“It's interesting that the people who believe that throwing a milkshake in someone's face shouldn't be considered assault are often the same people who believe that 'saying things' should be.”

Especially when the milkshake has some sort of cement product in it, and it’s accompanied by a vicious beating.

Wait...

The DFL rammed through P-BO care which required every American citizen to purchase health insurance or be fined.  Whether or not individuals actually chose to purchase insurance.   (Selective choice).  Now we have 20 DFL presidential candidates trying to outdo each other trying to give health insurance to non citizens who have broken the laws coming to this country.

How is this even rational?

No, we don’t need to separate, screen, or check folx at the border.   Just let them all in.

If a Democrat wins in 2020 and relaxes screening, wouldn’t they be responsible for, say, an Ebola outbreak?


“There were some Congolese people caught crossing the border, it was suspected they had Ebola. In one facility there are three patients being held because they don’t know what they have. The CDC have been here to assess them. They are isolated, they only have certain specialists who can see them,” the medical professional tells Big League Politics.

“We’ve had an outbreak of mumps over here.”

“What scares me is what happens if we someone come over here with Ebola. We only need one person, and there’s a pandemic.

There was a female, 10 years old, who was found with 20 different types of semen inside her body. She was dispatched to a family member. The girl who was with her who was supposedly a family member was not really a family member, just someone who bought her from her family in Guatemala. These are real problems that exist here on the border. There are some people who are trying to leave jugs of water out here for them. A lot of these people come to this country needing help,” the professional stated.

Migrants are obtaining “Rent-A-Kids,” and since Border Patrol cannot perform DNA tests to determine if children are related to adults most of the human traffickers get into our country.

“Rapid DNA testing reveals a THIRD of migrants faked family relationship with children to claim asylum during ICE pilot of the procedure in Texas.”


Heaven forbid, that we expect these migrant “families” to actually be related.  

No pretense

Kamala Harris was just asked a question at the debate, and didn’t even pretend to try to answer it.

What?

“People aren’t always staying away from the church because of “judgmental Christians”. 

Many stay away because they don’t want a Christ that demands them to change & challenges their lifestyle. 

But.....it’s much easier to blame judgmental saints. 🤷🏾‍♂️“

What if the “judgmental” Christian is right?   What if they see your situation more clearly than you do and their judgement is spot on?    

What are the ramifications if we stop selfishly focusing on ourselves and what we want and make room for others to speak Truth to us?

Take a guess

"Baltimore City is 177 days into 2019. There have been 152 homicides. School system sucks. Property taxes are ridiculous. Squeegee kids attack your cars at intersections. WHY would anyone choose to live there? Beyond me."


This is from a friend of mine, posted on their FB page.

Any guesses what the gender, race, and political orientation the person is?

It makes you wonder why the citizens of these cities (MSP, Chicago, St Louis, Baltimore, etc.) keep voting the same people into office over and over.

News, or narrative?

 The Washington Post headline reads.

"A mother reported a teen bully for racially taunting her son. Then he beat her unconscious, attorney says."

" “This was a brutal hate crime, and it was committed by a 13-year-old,” Santiago said. “I don’t know what circumstances could give rise to a 13-year-old boy having such hate in his heart that he would commit this brutal attack and leave a woman essentially to die in front of her children without any remorse or any twinge of conscience.”


But buried deep in the bowels of the article we find this...

"The 13-year-old suspect is African American..."

You'd have thought this detail would have been more important.








https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/06/26/mother-teen-bully-assault-mexico/?utm_term=.771306923091


Mob of masked black thugs attack an Asian, leaving him hospitalized.    The left, including Dan, stay silent.

Revisiting

I've recently seen some really good critiques of the purity movement from back in the day.  They do a really good job of balancing respect for the concept that sexual purity is a good thing, but that the presentation wasn't particularly helpful in achieving the goal.

I've been thinking about what the Christian ethic of marriage and sexuality is, and should be, and I've reached a conclusion.

I believe that the appropriate Christian ethic of sexuality and marriage is to resurrect that wonderful love child of the PCUSA, Justice Love.

The basic premise of this wonderful ethic was that virtually anything that any group of people wanted to engage in sexually was fair game, as long as it was "just".    While "justice" sounds like a slightly strange measure, in reality what they were advocating was informed consent.   Essentially, as long as all parties agreed and had equal control of the situation pretty much everything was on the table.

This ethic has multiple benefits for everyone.    Not the least of which would be the elimination of false rape claims.

There is one area of concern.  The area of who or what can appropriately consent.   Clearly this ethic would allow sexual relations between parents and children as well as sibling as long is there was no coercion or control involved.   Sex with children becomes more problematic as there must certainly be an age or level of mental development necessary for both parties to have informed consent for a just sexual encounter.   But how does one tell a 12 year old no, if they strenuously assert their acceptance of the relationship or encounter.

I'm sure that there might be some niggling details to work out before Justice Love can be broadly accepted as the appropriate ethic of marriage and sexuality for all, but I see these as being insignificant compared to the benefits that will be reaped from this much more inclusive and egalitarian sexual ethic.

My new battle cry,  Justice Love Now!

Please join my crusade.

Tragic

There’s a picture floating around of a father and daughter who died while trying to cross the Rio Grande into Texas.

This has been used as anti-Trump propaganda, but is the narrative accurate.

We know that the family had applied for asylum, but were lower on the list than they thought they should be.    What were they seeking asylum from?  Low wage food service jobs.   They wanted to come to the US for a few years, save cash and move back to El Salvador.  I’d agree that they had a laudable goal, but is that what asylum is intended for?

The reality is that they were impatient and willing to take risks because they were in too much of a hurry.

The bigger reality is that their asylum claim was taking away time and resources from people actually fleeing literal danger.   Based on their situation they’ve should have been lower on the list, and they probably didn’t meet the criteria for receiving asylum status.  

I guess this is less about compassion than about not wasting a good tragedy.

What's worse?

As we've seen recently Google plans to interfere in the 2020 election in order to prevent another "Trump situation".    The allegations are that Russian actors used various means to attempt to skew Facebook posts to influence the outcome of the election.   While I agree that any country (even us) who attempts to interfere with the free elections in another country is engaging in wrong behavior, I also think that it's wrong when the same sort on manipulation comes from citizens of the counry that is holding the elections.

I was in some training today and we were talking about how the next election cycle is going to affect Facebook.  One school of thought is that the more of a political cesspool Facebook becomes, the more it will cause users to opt out.   At a minimum, there will probably be plenty of hiding of the accounts of people who constantly post partisan propaganda.   At worst, it could cause wholesale defections from the platform.   I advertise on Facebook a fair amount and would prefer not to see the audience shrink, but I also would prefer to not be inundated with partisan propaganda constantly.

I don't know what the solution is, but I have to admit it'd be amusing to see the heavy handed interfering punished by the market.

This’ll probably tick folx off.

“We can’t applaud abortion, SSM, transgenderism, Hollywood filth, porn, and not expect satan to get a stronghold on our culture. We are reaping what we have sewn, and evil is now called good, and good is called evil. 

We can’t mock God and receive His blessings at the same time.”

S hole

A few year ago, trump got in trouble for referring to some countries as "S Holes", this was roundly condemned and Trump was pilloried for weeks by the left for being insensitive.

This raises the question.  If your city literally has a problem with sidewalks with significant amounts of literal human excrement, and is concerned about diseases like Typhoid, isn't there a point where it might be appropriate to label those cities as "s holes"?   Or more accurately liberal run "s holes"?

I guess I'm curious why the folx constantly commenting on the horrible, disgusting conditions in certain facilities where immigrants who choose to cross the border illegally are kept, have been so quite about literal human feces on the streets of the cities they govern and on the possibility of infectious diseases that we thought were eradicated coming back.  


I'll tag this here instead of writing another post.

It's possible to be appalled at the conditions that certain immigrants who chose to immigrate illegally are being kept in, and to believe that the conditions in detention centers should meet or exceed certain basic requirements,  while still believing that a temporary detention during the vetting process is necessary.  

In WW2 the standard for axis prisoners held in the US was that they were held in conditions comparable to those experienced by US soldiers.   I would suggest that immigrant accommodations that are on par with those used by our military in basic training would be an appropriate place to start the discussion.

The door swing open wider

“According to current research, pedophilia is an unchangeable sexual orientation, just like, for example, heterosexuality. No one chooses to be a pedophile. … We should accept that pedophiles are people who have not chosen their sexuality.”

Under what circumstances

Under what circumstances is it appropriate to dress a 10 year old boy up like a sexualized girl, have him dance for adult men who throw money at him.

It’s bad enough that this sort of think happens in Afghanistan, but in the US, really?

C’mon progressives show that y’all have the spine to draw the line somewhere.

I just saw that the mother of a 12 year old drag queen is upset.   After she specialized her son, put him in public places so men could watch him, she’s surprised that a pedophile is attracted to him.

What if parents looked out for their children?

How far

There’s been a fair amount of instances where otherwise law abiding folx are encouraging the violation of immigration law.  Or actively helping folx break immigration laws.  We’ve got sanctuary cities where those here improperly pretty much get a pass for any crime they commit, and folx giving advance notice of upcoming enforcement actions.

My question is, “How far will y’all go?”

For example is marrying someone only for a green card too far?

Marrying a blood relative for a green card?

Having your marriages overlap and filing false tax returns?

I’m just curious.    The Strib has finally started sniffing around, and if they start sniffing around anyone or anything involving the DFL, you know it’s probably worse than they’re letting on.

Upon further reflection, I’d add that I’m not necessarily talking about civil disobedience.   But I’m talking about manipulating the immigration system for personal gain.


Also, what about violating other laws to cover things up?

I guess it’s more about how much corruption and breaking of the law y’all will tolerate as long is you like the folx who are doing it.

Ahhhh the UK

“A judge in the UK has ordered a disabled woman to get an abortion. I assume all of the liberal "bodily autonomy" advocates will be loudly protesting this atrocity, right?”

This is a great question.   This goes against both the “bodily autonomy” and the “get the government out of my womb” arguments.

Is it safe to assume that we should be bothered by employers mandating abortion as a condition on a woman keeping her job?

Just curious

I'm curious, when y'all on the left say things like "Keep the government out of my Dr's office.", do y'all mean all levels of government out of every interaction between licensed medical professionals and their patients?

Desperation

Desperation is an interesting thing, especially how people respond to it.  In some people it brings out a strong desire to overcome and do things beyond what was thought to be possible.  Some people are overwhelmed by it.   Some wallow in it and the victimhood status it brings.   Others just lash out, desperate for attention, with ridiculous outlandish lies and attacks on others.    Some fall back on the good news that we serve a sovereign God who loves us and who is with us no matter what our circumstances are.

In all honesty, we’ve probably all done some of each response.

Even a blind pig...

Occasionally our pet blind pig finds an acorn.  I've pulled those out of an otherwise incoherent comment.



"This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you."

"All we really need to do is love one another. If we love one another, then racism will fall from our hearts and minds."

I completely agree with this.  Unlike some who deny the very existence of objective, universal commandments in the Bible, I agree.   Where I start to wonder is when love get's defined to include uncritically accepting of anything others say or do, or encouraging people to engage in harmful behaviors while calling that encouragement "love".   I also have a hard time taking seriously anyone who talks about love, but doesn't practice what they preach.   But, I agree that the answer to all of our fallen sinfulness is love, specifically the love of Jesus.



"You can't make a better law than to love one another. Jesus said it himself: "If you love me, you will keep my commandments.... this is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.""

Again, while this notion will confound the "we don't follow rules because there's a line in the Bible" crowd.  I completely agree that those who love God will keep all of His commandments.   By the same token those who love God probably won't look for excuses to deny the existence of or to obey all of God's commandments.




"Given what loving one another simply entails, it seems obvious that you have a very hard time loving anyone who is not like you and who doesn't follow your plan to control other people's lives and the way other people love."


Given that the swine in question has absolutely no basis from which to make this claim, as well as  having shown absolutely zero evidence that he's willing to hold himself to the same standard he holds others to, this claim of fact kind of destroys whatever good might have been said earlier.   As far as my "plan to control people", I've never once claimed to have such a plan, never put one forward, have no desire to control anyone.  

Maybe there's an aspect to love that includes lying about those you clearly don't love.

I often hear things.

I often hear people who claim that "morality" isn't objective.  That "right and wrong" aren't defined in the context and nature of God.   That society determines what's moral (obviously, this one makes it impossible to declare anything universally immoral.).   That we don't decide morality by "God's rules" in scripture.

The following are some excerpts from a review of Sam Harris' attempts to ground morality in an materialistic worldview.  There are some good point made here.  

"Does atheism provide a sound foundation for objective moral duties? Duty has to do with moral obligation and prohibition, what I ought or ought not to do. Here reviewers of The Moral Landscape have been merciless in pounding Harris’ attempt to provide a naturalistic account of moral obligation. Two problems stand out.
First: Natural science tells us only what is, not what ought to be, the case. As philosopher Jerry Fodor has written, “Science is about facts, not norms; it might tell us how we are, but it wouldn’t tell us what is wrong with how we are.” In particular it cannot tell us that we have a moral obligation to take actions that are conducive to human flourishing.
So if there is no God, what foundation remains for objective moral duties? On the naturalistic view, human beings are just animals, and animals have no moral obligations to one another. When a lion kills a zebra, it kills the zebra, but it does not murder the zebra. When a great white shark forcibly copulates with a female, it forcibly copulates with her but it does not rape her — for there is no moral dimension to these actions. They are neither prohibited nor obligatory.
So if God does not exist, why think we have any moral obligations to do anything? Who or what imposes these moral duties on us? Where do they come from? It is hard to see why they would be anything more than a subjective impression ingrained into us by societal and parental conditioning."

          "

Second: “ought” implies “can.” A person is not morally responsible for an action he is unable to avoid. For example, if somebody shoves you into another person, you are not to blame for bumping into this person. You had no choice. But Harris believes that all of our actions are causally determined and that there is no free will. Harris rejects not only libertarian accounts of freedom but also compatibilistic accounts of freedom. But if there is no free will, no one is morally responsible for anything. In the end, Harris admits this, though it’s tucked away in his endnotes. Moral responsibility, he says, “is a social construct,” not an objective reality: “in neuroscientific terms no person is more or less responsible than any other” for the actions they perform. His thoroughgoing determinism spells the end of any hope or possibility of objective moral duties on his worldview because we have no control over what we do.
Harris recognizes that “determinism really does threaten free will and responsibility as we intuitively understand them.” But not to worry! “The illusion of free will is itself an illusion.” The point, I take it, is that we do not really have the illusion of free will. Not only is such a claim patently false phenomenologically, as any of us can attest, but it is also irrelevant. The fact remains that whether we experience the illusion of free will or not, on Harris’ view we are thoroughly determined in all that we think and do and can therefore have no moral responsibilities."

There are plenty of problems with this worldview, but they'll most likely be ignored and misrepresented.

Ideology

“Any idealogy that makes you more preoccupied and more grieved about other people's sins against you than your own sins against others and God is not from Jesus Christ.

Your biggest problem isn't the sins against you, it's your sins against God.

And the only solution is Christ.”

How is this a good thing?

There’s a video going around that appears to be two medical personnel in what appears to be a medical facility, wearing gloves making what appear to be two aborted children dance around like dolls.

While I’d like to hope that if this is what it appears to be, that absolutely no one with a shred of human decency would defend the actions shown in the video.  

There are people who are claiming that it’s actually two dolls, instead of to aborted children.

Which raises the question.   Under what circumstances is it in good taste or appropriate to engage in this behavior, let alone put it out on social media.

Whether the apparent babies are real or not, the whole thing is disgusting beyond words.  The fact that people are making excuses is absolutely absurd.

Poetry

I have heard the slander of many,
Terror on every side.
While they council together against me,
A scheme to take away my life.

I am small, concealed in this darkness,
Yearning to see the light, but I may never
Because of the heartless attempt
To take away my life.

Am I safe? The water around me
Is changing. Is it allright?
I am burning. Oh what are they doing?
They want to take away my life.

But as for me, I trust in Thee,
Oh, Lord, my times are in Your hands.
You are my God, deliver me
From the solution that they have planned.

I'm condemned, completely unwanted,
I struggle to stay inside,
Oh, my dear mother, your future is haunted,
If they succeed and take away my life.

I'm cut off, exposed in this cold room,

For love and warmth I strive, will you discard me,
Throw away or starve me,
And slowly drain away my life.

But as for me, I trust in Thee,
Oh, Lord, my times are in Your hands.
You are my God, deliver me
From the solution that they have planned.

Desperate hands reach out to embrace me,
And steal away in the night,
A gentle voice is speaking assuringly,
No one will take away your life.

Now I am one apart from the millions
Fortunate to survive.
And though I bear on my body these old wounds,
They didn't take away my life.

But as for me, I trust in Thee,
Oh, Lord, my times are in Your hands.
You are my God, deliver me
From the solution that they have planned.

Phil Keaggy 

“What EVIDENCE do you have that this gentleman I was speaking with was lying?
Can you admit that you don't know a goddamned thing about him and his story?”

This is a great question.  Really two. The answers are none and yes.  But it raises some other questions as well.

What objective probable evidence (witnesses, forensics, etc.) do you have that objectively proves the “gentlemen” is telling the truth?

Can you admit that you don’t know (in any objective, factual, supported by independent data sense) an thing about him and his story?

Can you explain why this story would exempt him from the normal, legal, channels for people fleeing from danger to receive asylum?

Why should anyone accept this second hand story as being accurately presented?

Why would this story be presented in a forum and manner that actively obscured any possibility of verification?

Why would one not consider the fact that the storyteller has a vested interest in his story being believed because he thinks that he’ll get some advantage because of it?

Why wouldn’t we consider the benefit that the storyteller believes he’ll gain when evaluating his story?

Should we really always believe everything everyone says?   Especially someone we’ve just met?

An interesting take on pride.

I saw this twitter thread today and thought it was interesting.   The first quote is a combination of tweets by Jeff Giesea.   The rest are from Alastair Roberts and someone who identifies as sophisticated farm animal.   

“I'm gay and gradually growing to hate the rainbow flag. I'm all for gay equality & love all people, but don't like seeing these issues used as a subversive *political* vehicle. This movement has fetishized liberationism to the point of absurdity, at great social cost. 

Example: I used to see church banners with rainbow flags as a symbol of welcoming. "I'd be welcome here, thank you" I would think. Now I see them as emblems of a political ideology and agenda that feels anathema to the public good and my own values. It's a complex feeling. Corporate virtue-signaling during #PrideMonth  is over the top. It's become a consumerist Hallmark holiday **for an entire month**. This is not a contradiction in capitalism but capitalism ad absurdum.   Cultural power has swung so far in the our direction (the gay direction?) that I now believe we need to be more culturally sensitive to Christians and other religious folks. Look at the disrespect and outright bigotry towards Mike Pence. Respect needs to go both ways.  I'll still attend Pride events in DC next weekend, and there are many people I love and respect in the community. My comments aren't intended to hate on anybody but to criticize our culture. We need a new reconciliation, and I'm here to build bridges.”

He references the current Budweiser campaign as well as a post at blog.printsome.com about “pride” marketing campaigns.

“Pride is a coping sentiment. It's a way of creating cultural space for comfort in your own skin. I understand that, but it's been turned into a cudgel. 

In the days of the Mattachine Society the initial slogan was "Gay is good," which was the "It's ok to be white" of its day.”

“Thread. The co-option of the LGBTQ movement by capitalism and managerialism as an ideological vehicle for their cultural dominance really is something to behold (see @darelmass on this.  

“Yeah, I feel like I'm seeing more and more LGBT people satirizing and speaking out against the corporate co-opting of Pride. They don't want to be hostages to a legitimization and advertisement strategy for unethical businesses.   I suspect many may have been wary of it for a long time but felt that they needed all the support they could get before a social consensus was more firmly established in their favor.”

  “Yes, I think you are right about that, especially for the many who espoused radical politics.”

“Pride is distinct from actual gay people these days. It's mostly a vehicle for corporate virtue-signalling. Also, LGBT orgs answer only to these corporate sponsors. There's a huge fight going on between the LG and the T right now - which isn't reflected in any Pride propaganda.”

I’ve thought that since pride is at the root of virtually all sin, that celebrating pride seemed strange,   I hadn’t given much thought to the corporate aspect at all.  It’s an interesting discussion and a perspective that isn’t often heard.  

Dammit Art!

You idiot, it’s poetry!   You can’t act like it’s factual or anything, you just have to let the propaganda flow over you like warm honey.  Just ignore the fact that it’s slanted, that it misstates one half of the discussion, just ignore that because it’s poetry.  

FYI, it’s almost like he’s talking about Chicago or something.

Occasionally AGT, is worthwhile

There’s a video from AGT where a blind, autistic young man sings beautifully and it’s bringing people to tears.

What should bring people to tears is that these are the sorts of things that parents abort children for.  

The “bodily autonomy” and “self determination” crowd has no basis to suggest that aborting a child for Down’s syndrome, autism, blindness, the “wrong” gender, or for having the elusive “gay gene”, is wrong.    It’s pretty much what ole Margaret wanted, use abortion to rid the human garden of “weeds”.

Stan

“Making others central is how are filled with the Holy Spirit.”

Some confused fool, keeps posting comments to or about you in my moderation page.    Most of what I skimmed was idiocy and not worth passing on, but this gem stood out.

I guess the word of faith folx aren’t the only ones who fall into the works righteousness fallacy,