Sunday, October 26, 2008

Whip it Good

A Wisconsin pastor has been charged with felony physical abuse of a child after he spanked his 12-year-old son for lying and a teacher notified social services.

Barry W. Barnett Jr., 43, of Poynette, Wis., is free on a $10,000 bond, but he could face up to three years in prison and fines for disciplining his son, the local Portage Daily Register reported.

Golly, judging by this case, my parents were child abusers a thousand times over—as were my grandparents. Come to mention it, so were most humans prior to the Age of Asininity. How did we survive so long as a race without Big Sissy’s loving care?

At the pastor's hearing, Barnett's son said his father was right to spank him .

"He gave me a chance to tell him the truth, and I just kept lying to him," the boy said.

The boy said his father gave him two "swats" that "hurt a little" on his rear end in June. He told authorities both he and his dad cried while he was disciplined.

The 12-year-old said he was warned he might receive a spanking if he continued to act up and that he understands what he did was wrong.

I can’t decide which is worse: the bruised feelings, or the sore buttocks. I’m sure that a weepy leftist would find the former outweighing the latter. While I’m ruminating over this philosophical quandary, here’s a hint of what scripture says about corporal punishment:

He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes—Proverbs 13:24.

Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.—Proverbs 22:15

Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell.--Proverbs 23:13-14

A June 7 report from the Divine Savior Healthcare emergency department indicated that the boy had slight bruising on his buttocks, but it said there was no swelling and he was not experiencing pain. The medical paperwork said the boy told physicians he didn't think he was abused and he loves his father.

The documents show the boy's doctor does not believe he was abused, and he called the event a "social services fiasco."

Alas, if these people only understood that our benevolent government knows best. You poor, silly children. Big Nanny is there to make sure that you save money for retirement, and spend it on the appropriate items. She guides you through life by seeing to it that you never die in a car accident, since she’ll ticket you for neglecting to buckle up. And if you ride off a cliff blindfolded on your quad runner, she’ll cradle your skull in that mandatory helmet. You’ll be thanking her for guarding you from your own stupidity, when you land on your wittle head. She’ll even ignore your desires expressed in referenda, if they exceed what’s good for you. She moderates the number of liquid ounces in your toilet tank, lest you take the notion to drown yourself over that dreadful whipping. Pretty soon, she’ll begin wiping your butt for you (though never spanking it).

District Attorney Jane Kohlwey told the Portage Daily Register the spanking was not reasonable, because it left bruising, though Barnett's attorney claims photographs only reveal red marks.

Even if we assume the bruises were there, that’s information gathered after the fact. It’s not as if the teacher had evidence of such when he/she/it turned the pastor in for his heinous crime. As for the teacher, I believe the correct response is to hang him/her/it spread-eagle by the finger- and toenails on the school grounds, naked, and apply the cat-‘o-nine-tails to its brazen buttocks—for the sake of diversity and anatomical knowledge, if not justice.

"We feel that he went beyond reasonable discipline and that it's a pattern," Kohlwey said.

Yes; and therein lies the problem, Ms. Emo. Your position is based on how you feel. Not on logic. Nor facts. Nor the long history of successful behavior modification techniques. Nor—Marx preserve us—outmoded religious texts.

Whoa



Now that's one big jellyfish.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

A Stolen Life

Once upon a time, a young woman of twenty-one years named Jennifer left her home in Alabama and went to Knoxville, Tennessee on a business trip. There, the former homecoming queen planned to help open a branch of Mama Blue's Buffet Restaurant, which also was her place of employment back home.

She checked into a Day's Inn motel, and promptly disappeared about a day later. Family and coworkers became concerned, and within twenty-four hours, her dead body was found floating in Melton Hill Lake, nearby.

Police checked Jennifer's motel room and discovered her personal belongings. There were no signs of forced entry.

The Medical Examiner's report determined that the young woman was beaten, sodomized, and strangled to death.

A woman who worked at the motel went to the police and gave them some bloody clothes that her husband--who also found employment at the motel--was wearing on the day of the victim's disappearance. The blood matched the young lady's blood. Police later learned that this human filth used the motel's master key to enter Jennifer's room.

Police discovered that the perpetrator already was in their custody, due to having been arrested the same day that Jennifer's body was found dumped in the lake. His arrest came as a result of the police charging him with forgery, when they found a fake Social Security card in his possession.

You see, nineteen-year-old Valentino Vasquez Miranda was an alien thug with no legal right to be in the United States.

This is a true story. It happened in the last days of September, 2008.

Besides the atrocity enacted upon Jennifer, and the subsequent suffering endured by her family, the pivotal element, here, is that a woman is dead because our government is indifferent to the mass migration problem pervading our country. In addition, we have a corporation that put the allmighty dollar ahead of its guests' security.

Until our government begins giving a tinker's damn about rapacious murderers running loose in our streets who have invaded from without, and until our home-grown businesses become more interested in patriotism than pinching that last, precious penny, we can and should expect many, many more cases just like this one. We will see more and more of our daughters and wives and sisters and neices floating facedown in lakes, or tossed in gutters like yesterday's trash.

Silly Snapshots
















Welfare Poem

I received this is an email and thought it was kinda funny:


I cross ocean,
Poor and broke,
Take bus,
See employment folk.
Nice man treat me
Good in there,
Say I need
To see welfare.
Welfare say,
'You come no more,
We send cash
Right to your door.
Welfare checks,
They make you wealthy,
Medicaid
It keep you healthy!'
By and by,
I get plenty money,
Thanks to you,
American dummy.
Write to friends
In motherland,
Tell them 'Come
Fast as you can.'
They come in turbans
And Ford trucks,
I buy big house
With welfare bucks.
They come here,
We live together,
More welfare checks,
It gets better!
Fourteen families,
They moving in,
But neighbor's patience
Wearing thin.
Finally, white guy
Moves away,
Now I buy his house,
And then I say,
'Find more aliens
For house to rent.
And in the yard
I put a tent.
Send for family
They just trash,
But they, too, draw
The welfare cash!'
Everything
Is very good,
And soon we own
The neighborhood.
We have hobby
It's called breeding,
Welfare pay
For baby feeding.
Kids need dentist?
Wives need pills?
We get free!
We got no bills!
American's crazy!
He pay all year,
To keep welfare
Running here.
We think America
Darn good place!
Too darn good
For the white man race.
If they no like us,
They can scram,
Got lots of room
In Pakistan.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Derbyshire’s Dismissal Part III

See the first and second parts.

Derbyshire wrote a long, rambling diatribe at “The Corner.” Can you tell?:

It's no crime to change your mind, and a believer might of course doubt his belief. There's a lot to be said, though, for just getting on with life, and in particular for resolving your doubts. Having come to doubt you're on the right path, weigh the evidence as best you can. Then either stay on the path or (as in my case) get off it onto some other. What seems unconvincing to me is the claims by some believers to have wrestled with doubt for years or decades. To people making those claims, the only thing I can think of to say is: "Isn't it time you, like, made up your cotton-pickin' mind?"

What does he mean by “unconvincing?” Does he believe these people are lying? If so, why not just say that, straight out? Why beat around the bush? And offer a possible motivation for their doing so, while you’re at it.

Wrestling with doubt is a common human problem--even for lengthy periods of time. Derbyshire acknowledges this, to his credit. Obviously, one should make up his mind; otherwise, death will decide for him. But the question is: Why does he care, one way or the other? If I struggle over the question of God’s existence, or my own salvation, or whether or not a miniature troll lives under my footbridge, what is that to him? As an atheist, why does he give a hillbilly hee-haw?

Faith of the Founders. There are different opinions about this too, and I am not competent to judge which of them is correct.

You know what they say about opinions. People differ on this issue because they know little about the Founders. Someone who actually looks into their lives and personal beliefs will find that the vast majority were devout Christians. The reason why this is a contentious issue is because some folks wouldn’t know the truth if it walked up and swatted them in the face with a Bible, while others actively work toward obscuring it.

I note that the Founders all believed in the Four Humors theory of human metabolism — a belief that led, in at least one case, to untimely death from excessive chirurgical bleeding. Fortunately they did not put that theory into their Constitution, so we are not bound by it. They did not put their religious beliefs in, either; so we are not bound by those, either, whatever they were.

So, you have no idea what their religious beliefs were, but you can state in confidence that those beliefs appear nowhere in the Constitution? This is like stating that atheism appears nowhere in the various Humanist Manifestos. Its role may not appear as an overt declaration, but it exists in the spirit and ideals espoused in the documents. And so with the Constitution and Christianity. John Adams—one of the primary Founders--said: Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."--October 11, 1798. This means people like you, Mr. Derbyshire. The very concept of freedom as fleshed out in the document originated in Western Civilization’s Christian traditions. Saying that those beliefs appear nowhere therein indicates more than mere unfamiliarity with America’s social contract; it reveals ignorance of Christianity’s influence on the development of freedom as we in the west understand it.

To the claim that without Christianity there would have been no U.S.A. (or Western Civ, or science, or orchestral music, or Froot Loops breakfast cereal — the claims here seem to be innumerable) I'll give the answer Macaulay gave two hundred years ago: Even if I allow the claim, it is just as true that you need a midwife to bring a child into the world. Once the delivery is accomplished, however, the midwife is no longer required. That Christianity was necessary in order for X to come about, even if true — and the arguments here strike me as feeble, but let's allow them — does not prove (nor, of course, disprove) that Christianity is necessary for the continued existence and health of X. That has to be proved (or disproved) independently.

This is downright incoherent. With Christianity playing midwife, and the U.S.A. as newborn child, he concludes that Christianity is obsolete and irrelevant to the U.S.A.’s continuance. In the next breath, he speaks of proving or disproving its necessity independently, but makes no efforts toward that end. So what is the point of this paragraph? Regardless, his comparison remains inapt. When a midwife aids in birthing a baby, her continued presence becomes unnecessary after a successful delivery. Her hovering has no bearing on the babe’s life course, from that moment forward. With Christianity, we’re discussing a philosophical outlook, a particular moral world view, informing the existence of our nation; whereas the midwife had no part in the baby’s being, just in its delivery. It would have existed—and probably fumbled its way into the world—even if she weren’t available as an usher from birth canal to waking reality. It’s as if Derbyshire’s intimating that ideas have no consequences, that they don’t shape or change the course of history. This stands as both counterintuitive and demonstrably inaccurate, from a historical perspective.

Suppose an atheist forms a club for atheists. Suppose the organization’s ideals are rooted in atheism. Later, the group’s founder rejects atheism. With this startling metamorphosis, what happens to the club? The answer is simple: It either ceases its existence, or transforms into an entity that bears no resemblance to its former self.

Now suppose Christians build a nation. Suppose their social contract is rooted in Christianity. Later, the populace discards Christianity. What happens to the nation? Again, the answer is simple: It either ceases its existence, or transforms into an entity that bears no resemblance to its former self. This latter transformation is in the works in the U.S. and Europe, as I type these words.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Derbyshire's Dismissal Part II

See Part I.

John Derbyshire continues in the same vein:

He quotes a priest, who said: "The most monstrous evils of human history were the totalitarian wars and genocides of the twentieth century, most of which were perpetrated by unbelievers, yet fellow unbelievers express neither acknowledgment nor remorse."

As far as body count goes, he's correct. It's also true that most of these atrocities were committed by unbelievers. Going for the trifecta, he's right, yet again, that atheists generally don't acknowledge the connection between these crimes and atheism.

Derbyshire's response to the priest:

So because I decline to believe in some of the same things that Lenin declined to believe in (heliolatry, the Divine Compassion of Avalokitesvara, Hollow Earth Theory, the Easter Bunny, Christianity, witchcraft, Unkulunkulu, homeopathy, the Great Manitou, … there must be quite a lot …), then there is a presumed "fellowship" between me and Lenin? I'd be offended by this if it weren't so toe-curlingly silly. How about noticing that Lenin & Co. did the beastly things they did because they believed certain particular things, and then applying guilt-by-association only to people who believe the same things?

Why not toss in Leprechauns, Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, and Quetzalcoatl, while you're doing a Google search for cutesy things to say? This is what I meant in the earlier post: Derbyshire isn't interested in a serious, accurate, honest appraisal; he's far more drawn to idiocy. The above paragraph offers us two implications: 1.) All beliefs that I, John Derbyshire, reject are equally ridiculous. There's not a whit of difference between two thousand years of Christian teaching and influence, and Peter Cottontail, hoppin' down the bunny trail. 2.) Atheism had no relation to the beliefs and actions of Lenin, or any of the sundry other 20th century mass murderers.

The first implication is infantile and deceptive, so I see no reason to address it further.

The second demonstrates willful ignorance of history--a pigheaded refusal to look at the facts. Lenin hated religion. He didn't merely find it silly. He loathed it with a virulence so great, one wonders if he actually believed in God, but held a grudge against his creator. Furthermore, he was a huge proponent of atheist propaganda. He believed that the people should be saturated with it, until they ate, slept, and breathed atheism. Suggesting that atheism had little or nothing to do with Lenin's actions indicates one's dearth of knowledge about the man, nothing more. The other tyrants we know and love--Stalin, Mao--also despised religion and championed atheism. Hitler was more pagan than atheist, but he saw Christianity and typical religion in general as the enemy. He worshipped an Aryan god created in the image he formulated.

All of these men clung to Darwinian evolution--the belief that humans progressed upward from primitive, animalian forebears. They rejected the notion that "God created the heavens and the earth."

If God doesn't exist--or is irrelevant to life on Earth--then human beings have no risk of facing accountability in an afterlife or even temporal reprimand from a heavenly father.

Worse, the only rules are those that one man--or a group of men--can impose upon others. The atheist can wax sophistically about his feelings or societal consensus, but that's all bunk, and he knows it, if he has a mote's-worth of integrity in his heart.

So if the atheist is correct in his philosophical outlook, we live in a world with no God, no accountability after death, possibly even oblivion after we die. We have no rules save those that we concoct for convenience's sake. Our feelings determine right and wrong, and those change on a whim. Humans are nothing more than animals who have learned to rule the food chain. There is no external order, no Dickensian "great expectations" from above. Short of his fear of other humans punishing him and causing him personal pain and discomfort, the atheist has no good reason not to thumb his nose at existence, itself, and do as he pleases, for better or worse. This is nihilism, of which atheism is a logical facet.

Now what if the above individual finds himself with virtually unlimited power? What if he has positioned himself in such a way that he can use the state as a tool for the implementation of any agenda his heart desires?

If humans are animals, and the only rules are those hammered out by other two-legged animals, everything is fair game. Every barrier that might hinder you from unleashing devastation upon other hapless humans is an artificial construct. There is no universal truth. Life doesn't really matter, in the lesser scheme of things. Neither does death. In fact, nothing matters, except what the atheist deems important. Is indulging in mass murder such a stretch for someone who envisions such a world?

The 20th century killing sprees are reasonable outcomes of atheism unleashed and helming the state.

As for Derbyshire, he would have you believe that non-accountability from on high, coupled with the belief that humans are just advanced animals on the evolutionary scale, plays zero role in how one treats one's fellow beings. The next time he's rounding up the names of obscure Zoroastrian demons, perhaps he should find an online dictionary and look up the word "context."