I didn't have the opportunity to listen to Hugh Hewitt live last night so I am lsitening to a reply of his interview with Mark Halperin.

At one point Mark said

I think that’s the way we need to get back to, Americans having a relationship with media.

This was in the midst of refusing to answer any questions about what his own poltical perspective was.

The questions I would ask is what makes Mark beleive that people in America want to have a relationship with someone they don't know anything about.

The idea that media is objetive and that they have no opinion and that they just tell the truth is half of what lies at the heart of American mistrust of the media. Mark seems to comprehend that people don;t trust the media but what he fails to grasp is that they don't trust it because they are told by the media that they are only being told the objective truth when in fact they are being fed a bunch of biased partisan propoganda.



Update.

Still listening to the interview and he still insists that his personal views don't matter. I like that Hugh is holding the feet to the fire here and continuing to confront him on the problem. Mark keeps saying that he gets criticized by the left too as if that is some kind of garantee that he himself isnt biased. Hugh of course rightly points out that if the media is in fact biased to the left that just because left wing crazies like Kos complain bitterly about the presses bias to the right does not mean that the press is not in fact biased toward the left. Excellent point Hugh and Mark acknowledged that.




Second update.

Hot Dog!! Hugh you smacked it out of the park here

MH: So you reject the model which says that there can be a news organization staffed by people who aren’t biased?

HH: Yes, absolutely. I reject that model.

MH: All right. Well…

HH: I’ve rejected that model forever. I think most of America rejects that model. I think you guys in Manhattan and D.C. have persuaded yourselves that eventually, America will accept you back after shattering your credibility, and it’s just never going to happen, because we don’t believe you.


100% dead on target.  The idea that it is possible for the press to have an unbiased newsroom is absurd. I particularly like when he started down the path of the framers. I am wondering if Markl ever read any of the papers form the time. They were HOPELESSLY biased in their coverage of the events..but EVERYONE knew it and people were able to read the news through that prism. News was hard hitting and biased as heck but there were competing views and the media didn't hide behind some ridiculous notion that they can be above the fray and therefore you can trust them more than anyone else because they wont steer you wrong.


Yet another update.

Mark made a couple of comments

MH: I’m about 60/40 against, but I don’t feel strongly about it. But again, it goes to the pattern of A) not knowing the facts, and B) not being truthful about the facts.

This is actually fairly important and I am surprise Hugh didn't follow up about this.
John Kerry's misstatements if not flat out lies during 2004 spoke directly to his honesty and integrity and should have raised legitimate questions about his fitness to govern.

Mark basically admits here that he wasn't very concerned about these questions regarding his honesty about his service in vietnam.

This is one of the premier way in which a journalists bias impacts the news...or more importantly what isnt covered in the news. It is this same bias that allows the media to run 6 weeks of stories about how Allen calling someone Mucaca should raise questions about his fitness to govern while saying precisely nothing about his opponents use of teh work towelheads...or even worse defending his opponent on teh use of sexual distrubing imagery in his novels while actually attacking the integrity of those who would question it.

The media's insistence on their fair unbiased reporting while at the same time making biased views on what should be reported is what lies at the heart of the publics distrust of the MSM and Mark displayed this same bias here with his comment. Im surprise Hugh didnt catch it or follow up on it.

JDComments has quite a good piece over at his blog Conservative Sense.

I would urge folks to go take a look at it. It has some good insights.

 

 

Wow. I wrote what is to follow over the course of several hours. I was astonished at how lengthy it got and how much time slipped away. I apologize for the length. I won’t respond on this topic after this. I will allow the other side to get the last word if they choose. I have frankly wasted too much time on it already.

Here it goes though. Motes and Logs Part II

Jesus said that he without sin should throw the first stones. Conservatives don't want to examine their own sins; they focus whole-heartedly on throwing stones.They long to punish others for their immorality; they make public displays of doing so, so as to conceal their own.

Still with the ludicrous assertions. Every conservative I know is fully aware of the fact that they live in a state of sin. I don’t doubt that there are some Christian’s that spend their time pointing fingers. Unlike you I won’t pretend to understand why or comprehend their reasons.

The simple fact is that what you are saying is a gross, unprovable, completely absurd generalization. You have no basis upon which to make such a ridiculous assertion though I will note that it is remarkably judgmental of you.

Of course people are not protected from the opinions of others. We have the freedom to act as we want, and others have the right to disprove. But all of our rights are protected by the Constitution, and people should not be able to make others suffer for doing things that do not harm anyone else.

Once again you show a complete ignorance of what the law is and what it is intended to do. I know you BELIEVE that the law should protect you to be able to do whatever you wish so long as it doesn’t harm someone else but really, despite your delusions, that is not in fact how it works. I won’t waste any breathe explaining it to you because you clearly don’t get it but you really should go and study more on it before you make such childish silly assertions.

I would also assert that in typical liberal fashion you don’t perceive that a general weakening of the social fabric that makes up a society weakens that society. I used before the example of copulating on the sidewalk. Surely doing so doesn’t “harm” anyone. It does of course in many ways and by subtle means. It also damages the stability of society which endangers people in more immediate and real fashion but you lack the sophistication to comprehend that so Ill just have to settle for your complete incomprehension.

And you say that it is absurd to state that adulterers are looking for official sanction? According to Jesus ANY divorced man who remarries is an adulterer. Meaning that adulterers, AS DEFINED BY JESUS, DO have state sanction. Ronald Reagan had state sanction for his adultery with Nancy, which started while he was married to another woman.

You really have chosen a weak argument with your adultery and Ronald Reagan. For one thing I don’t believe in divorce so there is one fly in your ointment. For another I don’t commit adultery. For yet another I doubt your premise that everyone who is a conservative is an adulterer and so they hate gays because they don’t want people to think they are adulterers. I mean you should seriously listen to the nonsense that comes out of your mouth. It’s pathetic really and I’m actually a little embarrassed for you.

As for Reagan. I already explained why he is a hero to the conservative movement. You want to continue to castigate a dead man because he was imperfect go right ahead but you certainly aren’t helping your case where you claim to be a forgiving Christian that doesn’t judge people. More on that to come though.

I have never known a conservative church to kick someone out who was remarried. Second marriage is far more devastating to children, but conservatives remain silent on that issue. Outlawing second marriages would go leaps and bounds farther to protect marriage than picking on homosexuals.

Once again since you don’t seem to understand. Some churches believe that the church has the power to determine what is sin and what is not. I personally don’t know where I stand on that because my faith and theology is an ever evolving thing I grow in Christ and I have doubts about some things and certainty about others. But many churches do not accept your theory that divorce is adultery. So you can keep making the argument but it doesn’t win you any points. It really doesn’t win any argument when you try to use it as a lever to argue in favor of gay marriage.

But a conservative will never propose this. Because they want to be free to abandon their wives for younger, sexier wives at will, as a large number of conservatives leaders--unrepentant adulterers--have done.

More with the absurdly, ridiculous generalizations. I will once again state that for someone who wants to stand themselves up as a loving good Christian you sure are a hate filled person who wants to condemn every conservative sight unseen as an adulterous pig.

But don't pay attention to this, they say. See that unassuming lesbian couple raising children? Use the law to make them and their children suffer. Pick at those motes, ignore your own logs.

More irrational nonsense. Really, I am finding myself wondering why I bother because you are demonstrating that you aren’t rational and so there is no point in even entering into the fray.

Also, tell me Prysson? Who has tried to impose gay marriage on you? Did activists come into your home and try to force a partner on you?

You should pay more attention. What I said was that gay’s seek to impose their lifestyle on society. Your interpretation of this is just infantile. Obviously, no one is seeking to force me to have a gay relationship though I would say that in all of my experience in the theatre and among the number of homosexual friends and acquaintances I have made over the years, I have on many occasions actually been in situations where gay men sought to impose themselves on me in the literal sense.

That is an aside however because what we are speaking of here is society. And you are truly ignorant if you do not comprehend that the gay community is seeking to force (impose) its lifestyle on society. Forcing people to accept gay marriages and gay adoption of children. They have little to no luck convincing society at large to endorse and embrace this and so they have the courts make up constitutionally imagined rights. If that isn’t an imposition on a society that has rejected their values I don’t know what is.

An interesting aside to this though is the way you keep insisting on supporting gay union. Homosexuality is very straightforwardly condemned in teh bible. It is a sin. Yet you also claim to be a good Christian. You have conveniently chosen a single aspect of dogma and inflated its importance in the grand scheme of the theology to paramount importance while completely ignoring other aspects of it. Im sorry but I just have to question your grasp on theology when you run around saying we should all just embrace homosecuality since it doesn't harm us.  Indeed this sort of thinking is so far beyond the bounds of any normative Christian theology that I seriously have to wonder what your denomination is? What church you go to etc? The things you are spounting as christian doctrine really don't mesh or hold weight in the larger picture.

If someone is beside me praying, they are not 'imposing' their religion on me. If people are free to go to church, to speak about their religion, it is not 'imposed' on me. No one is imposing gay marriage on anyone.

As I already explained you are wrong. They impose their values on society at large that wishes to reject such behavior and as such they damage the fabric of society which does in fact impact them directly. Even religion has its practical impact of imposing doctrinal beliefs onto society at large. They do so when those who hold those beliefs vote for the imposition of those beliefs on others. Society at large is one big ever changing mass of majorities imposing there collective will on minorities. It’s just the way the system works.

"This is utter nonsense and shows a fundamental incomprehension of the nature of the law."

Hey, tell that to John Stuart Mill.

John Stuart Mill was hardly a Founding Father. He is also hardly the final word on the purpose of Law. Mill thought socialism could work. Shows how brilliant he was.

Regardless, he wasn’t around at the founding so his thoughts on the matter aren’t really relevant to the discussion.

Sorry, but it was the opinion of most of the founding fathers that the purpose of the law was to protect life, liberty, and property.

Wrong. Where do you get this nonsense? It is inherent is the very principle of a law that it by it’s nature restricts and prohibits someone’s actions. The creation of these laws is hardly oriented around making sure no one is interfered with so long as they aren’t hurting others.

Why on earth do you think they put interstate commerce in the constitution? They understood that the stability and economic interests of the nation could not allow individual states to practice unfair trade practices against other states. This isn’t to prevent Massachusetts from hurting Virginia. It was to ensure that the interests of the federal government weren’t undermined by trade wars among its member states. In short it understood that the needs of the nation at large were more important that the particular needs of individual states or even the individual people within those states. How many individual people do you think had their livelihoods directly impacted by the decision that the federal government could regulate interstate trade?

You entire proposition is preposterous.

Tell me, Prysson, what do you think it means to be free, if in this 'free country,' the government can determine which of our freedoms we must give up for the 'public good' at any time?

Doesn't sound like a free country to me. It's interesting, though, that you say that people need to surrender their freedoms for the good of all, but then say that it is wrong to arrest people for thinking the wrong thoughts. Why not, Prysson? Under your philosophy, what limits the ability of the government to do just that?

The government (which I remind you is “The People”) can determine which of your freedoms you must surrender at any point so long as it doesn’t violate those rights laid out in the constitution. They could decide tomorrow that blowing bubbles in public is illegal is they wanted to and it would have the power of law. It would be a stupid law but it wouldn’t be a violation of the values of the nation. That is the principle of government. Don’t you even comprehend what government and law is? Stupid question…obviously not.

You clearly aren’t paying attention. The surrender of one’s rights’ to the authority of the state within reasonable measure is a founding principle of our nation shoot it’s the fundemantal principle for any society or nation state. If you have absolute freedom then the state has no authority over you in any sense. That is anarchy. The founding fathers most clearly and definitely understood that you could not have a stable successful nation under such principles. What on earth do you think the whole argument about the federalist and anti-federalist papers was all about. The idea that everyone is just free to do whatever they wanted is absurd. Indeed there were some founders that didn’t even want a Bill of Rights but understood that it was the only way to get the states to agree to the Federal Government principle. Hamilton for example argues in the final Federalist Paper that the abolition of royal titles alone should be enough to ensure liberty. He believed (and was not alone) that a notion of something like a Bill of Rights was a ludicrous notion, that liberty is ensured through the will of the people as expressed through the state. I of course think Hamilton was being a bit absurd and naïve in his thinking and many of the complaints against federalism that he dismissed as silly turned out to be quite reasonable fears….but that’s just my opinion.

You really should go and educate yourself about this stuff. Your ignorance about what our rights are and why we have them and the philosophies that served as the founding principles of our nation is half of your problem. You just don’t understand what it is that the law means and what “rights” are in context of the government.

As for surrendering freedom. Specifically we have to surrender some of our freedoms. We have to surrender our rights to the state every day and in every way. I have to pay my taxes. I can’t speed. I can’t curse in public. I can’t be intoxicated in public. Any number of laws that directly impact me and I have to obey though the violation of those laws does not harm anyone besides myself (they do actually but in the strictest sense and in your simplistic world view they would not.) And yet I am forced to obey these laws. Why? Because everyone has to surrender their freedom to the authority of the state. THAT is why we have the Bill of Rights so that we can provide an insurance that certain freedoms wont have to be surrendered to the state.

As for why not arresting people for thinking a certain way? Well because clearly we have freedom of political speech and so voicing a different opinion is constitutionally protected. Once again this is all pretty basic founding principle stuff but you obviously don’t get it so there isn’t much sense in continuing with this conversation.

As for the war/peace; I am aware that war is part of the human condition. Does that make it right? There is a good reason that Jesus said for us to resist not evil. Because it is in our attempts at resisting evil that we begin to emulate evil. And then we lose our souls.

Your soul is more valuable than your life, and you should behave thusly. It is better to submit to God's will, to trust in God, than it is live a long life. Better die that to kill.

Well, I’ll say this. It’s your strongest point and the only one you have made that make even the remotest amount of sense. But it is still just a weak argument.

I have said before that there is a difference between the judgment of ones soul and the judgment of ones reason and the judgment of the state. I will take this farther. The purpose of the state in the world of man is to provide safety, security, and prosperity to its people. Christ did not condemn the state. Indeed he upheld it by submitting himself to its earthly judgment (little J). Yes he told Pilate he did not have power over him other than what was granted to him from Heaven. He nevertheless submitted to the rule of the law and was crucified. Christ also said to render unto Caesar and frankly the discussion of the “state” in relation to the New Testament and Christianity is a long conversation for another time. Suffice it to say that your interpretation isn’t the only one on the planet.

Indeed the Church (depending on which “church”) has at times been so tied into the fabric of the state as to be virtually inseparable It is of course not the case in the modern secular west but has not always been so.

Where am I going with this business about the church and the state? People owe obedience to the state. Paul said slaves should be obedient to their masters. Did that mean that Christ intended for their to be slaves? No he meant that there was an order to things and that there was obedience owed. Just so is obedience owed to the state. When the state determines to fight a war for the defense of the people, are soldiers for the state damned because they go out and kill. Nonsense. Christ never once told a Roman that he was damned for being a soldier. ON the contrary he healed the servant of a Roman soldier because of his faith. Clearly he didn’t despise him for being a soldier. He was notably silent in fact.

I tend to think that Christ’s admonition to turn the other cheek was not intended to be a lesson for nations and societies but for people in their own personal dealings with others.

Remember Christ also said “Let him who has no sword sell his mantle and buy one” So he wasn’t exactly a total pacifist. I am hardly alone in my thinking. Most Christian theologies allow for the need of the state to defend itself and its people...provide for police etc etc. I would remind you of the Just War Doctrine of the Catholic Church as an example of how Christian theology embraces the very notions that I have discussed.

So one can hardly accuse me of being a poor Christian because I believe war is a state of the fallen world and that nations and people have a responsibility and right to defend themselves from evil.

Tell me, Prysson, what do you think that water boarding is? Do you know that it was considered to be torture by the U.S. until recently? Did you know that it involves dunking people into water up until the very point of drowning? Is depriving people of oxygen up until a few second before their death not torture? Did you know that people often drown during water boarding, because it comes so close to killing people that it is very easy to accidentally cross the line and kill them?

This is utter nonsense. Frankly you are either lying or just horribly ill informed.

Apparently, I know far more about waterboarding than you do. Nobody is dunked in waterboarding. That is an urban myth. Waterboarding is where

The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner's face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt. According to the sources, CIA officers who subjected themselves to the water boarding technique lasted an average of 14 seconds before caving in.

Indeed this torture means nobody comes even remotely close to drowning and nobody every has. You ask me to cite my source. Well the above is from wikepedia although it can be found in a hundred other places on the internet. Even a cursory glance at it would tell you what it is an how it’s preformed but you didn’t even do that much research. You aren’t interested in fact though only emotional nonsense. How about this? Why don’t you cite the source of all those people who have drowned in America being interrogated in this fashion. That’s rich you complaining about my own lack of sourcing when you don’t even know what waterboarding is and go around claiming people have drowned at it. It’s not even POSSIBLE to drown when you are being waterboarded so long as it is administered properly.

And for the record. Hundreds if not thousands of American’s are waterboarded every year. Special Forces, CIA, FBI and any number of other professional services personnel are subjected to it as a routine part of their training. SO much for torture.

Oh and my source about it always working was from an article in Frontpage magazine. I’m not going to waste my time tracking down the specific article since you clearly don’t know the slightest thing about it you can go educate yourself if you want.

As an interesting side note. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed lasted something like 2.5 minutes under water boarding. The interrogators were astonished not because he broke so quickly...but because so far as they knew it was like some kind of record. Nobody stands up to water boarding.

Up until recently, everyone knew that it was torture. It's only in the new conservative crazy upside-down world that they have tried to change the definition.

Wrong. Don’t you ever tire of being just so very wrong. As I stated above, it is currently practiced regularly as a part of training for numerous different agency in America and has been an accepted form of interrogation for years until the recent bill which is actual ambiguous as to whether or not it is now outlawed.

'For the record, water boarding has never once failed as a means of interrogation.'

Like a typical conservavtive, you wave around a weird and unprovable statement around and pretend it serves as argument. Cite your source, please, or I will be forced to assume you are just making random statements. And are you talking about always, in the history of mankind? Or at Guantanamo? How in the world can you know that every water-boarding session has always worked? That's a ludicrous statement.

It’s not a ludicrous statement because contrary to your personal sense of things America doesn’t routinely subject its prisoners to water boarding. It is used as a last resort. It is also well documented. According to the CIA as noted above people typically last about 14 seconds. I also stated above that my source is frontpage magazine article that had its own sourcing. Its as good as your are gonna get from me though because I am not going to spend hours digging up all my references to refute someone who is so blatantly wrong that a two second search on google would prove her completely and frankly embarrassingly wrong. And for the record. My father two of my brothers and my brother in law who all either served or are serving in the military currently have all been waterboarded. They have all described it precisely as I described it and are utterly dismissive of the notion that it should qualify as torture.

As far as the experts who claim torture yeilds poor intelligence at best:

Former P.O.W. John McCain

Yeah it didn’t work at all when it broke him in Vietnam. Sorry, I respect Senator McCain’s service to the country but he couldn’t be more wrong on this issue.

FBI interrogator Jack Cloonan

CIA counter-terrorism expert Michael Scheuer

FBI agent Dan Coleman

MI5 officer Tom Parker (tortured IRA agents for years, said it never yielded anything)

Same for the rest of these folks. I just don’t buy it and I don’t agree with them. Sure they are entitled to there opinion but there are contrary view out their that are no less and in my view more valid and accurate. Torture has clearly worked and there is demonstrable, documented evidence that waterboarding...which I don’t even consider as rising to the level of torture has worked without fail. No matter how respectable these people are they are merely stating an opinion and one that in my own opinion is just patently absurd. I’ll stand by my own reason rather than surrender it to people I would not trust to walk my dog like John McCain. Oh and one other aside…you say its silly to say it works without fail but it’s not. It works and it is demonstrated to work. Every American agency that trains using it agrees that everyone breaks. Sure perhaps one person in the history of waterboarding has managed to hold out…I doubt it...but even if they did it is hardly a rule that disproves the fact that it works as a method of interrogation.

Also, we are NOT just talking about water-boarding. We are talking about extraordinary rendition, sending people to Egypt and Jordan to tear out people's fingernails on the US's behalf, a practice that delights conservatives. Talk to Maher Arar, the completely innocent man who was ripped from his family and subjected to horrific torture in Egypt at the U.S.'s request for a year before they admitted he was completely innocent, and the U.S. admitted they actually didn't have a shred of evidence.

Hmm. Well I suppose if it’s done to stop a terrorist attack I would have to say I don’t have much sympathy for the man whose finger nails are being torn out. I’m sure that’s a morally questionable position to take but it’s one I would live with and not lose too much sleep over. As I said before, I personally find it morally reprehensible to make a choice that would condemn a thousand to death rather than soil myself with imposing discomfort of life and limb of a terrorist who knew about it. You would clearly allow a city to be wiped out with a nuke rather than break someone’s fingers. All I can say is thank God you are not responsible for the safety and security of this country. Would God want me to? I honestly don’t know the answer to that. He would probably not want me to. I’ll concede that point...and Ill ask him for forgiveness if it ever occurs as a choice I have to make.

I will say this though. The actions of people as they perform their duty to the state can take them in direct contradiction with their particular faith. That is because the requirements of a state are not the requirements of a person in his relationship with God. I went over all of that earlier though and won’t go into it again. It is also worth noting that Jesus never said that the state should not execute criminals. He never said that the state should not have soldiers. He never condemned soldiers to hell for the performance of their duty to the state. If lines have to be crossed to secure the safety and stability of a nation and its people I am quite certain that God will forgive. I am also quite certain that to live in the world of men it is necessary.

Ah, what wonderful morality you conservatives display!

I think this is the point. Am I moral? On balance I think I am flawed but nevertheless a moral man. Clearly. Are you? I would say you probably are also a deeply flawed but never the less relatively moral person. However, you are not perfect (I’ll deal with that in more detail shortly) so the idea of you constantly proclaiming conservatives to be immoral is just frankly stupid. I have said before and I will say it one last time. I don’t know a single conservative that claims to be a morally perfect person. To argue that because one has moral failings you can not therefore make moral judgments is just vacuous to the extreme. You yourself demonstrate with practically every word that you are no paramount of virtue and moral uprightness and yet it certainly doesn’t stop you from pronouncing judgment on all those who disagree with you.

You can handle these horrors, you can sleep at night while supporting this, because you have convinced yourselves that Muslims aren't really people. Just like gay people aren't. Or Mexicans. So you don't think you have to treat them well.

Nice of you to tell me what I think about people. You are wrong of course as you are about everything else.

And to keep you feeling this way, the GOP keeps a constant drumbeat, superimposing pictures of their political opponents over mushroom clouds, convincing you that the terrorists are under your bed and the Democrats are going to let them eat you.

More foolishness. I don’t need the GOP to tell me that terrorists exist and want me dead. I have a brain and the simple exercising of its functions tells me that. It also doesn’t require much more than casual observation to know that people like yourself that don’t believe there is a threat are not the people to elect to bear the responsibility for protecting the nation from them.

"Foolishness would be to go through life as you apparently do believing that there is nothing to be afraid of and that if we just love one another all will be well."

So basically, it is foolish to believe in God and the Bible? I believe what it tells me. It appears you do not.

I do in fact believe in the bible to a large degree. I am not a fundamentalist who believe’s every word it says. I don’t believe that the world was made in seven days though I know people who do and respect them and their belief even though I don’t share it. But as with all things in the bible there are different interpretations. You clearly have yours I have mine. I am fully aware that I have failings as a Christian. I will answer to God for those failings as will everyone else but I am confident that my faith in Christ’s mercy and my belief in his divinity will see me through.

You can spare me the holier than thou-isms however. None of your insinuations that I am not a Christian has any bearing on me. You would do well to remember your own admonishments to “judge not lest ye be judged.” I have sat hear reading your attempt to lecture me about the word of Christ and it’s meaning. I am fully aware that I have failings when it comes to living Christ’s example but then everyone does so I am not in poor company. You have demonstrated in your diatribe however, that you are a hate filled person who passes generalizations and makes vile, vituperative, ad homonym, unfounded attacks and commentary about conservatives without knowing anything about them or the real motive or ideas or principles. You make baseless accusations and frankly I just don’t think you represent the shining example of Christian love and forgiveness that you claim to be.

I was just about finished but you posted one last thing I wanted to comment on.

You last post…I wont post your comments because this is getting REALLY long now but you claimed to have come from a conservative family that changed because basically you saw conservatism for what it really was.

I’ll be frank. I don’t believe you. I do indeed think that you are lying or at a minimum shading the truth to try and make some kind of compelling case. You may believe that you were once a conservative but you were not. You obviously don’t understand anything about conservatism. You generalize all conservatives. You demonstrate with every word that you genuinely do not comprehend conservative thought and political ideology and so I just reject utterly you ludicrous assertion that you were once conservative. You may have come from a family that for religious reasons once voted republican. That is possible. But I assure you, you were never conservative.

I’ll go further whatever political or ideological leaning you may have had. The anecdotal experience which you have in your twisted mind distorted to stand as a truth for all conservatives everywhere is just frankly not representative of conservatism. Your bizarre assertions about conservatives keeping people at arms length because they are racists etc etc. are the typical meanderings of a leftist. At most you may have had a bad experience with some conservatives but I tend to think you are just mentally an unbalance person who isn’t capable of rational thought and you have conflated some vague unpleasant experiences into a defining central understanding of conservatives in general.

Conservatives work VERY hard to ignore the Bible. You hate that Christ said 'resist not evil.'

Really, where do you get this stuff. I know conservatives who have argued over the meaning and intent of different passages of the bible for hours on end. Indeed the very fact that you are claiming now to know the intent and purpose of the entire book and of course conservatives intentional ignore the bible has pretty much put the icing on the cake here. I understand that for you the whole “Resist not evil” and turn the other cheek doctrine is defining and all encompassing. I am willing to grant you that you believe that to be the meaning but seriously you need to take a deep breathe and think for just a moment. Theologians of great knowledge and merit have actually debated this and it’s meaning for millennia. Are you really prepared to stand here and say that you know what Christ meant when thousands of theologians over 2000 years haven’t been able to agree on it. Are you REALLY prepared to state that you know the entire truth of God and Christ and that in your righteousness you can proclaim yourself pure and good and other wrong and evil?

I know the answer already of course. You state it yourself that we already THINK we know so you have to educate me. I have news for you. I am already saved. Christ is my Lord. I don’t need you to bring me to him. I won’t say you need to be saved because if what you say is true you already believe in him. I will close on this...for someone who claims that you should not judge one thing is clear...all you do is judge. You ought to think about that for awhile.

Correction:

I mistakenly stated that my brother in law was waterboarded I do not know if he has or not. I only know that both of my brothers who served in Iraq were waterboarded as a part of their training.

Pulled this out of an rticle over at Fox.

Political tensions deepened further Sunday when Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, the country's ranking Sunni politician, threatened to resign if al-Maliki did not move swiftly to eradicate militia groups.

Mohammed Shaker, a key aide to al-Hashemi, said the threat was intended to send a message to the government over the rising sectarian violence. "We cannot live with this situation indefinitely," he said.

Al-Maliki depends heavily on the backing of a pair of Shiite political organizations and has resisted American pressure to eradicate their private armies — al-Sadr's Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigade, the military wing of Iraq's most powerful Shiite political bloc, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

I'm glad to see this personally. I hav elost any confidence that Malaki is the right man to be leading Iraq right now. He is to clearly dependant upon the Shiite militia's that are a major part of the current problem in Iraq. He is not just unwilling to do anythig about them but in fact has thwarted any effert on the part of America to do anything about reining in these groups.

I don't belive there will be any resolution in Iraq unless these groups are brought down and if Malaki is essentially working with them and dependant upon their support then it must be concluded that he is part of the problem. I assume there are constitutional options to rmeove teh Prime Minister. I think its time to look at exercising those options. 

 

The following is an open response to a comment posted on some ones blog. The comment struck me in a number of ways. Not only as the typical offensiveness of liberals picking and choosing Christian theology to try and condemn Christians for not being Christians but also because it just smacked of so much that is wrong with liberals. It kind of exemplified the foolish naïve thinking of the left. I admit the response is harsh at times and for those who might find that abrasive I apologize, but the world is a dangerous place and I just don’t think we can afford people like this’ foolishness to go unchallenged and to be called out for the nonsense it is.

For people who wish to read the comments of this person uninterrupted and in context you can go over to gregmc’s blog Fighting for our Loves and read his excellent post to which this comment was a response.

Where to begin. Well I’ll just start where the liberal does.

People do not have a 'right' to judge others. As Christ said, you should remove the log from your own eye before you start worrying about the splinter in your neighbors.

This depends of course on what you mean by “judge” This is actually a fairly good place to start because it sort of speaks to the heart of what is wrong with liberals. One of the most significant issues I have with liberals is that their world view (and their antipathy towards religion) is that they think “freedom” mean freedom from being judged. Anything that casts doubt about the rightness of their behavior is resisted. In short they believe that it should be their right to live in mortal sin without anyone so much as daring to look cross eyed at them.

This is of course utter nonsense. The right to “judge” as in the judgment on the final condition/reward/punishment of/for your soul is of course the Lords. I for the most part in my life tend to believe we should live and let live. I don’t obsess about what people do in the privacy of their own homes and I don’t waste my time worrying about whether someone is or isn’t going to get to heaven because they drink or smoke or dance or have gay lover. It isn’t my decision…I don’t get to “judge.”

However, Christ’s admonishment to “Judge not lest ye be Judged” was not an admonishment to surrender judgment when it comes to common sense, practical necessity and basic things like right and wrong. Christ didn’t just tell people not to judge, he also told people to go forth and sin no more. The problem with liberal thinking is they want people not to judge them so that they can go out and sin to their hearts content.

Well it is certainly true that should they choose to live a life of sin embracing it to their hearts content it certainly wont be my place to judge them come their reckoning. However, there are other kinds of judgment.

Render unto Caesar.

Aside from the big Judgment, there are other meanings to the word judgment

make a decision, or form an opinion objectively, authoritatively, and wisely, esp. in matters affecting action; good sense; discretion:

and

a judicial decision given by a judge or court.

So while in the strictest sense of not judging the condition of someone’s soul we are nevertheless not called upon by Christ to surrender our reason. Nor are we called upon to withhold the judgment of the law.

The law intervenes to keep us from depriving others of their God-given rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The law has no business interfering in personal affairs unless people are harming others.

This is utter nonsense and shows a fundamental incomprehension of the nature of the law. The law does nothing of the kind. Indeed the founding father’s understood that in order to create a society and nation people had to surrender some of their rights to the State for the sake of the whole. The argument has always been how much and how far such a surrender should go and the constitution is a declaration of what rights the Government may not infringe upon.

By this ludicrous reading of the law the government has no right to confiscate my taxes, but of course it does and since the author of this is a liberal they no doubt would be the first to argue that I am in fact not paying enough in taxes. But of course that is the hypocrisy of the left that so infuriates so many on the right. They don’t really mean that people should be left alone. They mean that liberals should be left alone while they should have every right to take your money and redistribute it and throw you in jail for thinking differently and speaking differently.

I have no doubt the author of this commentary would vehemently deny wanting to arrest people for thinking but facts are stubborn things. The same liberal European west that liberals continuously admonish America for not emulating, these liberal societies do precisely that on a regular basis. There can be no doubt and no argument that if the constitution permitted it they would do it and I am guessing it is only a matter of time before some liberal court determines that the constitution permits just that.

Why did Jesus say not to judge? It's not just random; most of the things Jesus say make great sense. For one, when we judge, we elevate ourselves to God's permission. Humility is a moral virtue; we should avoid the moral hazards of deciding it is our job to do God's duty.

I have already addressed the fact that there is a difference between the “judgment” that belongs to the Lord and the judgment of reason and the judgment of the state so I won’t go over that again. I will however expound a bit on how the judgment of reason and the judgment of the state can interact to deny a sinful behavior from having legal sanction.

A reasoned mind can draw the conclusion (judgment) that certain behaviors are not only not conducive to the long term health of the State, but that in fact they can be perilous to the social fabric that makes up the State, and thus the practice of such behavior can lead to the breakup of the social order. For that purpose the State, and in our particular society that would mean “The People”, can through the use of their judgment and the exercise of their authority make it illegal for people to commit certain acts. Thus it is within the power of the State to deny gay people the right to “marry”. Just as it is within the right of the state to say people can’t copulate on the sidewalk or defecate in the park.

So people through the context of society can judge a behavior to be unacceptable to the health of the state and make it illegal without violating the admonishment of Christ to “judge not”. Christ is speaking of the judgment of the lord, not the judgment of the state.

Also, as good people, judgement only separates us from those who can most benefit from us. If we believe someone is going wrong, we should seek to be close to them, to show them the Light. We should not try to ostracise them.

Paul clearly understood that there was a difference between the sin and the sinner.

Corinthians

“Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?”

“Put away the wicked man from among yourselves.”

The New Testament is pretty clear to love the sinner but hate the sin. So long as a person is going to insist on the continuance of their sin it is not only within reason but well within the strictures of Christianity to cast that person out of the company of men. In short you can use the judgment of your mind and the judgment of men to set aside someone committing wrongful acts. This can be done on many levels. Legally, we put murders in prison. Personally, we make decisions not to hang out with druggies or gang bangers etc etc. We are not called upon to embrace sin merely because it is not our place to judge the spirit. Such a fallacy of logic is contrary to the teachings of Christianity.

Right now, I believe that the conservative leadership is trying to get everyone to focus on their neighbor's splinters instead of their own logs. They don't want to make a big deal out of adultery (which is condemned far, far more in the Bible than homosexuality, and considering how destructive it is to families, is a FAR FAR more important concern than homosexuality), they want to focus on the sins of a minority.

This is an absurd argument adulterers aren’t running around trying to get judicial activist judges to declare polygamy legal. The state (the people) have made the determination (the judgment) that marriage should be considered a sacred institution and should not be available to gay couples. You are trying to argue here that because it’s not as prevalent of a sin as adultery that it should be ignored.

Sin is still sin in the eyes of the Lord from a Christian perspective. There is no such thing as just a little sin.

Also from Corinthians

Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with men, ^6:10nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

Now I don’t say this to point fingers and say “ooo you sinner.” We are all sinners. But we are called upon to repent of our sins. You are suggesting that because something to you seems a small sin we should have no business saying as a society that we refuse to endorse such action and give it the sanction of the state. You, as all liberals, would try to use the words of Christ to silence even opposition to sin in society. But you can’t pick and choose and say “oh Christ said not to judge so therefore you have to keep your mouth shut when the world is falling to sin.” Such logic is ludicrous and certainly doesn’t hold up to even the most elementary reading of the theology.

It's a shockingly cynical way to exploit people's real worries about our culture in order to retain power. Don't pay a bit of attention the seriously destructive sins (in fact, many of them happily engage in adultery themselves, and it doesn't hurt them; adulterer and family-abandoning Ronald Reagan is celebrated as a great conservative hero!). Make a big deal out of a sin that most people don't want to engage in anyway. It's not about morality, it's about power. If they wanted to protect families, they'd probably stop screwing around on their wives. And it allows people to sit back and feel nicely self-righteous because they aren't engaging in a sin that they have no temptation to engage in anyway. You have a thrice-divorced, Viagra-toting Rush Limbaugh kavetching about the immorality of two gay men who have been together for twenty years wanting to make a binding commitment to one another.

I’ve already gone over the simplicity and just sheer silliness of trying to compare sins and saying one should be allowed because another one is. But this particular section gets even more...well just plain idiotic. To suggest that an ideology is wrong or corrupt because a handful of people behave incorrectly is just flat out childish and stupid. I’m sorry to be so severe but it is. It is also interesting to note that for someone who started off admonishing people how to be good Christians the author of this drivel seem to be singularly unfamiliar with the concept of forgiveness or charity. (a common theme among liberals).

Whatever particular adultery Ronald Reagan may have committed he never went around and asked for the state to sanction it. Further more, Ronald Reagan is a hero to the conservative movement because of his leadership and his ideas on government, as well as his courage and dedication to achieving those goals. Had He spent his life as a debaucherous drunkard like Kennedy or a shameless womanizer like Clinton I dare say he would not have been a hero of the conservative movement. But of course he didn’t and wasn’t so your attack on him is just sad and pathetic.

As for Rush. I dare say neither you nor I know the slightest thing about him and his sex life other than some report of him carrying Viagra which I would wager neither of us know all the detail about. The last time I checked carrying around Viagra wasn’t a sin. I would also once again note that for someone who was so eager to tell us that we are horrible people because we “judge” gay people. You are yourself revealing yourself to be an intolerant judger yourself.

I would also like to take issue with the mischaracterization that conservatives want to just punish gay people because they are gay. It is true that as Christian conservatives we find homosexuality to be a sin. The vast majority of us however haven’t the slightest desire to tell gay people what they can or can’t do in the privacy of their own home. It is when they wish to impose their immoral lifestyle on society at large that we take umbrage and take action. The insistence on adopting children into gay homes, the imposition of gay marriage. These attempts to enforce acceptance of sinful behavior as a societal norm is what conservatives reject. You characterization to the contrary is just ill informed tripe.

Am I really the only person around here who see the laughable absurdity of this?

Yes

Do conservatives ever sit back and really analyze their claims to morality?

Frequently, but of course conservatives don’t have “claims to morality.” They do believe that it is important to try and have a moral society. I don’t know a single conservative that thinks they are free of sin and wrong doing in the eyes of the Lord. But neither do they throw their hands in the air as your would argue we should and say oh well GUESS ITS JUST ALL SIN SIN SIN. Don’t dare suggest that we shouldn’t allow child pornography because once I coveted my neighbor’s lawn mower.

Oops one time I lied once so I guess I should keep my mouth shut about gay marriage.

Your argument is just silly.

I said this before, but I will say it again: conservatism are morally bankrupt. This is the ideology that celebrates war; that focuses on dehumanizing groups of people (dehumanizing people is the first step to convincing someone that said people do not need to be treated morally or ethically). It is the party that seems to delight in the idea of torturing other of God's children, brushing aside assertions of experts that torture is a terrible interrogation device.

Once again I am stunned by your simplistic, perception. Your assertions here are just ridiculous. Conservatism celebrates war? No. Conservatives do tend to comprehend that war is a part of the human condition, as is evil, and that at times wars are necessary to defeat evil and provide for security. Liberals however live in a world that doesn’t exist except in their own demented, brain numbed, naïve, utopian, fantasies where we can all just get along and be at peace with one another. If only we would just sit down and talk.

Dehumanizing people? What tripe. There is nothing dehumanizing about conservatism. Quite the contrary conservatism celebrates people and their individual goals and desires and pursuits. It is liberalism on the other hand that would have everyone sacrifice their own personal needs for “the whole” It is the ideology of the left, the authoritarian, totalitarian, marxist utopians that dehumanize people because people don’t matter.

As for torture. Well this is just one of the stupidest comments you have made yet. The liberals in typical Chomsky fashion have distorted the meaning of torture so that such a comment is frankly void of any meaning. I would wager that you think of torture as something completely different than I do. You no doubt think of water boarding as torture. I do not. No conservative I know thinks that cutting off peoples fingers and hooking their genitals up to batteries is acceptable. However most conservatives I know think that yes aggressively questioning someone using effective techniques is acceptable in situations where people’s lives are at stake. If you want to call it torture...then so be it. I don’t much care. If it saves a thousand people lives by water boarding some terrorists them go for it. That you would NOT water board someone to save a thousand lives says far more about you and your moral bankruptcy than it does about mine.

And as for your comment that torture doesn’t work. I don’t know who your experts are…in typical liberal fashion you cite unnamed experts and wave it around like it somehow meaningful commentary…but I dare say the only real experts on torture are people who torture and if it wasn’t effective I am guessing torture would have fallen out a long time ago. For the record, water boarding has never once failed as a means of interrogation. Not once. So you and your experts are just wrong there.

Conservatism, at it's base, has its roots in fear. Convince people that they have a great deal to fear, that they are in huge danger from all sides--terrorists, Muslims, homosexuals, black men, Mexicans. Then, out of their fear, people will abandon morals; in their desire for self-preservation, they will decide that all forms of inhumane, cruel, and unloving treatment is justified. Slowly, all morality is degraded. They no longer have moral qualms about the most horrific treatment of the people whom they should love. They stop seeing all people as part of God's creation.

This is just fantasy…and nonsense to boot. Conservatism doesn’t have anything to do with fear. I also think that in this instance as a liberal you might want to revisit your whole mote in the eye notion before leveling this charge. Liberals actually do rely on fear for their power. Its why their political campaign are always about victimization. “Oh black people are oppressed. Latinos are oppressed. Women are oppressed. If you don’t vote for democrats you will be even more oppressed.” “If you vote for conservatives they will starve children, destroy the environment, take away your retirement, deny you medication, and otherwise destroy the world.”

Who relies on fear? Your assertions are the same liberal attempt to label conservatives as racist homophobes. Its empty meaningless garbage. I will say this though. If you don’t believe in the threat of terrorism than you are an ignorant fool. The threat is real and frankly your assertion that it isn’t is the most offensive thing you have said. It is reckless and grossly irresponsible of you to try to convince people that they are safe from the threat of terrorism. This is precisely why liberals can’t be trusted with power right now. Because they don’t even comprehend the nature of our enemy or that we even have one.

Go tell the victims of the world trade center there is no terrorism. Or the London train bombings. Or any other of the thousands of people whose lives have been irrevocable harmed by terrorists.

Your tripe about fear leading to evil is just nonsense. A bunch of empty rhetoric. Fear is a natural part of the human condition and the will and desire to survive is as well. Contrary to your naïve world view the world is actual a brutish nasty place (Hobbesian). Fear keeps people alert to the dangers that surround them. Foolishness would be to go through life as you apparently do believing that there is nothing to be afraid of and that if we just love one another all will be well. Thousands of years of documented human history proves me right and you wrong.

When you are overtaken by fear of evil, you slowly succumb to evil.

Once again just more silly commentary. It’s not even worth commenting on in any measurable sense. For this I would just say I would like to see the author of this silly comment try to prove it in some quantifiable sense. It’s an empty declaration.

Believers in Christ have no reason to fear. Drop you terror and return to morality. Love all people as we are commanded. And you will return to the liberalism most of us have when we are young, before life has taught us to fear and hate.

It depends on what you mean by fear. It is first of all an absurd comment for you to make because I guarantee that you are full of fear just as all humans are. So to tell other people that they shouldn’t have their fears is convenient of you for your argument but not exactly honest. As for not fearing because we have Christ. There is a measure of truth to that. I don’t fear eternal damnation because I believe in Christ. But I fear pain and suffering as any sane person would. I fear for the well being of my children and the life they may have to live if ignorant fools like you continue to undermine all that is good about our country turning into a den of depravity without the will to fight because it has nothing worth fighting for anymore. I fear the wolves in the night as much as any sane man would that wants to live because life is sweet and glorious gift from God. I want my children to enjoy it as well.

I will close with this. There is a reason that when we grow up we leave behind the liberalism of our youth. It is because the liberalism of youth is ignorant, naïve, stupid and childish. It’s called growing up. You should try it.

 

Story

Embattled Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told the U.S. ambassador that he was Washington's friend but "not America's man in Iraq," ratcheting up his increasingly bitter dispute with the Bush administration, an aide said Saturday.

I think Mr. Maliki needs to be informed quietly that while he may not be our “man” in Iraq. His government exists at our sacrifice and our sufferance and our patience with him is not only limited but running out. We have enough influence there to bring him down if he doesn’t want to play ball. I understand that there is a certain political benefit to him to “stand up to” American interest. But there is only so much of that we should allow.

Just my 2 cents.

 The member states of the United Nations today took a first step toward approving a treaty that could save hundreds of thousands of lives each year by controlling the global arms trade. Meeting in New York City today, the First Committee of the General Assembly voted to study the feasibility, scope and draft parameters for a comprehensive, legally binding agreement establishing common international standards for the import, export and transfer of conventional arms. The United States was the only country to vote no on the resolution

Rest of Article

This is part of the U.N. drive to make it illegal for private citizens to own guns all over the world.  In typical liberal fashion they promote the notion with ludicrous pie in the sky outcomes that will never come to fruition. Also in typical liberal stupid fashion the fact that such a law violates the constitutional rights of American citizens.

America of course is the one nation that votes against such a measure and they are the only nation that were they to ever agree to it would actually abide by it. SO a bunch of bogus yae votes by nations that never have any intention of following such a ludicrous agreement is lauded by the press while an honest vote on America's part is presented as being against progress.

 I found this amusing.

I have always thought that Webb's chances were exaggerated and never thought he had a chance. The revelation of this report over on Drudge ought to pretty much stick the fork in.

Im not exactly a prude and the notion of sex in literature is hardly an eye popping revelation in itself. But when someone is already suffering from an image of being misogynistic blah blah blah having something like this come out a week before the election, well generally speaking the authors of sexually graphic novels don't strike the public at large as very senatorial. Especially in a red state like Virginia.

Just a couple exerpts (I have edited the words that might be considered offensive content.) More examples can be read over at Drudge. The ones I selected are actually fairly tame compared to some of the others.

Sen. George Allen, R-VA, unleashed a press release late Thursday that exposed his rival's fiction writing, which includes graphic underage sex scenes.

– Lost Soldiers: “A shirtless man walked toward them along a mud pathway. His muscles were young and hard, but his face was devastated with wrinkles. His eyes were so red that they appeared to be burned by fire. A naked boy ran happily toward him from a little plot of dirt. The man grabbed his young son in his arms, turned him upside down, and put the boy’s pen[#@] in his mouth.”

Bantam Books, NY, 1st Edition, 2001, (hard cover), page 333.
Quote is from para. 10,.Chap. 34.


– A Country Such as This: "[He] could see Jawbone and Ashley Asthmatic [two guards at a Vietnamese prison camp] napping together in the grass. They faced inward, their arms entwined. It looked like they were masturbating each other. It didn't surprise him. … It was common to see men holding hands, embracing, playing with each other. Some of them [the guards] had wanted him. He could tell in those evanescent moments between his bao cao bow, the obligatory deference when a guard entered his cell, and the first word or blow that followed it… Quick, grinding voices, turgid with repressed passion. An exploratory reaching of the hand near his groin…”

Doubleday & Co., Garden City, NY, 1983 (hardcover); page 396.
Bluejacket Books, 2001 (Trade paperback edition), page 396
Page numbers are the same in the Naval Institute Press (paperback) edition, 1983.
Quote is from fifth para, Part 5 “A Country Such As This,” Chap. 24, Section 1

 

 

Once again I find myself looking at a poll and snorting.

This is the foxnews poll

[President Bush’s] job rating is essentially unchanged this week: 40 percent of voters say they approve of the job Bush is doing and 53 percent disapprove. And the vote for Congress looks similar to those numbers — in reverse.

Today Democrats have an 11-percentage point advantage in the Congressional election (49-38 percent), up from a 9-point edge over Republicans two weeks ago.

Almost