“The Declaration of Independence is the all-time masterpiece of ideological simplification. There in a single sentence of self-evident truth, the founding Fathers put into clear, easily understandable focus, the broad basis of man’s relationship to God, to government, and to his fellow man.”
— Clarence Manion (1896-1979) American conservative radio talk show host, dean of the Notre Dame Law School 1956
I’d never heard of “Clarence Manion” before. Interesting fellow. He capsulizes very well the interactions of a sound government with natural law: God – Government – Man. Even though it is not a theocracy, a sound government very much has God in it. And in these times where we are experiencing a communist insurgency with the BLM movement, it does one well to remember the key component of communism: It cannot coexist with the Christian God. It was tagged “godless communism” for a reason.
Habit is the latest bone they threw out to get “Christians” snarling. And right on cue, “Release the outrage!” My God Christians are predictable. At the link above they of course have a petition going to demand that this movie not be released! Of course they’ll release it, they live for that reaction. It would be a stupid little movie no one would see otherwise. Hollywood hates Christians, you never noticed that?? They’re Jews, its what they do.
So of course they release a movie about Jesus as a lesbian woman. What else would you portray the “Son of Man” as? Did the Christian Film and Television Commission think for 2 seconds before they gave the movie’s director exactly what he was after? Come on! The best thing you could have done was ignore these Bozos. They die without attention.
[I wonder if “Christian Today” was a website started by the movie company to generate the fake outrage? Frankly I’ve never heard of them. And who wrote the article at the link above? ‘Staff writer’. Yeah.]
The Prairie Home Companion aired on taxpayer funded radio for decades (it made Garrison Keillor a millionaire though). Like a lot of liberal entertainment, all the white people were nerdy and uncool. It was a mixture of song and jokes, and my favorite part: The News from Lake Wobegon. This fictitious Minnesota town was chockful of “Norwegian Lutherans”. The only thing more uncool than white people, was Jesus loving Christians.
Every week Garrison would tell about the silly shenanigans of those small town Minnesotans. Because white people and Christians are the only ones you can make fun of nowadays. Their church socials and Jello salads. Growing up in Iowa we always had a special relationship with Minnesota. It was not unheard of for Iowans to vacation up there 50 years ago. Sure we made ‘Minnesota jokes’, and they made ‘Iowa jokes’, It was all in fun because they were the best of people back then. Damn near as good as us.
They were like our cousins, the ugly cousin to be sure, but they were family. It ain’t that way today. Minnesota is a shithole. They brought in all those Somali savages with their bell-ringing Sharia shit, to the point I can’t imagine decent people would want to live there. Hell, they sent a terrorist to Congress! What its called is ‘population replacement’. Well you did it. How’s it working out for you?
I think you were a better State when all you had was those nerdy white people. Its okay to be white.
“Interesting argument. Anybody who rejects JC self identifies as a moron of course, but its true our government was not intended as a theocracy. But yet it does operate as exactly that with the Religion of Humanism.”
There was an interesting little article on World Net Daily from Franklin Graham. His point was that the response we are seeing from government isn’t about a virus its about control. He said never in our history have we quarantined the healthy. He foresees government wanting to keep these totalitarian powers even after the current crisis.
The title of this post is a comment from an assumed atheist after the article. I of course put up the brilliant response. It wasn’t until I’d thought about it a little that I realized Franklin hadn’t “invoked religion” in the article at all. He simply focused on government overreach. But the commenter has a valid point in general about American politics. One side believing we’re a Christian nation and the other that there’s this shifting wall of separation of Church and State.
It happens all the time with Republicans. In Iowa one of the most prominent examples is radio personality and party delegate Tammara Scott. She regularly invokes God (!) while talking politics, one of the most obvious was when Bob Vander Platts ran for Governor. The religious right in the state thought sure if we could replace that scurvy knave Branstad with Bob, then we’d have a Christian Iowa by golly!
I don’t know if they envisioned religious teachings in the schools and a picture of Jesus on the wall behind the teacher, or what. That’s the battle: Are Christians to be invisible outside their home? Or are we to have the free exercise thereof? It mainly comes down to the schools. That’s where most people get lost. To explain to them that its government that should be removed from the schools is simply incomprehensible to them.
Prior to 1900 or so this problem was avoided as government was not in the schools. Then John Dewey singlehandedly destroyed America, in a slow motion fashion. Someone’s “values” are going to be taught to children, its just a matter of whose. Americans were not sophisticated enough to recognize the New Religion being taught.
So yesterday afternoon I’m coming home and I catch the opening intro of Haven Today on KPSZ Praise 940. They were running the typical ‘disclaimer’, “The views on this show do not necessarily represent those of the Des Moines Radio Group, management or its sponsors” (What’s going through my mind is you’re a Christian station and you’re running a disclaimer before a Jesus show? If these aren’t your views, what are?). Its Haven Today! Its one of the most Jesus centered programs to ever be on the radio. Its not like those ‘God is an ATM’ tongue-talking charlatan shows that you have on in the morning.
Or one of those “give us $25 so a holocaust surviving Jew can have Passover” scammers. Or “Dear Lord fill my bank account” Joyce Myers. Another one (either on Inspiration, TBN or TCT) is this guy who dresses up as a rabbi (Rabbi Kirt Schneider) running some scam on Christians. They don’t run a disclaimer before any of these jokers. They don’t run a disclaimer before supplement scammer Dr Michael Pinkus.
But they run a disclaimer before Haven Today. I wonder sometimes if they forget they’re a “Christian station”? [I guess where I was going with this is, “Why are all the charlatans on TV and radio? I’ve done other posts listing a dozen or so of the best, yet the ones they put on the air are the worst.]
So I’m looking up on YouTube who sang the 70s classic, “More! More! More!” (1976), turns out it was a gal by the name of Andrea True who was also a 70s porn actress. What flashed into my head was a picture of the guy who epitomized 70s (and the next 3 decades) porn, Ron Jeremy. Voted #1 male porn actor by AVN (no idea). There was probably nothing dumber than 70s porn, though it didn’t seem that way at the time.
Debbie Does Dallas, Deepthroat…. on and on and on. There was nothing cool about it. For some reason the media liked to obsess about it. After awhile 1 face kept popping up, Jeremy. Over and over and over and over and over. The most prolific face (?) in porn. Like all film, his Russian Jewish pedigree helped. It would be interesting to know the workings of the industry. The connections with organized crime. The distribution, marketing, cast, crew, directors. Its said there’s not a colder more debased industry less interested in sex than pornography.
But as my title suggests, what if he had stayed as a teacher? What if he had never gotten into the business? How many other people wouldn’t have? How many lives wouldn’t have been ruined? Operating from a complete basis of ignorance, I’m lead to believe the sex industry exists because of drug abuse and child abuse of the women. And to some unexplored extent, the Devil.
But just going by the numbers, Jeremy’s role in the industry was huge. He made over 2,000 films. #2 John Holmes made just 384. It begs the question (as with the classic “What if Hitler had never existed?”) what if Ron Jeremy had never existed? The gut reaction is it wouldn’t have mattered an iota. Which is probably true. I just wonder. I can personally attest the 70s had the finest real women. Porn is a sickness, a disease on society. One of the biggest betrayals is when Congress had the opportunity to put all porn domains under ‘xxx’ instead of www, and didn’t do it. The implications of that is huge.
[Like with politicians that don’t fit the classic mode, handsome, well spoken, charismatic, neither did Jeremy. Short, balding, overweight. Go figure.]
“I Need To Pray, lead by: Lynette Hawkins Stephens along with The Love Center Choir. From the album entitled Edwin Hawkins Live with The Oakland Symphony Orchestra.” I’ve known for a few years the magic of black gospel singing. Can’t put my finger on it, but I know it when I hear it. It might be gone. I don’t know. A lot of it emanated from the 70s with Edwin (1943-2018) and Walter (1949-2010) Hawkins. I’ll have to look and see if Oakland still even has a symphony!
Edwin had The Edwin Hawkins Singers, Walter had the Love Center Choir. Edwin arrived on the scene in 1969 at the ripe old age of 26 along with Dorothy Morrison when he came up with a new arrangement of O Happy Day. Sold over a million copies, international success. Walter started out a member of his brother’s choir. He really came into his own with 1975’s Love Alive album. Its a little bizarre, he produced albums for wife Tramaine, sister Lynette and cousin Shirley Miller.
Musical talent of that depth in one family is beyond my comprehension. But its more than that. What I gave were the facts. What my words will fail to convey is the passion of the “urban contemporary gospel” sound. I suppose that’s why I put the video up. Lynette and the Edwin Hawkins Singers flow together effortlessly. When you watch the choir, the power and the talent they have is simply phenomenal. I suppose you start getting into the “gift from God” thing.
Just no other way to explain it, when music stirs the soul like that. Just no other way. I realize over the years I’ve tried to tackle this to no avail. Another choir from the past I just love are the Ray Conniff Singers. Its a totally different ballgame. That’s my go-to group for pop music choral arrangements. Simply beautiful what they can do with just their voices. I’ll never be able to explain myself. Maybe that’s why it sticks with me.
Maybe its like when you hear your favorite version of Amazing Grace or How Great Thou Art, or some other gospel favorite, it grabs hold of you and there’s just no explaining why.
So I stop into my favorite lunch spot today Taco Casa (which means ‘Taco House’) and I eye a copy of the March ‘City View’. I had picked it up for the retrospective photo on the cover of girl’s basketball in Iowa, and yes there was a blurb about the Great Denise Long of Union Whitten. But there was also an article re-celebrating the closing of the Gortz Haus by the homosexual couple of Lee Stafford and Jared Ellers.
Funny thing about these articles, they always mention the Christian couple that was targeted by the homosexual activists, but they never give credit and a picture to the actual couple that stopped this Christian family from running their business. I pointed out to the author Randy Evans his oversight about not naming the couple, so I did it for him. Lee Stafford and Jared Ellers. They should be so proud they stopped religious freedom. They got their cake though, that’s the important thing (you don’t want to get between a gay person and their cake, I tell you what).
One of the primary reasons for founding this country was for religious freedom, but the gay gestapo put an end to that.
Boy, the way Glen Miller played Songs that made the Hit Parade Guys like us, we had it made Those were the days And you know where you were then Girls were girls and men were men Mister, we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again Didn’t need no welfare states Everybody pulled his weight Gee, our old LaSalle ran great Those were the days.
Ain’t that the truth. I met a couple of homeless people yesterday. They are living in tents beside the Des Moines River. It was 5 degrees last night. The ground is still bare. What’s it going to be like in a week or two? When there’s a foot and a half of snow on the ground? Nearly 10 years ago I felt the need to help brown people “over there”. There are some fantastic groups for that just here in Central Iowa. One is Meals From the Heartland! They bag up rice and beans and send it overseas with very little overhead.
Domestically there are a bunch of good groups. I’m not talking about ones like Red Cross where most of the money goes to offices, overhead and symposiums, I’m talking about ones that meet the need. The can of food. The blanket. The sleeping bag. The propane tank. The pair of boots. Rubber hits the road stuff. The guy I shook hands with yesterday had a pus filled wound oozing from his hand. What about medical treatment? How do you wash when its below 50 degrees?
There are so many classes of poor. The poor “over there” who aren’t living in the richest nation on the globe. The poor here who are barely hanging on but have a roof over their head if not always as much food as they’d like. The poor thrown out of their home but still have family or friends to help out. The poor who have been knocked upside the head by unexpected medical costs. The poor who no longer grasp reality due to a booze or drug problem.
The poor who aren’t in their right mind due to a myriad of mental health problems. As has been brilliantly noted by me before, lack of a “home” is rarely their problem. Its most often just the visible symptom. So where do you give your limited resources? I know a church that devotes its kitchen to providing a meal everyday to people who need it. The organizers seem more interested in recycling uneaten restaurant food then they do in providing a good meal.
Which highlights a problem all of us have: “Are we providing for their need? Or ours? Are we succumbing to our own peccadillos or are we thinking logically? While we are busy “handing out fish“, are we devoting an equal amount of time to “teaching them how to fish“? As mentioned in the paragraph above, one of the organizers of the meals to the needy seems more interested in fulfilling their need to feel good by recycling uneaten food. A prime example is reusing unused baked potatoes from restaurants.
There is nothing worse than using day old baked potatoes in a recipe that calls for fresh. Particularly ridiculous in that example is that a 10 pound bag of potatoes can be had for $5 bucks (if that). That would easily suffice for the amount of people they serve at each meal. Instead they satisfy the fetish of one greenie and serve horribly tasting day old potatoes.
One great example of helping the homeless was from an old movie in the 1940’s. Metropolitan areas would take an old unused warehouse and use it for floor space for cots. Heated, access to a toilet, maybe a shower, safe. The fee was .25 cents (a quarter). For those not familiar with inflation, a 1940 quarter would be worth about $3 bucks today. Not a huge sum by any means. It did require something from the homeless person. The small fee provided for the electricity, water, maybe a staff member to run the place. (500 people at $3 bucks a pop is $1,500 a night. That’s $45,000 a month. Self sustaining.)
We’ve forgotten most of the old ways. The ways that worked. CCC, “missions”, we’ve made the simple act of helping people illegal for the most part. Work requirements, listening to a sermon before help is given, we’ve made philanthropy impossible to give. So now we have people living by the river. We provide tarps and propane tanks. Cold weather sleeping bags. Don’t get me wrong, its important for the guy out there tonight, but is that the long view? Is that Normandy? Is that putting a man on the Moon? Is that the Erie Canal? Is that the Transcontinental Railroad?
Politics and Religion 