The true patriot

On this weekend of memory, let us remember that…

“There are certain words, our own and others we’re used to, words we’ve used, heard, had to recite, forgotten, rubbed shiny in the pocket, left home for keepsakes, inherited, stuck away in a back drawer, in the locked trunk, at the back of the quiet mind…”

Liberty…equality…freedom…to none will we sell…refuse…or deny right or justice. We hold these truths to be self-evident. I am merely saying, what if these words pass? What if they pass, and are gone, and are no more? It took a long time to buy these words, it took a long time to buy them, and much blood, and much pain…”

Stephen Vincent Benet

On this weekend of memory, please do forget cold beer and picnics for a few minutes and remember these words. Memorize them. Read them to your children, neighbors and friends. And then, read them again, over and over again.

There is not a privilege, nor an opportunity that modern society offers, that has not been paid for by another person’s blood or another person’s labors. We live by liberties that others won and died for. We are protected by a Constitution and Bill of Rights that others wrote and created. We live daily, in every area of our lives, on the interest of the principle that has been paid.

LIBERTY…FREEDOM…what if these words pass and are no more? Read more

Cults, “real religion” and lunatics

Crack-pot ideas spewed out of the George W. Bush White House so fast it was almost impossible to keep up with them. The “faith-based” circus that totally destroys the line between church and state must be one of the most insane. Even the Director that Bush chose to run the program had quit. We need that authentic Republican conservative, Barry Goldwater, around today like never before. He would have told Bush he was going straight to hell. This is what Goldwater said to those with like constipated mentalities just before he died: “Anyone who tries to make politics out of God ought to go to hell.”

One national Republican leader said it well: “Goldwater was always so straight forward it just took your breath away.”

The “faith-based” comedy started when Pat Robertson and others of like mentality started screaming, “you can’t give money to cults, but only to ‘real’ religion, like us.” 
Many people started asking me this question: “what is a cult and how can you tell the difference between a ‘cult’ and a ‘real’ religion?” Hey, easy question. No problem.

1. A CULT: Believes in heavenly signs such as comets and gateways to heaven and other mentally deranged ideas.
2. A REAL RELIGION: Believes in heavenly signs such as stars in the East at their leader’s birth, and the “sun standing still” for an entire day (Joshua 10:12) and other mentally deranged ideas.
3. A CULT: Believes they have found the truth while all others are deceived.
4. A REAL RELIGION: Believes they have found the truth while all others are deceived: “Salvation is only through Jesus.”
5. A CULT: The leader says, “believe me and you will go to Heaven.”
6. A REAL RELIGION: The leader says “believe me and you will go to Heaven…don’t believe me and you will go to someplace called “hell.”
7. A CULT: Has leaders, mostly men, often wearing fancy robes and promising you salvation and heaven if you will give them your money and property.
8. A REAL RELIGION: Has leaders, mostly men, often wearing fancy robes and promising you salvation and heaven if you will give them your money and property.
9. A CULT: Claims their leader is led by God, and God speaks to him and tells him what to do. Their leader talks to God.
10. A REAL RELIGION: Claims their leader is led by God, and God speaks to him and tells him what to do. Their leader talks to God.
11. A CULT: Makes miraculous claims about the importance of their leader.
12. A REAL RELIGION: Makes miraculous claims about the importance of their leader…that he was born of a virgin…could walk on water…could turn water into wine and feed thousands with two fish.
13. A CULT: Thinks women are subservient to men and the male leader and should take orders from them, including sexual bondage.
14. A REAL RELIGION: Thinks women are subservient to men: “Let the women keep silent for it is not permitted for them to speak, they are commanded to be under obedience.” (1Cor. 14:34) “Man was not created for woman, but woman was created for man.” (1Cor 11:13) “Let woman learn silence in all subjection. No woman shall have authority over a man.” (1 Timothy 2:11)

See how easy it is to tell a cult from a real religion. No problem. Read more

The loud little handful

The word “brilliant” may be overused, but surely in the case of Mark Twain it applies. He seems forever contemporary. His linguistic needles are as sharp, his observations on the human race as precise, his sarcasm and humor as glittering today as they were when he originally placed pen to paper.

In “The Mysterious Stranger” he wrote about the George W. Bushes of the world who will always “shout for war.”

“The loud little handful, as usual, will shout for the war. The pulpit will, warily and cautiously, object, but only at first. The great big dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, “It is unjust and dishonorable, and there is no necessity for it.

“Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded, but it will not last long. The others will outshout them, and presently the antiwar audiences will thin out and lose popularity. Before long, you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men.

“Next, the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities and will diligently study them and refuse to examine any refutations of them and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.”

And again, in a timeless observation:

“I pray you to pause. Against our traditions, we are now entering upon an unjust and trivial war. At first, our citizens spoke out. Today they have turned. What caused the change? Merely a politician’s trick, a high-sounding phrase, a blood-stirring phrase which turned their uncritical heads. ‘Our country…right or wrong.’ An empty phrase. A silly, stupid phrase. It was shouted by every newspaper, thundered from the pulpit. And every man who failed to shout it or was silent, was proclaimed a traitor, and none but those others were patriots. To be a patriot, one had to say, and keep on saying, ‘Our country, right or wrong’ and urge on the war. Have you not perceived that the phrase is an insult to the nation? Read more

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