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.

70 A.D.

2000 years ago, a nation enslaved by a corrupt power had a chance for salvation.  In the court of Pontius Pilate, the Messiah was presented to the Jewish people.  "Behold your king!" shouted Pilate.  "We have no king but Caesar!" cried the Jews.  70 years later, Armageddon was visited upon Israel.

There's no one to blame but you, America.  You had the chance to elect a man who could pull us back from the brink of economic collapse.  He may even have been able to stem the advance of cultural decay.  But America has no king but Obama.  Can Armageddon be that far off?  Consider:

Will Israel unilaterally strike Iran?
Will North Korea become a nuclear power?
Will terrorists kill thousands in America again?
Will our military become impotent?
Will gas prices skyrocket further?
Will our income be sapped by egregious taxation?
Will the stock market crash?
Will the national credit rating be further downgraded?
Will we face a national healthcare "death panel"?
Will Catholic clinics and hospitals close?
Will we see "hate speech" legislation that makes preaching Catholic sexual ethics a crime?
Will gay marriage become the law of the land?
Will our media begin to expand its umbrella of "tolerance" over other moral aberrations like bestiality or pedophilia? (hint: it's already started)

Can America be pulled back out of four more years of entrenched Leftism?  Has the "American Experiment" finally failed?  Have we become New Europe?  Is the Conservative movement dead?  Even if it can be said that conservatism works, what does it matter if the voting majority wants a free hand-out?

I know this much - the folks on conservative talk radio have lost all potency in my opinion.  They're in the business of selling a product just like any other business, and I was buying it for a long time.  Now I'm convinced it's a lemon.  All those bright minds - Prager, Hewitt, Ingraham, Hannity, Limbaugh, Medved, and a host of others - with their entertaining shows with all their rational apologetics and well-constructed arguments couldn't convince enough people to keep this from happening.  All their forecasts of Romney landslides turned out to be empty hope.

National discourse has been reduced to the soundbite.  Soundbites can't change minds.  Apparently the Republican party needs to start making music videos and learn to give away free cell phones.

Rational thought doesn't rule the land any more, and optimism doesn't win elections.  It takes virtue to make virtuous choices, and America is no longer a virtuous country.  We're a nation of post-Christian nihilists.  "United States" has become an oxymoron.  Reverend Wright must have been a prophet.  America is damned.

Silver linings?  I can't think of a single one.  At least heaven waits for some on the other side of Armageddon.  And there will be more Star Wars films to watch while we wait for the fire.

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.

Jib Jab 2008 Year in Review

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What "They" Did

I have been hearing some pundits say, "he's done it." Obama has accomplished the unthinkable. I just don't buy it. I don't think "he" did much but sound good in front of a teleprompter. It's the "they" behind him that worries me. What They did is shocking when taken in as a whole.

Here's how it breaks down as I see it:

Obama went to a liberal university where the curriculum is guided predominately by left-leaning professors and the remnants of the Woodstock-era anti-government radicals like the domestic terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn.

After soaking in this environment for his college years, he settled in Chicago where he came under the wing of powerful, corrupt political supporters like the convict Tony Rezko.

He joined a church headed by "reverend" Wright who preaches black liberation theology, castigating the United States for past offenses and spreading white hatred and a deep antipathy for the nation. He stayed there for 20 years.

He and his wife spent evenings at dinner with Rashid Khalidi - a known supporter of the PLO terrorist organization and outspoken anti-Israel zealot. Obama spoke highly of the man at a dinner celebrating him before he left Chicago for New York.

During this time in Chicago, Obama developed programs that moved money around in a shell game dominated by "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" conniving which robbed the schools they were pretending to help of millions of dollars.

Under the guidance and mentorship of these types of people as well as several other less inflammatory but no less liberal figures, They helped Obama become an Illinois senator. He launched his first campaign in the living room of unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers. In the Illinois senate, one of his most noteworthy actions was to vote against a law that would provide emergency healthcare to living infants who survive an attempted abortion.

Later, They would help him become a U.S. senator where his only noteworthy accomplishment was a well-delivered speech given at the 2004 DNC that was written by someone else. Following that speech, Obama was quickly targeted to be among the candidates for the 2008 presidential race.

Early in the primaries, Obama pledged to accept public financing in the presidential campaign. McCain did likewise. After gaining the nomination, he went back on his word. McCain kept his promise. Obama's deceit allowed Them to raise more money than any presidential campaign in history. With this money, They mounted a PR campaign that could not be matched with public funding: the Mile High Stadium acceptance speech, the 30-minute infomercial on 7 television stations, the enormous stage constructed well in advance in anticipation of the Nov 4 victory speech.

The rhetoric he was given to read was full of buzz words like "hope" and "change" but lacked anything resembling substance. When he strayed from the teleprompter, what leaked out were the fundamental principles of Marxism and Socialism that were drummed into his head by his liberal college professors. His tax plans sounded like a redistributionist's dream while his new spending programs appeared to be funded out thin air. He opposed energy independence. He opposed a secret ballot in unions. He preferred the good opinion of godless European peaceniks over hard working Americans who "cling to their guns and religion".

His first promised act as president would be to sign the Freedom of Choice act - an Orwellian bill that will prevent sovereign states from being free to choose what their own laws will be concerning abortion. He confessed that he doesn't want his own daughters "punished" with a baby they don't want. He favors euthanasia and embryonic stem cell research. In short, he is the staunch supporter of every culture of death issue.

On the verge of nuclear war in the Middle East, Obama promised to reduce military funding, slow the growth of our military, and withdraw our troops from the Iraqi theater nearly guaranteeing increased danger to American citizens and allies. Joe Biden warned the country that Obama would be "tested", suggesting that American civilian lives will have to be lost before the country will know what his response to Islamic terrorism will or will not be.

Above all of this, the print, television, cable, music and film industries all coalesced into a deafening propaganda machine. Month after month after month They saturated the culture with "Bush Lied People Died", dug up dirt (some real, some contrived) on conservative politicians, and hid or concealed dirt (all real) on liberal politicians. Republican gaffes were above-the-fold news items for days at a time while liberal gaffes were buried or never printed.

Republicans in movies and television were always made to look ridiculous, "big business" to look corrupt, and our military to look untrustworthy. In another historical first, a fictionalized biographical movie was produced about the sitting president making him look like a fool. Slogans like "8 Is Enough" were used to suggest McCain and Palin were no different than the "dimwitted" President Bush.

Nightly TV "journalists" professed a "thrill" going up their leg and other less obvious but no less biased confessions of preference in an unprecedented manipulation of public opinion by the media. Foreign media celebrities injected their own liberal opinions into the national discourse, ridiculing McCain and Palin, even pleading with the country to elect Obama. More opinion polls were conducted this year than in the last two presidential races combined. The media selectively reported only those polls that favored Obama. Obama has been featured on the cover of more magazines (and more frequently on some) than any other presidential candidate in history.

When asked tough questions by smaller media outlets or even by "Joe the Plumber" civilians, Democrats kicked them off their planes, conducted illegal background checks of civilians, and black-listed certain news agencies.

Financial policies enforced by Democrats - despite warnings by Republicans including McCain - caused a nearly catastrophic collapse of our national economy. The nation demanded to know who was at fault for this disaster, and the Democrats in concert with the liberal press, achieved the inconceivable. They blamed the Republicans. And - equally inconceivably - the public believed it.

On November 4th, our country - brainwashed by the media, driven by an irrational belief that the Republican party was destroying the country, and in an emotional desire to elect the first black president - put Obama in the White House.

He is a man who does not trust or perhaps even like our country as is stands today, who does not trust our military to act in our nation's interests, who is protected by a fawning media which is willing to attack any potential threat to his credibility, who wants to infiltrate our Constitution with Marxist ideas, who wants to destroy our free market economy and create a welfare state, and wants to appeal to a global community rather than the sovereign nation he wants to lead.

We don't know who he will appoint to fill the nearly 3,000 presidential appointments in our government. We don't know how any of those men and women will affect our schools, our economy, our national security, our healthcare, or our very lives. We don't know if his tax-and-spend plan will throw the US economy into the worst depression since the 1920's or not. We don't know what will happen to the cost of energy, houses or healthcare. We don't know what sort of judges he will appoint to the Supreme Court or what kind of decisions those judges may impose upon the country in the decades to come.

We don't know how he'll respond to an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel, or an North Korean invasion of South Korea, a Russian invasion of Poland, or a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. We don't know how he'll respond to the next terrorist attack on American soil. And we don't know how many people will die in any or all of these events. But the chances of any of them happening just increased ... thanks to Them.

Taken together, these things represent a frightening and dangerous precedent to our system of government: the biased control of the media, the manipulation of images for maximum emotional response, the suppression of opposing views, the "punishment" of success through higher taxes, the promotion of an ever-increasing welfare state, the consolidation of the military. These are the marks of the end of our Republic as we've known it for over 200 years.

If the next presidential or congressional race is to be won, the Republican candidate will have to acknowledge what McCain would not - it's not the Democratic candidate he (or she) will be running against, it's Them.

UPDATE 5/3/10 - A blogger in New Zealand has decided to take it upon himself to do the investigative work the Obama Press won't do. He has uncovered the trail of bread crumbs that connects President Obama with all sorts of really bad people - with "Them". The opening line of his most recent article summarizes what I've been writing about in my own blog:

"It is becoming increasingly clear that Barack Obama did not create a movement. A movement created Barack Obama."

The rest of the article is here.

UPDATE 8/19/11 - Nearly a full three years into this presidency we now see more clearly the choices Obama has made, the appointments, the legislation, the spending, the agenda. There are many who wish to give the President the benefit of the doubt, or simply assume he's incompetent. This would be more believable if he was acting alone from the White House to do what he has done. This article is a great (and horrifying) pulling-back of the curtain to reveal more of Them working silently behind the scenes enacting their agenda to unravel the fabric of our nation and sow the seeds of their revolution.

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.

Turn Out the Vote!

The message couldn't be more spot on.. and I love the music too. Please watch.

An Ego For The Ages

"Selling It" - By Tarzana Joe

I wasn’t there but I believe
That Leonidas lied
The Persians didn’t mean any harm
300 Spartans died

Yes, Leonidas lied
300 Spartans died

He sold the war to citizens with
Flummery and flake
And gullibly the Grecians
Thought their culture was at stake

But clever Romans wouldn’t buy
What Caesars had to sell
“The Vandals are a peaceful group…”
The Roman Empire fell.

War is such a dreadful thing
That truly I am told
Everyone who goes to war
In someway must be sold

He must be convinced his future
And his country are at stake
To understand the sacrifice
He might be called to make

And those in charge must make the case
As they’ve been picked to lead
Use every means and every word
To illustrate the need.

Disagree? Then make your case
That’s what debate is for
You’ve got the edge
As there’s a lack of folks I know who want a war

So next time you reach to get that Brand X from the shelf
Pick me up that modern myth, the war that sells itself.

A Reporter’s Creed

by Tarzana Joe

Bush is a bum, his mind is numb, his brain’s been through a blender;
And when I go to work to cover the jerk I have no agend-er.

The surge is nuts, it’s run by a putz, a jumble of confusion;
But on that matter, despite this chatter, I’ve reached no conclusion.

The dice were tossed, the war is lost, and Bush is Exxon’s minion;
But on issues of the day, I’m proud to say that I have no opinion.

If you demand I take a stand, well I’ll say the sky is blue-ish
And once when stressed… well I confessed that one plus one is two-ish

So I aver and must defer to quote that great Virginian
Who said in re: Death or Liberty, “I have no opinion."

A Political Metaphor

I got this in an email this afternoon...

A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many others her age, she considered herself to be a very liberal Democrat, and was very much in favor of the redistribution of wealth. She was deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch Republican, a feeling she openly expressed. Based on the lectures that she had participated in, and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt that her father had for years harbored an evil, selfish desire to keep what he thought should be his.

One day she was challenging her father on his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and the addition of more government welfare programs. The self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth and she indicated so to her father. He responded by asking how she was doing in school.

Taken aback, she answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA, and let him know that it was tough to maintain, insisting that she was taking a very difficult course load and was constantly studying, which left her no time to go out and party like other people she knew. She didn't even have time for a boyfriend, and didn't really have many college friends because she spent all her time studying.

Her father listened and then asked, "How is your friend Audrey doing?"

She replied, "Audrey is barely getting by. All she takes are easy classes, she never studies, and she barely has a 2.0 GPA. She is so popular on campus; college for her is a blast. She's always invited to all the parties, and lots of times she doesn't even show up for classes because she's too hung over."

Her wise father asked his daughter, "Why don't you go to the Dean's office and ask him to deduct a 1.0 off your GPA and give it to your friend who only has a 2.0. That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPA."

The daughter, visibly shocked by her father's suggestion, angrily fired back, "That wouldn't be fair! I have worked really hard for my grades! I've invested a lot of time, and a lot of hard work! Audrey has done next to nothing toward her degree. She played while I worked my tail off!"

The father slowly smiled, winked and said gently, "Welcome to the Republican Party."

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.

Every film needs an antagonist.

The newest Oliver Stone movie hits theaters this week. Stone is a good movie maker. By "good" I mean that he knows his craft and is adept at making pictures that move us. The problem is that by conservative standards, Stone is a political wacko who likes to make his films as a contribution to the left-wing agitprop (to use my new favorite word). The problem, then, is that his well-crafted propaganda is attractive and sells lot of tickets. The big question surrounding this movie then is, "will he get it right?" How will Oliver treat one of the most significant events in recent U.S. history?

Well, there are of course, two types of reviewers: those who like the movie and those who don't. This one calls it "a damn good movie". The emphasis of the review and the film is on its two central characters and the gut-wrenching ordeal they and their families go through. The reviewer warns that, "ignoring this film...dishonors the filmmaker, the actors and mostly the men [portrayed in the film]. 'World Trade Center' is about them, not about us. We a’re only being asked to appreciate what they endured." Well that's nice. We wouldn't want to dishonor the filmmaker.

Debbie Schlussel, on the other hand, sees the film another way. She writes, "this version will make conspiracy theorists--and extremist Muslims--very happy." Why? Because this version of 9/11 has been completely stripped clean of any and all references to the perpetrators of the attack. But, some may say, the focus of the movie is on the two policemen who are trapped in the rubble, not about the people who carried out the attacks. As one commenter on Schlussel's site puts it, "showing a movie about 9/11 without mentioning Islam or at the very least Al Queda terrorists is like making a movie about the Holocaust without once showing a Nazi or mentioning Germany." Quite true. So, what was the strange force that brought the buildings down? Who is the phantom enemy?

"United 93" beat "WTC" to theaters, but Stone hopes by being the first to reflect on the New York attacks to influence the films that will come after his by making the focus on the victims -- and on the U.S. (Schlussel gives us this insight from Stone: "Maybe later, I'll make another one, from a different perspective. . . " Like from Osama's perspective, perhaps?) The end of "WTC" is punctuated by a statement that reminds us that people "from 87 countries" died on 9/11. What's he trying to say there? That America wasn't the only victim? That the U.S. wasn't the sole target of the attack?

Maybe "attack" is too strong a word for the likes of Stone. As one of the stars of "WTC" put it, the U.S. has done "reprehensible things". Get that? After watching "WTC", we are supposed to believe that the U.S. is somehow the enemy. Sure, our cops and firemen in NYC are brave, but it was our own country's geopolitical/geomilitary action (in at least 86 other countries?) that ultimately brought those buildings down on the international representatives in New York.

So that's why there's no enemy in the movie. They're all sitting in the theater.

Welcome to Pallywood

Def: "AGITPROP" -propaganda; especially : political propaganda promulgated chiefly in literature, drama, music, or art

You remember the Dan Rather kerfuffle a while back... forged documents used in a television news article to smear President Bush were proved false by the Blogosphere. A recent article by Rush Limbaugh reveals that this sort of thing is getting worse. Photographs are being doctored to make the story fit the agenda. Worse still, photos and video are being staged to simulate newsworthy material so that the "sight-byte" will make the evening world news. This video on YouTube.com is just fascinating to watch. Michelle Malkin's "Vent" is also worth watching.

That the truth about these things is only getting out via the Blogosphere is more proof that the traditional media outlets are less and less trustworthy. "According to Palestinian sources..." is a tagline to watch out for.