Babka Blog

Goodbye: You can't have it all

This will be my final post.

You may have noticed I haven't posted for quite a few days. It bothers me. A day doesn't go by that I don't have ten things to write about. I just don't have the time.

Aside from being a radio show host, an avid reader, researcher, and thinker with notes prepared for literally dozens of "someday" writing projects, a Sunday School teacher, and being behind on my share of the teaching of a family with three elementary home-schooled kids, I have severe work-related pressure.

This year has been the best yet for Downsize DC, but we're making major internal changes and, finally, addressing long term logistic issues. To complicate matters further, we're going to implement yet another major overhaul to the Downsize DC Foundation (counting American Liberty Foundation days, this will be the fourth incarnation in just over five years). Long term, I think this incarnation will be the one because we're using the same tools to make these changes that we did to create our successful lobbying system at DownsizeDC.org.

But DownsizeDC.org is not settled either as we have many improvements planned.

Unfortunately, our staff is small -- slowing our progress down. And we're underpaid, creating intellectually cramping financial pressure at home. We need to improve faster. And that requires focus.

Things are better than ever financially, but not yet where they need to be. The financial pressure, which I've lived under for the entire time I've been an activist, has got to stop.

How am I focusing. Well, these are the first baby-steps.

I try to read many blogs regulary. I've cut back signficantly. I may stop all-together (*probably should). I waste too much time trying to keep informed about too many things right now. It's not working for me.

I respond to 40 or more (sometimes many more) emails per day as well. We're looking to hire someone to handle that for me. I've enjoyed doing that and I'm very good at it. But I need to be doing things that will grow Downsize DC much more rapidly.

And as culturally important and personally enjoyable as blogging can be, I need to cut it out. If my audience was much larger than I suspect, then I couldn't give this up. If I was paying the bills doing this, I couldn't give it up. But I believe my audience on this blog is small and can only grow with more consistent attention -- attention I just can't afford to give it.

BUT I'M NOT CLOSING THIS BLOG. There's a lot of stuff written here. I've shared some important thoughts (and many not so important). I want to keep a record of those thoughts and I hope people will go through the site and find these pieces.

AND I'M STILL GOING TO BE BLOGGING Readers of this blog are now the first to know that DownsizeDC.org is going to have its own blog within the next 3-4 weeks. The blog currently located at DownsizeDC.com is migrating over and not only will tell stories of Human Progress (albeit fewer), but will include good news about Downsize DC in-general. Where it's appropriate, I'll be posting there.

I feel like I'm missing out on an important opportunity and venture. For generalists like me, people to whom focus is almost a disease, this nagging feeling keeps us from accomplishing at the level of our talent. I know that I have this disease. I want to be cured.

*But the hardest lesson for me to embrace, lo, even to learn and accept, is that you can't have it all. You can't do everything. You have to make choices.

My work hours need to be filled with work that will profit. My family hours need to be filled with family. Some folks think that it must be hard focusing on work when you work from your home. My problem has been exactly the opposite.

More tough (for me) choices remain for me to make. If you pray, then please pray for me.

So, thanks to everyone who read. I appreciate you. God bless.

NOTE: My radio show can be heard live at GCNLive.com. Archives, which are behind schedule, are posted at CultureRepair.com/Media. This too will change when the new program format takes effect. The radio show will be archived on the page of our new sponsor. I'm not sure when that will happen, but won't be too much longer.

Repeal federal flood insurance

This was the message we sent out today on the Downsizer-Dispatch...

The tragedy of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina has, in my opinion, become a political football, demonstrating why partisanship is so hollow. For the Democrats, it's about race and Republican incompetence. For the Republicans, a group who loved the so-called “Blame Game” when it was Bill, Hillary, and Al they could blame, it is about deflecting blame, in some cases going so far as to spread falsehoods about when the governor of Louisiana declared a state of emergency.

I, for one, lack the faith that either group of partisan hacks has got it right because both sides of the aisle agree on one thing - we need bigger government to address this problem and prevent future calamities.

"But faith, fanatic faith, once wedded fast to some dear falsehood, hugs it to the last."
-- Thomas Moore

For many, Big Government is something akin to a god. When high winds topple and great rains flood, and when fires burn and snows bury, the Great God Government is expected to wave its magic wand and rescue us. But New Orleans shows how greatly the Great God Government can fail.

It is now obvious - big things fail in a big way.

This is why liberals, conservatives, and libertarians are joining together to Downsize DC. Despite our ideological differences, we all realize the perils of Bigness and centralized power. But many others still remain faithful to the present system. Why?

Partisanship appears to be the biggest reason. Faith in political parties and political personalities are minor cults of their own, and these cults are largely immune from the critical power of inconvenient evidence. Worse still, these cults provide easy rationalizations for the failures of that larger false idol, Big Government itself.

• When our armed forces meet with disaster in Somalia Republicans can say that it wouldn't have happened if only a Republican had been president instead of Bill Clinton.
  
  
• And when Big Government fails in New Orleans Democrats can say it wouldn't have happened if only a Democrat had been in charge of FEMA.
  

And so the way is paved for the next big disaster. Partisan hypocrisy and emotional attachments to political personalities blind us to reality. And the reality is this...

Government has no incentive to succeed because its failures are always rewarded with increased funding. (Witness the $53 billion relief package just passed in Congress).

Much more could be said about why government fails so often and so grandly, but it need not be said, because the "incentives problem" alone is sufficient to judge Big Government a clear and present danger to the health, wealth, and safety of the people. Big government fails in order to succeed.

And New Orleans is but the latest "Poster Disaster" to symbolize this.

Now if only we could elect someone to fix the problem - Not!

The beauty of Downsize DC is that, to quote Thomas Jefferson, "we put not our faith in men." We owe no loyalties to parties or personalities. We need not defend this person or oppose that one. We need not wait for the "correct" person to be elected to work for appropriate change.

And so, while the pundits fiddle as New Orleans drowns, Downsize DC takes the next step to promote real solutions that will actually work, and to force those solutions on the politicians, Democrats and Republicans alike. To wit...

It sure would be nice if there weren't so many houses built in flood plains and below sea level.

If people had to pay the true cost of flood insurance many fewer people would build where floods happen. Fewer houses in flood areas would mean many fewer people dead, fewer to rescue, and fewer houses to rebuild. And all of this would mean lower spending by the federal government, leading to less government borrowing and taxing.

Is this the Utopian answer sought by the naïve? No. It is simply a common sense reform that would make things better. And how could we get to such a level of common sense?

End federally-funded flood insurance.

If you agree, send Congress a message and tell them so. You can do it quickly and easily by clicking here.

Thank you for being a DC Downsizer.

Jim Babka
President
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.

False Choices and a Bridge

I’ve been thinking a lot about the relationship between God and science lately. For some, this might be a waste of time on foolish speculation. But all philosophers “waste” their time in conjecture, as do members of fantasy football leagues and black-jack players. To me, few things are as important as the metaphysical questions. And so, I theorize.

I believe firmly in a God of reality. If God exists, then God must be the author of reality – indeed the Creator.

A few weeks back, I explained on this blog (and here) that I have come to the conclusion that, “that evolution is the best explanation of our natural history.”

In all-too-many circles, the gap between God and science has been widened. Creationists seek a static world where every discovery is a potential threat to their literal interpretation of Genesis 1. Atheists, on the other hand, find reassurance in “blind chance” and “randomness” that is, in their opinion, so purposeless that there just can’t be a Deity.

Like Coke and Pepsi, Republicans and Democrats, this is a false choice. Each side wants you to believe that you only have two choices and you must choose, even if you believe the alternatives are bad and worse. But there aren’t only two choices. For example, if you’re hankering for a soda and you care for neither Coke nor Pepsi, you can drink Mountain Dew or Dr. Pepper or Cherry Coke or 7-UP. And if you loathe the tax-and-spend policies of the Democrats and the borrow-and-spend proposals of the GOP don’t sit well with you, then you can vote Libertarian. Or, you can do like me – give up soda and partisanship because both are bad for you.

When it comes to our origins, there aren’t merely two, or even three, choices. But unlike pop and politics, I don’t advise you check-out.

I have faith that discovering the way the world works brings me in touch with God. As I’ve pointed out before, that view seems very consistent with Scripture.

Faith is the bridge between God and science. Before you dismiss or pooh-pooh the concept of faith, stop and consider what it is. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the substantiation not yet seen. And even the deepest skeptics have faith.

A dear friend who is also a skeptic, who reads this blog and who will recognize I’m talking about him, routinely speaks to me of the things he believes – things for which he has no conclusive evidence. He talks of his plans, what he believes his future will be like, and even what he believes the future will be like for people he loves. Because he’s a close-friend, I hope he succeeds and is happy.

But what’s fascinating is that he has no proof that these things will happen. In fact, he will admit he has no proof. And yet, each morning, he gets up and pursues his dreams. And he passionately believes in what he’s doing. This is an act of faith.

So faith isn’t a bad thing. It appears to this observer that we need faith to survive – to get out of bed in the morning. For the goal-setter, faith is the bridge between now and the future. For the believer, faith is the bridge between science and God.

And this makes perfect sense. The God of monotheists (perhaps five-point Calvinists exempted), respects mankind’s will. We can do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God, or we can ignore, maim, and/or seek power over others.

The scientific evidence we have this choice is all around us. It appears to be built into the very fiber of the universe. And because every one of us has these choices, the future is not predictable. Anything can happen.

It makes theological sense to me that if my hunches are right, that the best way (perhaps the only way) we can approach God is through faith. That’s how the Creator wanted it. We just wouldn’t have had the will necessary to be free if God had imposed Himself on us. God wanted us to seek Him.

Atheist Bertrand Russell was famously asked what if when he died he found himself before God... what would he say to God? “There wasn’t enough evidence,” was his reply. But I wonder; if there was enough evidence to satisfy Russell, would something important have died within him?

Without faith, is there despair? And can we have a world where we wouldn’t have or need to rely on hopes and dreams and still have even a tattered will?

Would we accomplish anything without these emotional skills? And is this seeking for God good for us in some way we don’t yet know how to explain?

OK, now perhaps you’re getting ready to click away from this article because you think that such a God is distant, cruel, and ruthless. But don’t give up yet. Let me make one final point... about presumptuousness.

Who are you in relation to God? Let me make this simpler. Who are you in relation to the President, or the Governor, or the CEO of a local corporation? Let’s say you had a pressing matter to bring to their attention. Should they be seeking you out? Why? Or is it the other way around? Clearly, you would need to seek them out.

Well, here’s God’s promise, and it’s better than any “open-door policy” the aforementioned human officers would promise. “Ask, and it shall be given you. Seek, and you shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” And if that’s not good enough for you, God will go one better, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will dine with him, and he with me.”

Why then should the scientist resist faith? Yes, like Coke and Pepsi, Republicans and Democrats, this is another false choice. I for one am having my faith expanded by scientific discovery. Thank God for science.

Government needs to do more about disaster relief - NOT

Quoting from a long email I received at DownsizeDC.org over the weekend:

It seems as if you are trying to say that leaving everything to the free market would have prevented the Katrina disaster or mitigated it. That is the opposite of the truth. The problem was that the government on the one hand didn't do its job to fix the levees, and on the other didn't evacuate the people in time.

The free market doesn't fix everything. I think this mess is partly caused by GWB pretending that all we need is the free market... Mr. Bush is gutting the United States, leaving us and leading us into third world status.

I responded:

At no time in this crisis or any other his administration has faced, did George W. Bush pretend that the free market can do anything as well as government good. He's spending like Lyndon Johnson -- a guns and butter policy. He's pandering like Bill Clinton.

It's important to understand... This is not a party thing! Both of the parties would handle this situation in much the same way. Government first. Government second. Government for everything until the last.

That means they're going to a) tax you b) inflate your currency c) borrow more from the big bankers (who enjoy getting rich knowing the good faith and credit of the American people will always pay their bills on time).

George W. Bush has been rushing to spend money. He'll spend "whatever it takes." Why not? It's not his money.

Here's how the money is spent.

1) You send $100 to Washington. $30 - $35 comes back...
2) ...with strings (instructions on how exactly the money must be spent) Strings reduce the value of those funds.
3) And when the federal government gets involved, you won't be making the decisions on how that money is spent, nor will I. Experts won't even make that decision. It will be made politically. So some portion will need to go to pay-off state and local political patrons and government unions (further reducing the value of those funds).
4) And it's well-known that it costs government more to get something accomplished than it does for private businesses or churches and charities. $90 hammers and $150 toilet seats aren't even funny anymore because everyone expects government to waste money that way.

So, are you suggesting that the private sector couldn't match big government's $30 -- particularly if we Downsized DC and allowed you and your fellow Americans to keep the money ya'll have earned, to save, to spend, to invest, to give away as you see fit, not as the politicians determine? Do you really think they'll exercise the same care and discretion that you and every other individual would?

George W. Bush has now given us four major boondoggles -- financial sinkholes -- that we weren't strapped with before he was elected: Iraq, Homeland Insecurity, a prescription drug program for seniors (major pharma thanks him), and now rescuing New Orleans (see my September 8 post and listen to my September 4 radio show to see how what blame the Bush regime deserves). And long after he's gone, cooling his heels with Laura back in Texas, we'll still be paying for his great ideas.

Links from today’s show

Today’s GOA (Gun Owners of America) Update was about New Orleans police confiscating firearms from law-abiding New Orleans residents. No joke – source, New York Times (hardly a friend of gun owners).

I asked, but didn’t find out during the broadcast, under what color of authority, what statute, are these “authorities” pretending they have the right to confiscate private firearms? What is scary here is why they’re doing it. It’s right in the first paragraph of the story.

The sketch of George Bush’s conversation with Noah (of Ark fame) was originally an article written by Richard Cummings and published at LewRockwell.com.

My second favorite article (see last week’s show for my favorite) about what’s happening in New Orleans is An Unnatural Disaster written by Robert Tracinski for the Intellectual Activist. No, this wasn’t really a natural disaster as much as it was a man-made, big government disaster. Tracinski shows how big government dependence crippled normal human response to the disaster.

War Update – I talked about an article about Bush incompetence that, according to the Baltimore Sun, signals its time to remove him from office (registration required).
TWO LIES IN THIS INSTALLMENT
1) “Nobody could anticipate a breach of the levee.”
2) That we’re safer with big, centralized Homeland Security looking out for us.

From Ed Brayton’s blog, Dispatches from the Culture Wars... FEMA sending Firefighters to “sexual harassment” training before they deploy them as PR hacks. This story must be read, and even then you probably still won’t believe it.

So certain of things that aren’t so – Part II

There’s a partisan rush to deflect blame from George W. Bush – to blame his detractors. I cannot emphasize enough how little I care for this partisan junk. But so many people do, and they’re now circulating inaccurate information ‘round the web.

I’m writing this blog entry largely so I can just point to it when people attempt to correct me. [An important aside: This ain’t no hobby. I do this work for a living. People should just assume I’m right and double-check the person who disagrees with me. Perhaps the old admonition is true, ‘don’t try this at home.’]

Here’s a snippet of what’s being said (I’ve already seen this news bit twice this morning from people who think we are trying to attack George W. Bush).

I think all of Nagin's pomp and posturing is going to bite him hard in the near future as the lies and distortions of his interviews are coming to light.

On Friday night before the storm hit Max Mayfield of the National Hurricane Center took the unprecedented action of calling Nagin and Blanco personally to plead with them to begin MANDATORY evacuation of NO and they said they'd take it under consideration. This was after the NOAA buoy 240 miles south had recorded 68' waves before it was destroyed.

President Bush spent Friday afternoon and evening in meetings with his advisors and administrators drafting all of the paperwork required for a state to request federal assistance (and not be in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act or having to enact the Insurgency Act). Just before midnight Friday evening the President called Governor Blanco and pleaded with her to sign the request papers so the federal government and the military could legally begin mobilization and call up. He was told that they didn't think it necessary for the federal government to be involved yet. After the President's final call to the governor she held meetings with her staff to discuss the political ramifications of bringing federal forces. It was decided that if they allowed federal assistance it would make it look as if they had failed so it was agreed upon that the feds would not be invited in.

Saturday before the storm hit the President again called Blanco and Nagin requesting they please sign the papers requesting federal assistance, that they declare the state an emergency area, and begin mandatory evacuation. After a personal plea from the President Nagin agreed to order an evacuation, but it would not be a full mandatory evacuation, and the governor still refused to sign the papers requesting and authorizing federal action. In frustration the President declared the area a national disaster area before the state of Louisiana did so he could legally begin some advanced preparations.

And it goes on from there.

But according to the Urban Legends site, Snopes, this just ain’t so.

• According to the New Orleans Time-Picayune, President Bush's first communication with Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco occurred on Sunday morning (August 28), just before a 9:30 AM press conference called by Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin to announce the latter's mandatory evacuation order for New Orleans.
  
  
• On Friday (26 August), Governor Blanco did indeed declare a state of emergency for the state of Louisiana in advance of Katrina's making landfall in the Gulf Coast.
  
  
• On Saturday (27 August), Governor Blanco asked President Bush to declare a state of emergency at the federal level for the state of Louisiana.
  
  
• The White House responded to Governor Blanco's request that same day (Saturday) by declaring the emergency and authorizing FEMA "to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency."

The full story and the links for each point are available at http://www.snopes.com/politics/katrina/nagin.asp

So certain of things that aren’t so – Part I

At the Downsize DC Foundation & DownsizeDC.org, we’re getting some angry messages (from Bush supporters most likely). Even though we’ve dealt with issues only (no personalities), we’re getting hostile messages saying that we’re blaming the President – particularly for the Governor Blanco’s and Mayor Nagin’s incompetence. These people (who doth protest too much) are hypersensitive to what isn’t there.

Two things.

1) We haven’t said the state and local governments were competent. In fact, we did comment on local and state incompetence and were specific in casting blame there as well.
2) And it should be clear that our mission is Downsizing DC (meaning, smaller FEDERAL government). Of course our emphasis is there and not on state and local governments.

But this is absolutely not about personalities, much as any of the folks writing might want it to be. Our criticisms would’ve been exactly the same regardless of who occupied the White House. We could, quite frankly, care less who works in the Oval Office.

That said, one should not overlook that...

• It was the feds who managed the levees. Why was the rest of the country paying for New Orleans to live below sea level?
  
  
• It was the feds that consolidated power in Homeland Security. We were told this was supposed to improve communications and response. It didn’t.
  
  
• It was the feds that created the dependency of a welfare state. Many of the poorest people didn’t leave. Some folks seem to expect the nanny-state to take care of them.
  
  
• It was the feds that barricaded the city once they took charge. Rescue and relief supplies couldn’t get in. And people couldn’t get out – especially if it meant they were going to trudge through more affluent communities.
  
  
• It was the federal government that took some of the best helicopter pilots and moved them to Bosnia (Clinton) and Iraq (Bush).
  

We are Downsize DC! While we will address the local and state governments in our comments, they are not our focus in this situation, which brings me to my very most important point.

The reason, in my opinion, that the state and local governments did not respond quickly was in large part due to the fact that the federal government has created a sense of dependency in them as well. No one thought they needed to know how to respond, because big nanny-government would take care of them. Even now, as I watch the reports on TV, rescue and relief workers from various jurisdictions around the country are standing around waiting for orders from some central HQ.

And that, once again, is the wonderful work of the feds.

Federal government involvement = crippling dependency, regardless of who is in charge. So stop reading anything extra into what we’re saying – we don’t give a damn about Republicans or Democrats (red v. blue, shirts v. skins).

Labor Day Weekend Radio Show - What all went wrong in New Orleans?

On my Sunday, Culture Repair Show, I fed the audience with a fire hose. There was so much to say about what's happened in New Orleans, and yet, I only scratched the surface. A three hour show might’ve done the trick. You can listen to what I had to say here. One caller, the mega-star of Genesis Communications, Mr. Alex Jones. Also, see my September 4 blog entry for further details about the show.

Government Failure in New Orleans - Today's Downsizer-Dispatch

This was the message and action item we sent out today. There will be more actions coming. The New Orleans flood and disaster relief are vivid, emotional demonstrations of just how big, centralized government works.

Politicians love to re-write history. It is vital to them that they do so. Since politics is nearly synonymous with incompetence, accurate history will tend to show most politicians in a bad light. So history must be controlled and spun to the greatest extent possible.

But it is better still if unflattering history can be forgotten before it is even learned.

That is what the politicians are attempting now. They want us to forget about the history of the New Orleans mess, and how they caused it, before our memory of the facts can solidify. When the politicians ask us to not assign blame, and when they accuse those who do so of playing politics with the misery of others, they are engaging in the ultimate political exploitation.

Imagine if the executives of Enron had said to the media, "The politicians shouldn't be assigning blame in this case, and gaining political advantage from the misery of others." No one would have stood for it.

But the politicians do the same thing and expect to get away with it. They know that if they can get us to stop thinking of all their failures while the evidence of those failures is fresh in our minds, then they may avoid paying the price for their criminal negligence once memories have faded and passions have cooled.

We will not participate in this scheme to forget history in advance. And we hope you won't either.

At DownsizeDC.org, we are considering several possible campaigns on this issue. Big government failed in every possible way in New Orleans. Big government has mismanaged the New Orleans levees since the 1970s, under both Democrats and Republicans. Big government mismanaged the National Guard's response to the crisis. FEMA has mismanaged the relief effort. And most stunning of all, every level of government has collaborated to keep private aid AWAY from the ruined city.

Each of these acts of failure deserves a response, but we have to start somewhere, so we are going to start with the National Guard.

Not enough National Guard troops were placed in the city early enough to rescue people and preserve law and order. There are many reasons for this failure, but perhaps the most significant is the misuse of the National Guard. The National Guard was not created to be, in George W. Bush's immortal words, "a nation building corps." It exists primarily for tasks here at home. But due to a back-door draft, the National Guard serves in Iraq instead.

An armed force of 1.4 million active duty personnel should not need to rely on the National Guard to maintain troop levels in Iraq. The Department of Defense has misused it resources. It has taken weekend soldiers away from their jobs and families, and put them in harms way overseas, while leaving nearly 500,000 fulltime soldiers deployed far away from the front - mostly in America and Europe. Why?

Is Canada or Mexico planning to invade the United States? Is Europe in danger of attack? Of course not. But New Orleans was in grave danger, as everyone in the world knew far in advance. The National Guard should have been here to help when the crisis came.

We want to urge Congress to bring home the National Guard, and discontinue deploying National Guard units overseas except when the United States is directly attacked by a foreign nation. Please help us correct the Federal government's misuse of the National Guard by sending a message to Congress today. You can do so by clicking here.

Thank you for being a DC Downsizer.

Jim Babka
President
Downsize DC Foundation
& DownsizeDC.org, Inc.

P.S. The Downsize DC Foundation is doing its part as well. Remember, at this site, DownsizeDC.com, we talk about The Race between the forces of Big Government vs. Human Progress. Human Progress is brought to you by Social Power & the Free Market.

At this website we tell the story of individuals, churches & charities, and inventors & entrepreneurs delivering Human Progress, thanks to their freedom to innovate or help their neighbor. There are lots of amazing personal stories on the ground in the wake of this disaster (almost all of which are accompanied by some form of Big Government incompetence). In New Orleans, Social Power lost The Race to Big Government and the damage is immense. Thankfully, the forces of Human Progress haven't quit and gone home. Individuals, private organizations, and companies are diligently trying to repair this government-imposed mess. Thank God.

Archived Radio Shows for August

I apologize for the delay in getting these posted. I prefer to listen to shows to critique my own performance and learn how to do a better job, as well as make notes for this blog. I also take that opportunity to edit the shows for your listening convenience. To further the complications, while I’m learning a little HTML now, I’m not yet ready to post these to the web on my own. I currently submit them to a ftp page and then Robert O’Gwynn graciously posts them for me. All of this takes time – time I don’t always have in a given week.

August 7 – Brookpark Marines tribute and explanation of why I believe they DIDN’T die for their country, but rather were sacrificed to the Molech of this age. Full detail of the Gun Owners Update can be read here. Also, the two significant players who were not being talked about as much at the Pro Football Hall of Fame Induction. One caller.

Click here to listen.

August 13 – I guest-hosted the Harry Browne show one final time (yes, this really was it). Harry appeared again as a guest/co-host. I opened with a commentary about the 19 Marine reservists (the “Brookpark Marines”). Further discussion ensued about why glorifying death is so bad. A caller we kept on for far too long drove us to give a history lesson about Iran. Discussed with Harry the many reasons big government doesn’t work. Four callers and three emails.

Click here to listen to hour one and here for hour two.

August 14 – See my August 14th posting on this blog for some show details. My presentation of Jim Cox’s Iraq is Not Vietnam is work I’m particularly proud of – good radio.

Click here to listen.

August 21 – See my August 21st posting on this blog for show details. One caller and two emails.

Click here to listen.

August 28 – I really focused in on the five Commandments Pat Robertson violated by suggesting the assassination of Hugo Chavez. See my August 28th posting on this blog for additional show details. One caller that was so wonderful she made me blush.

Click here to listen.

Links from today’s radio show...

Most important article you can read on this topic is Lew Rockwell's "The State and the Flood."

Today's GOA Update, legislation that the House will be considering to protect the Gun Manufacturer's Industry from frivilous lawsuits. HR 800 is a clean bill, in contrast to the Senate's bill, and it needs your support to pass, intact. Learn how Gun Owners of America wants you to take action here.

Please, as this week goes on, check out the Downsize DC Foundation website to learn how Social Power (neighbors, family, churches, individuals, and charities, as well as private business) is solving the problems of the refugees. There is good news, and real lessons for future benefit in this story and we'll be telling those.

Also, join DownsizeDC.org and lobby Congress. We're going to start by asking Congress to bring home the National Guard. You'll hear about that Tuesday if you're already subscribed to the Downsizer-Dispatch. But there will be more campaigns following that. This issue is our chance to advance the theme, "The era of 'can-do' government is over."

As for the points I made on the broadcast, I hope to write some columns, as well as use some of that material in the Downsizer-Dispatch messages. We'll see how things go.

Babka Brilliantly Answers Your Questions

Endorphin Dann asks: "If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?

Yes. An example in the news right now is Pat Robertson (who now thinks his call for murder puts him in the same class as Dietrich Bonhoeffer).

Excellence In Baloney Network

I had some errands to run today - a chance to break free from my desk. And so, as I do about every two to three months, I tuned into the Rush Limbaugh Show on the Excellence In Broadcasting Network.

I admire Rush. Seriously. He’s an American success story. And he is really, really talented at what he does.

Apparently he has diminished talents in moral logic. Being a shill for Republicans tends to extinguish your ability to separate truth from error. It doesn’t seem to matter to Rush if has to dissemble, be illogical, or just rant; it's his party, right or wrong.

On today's show, hour two, the serving du jour was baloney. His charge was hypocrisy. And what, pray tell, was this hypocrisy that Rush so cleverly exposed?

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, rescue workers and the National Guard were going to be “occupying” Louisiana (yes, he really said that, which is why I put it in quotes). And the media, even the liberal-Democrats, were lauding the rescue workers and Guard. These are the very same liberals and media (sic) that “maligns” the men and women working in Iraq, rebuilding Iraq – that goes so far as to call them “murderers.”

Oh, the humanity!

I don’t know what decade Limbaugh is living in. Perhaps he’s harkening back to the undeclared war of his youth – you know the one he didn’t serve in but supported. But in these modern times, I don’t hear the mainstream media “maligning” the men and women over there.

I have yet to hear of Tim Russert, Wolf Blitzer, or read how the Washington Post called them “murderers.” Who could he be talking about?

Is this a straw man?

Oh, it’s that and more, because then he resorted to false analogy to demonstrate the alleged idiocy of these men of straw: Rescue personnel in Louisiana = military presence in Iraq.

Rush, there’s a Golden Rule of difference. Let me break it down for ya...

• In Iraq, our troops represent a foreign power, imposed from the outside. In New Orleans, volunteers and Guardsmen are fellow citizens not merely of the United States, but of their very own state of Louisiana. How would we like it if the situation were reversed... say China decided they need to rescue us from our regime?
  
• In Iraq, the very government that bombed, leveled, shot, wounded, maimed, and destroyed people and infrastructure is the occupier. In New Orleans, Mother Nature is guilty of the destruction, and the aid workers coming are coming to rescue.
  
• Oh, and I’m guessing the Guard and volunteer aid workers don’t like being called “occupiers.”
  
• In Iraq, they didn’t ask us to come, and even many of those who wanted us there wish we’d go home (we can’t take a hint despite more than a thousand deaths since Bush declared victory – undeterred, we’ll send more to die because we won’t get confused or lose focus in light of the facts). In New Orleans, they want assistance...

...And Rush, you’ll be able to see the difference because nightly news won’t be reporting on sniper deaths, ambushes, and road side bombings of volunteer rescue workers and National Guardsmen in Louisiana.

Of course, in the Excellence In Baloney world of Ditto-headery, the only reason they’re reporting those deaths in Iraq now is a liberal attempt to demoralize all of us.

As Promised from today's Show

Information about Larry Pratt’s radio show is available here.

My new segment “WAR” is based on the work of two “frozen in time” sites, BushWarsBlog and TruthAboutWar (a project I coordinated and worked on). The material from the BushWarsBlog was arranged by its author, Steve Perry (most likely not of Journey fame) for the City Pages (Minneapolis/St. Paul), one of the key cities we at the TruthAboutWar project aired our radio spots in the weeks leading up to the attack on Iraq. Perry’s chronicled 40 whoppers by the virtuously Christian administration of George W. Bush (sorry, that just stick in my craw). I’ll probably just take each item in order.

Here's #1) The administration was NOT bent on war with Iraq from 9/11 onward. They had merely exhausted diplomatic options. THAT’S A LIE.

Some compelling evidence for this claim was already available BEFORE the unconstitutional March 19, 2003 attack on Iraq. Click here to see what we said at TruthAboutWar about it.

Here’s what Steve Perry wrote:
[Note: I realize this is a family website, and I don’t want people who have child safety features to be blocked from coming to my site because of the President’s apparently salty language, so I’ve edited the direct quotes of Dubya by Mr. Perry]

Throughout the year leading up to war, the White House publicly maintained that the U.S. took weapons inspections seriously, that diplomacy would get its chance, that Saddam had the opportunity to prevent a U.S. invasion. The most pungent and concise evidence to the contrary comes from the president's own mouth. According to Time's March 31 road-to-war story, Bush popped in on national security adviser Condi Rice one day in March 2002, interrupting a meeting on UN sanctions against Iraq. Getting a whiff of the subject matter, W peremptorily waved his hand and told her, "F@$% Saddam. We're taking him out." Clare Short, Tony Blair's former secretary for international development, recently lent further credence to the anecdote. She told the London Guardian that Bush and Blair made a secret pact a few months afterward, in the summer of 2002, to invade Iraq in either February or March of this year.

Last fall CBS News obtained meeting notes taken by a Rumsfeld aide at 2:40 on the afternoon of September 11, 2001. The notes indicate that Rumsfeld wanted the "best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit S.H. [Saddam Hussein] at same time. Not only UBL [Usama bin Laden].... Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not."

Rumsfeld's deputy Paul Wolfowitz, the Bushmen's leading intellectual light, has long been rabid on the subject of Iraq. He reportedly told Vanity Fair writer Sam Tanenhaus off the record that he believes Saddam was connected not only to bin Laden and 9/11, but the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

The Bush administration's foreign policy plan was not based on September 11, or terrorism; those events only brought to the forefront a radical plan for U.S. control of the post-Cold War world that had been taking shape since the closing days of the first Bush presidency. Back then a small claque of planners, led by Wolfowitz, generated a draft document known as Defense Planning Guidance, which envisioned a U.S. that took advantage of its lone-superpower status to consolidate American control of the world both militarily and economically, to the point where no other nation could ever reasonably hope to challenge the U.S. Toward that end it envisioned what we now call "preemptive" wars waged to reset the geopolitical table.

After a copy of DPG was leaked to the New York Times, subsequent drafts were rendered a little less frank, but the basic idea never changed. In 1997 Wolfowitz and his true believers--Richard Perle, William Kristol, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld--formed an organization called Project for the New American Century to carry their cause forward. And though they all flocked around the Bush administration from the start, W never really embraced their plan until the events of September 11 left him casting around for a foreign policy plan.

One more note by yours truly:

Mr. Perry is, IMHO, understating his final point. Joe Plummer with StoptheLies.com, an expert on the neo-conservative Project for a New American Century, has an excellent soundbite on this. He says,

Imagine a candidate who campaigned with the primary plank of his platform being, ‘ending pornography now,’ who, once elected, lined his cabinet with pornographers. George Bush said in his 2000 campaign that we should have a humble foreign policy, that he wouldn’t create a ‘nation-building corps.’ But once elected, he surrounded himself with the Project for the New American Century gang, each of whom believed in a new version of Manifest Destiny for the Middle East and that we should spend, literally, hundreds of millions of dollars rebuilding the Middle East according to their specifications.

Sundry thoughts

1) I would like to find a new blogging program. I've really appreciated my present service, but now I think I've outgrown it. There are several things I want to do with this page, like adding trackbacks, or breaking the articles on the home page so that I can fit more on the screen and people don't have to scroll down "forever" if they're interested, or ... well, you get the idea.

Any suggestions? Does Blogger have the utility I need or should I switch? And if switch, then to what? As you make your suggestions, please keep in mind I'm not a programmer and I've learned just enough HTML to be dangerous, but I'm not interested in becomming a full-fledged programmer. You can leave your suggestions by clicking permalink below and scrolling downto the comment section.

2) My one hour radio show tomorrow at 5 pm Eastern, 4 pm Central, can be heard by virtually everyone reading this on the Genesis Communications Network. Given who I am - a born-again Christian who believes passionately that Big Government is evil, that politics is corrupting, and that George W. Bush doesn't deserve conservative Christian support - I cannot pass up the opportunity to talk about Pat Robertson's, "Hugo Chavez remarks." I'll also be introducing a new Update to the show highlighting the lies of the Bush Administration - lies that, in my mind, justify charges for impeachment. You'll be entertained as well as informed by the show.

Surgeon Generel's Warning: Trying out this show for a week or two will turn it into an addiction, and it's the gateway to harder drugs likes deep thought.

3) Thought for the day: Not only is ‘war the health of the State,’ but it also benefits the supporters and the vendors to the State. Bush, Cheney have rewarded those who put them in power, as well as enhanced their team’s power. Power is the key: the need to run the world – dominate the lives of others. Power lust is the cardinal sin of our times.

Objecting To How DownsizeDC.org Is Fighting Kelo

Everytime we, at DownsizeDC.org, send out a message to our list, urging folks to support our amendment to S. 1313, a Congressional bill that responds to the Supreme Court's Kelo/eminent domain decision, I get email from someone who says something along the lines of, "The federal government's involvement in this matter ( both the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court) is another violation of the 9th and 10th amendments of our Constitution. Let's not fall into the trap of trying to right an egregious wrong with another wrong."

Well, here's my response...

I understand your concern. No issue that we’ve tackled has prompted so many questions or concerns by people who respect the Constitution or federalism in general.

It is our position that the Supreme Court should never have taken this case – but they did. Once they did, it was our position that they had no business changing the definition of the takings clause – but they did.

It is our position that this is a state level issue and several states have better laws on this subject – those should be enforced. It is the reality that many judges and local politicians believe to the core of their being that five black robes is the law of the land, and that reality is being carried out not only in New London, CT, but as Reason’s Hit & Run blog has pointed out, other “jurisdictions that are moving quickly to condemn homes and businesses in order to replace them with shopping centers, condos, etc.,” include

• Arlington, TX condemning homes for a new Cowboys stadium, “and in the wake of Kelo officials "filed condemnation lawsuits against some holdout property owners this month.”

• “Sunset Hills, Mo…., voted to condemn a cluster of homes to make way for a shopping center, despite the pleas of some elderly homeowners who said they had nowhere else to go and no desire to move.”

• “Officials in Oakland, Calif., evicted a tire shop and an auto repair shop to make room for a development that is part of Mayor Jerry Brown's plan to bring 10,000 residents to the central part of the city.”

• “Santa Cruz, CA, where city officials started legal action this month to seize a parcel of family-owned land that holds a restaurant with a high Zagat rating, two other businesses and a conspicuous hole in the ground and force a sale to a developer who plans to build 54 condominiums. The owner of the so-called ‘hole in the ground’ had ‘proposed hard-to-build, idealistic plans, involving alternative energy sources and unusual designs, that have never gotten off the ground’; his family says he's being penalized for trying to build something special on his property. The city says that its condemnation ‘is moving forward’ because ‘The Supreme Court gave us reassurance of our ability to proceed.’”

And that last line should make clear why something has to be done. Federalism is just one part of the separation of powers our founders gave us. The checks and balances of the three branches are another. And the federal government needs to pass a law that forbids the use of federal funds in an eminent domain decisions, which is what S. 1313 purports to do.

But in our opinion, it doesn’t go far enough – nowhere near. If the Supreme Court has given localities the reassurance of their ability to proceed to redefine the takings clause so that the government can confiscate private property for the benefit of big developers who will generate more tax revenue for the locality, then private property, perhaps one of the two most important hallmarks of our system, is a memory, even a joke.

S. 1313 has no real teeth (you can learn more about it here). If the law is broken, it doesn’t provide both an enforcement remedy and a remedy available to the property owner under attack. Our amendment does! But my favorite part is the penalty.

If you believe in the 10th Amendment, then you believe nearly everything the federal government spends money on is unconstitutional. Indeed, illegal. It’s hard to conceive of a transfer of funds from the feds to any locality that is constitutional. Our remedy would use a private taking for private purposes as an excuse to shut off the tap. That’s what I call a win-win.

Heck, I’d like to see localities try these takings so that they’d lose all of their federal dollars!

Charging rent for stolen property

This message, sent on the Downsizer-Dispatch list Wednesday, generated a great deal of positive response, so I share it here with you...

Congress will return to work in just a few days. This work will consist of robbing, extorting, controlling, and spending the hard-working taxpayer into bankruptcy - handing out favors to friends, and piling up mountains of debts to cripple your children's future.

Since Congress makes the laws they are under the delusion that anything they do is legal, no matter if it is unwise, unethical, or un-Constitutional.

This may seem harsh at first glance, but I don't think it's that harsh when looked at more closely. There is something distinctly criminal about the way politicians do business. And I'm about to share a classic example with you (about charging rent for stolen property).

We need to shed our illusions about what a politician is. They may look nice, sound nice, and dress nice. They may have families and hopes and dreams just like we do. They may not look or sound like Tony Soprano. But the more I have been able to observe them, the more I have come to feel that there is something pathological about most successful politicians.

A successful politician is a person with a compartmentalized mind. A person who can say mutually contradictory things to different people and not even notice the contradiction. A person who can smile, and really mean it, while he punches you in the gut. A successful politician can rationalize or justify anything. These are the hallmarks of a sociopath.

Yes, I know, this is harsh. But I will assert again that it is also true. And yes, I know, there are exceptions, and I also know that not all successful politicians behave badly all the time. But exceptions do not establish the rule. It is important to understand that. . .

Our system has become so corrupt in so many ways that it is very difficult for a non-sociopath to get elected. It now requires a borderline criminal mind to negotiate the intricacies of gerrymandered districts, vote peddling, campaign finance laws, and other aspects of our rigged system. Our electoral process, as currently constructed, requires a person who looks like your neighbor, but behaves like Tony Soprano. It requires a sociopath.

This sociopathology is evident in the responses members of Congress have sent to DC Downsizers about the "Read the Bills Act." These responses are the most clever kinds of lies. Most of these responses have been crafted to persuade the reader that of "course the Congressperson agrees with RTBA," while making no commitment to do anything about it. These responses are the product of minds that can no longer fully distinguish right from wrong. They communicate the semblance of rectitude, but contain the substance of moral rot.

We must shed our illusions about "mom, apple pie, the flag, and the glories of democracy." We must understand that we are in a WAR.

Our enemy is the successful politician. Our enemy is a person who can say one thing and do another. Our enemy considers himself or herself above the standards of behavior that apply to normal human beings. Our enemy is the successful politician. And our enemy gives no quarter.

I will have more to say about this in the weeks and months ahead. I will argue that we need to put ourselves on a war footing - that we must think in a strategic and tactical way, in terms of war, and use war metaphors to focus ourselves for the fight ahead.

But to succeed at this, we must first come to recognize and accept, painful though it may be, the nature of our enemy. Our enemy is the successful politician, and our enemy is a sociopath. Our latest evidence of this comes from the Kelo case, which established the power of government to steal personal property for private gain.

The Kelo case came about because the city of New London, Connecticut seized private homes and land for the purpose of private development. The Supreme Court endorsed this theft, and in this confused day and age, that makes it the de-facto law of the land.

And now the politicians, who run the organized criminal band known as the City of New London, are charging the victims of this theft "back rent" for daring to continue to occupy their own property during the time when their case wound its way to the Supreme Court.

That's right. People who are having their property stolen from them are being charged rent for using their property by the very people who are stealing it from them.

It's time to hammer Congress again. It's time to demand that they do something to stop legalized theft. It's time to demand that they impose stiff penalties for any government entity that steals private property. And the way to do that is to add Downsize DC's enforcement amendment to S. 1313. You can send your message to Congress, demanding this action, by clicking here.

I would also like to thank the latest group of people to help us buy ammunition to fight our war against the criminal politicians. These are their names: Ralph Heymann, Arthur C. Wiggins, Herbert Boehl, John Savard, George C. Dick, J.M. Inks, Jr., William H. Olinger, David T. Yett, George Gardiner, Robert Throwbridge, Nancy Woods, Jason Hurst, Hank Brooks.

And I would like to thank the latest DC Downsizers to make a monthly credit card pledge to expand our fight. These are their names: John Notgrass, Robert L. Morgan, Jerold N. Arnowitz, Todd R. Singer, David A. Stansbury, Douglas Washington, Jeffrey S. Bloduc, David R. Mason.

And I would like to thank the following people for contributing $125 or more to join the Campaign Committee for the "Read the Bills Act": Dominic A. Solimando, Jr., James R. Back, David W. Landram, Dr. Michael Mitchell.

If you would like to join this company of fine people by making a contribution to fund our fight, you can do so here.

There is a box you can check on the contribution form if you wish your support not to be made public.

Thank you for being a DC Downsizer. More soon.

Jim Babka
President
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.

Op-ed: The Truth About War: “Brookpark Marines” and a Message of Life

By Jim Babka

I’m from Northeast Ohio. Two weeks ago, the dominant news story was the funerals of young Marines, killed-in-action in Iraq. At a memorial service held as the bodies returned home to Brookpark, Ohio, Governor Bob Taft asserted that these young men “died for freedom.”

Well, I believe, and boldly assert that the Iraq War, which has slaughtered over 1,800 Americans and (conservatively) more than 28,000 Iraqis, is a needless, groundless, undeclared (therefore unconstitutional and consequently illegal) war, built on a foundation of lies (justifying impeachment).

If I’m even partially right, then those young men did not die for freedom – even if that’s what we’re being told and what all of us want to believe.

It’s hard to write those words, because when any of us loses a loved one under tragic circumstances, we seek meaning beyond the death – a sense of purpose that will blunt the blow of our loss.

This is a very human thing to do. I relate to it from personal experience.

Finding Meaning in Loss

In 1978, my 37 year-old mother was killed by a juvenile, drunk-driver. I was 10. Even then, I searched for meaning. In the changed lives of others, I found it. And I was ever so grateful that the line of “mourners” extended down the aisle, out the door, and around the building of the funeral home. Had my Mom touched so many lives?

So I can appreciate the ceremony and the thousands who salute these fallen men – who line procession routes, send condolence cards, and pay respects at the funeral home. It means a great deal to their families.

But at some point we must come to the recognition that death is the end of human life. It is not glorious for mortals to die. Those twenty-something’s who fall in THIS war and those who die in car accidents share something in common – both are truly victims.

We should be worried about sending the wrong message to our children – that dying for lying politicians is a worthy goal, a life well-lived. You see, politicians don’t really value these lives – they’re statistics in a bigger picture.

How Politicians Benefit from War-death

For those of us who are pro-life, this message, which is so hard to sell in today’s “culture of death,” must be proclaimed. I feel compelled to speak out against those who would commit the sons and daughters of hard-working Americans, even while their children and grandchildren enjoy the luxury and promise of long life… the opportunity to achieve career goals, start a family, and eventually, play with their grandchildren.

During the Iraqi War and Occupation, only two of those responsible for sending or permitting working-class children to go to this war, sent his own son, daughter, or grandchild.

Let’s put that in perspective. Neither George W. Bush nor Dick Cheney, not Don Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, or Colin Powell sent their progeny. None of 100 Senators and only two of 435 House Members sent their off-spring to face a death which they are so eager to call “noble” or “heroic.”

Don’t our leaders want their children to act nobly? …to be heroes and heroines? Or does this “honor” – this privilege to die – only belong to those who pay the salaries of these leaders with their sweat and toil?

Must they bear the sacrifice, while their leaders, posture?

Yes, politicians engage in posturing. As these young men were brought back to Brookpark, Ohio, as a memorial service was held in their honor, it was the politicians who were called upon to speak. No one thought this odd. It’s all become so normal. But,

• They benefited from TV “face-time.” Not even a paid political ad could’ve made them look so good – so humane.
  
• They seemed sorrowful, even while they misrepresented why these young men died.
  
• They showed how much they cared, though it shouldn’t escape notice that they did this with TV cameras rolling.
  
• They utilized the moment to tell the hurting that they “felt their pain” (but could they really have been saying, “Please vote for me?”).
  

Truly Honoring the Sacrifice

Why don’t the deaths of these young Marines stir us to moral action?

And what would constitute moral action?

Step one: An immediate and full withdrawal of our troops. Bring our children home. Let the reservists, in particular, resume their lives. They didn’t sign up for foreign adventure. Most signed up for their future – a college education. Yes, they’ll do their duty. Yes, they are committed and brave. But they pledged to defend their homeland and the Constitution – not be part of a “nation-building corps.”

Step two: Impeach the President and the Vice President, along with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense. Their high crime was lying to the American people to get us into war. The motive is well-established for Cheney and Rumsfeld, in particular, when they signed an open letter to then-President Bill Clinton, as members of the Project for a New American Century. They alone saw in the terror of September 11th, a political opportunity. Impeachment would serve as a deterrent to future politicians eager to advance their agenda and enhance their legacy through war.

By taking these two steps we will truly honor the lives of these young men. Their dying purpose will be to teach the nation an expensive lesson it should’ve learned long ago – that, Randolph Bourne was right, “War is the health of The State,” and a boon for the power-lust of politicians, who don’t participate in the sacrifice, but stand to benefit at the expense of those who do.
----------
Jim Babka is the President of the Downsize DC Foundation and DownsizeDC.org, Inc. He is also the host of the syndicated Culture Repair Show, and the writer and presenter of the audio “Why Conservative Christians Are Re-evaluating George. W. Bush.”
(Republishing this column is encouraged, so long as it's properly attributed and there's a link back to this blog -- notification or trackbacks appreciated).

Response to: Fr Oakes is wrong, we don't come from monkeys

Overnight, Bill Stenson wrote a comment to yesterday's entry on my blog. The issues he raises are so important, that I didn't want his comment, nor my response, to be lost in the comments section (a much-lesser read part of this site thanks to the fact that I don't yet know how to configure this page properly – but I'm learning HTML now, so give me some time).

Here is what Bill, a self-identified Catholic, wrote:

...This pseudo intellectualism that Fr Oakes engages in is partly due, as one of his critics describes, to his over "anxiety" to defend the Pope's 1996 qualified position on evolution. Fr Oakes gives the distinct impression that all opinions of the Pope are somehow ex-cathedra which must be defended to the last... We are free to reject this Papal opinion on evolution in the same way that we are free to reject his opinion that the EU is a good idea as these are nothing other than the Pope's political opinions which do not pertain to Papal pronouncements on faith and morals or the essentials of the Christian...

As regards the "order" argument that you comment on I see that Fr Oakes himself ascribes this only to point 5 of St Thomas's proof of the existence of God when he was talking about "things lacking awareness". Of course there is an order in the universe governed by "someone with awareness".

He was not talking about human beings that are created in the image and likeness of God but to "things" and objects. There is no proof anywhere that human beings evolved from a "thing" or an object or even an ape or a monkey and Fr Oakes himself seems to avoid discussing this in his discourse.

I would think the unique finger print of everyone that has ever been or will ever be, the unique genetic code, etc., is proof positive of intelligent design. We also have knowledge of right and wrong instilled in each one of us and that is the indellible mark of God in our conscience which shows itself from a very early age.

And now, my response:

I found Fr. Oakes to be anything but pseudo intellectual, and I don’t see what his motivations have to do with anything, even if he was only trying to defend the Pope (though the evidence that such was his primary motivation is scant).

No one wants to respond to Oakes’ "Intelligent Design leads to 'God of the Gaps' ...an incredible shrinking god" argument. I didn't take debate class, so I don't know what if, anything, is the form of logical error when one skips the counter-argument entirely and goes instead to their interlocutors' motivation?

Yet your concerns are valid. Let me try to answer your questions.

As for the distinction of "awareness", you seem to be suggesting that Aquinas' 5th point doesn't apply to humans. Do you go so far as to assert that humans engineer their own children? That anyone designed each of their distinctive characteristics? If so, what is the evidence for this? ...or was this an “ordered process”, completely compatible with Thomist thinking?

Let me go at this another way: Do you believe that _each_ biological human being is specifically created by God, and that this is the reason for unique finger prints, etc.? This would suggest that God involves Himself in every instance and element of biological development, rather than fashioning the genetic laws under which these processes occur. If so, does He provide birth defects?

You seem to be missing the actual distinction between "design" and "order" - perhaps even between plans and construction. The order, aka natural law, has, in my opinion, a lawgiver. This is an entirely logical premise, a reason to believe we are teleological beings. Science cannot demonstrate otherwise. As I stated in my last blog post, science is not the tool I would recommend for addressing this question.

Let me clarify: When I say, "teleological," I don't mean that in the old Paleyan sense, or in the way Intelligent Designers do as they place a giant mousetrap on the stage at one of their speaking events, and then they leap, via analogy, to the concept that somehow reproductive biology works like building that mousetrap (it doesn't). I see why this argument is appealing, but further instruction in how science works demonstrates that Paleyan design is a duck that won't hunt. So I mean teleological in the sense of the fine-tuning of the universe – The Anthropic Principle, if you will.

I would go even further than you offered Bill: There is, in my opinion, a God-shaped hole in mankind. Each of us seeks meaning beyond our day-to-day existence and our eventual death. It is to theology that man generally (and should) turns to find a way to fill this hole. Those that don't turn to theology make other choices to fill that space: many choose pleasure, others choose material possessions, and the morally darkest of us choose power (over others). The Bible, in particular, explains the futility and danger of these paths, and points us to another narrow lane.

In so doing, this book shares with us the story of the first man to "walk with God," the first human who was made conscious by God. The Genesis account reminds man that the Creator had drawn man from the Earth and had bestowed a special gift on the man. Now, this man had responsibility.

Thus, I think that Adam was "created" by God, in that he was animated by God with imagination and intellect. I think man was made in the image of God in that he was intended to be like the Logos (John 1... and before The Fall was "like Christ") – something each of our respective religious traditions tries to teach us. Creativity and sanctification are both outgrowths of this "god-likeness."

Instead of mousetrap and watch analogies to explain our biology, why not an Adam who was in the Garden of Eden as we can enter the Kingdom of God. As each of walks away from God, we lose life itself. We're barred from entrance into the God's Garden/Kingdom, if not for Christ. And our faith gives each of us meaning, and I believe, a future.

I keep coming back to one principle, over and over – and no one wants to respond to it.

God is NOT schizophrenic. If He is the Author of Nature (Rom. 1:18-20), and I believe He is, and the Author of (our special) Revelation (i.e., the Bible), then these two will be in agreement.

Both are being used to speak to us. Holding a literalist view of the Genesis account in the face of what has become overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary is to ignore the first great work God authored – to my mind a sin. Treating science like the enemy is a stumbling block for our children, a form of anti-intellectualism, so many of whom will "outgrow" their faith when they find that it's just not relevant to daily life.

I, for one, refuse to confine God to the upper story of my existence – to make a schizophrenic divide in my own life between the public Jim and the private Jim, between facts and values. Character is destiny. Destiny is reality. Who I am becoming, because of my relationship with Christ, helps shape what I will be, or to put tongue in cheek, how I will evolve.

If you assume it was the intention of the Creator to make man and have a relationship with him... If you believe that it was God’s plan to give us the gifts of imagination and intellect, to make us almost god-like, both in the realms of creativity and the ability to make better moral choices... If the evidence convinces you that it was the Divine Lawgiver’s intent to have a well-ordered universe that was predictable, so that we could make plans and participate in improving the lot of humanity... If you confess that it was the Divine Author’s script that enabled us to discover both morality and the Lawgiver Himself (again, Rom. 1:18-20), while somehow respecting man’s contingent (often called, "free") will, then evolution is entirely plausible on a theological/philosophical basis.

And the monkey objection is a side-show.

Links from today’s radio show...

Start with the Fair Tax website. An intriguing proposal and an easy to read book by Neal Boortz and Congressman John Linder, is also available at this website. Is the Fair Tax worth the effort? I’m investigating that. I'll probably have more to say about this in the near future.

Information about Larry Pratt’s radio show is available here.

The City of New London sinks to new lows in the Kelo/eminent domain fight. Not content with the unconstitutional decision they secured, they’re charging “back-rent” – 5 years worth – against the plaintiffs, wiping out their remaining equity. Learn the details here.
And then, take action here.

You only have to scroll down to the August 17 entry in this blog to see how I arrived at my decision that, “evolution is the best explanation presently available to explain our natural history.” One caller suggested that he can see design by looking at his own hand. Indeed.

I lacked time to fully respond (if you’d like to sponsor another hour, because I could certainly use it, let me know at jimbabka at jimbabka dot com). You can hear what I said about the Big Bang on today’s show once the archive is up and available (coming soon), and why it’s fully plausible (likely in my opinion) that there was a Being (God) who set the universe in motion and wrote its laws.

But I really encourage you to read the Fr. Edward Oakes articles to see why there’s a difference between “design” and “order” (I’m not going to give you the links here, because I really, really want you to go through my August 17 blog entry, and you can find them there).

Here’s my dirty oversimplification:

Anything that makes copies of itself (reproduction) is going to be different from the original. Some of those differences in the copy are going to be worse, and some better. Nature tends to preserve the superior copies and eliminate the inferior ones. And to that, even Intelligent Design doesn’t really object. They just call the part they agree with, micro-evolution. Where people get in trouble is that they look for an analog in the man-made mechanical world, and we haven’t yet made reproducing mouse-traps or watches.

Science is not a sufficient tool to tell us what happened before the Big Bang - to determine where the universe and natural law came from. But what happened after the Big Bang is traceable, and is becoming better known all the time because of science.

Intelligent Design suggests that “some intelligent entity” fills the gaps that science cannot explain. Still, most Intelligent Designers believe the Earth is billions of years old and refuse to say who this intelligent entity might be. They offer no falsifiable (a very important word) evidence to demonstrate their idea which is really more philosophical than it is scientific.

The problem is, if their model of design can be explained away (and most likely it will be, or already has been) the result is a loss of faith. Why not just view, consistent with Romans 1:18-20 (referenced twice in the August 17 piece) that the Author of Nature isn’t schizophrenic – that what He’s told us in His revealed Word is consistent with what He gives us in His created world?

Science should be viewed as a gift of God, rather than a threat to our Traditions.

New post at DownsizeDC.com re: Homeschooling better than Gov-schooling

A wonderful article by entrepreneur Perry Marshall, demonstrating how and why Gov-schooling corrodes the entrepreneurial talents of its victims, forms the basis of my latest blog posting at the new, upbeat, human progress site, DownsizeDC.com. Before you leave a comment, whether or pro or con, go learn about and read the entire Marshall article. Trust me; it’s well worth your time!

A Shocker to My Friends – my new perspective on the question of origins

I wanted so badly for Young-Earth Creationism to be right. That was the fundamentalism with which I was raised. And my childhood wasn’t so bad. My mother and father were great people. You would’ve liked them. But the Earth is too old for that to work and the whole movement was anti-science – like science was somehow the enemy. That didn’t even seem Biblical to me (Romans 1:18-20).

Then, I wanted so much for Intelligent Design (ID) to be right. I mean, I really wanted it. At least this group seemed to be dealing with real science. Behe was demonstrating complexity in biology. Dembski was demonstrating the mathematical odds against the seeming randomness of evolution. Johnson was attacking the presuppositions and carving what was to become the Discovery Institute strategy. It sounded like an open dialogue in the liberal tradition. But alas, all they were offering was a spiffed up version of “the God of the gaps.”

It appears to this simple observer that both approaches are very flawed.

Evolution is the best theory we’ve got to explain, scientifically, our natural history.

Yes, I still believe in God and in Jesus as my Savior. Richard Dawkins is wrong to insinuate (with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer) that evolution suggests there’s no God. It does no such thing.

Genesis 1 doesn’t even seem to preclude an evolutionary approach. The question is really one of interpretation. Funny – it seems every other doctrine on the planet seems to hinge on interpretation method as well.

The dirty secret of Young Earthers in particular is that they don’t allow Scripture to speak for itself and they confine it to a vacuum (Sola Scriptura on Science). In this instance they ignore the very Author of Reality who explicitly intended for those who didn’t have His Scriptures to see the evidence of His existence in nature itself (again, Romans 1:18-20).

I’ve been left to wonder, how did Abraham make it to the Faith Hall of Fame (Hebrews 11)? Even the most ardent fundamentalist knows he didn’t have a single book of the Bible. But somehow, he saw and heard God who is the same; yesterday, today and forever.

Now, I was stalled in my journey because I noticed the overuse of ad hominem employed by the evolutionists. Usually, when you resort to name-calling, or even suggesting that your opponent is dragging his knuckles on the ground, you’ve conceded that you’ve already lost the argument – that this is the best you can muster. And the fury with which you evolutionists swarmed to attack the ID’ers, well, me was beginning to think ya’ll doth protest too much!

Alas, I “saw the light.” It didn’t help their case that the ID gang use a system of quoting their opponents that appears less than forthright – an approach that if honest (as they claim), could still be classified below-the-belt. And that made the fury on the evolutionist’s part more understandable.

Now, my pal Ed Brayton will be bothered by this next statement – at least I hope he is. This doesn’t mean that I’ll be joining his drive to have Evolution (notice the capital “E”) taught in public schools as our natural history. Because Ed loves science and is a libertarian, his campaign to protect the teaching of evolution in public schools is disturbing to me.

• For one thing, science education in general is largely wasted on young skulls full of mush. Without the proper mathematical grounding, one cannot truly understand the science they’re being taught – only approximations. Basically, children are fed a series of analogies, each requiring repudiation or correction as they get older. At each stage of development, the analogy is replaced with a model that is more precise, but still wrong – sometimes fundamentally. More emphasis should be placed on math (which should be taught better, btw) so that the student can learn it right the first time and earlier. The current method is very inefficient (no wonder it takes twelve years to do school).
  
  
• For another, government schools are illegitimate. They teach worship of the State. They foster dependency on the State. They instruct children in dangerous or stupid concepts like unity over principle, environmental nuttiness, safe sex, etc. They’re funded by dollars taken at force. Their results are poor – and poorer in the poorest areas. They’re bureaucratic, inefficient, and disrespect the interests and rights of parents. They’re collectivist, not libertarian. And thus, arguing about the curriculum in these schools is like debating the arrangement of deck chairs on the Titanic. I support the Separation of School & State.
  

Ahh, I must wrap up. This is too long for a blog post.

I’d like to offer some advice to my new friends. Having just “come over,” now I can teach you something. In public at least… Stop yelling. Stop name calling. Stop poking fun. Start persuading; the facts are on your side.

And don’t make this a religious question – not if you really want to persuade people about SCIENCE. If philosophy and theology is your ax to grind, or you just hate God, then don’t expect people to let go of their hopes that the Discovery Institute or Answers in Genesis are the answer.

The straw that broke this camel’s back came in a Ronald Bailey blog entry about a Jerry Falwell Creation Conference in Lynchburg, VA. I’ve come to learn, again to my chagrin, that the central cast of the Christian Right leadership cares little about what the Bible actually says and more about being able to dine at Caesar’s table. All I need to know about Rev. Fallwell is the Justice O’Connor story, as told by Cal Thomas and Ed Dobson in their book, Blinded by Might and the unjust and fraudulent smear he made against the Life Extension Foundation. I believe he would’ve succumbed to the third temptation our Lord faced, and done so in a New York minute (and given his svelte figure, probably the first temptation as well: see Matthew 4), had he been so confronted and had it within his power to satisfy the devil’s wishes.

And so, if Jerry Falwell and other Christopublicans are riding the hobby horse of creationism and intelligent design, I instinctively wonder, “What’s wrong with these ideas?”

Here are some other resources that helped me to arrive at my present decision. Scan them and see if there’s some way you can employ them.

• An (atheist) evolutionist patiently explained to me that God was NOT explained away by Darwinism, and conceded that Darwinism had been misapplied in certain cultural or social settings (I don’t want to overstate his position).
  
  
• Apologist William Lane Craig uses Big Bang Cosmology as part of his apologetic for the existence of God. Craig, author of a magnificent book, Reasonable Faith, is as conservative and orthodox as they come.
  
  
• Early recorded-Judaism had room for belief in a very old planet and a predecessor to humans, Augustine thought that literal six-day Creation was wrong roughly 1400 years before Darwin, and the Pope had no real problem with the science of evolution.
  
  
• I passionately believe in free-market economics which posits that order arises out of seeming chaos – a very “natural” process. It’s almost silly to believe that this is the only instance of this phenomenon in our world. And it’s ironic, to me, that most Marxists and the majority of socialists believe in the theory of evolution, given their “control-freak” natures.
  
  
• The fundamental difference between Thomist “order” vs. Paleyan “design” has been made clear to me by Father Edward Oakes in this original book review and his wonderful response to critics. The danger ID poses to Christianity is that its new, slicker, “God of the gaps” approach, leads to a shrinking God. Want to dash the faith of a promising generation? Hook them into ID then close the gaps. They’ll run into the arms of militant atheism. To me, this is dangerous and reason, all by itself, to steer clear of ID.
  
  
• With the exception of the Edward Oakes’ response to his critics, far and away the very best, most persuasive articles (to me) were by Frederick Turner (give Oakes and Turner to true prospects like me, first). His two articles Darwin and Design: The Evolution of a Flawed Debate and Darwin Among the Believers were eminently fair in that proper criticism was meted out justly to both sides. On top of that, he marshaled the best arguments on just how overwhelming the evidence was (and the prose, something I appreciate as a writer, was top-notch). Turner convinced me that there were reasonable evolutionists, who understood why I’d be reluctant to join their team. And then, I was no longer reluctant.
  

Christ Had Room for Quantum Physics

Found this at MsquaredT blog. And I’m quoting it nearly in full here because even though I’m not a Moby fan, I think both he and Pastor Matt Thomas have some really good _questions_ for today’s church.

First, Moby:

so, do you think that it’s time to invent a new religion?
i mean, i know that sounds absurd and absurdly presumptuous.
but what do we know now that is different from what we
knew ages ago?
that the universe is gigantic?
that the universe is old?
that we are made up of matter that used to be other things?
that our actions are seemingly insignificant from a universal perspective?
that matter, at it’s most basic level, doesn’t do what
we think it would/should do?
i sound flippant.
but really, given what we know about the universe and about ourselves, isn’t it absurd to hold on to conventional ideas about our significance and identity and relevance and so on?
again, i sound flippant.
i don’t mean to.
but it’s hard to describe this in a journal(not blog)entry.
i actually think that the teachings of christ accomodate most of the new ways in which we perceive ourselves and our world.
the problem is that although the teachings of christ accomodate this, contemporary christianity does not.
here’s more seriousness dressed up as flippancy:
christ: acknowledging quantum realities.
christiantiy: depressingly newtonian.
does that make any sense?
well, to me it does.
and to some of you it might make sense, also.
i’m sorry that i’m being light and flippant.
i should just be straightforward.
we know things about our universe and about our world and about ourselves that make our previously held ideas about human significance utterly absurd. in order to move forward we need to accept that how we understand ourselves in the future has to be informed by what we know about ourselves from a quantum perspective.
and luckily, there’s not a christian(or new testament)perspective that compels us to hold on to much of tradition.
many christians might disagree, but i would ask them to cite scripture to support their dissent.
i know, ‘quantum perspective’ sounds nonsensical and nerdy.
but we need to move on(no political pun intended).
we all know better.
we’re all holding on to past conceptions of human endeavours and human significance, and they’re outdated and erroneous and anachronistic.
our human significance is both far greater and far smaller than anything than we’ve hitherto recognized.
that is the truth.

Pastor Matt Thomas:

The quantum perspective radically changed how we perceive the world; our structures have not yet dealt with that fact - even though quantum’s been around for nearly 100 years. Instead, we’ve told Jesus Christ that he cannot deal with this world, that he’s all about the next. We make going to heaven, i.e., getting the h*ll out of here, the end goal of faith, rather than “love God with your whole being and love your neighbor as you love yourself.”

But Jesus... was perfectly content with living in the smallest of quantum probabilities, and somehow knew how to access them - so that water could be walked upon, sight could be restored, the lame could be made to walk, and death could bring new life. Oh, yes, and locked doors could be passed through.

With Newton, these are abberations; with quantum, these are distinct possibilities, however improbable. Nevertheless, we don’t expect these things to occur. We don’t believe that they will happen, nor, to one extent or another, do we really want them to. They’ll stir things up too much.

Three More Hours of Jim Babka “On Air” - July 30 & 31

On July 30, I filled-in for Harry Browne again. But this show was different. HARRY RETURNS. Yes, Harry was a guest on his own show. His voice was in poor shape and he hadn’t followed the news for weeks, and yet, as a powerful testimony to the power of his ideology and philosophy, he had good insights on everything we discussed.

Harry started by explaining why he’d been away so long. Much of the show as devoted to the Libertarian Party’s “Commonsense” Iraq Exit-Plan. [Note: I wouldn’t have covered this topic if Harry hadn’t been my guest. Discussing anything Libertarian Party only manages to win you grudging enemies. There’s just no real upside. So don't bother writing me complaining about how this was covered. It'll do you as much good as teaching a pig to sing.]

Thanks to one of the callers, we also discussed getting screened at airports and searched at sporting events and more. Harry also gave a ringing endorsement for the Read the Bills Act. We had five callers and three emails.

Here's hour one. And here's hour two. Both edited for your listening pleasure.

The next day, I did my show. I had two callers. I opened the show by discussing how the House Leadership pulled some bad stunts as they pushed CAFTA through and I discussed the need to do something about these stunts. Robert O’Gwynn, programmer for DownsizeDC.org, joined me to talk about Senator Evan Bayh’s stonewall tactics. This week's GOA Update – last week’s goal of passing a bill in the Senate to protect gun manufacturers from frivolous lawsuits was partially realized and GOA has an action plan for a clean bill in the House.

It turns out the Kelo/eminent domain decision by the U.S. Supreme Court is being used just as we feared. And last night’s discussion of screenings and searchings inspired me to discover two great things we could to fight terrorism that respect individual rights.

Here's my show archive link, also edited for your listening pleasure.

Links from today's radio show

Ok folks. Here are the links I promised. (The show needs to be edited and will be available soon).

Let's start with the link to the action item shared with you today from Gun Owners of America.
http://www.gunowners.org/a081105.htm Go read it and act -- help protect the gun manufacturing industry from hustler-politicians and their inner-city, gun-control lawsuits.

My new hero, Edward R. Myers, who is Devoted to God, not the Pledge (registration may be required).

No Joy in Juiceville -- yes, I believe there should be open steriod use in baseball!

Global Struggle against Violent Extremism: Marketing Gimmick or Ominous Turn?

The hypnotic mantra -- Iraq is NOT Vietnam, say it again and again until you're convinced. This will allow you to ignore the facts.

Philokalia (4 Volumes) -- will really deepen your spiritual walk and enhance your prayer life. Learning about the Jesus Prayer, from the perspective of ancient Eastern Orthodox monastic tradition.

Six hours of Jim Babka ON AIR (July 16, 17, 23, 24)

IMPORTANT NOTE: I’ve begun taking the considerable trouble of editing the shows so you don’t have to listen to all the commercials. Not sure how long I can keep this up. As you can see, it delays getting the shows posted. (I’m just looking for excuses).

For the third week in a row, I guest-hosted The Harry Browne Show. I had two callers and four emails. Topics covered: The neo-conservative Empire is crumbling; the Bush hypocrisy of condemning “torture chambers;” continued discussion of why the Constitution isn’t the best tool for selling small government; ACTION ITEMS = Patriot Act, Snitch Drug Bill, and CAFTA; also discussed disinformation campaign about health supplements. Also dealt with an unusual objection to Read the Bills.

Listen to hour one here and hour two here.

Then on my show the next day, I continued the Constitution survey and discussed the CAFTA Action Item and the health supplement disinformation campaign. Explained why I oppose CAFTA even though other free-market activists support it. The GOA Update was a Larry Pratt piece on a clever way to confound and drive gun-controllers out of a “free state.”

Regarding the Supreme Court, discussed why Ann Coulter was right about retiring Justice O’Connor (even if Ann does use a broomstick for transportation), and why I’m not the least bit interested in who the replacement will be. Oh, and I responded once again, this time doing a better job, to a rare objection to the Read the Bills Act.

I closed the show with a very unique question about Bono and African “debt forgiveness.” For this show I had no callers, and one email. But I didn’t care, I was on a roll!

You can listen to that episode of the Culture Repair Show here.

Then, the following week, I guest-hosted Harry Browne’s show again. The show was a somber one, and was dedicated to Harry Browne, who is quite sick and in the hospital, and to my father, for this would’ve been his 67th birthday. Consistent with that somber note, I talked about the war – particularly conservative Christian support of it. I contend that both the cruel War on Drugs and our failed foreign policy/the War in Iraq exist because they are supported by Christians. If these folks lived by their theology, then both wars would come to an end.

Laurence Vance, LewRockwell.com columnist and author of Christianity and War was my guest. We had six callers. Of all the shows I’ve done this far, I am proudest of this one (though the Chris Rufer interview was pretty-stellar as well) in that they provided information, in both a thorough and adult fashion, that you won’t get anywhere else, and the callers that responded contributed to the quality of the show.

Quality, educational listening is available at these links: First Hour & Second Hour.

And then, the next day I did more on the War on Drugs and THE War, particularly in Iraq – “War is the health of the State.” I covered things we didn’t have time to cover including, the horror of war, the moral arguments against the war on drugs and the war in Iraq. My GOA Update was an action item on Democrat/Gun controllers about to load up a pro-gun bill with anti-gun amendments. I had one email and two callers, including my most fun, confrontational, hysterical caller in the show’s short history.

I closed the show by giving reasons to be hopeful – how the nanny/warfare state is crumbling right now! And you can listen to this show here.

Laurence Vance, Christians, and War

Laurence Vance appeared on The Harry Browne Show when I guest-hosted on July 23. I said that by Monday I’d have the articles he’s written about Christians and War posted here. That would’ve been July 25th. Well, as this tardy blogger is getting used to saying, “Better late than never!”

The following list of articles is something with which every serious, God-fearing person should invest the time to read. If you think George W. Bush is a good Christian man and you support the war, and you haven’t read these articles, then I boldly say, you just haven’t thought about this issue Biblically yet. Yes, I meant that!

Here they are…

Think Christian was the piece that finally prompted me to call Vance and request an interview. In this piece he asks Evangelicals to do something truly novel – think! The thesis to this piece is that while the President (whom he quotes directly) elevates the military to “holy sacrosanct reverence,” it’s not a place you’d want to send your kids if your concerned about their mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical health.

Throughout the show I quoted from Are You A Christian Warmonger?, while taking a page from Jeff Foxworthy. I would say, “You might be a Christian Warmonger if you believe…” and then I’d insert one of the 20 statements offered by Mr. Vance. The sad thing is, I’ve heard nearly everyone of them from my Christian friends.

Easily Vance’s two most provocative pieces (and for that reason, very important) are Should a Christian Join the Military and God Bless Our Troops?, in which Vance asks the pointed question, “Why should He?”

Here are a bunch of his other articles.

Christianity and War – the one that started it all and eventually led to a book.

Falwell’s Folly – February 2004 column responding to Jerry Falwell’s audaciously titled WorldNetDaily article, “God is pro-war,” suggesting that President Bush’s invasion of Iraq was Biblical.

The U.S. Global Empire and Guarding the Empire was an analysis of troop placement and strength, demonstrating that we were the largest empire in world history and true hegemonic power.

Christian Killers? – is it a contradiction in terms?

Christianity and War Revisited – just what is Vance’s new book about?

One wonders what Bible the aforementioned Christian Warmongers are reading? Perhaps these are their favorite passages: The Warmonger’s Beatitudes and The Warmonger’s Psalm.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/vance/vance46.html

The Christianity of George WMD Bush is a fruit inspection, as in, “by their fruits ye shall know them.”

Last but not least, two more articles that are longer essays that I highly recommend.

The Horrors of War documents just how awful, not glorious, war really is. Why would anyone want this?

And Vance’s very best work – his most original, in my opinion – is Charles Spurgeon on Christian War Fever. Baptists and Calvinists should take special note. The greatest Baptist preacher of all-time, was prolific on the subject of war and Christian support of “war fever.” Hint: He thought both were very terrible and un-Christian. [But then again, Spurgeon smoked cigars and enjoyed finer adult beverages, so what did he know? {Funny the things that twist Evangelical’s panties these days!}].

July 9 and 10 Radio Shows

Once again, I guest-hosted The Harry Browne Show. Chris Rufer is an American success story. Starting with one-truck, he built the Morningstar Company which today harvests, processes, cans, and ships 2/3rds of California tomatoes.

What fascinated me was how Chris Rufer runs his company. He uses a unique from of management called, “Self-management.” I really wanted to know how you can have a company where… There are no human bosses and no individual, including the owner, has the right to fire anyone else, and amazingly, no one has a title – but everyone is responsible. In fact, this work force is so effective that in 12 years time the Morningstar Company has become dominant in its industry.

But what prompted the most calls was my discussion of Qui Bono. What’s wrong with me? Why don’t I see the conspiracy? Am I blind? …or part of it? One caller was particularly amusing, who decided that my guest was part of the conspiracy because his company’s name was a secret code!

You can hear hour one here and hour two here.

Then, the next day on my show, I continued my Constitutional survey – specifically that the Constitution isn’t very effective at making the government smaller. Reviewed the six hallmarks of Chris Rufer’s successful concept of “self-management.” And my unique take on the London terror attacks. Amazingly, no one sent a lynching committee.

I made my big prediction that the Bush Administration will, by the Fall of 2006, will have an Iraqi withdrawal plan IMPLEMENTED – and possibly sooner. Why? The GOP Congress will demand it. I also blew the lid off the hoax that Bush is trying to export liberty and democracy.

I had three callers. GOA Update: How a new mandatory minimum sentencing bill can turn you and your family into a criminal gang. Gave several DownsizeDC.org ACTION ITEMS: Patriot Act (the London terrorist attack will be used to help move this bill), and announced the launch of the anti-CAFTA campaign (unconstitutional and more government, not free trade).

You can listen here.

The Magic Wand of Legislation

DC Downsizer Marv G. writes,
"My wifeand I have just sent this FAX to several members of Congress; you may wish to send a similar one:
------------------
We propose a sure-fire bill to control global warning: make volcanic eruptions and the emergence of ocean floor methane bubbles illegal. It may prove difficult to enforce these laws, but we have other such laws that previous sessions of Congress have passed.

A prime example are the laws that prohibit illegal immigration. Though several are on the books, they appear to be just as incapable of enforcement as the proposed global warming bill.

We will wait with bated breath the passage of the former and the enforcement of the latter, and will wonder in the meantime whether either will ever occur."

That's funny! But let's go one step further. Laws to stop immigration won't work, any more than the fictional law to prevent volcanoes from erupting or the all-too-real laws to stop narcotic drug use.

The immigration issue is one of dozens of symbolic issues designed to rile folks up, the solution to which is more government power. Symbolic issues distract us from the most important thing we need to do -- Downsize DC (reducing the size, scope, and power of the federal government).

Downsizing DC in this instance would mean, ending the war on immigrants, or as Marv helps us see, ending the expensive pretense of such a war (expensive because, after all, border patrols cost money and national I.D. cards will be used to steal our civil liberties).

Is the Conspiracy Real? Part III

As I indicated in Part I, I’ve gotten several messages asking me to open my eyes, and suggesting that our government was somehow or other complicit in the events of Sept. 11, 2001. Here’s one example:

Did it ever occur to you, that the government was behind that attack, just as many of us Americans believe that the U.S. government was complicit in the 9/11 attack!

As of right now, this is my response...

Numerous people have contacted me with various theories about that day. I have questions myself.

And that’s why, last Friday, I watched most of my second full length Alex Jones documentary. I found the information interesting, and if true, very, very disturbing (I hope to get back to elaborate more about this in a future blog; perhaps I’ll cleverly title it, Part IV).

And further, I wonder about…

* I wonder why World Trade Tower 7, right next door, was “pulled” or demo'd later that day.
* Whether the plane that flew into the Pentagon probably wasn't the jet we were told it was.

On top of that, I think our government shot down the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania that day. And I find it curious that we haven't caught Osama Bin Laden yet.

However, the evidence, such that it is, has nearly all been speculative up to this point. And the various theories out there are often contradictory.

But it comes down to this.

It is more plausible, to me, that our Big Government just worked as incompetently as one could generally expect. And Osama Bin Laden issued a fatwa years ago, attacked one of our ships and two of our embassies, and he made clear why his followers attacked us.

You can't go around upsetting other folks applecarts, nor can you prop up dictators that they hate, without ending up angering people. Right now, our government’s efforts in Iraq, witnessed on Al Jazeera (doubt I spelled that right) are like recruitment videos and investor presentations for more terrorist organization, armament, and activity.

It's kind of like Occam's Razor – the simplest, most direct answer is the most likely. And if we made government dramatically smaller, which would include ending foreign interventionism and aid to dependent dictators, we'd be safer.

In fact, that’s the real criminal conspiracy: Our politicians, trying to run the world to their own liking, cause these backlashes.

Perhaps they mean to. But I think that's a very hard thing to _prove_ and big claims require big evidence.

Andrew Weil, M.D. shills for international safety regulation of your supplements

...because the gatekeepers in this case will be innocuous, even disinterested “international” agencies, composed of altruistic “scientists,” using “scientific” standards, and creating a voluntary “international” order of “safety.” Oh, and did I mention it’ll be done by “international” groups and that “scientists” will make the decisions? ...and that it’s for our “safety?”

Andrew Weil, the bearded health guru seen on public television has joined the disinformation campaign to support CODEX. Someone needed to counter this, and so I decided to provide this public service.

Below, AW stands for Andy Weil and JB stands for your excellent host who straightens him out.

AW: I've had a lot of questions about Codex, often based on alarmist and erroneous information being circulated on the Internet. I'm happy to set the record straight. Here's the story: in 1963 the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization created the Codex Alimentarius Commission to protect the health of consumers and to ensure fair practices in the international food trade through development of food standards, codes of practice, guidelines and other recommendations.

JB: OK, so note that Andrew Weil favors this. Notice the positive language about Codex, and the pejoratives about information critical of Coded being distributed on the Net.

AW: For the past decade, Codex has been developing guidelines for vitamins and mineral supplements focusing on establishing new potency levels.

JB: Just bookmark this in your mind. Later, Weil will deny this is what they’re doing.

AW: Codex completed its work in November 2004, and the guidelines were adopted at the Commission's July 5, 2005 meeting. This development has given rise to widespread misunderstanding. The thrust of the wrong-headed information being circulated on the Internet is that the Codex guidelines will restrict the availability of vitamins and minerals in the United States. Even more fanciful is the claim that once the Codex guidelines on vitamins and minerals are adopted, supplements that exceed the RDA will be available in the U.S. only by prescription and that this "stealthy" takeover of the supplement industry has been plotted in secret by the pharmaceutical industry working underneath the radar in Europe. None of this is true.

JB: OK, so that’s his charge. How does he back it up? (NOTE: As you read Weil, notice the “slight of mouth” [SOM].)

AW: First of all, the Codex guidelines are non-binding on the United States (or any other country) and do not override U.S. law as many people claim (only Congress can change U.S. law regarding supplements).

JB: SOM #1 Codex guidelines are not, technically speaking, binding on our country and they do not, again technically speaking, override U.S. law. Yes, only Congress can change U.S. law regarding supplements.

But, what he doesn’t tell you is that the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the Codex Aliminetarius Commission (or, food standards board) is part of the WTO. I’ll explain how in moment. But let’s back to Dr. Andy...

AW: This country's participation in Codex is strictly voluntary. The guidelines will not in any way affect the availability of supplements to consumers in the United States.

JB: (Don’t forget our “mental bookmark”). Our government is a member of the WTO, and a signatory to CODEX. WTO is as binding as a treaty. At some point some foreign nation, another member of the WTO, will likely file complaint citing unfair or illegal trade practices because American businesses are still selling a particular supplement that doesn’t meet the new “fair” regulations.

The WTO has the power to respond to such a complaint with sanctions. This will put a crimp in domestic companies' ability to trade overseas.

And _Congress_ will respond to this situation by folding like a cheap suit. Congress always withers in the face of WTO because the Chamber of Commerce and Fortune 500 companies won’t tolerate having their businesses damaged because of one or two supplement manufacturers.

AW: Here's what you should know about the Codex guidelines: They're limited to vitamins and minerals only, and do not extend to herbs and other dietary supplements.

JB: Yes, because God hold the patents on herbs.

AW: Contrary to the circulating scare stories, the guidelines do not set upper limits for vitamins and minerals in supplements. Instead, they specify that maximum amounts should be established by scientific risk assessment, a process that will now be undertaken by a panel of scientific experts. There is nothing in the guidelines requiring that supplements be sold as prescription drugs in the United States or elsewhere.

JB: MENTAL BOOKMARK TIME. First, the guidelines were “for vitamins and mineral supplements focusing on establishing new potency levels,” and the “guidelines will not in any way affect the availability of supplements to consumers,” but now, “the guidelines do not set upper limits for vitamins and minerals in supplements.” Which is it Andy?

Actually, it’s SOM #2, and my personal favorite of this disinformation piece. It’s easier to disguise misleading information if you’re a bit verbose. He’s right, again technically, that the “guidelines” do not set upper limits. But the scientific panels of experts that Codex creates will. Or do you assume that these scientists, tasked with setting upper limits, will decide that there should be no such limits?

But Andy also thinks we’ll be better off as a result of these limits (which he just tried to tell you don’t exist), because scientists on a “committee” will provide for our safety. It won’t be you. It won’t be the people selling. There’s no room for the market in this process – science has the answers.

AW: As for the notion that the drug industry has engineered the Codex guidelines in an effort to take over the supplement market, the truth is that some of the largest supplement manufacturers in the U.S. already are owned by big pharmaceutical firms or their parent companies.
{signed} Andrew Weil, M.D.
7/12/05

JB: SOM #3 – this is what specialists in rhetoric call a non-sequiter. For those of you in Waukesha County, Wisconsin (home of Congressman James Senselessbrenner), that means one thing has nothing to do with the other.

Actually, the big pharmaceutical firms only control “some” of the supplement market (by Dr. Andy’s own admission), and it would be good news to them to see their competition shut down. Further, supplements are used by people to help keep their bodies healthy. Without them, these folks will have to turn or return to prescription drugs, meaning more customers for those friendly big pharmaceutical firms who may well have paid Andy to sell his credibility.
{signed} Jim Babka, No B.S.
7/16/05

The Gospel's centrality

The gospel is not just the A-B-C's, but the A to Z of Christianity. The gospel is not just the minimum required doctrine necessary to enter the kingdom, but the way we make all progress in the kingdom. We are not just saved by the gospel and then changed by obedience, but the gospel is the way we grow (Gal. 3:1-3) and are renewed (Col. 1:6). It is the solution to each problem, the key to each closed door, the power through every barrier (Rom. 1:16-17).

This version of this quote found at: Kaleo Church - San Diego, CA

Is news about CAFTA and supplement regulation a hoax?

Al B. writes... I am writing in response to the [Downsizer-Dispatch] message sent on July 11 regarding an impending CAFTA vote and its effects on the price and availability of food supplements. I found the following rebuttal [at snopes.com]
I am wondering... if you care to take issue with the allegation that these concerns amount nothing more than chain-mail propagated urban legend.

I replied and said… Snopes is wrong, though why requires substantial explanation. Illustrating “how” exposes an insidious complexity designed to undermine regulatory efforts until we're far too late in the process. More on that in a minute.

Now, it turns out there WAS an error in yesterday's message. But the Snopes piece does not address that. The error? The CAFTA bill does not have a specific provision on supplements.

There is NOTHING directly in the language of either the House or Senate
bills pertaining to CAFTA that threatens dietary supplement consumers. What DOES threaten us is the language of the CAFTA Treaty itself.

In the interests of accuracy, this is an important distinction to make. Mea culpa. To be honest, despite numerous consultations with others, I didn't grasp that fact until AFTER someone pointed it out to me.

But it's still important to realize these bills contain implementing language that would give CAFTA the force of law inside the USA, but the bills don't contain the text of the Treaty itself and THAT is where the threat DOES lie. See Section 6, the SPS Section.

This section of the CAFTA Treaty would require the USA to form a Sanitary Phytosanitary (SPS) Measures Committee for the purpose of insuring that we entered into a constant process of harmonizing our laws under the terms of the SPS Agreement in the WTO.

Further, Article 3 of the WTO's SPS Agreement requires our country to harmonize our food safety laws (read DSHEA) to Codex standards. It states "To harmonize sanitary and phytosanitary measures on as wide a basis as possible, Members SHALL base their food safety measures on international standards, guidelines or recommendations." (Codex guidelines set the standards for food safety, including vitamins and minerals.)

The likely effects of CODEX are well-documented by the ever-rigorous Life Extension Foundation.

There is a disinformation campaign underway and the complexity of the CAFTA and Codex processes are the key to the success of this disinformation campaign. The Snopes piece inadvertently lends some of the evidence.

The bills Snopes cites that didn't come up to vote (in 2003) demonstrate that the FDA and the Major Pharma companies that control it, don't have the power to take our rights through domestic political means. They have motive, but insufficient means.

Thus, there are only three ways they can go:

1) To the Courts. This strategy has already failed them to a sufficient degree so that they are hardly pursuing it.
2) By scaring Americans. This one hasn't worked because too many people are now using supplements and swear by them.
3) Go to an International Body like the WTO. And I explained in yesterday's message (see July 11 entry on this blog, “How they’ll take our supplements”) how this process will work to take our supplements.

One final thing. It's hard to sufficiently alert someone about something when it's so darn complicated and the effects are so far off. I've come to learn several things about Big Government power and the political process over the years -- rules of thumb that consistently work (I wish I had an investment scheme that was so reliable).

One thing that is true is that big government fully exploits the powers it's given. Give them an inch, they take ten miles. They do things "no one" foresaw. I explained the most likely, but not the only, scenario by which CODEX would result in the loss of access to supplements. And by loss of access I mean not only outright loss, but also increased cost, lower potency, and greater regulation, such as a requirement for prescription-only access.

Snopes counters that you won't lose access to supplements in July 2005. They are right. But what they overlook is that this will happen very, very gradually and it won't be CONGRESS that does it. And we'll be reduced to putting out brush fire after brush fire, and lose battles along the way. The losses will mount and become bad precedents. And new a generation of public school children will be taught how the WTO protected us from "snake oil salesmen."

The time to act now. We need to throw the Codex and Cafta babies out with the bathwater because their Rosemary's Babies.

Therefore, those who've overstated the case are guilty of just one thing -- lacking the marketing and political experience necessary to accurately articulate in a way that motivates action what they know in their hearts to be true. This is indeed a flaw, but to my mind, a forgivable one.

To my knowledge, everything (aside from the ONE aforementioned misstatement I've made regarding supplement language in the authorizing bills), both at our website and on our email newsletter, is true, and if anything, understated.

**Signed**
P.S. I couldn't figure out where to include this comment, so I've made it a "P.S." The bias of the Snopes writer is obvious. Ms. "vitaminized" (as she signs the piece) decries the fact that these supplements are unregulated. She _wants_ a big government program and gives several (some panic-stricken, there's that attempt at fear again) reasons why such government "oversight" is necessary. Oh, where would we be if bureaucrats didn't protect us from ourselves?

How they’ll take our supplements

Regarding CODEX and Codex-enabling CAFTA... You won’t lose your supplements tomorrow. It could take years. But here’s how it will likely work:

Our government is a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO), and a signatory to CODEX. WTO is as binding as a treaty.

At some point some foreign nation, another member of the WTO, will likely file complaint citing unfair or illegal trade practices because American businesses are still selling a particular supplement that doesn’t meet the new “fair” regulations.

The WTO has the power to respond to such a complaint with sanctions. This will put a crimp in domestic companies' ability to trade overseas.

And Congress will respond to this situation by folding like a cheap suit. Congress always withers in the face of WTO because the Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Manufacturers, or the Fortune 500 companies won’t tolerate having their businesses damaged because of one or two supplements (greater good, and all that).

So the process will start with one or two supplements disappearing, to be replaced by alternatives that have lower potency and higher cost. These supplements may even become prescribed drugs. This process will begin with just a few supplements at first, but more will follow, and each time it happens it will become easier and easier.

You can join the fight to stop passage of CAFTA right now by visiting DownsizeDC.org and sending a message to your Representative
http://action.downsizedc.org/wyc.php?cid=32

If we work to elect candidates that support the Constitution we'll change things -- NO WE WON'T

Dan M. writes and offers a common solution to the problems with our government...

In your latest mailing [Downsizer-Dispatch] you included the following idea for stopping land seizure:

"We would like to lobby for an amendment to these
bills. Our amendment would add an enforcement clause
that would cut off federal funding to all states and
localities that seize property under Kelo."

First of all I think the idea of federal black mail to be as flawed as the current state of leviathan in Washington. It already blackmails states over things like road funding, education, etc. This is nothing more than a continuation of the same tactics. Why not just stop funding all unconstitutional spending? Don't try and replace one bad idea with another. The Feds should not be blackmailing the states period.

Your assumption that congress has the sense to recognize bad state behavior in property seizure and yet will not reign in the rogue Supreme Court that condones property seizure seems naive.

Why not just vote for good congressmen? Let’s replace them all with ones that will follow the constitution and God. Let’s vote for a good President like Michael Peroutka of the Constitution Party?

I responded...

Michael Peroutka seemed like a good guy. I would’ve been pleased to see him or the Libertarian candidate elected because both of them would’ve truly been committed to Downsizing DC.

Of course, that wasn’t practical. The game is rigged – ballot access laws, campaign finance laws, and major media coverage that looks more like ESPN than a serious discussion of the issues (no good examples come to mind to contrast with ESPN).

And Downsize DC has made a commitment to avoid rigged games. We’re starting a new game where the rules are fairer.

We're steadfastly avoiding partisanship and personalities, and sticking with principles. Once you get committed to a party or a person, you lose potential supporters who don't support that person. Eventually you become beholden to that person or their party because all of your supporters support them. Before long, you lose your objectivity -- even your principles. Then one day, you find yourself on Hardball shilling for something you oppose in your heart and would be railing against if the other team was doing it. You've become the big man in town, but you've lost your soul. I don't want to sell DownsizeDC.org's soul.

As for the Leviathan, obviously, we oppose it as well. The attorney's we've contracted to work on this matter both happen to be a little involved with the Constitution Party. In fact, one was the 1996 VP nominee for that party.

What our proposal would do is A) Strengthen the findings of fact in a current piece of legislation that would prohibit the federal government from acting on the power the Supreme Court has now (illegally) granted them, and B) Take ALL, that's ALL federal funding -- every department, agency, and pork-barrel project -- away from states that take advantage of the Kelo case ruling. That money shouldn't be going to the states.

There are only 20 things the Congress is permitted to do under the Constitution. Here's the list. [Oops, forgot to give credit where credit's due: This list is courtesy of Michael Mitchell of Alaska]

1) Borrow money.
2) Regulate commerce among states.
3) Regulate naturalization.
4) Regulate bankruptcies.
5) Coin money.
6) Fix weights and measures.
7) Punish counterfeiters.
8) Establish post offices.
9) Establish post roads.
10) Record patents.
11) Protect copyrights.
12) Create federal courts.
13) Punish pirates.
14) Declare war.
15) Raise an army.
16) Provide a navy.
17) Call up the militia.
18) Organize the militia.
19) Make laws for Washington, DC.
20) Make rules for the Army and Navy.

Sending money back to the states for any other purpose is unconstitutional. Unfortunately, the lawless band only recognizes their own rules (I like this use of a reflexsive pronoun). The Constitution isn't compelling to them. Would I prefer they abide by it? Yes. But they won't.

The real danger now is that the Congress will get into the game of "urban renewal," and that those state judges who stand firm and say, "Big Company X, you can't have that land through an eminent domain procedure," will simply go to Congress and "make a federal case out of it." And in order to stop such a thing from happening, you need a bill with teeth -- something that has a penalty for violating it.

Withdrawing a state's federal funding would serve to a) stop the unconstitutional flow of funds, and b) actually restrain what Congress is likely to perceive as a new federal power.

We know more than our Pastors – Tim Bednar

A blog I read regularly, Jollyblogger, posted a link to a report by Tim Bednar called, “We know more than our Pastors.” I haven’t yet had time to read the entire article, but you can here, if you have Adobe Acrobat.

But the list provided by Jollyblogger really touched me and set me to thinking. I want to quote Jollyblogger directly, which is what I’ll do for the rest of this entry:

When he says that "We Know More than Our Pastors," he doesn't mean that any single blogger knows more than any particular pastor. He means that bloggers networks extend beyond the reach of a single pastor. On page 39 he says:

In the process of blogging, we have discovered that our emerging network is smarter, more responsive and more creative that our churches, pastors and denominations. Michael Boyink interprets it this way rephrasing a point from Cluetrain Manifesto, “People in networked congregations have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another that from [their churches].”

Tim contends that bloggers have access to more information of all types than their pastors realize and that they are far more sophisticated than their pastors give them credit for. This knowledge goes beyond biblical and theological knowledge, although I think this would be included in the sense that bloggers can find out things they need to know online. On page 30 Tim mentions a lady who was able to bust her pastor for plagierism through the internet as an example of the expansive knowledge that bloggers have.

Bloggers are creating their own community and this means that they expect to participate in the creation of community in the church. Bloggers aren't looking to follow the pastor's vision, but are looking for the pastor to be a co-creator with them of life in the church.
Tim summarizes the partcipatory church in this way:

• The traditional church conceives of itself as an exclusive community and determines who is a “member” and who is not. It believes that it owns these definitions. This is no longer true. Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ. Those involved in the conversation define the terms, not the church.

• Conversations are all around us. Christianity is one of many.

• Christians get information for their conversation from multiple sources that include, but are not limited to Christianity. We no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition, church, pastor or denomination. We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional hierarchies.

• Every Christian is a creator. We no longer have to wait for church authorization to think or act or speak in the name of Christ.

• Christians belong to multiple congregations.

• Participation in the conversation is spiritual formation.

• Congregations are conversations. They have a human voice. Congregations are getting smarter and more informed as they talk to each other. Participation in this new kind of networked congregation fundamentally changes people.

• Churches are not congregations. They do not participate in the conversation of their congregation. In fact, churches spent most of their time, energy and money creating parallel conversations and get frustrated when no one participates in them. In this new reality, churches sound hollow, flat and literally inhuman to their congregations. They do not speak the same language because they do not have a human voice.

• Churches that think they do are kidding themselves and missing an opportunity.

• Congregations are more important than churches.

• Most churches and pastors assume they build congregations. This is not true. Rather they belong to congregations. In this new era, congregations (like conversations) are all around us—we are in search of churches (and pastors).

• Congregations credential pastors they trust and invite into their conversation. Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency. Pastors add value to congregations as they add connectedness.

• Successful pastors and churches of the future will enter into co-creative covenants that help congregations deal with complexity. They see themselves as benevolent keepers of Christian tradition who enable Christians, embrace emergence and foster learning. They do not see themselves as gatekeepers or arbiters of membership in the church.

• Pastors are not primarily preachers. Sermons are no longer teachings, but learning experiences. Goal of preaching is to learn not teach.

• Congregations are looking for pastors who serve them and offer the Sacraments. We are not looking for a vision.

• Church planters are people who are called to find and eventually pastor emerging congregations.

• The participatory church intimately connects with the real storytellers of Christianity, namely the congregation. Pastors and churches no longer tell the gospel story. All truth statements are co-created by congregations through the process of emergent conversations.

• These new participatory churches work on a gift economy. This means that Kingdom work is the reward not financial remuneration or power.

• Relational authenticity and longevity--not attendance--equals success in the participatory church. A church’s primary value to the congregation lies in its ability to connect Christians in conversation, service and sacrament. Connectedness equals healthy spiritual formation.

• Participatory churches provide more meaningful and memorable experiences because they participate with congregations. Even if Christians do not contribute to the conversation, they still expect a better experience because of the participation others.

• The participatory church is diverse in viewpoints and traditions. The new ministry of the pastor is to co-create systems that help congregations manage complexity.

• The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen.

• Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders. Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy, arbitrate membership or filter their conversation. Orthodoxy will emerge. Call it emergent orthodoxy.

• Orthodoxy is not determined by a single source, but is distributed throughout the congregation. Neil Cole, a leader in the organic church movement observes, “The best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in ‘the pulpits’, but better-trained people in ‘the pews’.”

• What I am trying to describe is a new kind of church created by believers

Wow. Whether you agree with Tim Bednar or not, this really should set your mind to thinking. Is your church really engaging the culture? Does the administration of your church understand how to minister to its people and its community in this post-modern blogging, cell phone, PDA, and I-pod era? Or is it fast becoming irrelevant?

Is the Conspiracy Real? Part II

Was God trying to get my attention?

Today, I read an article called, “Cui Bono Revisited” by Butler Shaffer. Cui Bono basically means, “Who benefits?” And of course the question was, in a very non-conspiratorial fashion I might add, “Who benefits from acts of terrorism?”

That’s easy. The State does; war is the health of it. Politicians get to be their constituent’s savior. Bureaucrats get new opportunities, promotions, as well as bigger staffs and budgets.

Butler was noticing the same thing I was noticing. Big government benefits so much and responds so quickly and predictably to expand their power, one might be tempted – very tempted – to think they planned the bad things that happen.

And as if that was not enough, I then had lunch with a donor to Downsize DC. We met for two hours. And what did we spend 90% of the time talking about? How our government craved, if not planned, the events of 9-11. (I’ll share my thoughts on this in an upcoming message).

Here were the points my lunch partner made…

• First, 9-11 is one of string of “staged” events used to provoke Americans into a desire for revenge. The Maine got us into the Spanish-American War. The Lusitania was bait for the Germans, and once they sunk it, Woodrow Wilson, who promised he would keep us out of war, had the excuse he needed to get us into World War I. Historians now believe FDR knew that the Japanese were going to attack, and Pearl Harbor was the provocation necessary to awaken the sleeping U.S. giant. The Gulf of Tonkin was used to provoke a large-scale increase in involvement in Vietnam.

• Second, using staged events and demonizing an opponent was a very old tactic. Nero had accused the Christians of burning Rome (historians believe he actually did it). Hitler blamed the Communists for burning the Reichstag and used that event to begin his reign of terror.

• Third, if a man campaigns for office saying he’s opposed to pornography – that he’ll regulate it out of existence once elected – and then once elected, he begins installing several pornographers in his cabinet, you’d be on solid ground to doubt his sincerity. And that’s exactly what George Bush did. He said that his administration would pursue a humble foreign policy. He mocked Al Gore during the debates saying he wouldn’t have a “nation-building corp.” But he chose the very men who co-signed an open letter to then President Clinton calling for regime change and nation-building in Iraq.

• That letter was issued by The Project for a New American Century (PNAC). Their Statement of Principles is signed by Cheney, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld, as well as by Eliot Abrams, Jeb Bush, Bush's special envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad, and many others. William Kristol, famed conservative writer for the Weekly Standard, is also a co-founder of the group. The Weekly Standard is owned by Ruppert Murdoch, who also owns international media giant Fox News. And just what did they say? In "Rebuilding America's Defenses," PNAC describes four "Core Missions" for the American military, one of which is for American forces to "fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous wars." And Iraq was their prime target. But they agreed that the American people would need some motivation in order to permit such an attack, and that might require a “New Pearl Harbor.” On 9-11, they got it.

• And for more information, he suggested I visit, www.StoptheLie.com.

As I left, he gave me an Alex Jones DVD that elaborated on other points he made during our lunch. He bought lunch and made a donation. Obviously, I promised to watch. Stay tuned.

Is the Conspiracy Real? Part I

Yesterday, terrorists struck the London subway and a double-decker bus, killing more than 35 {update, 52 as of Wednesday, July 13} and injuring dozens of others. We (at DownsizeDC.org) had a Downsizer-Dispatch email message, dealing with our response to the Kelo/eminent domain decision by the Supreme Court, planned for Tuesday. But we put if off till Wednesday for internal reasons. But as we looked at it for Wednesday, we decided it needed significant work, and so we decided to edit it and release it Thursday.

And the news Thursday morning was dominated by the attack in London. We decided once more, that a hurried re-write of the message was necessary. We couldn’t pretend like nothing happened and we had no idea what to expect in terms of how the public was going to respond to this. For example, would Kelo even matter now that this happened? …would folks still be angry about the Supreme Court's decision?

So we sent a message titled, “Panic and Insanity and Focus.” Most of the message was about Kelo. But here is what I said about the attacks of that morning:

DC Downsizers have asked for action on the Kelo decision and we've been preparing to provide that. I was going to write you about it this morning. Then I turned on the news and learned about the London terror bombings.

It makes me angry. Angry at the terrorists. Angry at what I fear may follow.

The terrorists may win again, just like they did after 9/11. Wait a minute: Did I say the terrorists won after 9/11? Well, I believe they did, because they gave our government an excuse to do violence against the rights and prosperity of the American people.

Nearly everything our government did in response to 9/11 was harmful and ineffective. Airport security is still insecure (shoes screened but cargo not), but travel by air has become a nightmare for millions and airlines are in financial distress. Federal spending and deficits have soared. Vast new bureaucracies have been created. National ID cards and other intrusions have been created, one after another.

And we are no safer than before, neither will we be, because so-called government solutions for anything are nearly always incompetent and destructive, because terrorists, kind of like evil entrepreneurs, will always be quicker and smarter than big governments.

What should government do about terrorism? It should discard all of the un-Constitutional functions it has assumed to itself, and focus on defending us by catching terrorists. Not by curtailing the rights of Americans, but by developing human intelligence and disrupting and capturing terror cells. I think it really is that simple. If the federal government did not do so much, it might be able to do a better job at its core function of national defense.

Do I expect this to happen? Not anytime soon, but I fear such reform will be longer delayed by the response to the latest terror attack. I fear Americans will forget things like the Kelo decision, and once again rush to give more power and money to Washington to use poorly, even destructively.

And we still need to Downsize DC! We must remain focused on that.

From there, the message went on to elaborate about both our Kelo-specific plans and the need to develop a long-term plan for the U.S. Supreme Court.

But what was interesting was the feedback. There was a large amount of it. And one common theme came in again, and again, and again – the belief that elements of our government or a shadow government were responsible for 9-11 and/or the London attacks.

This was interesting to me. I was surprised that so many people believed our government wasn’t just incompetent, but outright complicit. In a future message, I’ll share with you my response to these folks.

Troubles in Church, Part I -- the Solemn Assembly

“A friend of mine” has been checking out other churches this summer. He and his wife both really love the people at their church, miss their Sunday School class, and the children’s ministries are awesome. But some things have happened, since last October, which have really shaken the husband in particular. And so, they’ve spent some time looking at other churches. They’ve spent four Sundays in other churches so far this Summer.

People have asked, “Why are you leaving?” They’ve been hesitant to reply. But I can’t help writing about it, because, well, I’m not revealing their identity and I have his permission. You see, he wishes he would’ve known what he knows now, and if he had a forum to share his opinions, he would. Well, I’ve got that forum, so here goes.

One of the things that concerns him – makes him shy away from coming back and keeps he and his wife looking – is that there’s a generational division in their church. And what are they fighting over? Primarily, the type of worship service we’ll have. How common is this?

Well, as he tells it, it’s not really much of a fight. As already indicated, the children’s ministries are awesome, so they have a decent-size contingent of families with primary age children. The dominant class in the church is 60+ years old. Young singles, as well as folks in their 40s to mid-50s, have much smaller representation than they should.

Because the older generation makes up the largest part of the tithing base of the church, they’re getting their way. The services are much more “traditional” (if you’re not an evangelical, none of this will make sense to you). And that helps explain why the two aforementioned demographic groups are under-represented. And, it helps explain why the church is on a membership and morale decline.

He sincerely fears that the church is dying; though given its size, it will be a long death.

But this isn’t about traditional vs. whatever. There shouldn’t be a generation gap!

My friend elaborates, “Since the Fall of 2004, this church has gone through significant changes. We’ve lost our senior pastor and other members of our staff. We’re rudderless. I’ve heard from more than one member that it was God’s will – that He has something big planned – and that’s why the last nearly ten months have been so difficult.”

Well, I don't necessarily agree with the concept that, "God made these changes to Our Church." While His Will is intact, I don't believe God tempts. And I’m not omniscient, so it's possible this was what God had in mind, but it's also possible He's chastening the church. And in the end, it may be for the best -- particularly if this particular community of believers really does love Him. But there’s a real likelihood, in my opinion, that they're not in His will at the moment.

Trying times call for discretion – for Wisdom. Wisdom is personified in Scripture. Sophia, as Wisdom is called in the Old Testament, is that Spirit we now call the Holy Spirit. Wisdom is necessary. So too, is discretion and vision. The Holy Spirit stands ready to give these gifts to us, if only...

In a trying situation, such as this community of believers is going through, only a great deal of time in prayer, that includes fasting and repentance, will bring the Spirit of Wisdom necessary to solve the problems.

The Pilgrims and Puritans recognized trying times as signals that they needed to get right with God. Perhaps there was another cause for their problems, but they ALWAYS started there. My friend tells me that the interim pastor indicated that financial concerns required a delay in locating a new Pastor. But a new Pastor is not necessarily the remedy, and getting the financial house in order isn’t the first step needed either. A Solemn Assembly is needed here.

The Spirit of God speaks in a still quiet voice, and believers everywhere must stop being so busy that they cannot hear it. We live in a microwave, me-first era. Problems are created and solved in 23 minutes, with laughs to spare, in our modern fables (sitcoms). Sermons that run much longer than that draw the ire of congregants.

But if ever a particular sermon was needed for this hour, it can be found at this link. If your church is going through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, like my friend’s church is, perhaps you’ll be electrified and edified by Spirit as you read this very important teaching.

And as for the generation gap? Well, this problem could be solved by that same Holy Spirit, convicting hearts. As Rick Warren says in the Purpose Driven Life, “It’s not about me.” The younger generation must respect their elders. The older generation should answer the question, “Do I want this church to die with me, or am I willing to forgo my preferences to see this body reach the community for Jesus?” If both sides repented, miraculous solutions wouldn’t be far away.

Campaign restrictions are the answer? No, not really.

In my capacity as President of DownsizeDC.org, I get lots of letters about the need to “clean up the system.” I’m reminded of Michael Cloud’s aphorism, “The problem isn’t the abuse of power; it’s the power to abuse.”

Donald S. wrote me to say that he wondering if we can take the money out of political campaigns,

We really need to change the way our election system work. I think we need a system very similar to the British. The government funds the campaign so every one that runs has the same campaign funding. It should be illegal to except campaign contributions. They also limit the campaign time, which I don't think is quite as important as taking the money out of the picture. I feel this would be the biggest step ever in cleaning up the government. This would ultimately take the government out of the hands of big business and give it back to the people. I also believe this would help organizations like this get heard.

I responded,

We disagree. The rise of campaign finance restrictions has made it more difficult for challengers. When contributions are limited, the game becomes raising more of them. For incumbents, this is simple… Hold a cocktail party or dinner, the special interests line up, buy tables at a time, and the coffers are filled. But for challengers, it’s akin to filling a swimming pool with a teaspoon.

If a challenger can compel the incumbent to spend his coffers, he/she increases the odds of victory. The more the incumbent spends in a House race, the more likely he is to lose. Most challengers just don’t get the incumbent to spend enough money.

Essentially, what I’m saying is that the current system benefits corporate American, at the expense of other interests. They employ multiple thousands of people and can gather funds very quickly and efficiently for those already in power. There’s no comparable base for challengers to tap.

However, the lack of large funding block has also put an end to the real division and debate between the parties. Republicans and Democrats largely agree. Why? Because there’s no threat from ideological/principled candidates. Again, principled candidates just can’t attract sufficient funds to obtain the necessary media coverage and publicity. Without that, they lose.

Now, just imagine, what if a very rich or a couple of wealthy guys were to back a particular candidate? Could things could be different? We don’t have to imagine – it’s happened before. My example: Eugene McCarthy. He had a big backer who helped him in the New Hampshire primary. His stunning success caused a sitting president to cancel his re-election campaign.

For more information about where we stand and why we’ve chosen to stand there, please check out www.RealCampaignReform.org

Steve Willis, blog freak

I’ve turned my friend Steve Willis on to blogging. Steve works with me at Downsize DC and has ever since I became CEO of our team in 2001. At one point, Steve was the only other full-time employee with me. He and his wife Jennifer have been building an art business. I explained to him how he could use blogging to promote his business.

Well, he’s really gotten into this blog thing. He writes, “I am now a blog freak because of you and soon to have a fifth campaign trail blog showing all the good campaign [as in, Harry Browne campaign] pics.”

Steve does art for a chiropractor on her waiting-room bulletin board. It’s funny.

The glass art sites that started his craze (please buy Steve and Jen’s art, they do commission work).
http://willi-works.blogspot.com/
&
http://yourfavoritepetinglass.blogspot.com/

Steve was a Gulf War veteran. Pics are eerie and interesting.

Steve and Jen had a bunch of rats and decided to memorialize them. See, he is a freak – a blog freak.

And since he wrote to me about how I’ve turned him into a freak, the Harry Browne campaign photos blog he promised is up as well. At this link you can see a picture of me, at my desk, back when I was fat.

Three Hours Worth of Radio Last Weekend

First, The Harry Browne Show…

I found out later in the week that on July 2nd, I would guest-host The Harry Browne Show on Saturday night, once again. I didn’t have a lot of time to prepare, so I started with the Durbin “Hitler-stupidity,” and took a second run at Paul Harvey (like I did on June 26 on the Culture Repair Show). Then, I had Herb Titus and Ed Brayton on to discuss the Kelo (eminent domain) decision by the Supreme Court.

The interesting thing about these guys, one a conservative-Constitutionalist (Titus) and the other a libertarian (Brayton) is that they disagree about the proper application of the incorporation clause of the 14th Amendment. Titus, an advocate of federalism, didn’t see a federal role in this eminent domain case, but thought the Court decision was dangerous for other reasons. Brayton felt that the Court had a duty to protect private property.

I also asked them to tell me who their dream candidates were to replace Sandra Day O’Conner – a topic I elaborated on after they left the air.

On top of that, I discussed how Downsize DC would celebrate July 4th with the new DownsizeDC.com and the progress we’ve made on the Read the Bills Act.

Imitating Paul Harvey’s cadence was real good training for me. I’m even more conscious as a still new radio host of how to get and retain people’s attention. Harvey’s cadence is very exaggerated, but if you listen closely to most “successful” radio personalities, they have a cadence that wouldn’t work in normal conversation.

I had 2 callers and 1 email on the show. The time slot, Saturday, 10 till midnight Eastern, is brutal for me. I get a real adrenaline rush and it takes time to unwind after I get off air. The next day, I get up for church and I’m dragging – need a nap. But I am flattered that Harry & Pamela think so highly of me that they’ve asked me to fill in.

You can listen here to hour one and here to hour two.

Second, The Culture Repair Show

GOA Update was about a new, tough-on-crime, mandatory minimums bill that could turn a gun-owner using a weapon to defend his family could become a criminal gang. BTW, it was the ever-present James Senslessbrenner doing his thing again.

I elaborated about what how the Downsize DC Foundation, with its new website, DownsizeDC.com is going to celebrate July 4. (See the previous entry on my blog)

You can listen to the July 3 episode The Culture Repair Show here.

How Downsize DC will celebrate July 4

This was today’s Downsizer-Dispatch:

We have big news; a new tool for you. This is how Downsize DC will honor our nation's birthday...

Every July 4th Americans celebrate their independence. They hold parades, politicians march with veterans, and spectators wave the flag. But all these symbols seem to say that wars, politicians, and flags are what made America great. None of these things, however, are even unique to America. They are all too common, everywhere in the world.

What was unique about America's birth was the new nation's commitment to individual freedom. And America's greatness is proportionate to that freedom - even now.

Free people create great things. They have done so in the past, and they are doing so now. This is what the Downsize DC Foundation wants to celebrate on July 4th, and on every day thereafter.

That's why we're launching the new DownsizeDC.com on our nation's birthday. This new site will be the educational arm of the Downsize DC movement.

There will be two active Downsize DC websites. Downsize DC DOT ORG (DownsizeDC.org, Inc.) will continue to lobby to Downsize DC, while Downsize DC DOT COM (Downsize DC Foundation) will show people why DC _should_ be downsized... in the interest of Human Progress.

Because America's greatness is proportionate to America's freedom.

Our two Downsize DC websites will have different tones.

* Dot Org will often be negative, yelling "Stop" and
"Repeal" and "Cut" and "Shut down."
* Dot Com will largely be positive, celebrating the
great things free people do to make things better,
and the potential that greater freedom has to cause
even greater American greatness.

Many organizations lament the loss of freedom, as they should. And Downsize DC Dot Org joins in this lamentation, and fights against the trend. But the new Downsize DC Dot Com will celebrate and show what freedom is actually accomplishing, all around us.

There will be several running themes to what you will find on new Downsize DC Foundation website (DOT COM). Two of the most important will be "The Race," and "The More-with-less Revolution."

"The Race" is an unrecognized contest between the constructive power of freedom, and the destructive power of government. Freedom is producing miracles everyday, while government is wreaking havoc every day. Can freedom continue to create miracles and solve problems faster than government sows destruction? We will report on this titanic race between these two mighty and opposed forces - freedom and government.

But frankly, we're betting on freedom to win "The Race." And this is largely because of "The More-with-less Revolution."

Free people are finding new ways, everyday, to do more-and-more with less-and-less. This ever expanding increase in discovery, innovation, creation, and problem-solving is so-far vastly outstripping the harm done by government.

* Big Government takes more-and-more from us all the
time. But our quality-of-life improves anyway,
because freedom causes innovation that allows us
to do more-and-more with less-and-less, even
while our government pillages us.

* Big Government tries to control more-and-more
things all the time. But freedom constantly and
obstinately innovates to find new ways around
these new central-planning regulations, to render
them obsolete and pointless, and to actually solve
the problems the regulations were intended to
address (but almost never do).

Politicians fail but free people succeed. The State blunders, but sovereign individuals innovate. Big Government moves slowly, but Liberty moves fast. Bureaucracy is stagnant, but freedom evolves. Government does less-and-less with more-and-more, but the free-market does more-and-more with less-and-less. What our government destroys, our freedom fixes.

Or, as we’ve been prone to say, "Big Government hurts, while Liberty works."

We believe the miracles and progress caused by individual freedom will always remain slightly ahead of the destruction wrought by government. But a continued lead for freedom over government in "The Race" is not enough for us. We want to widen the gap. Because the greater the lead freedom has, the more Human Progress will result. We must... Downsize DC... in the interest of human progress.

At Downsize DC Dot Com you will learn about...

* The continuous and tremendous inventions and
innovations in health care and the environment
that will enable all of us to lead longer, younger,
and healthier lives.

* Wonderful solutions to the energy crisis that will
also reduce pollution.

* Innovations that will dramatically reduce
manufacturing costs, making even the most cutting
edge advances more accessible to everyone.

* Compassionate initiatives by churches, charities,
and civic groups that are going on each day, and
producing remarkable results.

* Private security solutions to deal with problems of
crime and terrorism.

And so much more.

Success for us is defined as bringing private solutions into the public mind in such a way that political "solutions" seem clunky, expensive, damaging, and far inferior by comparison - because we want freedom to win "The Race" by a mile.

Stay tuned, Monday's not far away!

Jim Babka & Perry Willis
President & Communications Director
Downsize DC Foundation

Patriot Act: How Liberty Dies & Action Item

Our June 21 Downsizer-Dispatch message is still making the rounds. I hear back about it every day. It had a real impact, thanks to the op-ed by John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute. We join the Dispatch message already in progress…

...I really like this piece because it hits all the most relevant points. And I'm sharing it with you to urge that you...

...Take Action!

Tell Congress what you think about the Patriot Act. The House took significant action last week stripping the "library provision," from the bill (the provision that gave government terrorism investigators the ability to obtain your library records and made it illegal for the librarian to tell you that such a request was made). But this bill has a long way to go before the final conference version that both houses of Congress will vote on. You can do so simply and quickly here:

**********

How Liberty Dies: The Patriot Reauthorization Act
by John W. Whitehead

Do our representatives understand how we feel? Or don't they care? The recent approval by the Senate Intelligence Committee to reauthorize and expand the Patriot Act's powers leaves one wondering if Congress listens to the American people anymore.

Equally worrisome is the fact that the critical discussions and decisions surrounding expansion of the Act are taking place in secret, behind closed doors. What do our government representatives have to hide?

Since the passage of the Patriot Act six weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, 378 local and county governments and seven state legislatures representing millions of Americans have passed resolutions or ordinances opposing aspects of the Patriot Act that they believe to be at odds with the United States Constitution. One City Council member from Arcata, Calif., described his town's ordinance as "a nonviolent preemptive attack" on the federal government's revision of the Bill of Rights.

Yet our government continues to ignore these concerns and push through its own agenda.

At a massive 342 pages, the Patriot Act violates at least six of the ten original amendments known as the Bill of Rights-the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Amendments-and possibly the Thirteenth and Fourteenth as well.

The Patriot Act was rushed through Congress, even though the majority of our representatives admitted to not reading it, reassured perhaps by the inclusion of a five-year sunset provision. But that sun does not seem to be setting on this chilling piece of legislation. Instead, the Senate Intelligence Committee is not only working to make the Patriot Act permanent, but also to expand its reach.

Among some of the widely cited concerns about the Patriot Act are that it redefines terrorism so broadly that many non-terrorist political activities such as protest marches or demonstrations and civil disobedience can be considered a terrorist act; grants the FBI the right to come to your place of employment, demand your personal records and question your supervisors and fellow employees, all without notifying you; allows the government access to your medical records, school records and practically every personal record about you; allows the government to secretly demand to see records of books or magazines you've checked out in any public library and Internet sites you've visited (at least 545 libraries received such demands in the first year following passage of the Patriot Act); and most egregious of all, it allows the FBI to enter your home through the use of a special warrant, search your personal effects and confiscate your personal property without informing you that they have done so.

Yet despite the many objections to these disturbing provisions within the Patriot Act, the Senate Intelligence Committee has wholeheartedly embraced the Patriot Reauthorization Act (PAREA), which takes government intrusion into the lives of average Americans to a whole new level.

For example, one "administrative authority" provision within PAREA, which would allow the FBI to write and approve its own search orders, represents a direct assault on the Fourth Amendment's prohibitions against unreasonable search and seizure.

Yet if Congress acts to approve what critics have termed "carte blanche for a fishing expedition," the FBI will be in a position to conduct warrantless searches on people without having to show any evidence that they may be involved in criminal activities. This provision would also lift one of the last restrictions on special warrants for the FBI-namely, that the information be related to international terrorism or foreign intelligence.

Yet while government officials insist that the FBI needs additional tools to fight terrorism, a recent report suggests that all the FBI really needs to do is its job. A Justice Department report reveals that the same FBI that wants to do an end-run around our Constitution passed up on at least five chances in the months before 9/11 to locate two terrorist hijackers as they prepared for attacks on our country. The oversights were attributed to communication breakdowns, lack of urgency and bureaucratic obstacles, among other things. "What we found were sufficient deficiencies in the way the FBI handled these issues," said Inspector General Glenn Fine. In other words, if the FBI and other intelligence agencies had simply done their jobs and followed up on leads, then there wouldn't have been a need for the Patriot Act-and there certainly wouldn't be a need for warrantless searches.

While it remains questionable whether the Patriot Act has really succeeded in protecting Americans against future acts of terrorism, these highly controversial additions to the Act will unquestionably succeed in gutting the Fourth Amendment. Of all the protections found in the Constitution, the Fourth Amendment stands as the final barrier between the privacy rights of Americans and the potential for government abuse of power. But if law enforcement officials can search your home and your records without having to go through a judge, then the concept of a man's home being his castle will become as antiquated as the Model T.

Despite the fact that an increasing number of Americans are voicing their concerns about intrusions on their privacy, President Bush continues to express his support for extending the Patriot Act. One day after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Bush declared, "We will not allow this enemy to win the war by changing our way of life or restricting our freedoms." Yet if Congress succeeds in continuing to pass legislation that is at odds with our Constitution, we will have handed a definitive victory to our enemies by allowing unchecked police power to triumph over individual rights and the rule of law in this country.

At that point, our government will be no better than the dictatorships we have for so long opposed on principled grounds.

In a Jan. 2003 interview with the Los Angeles Times, constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley remarked, "Since 9/11, the Constitution has gone from an objective to be satisfied to an obstacle to national defense... As these changes mount, at what point do we become something other than a free and democratic nation?"

Americans would do well to heed the warning behind Turley's words: with every piece of Patriot Act-type legislation that Congress passes, our basic constitutional protections are being undermined and we are, indeed, moving further away from being a free and democratic nation.

To quote a recent editorial, "Is this how liberty dies?" For the sake of this great nation, I hope not.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute and author of the award-winning "Grasping for the Wind."

**********

Pick any reason from the ones Mr. Rutherford has given you. Cut and paste if you want. And [go here to] send a BRIEF note to your Representative and Senator telling them to let the Patriot Act go off into the "sunset."

Joe Bannister, good news for him, but is it good news for the rest of us?

Joe Bannister is a former IRS Agent. He’s become a patriotic tax-protester (tax protesters hate being called protestors, but I don’t know what else to call them). I got more than a dozen emails about Bannister’s incredible victory in court.

One such message read,

I'm sure by now you've heard of this ruling from last week...but JUST IN CASE, I've sent it over. Talk about "DownsizingDC," when the "Income Tax" fraud is brought down, we are well on our way.

He Fought the Income Tax and WON!

I responded,

Unfortunately, I’m spread very, very thin and haven’t had time to analyze what happened to see if this really is a _real_ _usable_ precedent, or whether there wasn’t some technicality or prosecutorial incompetence that was primary reason Joe Bannister won (something that was unique to his case, not duplicatable).

But in the meantime, I don’t want to get swept up in the excitement. I think the powers-that-be would like nothing more than to find a way to bankrupt, crush, and destroy their opposition. This case could be cheese in a giant mouse-trap for liberty-loving activists.

Culture Repair Radio Show Archives for June

Now, I'm on a roll. Here are the June programs of the Culture Repair Show, sponsored by my good friends at Gun Owners of America.

June 6 – This show was devoted to hot action items… 1) Judicial Appointments: Pryor unqualified. Janice Rogers-Brown not only qualified but amazing. 2) Get out of the World Trade Organization (Paul-Sanders Bill) – one big reason why Codex Alimentarius (food directives) attempt to steal your right to high-potency, non-prescription supplements. 3) James Senslessbrenner’s Drug War Snitch Bill (why object, because after all, it’s for the children?). Learn more and Take Action here. Once again, the GOA Update was about the special Election to fill Rob Portman’s seat, where GOA had endorsed Tom Brinkman. That just about covers it, but there were some other items as well. Listen.

June 12 – I started with a discussion of how World Trade Organization “free trade” really works (Hint: There’s nothing free about it). Bruce Shortt, author of the Harsh Truth About Public Schools, rejoined me with an update on his resolution for the Southern Baptists. This resolution called upon Southern Baptists, the largest protestant denomination in the U.S., to research how their local government school was handling the issue of homosexuality and that once they had the findings to present them to their local church and have a discussion about whether or not their kids should remain in those schools. He (reluctantly) shared how Baptist Press was engaged in a campaign to silence media coverage of the resolution, and how the President of the Convention opposed the resolution as well. I also defended the Read the Bill Act from a critic who said it was silly, but who had an even sillier idea. I have my own quote, voiced for the first time in this episode, “‘All or nothing’ in reality has become, ‘all nothing.’ We need evolution not revolution.” For the final time, the GOA Update was about the special Election to fill Rob Portman’s seat, where GOA had endorsed Tom Brinkman because the primary was a couple of days later. Listen.

June 19 – This was a banner show. First, I got my second caller in show history and as you’ll see in coming weeks, a trend of people actually listening seems to be occurring. Second, my network finally got my new ads in place. Through the show we talked about favorite media quotes, because the American Film Institute was going to be hosting a Top 100 TV show of famous quotes that week. I shared my favorite quote, but you’ll have to listen to find out what it is. Libertarian persuasion expert Michael Cloud joined me to talk about his new group, co-owned by Carla Howell, The Center for Small Government. Michael had joined me the night before as well when I guest hosted The Harry Browne Show for first time. Our primary focus was why small government was the right way to sell the message of liberty. The GOA Update came in two parts a) Tom Brinkman came in third place, sigh, and b) Larry Pratt on why Janice Rogers-Brown would be great choice for Supreme Court Justice (and I agree). Listen.

Jun 26 – Another banner show. Two callers one of whom is a famous radio talk show host (boy, this was a surprising thrill)! Ed Brayton joined me again to talk about the Supreme Court’s Kelo (eminent domain) decision. Also discussed Richard Durbin’s stupid comments (not stupid for the reasons GOP says they are). But where’s the outrage when Paul Harvey advocates nuclear bombing of the Middle East and apologizes for the ugliest parts of Manifest Destiny? This was some of my best radio work to date. I cannot imitate Paul Harvey’s voice, but I think I’ve got his cadence and some of his unique pronunciations down pat. Also there was a GOA Update about the Patriot Act Re-authorization and how this will negatively effect gun sellers and buyers. Listen.

Jessica Babka: Making Dad Proud

My nine-year-old daughter, Jessica, participated in Bible Quizzing, red level (grades 1-3). The topic for this year was I & II Samuel. Jessica was the best in her district, and we now know one of the best in the world!

At the local competition, a perfect score.
At the district competition, another perfect score.
At the regional competition, yet another perfect score!


Jessica receives award from Pastor Dan Hanson at Local Quiz

Well, on Saturday, we went to the Church of the Nazarene General Assembly for an international competition that included more than 700 children. And, once again, Jessica got a perfect score.

Her trophy shelf is something to behold. But the real value, as far as her mother and I are concerned, is the hiding of God’s Word in her heart.
…and, I get to crow a little.

Culture Repair Radio Show Archives for May

OK, I should’ve been posting links to my show. There have been some great programs, and not so great. I’m still learning. Here are the remaining May shows.

May 8 – Jenna Bush “Da Butt Dance” reprise, Emergency Appropriations Bill w/ Real ID Act, “Madison Moment” – George Bush the biggest spender in history?, Is a Sunset Commission coming for all government programs?, Why the U.S. Global Empire is bad for US, and more! Listen.

May 15 – Herb Titus and Ed Brayton Debate on the Incorporation of the 14th Amendment and explain which approach favors small government and individual liberty more. I was intimidated by interviewing on this topic. Despite hours of study and phone calls with people smarter than me, I still didn’t feel competent to mediate this discussion between two very smart guys. It turns out, I lead off with the wrong set of questions, and never exposed the difference. Ed Brayton, commenting on this later, exposed the fact that I was not a competent interviewer on this topic. While he was right, I prefer to blame the fact that we didn’t have another hour to discuss the minutiae required. Listen.

May 22 – Harry Browne fills in for me, teases me about my bumper music and explains the sordid foreign policy history of the United States – the perpetual war for perpetual peace: Oh, and I make a special appearance! Listen.

May 29 – Perry Willis, Marketing Director for Downsize DC, joins me so that we can talk about the Downsize DC Foundation and DownsizeDC.org. Topics included are the various campaigns on DownsizeDC.org, “the Race” between government regulation and private progress, why Downsize DC is the most exciting thing happening in the freedom movement, and how DownsizeDC.org is the first plan in history to turn Milton Friedman’s rule about concentrated benefits and diffuse costs of big government programs right on its head. The GOA Update was about the special Election to fill Rob Portman’s seat, where GOA had endorsed Tom Brinkman. Listen.

Happy Listening!

Radio Show

Yesterday, I had Bruce Shortt as my guest for basically the entire show. He’s the author of the book, “The Harsh Truth About Public Schools.” It’s a fantastic book. No, it doesn’t have the excitement of a novel, but it does a great job of laying out documented fact, after documented fact, after documented fact – exactly the kind of thing you’d expect from a lawyer.

You can download a copy of the show here.

BTW, last week’s show had me “going solo” (no guests) and I think I “killed.” For a rookie-amateur, I’m pleased because I managed to put on a show that seemed to be pretty entertaining. The Dubya lecture to Jenna I had to record and set it up as a recording because when a) my GWB impression is very rough – he’s much more difficult for me to mimic than Reagan, his father, or Clinton, and b) I couldn’t get through a rehearsal of the script without cracking up.

You can download a copy of that show here.

Don't forget to tune in Sundays at 5 PM Eastern, 4 PM Central time. High quality streaming is available on my network's website with a subscription, or lower quality live-streaming is available for free by clicking on channels 1 or 2. You can call in and get on the show as well @ 1-800-259-9231.

RedState.org Spread's the Good Word

RedState.org has been a leader in the fight to stop expose the Federal Election Commission’s true intention to regulate the Internet. After Commissioner Brad Smith blew the initial whistle exposing the potential danger, much of the Internet was lulled to sleep by Trevor Potter, Commissioner Ellen Weintraub, and the usual campaign finance suspects, Senators John McCain and Russell Feingold, along with Representatives Christopher Shays and Martin Meehan.

They said Smith was an alarmist, and that they had no designs on the Net. Besides, a judge was requiring them to come up with some kind of regulation, but we shouldn’t expect it to be bad.

RedState founder Mike Krempasky, who was a guest on my radio show last Sunday, didn’t buy it. And, for his tenacity, he was rewarded by becoming the recipient of a leak of an earlier draft of the regulations. It proved the aforementioned gang were liars -- the draft regs were simply draconian.

Well, now, RedState.org is leading the blogging community in the charge to pass the one-sentence long (mistitled), “the Online Freedom of Speech Act” (it should be the Online Freedom of Press Act, but I quibble). And they have helped the cause by pointing to my DownsizeDC.org campaign to lobby Congress for the Online Free Speech (Press) Act. As of 1:15 PM Eastern time this good Friday morning, about 2,650 letters have been sent to Congress via DownsizeDC.org.

Thanks Mike and RedState.org. (Mike's article was plugged on the mammoth Glenn Reynold's Instapundit blog).

Flight of the Phoenix

Sue and I watched “Flight of the Phoenix” last night. The film stars Dennis Quaid and Giovanni Ribisi. There are no memorable performances – even with a character with as much potential to shine as Ribisi’s “Elliot.” This movie is a remake of a 1965 version of the film.

I’ve never seen the ’65 version, but I’d be willing to wager that the special effects of the 2004 version were much better, but the acting probably wasn’t. The ’65 version included: Jimmy Stewart, Richard Attenborough, Ernest Borgnine, and George Kennedy.

Overall, the film deserves about a 6 on a scale of 10. It keeps your attention and is entertaining, but it not even close to believable. It is also quite predictable to the point of being trite.

Least favorite moment in the movie (for me)… when Rady responds to a surprised Sammi who says, “I thought you weren’t religious,” to which Rady replies “Religion divides; spirituality unites.” How very post-modern and chic.

My March 22 Posting

I owe you an apology. My March 22 posting (UPDATE: which has since been removed from this blog, but was about a neurologist who allegedly examined Teri Schiavo and said he could cure her if given the chance) should never have seen the light of day. I was duped. I'm sorry.

It’s disgusting. I’m really tired of the guys who are representing allegedly “Christian positions,” such as pro-life spokesmen, lying. (This blog item is too long, so a comprehensive list of liars will not be published today; stay tuned for future installments.)

In fact, it’s getting to the point that you can tell which guys belong to the Christian Right by how much they prevaricate. I want a different name for my faith in Jesus Christ than “Christian,” because “conservative Christians” like Pat Robertson just can’t seem to help themselves. They must stretch the truth or deceive. They must insist on double-standards.

You can simply scroll down and read my March 22 posting. But here’s the interesting point – the neurologist (Dr. William Hammesfahr) is lying about his credentials. And as of this writing, despite exposure, he’s still doing it at his website! But he was NOT nominated for a Nobel Prize.

What’s the significance of this? Virtually everyone working to get Terri’s feeding tube re-inserted was relying on this doctor as their “expert witness” in the court of public opinion. “After all,” they’d say, “a Nobel-prize nominated neurologist who examined Terri says he has revolutionary therapies that could help her lead a nearly normal life.”

If someone lies on their resume, they frequently lose their jobs. You can ask Sandra Baldwin or Ronnie Few what that’s like. Everything a "resume-padder" does from that point forward is called into question; and rightly so.

But even more amazing, Pat Robertson elevated Hammesfahr to Nobel Prize WINNING status. He did it on the 700 Club the night Terri Schiavo died and also on FoxNews.

I caught the opening segment of the 700 Club the night he did it. He was pretty wound up. Perhaps it was a slip of the tongue? But then he did it again on Fox.

So did he intend to lie? Apparently fabrication (I don’t want to say “lying,” because he might sue me like he did former Congressman Pete McCloskey, this being such a popular blog and all) isn’t new for Robertson.

“By their fruits…”

Debut Performance Goes Smoothly

Wow, that was both easier and harder than I thought. The hardest part of hosting a show is just how fast it goes. The clock winds down fast. Try limiting an intense, interesting phone conversation to 9:30 (my longest segment) and you'll get an idea of what I’m talking about.

My greatest sadness is that my first episode wasn’t recorded. But starting next week, they’ll be archived.

My guests were Larry Klayman, the founder and former General Counsel for Judicial Watch and Ed Brayton, blogger and debate coach who hosts a popular blog “Dispatches from the Culture War.” Our topic was the Terri Schiavo case – specifically its long-term implications.

Brayton, who argued that the outcome of Terri’s case was correct, was well-prepared and forensically strong. I think Mr. Klayman, who was primarily upset with Jeb Bush’s failure to intervene and rescue Terri, is used to shorter interviews because after his four or five-bullet point initial statement he crumbled into almost entirely ad hominem arguments. He called one set of judges morons, his opposing guest an idiot (but then quickly corrected himself, and said he meant to say his ideas were idiocy), and so on. The most interesting moment in the show is when the conservative Republican lawyer said, “I don’t care what Justice Scalia thinks, he’s an intellectual lightweight… one of my least favorite Justices.”

Most of the show focused on the role of the Courts. Klayman tried to dodge a question about state sovereignty and federalism, but ultimately conceded that he has little regard for such things when he insisted on the justification that, “Congress does stuff all the time.”

Brayton handled my two toughest questions for him, but I wasn’t finished with him. There were several things I wanted to ask. He was so confident and forceful he managed to keep Klayman on the defensive the whole time, and I didn’t have enough time to ask him the remaining questions I have.

I still believe starving Terri was nothing short of barbaric. And I would’ve loved to ask Ed if Michael Schiavo’s attorney is mentally ill? After all, he looked at Terri and said she was “peaceful” (a potential statement of fact) and “beautiful.”

Beautiful? Someone is starving, their eyes are dark and sunken, their lips are bleeding, and their skin is flaking from dehydration, and you say they look “beautiful?” Sounds to me like Felos is disgustingly infatuated with death.

Alas, we ran out of time.

You can read Ed Brayton’s opinion of how he thought the show went here. If Larry Klayman ever writes about it, and I find out, I’ll link to that as well. But I’m guessing Larry would prefer to forget.

Jim Babka ON THE AIR

My radio show starts today. And it will be heard each Sunday at 5 PM Eastern (4 PM Central) for at least the next six months on the Genesis Communications Network (www.gcnLive.com – choose channel #1 or #2 to listen for free, and for higher quality streaming, consider the inexpensive subscription plan). I’m on the air on three stations in Kansas City, Knoxville, and Keyser, WV.

Killing Terri

I've tried to avoid commenting on it, but Friday's news that Terri Schiavo's feeding tube was being pulled, coupled with the depravity of a bioethics expert for MSNBC, pushed me over the edge.

The column is titled, "Killing Terri" and it is published today at FreeMarketNews.com. Here is the actual link: http://www.freemarketnews.com/pview/77/1178/html/index.php

You just might be shocked by what I have to say in this column -- it's unlike any other I've written for publication.

What I didn't say in that article (the kind of things you'd expect me to talk about)... I do believe State law should've protected Terri. I do believe her husband should've accepted the various offers of assistance which have been made to him. However, I do believe that federal government involvement and a federal law on this question are un-Constitutional. In fact, I'll go one step further and say that more than likely a "Terri's Law" would cause brand new problems that would eventually hurt many families.

After all, that's the only thing the federal government seems to be good at these days -- harm.

Ten Commandments Goes to Court

Today, two cases are being heard by the U.S. Supreme Court regarding the public posting of the Ten Commandments. And a column, by yours truly, titled, “Making Lemonade or Eating Bitter Fruit” was published at FreeMarketNews.com.

The principles addressed in this commentary include honesty, judicial restraint, and true federalism.

My op-ed points out that...
• Most Christian groups arguing their case and fighting the ACLU are guilty of “false swearing,” conceding the Lemon Test.
• One amicus brief is an exception -- telling the Justices they must abide by their oaths and reject both the Lemon Test and the temptation to grab more power in this matter. Wait until you see what they said!
• Christian groups shouldn't concede Constitutional principle for short-term gain or lie just to win their case.

You can discover a very simple definition of the Lemon Test, as well as learn why I suggested Christian groups are being less than honest in how they are arguing this case by reading the entire article.

Is George Bush more fiscally conservative than Democrats?

No, he's not. And Harry Browne, in his journal (located at his website, February 17th entry) demonstrates...

"The "small government' President: When George Bush ran for President in 2000, and again in 2004, he tried to make us believe in each case that his Democratic opponent was a big-spending liberal and that he — George Bush — was a proponent of small, limited government.

"He just submitted his 5th budget to Congress. Those five budgets have increased the size of the federal government by 38%. But after 8 years in the Presidency, Bill Clinton had increased the size of government by only 32%. "Small government" George is way, way ahead of "big government" Bill.

"You can't blame the recent increases on Congress, because George Bush still hasn't vetoed a single bill in over 4 years in office.

"Yes, Albert Gore and John Kerry are certainly liberals. But what is George Bush?"

Indeed, and why does he keep getting the support of people who are scared Democrats will expand the size of government?

I Have a Dream… About the American Presidency

In his essay, “An American Classical Liberalism,” Lew Rockwell shares his dream of an America in which,

“I don’t know or care who the president of the United States is. More importantly, I don’t need to know or care…

“In my daydream, the president is mostly a figurehead and a symbol, almost invisible to myself and my community. He has no public wealth at his disposal. He administers no regulatory departments. He cannot tax us, send our children into foreign wars, pass out welfare to the rich or the poor, appoint judges to take away our rights of self-government, control a central bank that inflates the money supply, and bring on the business cycle, or change the laws willy-nilly according to the social interests he likes or seeks to punish.

“His job is simply to oversee a tiny government with virtually no power except to arbitrate disputes among the states, which are the primary governmental units.”

As Thomas E. Woods notes about this dream, “Far from the uniformed daydreams of misanthropes and malcontents, [Rockwell’s dream] is precisely what the Constitution prescribes.”

I’m with Rockwell and Woods. This is a beautiful dream.

Security: How Politicians Play Us

Ken Obenski of San Diego, in a Letter to the Editor published in LP News (Feb. ’02), that is too good not to share – especially the Mencken quote.

The great American cynic H.L. Mencken once said, “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the public alarmed and hence clamorous to be led to safety by threatening it with an endless series of boogiemen, all of them imaginary.”

Osama bin Laden gave our politicians the ultimate boogeyman: terrorist. Terrorists are behind every tree – until you actually look there – and then they are somewhere else.

Potemkin, the Russian general who build fake villages to impress Czarina Catherine the Great, gave all politicians the ultimate tactic. To use the public’s money to put on a great show of accomplishment is far more politically useful than actually accomplishing something. After all, a problem, actually solved, has lots its boogieman potential.

Government has the perfect answer to terrorists – Potemkin-like security:

* Conspicuous TSA airport inspectors impede our travel but miss two-thirds of the contraband when tested.
* Conspicuous immigration service suspected several of the 9/11 hi-jackers but let them into the country anyway.

Ken, take it from someone who just recently passed through your local airport... you deserve a big Babka Blog “Amen.”

The Republican's Dangerous Gun, eh no, Identity Grab

For years Republicans have been telling us, “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.” But yesterday, during the debate on HR 418 (The Real ID Act), Deputy Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-MO) said IDs and driver’s licenses are “weapons of mass destruction.” I’m not making this up. I witnessed it live on C-SPAN.

It’s exactly the same issue.

Some own shotguns to hunt. Others own a revolver for personal safety. A precious few own a rifle to protect us from dangerous governments – foreign and domestic.

When you consider all of the things you need an ID for... from driving, to renting a car or a room for the night, to getting a job, for buying alcohol, tobacco, and even firearms, etc. and then how a simple bureaucratic mistake can effectively turn you into a non-person, you have to conclude that Republicans wanting to toy with National IDs are at least as dangerous as Democrats wanting to restrict our gun rights.

Perhaps they don’t need to pry our guns from our cold dead hands, they can steal our identities and take away our rights by denying us the required status necessary to be a full-fledged member of society. When you consider what else Republicans want to do with this ID (and will do, because government always expands its power), you have to conclude they are even more dangerous than Democrats.

And if you are a gun rights advocate -- an NRA member -- that supported HR 418, you're your own worst nightmare.

One Week Ago Tonight...

Last Wednesday was Groundhog Day --and-- the State of the Union Address. As Air America Radio pointed out, it is an ironic juxtaposition. "One involves a meaningless ritual in which we look to a creature of little intelligence for prognostication, and the other involves a groundhog."

Worshipping Molech

Today, I have an op-ed published at www.FreeMarketNews.com in their “Editorials & Market Analysis” section (no direct link available at this time) called Worshipping Molech – A Partial Review of the State of the Union. Here’s an excerpt…

Molech was a pagan god in the Old Testament. Why do I bring up the Old Testament?

Because there is an odd paradox going on right in front of us: All-too-many of the folks who cheered the very brief pro-life/anti-cloning portion of Bush’s State of the Union and who claim that the O.T. is part of their scripture – their guide to life – are celebrating the sacrifice of young men and women for the god of Security.

They might as well be worshipping Molech.

Worship of Molech required people to throw one of their living children into a fire. The O.T. tells us this sacrifice was strongly condemned, for obvious reasons, by God.

But the people worshipping Molech undoubtedly believed they were serving their community. Things like the prosperity of the harvest and protection from invaders may have been deep motivators as they attempted to please their blood-thirsty god.

Apparently, the same idolatry exists today. Here is George W. Bush, from the most memorable part of his speech last night…

One name we honor is Marine Corps Sergeant Byron Norwood of Pflugerville, Texas, who was killed during the assault on Fallujah. His mom, Janet, sent me a letter and told me how much Byron loved being a Marine, and how proud he was to be on the front line against terror. Ladies and gentlemen, with grateful hearts, we honor freedom's defenders, and our military families, represented here this evening by Sergeant Norwood's mom and dad, Janet and Bill Norwood.

The presence of this couple garnered the longest ovation of the night. I ached for the couple as I watched Janet Norwood clutch her husband as hard as she could. In fact, I choked-up. I felt so sorry for these people.

I believe the only lasting memory we’ll have of this speech will have nothing to do with Social Security. We will remember that somber couple in tears, standing without their son and hardly able to stand at that.

You can call me an iconoclast, for if that means turning my back on idolatry, then I wear the label proudly.

I maintain that this was cruel and heartless. This was not a grand gesture. While the Norwood’s are sincerely attempting to find meaning in the loss of their son, the Bush administration was using them as a prop. This is the cold calculus of politics.

Not a Super Game

In the post-game hype, much will be made of the close score in last night's Super Bowl -- including the fact that this was the first-ever Super Bowl to have a tied score going into the fourth quarter. To read about it, you might be led to believe this was a great game.

But the contest never had a rhythm to it. And the Patriots offense took more than a quarter to get their motors running and even at that point they still weren't impressive -- and yet they were still in it.

The performance of Eagles QB Donovan McNabb was symptomatic of a team that was pressing too hard because they had to. When the real Patriots offense finally showed up in the second half, joining their stellar defense, we saw why they were the best team in football.

We also saw that all the desperate push the Eagles of the lowly NFC could muster just wasn’t going to be enough. If the Patriots entire team had shown up from the opening play, the game would’ve been a blowout. And the performance of the NFC Champions indicates to me that the either the Colts or the Steelers would’ve beat them if they had been there.

Despite the close score, this wasn’t a classic like, my personal favorite, XXXIV (where the Rams defeated the Titans by mere inches), or last year’s XXXVIII (Patriots v. Panthers, where a combined 37 points in the final quarter was topped off by a field goal in the last 4 seconds), or X (where Pittsburgh held on to defeat Dallas by intercepting a “Hail Mary” pass by Roger Staubach on the final play of the game).

Groundhog Day

Today was Groundhog Day.

It was also the day of the President’s State of the Union speech.

The speech sounded a lot like the one he gave in 2003 when he lied about WMDs in Iraq. Did he merely substitute Iran or is this Groundhog Day?

A column by yours truly on the State of the Union (hopefully the first of a series) will be published Monday at FreeMarketNews.com. Stay tuned.

Another Example of Religious Discrimination at the Hands of the Secular Left

Samuel Gregg, writing for the Washington Times, shows us the future of Christians in a completely secularized society in a column titled, The Secular Inquisition. The formation of the European Union Commission and the European Parliament accepted Laszlo Kovacs, but rejected Rocco Buttiglione.

Kovacs is a Hungarian with strong ties to the old, repressive Communist regime. The media calls him a “socialist” – not considered a pejorative term in Europe. He was subjected to mild review and overwhelmingly confirmed to be the Taxation and Customs Commissioner.

Buttiglione is mild-mannered philosophy professor who is more of a “classical liberal.” Yet he was the focus of a “tempest” as an intolerant zealot.

Buttiglione has no ties to a repressive regime, so what was so dangerous about him? He is pro-family and believes homosexuality is wrong – horrors. His opponents selectively quoted from his writings and caricatured him as a homophobe who believes a woman’s place is in the home with her children (ironically, his wife is a successful working professional).

Buttiglione became the victim of a secularist fundamentalism. He was “Borked.”

The next time someone says to you, “Christians are the majority in this country. What do you have to be afraid of?” – show them this column.

Planned Parenthood loses clinics, private support

Snipped from “the Ryan Report” of STOPP International 12/04

"Increases in abortions, more money from taxpayers' pockets and bigger profit margins - all while clinics are closing down and donations are dwindling. That is the state of Planned Parenthood," said Jim Sedlak, executive director of American Life League's STOPP International, in response to the release of Planned Parenthood Federation of America's 2003-2004 Annual Report.

STOPP International, which has monitored Planned Parenthood's operations for 20 years, provided its analysis of the latest report and put it in historical perspective. Sedlak pointed out facts and trends in the last year:

* Planned Parenthood increased the number of abortions at its own facilities by 6.1 percent to 244,628, bringing the total number of babies killed at Planned Parenthood facilities since 1970 to 3.5 million.

* Planned Parenthood took in an estimated $104 million from its surgical abortion business - the first time this number has surpassed $100 million - accounting for more than one-third of the organization's $302.6 million clinic income.

* Abortions accounted for 34 percent of the organization's overall clinic income and 65 percent of its increased clinic income over last year's total.

* Planned Parenthood aborted 138 children for every adoption referral to an outside agency. During Gloria Feldt's first full year as president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America (1997), the group's abortion/adoption ratio was 18:1. Throughout her tenure, abortion numbers have consistently increased and adoption referrals have regularly decreased, resulting in the dismal 138:1 statistic.

* The number of clinics operated by Planned Parenthood continued to decline, from 866 clinics to 849 clinics in the last year. Since Planned Parenthood's heyday in 1995 when the organization operated 938 offices, the organization now has shut down a net 89 of its clinics, suggesting that the public is increasingly steering away from Planned Parenthood offices.

* Private financial support of Planned Parenthood continued to erode as contributions and bequests dropped 17 percent to $191 million, and the income of its national headquarters dropped by 19.8 percent.

* By increasing abortion numbers, raising clinic prices, and persuading politicians to give it a record $265.2 million in taxpayer funding, Planned Parenthood was able to post its 18th straight year of record total income ($810 million), and ended the year with a stockpile of $725.3 million in assets.

Sedlak added, "This report shows the public is increasingly rejecting Planned Parenthood's radical agenda, but apparently our elected officials haven't gotten the message. Now is the time for Americans to expand the growing efforts to close Planned Parenthood clinics and to put pressure on politicians to stop the obscene amount of taxpayer money that is being funneled to the nation's largest abortion chain."

The month of January is lost

To readers of my blog, once again, “I’m sorry.” My work life, combined with a wonderful, first-ever, real family vacation, have kept me from blogging.

If you’re thinking about starting a blog, my advice is don’t. If you do, keep in mind that it’s not as easy as it looks. Making the time to write something every day, for which you’re not going to get paid, requires tremendous discipline and the forgoing of something else you might need to do with your family or your occupation.

Anyway, I’m back in the saddle.

They Are Coming For the Christians

Hate crime laws. They’re in effect in Canada and as Doug Newman points out, they’re in effect in Australia and Philadelphia. The result: Christians facing prison terms.

In Philadelphia? The cradle of Liberty?

What’s worse? Pastors in their pulpits and the members of the Evangelical Magesterium are quiet. As Doug Newman illustrates, they’re more concerned about symbolic things like manger scenes at Christmas. But Christian activists facing trial for displaying Scripture? They don’t have much to say (or do) about that.

This isn’t made up. It’s not hyperbole. I strongly encourage you to read Doug Newman’s piece and share it with friends. http://www.geocities.com/fountoftruth/coming.html

Want A Revival?

Many folks think a hunger for soul-winning is the key to sparking a revival. Others think that electing the right politicians will renew America spiritually. Not so, says theologian Gordon H. Clark. We live in an age where Christians are proud to be “practical” and “relevant,” and by that they really mean they avoid things like theology and intellectual challenges – "too abstract and difficult," they say. This paragraph by Clark really grabbed me.

There have been times in the history of God’s people, for example, in the days of Jeremiah, when refreshing grace and widespread revival were not to be expected: The time was one of chastisement. If this twentieth century is of a similar nature, individual Christians here and there can find comfort and strength in a study of God’s Word. But if God has decreed happier days for us, and if we may expect a world – shaking and genuine spiritual awakening, then it is that author’s belief that a zeal for souls, however necessary, is not the sufficient condition. Have there not been devout saints in every age, numerous enough to carry on a revival? Twelve such persons are plenty. What distinguishes the arid ages from the period of the Reformation, when nations were moved as they had not been since Paul preached in Ephesus, Corinth, and Rome, is the latter’s fullness of knowledge of God’s Word. To echo an early Reformation thought, when the ploughman and the garage attendant know the Bible as well as the theologian does, and know it better than some contemporary theologians, than the desired awakening shall have already occurred.

The War Of and On Islamic Terror

A JimBabka.com EXCLUSIVE: This article was written two days after the terrorist attack on a U.S. Army mess tent near Mosul by Herbert W. Titus, J.D. It’s available nowhere else but here!

The U.S. military was re-examining security measures at bases across Iraq on Thursday, a day after saying an attack that killed 22 people at a camp near Mosul was likely carried out by a homicide bomber who may have had inside information. (Associated Press: 12/23/04)

• They [the enemy] shall not thrust another; they shall walk every one in his path: and when they fall upon the sword, they shall not be wounded. Joel 2:8 (KJV)

• They [the enemy] do not jostle each other in the way, each goes his own path; they plunge through the defenses, they are not stopped. Joel 2:8 (Modern Language)

• They [the enemy] do not jostle one another, each marches in his path; they burst through the weapons and are not halted. Joel 2:8 (RSV)

Since 9/11 the American people have learned that the war of Islamic terror is not like any other war that this nation has faced. The enemy is everywhere, more numerous and stronger than first believed, fearless, individually-motivated, yet unified and seemingly unstoppable, notwithstanding their having suffered great losses of life, liberty and property.

With every attack of the Islamic terrorists upon our troops in Iraq, we have unleashed a ferocious counterattack, only to face yet another vicious assault. With every threatened attack upon our homeland, we have endured yet another self-inflicted restriction of our precious liberties in the name of the need for heightened security.

In short, the enemy is winning the war of terror, and we are losing the war against it. Why? Certainly it is not because we lack the superior firepower sufficient to overwhelm the enemy. Nor have we faltered in our will to use that weaponry to accomplish our goals.

No, we are losing the war on Islamic terror, because we have failed both to understand the spiritual strength of the enemy and our own spiritual weakness. Unless we come to grips with this spiritual reality, we will lose this terrible war.

We Americans have long laid claim to a spiritual superiority over other nations of the world. Indeed, since World War I we have congratulated ourselves for our unselfish sacrifices of the lives of our young men and women, and our wealth and resources to help less fortunate nations who have not enjoyed the benefits of American democracy.

At the end of the 20th century, we became proud of our exalted position as the world’s only superpower, and in the process, we forgot the God in whom we trusted in the 18th century in our war for independence.

This is not the first time in history that a nation has been blinded by the blessings of a merciful God. Prior to being swept away by the Babylonian hordes, the nation of Judah fell prey to a national hubris that brought about its own destruction. But not without warning.

Years prior to the rise of Judah’s conqueror, Nebuchadnezzar, God sent a plague of locusts that devoured the wealth of Judah and Jerusalem which the prophet Joel used to warn her leaders of the complete devastation that would come from an enemy nation, the likes of which the world had never seen before. See Joel 1:1-7; 2:2. This enemy, the prophet foretold, would be great and strong, fearless, unified, unstoppable, and ubiquitous. Joel 2:2, 4, 7-9.

To prepare for battle against such an enemy force, Joel’s prophecy did not call for a build-up in Judah’s military defenses, nor for a reorganization of the nation’s intelligence, nor for a beefing-up of homeland security. Rather, Joel called the people and their leaders to repentance, fasting, and a solemn assembly to cry out to God for mercy. Joel 1:14; 2:13, 15-17.

Why? Because the enemy army that was coming was an instrument of God’s judgment upon the nation of Judah, just as the locusts had been. Joel 1:15; 2:11-12. Thus, Judah’s only hope for victory was the grace and mercy of Almighty God, the sovereign Lord over all nations. Indeed, Joel forecast — that if the people of Judah repented of their national sins — this sovereign God would drive this great and strong, fearless, unified, unstoppable, and ubiquitous enemy into utter defeat and destruction. Joel 2:20. And, at the same time, this sovereign God — out of His abundant mercy and lovingkindness — would restore Judah to prosperity, both material and spiritual. Joel 2:21-29.

If America is to win the war against Islamic terrorism, her leaders and her people would do well to heed Joel’s prophecy. The Islamic enemy will not be cowered, nor defeated by force of arms. Rather, the Islamic enemy will turn tail only by America’s repentant return to the God who founded her, and to obedience of His laws protecting life, liberty and property.

Conservative Christian says, “The Religious Right Scares Me Too”

Chuck Baldwin is a Baptist preacher with serious conservative bona fides. If you’ve read his columns or listened to this radio show or voted for him (he was the Constitution Party’s Vice Presidential candidate – the party that [rightly] thinks George W. Bush isn’t pro-life) then you know he has no liberal angst.

And now, he’s saying, the Religious Right scares him. His reasons are sound and it’s best to quote him directly…

For one reason, on the whole, the Religious Right has obviously and patently become little more than a propaganda machine for the Republican Party in general and for President G.W. Bush in particular. This is in spite of the fact that both Bush and the Republican Party in Washington, D.C., have routinely ignored and even trampled the very principles which the Religious Right claims to represent.

Therefore, no longer does the Religious Right represent conservative, Christian values. Instead, they represent their own self-serving interests at the expense of those values.

It also appears painfully obvious to me that in order to sit at the king's table, the Religious Right is willing to compromise any principle, no matter how sacred. As such, it has become a hollow movement. Sadly, the Religious Right is now a movement without a cause, except the cause of advancing the Republican Party.

Beyond that, the Religious Right is actively assisting those who would destroy our freedoms. On the whole, the Religious Right comports with those within the Bush administration and within the Republican Party who, in the name of "fighting terrorism," are actually terrorizing constitutional protections of our liberties.

The Religious Right offered virtually no resistance to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, the passage of the Patriot Act, or the recently created position of National Intelligence Director. Neither did the Religious Right offer even a whimper of protest as President Bush and Republicans in Congress created a first-ever national ID card in the new intelligence bill, which eerily has more in common with early Twentieth Century German and Russian intelligence institutions than anything envisioned by America's Founding Fathers.

Another disconcerting feature of today's Religious Right is its attempt to Christianize political entities which it supports and to demonize political entities which it opposes. This trend is especially scary.

When people are told that they are voting "Christian" by voting for Republican Party candidates, it is being intimated that they are voting non-Christian by voting for any other candidate. This is not only silly on its face, it is downright dangerous!

...in spite of the fact that President Bush and the Republican Party in Washington, D.C., have repeatedly supported copious unchristian (not to mention unconstitutional) programs and policies, Christians act as if Bush and his fellow Republicans have ushered in the Millennial Kingdom.

More than that, the Religious Right appears to believe that G.W. Bush is the anointed vicar of Christ. But instead of wearing the garb of a religious leader, he wears the shroud of a politico and a military commander-in-chief.

As such, in the minds of the Religious Right, Bush's war in Iraq is a holy crusade. America is fast taking on the shape of the old Holy Roman Empire and President Bush is quickly morphing into a modern day Caesar.

The willingness of the Religious Right to give President Bush king-like subservience is easily seen in the way they demonize anyone who dares to oppose him. This is very unnerving.

Are we heading for a modern day religious inquisition, this one led not by the Catholic Church but by the Religious Right? Are we witnessing the type of marriage between Church and State that America's founders originally feared?

I used to believe that liberals were paranoid for being fearful of conservative Christians gaining political power. Now, I share their trepidation.

Of course, the sad truth is, neither George W. Bush nor the Republican Party in Washington, D.C. represents genuine Christian or even conservative principles. If they did, they would take their oaths to the Constitution seriously and then neither liberals nor conservatives would have anything to fear, for the U.S. Constitution protects the rights and freedoms of all men.

Unfortunately, when the seed of Bush's unconstitutional policies come to fruition, it will produce large scale fallout economically, socially, and politically. And sadder still will be that, instead of blaming Bush's infidelity to constitutional government and conservative principles, people will blame Christianity and conservatism itself.

You can subscribe to get his columns at: www.ChuckBaldwinLive.com

Merry Christmas Cheer for the War on Terror

My favorite line comes from George W. Bush (read on):

A school teacher was arrested at New York's Kennedy Airport yesterday. An individual, later discovered to be a school teacher, was arrested trying to board a holiday flight while in possession of a ruler, protractor, set square, slide rule, and calculator.

At a morning press conference, Attorney General John Ashcroft, said he believes the man is a member of the notorious Al-gebra movement. He is being charged by the FBI with carrying weapons of math instruction.

"Al-gebra is a fearsome cult", Ashcroft said. "They desire average solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in a search of absolute value. They use secret code names like 'x' and 'y' and refer to themselves as 'unknowns', but we have determined they belong to a common denominator of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country. As the Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, 'there are three sides to every triangle.'"

When asked to comment on the arrest, President Bush said, "If God had wanted us to have better weapons of math instruction, He would have given us more fingers and toes to count on."

Please, Republicans and Ditto-heads, don't write angry letters. This is a joke (unless you've traveled by plane lately)!

Bush Sends Cash for Nickel Condoms – Available in four delicious flavors!

“U.S. taxpayers are footing the bill for flavored condoms in Illinois, reports Dave McKinney in the Chicago Sun-Times. ‘Since January,’ he writes, ‘the state Department of Health has spent $115,000 in funds provided by the Bush Administration on condoms, including $360,000 of them – at a nickel a pop – in orange, lemon, grape, and cherry flavors.’”

Of course, one has to wonder, “Why does the godly administration of George W. Bush care how they taste?”

As the Life Advocacy Briefing (11/15/04) notes… The only conceivable purpose for such items is to promote the practice ex-President Bill Clinton defined as “not sex.” Of course, that’s hyperbole, depending on what the definition of “is” is.
(Source: Howard Phillips Issues and Strategy Bulletin #754)

Perhaps Butch Davis wasn’t as bad a coach as everyone thought!

Sure, he was a terrible player personnel director and a control freak (he put the team in this mess and deserved to be fired). But consider that, excluding the New York Giants and the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Browns either won or were in position, late in the fourth quarter, to win all the rest of their games – that is until Cincinnati. What changed in Cincy?

Responding to criticism of his offense, and with his job on the line, Davis clearly decided to pull out all the stops and let Kelly Holcomb air it out. Until then, the wide receivers were non-existent and the offense was predicated on ball-control – short runs and short passes. It was boring and the results were lackluster, to put it mildly. But the number of sacks was fewer, the field position was much better, and the defense wasn’t spending 3/4ths of the game on the field.

In addition, everyone thought Davis was too gentle with William Green. But now they’re seeing what bad discipline really is now that they have an interim-coach who is concerned about being popular with his players. William Green’s rushing performance is plummeting and he’s developed a case of fumblitis. Green hasn’t looked this bad at any point in his up-and-down career.

I still think it was the right decision to fire him when they did. But if it’s token wins you want, a Davis-led team would’ve broken the losing the streak and beat the Bills. The management of the team chose Robiskie because they believed he’d get them the best draft choice possible. At this rate, they’ll be picking number 2 – or so I hope.

Two Underreported Facts about the Cleveland Browns

I wonder why the professional sports writers in Cleveland haven’t put more emphasis on two particular items (to my knowledge they’ve barely commented on these points)…

1) The Cleveland Browns strength of schedule has been the toughest in the NFL. Coming into Buffalo, their opponents were at .599.

2) The Browns apparently had an All-Pro middle linebacker in Andra Davis. How could someone tell? Davis went down with an injury during the 10-7 loss to the New York Jets. I don’t recall for sure, but I seem to recall the Browns were the 12th ranked defense at that point (in terms of yardage surrendered). Overall, the team was allowing opponents to score 20.8 points per game. In the last three weeks, without Davis in the line-up, they’ve given up 45.6 points per game. The last three games have been plagued by poor tackling. And you guessed it; Davis was the leading tackler.

Can You Really Blame the Browns’ Defense?

Sure, the tackling is poor. But consider Buffalo, an excellent case study of the Browns last three weeks.

The longest time of possession for the Browns? 2:40, with five plays. Only one series had more, with seven plays, resulting in a punt.

Buffalo scored seven times. All were given up by the defense, but only two were legitimate, full-length, drives for scores. The others started at the Cleveland 47, Cleveland 23, Buffalo 48, Cleveland 6, and Cleveland 31.

Cleveland scored once. The defense intercepted the ball on the Buffalo 18. Two other times, the Browns were given the ball inside Buffalo territory and failed to convert.

By the end of the game, the Browns defense was worn out, allowing the Bills to go 13 plays for 61 yards, and surrendering a touchdown to the second-string offense.

Bushocrats Spurn the Constitution and Seek to Uphold Pro-Abortion Law

Hey, I know that title is a bold charge. First, some background and then I’ll demonstrate that I’m not exaggerating in the least.

Here is what the 10th Amendment (the last item of The Bill of Rights) says, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” In modern English, that simply means if the Constitution doesn’t spell out a specific power for the federal government, they don’t have it. It belongs to the states, or the people. This concept is known as “enumerated powers” and applied as “federalism.”

Only a handful of crimes were spelled out in the Constitution – treason, piracy, and counterfeiting are the only specifically spelled-out (enumerated) federal crimes (though some will argue there might be two or three others). Crimes against person or property were considered matters for state governments to define. None of our Founding Fathers thought we’d be so stupid that our states would need help in these areas.

Grandstanding federal government politicians love to criminalize behavior and expand their power. The FACE Act is one example.

FACE stands for Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances. It’s a law that allegedly protects abortion mills from violence. Violence in this instance is liberally defined to include protesting.

In late November, a Bush administration Assistant U.S. Attorney General Peter Keisler, argued before a panel of appeals court judges that "federal authorities have the right to protect local abortion clinics" from violence, because local assaults can affect clinics nationwide. Keisler is trying to overturn a lower federal court ruling in Houston that deemed the FACE Act unconstitutional.

So here, we have something positive that can be done for the pro-life cause – letting an unconstitutional law die on the vine – and the Bush administration is trying to preserve it. Indeed, GWB spurns the Constitution and once again demonstrates, HE’S NOT PRO-LIFE.
(Source: http://www.covenantnews.com/abortion/archives/008263.html)

George W. Bush and the party of Borrow and Spend

Here are some facts and figures to make your stomach turn... When George W. Bush became President, $5.6 trillion in surpluses were projected for the next 10 years. [Now, those are accounting surpluses, not actual surpluses, as Social Security was counted as income.] But that figure has been transformed to $2.3 trillion in deficits [by the same standard] now estimated for the coming decade.

The last Clinton increase in the debt ceiling was 1997. There have been increases in the debt ceiling in 2002 and 2003. This week, there will be another one. And there will very likely be one in 2005. As the Washington Post reported, "Completion of the debt limit measure would raise the government's borrowing limit to $8.18 trillion. That is $2.23 trillion higher than when Bush became president, and more than eight times the debt President Reagan faced when he took office in 1981."

For an interesting perspective on other problems with raising the debt ceiling, check out a statement by Congressman Ron Paul: http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul213.html

www.DownsizeDC.org tackled this problem by running radio ads on more than 50 stations today, combined with direct constituent contact using their Electronic Lobbyist System.

Who are the members of the Evangelical Magisterium?

Evangelicals (Protestants) love to jab Catholics and indicate that they stand Scripture (Sola Scriptura), not the pronouncements of the Pope and the House of Cardinals (the Magisterium). Leaving aside the theological debate that follows, is the charge really fair? Don’t today’s evangelicals take their cues from the celebrity Christians on radio, TV, and in the bookstore?

Yes, they do. A good Christian friend recently told me, after listening to my CD "Why Conservative Christians Are Re-evaluating George W. Bush...", that people he respects had vouched for Bush's character and he trusted these people. Now he doesn't circulate in high-fallutin' circles, so more than likely he was referring to Evangelical celebrities.

Here’s a partial list of the Evangelical Magisterium, starting with the man who is virtually the pope of the American evangelical movement.

1. Dr. James Dobson, Focus on the Family
2. Dr. Jerry Falwell, Liberty University, pastor Thomas Road Baptist Church, Lynchburg, VA
3. Mr. Pat Robertson, 700 Club, Regent University
4. Chuck Colson, Prison Fellowship Ministries
5. Dr. Richard Land, Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, Southern Baptist Convention
6. Roberta Combs, Christian Coalition of America
7. Mr. Louis Shelton, Traditional Values Coalition
8. Mr. Tony Perkins, president, Family Research Council
9. Mr. Jack Graham, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention
10. Mr. Don Wildmon, American Family Association
11. Ralph Reed, formerly Christian Coalition, Southeast regional chairman for Bush-Cheney '04
12. Gary Bauer, former president, Family Research Council, former GOP presidential candidate
13. Rush Limbaugh, radio talk show host
14. Sean Hannity, radio talk show host
15. Glenn Beck, radio talk show host
16. Michael Medved, radio talk show host

Yes, I realize that three of the last four are secular radio hosts and Medved is Jewish, but all three are loved and adored by the Christian Right; all worked hard for George W. Bush’s re-election, even though they all knew Bush isn’t really a conservative and is likely to betray the Christians on judicial appointments. Hannity even chose a sacrilegious title for his book and was invited by James Dobson to his radio show to plug it.

In a new radio show sponsored by Genesis Communications that will be heard in five states and on the Internet, I will begin explaining why the aforementioned folks have had too much faith placed in them. The show starts in December, so for now, I recall the words of Isaiah, "O My people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths." Isaiah 3:12 "For the leaders of this people cause them to err; and they that are led of them are destroyed." Isaiah 9:16

Bush Abortion Funding Part 2

From the second Presidential Debate, October 8 - Bush/Kerry

Audience Question: "... suppose you are speaking with a voter who believed abortion is murder and the voter asked for reassurance that his or her tax dollars would not go to support abortion, what would you say to that person?

George W. Bush answered: "... My answer is, we're not going to spend taxpayers' money on abortion."

But as I’ve already pointed out on this blog (10/12/04), the Bush administration is spending more than the Clinton administration on abortion – including selected surgical abortions, chemical abortions, and the nation's largest chain of abortion centers, Planned Parenthood.

Thanks to Steve Lefemine for the following data…

1) President Bush is funding surgical abortions via Medicaid (Title XIX) in the HHS Appropriations bills: [see all bills that follow at http://thomas.loc.gov]
* Check out HR 3061 for FY 2002, signed by President Bush (PL 107-116) on 1/10/02
* Check out HR 2673 for FY 2004, signed by President Bush (PL 108-109) on 1/23/02

2) President Bush is funding chemical abortions via Medicaid (Title XIX) and the Title X birth/population control and Planned Parenthood funding program:
* Check out HR 3061 for FY 2002, signed by President Bush (PL 107-116) on 1/10/2002
* Check out HR 2673 for FY 2004, signed by President Bush (PL 108-109) on 1/23/2004

3) President Bush is funding the nation's largest perpetrators of child-murder-by-abortion, Planned Parenthood (report murdering over 200,000 unborn children annually by surgical abortion alone), through both Medicaid (Title XIX) and Title X, with OVER $50 MILLION per year through each program:
* Included in HR 3061 for FY 2002, signed by President Bush (PL 107-116) on 1/10/2002
* Included in HR 2673 for FY 2004, signed by President Bush (PL 108-109) on 1/23/2004

4) President Bush has increased the Title X funding levels over $26,000,000 more than the last Clinton budget:
* The Title X funding level for FY 2001, the last Clinton-influenced budget, was a total of $254 million, of which over $58 million went to planned parenthood
* In FY 2002, George W. Bush's first full budget year, the Title X birth/population control and Planned Parenthood funding authorization increased over 11,000,000, to $265 million (HR 3061 for FY 2002, signed by President Bush on 1/10/2002)
* In FY 2004, George W. Bush's most recently completed full budget year, the Title X birth/population control and Planned Parenthood funding authorization increased even more to $280 million, over $26,000,000 ($26 million) more than Bill Clinton's last budget year! (HR 2673 for FY 2004, signed by President Bush on 1/23/2004)

Why Democrats Can’t Win the White House – they hate people of religious faith

Or, if they don't, then they can’t get their anti-faith faction to stifle it. This is, after all, still a religious country. Ever wonder why people of faith don’t feel welcome in the Democratic Party?

Try out these hyperbolic quotes from the mainstream, liberal media for size…

* Sidney Blumenthal, writing in Salon, says that the new Senate majority is "more theocratic than Republican."

* Maureen Dowd, a New York Times columnist, says the president "ran a jihad in America so he can fight one in Iraq."

* Thomas Friedman, also of the NY Times intolerantly accuses Bush's base of wanting "to extend the boundaries of religion" and of promoting "intolerance."

* Garry Wills writes in the New York Times, "Can a people that believes more fervently in the Virgin Birth than in evolution still be called an Enlightened nation?" He ends by saying that "moral zealots" will scare moderate Republicans with their "jihads."

* Harper's magazine publisher, John R. MacArthur, aimed at both Bush and Kerry for advertising "their subservience to Jesus Christ and the Christian god, without the least concern about whether it might offend me."

* Margaret Carlson wrote in the Los Angeles Times that Catholic bishops "demonized" Kerry's supporters by warning them that "they could go to hell just for voting for him."
(source: Newsmax.com)

Browns Hometown Coverage Misses the Call

The media in Northeast Ohio is missing the point. I think it’s too soon to call for Cleveland Browns’ coach Butch Davis to be fired. I loved the effort in Philadelphia. But the Sunday Night Baltimore Ravens game was lost due to coaching.

Various articles about the Baltimore game blame bad luck (i.e., injuries to Kellen Winslow, even “the Drive” – an event that happened more than 15 years ago). But every team has their problems – boo-hoo. Once the articles got to the real game analysis, the writers laid the fault in Baltimore on a shanked kick and a missed pass interference call.

Despite these events, they still should’ve won the game.

Why didn’t they report the number of false start penalties? …delay of game penalties? Way too many of these drive-killers.

Why not recount how, for the seventh time this season, our backs were joined in the backfield by the opposing team at the moment of hand-off, or as soon as Garcia completed his drop? Was it punter Derrick Frost or the zebra’s who allowed this?

Why not mention that the Browns coaching staff confines Garcia to the pocket until the fourth quarter and then, once he scrambles good things happen? You would think by week 8, they would recognize this. The offense has been bad in the first half in 7 of 8 games.

In the old days, lots of flags caused commentators to say, “That’s coaching.” Given that every one of these guys was chosen by the same guy who picks the depth chart and sets the game strategy, shouldn’t he be given responsibility?

Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss

...and both are out to give you their version of morality.

With exit polls showing that moral issues were number one in the minds of the voters, it's interesting to note that, "A March 2004 Cato Institute report found, "Real discretionary spending increases in fiscal years 2002, 2003, and 2004 are three of the five biggest annual increases in the last 40 years."

Why is his big spending interesting when the issue is morality? J.D. Tuccille explains, "Democrats complain that the Bush administration uses government agencies to promote religious values and advance a conservative social agenda. That's true – but it's not surprising. It should have been obvious to observers of our long-running political theater that the goals and values that liberals advocate were not the only ones that could be promoted by pushy bureaucrats with fat checkbooks. Activist government might be used to 'help' people and promote values, but different people have different definitions of 'help' and different values to promote. If 'diversity' and 'social justice' prevail under one administration, 'family values' and 'morality' rule under the next. Activist government isn't an ideologically pure ideal; it's just another tool to be wielded by the winners of each election."

This is a civil war brewing and big government is the cause of it. Win the peace and strike a blow for virtue by Downsizing DC. It's our only hope.

Two more members of the Evangelical Magisterium on the payroll

...your payroll, that is -- because your tax dollars are being shuffled to some of President Bush's most prominent supporters. It's those "Faith-Based Initiatives" -- unconstitutional pork to ruin Christian ministries (I'll explain in a moment).

Esther Kaplan, reporting for The Nation, reports that "Pat Robertson's Operation Blessing -- despite having recently been investigated by the State of Virginia for misusing relief funds to haul equipment for Robertson's for-profit diamond mining firm -- was one of the first organizations to receive a faith-based grant. Robertson scored $500,000 for three years, for a total of $1.5 million..."

"Chuck Colson... was another significant beneficiary, through his evangelical organization Prison Fellowship Ministries, which was chosen by the faith-based office as one of the only four national partners for a $22.5 million workplace re-entry program for ex-offenders..."

No wonder they worked so hard for the Bush "Get Out the Evangelical Vote" effort. There's good money in selling your soul.

Am I being too hard? And what did I mean when I wrote, "unconstitutional pork to ruin Christian ministries." Well, I'll break it down for you.

Unconstitutional -- as in, the 10th Amendment says that if the Constitution doesn't say a given issue or problem is a federal government question, then it's not. In defense of Robertson and Colson, about 90% of what our government does violates the 10th, so I guess two trillion wrongs make a right.

Pork -- politicians using tax dollars to buy support, or in this case, the dark souls of those who have no regard for pesky things like the 10th Amendment and no respect for how hard you worked earning those dollars they'll spend making themselves look good. Remember, on that day, many will say, "Lord we did great things in your name," and He will say, well, you know the story.

The worst thing about welfare -- and make no mistake about it, this is welfare -- is that it destroys character. It creates dependency. In this instance, instead of being accountable to donors who support the mission, the charity becomes accountable to bureaucracy -- even begins to resemble one.

It also leads to government control -- the same government that thinks the Constitution includes the line "Separation of Church and State." My favorite recent example comes from California Catholic Charities, told by a judge that they must provide contraceptive benefits to their employees, even though the Catholic Church opposes contraception.

And why can a judge dictate a nit-picking detail like this? Because the piper calls the tune. And someday, Robertson and Colson will have the misfortune of having a Democrat in the White House who will enjoy messing with their charities. They're just lucky it'll take at least four more years.

Bush endorses homosexual civil unions & Univseral Salvation

There's a feeling amongst evangelicals that George W. Bush is one of us -- that he too is an evangelical Christian. Most conservative Christians feel a kinship with him as a result.

But is he really? I don't know the answer to that question; that's between George Bush and God.

But I do know that homosexual marriage is a big motivating issue for evangelicals and the Bush administration has chosen to make it an issue by advocating a Constitutional amendment to "protect marriage."

I also know that George Bush claims to be a Christian, and that he has said that the most influential philosopher in his life was Jesus Christ -- the very same Jesus Christ who said, "I am The Way, The Truth, and The Life, no man comes to the Father but by Me."

Apparently, George Bush disagrees both with his concerned evangelical allies and his favorite philosopher...

GOOD MORNING AMERICA
October 26, 2004

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

CHARLES GIBSON, ABC NEWS
All right. Thanks, Tony. We're gonna turn again now to our exclusive interview with President George W. Bush. Everybody knows it's now one of the tightest presidential races ever. And over the weekend, I had some time to spend with the president and the first lady at their ranch down in Crawford, Texas. And we covered a wide range of personal, sensitive subjects, including religion and their views of homosexuality.
-----------------------------

CHARLES GIBSON
I want to ask you about one social issue, 'cause you gave an answer that I thought was really interesting in the third debate. Bob Schieffer asked you if you thought homosexuals were born that way ...
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH, UNITED STATES
Yeah.

CHARLES GIBSON
... or became that way. And you said you didn't know.
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH
Right. I don't.

CHARLES GIBSON
So, the possibility, it's a nature-nurture argument. So, the possibility exists in your mind that it could be nature.
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH
Sure.

CHARLES GIBSON
They could be born that way. If that's the case, just for sake of argument, that's an unalterable characteristic for them. That's like being black or being a woman. So, how can we deny them rights in any way to a civil union that would allow, give them the same economic rights or health rights or other things?
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH
I don't think we should deny people rights to a civil union, a legal arrangement, if that's when a state chooses to do so.

CHARLES GIBSON
But the (Republican Party) platform opposes it.
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH
Well, I don't. I view the definition of marriage different from legal arrangements that enable people to have rights. And I strongly believe that marriage ought to be defined as between, a union between a man and a woman.

CHARLES GIBSON
So, the Republican platform on that point, as far as you're concerned, is wrong?
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH
Right.

CHARLES GIBSON
How about the constitutional amendment on marriage?
LAURA BUSH, FIRST LADY
Well, I think it gives the United States a chance to debate the issue. I think it's an issue that people want to talk about. But with respect to everyone involved, and with respect to people.

CHARLES GIBSON
Do you agree with him on the constitutional amendment?
LAURA BUSH
I'm not really sure about it. I think it's important to have the debate.
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH
Look, if, if you're, if you're interested in preserving marriage as a union between a man and a woman, there is one way to do so without the courts making the decisions, that's through the constitutional process.

......

CHARLES GIBSON
Do we all worship the same God, Christian and Muslim?
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH
I think we do.
......

CHARLES GIBSON
Do Christians and non-Christians and Muslims go to heaven in your mind?
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH
Yes, they do. We have different routes of getting there. But I will, I, I want you to understand, I want your listeners to understand, I don't get to decide who goes to heaven. The almighty God decides who goes to heaven. And I am on my personal walk.

James Leroy Wilson, a columnist for LewRockwell.com and The Partial Observer, explained to readers readers in his weekend column how to Get Through to Bush’s Christian Loyalists. Here's what he wrote...

"The case against Bush must come from a Christian, speaking as a Christian. Jim Babka comes to the rescue here, with a CD "Why Conservative Christians are Re-evaluating George W. Bush."

"Far from calling on Christians to vote Democrat, Babka lays out a tragic record of lies, hypocrisies, and cowardly acts by the President, including a sorry record that may most shock Bush’s core constituency on issues of gay rights, abortion, and religion itself. It is an excellent resource, primarily because it is spoken with passion and moral and logical clarity. Listening to the truth is more powerful than just reading it, and Babka hits it out of the park. Babka is more persuasive in his case against Bush than most of us can be. Real conservatives and Christian libertarians should take advantage in these last days before the election to listen to, learn from, and circulate Babka’s message.

"Many things in our country just continue to get worse and worse. They get worse under Democrats, they get worse under Republicans. The loyalty to the President is strong, and appeals to logic and reason won’t often suffice. Followers of the Bush Cult will not trust libertarian writers, or the mainstream media that bring tidings of great sadness. It’s all a conspiracy against morality, decency, and Christianity. They will need to hear, not read, but hear, the truth from a fellow Christian. I don’t know if there’s any other way."

Wilson's link to our CultureRepair.com website resulted in a one-day Alexa ranking of 39,998 with a reach of 20 per million Internet users. But that's not the best news. Orders were placed for a total of 357 CDs. I pray they all get listened to -- that they touch hearts and change minds.

Bush Abortion Funding Part 1

Another of my controversial statements on the new CD "Why Conservative Christians Are Re-evaluation George W. Bush is that he's really not pro-life. Virtually every Christian I meet balks at the suggestion. But now, according to CovenantNews.com, President Bush deceived Americans in the second presidential debate: taxpayers ARE funding abortions - with his signature on HHS Appropriations bills !

When responding to an audience question about taxpayers' money being used to support abortion during that debate, President Bush gave this response: "...My answer is, we're not going to spend taxpayers' money on abortion."

There are actually three ways that taxpayers' money IS being used to "support abortion."

1. President Bush is funding selected surgical abortions via Medicaid (Title XIX)

2. President Bush is funding chemical abortions via both Medicaid (Title XIX) and via the Title X birth/population control and Planned Parenthood funding program

3. President Bush is funding Planned Parenthood, the largest perpetrators of abortion in the United States (Planned Parenthood reports destroying over 200,000 unborn children annually by surgical abortion alone), through both Medicaid (Title XIX) and Title X, with OVER $50 MILLION per year through each program, for a total of OVER $100 MILLION per year, just through these two Planned Parenthood funding mechanisms

4. Furthermore, Title X birth/population control funding has INCREASED during the Bush administration, by MORE THAN $26,000,000 OVER THE LAST CLINTON BUDGET. Clinton's last budget allocated $254 MILLION in FY 2001. Bush's first budget boosted it to $265 MILLION in FY 2002. He upped it again to $280 MILLION in FY 2004.

Not only is this spending immoral, it's unconstitutional. This conservative, pro-life President's failure is all-the-more dramatic when you check out this chart.

Title X Funding History: FY 1998 to FY 2004

1. Clinton administration:
FY 1998 - Title X funding: $203 Million
FY 1999 - Title X funding: $215 Million
FY 2000 - Title X funding: $239 Million
FY 2001 - Title X funding: $254 Million

2. Bush administration:
FY 2002 - Title X funding: $265 Million
FY 2003 - Title X funding: $275 Million
FY 2004 - Title X funding: $280 Million
Source: CovenantNews.com

Defending Hussein?

A Mr. CC from Texas wrote to Downsize DC (my day job) and said that we had claimed that, "that Hussein wasn't the brutal dictator that our politicians claim he is." He went on to point out that, "It was Hussein who committed the Chemical Massacre of the Kurds." Then he asked, "If that wasn't the work of a dictator, what kind of person was Hussein?"

I have never, ever said Saddam Hussein was not a brutal dictator... he was.

However, to answer CC's question very precisely, the Kurd gassing story is very questionable, if not an outright myth -- part of a pre-war propoganda campaign designed to further demonize Hussein. The mass killing of Kurds to which CC appeals took place during the Iran-Iraq War. The U.S. government was on Iraq's side. As we documented at TruthAboutWar.org, both sides of the Iran-Iraq War were using different chemical agents on each other. The (U.S.) Army War College believes that the chemicals that killed the Kurds were Iranian, not Iraqi.

But CC's question still must be addressed, because the contention that we were fighting the war to bring freedom to Iraq is part of a massive public relations campaign on behalf of the President, based on the premise that if you repeat a lie often enough it will be believed. We did not go to war to fight dictators. Besides, that argument would've been insufficient to get the American people to allow any President to take such unprecedented action.

But if CC or anyone else reading this message believes that our government should be in the business of dethroning brutal dictators, then our government should stop funding the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, each of which have consistently funneled money to brutal dictators and oppresive socialist regimes, who have in turn used these very funds to oppress their people. It is also interesting to note that NO ONE in the Bush administration is proposing going to the continent of Africa to stop far larger numbers of people from being dislocated from their homes and, all-too-often, brutally slaughtered.

Is George W. Bush Pro-Life?

From James Glaser, posted at LewRockwell.com
...Bush’s wars have killed and wounded tens of thousands of innocent civilians. No one knows the exact number, because the Bush administration cares so little for innocent life, they won’t even keep a count.

No one knows how many innocent pregnant women have been killed by our bombs and bullets.

The religious right in America will tell you to vote for George Bush because he has dazzled them with some Bible quotes and Christian sayings. They will even tell you that Bush is anti-abortion, but George will never come right out and say he is. Yes he did sign the "Partial Birth Abortion Bill," but only after a poll said 80 some percent of Americans agreed with it.

George Bush has never sent any [new] anti-abortion legislation to Congress nor has he used his bully pulpit to push for abortion reform. That is because George Bush is not pro-life.

How Can You Be So Certain Bush Lied About WMDs?

A listener to my new CD "Why Conservative Christians Are Re-evaluating George W. Bush: The Surprising Insights More & More Christians Are Having (and no, they're not deciding to 'Vote Democrat'!)" thought he might've caught me in an error - a contradiction. I had questioned the President's ability to tell the truth about, amongst other things, Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Before the new war in Iraq, I led the team that put together TruthAboutWar.org. The site has been frozen (with the exception of flash/intro page) since the war re-started in March, 2003. Our first claim, for which our sanity was questioned, was that Hussein had no WMDs. The listener asks a reasonable question...

"You said on your CD that we had given Hussein WMD's, and we know that he used some of them against the Kurds, et al. Why, then, so sure he did not have any? The possibility is not ridiculous."

Here's my response.

You make a great point. The CD is long, so I had to limit my remarks. There are several things I wish I could've elaborated on. Your objection is one of them...

Yes, we knew Hussein had WMD's. But he no longer had them by the time we attacked.

WMD's can be divided into three very rough categories: Long-range assault missiles, nuclear weapons, and chemical weapons capable of killing a mass of people.

First, for the nuclear weapons... I make it clear in the CD and at TruthAboutWar.org, why Hussein could not have had nuclear weapons.

Second, for the chemical - the weapons used against the Kurds. Chemical weapons are not very efficient. They break down quickly and easily. They can blow-back on the people who use them. They must be stored a certain way - attention must be paid to temperature and other environmental concerns. They're a lot like the food in your refrigerator. At some point, they'll go bad.

Further, the stories of Hussein's "gassings" of the Kurds were told in a way that was designed to mislead as well. The Bush administration/establishment media story about this incident is always told as if Hussein marched into the Kurdish region and began random gassing of the people he ruled. At the website TruthAboutWar.org, we point to a War College study that indicated that the Kurds were caught in a cross-fire between Iran and Iraq, and the Iranian gasses were almost certainly to blame.

Third, the United States has been attacking Hussein for several years from the air. Most Americans wouldn't hear anything about this until news would leak out that he had fired on one of our planes. People would get upset, without asking the obvious questions like, "Why are we flying over Iraq?" or "How would we feel if Iraq was flying bombers and fighters over our country?" This was a logical deduction. If Hussein had long range missiles, why wasn't he shooting down our planes or hitting the ships and bases we were launching from? Why didn't he score political points with his Middle Eastern brothers and hit Israel?

The answer is obvious. He didn't have them.

There were two additional reasons not to trust the government. We also lay these out in detail at TruthAboutWar.org, so I won't completely rehash these.

But simply put, the first of those two reasons was Scott Ritter, the chief weapons inspector for the U.S., a decorated Marine who took his job quite seriously, so seriously that he resigned from his position because the Clinton administration and the U.N. were putting handcuffs on his work, did an abrupt about-face. Some said he was a hypocritical opportunist. That didn't stop him. Then there was even a frame-up put in place to silence him. That made him quieter and gave the media permission to dismiss him. He was a lonely voice who took a lot of vicious heat - mostly from so-called conservatives.

But he had been on the ground. He knew the situation. He pointed out that the job was done and predicted no weapons would be found. David Kaye returned from Iraq in the Spring, saying the odds were very, very low they'd find any - the weapons inspection regime had worked so well. Colin Powell just admitted a couple of weeks ago, we won't find any.

Search the web. There are quotes from Powell, Rice, Cheney, and Rumsfeld, as late as April 2003, saying we'll find those weapons. Rumsfeld even said we knew within a few miles where these weapons were. It's a cop-out to say that Bush didn't lie. Between TruthAboutWar.org and my new Bush CD I give evidence so sufficient, you could go to court with it. But his case looks much worse when you add in the things his administration - the people he's responsible for and who answer to him - did to, charitably, create a misleading impression.

The second of those two reasons was the pattern. It turns out that the Bush administration lied about several things when it attacked Iraq the first time. The pre-Desert Storm propaganda war included fake stories about... satellite pictures showing Hussein massing troops on the border of Saudi Arabia, baby's pulled from incubators and left to die while the incubators were wheeled out of a Kuwaiti hospital, and more. You can check out this link to TruthAboutWar.org for the details.
Because War is the Health of the State, our default position should always be to be very skeptical about what our government has to say. You might give another human being the benefit of the doubt. But you should never give it to a politician. Power matters more than humanity to nearly all those attracted to public office.

There's how I knew. And now, you know.

Nation-building politicians

George W. Bush was very critical of Clinton's meddling foreign policy in 2000, and he said the following in the 2000 presidential debates...

"I don't think our troops ought to be used for what is called "nation-building." I think what we need to do is convince people who live in the lands they live to build the nations. Maybe I'm missing something here? I mean, to have kind of "Nation Building Corp" from America? Absolutely not."

That's a failed campaign promise.

But none of the current Democratic front runners, even the ones that are called “anti-war” by the major media, are proposing anything substantially different. All believe that Saddam Hussein needed to be disarmed. All support meddling in the Middle East and elsewhere. All support welfare for dictators (foreign aid).

• Wesley Clark says we shouldn’t have gone about attacking Iraq alone, not that we shouldn’t have gone. Key word: Coalition.
• Howard Dean agreed with Clark in that he thinks we shouldn’t have gone alone. But his largest disappointment was that there was no plan for “after the battle” – no real plan to nation-build. Key words: Prudent planning.
• John Kerry voted to give Bush the go-ahead, but says that didn’t really mean Bush should’ve gone. He was giving the president a bargaining chip, but expected the president to be more prudent, stall, and issue threats he never intended to carry out. Key word: Nuance.

Where’s a guy or gal to turn if they believe this war has,

• led to unbridled growth in government?
• removed President Bush from accountability on other issues. That loss of accountability has removed the last vestiges of restraint or opposition the GOP was willing to mount to government growth -- they're now outspending the Democrats and expanding entitlements?
• meant a nation-building exercise that has already cost us nearly $100 billion, and that's just the beginning?
• resulted in thousands of deaths, 500 of which have been to Americans?
• violated the Constitution and standards of Just War, ripping at the moral fabric of the country?

Your census and other personal data now being passed around the government...
...Conclusion? An 8% chance you're a terrorist!

The Washington Times reports, "U.S. census information provided by millions of Americans was used in a government study to profile airline passengers as terrorist risks. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration also obtained for its study the private information of hundreds of thousands of passengers flying Northwest Airlines..." This news "comes in the wake of reports that JetBlue Airways gave a military contractor computer data on 1 million of its customers." The Census Bureau had denied that individualized, personal information was being passed around. NASA had initially denied requesting the information from Northwest. Both were caught due to a Freedom of Information Act request by the watchdog group the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

The purpose for all this data-mining and snooping for your personal information? The Homeland Defense Department is building a computerized, pre-flight, terrorist screening system called CAPPS II. The danger? It is estimated that the system will have an error rate at 4 percent to 8 percent, which Barry Steinhardt, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's technology and liberty program said "means 4 [million] to 8 million Americans will mistakenly be labeled as terrorists."

I'm thinking a lot about guns and crime today. More private gun ownership by law-abiding citizens means less crime.

I'm working on a script for an upcoming audio guide -- I hope to record it this weekend. The topic, ballistic fingerprinting. This forensic scientists tool received a great deal of air-play during last fall's so-called DC Sniper shootings. But it's a tool that won't work for prevention -- even though the gun-control movement would love to employ it to restrict firearms ownership.

In fact, it turns out that gun ownership may actually reduce multiple homicide events as well. In a new book, The Bias Against Guns, Dr. John Lott and Bill Landes examine multiple-victim public shootings in the United States from 1977 to 1999 and find that when states passed right-to-carry laws, these attacks fell by 60 percent. Deaths and injuries from multiple-victim public shootings fell on average by 78 percent.

More citizens packing guns means less crime.