104). And yet a another Earth First! splinter group called the Gross Action Group staged an event referred to as a “puke in” at a Seattle shopping center in 1988 when the activists ingested a vomit-inducing drug in order to shock holiday shoppers into realizing the disgusting nature of American consumerism, no doubt prompting sales to temporarily dip at the food court (Scarce, 89).

Despite these shenanigans, not all forms of radical environmental activism can be dismissed as good natured frolicking in the North Woods. Some of the tactics are downright life threatening.

One of the most common and dangerous activities engaged in by radical environmentalist groups is tree spiking where nails are driven into trees often slated for sale from national forests into private hands. The point of such an exercise is to discourage timber companies from extracting the wood because of the damage the nails could do to expensive equipment and not the mention the employees who would most likely be injured by flying nails, shattered equipment, or both.

To justify these actions in light of their “nonviolent” ethics, tree spikers often inform forestry authorities of their activities prior to harvest in order to avoid human injury. A prominent tree spiking incident occurred in May 1987 when a mill worker was injured by a band saw shattered by a tampered tree. Timber authorities roundly condemned Earth First! who denied involvement. Surprisingly, the injured mill worker publicly stated his support for Earth’s First!’s goals, and in an even bigger twist of events, it was learned that Earth First! had not carried out this particular tree spiking as has been concluded earlier. The perpetrator was actually an irate libertarian worried that timber companies logging near his property would want his land next (Manes, 11).

Despite this record, fears on the part of law enforcement are not without justification. Dave Foreman, one of Earth First!’s founders, did say, “It’s time for a warrior society to rise out of the Earth and throw itself in front of the juggernaut of destruction, to be antibodies against the human pox that is ravaging this precious beautiful planet (Manes, 86)." Pretty strong words, especially considering the fact than many in the group, while pro-environment, aren’t necessarily vegetarian or against hunting, with human beings being just another string in nature’s web no more important or distinct from any other animal.

Radical environmentalists have proven that they themselves are not above the use of violence. For example, one group calling itself Direct Action blew up a British Columbia electrical substation in 1982. A radical Greenpeace splinter group calling itself the Sea Shepherds has no qualms about ramming what the organization considers pirate whaling ships on the high seas (Manes, 86). Other groups get a kick from setting bulldozers and related construction equipment on fire.

The future of radical environmentalism and its accompanying deeds of quasi-violence and para-terrorism are the subjects of intense debate. Analysts are divided over the issue.

One perspective concludes that the violence will only get worse. A 1990 report released by the Heritage Foundation titled "Eco-Terrorism: The Dangerous Fringes Of The Environmental Movement" argues that eventually innocent people will likely be hurt by the fanaticism of this ideology that prefers moss over man (Scarce, 265).

The other side of this debate contends that, if such violent actions were taken, they would be counter productive as many law abiding citizens view environmental issues as quality of life issues. For example, residents of both Pennsylvania and Virginia have at times thumbed their noses at assorted development projects that would impact the historical and cultural distinctiveness of geographical treasures such as Lancaster Dutch Country and George Washington's boyhood home. Only time will tell if the true goals of radical environmentalism are simply about raising public awareness or about tossing a wrench into the gears of the technological society they claim to loathe for the purposes of tearing it down.

by Frederick Meekins

Bibliography

Manes, Christopher. "Green Rage: Environmentalism & The Unmaking Of Civilization." Boston: Little, Brown & Company. 1990.

Scarce, Rik. "Eco-Warriors: Understanding The Radical Environmental Movement." Chicago: The Noble Press, Inc. 1990.

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The Nerdiness of Terrorism

by David Lawrence

Terrorism has become the Moslem method of war. Not every Moslem is a terrorist.  But most terrorists are Moslems.  And there are a whole lot of Moslems in the world.

 

They have over a billion people and could fight real wars but their nature is to sneak around and blow people up.  It is a cowardly tactic.  Only a nerd who is self-involved and wants to uglify the world would blow up strangers and himself.  He is not cool.  He is a dork. 

 

Terrorists think that they are trendy with their guns and their suicide vests.  They don’t look so cool when their corpses are covered in the detached hands of children and the blood of grandmothers.

 

I suppose terrorism is necessary for Moslems because they are not very civilizationally advanced and have not really invented real weapons for war even though they have borrowed some from the west. And the United States, in its global bribery, gifts them some.

 

What happened to the gladiatorial games when men would fight men to the death?  What happened to the English military walking in lockstep without even bothering to duck the bullets of the American guerrilla forces?  How was bravery replaced by stealth?

 

Why do terrorists skulk around in the alleys of our lives?  Why do they take the fight out of fight and sponsor assassinations and executions?

 

Obama (originally born a Moslem) has moved terrorism to the sky.  He has fielded an army of drones to surprise his enemies.  He kills with no exposure.  He has enhanced robotic murder.

 

A street fight is ugly.  It usually involves a sucker punch or maybe knifings. It does not have the organizational structure of war. 

 

I am not a terrorist.

 

I am not a street fighter. 

 

I am a boxer.  I fight under the rules of the ring. Not even, I am retired.

 

I obeyed a referee when I fought. I was like an English soldier, marching to brain damage, fighting with dignity, allowing my opponents to share the rules of the ring, finding my lord in the old rules of the Marquees of Queensberry.

 

I haven’t been a street fight since I am eighteen.  I think they are low class.  They never end up fair. I detest thugs fighting without rules.  It is like terrorism and drone fighting.  It is mankind at his worst.  It is suicidal, brain-washed Moslems and President Obama trying to prove their manhood by extreme acts of ugliness and inconsideration.

Of course, Obama is better than his Moslem, nerd brothers.  They kill helter-skelter.  He targets his targets and kills neatly. 

 

Terrorism is the nerdiness of unimaginative killers.  They can’t blame themselves because they are without souls and conscience. They don’t exist except in their blasts.  Their destruction is their reverse corporality. Its time our civilization returned to the dignity of structured battle between soldiers and away from nerds honing their skills on video games and blowing themselves and others around them up.

 

Federal Gun Control, Lawful?

by E.A. Timm

 Is Federal gun control lawful? Truth reveals what is false.

The historical record from our Founders’ writings explain the form, and function of lawful Constitutional governance. Jefferson’s Kentucky Resolutions, Resolved 1, explains, “That the several States...delegated to that [Federal] government certain definite powers, reserving, each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force: that to this compact each State acceded as a State...that the [Federal] government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers....”

Resolved 3, “‘...the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution...are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people’...are withheld from the cognizance of the federal tribunals.” Therefore, since the Second Amendment is not an expressly delegated power to the Federal Government, the power should remain exclusively with the State. Even when the Incorporation theory is applied to the Second Amendment, the words stay the same; that is, “...the Right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed,” keep their original defined meaning, and purpose. Besides, there is no legislative, nor executive power delegated through the words “due process” in the Fourteenth Amendment, from which the Incorporation theory is said to come. For the Federal Government to regulate and control guns, or any non-delegated power, is unconstitutional, and an infringement.

Resolved 8: “...where powers are assumed which have not been delegated, a NULLIFICATION of the act is the rightful remedy...” for the State.

Even though the States, and cities already have gun control, it should be to support and defend the individual’s Right to keep and bear arms, since it is an unalienable Right to protect life. That is why the Second Amendment forbids infringement.

There is no such thing as shared powers with the Federal Government. Supreme Court Justice James Iredell (1790-1799) stressed the people’s retained sovereignty, and that: “no power can be exercised, but what is expressly given.” “The Father of the Constitution” James Madison, in his Virginia Resolution, calls it “criminal degeneracy” for the Federal Government to exercise control over the States’ and people’s “Bill of Rights.” Therefore, Federal Gun Control is unlawful. 

Despising The Old Rugged Cross

In one classic science fiction plot, antagonists attempt to gain control of the future by attempting to alter the past. Though it might not be as exciting as a Dalorian speeding at 88 miles per hour, maniacal forces in our own reality are attempting to accomplish nearly the same thing by drastically reconceptualizing our understanding of history.

Part of the way history is publicly remembered and allowed to exert an influence over the cultural milieu is through the erection of assorted monuments and memorials. This is itself a practice that, in part, traces its origin back through the pages of sacred scripture.

In Joshua 4:5-7, the representatives of the tribes of Israel are instructed as to the following: “Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of tribes of the Israelites, to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant...These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.”

This is not the only incident in Scripture where the believer is admonished to respect assorted physical historical commemorations. In Proverbs 22:28, the child of God is admonished to remove not the ancient landmark.

No doubt one of the reasons thorough going secularists and even their sissified allies among certain branches of the clergy leaning to the left fanatically lobby for the removal of religious symbols and emblems commemorating solemn events in the life of the nation is to no doubt alter our perception of history in the attempt to shift the country's underlying values and focus. By so doing, it is hoped that Americans will go from the most part being an independently inclined group of individuals who will protect their precious heritage to the point of laying down one's life should circumstances require it to one where the state is looked to as the first as the source of goodness and truth which it is free to redefine as changing circumstances warrant.

One such perspective lent a voice calling for the removal of Peace Cross (also just as correctly referred to as Victory Cross) in Bladensburg, Maryland. The American Humanist Association is orchestrating the campaign because the monument is erected on public land. In the mind of this agitprop front group, this violates the non-establishment clause of the First Amendment.

However, one area minister in the 9/27/2012 Gazette newspaper of suburban Maryland provided what he considered a number of Christian reasons as to why the memorial cross should be taken down. Rev. Brian Adams of the Mount Rainier Christian Church is aligning himself with the outcome advocated by the American Humanist Association because he does not want the Cross associated with militarism and patriotism as a "general symbol of sacrifice."

In making his argument, Rev. Adams enunciated a number of questionable assumptions. He insists that the memorial is blaspheming the Cross by honoring violent people with weapons defending a country while they try to kill people from other countries.

No one in their right mind said war was a picnic. But how else will at least a small sliver of goodness otherwise survive in a fallen world? Does Rev. Adams honestly believe that once things have degenerated to the point of physical hostilities that appeals to reason, compassion, and the brotherhood of man alone will be enough to dissuade those bent on utter desolation?

If the way Rev. Adams categorizes the Crucifixion and a number of Biblical imperatives is a true summation of his doctrinal perspective, as a denomination the Disciples of Christ is in serious trouble.

Though it along with the Resurrection is one of the building blocks of the Christian religion and an offence or stumbling block to those hoping to make it to Heaven under the power of their own good works which are as filthy rags, the death of Christ upon that accursed tree was anything but, to use Rev. Adams' words, "the symbol of the son of God dying peacefully." History and medical science concur that it was in fact one of the most tortuous forms of execution ever devised.

Because the believer so appreciates the price paid by Jesus at the hill of Golgotha, over the centuries artists and craftsmen inspired by the moving beauty of Christ’s sacrifice on behalf of all sinners have transformed this implement of abject fear and terror visually into a beacon of hope and adoration. However, in the context of what happened that original Good Friday afternoon, the bejeweled sculptures and golden masterpieces are about as accurate as depicting a ride in Old Sparky the electric chair as if it was an overstuffed Lazy Boy recliner wrapped in a plush snuggy.

By referencing a work as readily available as "The Case For Christ" by Lee Stroebel (so much so that many ministries give away free paperback editions), both disciple and skeptic alike approximately 2000 years after this hinge point of history get a better idea of just how peaceful the passing of this Nazarene carpenter and rabbi was from this world. Stroebel in a chapter on the medical evidence lays out these horrors.

First, Jesus would have been secured to the cross by driving 5 inch nails through a portion of the wrist containing a nerve nearly as sensitive as the one in the area of the so-called funny bone. Once secured in this position, the cross would have been hoisted upright with the feet being secured in position in a manner similar to and as painful as that used upon the wrists. Yet, the suffering had only just begun.

The gravity pulling Jesus downward as the cross was thrust upward would have stretched at his arms, causing his shoulders to dislocate. With gravity pulling the individual downward, whatever waning strength remains in the individual is mustered to thrust the body upward in a reflex to merely continue the otherwise simple process of breathing so few of us even give a second thought to. In so doing, splinters would be driven deeper and deeper into the flesh of the back as it slid against a roughly hued pole not crafted with comfort in mind. This struggle would eventually result in suffocation as the victim in agony would grow too exhausted to continue.

Death upon the cross was of such a terrifying overwhelming agony that a new word had to be coined in order to accurately describe its unique variety of suffering. That word was none other than "excruciating".

So fundamentally wrong about this fundamental of the true Christian faith, it is no wonder Rev. Adams is so profoundly mistaken in regards to other interpretative matters as well. Rev. Adams writes that the cross is the symbol of Jesus “telling his followers to put down their weapons, and dying for the sake of hope, for the forgiveness and salvation of even those who put him to death.” What Rev. Adams has done here has been to take a course of action applied in a particular incident and elevated it to the status of a categorical universal imperative.

Rev. Adams is correct in the sense that in John 10:18 Jesus instructs that no man takes His life but that He gives it willingly. This was demonstrated in Luke 4 when a mob angered at words Christ delivered in the synagogue conspired to hurl Jesus over a cliff. Amidst such homicidal frenzy, Jesus miraculously perambulated on through unnoticed and unscathed.

Yet, later on, the Savior was not as eager to elude His captors. When Peter attempted to rescue Jesus resulting in the severing of the ear of the high priest's servant, Jesus declares in Matthew 26:53-54, "Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen this way (NIV)?" Christ chastised a foremost disciple because His unjust arrest was to unfold so that the greater purpose of His being slain from the foundation of the world might be fulfilled so that all calling upon the name of the Lord might be saved.

Though each of us are valued having been made in the image of God, the way we proceed into Glory will not cause the very cosmos to unhinge if it does not transpire in a precise manner as foretold as a part the public record of religious history. Therefore, though honor is to be bestowed upon those that lose their lives for the sake of the Gospel, one won't likely be given additional brownie points or a crown in Heaven should one not do everything moral within one's own power to preserve one's own life.

In Matthew 5:39, Christ instructs his disciples to turn the other cheek. Often, the application of this passage has encouraged an undue pacifism on the part of certain quietist sects and overly pious theologians. However, what is being addressed here is more akin to individual insults and certainly not the basis around which to build a foreign or defense policy.

The Gospels should not be construed as denying the individual the right of self defense should the individual feel the necessity to protect their life and that of their family. In Luke 22:36, Christ instructs, "...and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one."

Scripture admonishes the believer to be as wise as a serpent but as harmless as a dove. While the Christian is not to go around stirring up undue trouble, neither is the Christian to enter unequipped into situations that will result in overwhelming bodily harm or unnecessary physical death.

Just how literally do those raising the turning of the other cheek to something on the level of the Prime Directive from Star Trek want to take the remainder of the passage? In Matthew 5:41, the text reads, "And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain." So will those insisting upon the turning of the other cheek as an unmodifiable absolute now teach their child that, instead of refusing to get into a car with a stranger, that you as a parent will punish them severely if they don't comply with every Sanduskite that slithers out of its sewer pile.

In his concluding paragraph, Rev. Adams declares that using the cross to symbolize the military or to praise the military amounts to a blasphemy equivalent to taking the Lord's name in vain. It seems that clergy within the Disciples of Christ would only be interested in adhering to the strictures of the divine scriptures when they think these teachings can be used to tear down the pillars upon which this great country rests.

For example, a number within the Disciples of Christ are also pushing for the acceptance of homosexuality and ultimately gay marriage. So where is this denomination's outrage over violation of the commandments prohibiting carnal relations between anyone other than a married man and woman?

This tendency to view the Bible and the traditional teachings that are extrapolated from it as optional flow from the Disciples of Christ positioning itself as a creedless church. Such a formalized belief is, of course, a creed itself.

According to Wikipedia, there are those within the Disciples of Christ that deny the Incarnation, the Trinity, and even the Atonement. So what's the point of even bothering with any of the religious racket if Christ as the only Begotten of the Father did not come to die for our sins?
The cross in Bladensburg is not a representation of what the military accomplished through force of arms. Instead, the cross commemorates those from Prince George's County Maryland that died in the First World War.

John 15:13 reads, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends (KJV)." Given the disdain he has expressed for both those that take up arms in defense of the American republic and traditional formulation of Christian doctrine, perhaps Rev. Adams does not view the last full measure of devotion worthy of remembrance and appreciation on the part of the COMMUNITY. It seems those like Rev. Adams only extol this particular concept of social organization when it can be invoked as justification to further curtail those areas of existence remaining under personal purview or to confiscate additional percentages of your property.

Yes, a cross is a distinctively Christian symbol. But this particular cross under consideration goes beyond the implement upon which the Savior suffered and died.

At the base of each side of the memorial cross in Bladensburg is embossed a virtue such as endurance, courage, devotion, and valor. As well as representing those that died in Prince George's County during this particular conflict, these virtues on each base of the cross remind that it is not man that ranks these character traits among the desirable nobilities to strive for but rather that these have been decreed to be so by God Himself.

To most in the West in general and the United States in particular during the time of the First World War, deity or “the higher power” to categorize the ultimate in a way the fewest possible could object to was understood using Christian or Biblical formulations. So would those such as Rev. Adams and his allies among the cultured despisers of the Almighty have us remove all other historically accurate symbolizations of godhood as well?

Along with the words “In God we trust.” on the back of our currency, does Rev. Adams also intend to agitate to have the eye of Ra remove from particular tenders as well? Does he also want to knock over the blindfolded goddess of justice standing outside many of America’s courthouses? For does she not also represent, in a less than ideally Christian manner we’ll grant you, the idea that justice originates in a metaphysical realm above and distinct from the state no matter what that social organization’s swords or bullets might insist?

The memorial cross in Bladensburg is dedicated to a finite number of individuals, namely those from Prince George's County that died in World War I. Therefore, historians employed by the county could do something useful for a change, rather than continually stirring the pot about the short end of the stick Blacks have gotten in the past but have more than made up for now, by researching if there are any county records extant as to the religious affiliations of these honored veterans. If it turns out they were all Christian, nothing should be done to the memorial cross; should it turn out that a number were Jewish, instead of abolishing the park altogether, perhaps a plaque could be erected acknowledging the contribution of the patriots of that particular faith. The county certainly doesn’t seem to mind rubbing it in the public’s nose regarding the accomplishments of other minorities.

Psalm 11:3 says, “If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” The Founding Fathers were correct to warn of the danger of a state so given over to the interests of religion that whether or not one was to enjoy the basic entitlements and privileges of citizenship would be predicated upon formalized membership in an established ecclesiastical organization. However, that said, these thinkers also realized that any human undertaking would be doomed to failure if such an enterprise went out of its way to slap aside the outstretched hand of a beneficent deity.

by Frederick Meekins

Why So Many Police Chiefs Favor Gun Control When Most Sheriffs Don't

by Shults Media Relations

This contains some concepts that many folks haven't considered. We are not siding with or against the police or advancing excuses for them and we hope it does not appear we are picking on them either; we aren't.  

For this work, we interviewed 17 chiefs and sheriffs from around the country. From those conversations (emails and phone) we have some quotes in this work. We were asked not to source the particular quotes and that is fair since this was not an on the record news interview, we just wanted their thoughts and opinions. So, as Joe Friday said, "just the facts ma'am."

When it comes to various politicians and others speaking against gun ownership (the 2nd Amendment and Constitution by definition) politicians will many times cite city and state police chiefs who allegedly may support the anti-gun movement. These politicians may have police chiefs and their officers appear with them as props or spokesmen in news conferences. So the logical question to ask is why are these top cops so seemingly against firearm ownership?

Chiefs are at the beck and call of their political bosses, mayors and city councils. "We chiefs get our opinion on firearm ownership when it is issued to us."--A recent quote by a chief.  

A sheriff told us "There is an active debate between sheriffs and chiefs that is affected by the big city chief culture because chiefs tend to emulate each other."

For our purpose here let's just deal with city police, not state/national officials. If city politicians are against gun ownership (Chicago, Washington D.C, San Francisco, and New York for example) and the chief doesn't agree he can (and probably will) be fired or demoted by the mayor or possibly by a simple majority of the City Council. In most towns over 50,000 population chiefs generally get paid between $70,000 and $140,000 a year plus benefits and retirement. Large city chiefs get well over $200,000 plus benefits, retirement and every once in a while you run into a chief earning well over $300,000.00 plus benefits. They want to hang onto that "chief" position, title and income.

This is why you see chiefs and their officers in the background when privileged officials posture against citizen firearm ownership and the Constitution by definition. Sure some chiefs may believe in citizen gun control and may be willing as a backdrop for self-serving politicians--especially if they were appointed by those in power at the time. So whenever a mayor, senator, representative or president wants a show of "top cops" showing support, a message is delivered to the particular city where the top officials are anti-2nd Amendment requesting top cops as props. The chiefs and officers are obediently delivered for props or advised to get their resume updated.

Sheriffs are by and large a different breed. They are elected by the people with a larger proportional number of citizens than city officials. The sheriff does not have to please a few city council members, a goofy mayor (or a governor). Sheriffs represent the beliefs and values of the majority of the area of his or her citizens who directly voted them into office. Yes, there will be sheriffs who do not want guns in the hands of citizens, but nothing like the number of police chiefs who have a near immediate career ending gun held to their heads by anti-Constitution politicians or the chief culture.  

And most sheriffs take their Oath supporting the Constitution very seriously. And while they currently follow and enforce Constitutional applicable federal, state and county laws they reserve the power invested in their oath and position as elected officers of their county to resist or not to enforce Constitutional infringing law if or when that might come. If that were to occur, the state police and/or federal government may be ordered to step into that particular sheriff's county to enforce those particular unconstitutional laws. The ramifications of those legal incursions might be very interesting to watch, especially, we were told, if that particular sheriff is actively supported by the citizens of that county.    

The bottom line is city, state and even federal chiefs will almost always bend to the will of their political masters--He who has the gold makes the rules."  Then this might be something to bring up in various press conferences with officers in the background. 
   

Feel free to use this as you wish--it is yours copy right free as a service of

Shults Media Relations, LLC

A PR firm that seriously supports the outdoor and firearms industry and our Constitution

In Praise of Drones Not Obama

by David Lawrence

Maybe Obama wasn’t a good swimmer as a kid.  Somehow he has always had a knee-jerk irrational hatred of waterboarding despite its effectiveness in getting information from Khalid Sheik Mohammed.

 

I guess it’s too messy.  It’s like boxing instead of darts.  He’d rather keep his distance and kill people from up high through the preemptive use of drones. Preemptive?  That’s right.  He hated that about Bush’s foreign policy.  

 

Don’t give Obama or Holder any of that enhanced interrogation. They had to go against it to denounce Bush.  It was a political ploy.  But who would have thought that they would have left their butts hanging in the breeze by killing our own citizens from the sky rather than inducing them to speak through a glass of water without loss of limb or death. 

 

Obama loves to kill by drone.  It’s so neat; so clean; so non-confrontational.  Zap! It’s like killing a bug.  Obama has gone as far as to say “Americans and others can be targeted if they are believed to be ‘senior operational leaders’ of al-Qaida or ‘an associated force,’ even if there is no evidence that they are engaged in an active plot to attack American interests.”

 

The Justice Department does its usual razzle-dazzle twisting of language, “A lawful killing in self-defense is not an assassination.”

 

As a patriotic person I can’t argue with Obama’s use of drones to kill our enemies and our traitors.  Contrary to Greek philosophy, I would rather kill one hundred innocent Americans than to see Awlaki set free to hook up with a nuclear weapon and kill millions.

 

Drone on Obama.  But I think that you should be impeached for lying like Clinton. He was not impeached for his errant erection in the Oval Office.  It was his lies.  Like your presentations of yourself as an anti-torture humane human being when you are actually a cowardly warmonger who kills people from robotic weapons in the sky. 

 

Like your pretending it was a spontaneous demonstration in Benghazi rather than an attack by al-Qaeda.

 

Hurrah for your Obama’s drone attacks but please resign from office. We can’t afford another minute of you nor another trillion dollars.

The Most Interesting Career: Housewife

by Selwyn Duke

On the heels of my recent article on women in combat, in which I defend traditionalism, it’s perhaps a good time to also take up the cudgels for that bugaboo of women’s studies classes: the housewife. Thus do I provide you with the quotation below from G.K. Chesterton’s book What’s Wrong with the World. He wrote:

Women were not kept at home in order to keep them narrow; on the contrary, they were kept at home in order to keep them broad. The world outside the home was one mass of narrowness, a maze of cramped paths, a madhouse of monomaniacs. It was only by partly limiting and protecting the woman that she was enabled to play at five or six professions and so come almost as near to God as the child when he plays at a hundred trades.

[…]When domesticity, for instance, is called drudgery, all the difficulty arises from a double meaning in the word. If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges in the home, as a man might drudge at the Cathedral of Amiens or drudge behind a gun at Trafalgar. But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling, colorless and of small import to the soul, then as I say, I give [the word] up; I do not know what the words mean. To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labors and holidays; to be Whiteley within a certain area, providing toys, boots, sheets, cakes and books, to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman's function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness.

As usual, Chesterton cut to the heart of the matter with peerless profundity. I’ll thus add nothing to it save to say that “housewife” isn’t actually a career but something far greater: a calling. A career is the most narrow of things, which is why careerism is a fault of the narrow-minded. It is the altar at which worship people who look up and see only their own egos.  

Against Gay Boy Scout Leaders

by David Lawrence

Once again bullying politics is turning common sense refutation into acceptance of a suspect cause.  The Boy Scouts is considering amending its policy against homosexual participation of both members and leaders.

The bullying of liberal political correctness is again sacrificing reason for convenience.  Dare I say this?  I don’t know.  Whenever I point out that the heterosexual sex drive is as powerful as hunger and as essential to the species, the liberals hold their ears and accuse me of being bigoted and Neanderthal. 

Heavens, I don’t know what makes liberals so smart.  Most of my critics are less educated and sensitive than I am.  Most of them don’t have Ph.D.’s and have not been CEO’s.  They have errant mouths; lisps of inaccuracy. 

The liberals just have the mob on their side. They have the echo of their own pro-gay prejudice. They have faux-modernity behind their simplistic viewpoints.

Gov. Rick Perry has spoken out against gay membership in the Boy Scouts.  I am not against gay membership.  Just against gay leaders which provides a risk to the scouts through their seniority and their authority.  The homosexual sex drive is as strong as the heterosexual sex drive and leaving gay leaders in charge of little boys is as stupid as leaving a perverted sheep farmer alone with a sheep, lipstick and panties or a stalker in a school for disabled girls.

Gays want to redefine the language.  They don’t want to be accepted as perverted.  I don’t know why.  Be what you are, not what you pretend to be. I am manic depressive and a felon.  Big deal.  I don’t want to be considered normal—it’s dull.

Gays shouldn’t redefine English so that deviant sex is suddenly beautiful.  Maybe it is beautiful to gays but not to heterosexuals.  I’m sure heterosexual sex isn’t so beautiful to gays.  Take the seashells off of their eyes.  See truth and it will set you free from hate and jealousy. We hate each other because we lie.  We don’t accept the truth because we are afraid of it.  We celebrate acceptance when it is really only tolerance.

Gay troop leaders should quit trying to be scout leaders when they know in their hearts and their loins that they present a risk.

Liberals want Combat for Women

by David Lawrence

It’s ironic that liberals feel that women should engage in actual combat, opening up the less physically strong and less environmentally prepared sex to maiming or death.  Liberals cannot distinguish between males and females because they basically want sexes to be treated the same in the name of the great principle-in-the-sky—ephemeral equality.

To progressives equality is the failure to make distinctions and the inability to understand differences.

And yet, liberals are against torture even if it is for the good of their own side.  They don’t want to hurt their enemies yet they don’t mind seeing their women maimed or murdered in battle. 

What is wrong with liberals?  They make pronouncements that seem fair minded and good yet the results are horrendous, traitorous and anti-women.  They want to allow women to be killed in battle yet they won’t torture their enemies and they won’t relieve women from combat no matter how their backgrounds and physical assets are not conducive to battle.

A liberal friend of mine criticized my saying in the Huffington Post that I felt we shouldn’t use women for combat. So he’s the gentle philosopher here who wants to use women for targets. He is proud that he wants women to have the opportunity to be killed.

He probably never read Falstaff’s saying about his troops, “…Food for powder; They will fill a pit as well as better.” He was too busy misunderstanding tradition and history, converting it into some utopian mistake, to try to even make an attempt to protect women. How noble—turning women into “food for powder.”

Liberals are women killers in the name of presumptuous equality. I’m surprised liberal men can get dates.  Oh, that’s right, self-destructive women like them.  They want to be them.  They don’t recognize sexual differences.

Liberals remind me of communism. A philosophy filled with good intentions that ended up in the murder of millions of people.

Liberals are not phonies.  They mean their desires.  But they fall short at every leap and are indeed stupid and shortsighted.

Civilization has depended on the kindness of women, their love of family and their child rearing.  Pushing women into male roles to the delight of misogynists will slip the rug out from under civilization. It will turn women more like men, their violent brothers.

Women dying in battle is uglier than dying men.  If you can't see the gentler sex bleeding to death in a sand dune as worse than a man rotting than you have a certain amount of dumb logic but no imagination.

If we want to dispose of a sex we should get rid of the brilliant beasts—men.  Why do women want to take the worst traits from men?   Men should imitate the kindness of women.

Women are different. There is no such thing as equal when you are dealing with fundamental differences.

The polarity between men and women is what magnetically holds society together. Leon Panetta, you should quit trying to make both sexes the same.  You should quit trying to explode tradition and the differences that attract.  The universe of men and women is held together by their opposite attractions.  Not bloody women in Iraq.

Encouraging women to die in combat is ideological equality but civilizational destruction.

It is the same as trying to make women and men not only equal but the same.  It is stupid and fallacious. It is a product of the over-educated small mind, the academic fear of warranted categorizations.  The politically correct need for Platonic forms of imagined correctness. The pat on the back of self-righteousness.

Glock's new gun commercial is hilarious

Obama’s Appointments

by David Lawrence

We have always suspected that Obama disliked Jews.  We have been afraid to say it because that would make us seem anti-black.  It’s hard to move when we are chained to the political correctness of anti-prejudice. Emotional prejudice has become more horrific than outright violence. You can punch a black guy in the face and people will censure you for brutality.  But use the N-word and you are sloshing around in the waves of fire in the Ninth circle of Hell.

In any event, from before his taking office the first time Obama has done nothing but indicate that he dislikes Jews.  Not such a big sin, unless he acts on it.  And he has.  He has sniffed around the waft of Rashid Khalidi’s anti-Semitic odor; he has changed our political alliances in his Cairo speech; he has insulted Netanyahu at the White House; and now he is appointing Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense and John Brennan as head of the CIA.   

There is a liberal part of me that is sleeping on the corner.  He watches Hagel make abusive remarks about Jews and Brennan support Hezbollah.  Both like Iran.  Isn’t that dandy?  Their positions and Obama’s sweet speeches are candy to our deaths.

When my extremely Jewish friend voted for Obama the first time around I told him that he is putting a gun to our heads. I am an agnostic.  He is a serious Jew. But I care more than he does. His grandparents whispered in his ear from the death camps that Obama was a no-go.  But he didn’t listen.  I think I’ll have a talk with him this weekend. It’s too late. Still, truth will out.

The answer is blown in the wind of Obama’s appointments.

Racemongers Rally To Gay Marriage's Defense

The Maryland referendum on gay marriage has been decided for now. However, the mindset and motivations leading up to such a decision are still in need of analysis and examination.

A couple of observations relating to it can be made regarding a column by Elbridge James of Progressive Maryland published in the 10/27/11 Gazette newspapers of suburban Maryland.

For starters, it is thoroughly established that Elbridge James is Black and borderline racist. He mentions his ethnic identity at least nine times in a piece of no more than 300 words.

Some of these references have very little to do with the topic at hand he is attempting to address.

For example, James writes, "Because I travel the state regularly speaking to Black voters of all ages and experiences on a variety of issues facing African Americans, I consider myself pretty plugged into the Black community." He concludes, "Continue to count on me when looking at African American support."

From his tone, one might assume this pigmentation narcissist was addressing a topic focusing particularly on HIS people such as sickle cell anemia awareness and prevention. It is in fact an oration in support of gay marriage.

So in regards to a topic that transcends race, why ought we to give added weight if a majority of Black folks supported gay marriage? All that tells the reader is that, given the mentality of dependency engineered into that particular demographic over the decades, those of this background can be manipulated into accepting a practice the religion so many of them claim to adhere to actually finds abhorrent.

If a majority of White southerners believe gay marriage is wrong, why shouldn’t that carry as much weight in determining the morality of the controversial practice?

Elbridge James also asserts, “The values of commitment and family aren’t confined to a person’s religion or race.”

But with some estimates of nearly 75% of Black babies being born outside of marriage, obviously commitment and family are not as valued among this particular human classification as he is persuading his readers to believe.

If Mr. James really loves his race rather than the status that has accrued to him as a fomenter of ethnic discord, perhaps he ought to spend his time addressing this lamentable development rather than promote an arrangement that will further tear down what little moral foundations remain of a rapidly deteriorating society.

by Frederick Meekins

Anti-Nativity Scrooges Selective In What Gods They Toss Out Into The Cold

Anti-Nativity Scrooges Selective In What Gods They Toss Out Into The Cold

For decades, Santa Monica churches erected nativity scenes on municipal park land there in celebration of the Christmas season.  However, the onward march to abolish the assorted foundations upon which America was built continues unabated and is now even seeming to accelerate as evidenced by increasing numbers of the able bodied voting for demagogues promising bounty the recipients did not have to lift a finger for and to solemnize with one of society's highest recognitions relationships once considered so far beyond the boundaries of acceptability that the respectable were often too ashamed to even speak of.  As such, even those trappings held over from the previous world order that brought joy and happiness to the adherents of beauty and truth must be eliminated.

In 2011, the authorization process for erecting the Nativities was altered so that many of the permits ended up going not to churches but rather to a motley assortment of unbelievers.   As a result of the hassle and embarrassment, under the excuse of the necessity maintaining an unobstructed seaside view, municipal authorities decided to do away with depictive winter displays altogether.

The ultimate reason though is to deny access by any particular viewpoint by suppressing them all equally.  Sort of the socialistic notion that everyone is equal because everyone is equally miserable.

Cutting edge commentary will likely focus on the here and now with how the tradition has been abolished in its entirety.  However, the way the issue was handled in 2011 still gives rise to observations as pertinent today as they aptly apply to the overall tenor of the age in which we live rather than the narrow focus of a particular year which has already elapsed.

In 2011, one of the displays erected by the apostates and unregenerates read "What myths do you see? 37 million Americans know myths when they see them."  Pictured along with the slogan were images of  Neptune, Santa Claus, Jesus and Satan.

Of course, the Old Deluder, the Devil himself, has no problem being depicted as a buffoonish cartoon villain since, though he has a massive ego having at one time conspired to set his throne on the mount of the congregation in his attempt to usurp the place of the Almighty.  At this point in the game, he is more concerned about dragging down as many as he can with him to eternal damnation rather than to get as many as possible to swear an eternal positive affirmation to his infernal name.

Of course, especially in a place like California, it really doesn't take all that much courage to thumb one's nose at Christ either.  After all, He was the one that admonished the insulted to turn the other cheek and those ready to call for Crusades on behalf of His name, even if not in His spirit, don't exactly hold he sway they once did.

So shouldn't those wanting to take a courageous stand in the name of the Great Emptiness or however else one might be inclined to depict nothing whatsoever take on a figure whose backers show a little more teeth? For instance Islam?  These fanatics threatened the producers of South Park for even obscuring the view of the specific personage  that was suppose to be in the bear costume.

However, it seems these leftists converging upon California only go out of their way to have Judeo-Christian religious figures removed from view on public property.  They seem to exhibit little opposition to deities advocated by less than Biblically acceptable religions and forms of belief.

For in California, in the mid 90’s a monument costing the taxpayers nearly $500,000 was erected to Quetzalcoatl.  Quetzalcoatl is the winged serpent god from Aztec mythology around which a number of Hispanosupremacist front organizations hope to repaganize and de-Christianize this targeted demographic in preparation for the uprising against the United States when insurgents intend to slaughter the remaining Whites in disputed Southwestern territories.

Atheism is the belief that God does not exist.  To be consistent, that would include those of a non-Christian variety as well.

Thus, it would be reasonable to conclude that there must be a greater overarching, more pragmatic commonality linking those that believe in no God and those that believe that higher order beings condescended down to our level who, rather than shed their blood and died on our behalf, insisted that our blood be shed and lives sacrificed to placate the base lusts of these craven entities whether the victims were willing or not.  That shared commonality is nothing less than an outright hatred of the God that is there and a desire to see His followers silenced.

by Frederick Meekins

Free Will in Sandy Hook

by David Lawrence

My wife tells me that God created free will so that we should not blame him for killers. That we should not be angry at him for the twenty little dead babies at Sandy Hook.

I say, “By giving Adam Lanza free will he took away the free will of those children to play, to breathe, to live.  Does God only give free will to overpowering killers?  God disappoints me. “

 “Christ died for you,” she says.

“He was subject to the benighted free will of the Romans,” I say.   “He was a good man without the Godly apparatus to defend himself.”

“Christ had free will.”

“If you believe he wanted to die,” I say.  “The Romans had free will too.  Apparently, there’s was more effective.”

“That’s sacrilegious,” my wife says.

“Truth often is,” I say.  “Free will in a killer is worth more than that in a child or a saint.  I don’t think God was fair in his apportionment of free will,” I say.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I am what I say.  I am the freedom of thought, the celebration of will, the instant word of evaluation. I am mourning God’s reluctance to intercede.  I am saying that free will is comparative and not Godly. The dead children of Sandy Hook are heaven and earth’s condemnation.”

Newsweek Trashes Christ’s Name During Christmas Season

The Dec. 17, 2012 issue of Newsweek Magazine published a cover story titled "Who Was Jesus?"
<p>
Instead of providing a balanced perspective on this topic, editors instead allowed the topic to be addressed by Bart Ehrman.
<P>
Bart Ehrman's claim to fame is essentially undermining every tenet of orthodox Christianity by casting doubt on the sources that serve as the foundation of the faith in favor of texts more gnostic in origins and interpretation.
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Thus, it must be asked, would Newsweek publish an article casting aspirations on the founder or central figure of another world religion deliberately during a time of the year held to be one of the most sacred among a significant percentage of the faith’s adherents?
<P>
Would Newsweek pull something like this during Ramadan?
<p>
Both Voltaire and Nietzsche in their respective eras remarked how the name of Jesus Christ was on the wane and that God was dead.
<P>
Now, a Bible Society has turned Voltaire’s former home into an office and it is Nietzsche that is dead.
<P>
As the periodical prepares to publish its last print edition towards the close of 2012, perhaps Newsweek should stop and reflect where its name will be 200 years or so in comparison to the Name Above All Names.
<P>
by Frederick Meekins

Obama Welcomes the Fiscal Cliff

by David Lawrence

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner boasts that Barack Obama is willing to go off the so-called fiscal cliff if Republicans don’t increase taxes on those who earn more than $250,000. So, our fearless leader, Obama, a scholar in economics, a mathematical whiz kid, is willing to damage our whole country if he doesn’t get his way. 

 

Hell hath no fury like a metrosexual spurned. The shrew can’t be tamed.  It’s his way or the highway.  All or none, no matter how much it damages America, his country, his target for spiteful arrows of outrageous decrease in fortune.  Hamlet was also adolescent.

 

Obama doesn’t care if he punishes us with automatic spending cuts and tax rate increases.  If an agreement is not reached by January 1st he will go over the cliff with us in his knapsack.

 

Geithner defends Obama’s approach and pretends that he is protecting Medicare for the future when he has done nothing to avoid its going bankrupt and has recommended no substantial easing of entitlements.  Geithner claims he will be using taxpayers' resources wisely when he has in fact stupidly marched us into a 16 trillion dollar debt. He defends Obama’s economic failures and says that they are worth going over the economic cliff. The choice to Geithner and Obama is not between going over the cliff and saving ourselves but between getting their way or the highway.

 

While Obama has offered no compromise the House Republican leaders presented a counteroffer, including changes to Medicare and cuts to spending. Obama and Geithner rejected the offer as a “wish list” but offered no compromise in its place.

 

Obama doesn’t care if going off the fiscal cliff will set the economy back into a recession.  He never had a father.  I suppose he is guessing at what a father’s authoritarian attitude should be and he is adopting it for himself. I’m beginning to believe that there should be a law against damaged people becoming President.

 

While America waits for the fiscal cliff situation to be resolved, businesses are cutting back.   Orders of non-military goods have gone down and consumers are spending less. Retail sales are declining.  

 

Going over the fiscal cliff would impact the private sector as well as the federal.   The federal sector would cut 615,000 jobs; the private sector would lose 1.5 million jobs. Obama wants to enable our economic suicide just so he can get his juvenile way. Doesn’t he have any foresight to determine the relative demerits of various proposals? Can’t he see that adding $5,700 more a year to a middle class individual’s taxes is negative?   

 

Obama boasts that he is the great friend of the middle class.  He is leading them to their financial demise.  Riding a steed in his armor no one can see his toothy military smile and his big ears that betray his hiding in his helmet from reality, listening to his own echo like the ocean in a conch shell. 

Redistricting should be about representative government, not about creating "competitive districts"

by Michael Newton

The recent article in The Arizona Republic, “Election adds to debate over redistricting” continues the debate over the fairness of Arizona’s recent decennial redistricting. Republicans are upset that in state that voted for Romney (Rep) over Obama (Dem) 54% to 44% and Flake (Rep) over Carmona (Dem) 50% to 46% the Democrats managed to win 5 of the 9 federal legislative districts. They point to this as a sign that the system for redistricting was rigged by the Democrats.
Overlooked is a more fundamental problem with the whole redistricting process. The stated goal of the redistricting project was to make competitive as many districts as possible. The redistricting commission succeeded in creating 4 safe Republican districts, 2 safe Democrat districts, and 3 so-called competitive districts. Instead of gerrymandering the state to benefit a political party, they gerrymandered it to promote the goal of “competitive districts.”
But what is the real purpose of electing representatives to the House of Representative? As is self-evident from the name, the purpose is to elect people to represent their constituents. In creating these competitive districts, the state ensure that nearly half of the voters in those districts are not represented in Congress, or rather that they are represented by someone in Congress who holds views in contradiction to their own. To maximize the people’s representation in Congress, it would make more sense to gerrymander the state to create, in Arizona’s case, 5 safe Republican districts and 4 safe Democrat districts. Then, the Republicans can choose their representatives in their primaries and the Democrats can choose theirs as well. We live in a representative democracy, or so we are told. It makes little sense to purposely ensure voters go unrepresented.

Michael E. Newton is the author of The Path to Tyranny: A History of Free Society's Descent into Tyranny and Angry Mobs and Founding Fathers: The Fight for Control of the American Revolution. He is currently writing a biography of Alexander Hamilton.