Feminists and Fox News

April 30, 2010 by Simon L Hoodwink · 7 Comments 

Over toast and tea this morning, as I channel surfed to CNN, a dollop of marmalade fell from my toast and soiled my silk pajamas.   The spill can be remedied.  But in my urgency to clean the spill I dropped my remote as my surfing landed squarely on fox news.  There are choices to be made in life.  I foolishly opted to take care of a potentially sticky mess which meant that Fox News remained on the telie screen.  Before life returned to normalcy, the supposedly fair and balanced one ran a piece on the UN electing Iran to be a member of its Commission on Woman’s Rights.

Read the story HERE.

I had to chuckle.  What a crazy, mixed up world where the conservatives are outraged and the feminists are silent over such obvious pandering. This just shows how successful we have been in an aim that we would rather not discuss in too much detail.  To describe this aim, you will need some background.

61.3% of all animated Disney films are about children of deceased or absent mothers. Here are a few examples:

bellearielsnow white

Snow White

Dumbo

Bambi

Cinderella

Jungle Book

The Little Mermaid

Beauty and the Beast

Aladdin

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Tarzan

Lilo and Stitch

Brother Bear

The fathers in these stories are mostly irrelevant, dictatorial or absent as well.  This could be read as saying that the ultimate setback to overcome is the loss of a mother.  When the hero succeeds in the end, she has done so without a mother present which would be heroic indeed.  A proper reading suggests that strong mothers are unnecessary to development.

Barbiespelosi

We continue our concerted effort to de-motherize women.  Within the United States we bifurcate possibilities for women into a dichotomy of becoming either objects of sex or agents of corporate/political power.  We offer Barbie on the one hand and Pelosi on the other, and, at least in The US, we are astonishingly successful.  On the Barbie side, the existential pain of Barbie envy has enriched plastic surgeons, internists, drug manufacturers, diet potion manufacturers, and Oprah.  Oprah is there to blow sunshine up skirts when envy remains upon realization that 1) there is not enough money and 2) life is worse now than it was before.  The remedy is to swallow a pill, curl up on the couch and absorb the digital version of the same psycho-trope.

The alternative is power.  Any alternate choice is tantamount to gender betrayal, which is what makes Palin problematic for us.  We must continue to tag her as stupid, radical and dangerous.

Outside of the US, the strategy is different.  The emasculation of motherhood is at it’s most overt level in Iran and other like nations.  If females are controlled by threat of death, if they are denied free education, if they are denied free interchange of ideas with half of the population, it is easier to control the indoctrination of their offspring.

To come full-circle, had I taken a random, hypothetical survey last week which asked, “Who is more likely to protest the inclusion of Iran as a member of an international women’s rights committee, Fox News or NOW?”  What do you think the results of the survey would have been?

Illegal Immigration Part II

April 29, 2010 by Maria Angelica Leon Chamorro · 1 Comment 

First let me say that I am happy to have a conservative forum where I can express some of my ideas.  As you might imagine, I run in pretty liberal circles.  Just a quick note on that, what you conservatives better understand is that winning the Latino vote would secure your political sway for decades to come.  Liberals and democrats understand this.  They cater/pander to the Latino community.  If not for George Bush’s relative popularity among Latinos, you would have likely had a two-term Gore White House.  Latinos share several core values with conservatives.  These should be pointed out and, where there are differences, these should be discussed and debated gently and not with megaphones and draconian legislation.  A conservative/Latino voting coalition would be nearly impossible to beat.

Second, You have to understand my background.  I grew up in the barrio in Tucson, Arizona.  My mother and father, both illegal at the time, had seven children of which I am the fifth.  They came to the United States to flee suffocating economic oppression.  They have always honored their native culture and spoke Spanish exclusively to their children.  At the same time, they insisted that we adopt the customs of our new country and made sure that we gave our full effort to studies.  Though never rich, my recently deceased father was a proud citizen.  He loved the United States and what it gave him.  He said, once, that it would be impossible for him to re-pay the United States for all that it had done for him.  His plea to his children near the end of his life would be for us to continue the repayment effort.  Because of that, I took school seriously.

It was my study of law and economics that spurred extra-curricular detailed studies in US history and government.  Though we share little racial/cultural heritage, I am forever bound to Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson.  Freedom is the bonding agent.  In spite of serious conservative leanings on issues of freedom, I side with the President on Immigration Policy.  I may not have chosen the best video to display in my last post.  Here is my own Immigration proposal, which mirrors the president’s.

Immigration Policy

Every immigrant wishing to become a citizen should be required to register to become a citizen.  If they register, they will be given immunity from deportation and be allowed to work during the registration period.  The registration period is 18 months long.  During that time, each applicant must:

  • Achieve basic English proficiency
  • Pass an immigration test heavily weighted toward US history, government and law
  • Pay a $3500 fine to completely cover associated administrative costs
  • Not commit any crime during the 18 month period (traffic and similar law infractions are excepted).  If a crime is committed, the applicant forever forfeits citizenship rights and will be immediately deported or prosecuted under US law.
  • Be subject to US income and other taxes.

Besides this, the borders must NOT be closed but must be regulated.  If there were a far easier way for citizens of other countries to immigrate, non-criminal, illegal immigration would cease.  Border agents would no longer be over-burdened and could focus in on keeping bad elements out of the US.

I welcome any and all dialogue on this site or to my personal email, mariaangelicaleonchamorro@gmail.com

The Immigration Mess in Arizona — The Obama Solution

April 28, 2010 by Maria Angelica Leon Chamorro · 3 Comments 

María Angélica León Chamorro graduated from Brown University with a degree in Economics and a Law degree from University of Arizona. She founded the group, Senda Reál América which lobbies on behalf of immigrant interests in several states.

Anthropologists tell us that we American’s are all immigrants or children of immigrants. Not even the Native American tribes are really native. They are transplants who may win an American genealogical longevity argument, but in the end, they owe their origins to Euro/Asian/Middle Eastern populations. Around 250 years after the first modern Europeans began colonizing, a bold, yet well-conceived, experiment in government created a wildly liberal immigration policy. The policy is shocking to modern politicians and anthropologists.

David Grant wrote previously in, American DNA, about the apparently backward notion of inviting:

your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me

Really? We are not asking for the professors, the doctors, the lawyers, the politicians and the business tycoons? You must be joking! How would we get along without the elite? You are telling me that we are embarking on the boldest governmental experiment ever conceived, and we are asking for “wretched refuse?” The key great-nation-making qualifier in the poem, and really, the only one that matters, is “yearning to breathe free.” Think about that! America threw down the gauntlet. America brashly claimed that, “Out of your rejects, we can create a nation better than yours by about any measure. Out of this wilderness, we will outproduce you in industry and agriculture. We will rule the seas, the land and the air. We will dominate global trade. We will create unimaginable wealth, and we will do it all with your refuse! Keep your doctors, lawyers, philosophers, politicians, princes, artisans, land owners and industrial magnates. We need none of them. Freedom will sanctify both soil and toil, and out of these will grow unimaginable wealth in art, science and industry.” Somewhere between the writing of that poem and our current immigration angst we lost site of what made us great.

The Agony in Arizona

Arizonans live near a porous border with a struggling state, in this case, a Mexican state that has failed in border regions. Lawless border areas have become a breeding ground for gangs of drug thugs, human traffickers, vigilantes and wretched refuse who often do not survive desert crossings and border breaches. Arizona has been abandoned by the legal prescriber and intended enforcer of immigration policy, the federal government. I am convinced that after one day of issue discussion, a random class of fifth graders could come up with superior immigration policy to what decades of Democrats and Republicans have been able to concoct.

The end result of the Arizona law, which allows police to, upon suspicion that a person in question is an illegal immigrant, ask for documentation, will have two effects. The first has already happened and will be described at the end of this post. The second can be demonstrated by the recent rise in Audi dealership revenue in Scottsdale. Every trial lawyer in the state is spending in advance of what will surely be vast income augmentation.

America Versus Europe

During the last two centuries, it was not uncommon for a European in power to demand proper identification of a subject. The response would be a submissive document delivery and hope that arrest quotas were filled. The American response would look something like this:

Suspicious Officer: (They look like they might be illegal immigrants.  They are short, brown, and their English is really bad). May I see your documents?

Luis Hernandez: Tell you what, medio pendejo, you can stick your request donde el sol no brilla!

Suspicious Officer: You are under arrest!

Luis Hernandez: Perfecto! My abogado is going to love this. Nos vemos in court!

Months later a court docket arrives, “Hernandez v Arizona.” Some time later, the law is overturned for being unconstitutional, the lawyers are richer, and Arizona is poorer (but some politicians may save their miserable skins by taking a stand).

The first effect previously mentioned, is that Arizona’s angst is now in the national spotlight. President Obama has already spoken on what I believe is sound immigration policy. Given his proven ability to create policy against tremendous odds, he may be able to push needed immigration reform through as well. By taking a stand, Arizona has created the necessary impetus to push policy. Take a look at what he proposes–

Most of Summalogica readers are asking, “Chica, have you lost your mind?” You probably fall into one of three categories:

  1. You believe that I am consorting with the enemy and that no matter what Obama says, it is wrong for America because he said it. I have nothing more to say to you.
  2. You believe that the ideals that the President expressed, though valuable, will end up nationalizing something, centralizing power, benefiting a union, increasing the national debt, or somehow continuing similar encroachment on freedom. I am sympathetic to your distrust of all things political.
  3. You disagree with me for reasons independent of political figures. If you fall into this category, please engage in the comment section of this post.

You can also send me an email: mariaangelicaleonchamorro@gmail.com

María Angélica

Mary’s Elation Painting and Description–Del Parson

April 26, 2010 by Dave · 1 Comment 

The Painter:  Del Parson


His Title:  Touch Me Not


My Title:  Mary’s Elation

I have included my first description following the painting….

Mary Mag FINAL

Mary Mag FINAL

Last night as I was visiting a painter friend, I noticed that he had placed a new painting on one of the living room walls. At first glance, the painting was simple and unremarkable. As if unable to stand, the woman in the painting knelt beside a man in a flowing robe. Only part of the man’s torso was visible as well as the lower part of his arms and hands. His hands carried the mark of the signature nail imprint. This event was post resurrection and pre-ascension. The woman was grasping the robe of the man and the man had placed a gentle, comforting arm around the woman’s shoulder.

The woman’s expression was that of profound elation, faith, love and relief. Her eyes were closed, her mouth partly open and the expression showed why she was kneeling; she was so overcome by the experience that she hadn’t strength to stand. There was great clarity and vision in Mary Magdalene’s aura. The relief came from the physical manifestation of a promised return. The love came from being reunited again with perhaps her husband and at least her friend, in the most profound sense of the word, that she believed she had lost. The faith came from the current and continued removal of death’s permanence. The elation came from a culmination of the turning of overwhelming emotions from loss, distance, suffering and yet hope, to fulfillment, life, love, assurance and fecundity.

The painter told me that several had been gently critical of the paining because of the Master’s command, “Touch me not!” The transliterated Greek word for touch as it is used in the verse is Haptomai. Haptomai does not mean ‘touch’ as in ‘make any physical contact.’ It comes from the transliterated Greek word, Hapto which means to fasten to or adhere to. The additional definition to Haptomai is to cling to.

I love paintings that are able to capture events, especially those events about which I have had a mistaken perception. I had certainly read over the passage in John many times and had perceived a rather majestic Messiah stopping Mary Magdalene cold in her advance and telling her, that for some divine reason I did not understand, she was forbidden to touch him until he had ascended to his Father. The expression on Mary’s face, her clutching his robe and Jesus’ comforting arm in her shoulder feel much better and make more scholarly sense. His ‘touch me not’ should be read as saying, in ultimate gentleness and affection, “I cannot stay and you must not hold (delay) me. I must go to the Father now.”

The fact that the account comes from the gospel of John is noteworthy. I would expect Luke to describe the situation more physically. John did not see the need. I think John describes the embrace between Jesus and Mary with the correct translation of the word, ‘touch.’

The painting is not yet in print. When it is, I will ask for a signed copy. When I have a digital image, I will post it on this site.

Big State Nightmare

April 22, 2010 by JeremiahFlint · Leave a Comment 

jflint

Hi Folks,

By way of personal preface, I like all of you, but I do not care if you dislike me. That is to say, it’s OK if you impugn my humanity. Also, in writing, I strive for economy. That requires attempting to use the single best word to convey nuance of meaning, even if it strains the limits of a reader’s lexicon. I do not apologize for this. If you don’t know what a word means, look it up in a dictionary. If you leave me a comment containing a word I don’t know, I will do the same, grateful for the enrichment.

Jeremiah Flint, PhD

The preface for this article is two stories in the press I came across recently. I submit them as a composite metric of current German morality. The first reports the conviction of a Catholic Bishop, Richard Williamson, in Germany who was convicted in a German court for denying the Holocaust. Read the article here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100416/ap_on_re_eu/eu_germany_holocaust_denial

The comments in question were made by Williamson, who is British, during an interview he gave in Germany to Swedish television. See the interview here:

Prior to stumbling upon this article, I was unaware that it is a crime in Germany to deny the Holocaust on the premise that it constitutes an incitement to anti-Semitic behavior. Watching the interview, it is clear that Williamson calls in question the scale of the Holocaust, and the method by which it was accomplished. I read up a bit on the Bishop elsewhere and it is also clear to me that he leans in an anti-Semitic direction.  I am not sure how anti-Semitic he is, but I am aware that there are those who hold the view that somehow, the Jews merited the horror of the Holocaust, which I believe claimed at least 6 million lives. That view is reprehensible to me.  But that is not the view he expresses in the interview.

Without question, shouting “fire” in a crowded theater can hurt people and justly incurs the condemnation of society as a criminally irresponsible act.  Germany has decided that what you just watched on YouTube was a criminally irresponsible act.  To me, killing 300,000 Jews in concentration camps is every bit as reprehensible as killing 6 million.  Every life is precious. But so is free speech, because it makes life more precious. This guy may be nuts. But are you sure that an idea you find reasonable will never be subject to this kind of codified political correctness?

The next story is about a young woman in Germany who faced the possibility of losing her employment benefits for refusing to seek work in the sex industry. Read the UK Telegraph article here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/1482371/If-you-dont-take-a-job-as-a-prostitute-we-can-stop-your-benefits.html

This one speaks for itself.  At least it does in the ranks of decent people. And I do not hesitate to suggest that a society who would uphold such a law has lost its grasp of decency.

To me, these two stories, taken as a composite, are a portrait of what some have referred to as “The Big State Nightmare”.

The large issue for me in the dichotomy of these two stories is the moral turbidity and confusion that, historically, always seem to both support and grow out of the “big state” in an awful, parasitic symbiosis. Yes, I am saying that moral decline and big government are mutually enabling.

The miracle of this nation is built upon the premise that our rights and responsibilities derive from God, not institutions or individuals. I recently heard a radio commentator articulate this principle in response to a caller’s suggestion that the Republicans would get a lot more traction, get a lot more people in the tent, if they would run on a primarily fiscal-conservative platform more neutral to “moral” issues like abortion. The commentator pointed out that if you try to obviate or ignore God and his preferences in the political dialogue, you have ceded your claim to unalienable rights.

That’s a really important point. But which God, with which attributes? Could this miracle ever have caught its first breath in the arms of the midwife of Islam? Or secular humanism? The wisdom of the Greeks, English Common Law and the Decalogue were crucial bodies in the system our founding fathers aligned but they were not the strong force that held – and holds them – together. That strong force, I assert, is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob Himself, who gave the Law to Moses – and who also gave the Sermon on the Mount. That strong force is what saw Washington through the winter in Valley Forge, and many others through the darkest times this nation has seen. It also asks, “who is my neighbor?”.  For America, that neighbor has included not only millions of Jews in concentration camps, but also post-war Japan and Germany.  A secular nation does not behave that way.  Nor does an Islamic one.

The Republic, undergirded by the Declaration and the Constitution, is a God-given gift. It is much like the gift of God to Abraham by way of covenant which enabled Abraham to obtain peace, freedom and abundance. So our American gift is really a covenant inextricably intertwined with the privilege and burden of choice. And, like the ancient knight said to Indiana Jones, we must “choose wisely”.

The matter of what we uphold or reject as a society really is a choice of life or death implication.  Ours is a conditional charter. The freedom and abundance we have enjoyed as a nation are historically unparalleled. They have come to us, ultimately, only by the grace of God after doing all we can to build, to grow and to be good. My worry is that our Nation’s covenant with God is like the proverbial pearl of great price that people will trample under foot as they essentially seek to obviate God.

Many conservatives have vented angst about leftist monopoly of the media megaphone. I recall the celebrities paraded out for the post – 9/11 telethon. Many invoked the name of God and called for prayer. I believe they were sincere. But I also believe most of them forgot about it a few days later and went back to whatever. We can’t, we won’t prevail as a free nation if we keep “going back to whatever”, if we are not a nation under God. If one believes there is a God, and that God had a hand in the birth of this nation, then it is reasonable to believe that same God has sustained it through difficult times on his own terms, or else he is merely an idol fashioned vainly by men for the purpose of their own validation.

The questions of who he is and what his terms are for a nation to whom He has granted so much – again, I believe they encompass the Decalogue, the Sermon on the Mount, and the US Constitution – are the great points on which the fate of this nation hangs.  We have become a people attuned to demagogues who give us bread and circus. Who tell us that we can indulge ourselves on debt and be prosperous, on immorality and have peace.  Who, in fact, would have us forget the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and George Washington and simply support our president. In reality, they have, in great part, succeeded in selling the Rolls for scrap to fashion a sparkling new Yugo: the new morality of multiple categories of recycling bins, hybrid cars, fake fur, neutered pets and condoms for one-night-stands.

Everyone belongs in this tent, except, of course, those who think it might be a bad idea for seventh graders to put condoms on bananas in health class. This is the current iteration of the historical morality of the big state. Now, think about it: currently and historically, does the big state stay big without owning the definition of morality? If not, is not logical to assume that the big state will make a heavy stake in defining morality? That diseased definition is much like the counterfeit cup grasped by the greedy fool in “Last Crusade” who chose poorly and ended his days in death and horror.

That moral counterfeit cup, to me, is the ultimate big state nightmare. And that’s the punch we’re poised to gulp. The Republic, undergirded by the Declaration and Constitution: our divine charter that allows us to continue to choose. But to retain that charter, we have to choose to be good, and no society chooses to be good for long without choosing the God of Liberty.

Finally! My Book List

April 22, 2010 by Dave · 5 Comments 

I have promised this to scores of students and can finally deliver.  Thanks to all who suggested titles.  Please comment on things that ought to be included. If you click on one of the books in the carousel to buy a book, it will cost you no more and I will donate 20% of the proceeds to charity (win/win). I have created categories for easier perusal.  I will post descriptions and reviews soon.  If you want to write a review, I will include it with my own.  Oh, and if you want to know how to do the Amazon carousel thing, send em an email.  dave@summalogica.com

Cheers,

Dave

Resistance

Man’s Search for Meaning — Victor Frankyl

The Gulag Archipelago — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

And There was Light — Jacques Lussuyran Top Ten Pick

Philosophy Light

Screwtape Letters — CS Lewis

The Prince — Machiavelli

The Great Divorce — CS Lewis

The Abolition of Man — CS Lewis

Mere Christianity — CS Lewis

The Dancing Wu Li Masters — Gary Zukav

Philosophical — Medium Difficulty

Fear and Trembling — Soren Kierkegaard

Continental Philosophy since 1750: The Rise and Fall of the Self — Solomon

The Republic — Plato

Early Socratic Dialogues — Plato

Candide — Voltaire

Philosophical — High Difficulty

Thus Spoke Zarathustra — Fredrich Nietzsche

Beyond Good and Evil — Fredrich Nietzsche

Politics — Aristotle

The Sickness Unto Death — Soren Kierkegaard

Totality and Infinity — Emmanuel Levinas

Concluding Unscientific Postscript — Soren Kierkagaard

Works of Love — Soren Kierkegaard


Heavy Fiction

The Brothers Karamazov — Fyodor Dostoevsky Top Ten Pick

Atlas Shrugged — Ayn Rand

The Name of the Rose — Umberto Eco

Foucault’s Pendulum — Umberto Eco

Lord of the Rings — J.R. Tolken

Romeo and Juliet — William Shakespeare

Macbeth — William Shakespeare

Hamlet — William Shakespeare


Medium Fiction

Pride and Prejudice — Jane Austen

Sense and Sensibility — Jane Austen

Uncle Tom’s Cabin — Stowe

To Kill a Mockingbird — Harper Lee

Catcher in the Rye — J.D. Salinger

the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn — Mark Twain


The Odyssey — Homer

1984 — George Orwell

The Count of Monte Cristo — Alexandre Dumas

The Lord of the Rings — J.R Tolkien

Moby Dick — Herman Melville

Les Miserables — Victor Hugo

Light Fiction

Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus — Orson Scott Card

The Chosen — Potok

The Life of Pi — Yann Martel

Ender’s Game — Orson Scott Card

Saints — Orson Scott Card

Stone Tables — Orson Scott Card

Animal Farm — George Orwell


Business

The Goal — Eli Goldratt Top Ten List

Good to Great — Jim Collins

The World is Flat — Thomas Friedman

Critical Chain — Eli Goldratt

It’s Not Luck — Eli Goldratt

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion — Robert Cialdini

The Road to Serfdom — Hayek

Freakonomics — Leavitt and Dubner

The Wealth of Nations — Adam Smith

The Work of Nations — Robert Reich

Superfreakonomics — Leavitt and Dubner

Outliers — Malcolm Gladwell Top Ten List

Tipping Point — Malcolm Gladwell

The E-Myth — Gerber

Blink — Malcolm Gladwell

Out of the Crisis — W. Edwards Demming

Capitalism and Freedom — Milton Friedman


History

The Civil War: A Narrative — Shelby Foote Top Ten List

The History of Civilization — Will Durant

1776 — David McCullough

Democracy in America — Alexis de Tocqueville

The Lessons of History — Will Durant

The Political Writings of John Adams — George W. Carey

The Federalist Papers — Jay, Hamilton and Madison

The Anti-Federalist Papers — Patrick Henry

Misc

The Poetry of Robert Frost — Robert Frost Top Ten List

The Closing of the American Mind — Harold Bloom

Dumbing us Down — John Taylor Gatto

The Ancient State — Hugh Nibley

On Food and Cooking — Harold McGee

Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible;with Greek and Hebrew Dictionaries — James Strong

Compact OED

Religious

Book of John — New Testament — King James Version Top Ten List

The Book of Mormon — Translated by Joseph Smith Jr.  Top Ten List

Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt — Parley P. Pratt

Approaching Zion — Hugh Nibley

Joseph Smith Rough Stone Rolling — Richard Lyman Bushman

The Lord’s Question — Dennis Rasmussen

The Peacegiver — Jim Ferrell

Children’s Lit

Love You Forever — Robert N. Munsch and Sheila McGraw

You are Special — Max Lucado Top Ten List


First Amendment Conundrum

April 16, 2010 by Dave · 1 Comment 

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”


“Idiot!”

“How could you wear a shirt like that?”

“My Uncle died to protect that flag, A#$ H#&%.”

The shirt I wore had an image of a burning American flag on the front with the caption, “Burn, Baby, Burn!”  It was misleading for me to wear it.  I love the flag of the United States of America because of the freedom and justice that it represents.  But, when faced with a choice between violating the First Amendment and allowing for flag burning, I side with free speech.

On t he shirt’s back was printed the First Amendment.  People seeing me from behind became instant friends, and anyone seeing my approach would become instant enemies.  I would not wear that shirt today, mostly because I can blog my message, which is that the Constitution stands alone among the world’s government documents as the greatest ensurer of the possibility of freedom, and it deserves protection at the dangerous end of both pen and barrel.

Germany has no such statute as evidenced in the following article.

Bishop convicted for denying Holocaust

Richard Williamson AP – FILE- British Bishop Richard Williamson, second from left foreground, is escorted out of London’s Heathrow …
By VERENA SCHMITT-ROSCHMANN, Associated Press Writer Verena Schmitt-roschmann, Associated Press Writer 16 mins ago BERLIN – A German court convicted ultraconservative British Bishop Richard Williamson on Friday of denying the Holocaust in a television interview.

A court in the Bavarian city of Regensburg found Williamson guilty of incitement for saying in a 2008 interview with Swedish television that he did not believe Jews were killed in gas chambers during World War II.  The court ordered Williamson to pay a fine of euro10,000 ($13,544).  The Roman Catholic bishop was barred by his order from attending Friday’s proceedings or making statements to the media.

His lawyer, Matthias Lossmann, told The Associated Press after the court ruling that Williamson has yet to decide whether he would appeal.

Denying the Holocaust is a criminal offense in Germany.  The court ordered a fine of euro12,000 for Williamson last year, without a trial. But the bishop appealed, forcing his case to be tried publicly.  Lossmann said that Williamson had explicitly asked the Swedish television crew conducting the interview not to broadcast it in Germany.  In issuing her ruling, Judge Karin Frahm said the bishop could not have expected that the clip would show up on YouTube and be seen directly in Germany, and that led her to reduce the fine, court spokesman Bernhard Schneider told the AP.  The journalists who conducted the interview ignored a court order to attend the trial, Lossmann said, leaving the judge to rely on written statements as testimony.

“That does not do a case like this justice,” Lossmann said.

The interview was conducted near Regensburg and was granted shortly before Williamson’s excommunication was lifted by Pope Benedict XVI, along with that of three other bishops from the anti-modernization movement of the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.  The American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors said in a statement it welcomed the ruling as “a symbol of modern German determination to prohibit the dissemination of Holocaust denial on its soil.”

The U.S.-based group’s vice president, Elan Steinberg, called Williamson’s remarks vile and craven and called upon his order and the Vatican to cut all ties with him.  The lifting of Williamson’s excommunication sparked outrage among Jewish groups and in Israel. The Vatican’s handling of the affair prompted criticism from German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Six million Jews were killed during the Nazi Holocaust, many of them murdered in gas chambers.  Williamson lives in Britain.

Let’s be honest.  As I read this, my emotional side was cheering that this disgusting human being will see the inside of a jail cell.  My emotional side wants Williamson to suffer for denying one of the greatest atrocities in human history.  But had he denied the Holocaust in the United States, in spite of how much I may despise man and message, I would defend his right to state it.  the Constitution is under assault and must be defended even when its defense allows for increasingly distasteful outcomes.

There is precedent for free speech curtailment in Germany.  It happened about 75 years ago.  I have to wonder if Hitler would have even been a possibility had the German Constitution contained, First Amendment rights that were respected by patriots.

Don’t Miss This Video!

April 16, 2010 by Dave · 1 Comment 

How to Elevate Government and Crush Capitalism

April 15, 2010 by Simon L Hoodwink · 1 Comment 

Dr. Simon L. Hoodwink received his M.D. from ‘Universiti Pierre et Marie Curie in 1960. He practiced medicine in several impoverished countries until 1962 when he attended a forum on Marxism at Université Catholique de Louvain. The forum changed his perspective on third world conditions. He became a world renowned consultant, author, and socialist power broker best known for his work in Latin America. He wrote several books during his career including, “How to Make Capitalism Collapse Under Its Own Weight,” and, “He Who Controls Historical Interpretation, Rules the World.” His career as a consultant started in 1963 as an adviser to Argentinian revolutionary, Che Guevara. He worked with Che until his death in 1967. Concurrent with his work with Che, Dr. Hoodwink also served as an adviser to Chilean President Salvador Allende until Allende’s death in 1973. He has frequently advised Cuban President, Fidel Castro, and recently acted as mentor to Hugo Chavez. His greatest accomplishment has been to be a contributor to www.summalogica.com.

How to Elevate Government and Crush Capitalism

By Simon L. Hoodwink

Having achieved ultimate success through my greatest protege, Hugo Chavez, I am now ready to release the perfect plan for the proliferation of Socialism throughout the world and especially in the United States of North America. The USA is the last great barrier to universal socialist proliferation, and therefore peace through government imposed structure. Unfortunately, the conversion of the United States cannot happen outside in, it must happen inside out. Below I explore the key tenets to eliminating the United States as the last great stranglehold suffocating the universal equality of all peoples.

The last 40 years in the United States has seen historic and unprecedented progress in the unrelenting march toward socialism. Although not state run, we have changed the function of journalism from objective investigation to a propaganda engine. With few remaining exceptions, we control public schooling and higher education. Since the great depression, we have consistently added to the entitlement class. We have placed government in its proper role as provider, protector, guarantor, giver of rights, planner, and nanny. All of these, and many more aims have and will be achieved in their full measure by adherence to the following 12 guidelines.

Stupefy the Populace

Ignorance is a socialist’s greatest ally. There is nothing more damaging to the socialist cause than an educated populace–unless we control education. We have not had to exert much effort so far to achieve this aim. We have merely inserted ourselves at tipping points and momentum has won the day for us. Key in this process was the marginalizing of the importance of think capability in favor of self improvement through feeling better. We did this by pioneering the idea in the 1960′s that feeling was more important than thinking. Feeling people can be controlled. Thinking people resist. Feel good prominence over think is best exemplified in the overwhelming number of feel good books and gurus that line America’s bookshelves and flood air waves.  This has also played out in my own, legendary ability to seduce women.  It is much more difficult to seduce a thinking woman.

Fairness needs to become the ultimate moral value. Once fairness is owned by the populace, we will shift the meaning of the word to include equality as a necessary element of fairness. One of our greatest successes has been to create this shift with the word “justice.” Justice used to mean “good or bad, you reap what you have planted.” We have been able to subtly shift the meaning to include “equality” as a necessary component. One of our greatest accomplishment is the use of the term “social justice.” It’s current definition, “provide for those in need,” used to be the definition for “mercy,” but mercy was too weak a word. The weight of law and social opinion were not brought to bear when mercy was the cry. But “justice” is the undisputed champion of all classes. Arguing against justice is immoral, and now that justice includes equality, we can begin the laborious but beautiful process of convincing elected officials to legislate equality in the name of justice. You may have also noticed that the term, “provide for those in need” is half of our great Marxian mantra, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” Absolutely brilliant!

We have received invaluable help from technology in the stupefying process. People waste their time on video games, porn, television, and movies. Movies have the dual benefit of being time-sinks and vehicles for indoctrination (kudos to Avatar for vilifying business and military in one show). The disastrous Guttenburg effect (inventing the printing press to proliferate books and thereby make people smarter) is methodically being undone by technological advance.

A critical part of the stupefying process is to reward mediocrity. This is done in communities and schools every day. Equality’s unstoppable advance is aided by rewarding the worst performers with trophies, credits, stars, awards, plaques and accolades.  We want to produce as many accolade junkies as possible.

Edit, Sensor and Deny Non-Conforming History and Vilify Historical, Capitalist Heroes

The darkest period in our history began with the upstart pretensions of a few non-conforming radicals in the late 1700′s. These conniving, elitists created the most dangerous body of text, speech and government ever created. References to themselves and their works must be attacked on several fronts. Here is a “how to” list:

  • Do not teach anything before 1877 in public school curricula. Our friends in North Carolina have shown us the path. It is causing another problem that will have to be addressed. The board’s courageous decision to eliminate references to this group of rebels has caused a surge in homeschooling. Homeschooling MUST eventually be eliminated!
  • Dig up dirt on the founders. Unlimited gratitude is owed to the historians who uncovered Jefferson’s sexual exploits. Anything that can be done to discredit them is justified.
  • Control the delivery of history education. The NEA is a powerful resource to us on several levels. They are capable of proper delivery.  We control them (I have to giggle here), and they control the House and the Senate.  Who dares to stand up to them?

It burns me to write the following quotes from the rebels, but I print them so that you may understand the enemy.  Here are a few that will serve as an example of why these men need to erased from memory or at least discredited.

  • Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.  — William Pitt
  • A wise and frugal government … shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.  — Thomas Jefferson
  • On every unauthoritative exercise of power by the legislature must the people rise in rebellion or their silence be construed into a surrender of that power to them?  If so, how many rebellions should we have had already?
  • The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale. — Thomas Jefferson
  • The multiplication of public offices, increase of expense beyond income, growth and entailment of a public debt, are indications soliciting the employment of the pruning knife. — Thomas Jefferson
  • I think myself that we have more machinery of government than is  necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious. — Thomas Jefferson
  • If it be asked, What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? The answer would be, An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws. — Alexander Hamilton
  • The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, but for the people to restrain the government. — Patrick Henry

These quotes were taken from a recent Bill Whittle piece, http://www.pjtv.com/v/3353.  Bill Whittle can go to hell.  During better times and in different places, he would spend the remainder of his days in the gulag!

Create and Increase the Size of the Entitlement Class

A fundamental shift is required in American’s notion of government. I would rather be eaten by ants than hear more inane rebellion about “government by the people.” The people are not the government. The government is the supreme authority, the granter of rights and the protector of all that ills the people. It is a father figure, not a slave to the will of the masses. As we have seen throughout history, the masses will choose what is not in their best interest. Shift must occur through the creation and enlargement of an entitlement class. Once enough people look to the government as father (protector and provider), the rest will naturally follow.

We have made great strides in this area. We now pay for 47% of all healthcare in the United States. We give people money for food, clothing, housing, cars, utilities, education and hosts of other things. We reward sloth, stupidity, moral decadence, promiscuity, recklessness and addictions. All of this adds up to dependence. Once there is enough dependence, dethroning us will be nigh impossible without bloodshed.

Revoke the Second Amendment

Bloodshed must be avoided. It will probably never come to it, but there is just enough cultural impetus toward violent rebellion (thanks to the rebel scum that founded this capitalist mess), that we need to remove their tools of violence. It is also distressing to some of our fine middle eastern brothers that they may be dissuaded from some of their aims by an armed populace, expertly trained in weapon use and armed to the hilt.

We suffered a setback with the election of President Obama. Interest in guns and ammunition shot up as evidenced by the google trends graph below.

ammo trend

We lost a huge opportunity at the time to blame the trend on general racism.

Most effective are campaigns of misinformation and a piecemeal approach to legislation. We don’t have to win all at once; a bite at a time will suffice.  We argue that we are in a different day that the founders did not envision.  They could not have known how much gun violence contributes to crime and how the efficiency of guns as killing weapons has improved since the late 1700′s.

Fabricate an Enemy

If an enemy is not readily found, one can be created. I remember the day that I suggested to Hugo that he peg US imperialist arrogance as the enemy. From then on he was able to line up confederates. It really took him from oblivion to grandeur. I learned it from the rise of Hitler. Hitler made the brilliant calculation that Germans, suffering from hard economic times and Bolshevik violence would do just about anything to quell their suffering and their fears, including give Hitler almost unlimited power.

Radical Islam serves as the perfect enemy. For the sake of fear reduction, both legitimate and hysterical, Americans are agreeing to greater curtailments of individual freedom. Prior to 9-11, Americans would never have agreed to full body scans when boarding an airplane. Now it has become the latest trend in voyeurism. Have a look. I have watched hours of this stuff.

Introduce Envy

Class hatred and envy are a precursor to the insistence that equality of outcome justifies the removal of freedoms. We need to do more to pit class against class, group against group, and race against race. We don’t want people to identify themselves as mere Americans. They need to be classified as Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans, and African Americans. Envy and hatred of the poor by the rich is critical to the achievement of equality of outcome. We have deftly utilized movies to depict the rich as exploiters of the poor. This has allowed for the sheep-like insistence that we tax the evil rich.

Where people will not self-identify, we can provide them with an identity.  Once we create a cultural taxonomy, we can pit group against group and the government can step in and satisfy the more important group.  One of my favorites, “gun toting, bible thumping moron.”

The Power of Mantra’s

There is no more powerful and compelling mantra than that first spoken by Marx, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” No Christian can argue with it. Jesus taught this throughout the bible. This quasi-biblical adaptation is genius.

Regulate Commerce

Entrepreneurship is wildly dangerous. It suggests that people can fabricate their own wealth and choose the direction of their future independence and often in spite of government. There are two ways to keep capitalistic entrepreneurship from inspiring a new class of rebels. One, we need to increase the government employment roles to reduce the number of potential entrepreneurs. Two, we need to choke small business with red tape and taxation. The beauty is that aim one contains the condition for aim two. We can increase government employment by running up deficit spending. This will necessitate a tax on small business. I love it when things work out so nicely.

Part two of commerce regulation is to nationalize everything possible.  Hugo was able to accomplish this in one term.  It has taken us close to forty years to accomplish this in the United States, but we can proudly proclaim that we have successfully nationalized banking, the auto industry and, now, healthcare.  The Constitution’s First Amendment stands in the way of our being able to nationalize the media, but we have a strategy to get around that.

It should be noted that we need to send a box of cigars to Congressman Hare.  He clearly has understood and is acting on our message!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgh-q4t0kzM

Eliminate Dissent

Voices of dissent need to be labeled and ridiculed. Any misinformation is justified. My own opinion is that the Tea Party movement, which, if it took hold, would be ruinous, is a flash in the pan. To make it suffer a quick death, we need to filter information. Here are some ideas:

  • Exaggerate numbers and profiles. If there are 1000 people at a rally, claim that there were only a few. It’s not a lie. Talk about how white the participants are and imply racism. Olbermann is really good at this.
  • Embellish news. If a tea party group brings a coffin on a march to symbolize the death of freedom, claim that they left it on a congressman’s lawn. It will stick even if the story is later corrected.
  • Label them as radicals, hate mongers, angry white men, racists, fascists, ignoramuses and losers.
  • Set up straw man arguments to attack their positions.
  • Use the labels, stupid, moron, idiot, uneducated and ignorant whenever possible when describing Tea Baggers.

If their message ever really took hold, it would set us back decades. We can’t let that happen. We are at an unprecedented stage in our American evolution. We have a congress that is made up of our confederates, otherwise intelligent men and women with no will to fight, and stupid people. Nearly all of them can be bought in exchange for self-aggrandizement. We merely have to give them a place at our table in the future and they will gladly serve as lapdogs. We expect to suffer a temporary setback this November, but we will quickly recover.

Crush Religion

Jesus is problematic and must be either censored or eliminated. Although some of his teachings parallel our own, they differ in many areas. Most dangerous is the implied, elevated position of individuals that a God would descend to save his children out of undeserved and unrequited love. Worst yet is that either God the Father or God the Son would supplant government as the giver of rights, protection, life, and liberty. Religion in general and Christianity in particular must be attacked and ridiculed with impunity.

Still, there is much to learn from Christian Evangelicals. They recruit through missionary efforts. They inspire compliance through ritual. They worship a greater being.  They have scriptures, prophets, and temples.  We can emulate each of these.  We can begin by treating universities as temples, our books as scripture, our people as prophets and even as Messiahs, and various secular rites as rituals.  Though we may emulate religion, we must not ever be labeled as religious.

Key to increasing our grandeur will be to eliminate favorable tax status to religious entities.  It is the role of government and not religion to supply aid and relief. If we eliminate charitable giving to religious entities, we will become the lone and ultimate providers of charity, with strings, of course.

Subjugate National Sovereignty

The UN is a powerful ally.  Judeo-Christian language is not required when offering up legislation at the UN.  Government can be the giver of law.  If we can subordinate the US constitution to international law, we can eliminate ridiculous language such as, “Congress shall pass no law…”  Any time we can impose rule and law on the Constitution, we weaken it by default.

Conclusion

We control most of Europe.  In fact, we control all but two or three continents if you count Australia.  All of our efforts need to focus on the Western Hemisphere.  Specifically, we need to focus on the United States and Brazil.  We need to apply pressure from all sides and fight on all fronts.  We will win the war by several small wins.  The wins must be small so that we do not draw too much attention and awaken the sleeping giant that will soon be so sedated that protest and action will be impossible.

Patience is the key!  it may take decades or centuries and that’s okay.  The greatest conservative flaw is impatience.  We will suffer temporary setbacks but will win in the end because they will grow weary of the fight, so we need to bring it to them.