The Passion of Ignorance...
Quite a bit has been bandied about concerning the Mel Gibson film, "The Passion of the Christ". I haven't seen it yet, since I never seem able to actually get into a theatre, no matter how early I arrive, no less, because the hoopla certainly does attract people to the cinema. And some interesting ones as well. The hoopla, or kerfuffle (to quote the WSJ), if you will, revolves around a few salient points: the film is anti-semitic, the film is blasphemous, it's gory and violent. I can't speak to any of this because I STILL HAVE NOT SEEN IT!

I have tried twice to get in to see this movie, and both times, all shows were sold out. That either indicates that people have finally been interested in something beyond the three inches in front of their own noses (a good thing) and are partaking in the movie experience, or, that people are sheep being herded into movie theatres by a media blitz. Theatres in this area are staying open late to include extra shows, and even with that, they're all swamped. Either way, even standing in line outside the theatre is an interesting experience.

To begin with, both times that I've stood in line I was harrangued, politely though, by Southern Baptists that were kind enough to make the trip from Virginia, North Carolina, and even Alabama, who tried (in vain!) to talk me out of seeing the movie. All have said they were interested in "saving my soul", which if you ask me, left my person somewhere around 1985 after 12 years of Catholic school, but I digress. What my soul, or the vestigal remnants thereof ,requires rescue from is never quite spelled out. The well-meaning and earnest little teenage girls that hand out little prayer meeting notices (on glossy, hip-looking, 5x8 advertisment cards --- almost as if the church is throwing a rave!), wearing "God Loves NY" t-shirts, can never quite articulate what is so evil about the film, but they assure me with the certainty of the believer, that this is so. Ask them if they have seen it, and the response rates somewhere between "Not on your life" and "no I haven't, but...".

Their objection, apparently, is that the film depicts Christ and it does not matter at all whether that depiction is flattering, indifferent or gross. Christ should not be depicted, period. Christ should definately never be depicted if there's some money to be made out of it, either. I guess Mel Gibson is not entitled to make a living off the Lord, unlike say, the preacher-folk that pass the collection plate and evangelize on T.V.

So, the way I figure it is that there's a bunch of people incesnsed, somewhere, who are so enraged that they must hop on buses and travel 1,000 miles to New York to vent their anger, in a polite way, quoting scripture and using little southern girls, with them cute accents and all, to keep me from seeing something that they haven't seen themselves, but which they can assure me is evil incarnate. Well, if the fire and brimstone speeches don't dissuade ya, then maybe them cute south'ren females will.

As to whether the film is anti-semitic or not, I cannot attest to that either. Ask someone who has been fortunate (if that's the right word) to have seen it if this is so and all you get is "it's really graphic, but it was great". Which leads me to another conclusion about why more people don't get off their behinds more often --- even when they do, do they ever notice anything or have a thought provoking moment?

The anti-Semitism accusation revolves around a 2,000 year-old-charge that the Jews executed the Saviour, and this MUST never be forgotten, in the same way that Muslims believe the Crusades must never be forgotten, or the Kamikaze winds that saved Japan from the Mongols, or the Holocaust, the Alamo, Pearl Harbor, and the Battle of Trafalgar. It's a rallying cry that resonates, even if you're not exactly WHY it should do so.

Did the Jews execute Jesus? Well, no, the Romans did. Jews did not go around crucifying people, that was the Roman's job. Was Jesus killed because he was the Saviour? Well, no, he was killed because he was denounced as a heretic by the Jewsih authorities and a potential subversive by the Romans. Crucifixion was not the standard execution for spitting on the sidewalk for example --- it was used almost exclusively on political threats to the Roman order of things. The Romans could care less about religion very often, unless such debates and strife should interfere with their ability to keep order and collect taxes. Sorta like Mayor Bloomberg's take on smoking, but again, I digress.

Jesus was killed because he threatened the established order of things, plain and simple. The Pharisees wanted him punished because he preached a reform of their own religion that would have seen them cast down. The Romans wanted him punished because such religious rabble-rousing was bound to cause violence and a disruption of civil order, which was a constant theme of the Roman occupation of the Holy Land. Jews had revolted many times and fought quite a few religious wars amongst themselves and Rome, quite frankly, was annoyed at having to continue breaking up these little internecine brawls. Pilate did the expedient thing ---he ordered a crucifixion which satified the religious authorities and he covered his own ass with the Borad fo Directors in Rome by disposing of a potential joker in the deck. The symbolic washing of the hands merely signified that Pilate was bowing to both popular demand and performing his duty as he saw it, although he did not like it, I think.

But getting back to why people feel it is necessary to beat the same old deceased equines (the Jews killed Christ, any depiction of the Lord on film is evil), I can only say that very often devout belief possibly covers for a deep-running ignorance . I can remember the same things being said about "The Last Temptation of Christ" (which I did see, and while it was thought-provoking, I didn't think it was cinematic tour-de-force), and quite honestly, the only people who recycle the same platitudes more often than religious folks are democrats (small 'd' intentional). I can remember quite clearly being yelled at by a white-haired grandmother that while standing in line for "The Last Temptation" that I had just, in fact, bought my ticket to hell. Considering the fact that I live in New York, I thought I had already been there for quite some time, but I was assured, strongly, that seeing that film would reserve me a window seat on the "Damnation Express". All I got out of that movie was that Barbara Hershey had nice tits. The other thought that came with that was that if Jesus had both a human and divine side, why should there not have been an internal struggle as to what his purpose was on Earth? The Temptation, if you recall, was that he had a chance to do things differently, to live a different life, and in the end, he didn't. He still wound up hanging on the cross because his duty was always clear. The film was a study of a man with overwhelming responsibilities (that often comes with divinity) who, perhaps, had one last regret about actually carrying that particular weight.

The particulars, especially the scenes of sexual congress with Mary Magdalene, were shot as a dream sequence, nothing more. Of course, if dipicting Christ on film is evil, then showing Christ with private parts enaging in the sinful lusts of the flesh is inherently evil.

Maybe one of these days I will get into the theatre to see the movie. But in the meantime, I would appreciate that those who travel on buses across the country to dissuade me from an activity they have little first-hand knowledge about be kind enough to a) stay home and b) realize that hypocrisy on behalf of the Lord is no virtue.

It Ain't My Church Anymore...
Something is seriously wrong with today's Catholic Church. I mean wrong in ways that go beyond your parish-priest-turned-repeat-sexual-offender-type wrong. The Church of Rome seems to have lost both it's sense of direction and it's attachment to reality simultaneously.

What's bugging me is a statement made by the Vatican the other day vis-a-vis a condemnation of Israel for the killing of Hamas "spiritual leader" Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. Yassin is one of the founding members of Hamas, and as such, has the blood of thousands on his hands, both his Israeli victims and his Palestinian "martyrs". But despite the fact that Yassin was a thug dressed in cleric's robes, the Church seems to believe that he was an innocent victim of a state-sponsored assasination attempt.

There is a serious disconnect here. To begin with, the Catholic Church has no business condemning the killers of Muslims when the Church had once been a driving force in their extermination, or have we forgotten the Crusades? Have we forgotten already the rampages of Catholic Croats in Yugoslavia, whose terror fell on Serb Orthodox Christian and Balkan Muslim alike?

And what kind of institution is the Church when it can hold a killer like Yassin up as some kind of victim and the Israeli's as a criminal cabal?
I guess all those IRA Catholics leaving bombs in garbage bins in London are just hunky-dory then?

There are some serious problems in this church, and the rot has been obvious for years, both spiritually and morally.

I have a theory as to why this is, and I don't know how much water it holds, but here we go:

The Church, as an institution, has not survived the moral and philosophical revolutions of the 19th and 20th centuries all that well. Church attendance is down. The number of people taking up the mantle of the priesthood is way down. The Church very often refuses to adapt to changing societal conditions, some for reasons of dogma (perfectly understandable) and others for reasons of institutional inertia. The Church has fought the good fight against, say, abortion and abstinence until marriage, but has lost ground when it comes to cleaning the skeletons out of it's own closet. The Church has done what it has felt is right with it's stands against homosexuality as a sin, but cannot ever seem to reconcile these positions with Jesus' command to "love the sinner and hate the sin".

The Church, as an institution, is in serious trouble. It is this sort of trouble that causes it to do things like hold up a Yassin as an unjustly executed innocent, while conveniently forgetting just who the man was and what he did. I realize that forgiveness is the cornerstone of Christian values, but sometimes even God drew a line in the sand.

For all intents and purposes, John Paul II no longer runs his church. It's obvious that he is a very sick man, and I have doubts as to whether he might even be coherent most of the time. I would assume that the day-to-day running of things around the Vatican is in the hands of a cabal of Cardinals (mostly European) whose primary concern is now keeping a popular Pope propped up as a figurehead while attempting to reorder the Church in "their" own fashion. JP II was, for example, a staunch enemy of communism, and he was both vocal about it and instrumental in the fall of the Soviet Union. One cannot tell me that a healthy JP II, in full control of both his faculties and the Vatican would have stood for the kind of murder that Hamas engages in.

Secondly, this church will cease to exist in the 21st century unless it adopts some radical positions. JP II, for all his other qualities, is a staunch doctrinaire. That means a church that is intolerant of a whole host of social conditions that we live with today. It also has to recruit an ever-dwindling supply of priests and nuns to carry out it's mission for the scoiety that exists. That means priests with "personal" problems can cut corners and get breaks because their service to the institution (rather than to their flock) is too valuable to lose. That means that the Church can no longer engage in discussions of "good versus evil" when these concepts touch upon politics, for example. In these deconstructionalist days, calling a spade a spade turns people off. The Church of the future will have to be in the curious position of defending the indefensible and refusing to pass value judgements to avoid offending the flock. That will mean the church will become less and less of what it is, and more and more of what it pretends to hate: we're about to see a Catholic Church become more like the Church of England or the Episcopal Church.

I can understand some of the changes that seem to be coming our way because the alternative is the neighborhood church closing because there are no worshipers and no priests to tend to them. However, I draw the line at the gratutious swipe at a legitimate act of self-defense by a sovereign state and the pretense of giving its "victim" some sense of righteousness in the process.

Are you kidding me?
Via the Associated Press, courtesy of CAIR (Council on American Islamic Affairs), we get this little gem regarding Israel's killing of a Hamas bigwig:

"We condemn this violation of international law as an act of state terrorism by Ariel Sharon's out-of-control government. Israel's extra-judicial killing of an Islamic religious leader can only serve to perpetuate the cycle of violence throughout the region. The international community must now take concrete steps to help protect the Palestinian people against such wanton Israeli violence."

To CAIR, I reply: I condemn the violations of international law that enabled 19 hijackers to commandeer three aircraft engaged in legitimate commerce, and which were used in the "extra-judicial" killings of 3,000 of my fellow citizens. The actions of those 19 men will continue to "perpetuate the cycle of violence throughout the region" as Americans take the initiative in kocking off Islamic tin-pots and head cases throughout the Middle East and around the globe.
The International community must now take steps to protect ALL people from wanton Islamic violence.

Since I have little faith in the "international community's" ability to be honest about the threat from Islam, rather than Israel, I guess America will have to stay the course. Remember that little blurb in Deuteronomy about an "eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth"? If I recall, that little bit of wisdom was recycled from Hammurabbi's Code, the first recorded legal system, which incidentally, just happened to have been invented in Iraq. We've just given back to Iraq what it had originally donated to Western Civilization. And you say we have no appreciation for you guys?

You hated us when we played by our rules, don't get so bent out of shape when we start playing by yours. And win while we're at it.

Whoever is in charge at CAIR needs to implement a stringent mass-enema program for his entire staff.

Man of the People, Part II
From the Associated press, via Best of the Web (Wall STreet Jornal):

"From a sailing mecca to a ski resort, presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry and his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, enjoy the trappings of their wealth in at least five homes and vacation getaways valued at nearly $33 million," the Associated Press reports. "Some are private escapes for the family, while others serve as prime spots to host fund-raisers and exclusive gatherings for wealthy donors."

Now you know why Kerry won't release his income tax returns to the public. If he did, he would not be able to sustain the fiction that the Bush tax cut is "strictly for the wealthy" and still be able to keep a straight face --- or his refund.

Beating Old Horses...
This thing has been blogged to death already, but I would be remiss if I did chime in on it. So, here is your obligatory "WTF is he talking about?" blog.

John Kerry claims to have the "support" of "foreign leaders". He refuses to name names, nor will he reveal the substance such "support" will take. You could almost see the "aw shit!" look cross his visage a millisecond after the words were uttered, and the backpeddling has been almost comic. He has been called to task by the Bushies (rightly) to spill his guts because the public needs to know just who is trying to influence their voting behavior, why they want to do so, and because being open and honest is something that is expected (if not always realized) to be a quality of someone running for President. Of course, this is the party that gave us the Clintons, so so much for openess and honesty.

Kerry refuses to answer the question, in my opinion, for one of two reasons: a) He's full of shyte or b) association with the leaders he's talking about would be embarrassing, and quite possibly fatal.

If he's a liar, well, he might get away with that since the average American has an attention span measured in MPH and is usually easily distracted (Presidential Candidate lies to the press and public! Never mind, American Idol is on!). After all, this is the citizenry that bought the whole schmeer of everything being "just about sex", "vast right-wing conspiracies", etc, etc. Democrats will excuse it because all they care about is winning by any means necessary.

If there is "support" who is giving it? Jacques Chirac? Vladimir Putin? Gerhard Schroeder? We already know this A-list is a cynical and underhanded lot, so we can assume (with some trepidation) that perhaps this is the case. We can assume that Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong Il are rooting for Kerry. But what if we're not talking A-list leaders here? What if we're talking about Gail Fischbein-Ekklestein, President of the National Association for the Preservation of Dryer Lint? Perhaps the leader of some international NGO like Klaus-Heinz Dinglemeier, Chairman of the International Sexual Studies Collective? Jose Pilar-Gonzales-Ortega, Chief Executive of the Society for the Preservation of Spanish Rice? A hefty line up if ever I saw one.

The more Kerry continues to peddle this snake oil, the more he reminds me of Woody Harrelson in "Kingpin" --- a loser who must dodge his slumlord landlady on rent day, and when finally caught, must choose the lesser fo two evils --- being thrown out on his ear or taking the chain-smoking, varicose-ulcered wreck of womanhood to bed. You dance with who brung ya, ya know.

Man of the People, Part 1...
Introducing a new feature of the Lunatic's Asylum! I will now record (as often as possible) indications that John Kerry is an idiot (as if you didn't know) and his team's probable attempts to straighten them out (i.e. spin them). I will not have to go looking for stuff, since Kerry usually can't stop talking and that provides all the ammo I need. To wit:

Kerry Calls Secret Service agent an SOB:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1101848/posts?page=74
Spin:
1. The snow was soft due to the Bush Administration's failure to adopt the Kyoto accords. Global warming creates crappy and dangerous snow, which is a danger to skiers and snowboarders all over the world. In the interests of recreational safety, John Kerry would not only push to have Kyoto ratified, he'd volunteer America for even more restrictive regulation.

2. Kerry did not "fall down" (Weebles are notorious for defying gravity, after all), he was attacked by a Bush operative disguised as a Secret Service agent. This is just the tip of the iceberg of a "vast right-wing conspiracy" to kill or seriously injure him prior to the election to keep him from winning the election and fulfilling his true destiny of implementing a communist utopia on American shores.

3. Kerry's use of the sobriquet "SOB" was something that slipped out in the "heat of the moment". It shows that Kerry is "passionate" about everything he does, and "competitive". Manly virtues if ever there were. Finally, a true "Alpha-Male".

The Selective Application of Facts...or Memory.
I've got a pal, who considers himself a staunch Libertarian, and who, truth be told, is probably the smartest man I know. I very much respect anything he wants to discuss with me, even if I disagree with it, because even in the disagreement I can always find at at least one morsel to feed my short supply of brain cells. I'd like to think he believes the same of me, but honestly, if everyone debated the way this man did, we'd be a lot better off as human beings and as a nation.

That having been said, I have to take him to the woodshed for a second or two because of an e-mail I recently received from him regarding his thoughts on the recent change in government in Spain, it's relation to the international war against terrorism, and issues of civil liberties here at home.

Sam (I'll call him Sam for the moment) is big on civil liberties and free markets. He's also a big fan of Ayn Rand and Objectivist philosophy, which is probably why he usually makes sense. This time, however, I wonder what he's been smoking.

According to Sam, the recent terrorist events in Madrid were a direct result of American agression towards Islam and he also asks the question: "...if the Islamic "world" really does attack us ONLY out of hatred for our liberties, the actions of the neoconservatives a/k/a "Straussian neoJacobins" in rendering a few more pieces of...legislation like the "USA ZEALOT" act and a few more bureaucracies like the Department of Fatherland (In)Security should render us immune from any further assault, by having then removed any vestiges of the condition that originally fomented such "hatred". After all, how can THEY "hate us for our freedoms" if we no longer have any? (Gee, I feel safer already.)"

I've been seeing an awful lot of this from libertarians lately.

Okay, let's review some history for a second. Spain was conquered by Islamic armies from North Africa (mostly Berbers) in more-or-less 714 AD. The reasons for the invasion were simply plunder, slavery, religious fanaticism, and because Spain was an easy target, as were the Balkans, Sicily, Southern Italy, Greece and the remnants of the Byzantine Empire in Eastern Europe (although Byzantium would stand until 1258). Internecine Christian warfare and political disorganization enabled a desert raider folk to invade and conquer vast areas of Europe without serious resistance being offered. Thirty-odd years later, at the Battle of Poitiers, Islam met it's first serious challenge in the form of Charles Martel and his army, which sent the Andalusians reeling back into Spain, keeping France safe for surrender to the Germans for another 1,300 years. The Spanish Reconquista, in which Christian Spaniards and Portugese began to recover their ancestral lands from invaders,started around 1300 and did not end until 1492, by which time Christians had found more exciting things to do than go on Crusades, like cross oceans and find continents previously undiscovered by other peoples of similar technical achievement. I also submit that the First Crusade was launched in 1096, more or less 300 years after Spain had been under Islamic rule, and that was led by the French. Most of the other crusades that followed failed spectacularly, unless they were directed against other Christians (Byzantium) or Jews. The need to invade other Christian lands or engage in pogroms being a predisposition in the Germans, apparently. However, I digress.

According to the Koran, once a land has felt the yoke of Sharia law, it must not be allowed to fall to the Infidel, and should that ever happen, then it is the duty of every Muslim to retake that land by any means possible. In the 20th Century, since most Muslim nations cannot muster enough military power to burn calories, let alone take on a 4th rate power like Spain, this has taken the form of unchecked immigration, political agitation and appeal to collective guilt. Last week someone, and it may have been Basque seperatists (at this point it does indeed look that way, the Islamic references and evidence being found is just too pat), decided that political rhetoric, historical grievance and (possibly) religious dogma had to be backed up with 200 dead folks on trains.

So, Islamonazis had a reason to do what they did (if they did it) for reasons OTHER than Spain's alliance with the United States in the War on Terror. Of course, the idea that Spain was invaded first and then reclaimed THEIR OWN ancestral lands never enters the argument. Thirty years of Islamic rhetoric about the evils of Western Civilization and the Kruschev-like taunts of "we will bury you" from the mullahs never enter the picture. The point is to grasp at straws for reasons to oppose this particular war, or more precisely, THIS particular President.

Second item on the agenda, and I have discussed this at length many a time. For anyone who still lives under the impression that John Ashcroft is Heinrich Himmler reborn, armed with a Night and Fog Decree, and the technilogical and military power of the world's remaining superpower behind him, think again. The USA Patriot Act mostly restores powers and processes that had been taken away from Federal law enforcement over the last 30 years. It relaxes some (but not all) of the requirements for reasonable cause in the application of and obtaining of search warrants, it removes some restrictions on the use of electronic eavesdropping, true, but there is still the requirement that the government show just cause none the less.

Habeas Corpus has not been revoked. The rights guarenteed under the Constitution have not been revoked. The judicial system has not been rendered useless. Americans are not being rounded up and sent to gulags on "suspicions" and denied due process of law. Firing squads are not roaming the streets.

In fact, the US Government was already legally eavesdropping on folks, monitoring their communications, et. al, long before anyone KNEW they were. Anyone remember Predator, the NSA system that could read your e-mail, listen to you telephone calls and read a fax while it was still in transit, among other things? Did anyone know it existed prior to the French making an international cause celebre out of it in the early 90's? The point is, the government was doing all this stuff already and people, even child pornographers and drug dealers, were not being rounded up en masse.

So, if the government is listening to your phone calls, decides nothing is wrong with it and that you do not pose a security risk, are not involved in a criminal enterprise or plotting the overthrow of the government, and then leaves you alone, were your civil liberties violated? No harm, no foul, right? If there were a criminal proceeding or an arrest, perhaps yes. But I'm not a lawyer, so I don't think so.

So Sam, one more time. The bombs in Spain were not the result of American involvement in Iraq. They were the result of someone with an axe to grind against the Spanish in particular or the West in general, and they managed to get a government overthrown in the process. Having been to Spain many times and having respect for the Spanish people, I can tell you from experience that the resulting losses to the conseratives were from fear. That's what terrorists do --- breed fear and doubt. It will only be a matter of time before another European government is targeted for overthrow (over and above the voluntary surrender to the EU) because the lessons learned are: you can get your way if you kill enough folks and there is no fear of retaliation.

The Spanish were not brave in this instance; they caved. But that's Spain's problem and it was always Spain's issue, not America's, and it certainly was not because of the Patriot Act.

Stupid is as stupid does...
From the Associated Press:

"A 23-year-old man tried to commit suicide by nailing himslf to a cross, the Associated Press reports from Hartland, Maine:

Lt. Pierre Boucher said the man took two pieces of wood, nailed them together in the form of a cross and placed them on the floor. He attached a suicide sign to the wood and then proceeded to nail one of his hands to the makeshift cross using a 14-penny nail and a hammer.

"When he realized that he was unable to nail his other hand to the board, he called 911," Boucher said.

It was unclear whether the man was seeking assistance for his injury or help in nailing down his other hand."

He'll probably vote for Kerry...

Trees for the Forest, Part Deux....
Take a look at this pablum in the Guardian of London:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/spain/article/0,2763,1170977,00.html

Talk about MISSING the point...

Spain got hit because the terrorists have learned that carrying their war against the West to American shores gets you arrested, killed or invaded.

Europe will now get hit because the Islamonazis have taken X-rays and discovered that most European governments have no spines. Most European governments have no brains, either, because they have all missed the BIG POINT; this war is not one of America versus the Islamic world, it is the Islamic world against WESTERN CIVILIZATION as a whole. The Islamofascists will not quit until we're all living under Sharia law or they're all dead. Guess which will happen first?

Why some people continue to believe that America is the biggest bugbear on the planet is way beyond me. You kinda expect this kind of puke to show up in the Guardian or the NYT, but this is stupidity beyond even those publication's usual exacting standards for such.
For a bunch of folks who are supposed to be journalists, they don't seem to listen very well, nor are they objective. The Islamofascists have been shouting it from the rooftops for the last 20 years that they consider themselves at war with the West (all of it), despite the fact that the West (and especially the United States) has done more to protect Muslims from the dangers of Soviet Communism (Afghanistan), other Westerners (Bosnia) and other Islamic nations (Iraq, twice) to warrant such hatred.

The "Death to the West, Death to the Great Satan" mantra has been the buzzword of a movement that began with Khomeini in the late 70's and has continued to this day. It was laying just under the surface since Nasser, and just took an Iranian nincompoop to formally initiate the program. What is the source of this hatred? Is it Israel? Partly, but not for religious reasons -- Israel is hated because it is something the Arab states can never be: a secular, prosperous, democratic society that even extends rights to those that would destroy it from within. Do they hate us because of our "imperialistic, hegemonic" ways? Well, if I were French, British, Italian, Spanish or Russian, I would say yes, but AMERICA? I don't remember American colonies or spheres of influence in the region since the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, can you?

This hatred is pathological and it revolves around something incredibly simple, which is why some of our more "nuanced" allies, politicians and "journalists" miss it all the time: The West creates. The West liberates. The West enriches. The West holds up the freedom of the individual as the highest achievement of mankind. Islam requires submission, abject surrender to a code that would make a dedicated Communist blush with envy. Islam cannot survive without submission and the influences of the West (and America as the epitome of Western Civilization) constantly tempting it's faithful. Western Civ and everything about it, in it or surrounding it, threatens the existing order of everything "the Prophet" created, and which sustains an entire class of individuals who hold power because of it. This is the danger to Islam and this is why Westerners must be destroyed: Khomieni's, Husseins, Assad's, et. al, cannot allow freedom because to do so signs their own death warrant.

Don't believe me? Just listen to what they're saying. That seems simple enough, doesn't it?

Talk about missing the trees for the forest.

The People are Sheep...
Found this interesting, and decided to comment. You can find it here: http://www.indystar.com/articles/3/129240-2413-010.html

Now, why the good people of Minnesota feel it is necessary to tell folks how to feed themselves properly is beyond me. I can see, perhaps, the argument being made that welfare money is given to those deemed worthy so that they might do something responsible with it, i.e. indulging in healthy eating habits, and not, let's say, gorging oneself on Dorito's and Devil Dogs.

Then again, it should also occur to those who wish to lead by the nose that the people being given the welfare money in the first place very often cannot be commended on their personal choices to begin with. If you're a crack-addicted, mother of four by way of multiple sexual partners, it can be resaonably be assumed that if you're profligate with your sexual organs, then MSG content in your potato chips is not high on your list of priorities.

But of course, someone has already figured this out. Someone, somewhere, in the Minnesota governmental (and we do mean mental) structure (I'd bet on a woman) has finally ascertained the single, universal truth, vis-a-vis most welfare recipients: they're typically dumber than dogshit. Stupid people must be told what to do and coerced to make the proper decisions before they do something inconvenient, like die in the street in large numbers or turn to crime. Therefore, we start by telling them what to eat.

Let's first define the relative merits of the word poverty. Are America's poor living at near-starvation levels like the poor of Sub-Saharan Africa? No. Are they picking through garbage dumps looking for cabbage leaves or animal dung looking for undigested seeds, like they do in Central America? Certainly not. Are they dying in droves of tropical diseases and as the result of tribal and religious warfare, say like in South-East Asia and the Middle East? Hell no.

According to the census bureau, a great number of the people we classify as "poor" own their own home. They typically have cable and color television, air conditioning and at least one car. They have access to public-supported education and health care, food stamps, mass-transit subsidies and have their "poverty" counted a s a virtue when enrolling in college.

Quite simply, we do not have poor people in this country. What we have is stupid, lazy, unmotivated people lying around on the public dole. When you live in a society that affords the opportunities and privledges this one does, you have no excuse for collecting a government check. Get off your fat behind and work for a living.

However, this does not give government the right to tell you what you can eat. It is just another example of the nanny-state gone wild: we must protect people from their own stupidity, therefore, we can tell you what to do. It's only a short step from telling you what to eat to whom you may vote for, what you may learn in school and, eventually, what you can do and when you can do it. But that's the point, isn't it -- to create sucessive generations of mindless robots that reflexively do what Big Brother tells them to?