Useful Fools

Mark In Mexico, Oaxaca, that is, has long been kieeping us updated on Mexican politics and events - things we gringos should give more attention.

Lately, there have been riots in Oaxaca. The lefty bloggers, of course, are portraying these as popular leftist uprisings being suppressed by the forces of fascism, or whatever. Mark speaks truth to that nonsense.

It appears that the Federales are finally getting things under control - and they are using marbles and slingshots! Oaxaca had a slingshot battle… well, at least they aren’t cutting off peoples’ heads!

Keep an eye on Mark’s blog and you’ll learn a lot about our neighbor to the south.

My wife teaches an after-school class for public school 3rd graders at our church here in Arizona. A few weeks ago, one of the kids told how she could pronounce the name of our governor, Janet Napolitano (D).It turns out her teacher gave out tootsie rolls to kids who learned to say it right. Nobody was talking about her oponent - I guess the kids just automatically know how to pronounce Munsil. Not.
Today, election day, they all wanted to know how my wife had voted. Had she voted for Napolitano? Their teachers had told them everyone should vote for Napolitano.

If this bald electioneering on the public payroll isn’t a crime, it should be! Once again, the teachers have shown that their selfish interests are more important than their sacred trust.

It is this sort of nonsense that causes me to ALWAYS vote against public school district funding - and I did so today.

My mother spent 20 years as a public school math teacher. When my daughter was born, there was one commandment: “No grandchild of mine should ever go to a public school!”

The even increasing difficulty of getting at the contents of a blister pack heralds the end of civilization as we know it1

[More as I get it written - place holder for a few tens of minutes]

Air America - no, not the eponymous CIA subsidiary from the Vietnam War, but the lefty attempt at talk radio, made a little news today: they got some suckers (well, they called them “investors” - the sort of people the left despises) to drop in $13 million.

“With the new funding and our contracts signed, sealed and delivered, Air America has proven its ability to attract talent and investors,” Rhodes said.

Now, if they just had some listeners and advertisers, they might have a business. But don’t expect much of the left to understand that. Talent’s a bit on the short side too.

Many Democrats have said that if Bush won, they would leave the country. Now that he has, the Canadian immigration site reports an unusually high level of interest. New Zealand is actively trying to woo these people.

What do you say about someone who would leave their native country because they don’t like the outcome of a free election?

I say they are not patriots and probably never were. They are fair weather Americans - only here for their selfish ends. Hundreds of thousands of Americans gave their lives, and millions more served, in order to protect the world’s greatest nation.

But for fair weather Americans, it’s not enough.

To them, their country is just a place to live, and when it becomes less fun than they like, they abandon it.

Good riddance! We don’t need fair weather citizens. We don’t need them lecturing us. We didn’t sacrifice to protect them. We don’t need people with the poor values that would let them leave.

Let them go to Canada or wherever. But don’t let them come back.

Bon Voyage, slimeballs, and please keep your promise to leave.

This is spillover from a discussion on Roger L. Simon’s fine blog…

I said, on the subject of social conservatism

I haven’t read all the comments, but there is one thing jumping out at me: this freedom/non-freedom dichotomy.

I’m a social conservative. I suspect that would put me in the non-freedom category. And yet I see only one non-freedom view associated with social conservatism, and that is drug prohibition. Drug prohibition is widely popular and for almost any politician it is political suicide to oppose it.

I oppose it, as does the National Review, which I think is the primary journal of social conservatism.

So, what freedoms do I suppress?
Read the rest of this entry »

California Republican had a reasonable request: hold a fourth of July celebration on the floor of the California State Assembly. After all, they have held four Cinco de Mayo (a major Mexican holiday) celebrations.

But it was not to be. A person the Republicans chose to honor was inappropriate: retired Admiral Jeremiah Denton, a former Vietnam War POW and former U.S. Senator.

It isn’t clear which of Denton’s actions was worse: denouncing John Kerry, or supporting religion in America.

In any case, the California Assembly will continue its record of never having celebrated US Independence Day. I’m sure the bigots at Aztlan News will be pleased.

Because the subject of the Catholic Church “Child Abuse” Scandal keeps coming up, I am putting my analysis on this blog rather than constantly typing it into the blogs of others.

There are frequent questions and controversies over the so-called Child Abuse problem in the Catholic Church. The news coverage of these events is rarely sufficient, leaving a number of false impressions of the nature and extent of the problem.

It is important to understand the difference between abuse of pre-adolescent children and the abuse of adolescents. The abuse of pre-adolescent children is done by true pedophiles. The abuse of young men is done by pederasts who are homosexuals.

About 10% of the incidents involved pedophiles. 90% were committed by pederasts.

The Catholic Church made a theological decision to accept homophiles (individuals with homosexual sexual preferences) into its seminaries decades ago, with Vatican II. The reasoning was that while homosexual behavior is strongly prohibited, a priest takes vows to remain chaste, and hence a homophile priest (one who has homosexual desires) is as doctrinally as acceptable as a heterophile priest.

Around the same time, many with liberal or leftist viewpoints entered the seminaries. They brought with them ideas from the current fads in psychology, and less respect for authority.

Over time, theologies were developed by many homophile priests justifying the violation of their vows of chastity – in other words, rationalizations for engaging in sexual behavior. In addition, some seminaries came under control of homosexuals with this attitude, and in some cases, non-homophile priest candidates were kept out.

The result was the creation of one or more informal homosexual undergrounds in the Catholic Church. An estimated 40 to 60 percent of American Catholic Priests are homophiles. It is important to recognize that most homophile priests remained and remain chaste, properly adhering to their vows of chastity. Unfortunately too many did not. Some of these were pederasts who used their position to engage in sexual abuse of adolescent males under their influence.

Pedophiles have infested organizations that work with children for a long time. The rise in “child molestation” in the American Catholic Church is a result of the increase of pederasts in the priesthood, but the rate among school teachers is even higher.

The American Bishops were slow to deal with this issue, requiring pushes from the laity and later the Pope in order to adequately fight this problem. In the meantime, as is common in bureaucracies of all types, some chose to hide the problem, ignoring their moral and legal duties.

Because the Church believes in redemption, because the analytic psychological theories of the time were considered capable of dealing with homosexual child abusers, and because sending a priest off to a retreat was a convenient way to do away with a problem, many offenders were sent to retreats in order to redeem themselves, rather than being handed to authorities. After their supposed redemption, they were returned to priestly duties, and many re-offended.

The church is now much more active in fighting molesters in its midst, although many laity call for stronger measures, such as automatic defrocking of molesters, and were disappointed when the Pope did not make this a requirement.

In evaluating this problem, it is important to recognize that the American Catholic Church is a large organization with many priests in different roles and with different viewpoints. Hence the behavior of individual priests or bishops is not necessarily representative of the Church’s values.

It is also appropriate to recognize that this same problem affects all organizations which work with adolescent boys, including other Religious denominations, charitable organizations, and schools.

The Boy Scouts in 1998 decided to exclude homosexual leaders because of the tremendous legal liabilities accrued as a result of pederast child abuse. In 2000, the Supreme Court upheld their right to do so. However, the organization has suffered considerable persecution in many cities, as homosexual organizations retaliate. Often this persecution is falsely justified by the Boy Scout’s other requirement, which prohibits atheists.

Big Brothers and Big Sisters no longer can get liability insurance because they accept homosexuals, because of the associated increased risk of pederasty.

The rate of pederasy among school teachers is larger than was the rate in the Catholic Church.

The Smallest Minority (another Arizona blogger) has an excellent essay on useful and useless views of violence.

This recognition of the difference between violent and predatory and violent but protective illustrates the difference in worldview between people like me, and the (we’ll call it) pacifist culture.

Britain today represents a perfect example of the pacifist culture in control, because that culture doesn’t really distinguish between violent and predatory and violent but protective - it sees only violent. Their worldview is divided between violent and non-violent, or passive. There is an exception, a logical disconnect if you will, that allows for legitimate violence - but only if that violence is committed by sanctioned officials of the State. And even there, there is ambivalence. If violence is committed by an individual there is another dichotomy: If the violence is committed by a predator, it is the fault of society in not meeting that predator’s needs. The predator is the creation of the society, and is not responsible for the violence. He merely needs to be “cured” of his ailment. If violence is committed by a defender, it is a failure of the defender to adhere to the tenets of the pacifist society. It is the defender who is at fault because he has lived by the rules and has chosen to break them, and who must therefore be punished for his digression.

Read the whole thing, and you might understand why those of us in the former wild west are often well armed, and schooled in the laws of proper application of deadly force. At the same time, you’ll get an idea of the vacuity of the European views on the subject.

I am not a lawyer, but I wonder if the following clause from the Constitution’s 14th Amendment applies to Kerry [note: emphasis added]

Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

[Thanks to Rick for pointing this out]