Democratic Despotism

Shortly after the 2012 election, I began to have difficulty shaking off the feeling that the world was ending.  I tried to convince myself that I was over-reacting to the election and that soon enough life would begin to feel normal and everything would be fine.

Then I read a quote by Alexis de Tocqueville that was eerily prophetic about the shape our Republic is now taking.  I encourage anyone to read for himself "Democracy in America".  Since the election, in which Conservatives were run over by a freight train, I've been asking myself how a nation of free-thinkers could elect a government that seems bent on taking away our freedom.  I think Toqueville has really got his finger on the answer.

Living among Americans in the early 1830's, the French historian observes:

an innumerable multitude of men, all equal and alike, incessantly endeavoring to procure the petty and paltry pleasures with which they glut their lives. Each of them, living apart, is as a stranger to the fate of all the rest; his children and his private friends constitute to him the whole of mankind. As for the rest of his fellow citizens, he is close to them, but he does not see them; he touches them, but he does not feel them; he exists only in himself and for himself alone; and if his kindred still remain to him, he may be said at any rate to have lost his country.

How much more accurate can this description be in the modern era of the smartphone and earbud?  We've grown accustomed to tuning out our fellow human beings, content to let strangers remain unknown to us, even if we see them every day.  How are we to have any sense of compassion for our fellow man when we are all so content to not know them or what their needs might be?

Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood.

We are each so absorbed with our own lives, we are content to let the government decide what our neighbor needs, unaware of the great cost:

After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.

As "sheep", men have less opportunity, or desire even, to exercise their own free will.  The "free" choices we do make center on our private whims, but we don't bother with self-governing our appetites, and our morals are dictated by the State rather than the other way around.  We have lost the higher powers of thought that were used to forge our nation in the first place.  We've lost sight of first principles, the ideal of the common good, the virtue of hard work, and the willingness to suffer for these things.  It is a kind of decay Toqueville foresaw affecting the health of our government:

It is in vain to summon a people who have been rendered so dependent on the central power to choose from time to time the representatives of that power; this rare and brief exercise of their free choice, however important it may be, will not prevent them from gradually losing the faculties of thinking, feeling, and acting for themselves, and thus gradually falling below the level of humanity.

Toqueville believes that what separates man from beast is his ability to rise above bodily instinct and strive for higher things.  When he exercises this faculty, he rises above the animals in his goods and achievements.  However, if he neglects it, he loses both bodily goods and the art of achieving them, rendering man capable of enjoying life only "like the brutes, without discernment and without improvement."  This is what he predicts will bring about the ultimate demise of the Republic:

It is indeed difficult to conceive how men who have entirely given up the habit of self-government should succeed in making a proper choice of those by whom they are to be governed; and no one will ever believe that a liberal, wise, and energetic government can spring from the suffrages of a subservient people...The vices of rulers and the ineptitude of the people would speedily bring about its ruin; and the nation, weary of its representatives and of itself, would create freer institutions or soon return to stretch itself at the feet of a single master.

When I hear the words, "single master" some might think of Obama.  He's not it, but I do believe one day the world will face it's Antichrist.  It would seem America finds itself nearer the edge of a crucible inside of which it will be tested by fire.  Of course, I would prefer that "freer institutions" would arise from the ashes, but two things temper those hopes:  the sinking feeling that moral turpitude has rendered us incapable of imagining let alone bring about a better, freer institution, and a fear of the crucible itself.

It would seem that this sense of apocalyptic doom has even seeped into the mind of Hollywood, judging from the surge of new films coming out that depict either the end of America as we know it, or the demise of the entire planet.  If even the heralds of "hope" and "change" can't come up with more optimistic visions of tomorrow, you know the looming dread is palpable everywhere.

If/when America falls, it will be recorded in the history books alongside the destruction of Jerusalem and the fall of Rome.  That is if the fire doesn't consume the history books themselves.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell

Listening to Mike Gallagher this morning, he read on-air a letter written by a decorated Air Force serviceman who is awaiting his honorable discharge due to being "outed" as a gay man. Mike Gallagher is asking, "Why is this man being so wrongly treated? What changed after he was 'outed'? Why can't he continue to serve his country?"

As I was listening to him attack callers who were trying to defend "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" as gay-haters, I just had to jot down a few of my thoughts on the subject.

When it comes to the debates surrounding the issue of homosexuality, it's really hard to come up with a one-liner response that would stand up to the 5-1/2 second window of time the typical talk show host will give you to say something that contradicts their argument.

I'm certainly not smart enough to claim that I've got it all figured out. I'm not even as well-read as I should be to tackle debating anyone on the issue (as proven in my recent debates) which is why I won't dare to call in to the Mike Gallagher show to attempt to make my argument. But I still have to work this out for myself since these types of issues come up in personal conversations as well. All I can do is take what I do know from what I have read and try to apply it to these issues.

I tried that approach with the gay marriage question by trying to defend the nature of marriage and show how a gay union cannot fit that definition, hence "gay marriage" is an impossible contradiction.

The deeper questions center on whether our society should just accept homosexuality (i.e. "sexual orientation") as another trait on equal footing with race or gender. Should one give no consideration to whether a person is gay when discerning their suitability for a given job or responsibility?

It is the general acceptance of homosexuality as "normal" by our society that bothers me most. This exercise in "tolerance" is masking what I believe to be a real disorder in people who are homosexual. This disorder affects more than their sex lives, but rather impacts their entire lives, including in some cases how they perform in their profession.

As someone who has suffered from chronic depression, I know what it feels like to suffer from a disorder that I did not want. I did not have much control over how it came to be a part of my life, and for a long time I didn't even know I was suffering from the disorder. I had to learn to identify the traits of the disorder, how it was affecting my life, and how to correct some of the imbalanced thought patterns which were perpetuating and at times intensifying the condition.

Depression is something that most affected people keep to themselves, not wanting others around them to know about it. People all around us have depression, and we don't know it. And if someone is "outed", the most common feeling is shame, and the most common response by their loved ones is, "well... just snap out of it!" which is at best not helpful, and at worst a gross misunderstanding that can actually make matters worse.

What if our society had decided that people who suffered from depression were just "born that way" and that they should be allowed to live their lives as depressed people on equal footing as everyone else? To remove the stigma of depression, what if laws were passed to legalize suicide and doctors were forced to provide assisted suicide for depressed people? What if school programs were developed to encourage teenagers to act depressed for a time to see if maybe depression was a "lifestyle choice" they would prefer? What if companies were forced to hire people who were "openly depressed", or the military was forced to accept potentially suicidal men and women? What if more and more television shows and movies included depressed characters who become role-models for our children to imitate? It's all a little absurd, isn't it?

If homosexuality was viewed as a disorder in the same way as depression or other forms of mental/physical disorder, then I think many of the hot controversies would take on a whole new color. As I said in my marriage debate, man is designed (physically, psychologically, and spiritually) to be mated with a woman, and vice versa. The result of this union is a family which is bonded in human love which we call marriage.

Homosexuality is a mental/physical disorder in which a man or a woman is unnaturally drawn to the same sex. This outward unnatural attraction reveals a disordered cognitive process, an imbalance of hormonal chemistry, and a fractured psychological makeup. Needless to say, this does not represent the ideal makeup of a person defending our country. People with this disorder need our help to restore them to a natural state of being in which they can find true happiness which is simply living life the way we were designed to live. (UPDATE 2/11/10 - Here's a great article making this point.)

By creating an environment of "acceptance" and "empowerment" we are perpetuating, and possibly even accentuating their condition from mild cases into extreme cases. People with this condition live broken lives, but most don't know it because they are told by everyone around them that there's nothing wrong with them. It is virtually impossible for them to experience real, true love since by definition this love requires a union of the sexes which results in new life. One of the greatest ironies is that the tolerance movement of our age has robbed homosexual people of living happier (and longer) lives.

While people who suffer from depression can legally have jobs in such industries as sales, police, military, suicide hotlines, etc., it's highly likely that their condition will affect their performance in these fields. Likewise, people with a homosexual disorder will be more likely affected by their condition in certain careers (as evidenced by the scandal of homosexual priests) which would include the military.

Folks like Mike Gallagher who say that the many homosexual men and women who currently serve in the military are being treated unjustly by the "don't ask, don't tell" policy argue that these men and women have served their country well and that this wouldn't change just because they were allowed to expose their homosexual tendencies. However, it is very likely that if a "tolerant" atmosphere were created in the military it would have the affect of intensifying the condition in people who until then were restraining those tendencies.

Proponents of repealing the policy are operating under the false idea that homosexual behavior would not be affected if the limitations on that behavior were removed. If homosexuality is listed as an acceptable "lifestyle" in the military, we would likely see an increase in the occurrence of homosexual activity among service men and women. Military disciplinary standards would probably limit visibility to the public but, there would most likely be an affect on the morale of the heterosexual members of the armed forces which would ultimately affect the effectiveness of our military forces and therefore impact our national security. For these reasons, I am not in favor of repealing the policy.

But I don't like the "don't ask, don't tell" policy for a different reason. I think people with homosexual tendencies should receive treatment and be restored to a heterosexual lifestyle. Those who have been cured say they are far happier than they ever were before. The "don't ask" policy allows those suffering from homosexuality to continue to do so in secret which is a great disservice to them. They deserve to be treated and lovingly cared for so that they can experience life to the fullest. That should be where our compassion for our fellow man and woman leads us. However there is a long, steep road ahead to changing the culture's course towards viewing homosexuality in this light. Until then, the "don't ask" policy is better than none at all.

Trojan Horse Alert 2

Back in August 2006 I described the Radical Left's agenda for sending America the rest of the way down their hedonistic moral sinkhole. In their own words, the agenda is described like this: "First let the camel get his nose inside the tent - and only later his unsightly derriere!"

Alan Sears of the Alliance Defense Fund summarized the first key principle of this agenda like this: "Almost all behavior begins to look normal if you are exposed to enough of it at close quarters and among your acquaintances."

In my first Trojan Horse alert, I noted a growing trend in major motion pictures. Homosexual characters that were once quirky, comic relief characters with obscure lifestyles have become main characters in films like Brokeback Mountain complete with full love scenes. More and more in the media, this lifestyle behavior is depicted as "normal". For example, how many recent action movies include at least a little girl-girl action? It's almost become as common as the car chase. Consider also the upcoming release of Milk starring Sean Penn and based on the true-life story of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in (where else?) San Francisco. In the trailer we already begin to hear anti-gay steretypes being served up by white, bigotted men and being trounced by this humble, amiable, and most importantly, infalliable gay man. One must expect that the full-length film contains more than a brief trailer can show. That he was killed and made a martyr for the pro-gay cause adds to the emotional power of the film. Oops! Did I give away the ending? Well, you weren't going to see it anyway.

What has been even more troubling is the fact that the "unsightly derriere" has been coming more into view with the release of a movie about a woman who had a sexual relationship with a dog. Fortunately, that movie didn't do so well, but that ice is broken. I predict we haven't seen the last of animal love. We're already seeing animals in anthropomorphized sexual situations in movies like Beverly Hills Chihuahua. I remember back in the days of my innocent youth I loved the movie Oh Heavenly Dog. In one scene Benji the dog shared a bubble bath with Jane Seymour. Despite the obvious undertones, it was innocent enough because the movie never so much as hinted at anything resembling beastiality. One shudders to consider what a remake would look like today.

Now we need to add child porn to the list of things that are entering the mainstream with the release this year of two movies featuring sex scenes with underage teenagers. FoxNews.com reports the movie Towelhead features an 18 year old actress portraying a 13 year old girl who "experiences her sexual awakening on screen". If you think that's bad, consider the movie Hounddog in which a 12 year old actress portrays a 9 year old who is raped. Whether it's a depiction of an underage girl or the real deal, it's a gross sexualization of young girls. This is not the first time, Bastard Out of Carolina, and Lolita being notable examples, but these new films seem to have thrown innuendo out in favor of more screen time.

Of course, young girls have been sexualized by the fashion world for years. I don't know how a young boy in junior high can concentrate on his studies the way most girls dress these days. But Hollywood has a unique bullhorn for making obscure lifestyles appear mainstream. And young girls that age may dress the part, but the vast majority are still innocent and should not be portrayed as sexual objects for lust or abuse.

I am glad that the Concerned Women for America are speaking out. I just hope we can all fight to push the camel back out from whence it came.

A Farewell Poem For Imus

By Tarzana Joe:

I come to bury Imus, not to praise him.

As if any words on earth could raise him.

Billy Saul Hargus himself could shout,

“John Donald Imus come out!”

And those words would come to naught.

The ranch, as they say, has been bought.

By his own hand has this been done

Adios, “God’s Other Son”.

Now, don’t criticize me for that quote.

“God’s Other Son” is a novel that Imus wrote.

And now, I guess every talk show host must wonder

What chance remark, what blunder,

Will bring on the everlasting thunder

And through what narrow pipe he’ll be extruded

(present company of course excluded).

And every trumpet in the land

Will use Imus as a soapbox on which to stand

One pundit says, the press reports,

“These remarks have undone decades of progress in women’s sports.”

The problem with women’s sports, (Now I need to be careful here so I don’t botch it)

Is that even women will not watch it.

But so that I might remain acceptable to the mainstream

I apologize here and now to the Vassar field hockey team

Present and former

And every Title Nine reformer

Who thinks the time is right (don’t laugh)

For Title Nine And A Half

Which will require all of us to attend

Women’s softball and stay ‘till the end.

Actually a women’s softball team in LA would be quite winning

Because Los Angelinos would stay through the seventh inning.

And here’s something you won’t believe even after I’ve said it,

But Al Gore’s announced he’s selling “Vulgar Credits”!

If you say something awful, don’t give it a thought.

You can buy an “offset” from Al before you’re caught.

And just so the whole thing won’t get too messy

The program will be run by Al and Jesse.

So hit the trail, Imus, you old turkey-necked vulture.

They laid you low just like you did to the culture.

Is It Possible?

Children of Men is a movie that took me by surprise when I first heard of it. The general plot of that film is that in the future mankind is sterile and the race is dying out. In the midst of this decaying world, one woman miraculously becomes pregnant. The renewal of the human race depends upon the safety of that unborn baby.

This is quite a remarkable thing to come out of Hollywood - to cast an unborn child as the savior of the human race. When so many from the Left coast want to support an ideology that completely rejects the humanity of the unborn, to see a movie like this is startling.

There have been other recent movies that have been surprising. I was very surprised to see abstinence until marriage celebrated (and promiscuity painted in so ugly a way) in The 40 Year Old Virgin. Now, the makers of that film are coming out with a new shocker: Knocked Up. The story of two young strangers who have a one night stand only to discover six weeks later that a baby is on the way. Not having seen the film, I can only comment on the trailer in which there is no mention of Hollywood's favorite "choice", abortion. Instead, we see how the young couple try to learn if they can make the relationship work in order to raise the baby together. It's a romantic comedy that in the end may very well show the power of a parent's commitment and sacrifice. I hope that this movie follows Virgin's lead and promotes marriage and family in a very clear, if not completely orthodox way.

Is this a new trend? Is this possibly part of the ripple effect from The Passion of the Christ that I talked about last year? Could there be a new wave of films coming out that actually promote chastity, unborn babies, marriage, and family? How this got past the Producers-Who-Know-How-You-Should-Think in Hollywood is beyond me.

As always, I remain somewhat skeptical. There's always the chance the trailers are white-washed to lure the conservative Christian viewers to the theater, leaving out the juicy parts. But then that's what I thought about The 40 Year Old Virgin. I actually avoided the film for a while until a friend told me about it's surprising message. Despite the positive moral, even Virgin had enough "junk" in it to make it something I wouldn't let my kids see until they were in their 20's, but it's worth referring to those old enough to see it. There's just enough titillating stuff in it to make fully secularized kids and young adults want to see it. The full power of the message of the film is saved until right at the very end.

I wonder if that's how they sneaked it past the censors.

Pacifism, self-hatred and complacency

This is an unnerving piece, but I think he's more right than most are willing to admit.

Social Evolution

A new movie that is out in theaters is called This Film Is Not Yet Rated. It is an exposé by director Kirby Dick about the American movie ratings board.

The best way to describe the reason this film was made is to quote from a reviewer (and fan) from Scotland (from IMDB):

Although Britain has long lagged behind continental standards, we now have a fairly relaxed attitude to censorship, enjoying fairly broad support by the public and the industry. Gone are the days of Mary Whitehouse and the mad moral crusaders. I say 'mad' because their idea of morality was based largely on Biblical Christianity which lags far behind the more enlightened human-rights based morality that is a mainspring in Europe nowadays. America, sadly, still labours in the middle ages in terms of its vocal moral majority - people (and presidents) that spout religious texts to justify state-sanctioned killing, bigotry and many abuses of human rights. Liberal Americans of moral integrity are aware of the dilemma and, like Kirby Dick, sometimes look to the arts and cinema to exert pressure for positive social evolution.

That's right. America's moral majority is stuck in the middle ages while Europe has chosen to shift back to the demographics of the middle ages. "Oh, so sorry lads. We never should have taken our countries back from the Muslims all those centuries ago. Tell you what. We'll stop having children and leave the door open to let you chaps back in while we recede into the history books."

Is this the sort of "social evolution" our Scottish friend and other "liberal Americans of moral integrity" want? Apparently so.
An organization called "Stop Planned Parenthood" (STOPP) makes regular reports about the activities of Planned Parenthood. In their latest Wednesday report STOPP made the following report:

Interview exposes Planned Parenthood’s intentions for our youth

Last Friday, September 22, Planned Parenthood posted an interview on its web site with director Kirby Dick about his new movie, This Film Is Not Yet Rated, a documentary about Hollywood’s film rating process. Throughout the interview PP talks with Mr. Dick about film rating in this country and how it may be leading toward the censorship of sex, especially homosexual acts. The most interesting portion of the interview was when PP states:

A few years back, Planned Parenthood outlined a set of goals to achieve by the year 2025. Goal one is to "ensure that sexuality is understood as an essential, lifelong aspect of being human and that it is celebrated with respect, openness, and mutuality." Your documentary suggests that movies could go a long way to further such a goal if existing censorship obstacles were not in place.

This statement exposes two things about Planned Parenthood. First of all, by the reference to its 25-year plan, we can see that the oversexualized goals that were set in the year 2000 are still very much a focus of PP’s activities.

The other thing that is made very clear is that Planned Parenthood seems to be advocating for children to be exposed to sex, including homosexual acts and other sexual immorality, on film. PP is constantly working to push its brand of sexuality into every aspect of our culture and to indoctrinate our children into the sexual lifestyle that it needs to continue to make big profits.

We must more than ever be aware and be on guard to protect our children from the immorality that is pervasive in so much of our society. However, this protection cannot simply be defensive; we must stand and fight to keep Planned Parenthood from forcing its immorality upon our culture.

Propaganda films are becoming more and more mainstream. Even movies like Brokeback Mountain that are made to look like "entertainment" are really pushing a cultural agenda further down our throats. Organizations like PP would love nothing more than to see the current restraints on what can't be shown on film to be lifted so that they can drive their sexual agenda. And that agenda is nothing more than to encourage everyone to have sex but not have children.

Don't think so? I'll give the STOPP report the last word:

It is easy to not fully realize the scale that Planned Parenthood is involved in the promotion of the contraceptive culture. Just last year PP distributed dangerous contraceptive drugs and devices to nearly 2.5 million Americans. According to PP’s own reports, contraception alone accounts for approximately 75 percent of its customer services. To make things worse, through Title X and other programs Planned Parenthood is given millions of our federal tax dollars each year to do it.

Pause

I noticed today that the "pause" button on my media player looked like a silhouette of the twin towers of the World Trade Center. It reminded me that taking the time to pause on 9/11 would be a good thing for a couple of reasons.

First, to remember what happened five years ago. To remember how awful that day was. It's important that this memory remain fresh so that we don't grow complacent in our diligence against terrorism. The most chilling line I heard was from an Irish terrorist who once said, "you have to be lucky all the time. We only have to be lucky once." Five years have passed and we've been pretty "lucky" so far. If we don't remember what it looks like when the terrorists get lucky, we're bound to have another 9/11 on our soil.

Second, we should remember those who were lost on that day. So many husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, brothers and sisters, none of whom could have known that it was their last day on Earth. For me one of the most emotional photographs of the events of 9/11 is that of the rescue workers carrying the body of Father Mychal Judge who stayed in the WTC to comfort and administer Last Rites to a critically injured fireman. He was killed by falling debris. The rescue workers carried him out - a saint emerging from the rubble.

If you knew today would be your last, what would you do differently? How would you have prepared to meet your end? I'd be willing to bet that none of us really follow the maxim to live each day as if it were our last. I'd be willing to bet that aside from the 19 who planned it, most of the 3,000 who died that day did not have their affairs in order, either materially or spiritually. So we should remember the souls of the departed, and pray for them. I'm sure they're doing likewise.

The question on a lot of people's minds during this 5th anniversary is: "Are we prepared to stop another attack"? I'd like to think so, but then again, even government agencies with the best technology and well thought-out plans are still run by human beings capable of making mistakes. Who knows what the history books 100 years from now will say. How many more terrible things could we possibly see in our remaining living years?

I don't intend to sound so morose. I remain hopeful that the people we have entrusted with our security will prevail. But one thing is still certain: one day we all will wake to our last day on Earth. It may not be brought about by savage acts of terrorism, but the day will come nonetheless at a time not of our choosing. We won't be able to stop the advance of that day, but we can do something to prepare for it.

Will we be ready?

Congratulations!

After surveying the headlines today, I thought some congratulations were in order.

Congratulations to Tom Cruise for proving that running your mouth in public the way he did can and does have an affect on your life. Paramount announced their decision to sever ties with Tom Cruise from their studio "amid disputes over money and style." Viacom chief Summer Redstone "cited Cruise'’s infamous 'Oprah' couch jumping, his interview with Matt Lauer on the 'Today' show as well as his attack on Brooke Shields over pharmacological drugs." Steven Spielberg was surprised to hear the news. Well, hopefully Cruise has learned that certain ideologies will get you in trouble. And hopefully the rest of Hollywood will too.

Congratulations to the Vermont liberazzi as they celebrate the news of the end of the first gay civil union. The two women who stood in line not so long ago in July of 2000 anxious to be the first to take advantage of Vermont's new law legalizing civil unions have decided they made a mistake. This news is coupled by the new ruling that gay couples can file for joint custody of children who had the great misfortune of being brought into this social train wreck. Way to go Vermont.

Congratulations to the rest of the country as we celebrate the final approval of the "Plan B" pill. Now more women than ever can retain a promiscuous lifestyle without fear of consequences. At least, not any consequences that can be seen. At least none that will be seen for the time being. Well, at least not this week. Maybe. There will still be the risk of STDs, there will still be the harmful side effects of the drug, and there will now be an even greater number of conceived human lives that will be unknowingly aborted.

In addition to the documented abortions (as reported by Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers, and tallied by counters like this one) there is an unreported and therefore unknown number of lives lost to chemical contraceptives. One report says that 3% of healthy women (5% of overweight women) get pregnant on the pill. That means that at least 3% of the time, the first function of the pill failed and an egg was released, the second function of the pill failed and the sperm made it to the egg, and the third function of the pill failed and the newly conceived human implanted in the woman's uterus. If this happens 3% of the time, then one can surmise that a greater percentage of the time the third function of the pill -- the prevention of implantation -- works. So in over 3% of all women, they are aborting a child without ever knowing it. Congratulations to them. They're parents and will never know it. At least not right away.

So way to go, America. Our culture will take the gold in the downhill slalom.

Trojan Horse Alert

In July 2003 a book was written by Alan Sears, the president, CEO, and general counsel of the Alliance Defense Fund, an organization dedicated to the defense of religious freedom, the sanctity of human life, and traditional values. The book was titled The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today. I along with several other friends decided to read the book and meet on occasion to discuss it. It has turned out to be one of the most prophetic books concerning our culture that I've ever read.

Sears and co-author Craig Osten reveal that a six-point strategy was defined in the late 80's by two homosexual activists Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen (see here and here) to radically change America's perception of homosexual behavior. Their six points were:
1. Talk about gays and gayness as loudly and often as possible.
2. Portray gays as victims, not aggressive challengers.
3. Give homosexual protectors a 'just' cause.
4. Make gays look good.
5. Make anti-gay victimizers look bad.
6. Solicit funding from corporate America and major foundations to financially support the homosexual cause

The principle of the first point is basically this: "Almost all behavior begins to look normal if you are exposed to enough of it at close quarters and among your acquaintances." Kirk and Madsen put it this way: "First let the camel get his nose inside the tent - and only later his unsightly derriere!"

Kirk and Madsen knew that the media would play a crucial role in the implementation of their strategy: "The average American watches over seven hours of TV daily. Those hours open up a gateway into the private world of straights [non-gay people], through which a Trojan Horse might be passed."

Now, consider for a moment the development of homosexual characters in film and television over the past 20 years. I won't compose a list for you, but clearly gay characters have moved from being quirky secondary characters with a vague sexual orientation to being full-blown main characters in academy award winning films. Besides the obvious success of "Brokeback Mountain", television shows like "Will & Grace", "Ellen", "It's All Relative", and "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" are good examples of the kind of success the activists have had in implementing their strategy.

Sears and Osten give us the results: "Using data from the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, the study showed that in 1988, 74.9 percent of respondents said that sex between two people of the same sex is always wrong. By 1998, that number had dropped to 54.6 percent."

The authors go on to demonstrate how all of this is intended to break down public resistance to the goal of redefining the terms "marriage" and "family" so that homosexual relationships can be legitimized and given equal legal footing with heterosexual relationships. As Kirk and Madsen reveal: "This won't just be a change in the law either; it will be a change in society. For if we do it right, the struggle to win the freedom to marry will bring much more along the way" [emphasis added]. Madsen and Kirk appear to be winning.

So, why do I write about this today? Well, there is a new movie coming out that pushes the camel a little further into the tent.

The movie is called "Sleeping Dogs Lie". In this "new breed of romantic comedy", a young couple decides to test the limits of their relationship by revealing their dirty little secrets to each other. The woman reveals that she once orally pleasured a dog.

That's right. A dog.

The other characters in the film naturally act repulsed by this. But keep in mind this is a romantic comedy, and one must presume (the film is not out yet, pardon the pun) that the movie ends happily. I would expect that by the end of the movie the boyfriend will come to terms with her past indiscretion. Whether the general public does, is yet to be seen.

So far, the reviews seem to be negative mostly due to the fact that people didn't like having to watch the opening scene where the offensive action takes place (albeit off-screen). In fact, an early title of the film was "Stay", and one can guess that the filmmakers changed the title when they realized that it sounded too much like a plea to the audience.

I don't know if this is the first major motion picture to reference beastiality like this, but it may be the first to make such an act the central story point. Romantic comedies have been the Trojan Horse of the homosexual agenda for a while now. It appears that more ugliness is spilling from its belly. Perhaps we should keep an eye out for more animal-love film references in the years to come. That's how desensitization works.

And it's all according to plan.

Good one, Ted.

Ted Nugent on deer hunting.

He was being interviewed by a British journalist. The journalist asked,"What do you think the last thought is in the head of a deer before you shoot it? Is it, `Are you my friend?` or is it `Are you the one who killed my brother?'"

Nugent replied, "They aren't capable of that kind of thinking. All they care about is, 'What am I going to eat next, who am I going to screw next, and can I run fast enough to get away'. They are very much like the French in that way."

Unbelievable

The Story of the Summer - the Stolen Sidekick. I've been amazed by this little on-line saga because it shows us yet another new facet in the power of the Internet. This time, it has been used to help bring a petty thief and her accomplices to justice. A stolen item has been returned to its rightful owner.

Taking advantage of the massive attention this little lost device garnered, the owner opted to put it up for auction on eBay with proceeds going to a charity helping children and single mothers. (The way this guy has handled himself despite the favorable media attention has been very admirable.)

The auction went up on July 7th, and I was expecting that this story was about to come to a close. It was such a gripping story though, that I was in a way sad to see it end. Instead it appears Evan has a new chapter to write.

It turns out the winning bidder is a fake. Of all the things to happen to this guy. I'm just as amazed as he is. He's so tenacious however, that he's actually tracked down and made contact with the people who supposedly placed the winning bid. They have given him a variety of excuses why they shouldn't be held responsible for the payment they are contractually obliged to make (wrong number, my 14 year-old son did it, I left the computer on and one of my roommates made the bid.) It's as if Sasha has reappeared in the UK to give poor Evan another go. The blog is beginning to resemble "Cuckoo's Egg".

He says he's going to contact the penultimate bidder and see if he can work with eBay on a workaround, but I hope that he also makes good on his threat to once again use the power of the Internet to publicly expose, humiliate and bring to justice these British bozos who have decided to defraud the Stolen Sidekick Auction and charity fundraiser.

Go get 'em, Evan.

No Laughing Matter

Okay... I'll admit it. I'm a Jim Carrey fan. I had seen him on "In Living Color" a number of times, and thought Fire Marshal Bill was pretty funny, but it wasn't until my first viewing of "Ace Ventura" that I discovered just how hard he could make me laugh. Just the first five minutes of that movie made me laugh hard enough that my wife had to pause the movie for ten minutes to give me time to catch my breath. No joke.

He's tried to move away from the "zany" comedy and do more subtle stuff will mixed results. Well, perhaps "mixed" is being too kind. Frankly, Carrey should go back and wipe the lame sequels to "Dumb and Dumber" and "The Mask" off the planet and remake them in his own image. He is this generation's Jerry Lewis or Danny Kaye. As far as physical comedy goes, the guy's a genius. He should stick with what works.

Now on to the topic that prompted all this rambling on. I've been browsing new movie trailers on Apple.com. There's a new movie coming out called "Strangers With Candy". It's apparently a"prequel" of a Comedy Central series by the same name. Never watching that channel, I can't say I've heard of it, so I'm seeing this without any sense for the larger context of the show. I've never seen or heard of the lead actress, but the supporting actors are fairly big names (Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ian Holm, Matthew Broderick, Sarah Jessica Parker) so I guess someone's trying to keep this off the "B-movie" list.

Judging from the trailer I think they failed in that attempt...miserably. Frankly the movie looks lousy. For that the writers are most likely to blame since that's who usually is at fault for a bad movie. Having read a little about the show, it sounds like the writers didn't even do much work for the movie. Instead they borrowed heavily from the three seasons of the cable series - recycling the best jokes. I'd wager they picked the jokes first and built the screenplay around them (that must break a screenwriting rule somewhere). But that's not why I'll be avoiding the movie - more on that in a moment.

The real shame is that judging from the few clips the trailer offers, the lead actress appears to have the comedic potential to be the yin to Jim Carrey's yang. My favorite bit is towards the end of the trailer when someone accuses her of talking with food in her mouth. There are some other moments sprinkled throughout that make me think of Carrey's "Ace Ventura" shtick. Aside from those little jems in the trailer, the rest of it is just plain stupid (which coming from me is saying a lot.)

Of course, all films coming out of Hollywood have to play by the Agenda Playbook, and so we have a token sub-plot evident in the trailer of a gay romance between a teacher and one of his students. Given the media uproar in recent months of the heterosexual affairs between female teachers and their male students, how anyone is supposed to find comedy in a gay affair between a teacher and a high-school student is beyond me, but I guess I'm not the target audience.

But the film caters to the Agenda perfectly: make homosexuality sanitary, lighthearted, fun, funny, palatable, attractive, pleasing, acceptable. Once everyone has been convinced of this, then the people will be less resistive to the laws which give this tiny minority group what they want: the erosion and ultimate decimation of the very building-blocks of society - marriage and family life. Strange that I can go from finding an actress funny to saying that her movie is leading our culture to implosion, but there it is.

So cross this one off your list, and we'll keep our fingers crossed that she will be in an upcoming film with Jim Carrey. Something like "Dumb and Dumbette" would suffice.

A Super Review

Debbie Schlussel has some fine comments about the new Superman movie that is coming out.

While I agree with some that movies are good just for their entertainment value, it shouldn't be forgotten that they are also very effective "soap boxes" for good or ill. We've been browbeaten for years by films that push a liberal view of life on the American public. Based on the box office success of these films, we can tell how much the American public embraces (or at minimum puts up with) these ideologies.

I've been so distracted by the recent Internet buzz about this new Superman's sexual orientation (the director says he's hetero, by the way) that I've not even realized that the other iconic character in the world of Superman is being tweaked. Now I'll admit that I never watched a single episode of "Lois & Clark" or "Smallville". So, I really don't know how Lois was portrayed in those shows. I don't know if Lois and Supe had...let's call it an active physical relationship. I wouldn't be surprised if they did. We know that they did in Superman II, but as far as I can remember, it was only once (off-camera no less), and if memory serves, it wasn't repeated in any of the sequels. It's a sad commentary on our culture that we've grown to expect that a romantic relationship on television or film has to include by default a physical relationship. That we don't even complain about that sort of thing any more is revealing that we've bought into the idea that it's okay... or at minimum acceptable behavior even if we wouldn't do it ourselves.

But what I think is breaking new ground in this film is that now Lois has a child out of wedlock. Apparently, if I read Ms. Schlussel's article right, there is even some uncertainty about who the father is, meaning of course that Lois had more than one "suitor" at the time. Lois is no longer the one-man girl she's been for decades.

This hardly breaks new ground on film or in any media for that matter, but it does change the fundamental elements that make up who these characters are supposed to be. Comics are a part of American mythology and Superman is right up there at the top of the list. To take these iconic characters and to change them to support modern ideology is to change how we see ourselves. Superman was the icon for "Truth, Justice and the American Way". Lois loves him. Lois is us. We love Truth, Justice and the American Way.

Now Lois loves... someone else. Or at least enough to bring another person into the world. Doesn't that defeat her iconic meaning? I'm hoping that by the end of the film, Lois realizes how wrong she's been and falls back into the blue spandexed arms of her true love, but a baby by another man won't go away even if she changes allegiances by the end. How are we supposed to interpret this new little icon? What does the baby mean? If anyone would like to make a guess, I'm curious.

Spider-Man and True Love

I just saw the trailer for the new Spider-Man 3. And right up front I'm going to say... it looks good.

It's been an interesting trend lately. Not only have superheroes really found a home on the big screen, but it's been more interesting to see how they are portrayed so darkly. We've come a long way from the Superman of the 50's or the Batman of the 70's. We had a dark Batman in the late 80's and an even darker one last year. Superman is being portrayed with some darker undertones. Soon we will have a Spider-Man who is apparently going to have to fight his inner demons.

Not that I think it's a bad thing, altogether. After all, the superhero genre has always meant to be a way to measure ourselves against a higher standard. Superman for example fought for "Truth, Justice and the American Way"; an icon for our country in WWII. But now the enemy is seen to be within. And while I would probably differ greatly with what anyone in Hollywood would say those demons are, there is truth in that.

We all have our weaknesses, and sometimes they're nothing more than personal shortcomings. But sometimes our weaknesses have a direct impact on the people we love. And these really shouldn't be ignored. We live in a country that seems more and more to celebrate selfishness and to disdain the notion of sacrifice. I'm going to go out on a limb, though and say that the only way Peter Parker will overcome his inner demons and get the girl is to embrace sacrifice on some level. I really don't know anything about the movie other than what I saw in the trailer, so I could be completely wrong.

But we know deep down, that sacrifice is at the heart of true love, and when it's portrayed correctly, audiences eat it up. The first movie that comes to mind is "The Notebook". Other movies try to show love as being a totally selfish endeavor and they wind up falling flat on their faces. The first to come to mind is "Must Love Dogs".

So, even though it's not really on the surface in our culture these days, deep down we know that to truly love we must sacrifice. And to love deeper means to sacrifice deeper. This is when love becomes charity. Hopefully Spidey will not disappoint in making my case. But given the recent output from the Left Coast, I won't hold my breath.