A thought on the passing of Jesse Helms

Yahoo News by way of Reuters reports on the death of Jesse Helms:

Former Sen. Jesse Helms, a die-hard anti-communist firebrand who championed a wide range of conservative causes in his 30 years in the Senate, died early on Friday, aged 86, a foundation dedicated to his legacy said.

Helms was a leader in many of the issues critical to this country and its survivability as the nation it was set up to be in my opinion. But he of course had his critics. I love it when someone who apparently wants to be non-judgmental criticizes the deceased senator since he just can't help it.

Note this entry by David Waters over on the Newsweek Blog "Under God". Entitled "Judgment and Jesse Helms" Waters begins with this:

"Most of us have strong opinions about public figures, especially politicians and especially those we've never met. But my grandfather taught me never to speak ill of the dead.

So I'll pass on passing judgment on the late Sen. Jesse Helms, who seemed to spend so much of his life passing judgment on anyone who didn't fit his narrow view of what is right and good and Christian."

So while avoiding passing judgment on Helms, Waters does call Helms "bigoted" and "mean-spirited" and a "product of a particularly exclusive, judgmental and nationalistic strain of Christianity."

This is the liberal view of being non-judgmental. I love the hypocrisy!! Waters starts off describing how magnanimous he is going to be out of respect for the deceased and then starts to rip into Senator Helms because he was mean to certain groups and misconstrued the teachings of Christ. If only we all had the insight that Waters has!!

Well my father taught me never to speak ill of stupid hypocrites who want to explain to me how misguided we all are on the major issues of the day - so in my most non-judgmental way I will ask Mr. Waters to have the courage to own up to the fact that you couldn't resist taking a few last potshots at Jesse Helms to demonstrate your witty repartee (especially your closing line).

One more thing - Waters has a quote that "Helms saw atheism, socialism and liberalism "infecting" his Christian nation." Obviously this nation is mainly Judeo-Christian but guess what - Helms had that right!!

OS

Yes Virginia, there is a Right to Bear Arms

I wrote back in March about the Supreme Court taking up the issue of the Second Amendment. I admittedly was somewhat optimistic given the current make up of the court. Well I am happy to report that the Supreme Court goes this one right.

In DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA ET AL. v. HELLER the Court decided that the District of Columbia prohibition on the possession of usable handguns in the home violates the Second Amendment to the Constitution. Nice!!!

The ruling actually went further by noting that the District of Columbia's prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense violates the 2nd Amendment as well.

This is not to say that there can't be reasonable gun laws - there can. What this does say though is that there is a true right to bear arms and we don't have to be part of a militia or any other nonsense that the Left throws out. We Americans have a right also for self defense and my general feeling (to quote John Lott) is More Guns, Less Crime.

The Court's opinion and dissent can be found here.

Now if only the Court could get decide that child rape is crime worthy of the death penalty.

OS

John McCain is not entitled to free speech

I am reading Jonah Goldberg's great book "Liberal Fascism" and it is instructive to get the history lesson of the Left actually advocating what can only be called fascist solutions to many of the issues that the United States has dealt with since Woodrow Wilson and WW I and carried through to present day.

Anyway, I saw this article when I was reading Yahoo News and was specifically reading the local news section for Lexington, Bedford and Concord. The local news website for towns in this area has been renamed "Wicked Local" and admittedly I don't "get" the nature of the name. Wicked Local? This isn't some stupid attempt by the web site authors to sound "hip" and appeal to the young? Not sure but I digress.

So the local news for Lexington has a story about John McCain's solution to breaking the US' dependence of foreign oil called "The Lexington Project" which apparently is irritating many of the locals of Lexington, Ma where Democrats outnumber Republicans by 4 to 1. John McCain has named the project "for the town where Americans asserted their independence once before. And let it begin today with this commitment: In a world of hostile and unstable suppliers of oil, this nation will achieve strategic independence by 2025."Sounds good right? Does anyone not think we should cut the cord with respect to foreign oil - especially as it relates to our national security?

Well not the residents of Lexington. At the local Lexington news site a "consultant" who works in Lexington is quoted as saying:

“I don’t think he should be able to do that, I don’t see the correlation. It has nothing to do with Lexington.”

So let me get this straight - this person (a Chris Peaden) missed the correlation to the fight for independence and the fight we need to take to secure our national security and future by breaking our dependence on foreign oil. Secondly this person also notes that John McCain shouldn't "be able to do that" (assume that he means use the name "Lexington" in his energy policy).

I wonder how the same proposal by Obama would have been met by the residents of Lexington, MA? I can only surmise that it would be been an honor for the name of Lexington to be used in such a proposal by the leftist (liberal) candidate. But more importantly the quote that I used above also reveals an interesting fascist tendency (limit rights based on what they agree with as outlined in Goldberg's book). Now I have no idea what sort of political ideology the person quoted subscribes to. But I do find it interesting that John McCain isn't entitled to the 1st Amendment based on Chris Peaden's opinion. I assume it is because Mr. Peaden (I am assuming it is a male) does not support Mr. McCain but since when are the freedoms/rights as outlined by the Bill of Rights in the US Constitution so fluid? Mr. McCain can call his energy policy whatever he wants bascially. It is instructive and revealing how some people so willingly would remove rights that are "god given" based on a personal disagreement.

Scary indeed. Let's hope Chris Peaden and his ilk never rise to political postions as who knows what right would be next on the chopping block based on their personal opinions.

I wonder what the residents of Lexington, Kentucky feel about the McCain choice of name for his energy policy?

OS

Checking in

Yes I know it has been awhile since I have posted. And so much to cover - most importantly Hillary effectively removing herself from the Democratic race for the presidential nomination, giving Obama the nod (predicted here - but I also thought Giuliani would take the nomination so you see how far that got me - 50% so far). Hillary will not be the VP pick as I believe the Dems want the Clintons to just go away.

Also in the news is Gay Marriage which of course has become legal in California. In reading the blogs and news today I am struck by how trite some of the supporting ideas for gay marriage is and in fact how devious the actual deconstruction of words everyone knew 10, 20 years ago are now open for re-interpretation.

For example - marriage used to mean a man and a woman uniting as one (whether or not it was religious or before God or not). Now it means whatever a state court wants it to mean. It could mean a man and a man, why not a man and a dog? Why not two men and a woman? Who am I to apply my own sensibilities to a word such as marriage.

Having something that was moral meant measuring it against some sort of metric and judging whether it was good or bad (an action, a attitude, etc.). What was moral or "good" could be applied to all of society as natural guardrails. Now what is moral is defined by individual choice and there are no great moral truths out in the world to know. Everything is relative.

Change used to mean a difference from the norm. Now it is a slogan used by an inexperienced candidate for President to gloss over his own inexperience in pursuing the highest office in the land and his complete lack of grasping the major political issues of our time. Change is now a dodge to basically avoid answering any real questions on specifics and instead obscure the real facts that we, as citizens, have a real crappy choice in November.

Back to Gay Marriage - one thing that really stinks is that this decision also forces adoption agencies such as Catholic Charities to deal with Gay Couples who want to adopt due to these charities accepting state and federal funds. Instead of having the protection to exercise religous beliefs, adoption agencies such as Catholic Charities have decided not to offer adoption services rather than compromise on their religous beliefs. While many see this as cruel, why should a church bend on some of its core beliefs just because a secular entity such as a court makes a decision that is in opposition to it? Why can't Catholic Charities be left alone to do the Lord's work (no pun intended) and let homosexual couples pursue adoption from other venues. Maggie Gallagher has a great article on this at Townhall.com here.

Another word that used to mean something that now has a different meaning - Freedom (religous and otherwise). Now it means what the Left allows it to mean (i.e. anything that the Left agrees with).

OS

He should have claimed he was making "art".

With some humor I read the stories of the American sniper taking some shots at a copy of the Koran. For example SanDiego.com has this story which states:

The U.S. military said Sunday that it disciplined the sniper and removed him from Iraq after he was found to have used Islam's holy book for target practice May 9 in a predominantly Sunni area west of Baghdad. The book was found two days later by Iraqis on a firing range in Radwaniyah with 14 bullet holes in it and graffiti written on its pages, tribal leaders said.

This was such a serious offense that President Bush apologized to the Iraqi Prime Minister as was mentioned on Al-Iraqia television as reported at Yahoo News here. There is another wrinkle though as the story reports:

However, the Sunni Muslim Iraqi Islamic Party headed by Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi on Monday demanded government action against the soldier.

The desecration of the Koran was also strongly condemned by the Association of Muslim Scholars, which claims to represent more than 3,000 mosques, and which held both the US military and Iraqi government responsible.

It said the "heinous crime shows the hatred" that the US military and American leaders had for the Koran and the Muslim people.

It was a heinous crime? Have any of these members of the Association condemned the beheadings of Americans that took place in the past while we helped out their backward country? I think I need to research that. And it is so nice to see that people want to make a bigger deal about this than it deserves.

If only the sniper claimed he was doing "art" in the vein of "Piss Christ" which was photograph by Andres Serrano that depicted a crucifix submerged in a glass of Serrano's urine - Source was Wikipedia.

But oh well - in America we know what Art is...what is wrong with the Iraqis? We need to "modernize" their antiquated notions of reverence to 'sacred objects'. Maybe one day under President Obama.

OS

Follow up to California Gay Marriage ruling.

In my last post on the California Supreme Court overturning the voter approved ban on Gay Marriage I noted how really huge a cultural shift this is. Well Dennis Prager (as usual) says it better than I did over at Townhall.com.

Prager writes:

"Nothing imaginable -- leftward or rightward -- would constitute as radical a change in the way society is structured as this redefining of marriage for the first time in history: ... And what is particularly amazing is that virtually none of those who support this decision -- let alone the four compassionate justices -- acknowledge this ... This lack of acknowledgment -- or even awareness -- of how society-changing is this redefinition of marriage is one reason the decision was made."

"Another reason for this decision is arrogance. First, the arrogance of four individuals to impose their understanding of what is right and wrong on the rest of society. And second is the arrogance of the four compassionate ones in assuming that all thinkers, theologians, philosophers, religions and moral systems in history were wrong, while they and their supporters have seen a moral light never seen before. Not a single religion or moral philosophical system -- East or West -- since antiquity ever defined marriage as between members of the same sex."

This is required reading and as always, Prager is spot on. This is not about gay marriage or being anti-gay. It is about the price generations of our children and future generations will have to pay for what amounts to judicial arrogance, hubris and general tunnel vision and stupidity dealing with what is not a simple subject.

The full article can be found at Townhall.com.

OS

California Gay Ban Overturned

The Associated Press is in ecstasy (no pun intended) with the story that the voter-approved ban on gay marriage in California has been overturned by the California Supreme Court - story is here.

Quotes heard from supporters (from the story):

"I've been waiting for this all my life.."
"This is a life-affirming moment."
"This is a message that says all of us are entitled to human dignity."
"Today the California Supreme Court took a giant leap to ensure that everybody — not just in the state of California, but throughout the country — will have equal treatment under the law,"

In the opinion for the measure I saw this quote:

"Our state now recognizes that an individual's capacity to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person and responsibly to care for and raise children does not depend upon the individual's sexual orientation,"

So bring it on!!! I see no reason why men cannot have two wives (multiple wives - why stop at 2?), women cannot have many husbands, multiple partnerships (why keep it traditional - you can have a union with 2 men and 3 women right?). What is wrong with polygamy and what sort of argument can one make in support of a measure such as this and not for polygamy. The Court did not say the "loving and long-term committed relationship" has to be only with one individual. And by the way - what does committed mean? I think the court owes the people some clarity as to what these terms mean?

Finally, this decision makes no constraint over who can get married? Can a son marry his mother (certainly could be a "loving and long-term committed relationship"). And before any wackos write me and suggest something "strange and weird" why wouldn't a son "marry" his mother if she had no insurance and he wanted to get her covered under his plan? What's wrong with that?

This is a huge cultural change that a minuscule segment of society is causing with no thought to its overall implications. Rather the folks involved are (in my opinion) self centered and whiners and not willing to acknowledge that their sexual choice or orientation does not need validation from Government to give their life dignity or their relationship meaning. Every argument that is being made for same sex marriage can be made for all kind of deviant (yes deviant - or straying from the accepted norm - deal with it!!! - it is not homophobic to consider this point!) "marriages" and this has the capacity to totally destroy this country as we know it. Don't think so? Think of all the abuse that this "marriage" proposal and all associated issues can bring. How can companies survive when they are getting insurance requests from families consisting of 20 adults (hey they are all married?).

OS predicts it here - there will be a backlash and there will be eventually be serious damage to our country because of this. People need to shut the hell up and just live, not throw their sexuality problems out for Government to solve. America is not ready for this (and never will be) regardless of what Massachusetts and California think. Gay and Lesbians are going to learn quite quickly that a majority of Americans don't want to make their behavior a norm and will pass the laws to exercise that.

OS