NY-23, as it’s being called anymore, basically encompasses the northern tip of the state. It includes the towns of Plattsburgh, Ogdensburg, Potsdam, Watertown, Oswego, Fulton, and Oneida. It’s current the largest of New York’s districts in land area, thus it is the most sparsely populated (All of NY’s districts having a 2000 population of around 654,360). As with most small-town/rural communities, the population generally trends conservative, but according to the Cook Partisan Voting Index, it only rates an R+1 (meaning that it voted 1% more Republican than the national average in the last 2 Presidential Elections.) By comparison, the mainly conservative Virginia 1^st District – my home district – is an R+7 and ultra-conservative or ultra-liberal districts have a rating of R or D +20 or more.

So we come to this year’s special election, brought on because President Obama appointed the former Representative, John McHugh (R, NY) to be Secretary of the Army. Because of New York Election Law, the major parties both nominated their candidates by committee, rather than a primary. Dede Scozzafava (R) and Bill Owens (D) were nominated in July and began their campaign.  Doug Hoffman, who had lost the Republican nomination, received the nod from the New York Conservative Party about a month later. In initial polls, Scozzafava had a fair lead over the other two candidates taking between 30 and 35% in three September polls. By Mid-October the polls had swung in favor of Owens primarily because Scozzafava became “indistinguishable” from her Democrat opponent. Scozzafava’s positions on abortion, gay privileges, union card-check, the stimulus, taxes, healthcare, and a host of other issues more resembled President Obama’s positions rather than those of her own party. Senior Republicans, including former Alaska Governor and VP candidate Sarah Palin supported Hoffman, the conservative, in favor of Scozzafava, the very liberal Republican. Scozzafava was supported by, among others, the founder of the Daily Kos, the well known leftist blog website.

After endorsements of Hoffman by major Republican figures, Hoffman’s poll numbers took off and Scozzafava’s plummeted. Hoffman and Owens traded leads in the polls throughout October and Scozzafava’s support continued to wane. Finally, on October 31, 4 days before the election, Republican Scozzafava left the race and supported Democrat Owens, in a final stab at the conservative candidate’s back. On the day of the election, Doug Hoffman, a man who had entered the race a month late, lacked the major-party resources of the other candidates, initially even lacked the major party backing, and was on a three-person ballot as the third party still garnered 45.3% of the vote, losing the election by a mere 3.9%. More to the point, Dede Scozzafava, whose name and party were still on the ballot, took 5.5% of the vote, which, most likely, would have gone to Hoffman, and which, if it had, would have put Hoffman over the top, as Owens won only a plurality of votes, not a majority (49.2%).

The Left has been playing this up as (A) a fracturing of the Republican Party, (B) a Republican defeat because they supported the conservative over the “moderate,” and (C) a sign that the conservatives in the Republican Party won’t accept moderates, and will continue to lose elections as a result. As with most Left-wing analyses, this one is both wrong and obviously a politically motivated spin tactic. How is it wrong, you might ask? Well, I’ll tell you.

First off, rather than showing a fracturing of the Republican party, it’s showing a unity of the people that make up the GOP behind the conservative candidate, not just one with an (R) after her name. The party leadership realized that late and threw their support behind the candidate the people favored. With luck, this will indicate to the party leadership that we, the voters, are tired of Republicans who are difficult to distinguish from Democrats. Here’s a hint, if the Daily Kos, the New York Times, or the Washington Post support a Republican candidate, don’t nominate them.

Secondly, the Republicans did not lose the race because they backed a conservative candidate, they lost the race because they initially nominated a liberal one. Had Hoffman been nominated over Scozzafava, this would never have happened, and either Hoffman would have won the two-man race or, if Scozzafava had run as a third-party, she would have sucked votes off of Owens, not Hoffman, because her views were the same as Owens’s.

Thirdly, the analysis relies on Scozzafava being a moderate. Scozzafava leans left both socially and fiscally. She supports abortion, same-sex “marriage”, union card-check, and the Obama stimulus packages, and has been ambiguous on cap-and-trade. About the only truly conservative position I’ve heard of her taking is being against gun-control, hardly surprising in a mainly rural district. Even Democrats know you don’t win elections being anti-gun in hunter territory.

Fourth is the idea that eschewing what the New York Times calls “moderate” Republicans costs the GOP races. That is simply false. George W. Bush won the Presidency twice because he was a social conservative and wanted to cut taxes. Ronald Reagan won the Presidency twice because he was a social conservative and wanted to cut taxes. George H.W. Bush lost the Presidency because he raised taxes and was too easily swayed by the Democrat congress. Bob Dole and John McCain lost their bids for the Presidency because they were too liberal, not because they were too conservative.

Finally, the analysis ignores the other races around the country. It ignores the fact that executive candidates considered “Taliban-esque” conservatives by some media types won 15-18% landslides in Virginia. It ignores the fact that the Republican candidate won in New Jersey, a usual Democrat stronghold. And it ignores the fact that the people of Maine, the home of Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, voted against same-sex “Marriage” thus proving once again that given the choice, The People will vote against redefining marriage.

The Republican Party should take two things away from Tuesday’s results. 1. They are not invulnerable and nominating RINOs will not work as well as nominating true conservatives. 2. This is an opportunity not to be wasted. Stir up the Conservative base of the party and 2010 will see a major power shift.

President Obama and his allies in Congress are free to ignore the true message the election in New York – and elsewhere – sends: The Left’s platform is losing favor. But they do so at their own peril.

I live in Virginia, so I’m most familiar with the recent campaigns for Governor, Lt. Gov., and Attorney General in the Commonwealth. If you have lived in a vacuum for the last few hours, it’s possible you do not know that Bob McDonnell (R) defeated Creigh Deeds (D) in the bid for Richmond. What you may not know is that McDonnell won by nearly 250,000 votes or roughly 18% (59-41%). Furthermore, McDonnell’s running mates incumbent Lt. Governor Bill Bolling and Attorney General Elect Ken Cuccinelli (both R) also won by similar (if slightly closer) margins. This election gives us the unusual, though not unprecedented circumstance of having the entire Virginia Executive branch all one party.

I’m not going to be one of those who harp on this being an indictment of President Barack Obama’s policies in particular, though there is some truth to that thought. Instead, I’m going to go with the theme that this is an indictment of the Democratic Party in general, and the results in New Jersey, Maine, and, yes, even New York tend to bear that out.

Right now, in most jurisdictions the Democrats cannot win on the issues. Barack Obama did not win the Presidency because of the issues. He won because the incumbent President was unpopular, because his opponent was weak, because the media played up his charisma and celebrity as much as was physically possible, and because he is black. I’ve said it before – and I’m not the only one – a white man with the same credentials as Senator Obama would never have made it past the Iowa caucuses, and even in the unlikely, but not altogether impossible event that he made it to the general election, he would have lost like Walter Mondale.

Perhaps the worst thing that could have happened to Virginia Democrats was the election of Jim Webb over incumbent Senator George Allen, Jr. 3 years ago. Webb, at a time when the Republican Party was on a down cycle, campaigned primarily on allegations of racism and sexism against Allen. Webb won the election and, so, two of the three Democrats tried the same tactic in this year’s election.

Deeds pulled out McDonnell’s Master’s thesis that apparently said that McDonnell believed women in the workplace was a bad idea. The one issue Deeds used was abortion, showing that McDonnell is a strong anti-abortion believer. So Deeds was calling McDonnell a misogynist. 

Cuccinelli’s opponent, Steve Shannon, called Cuccinelli a “bigot” in his ads, and quoted some newspapers stating that Cuccinelli would discriminate against people who didn’t share Cuccinelli’s view of morality. So Shannon was probably calling Cuccinelli a homophobe. Of course, no evidence was ever proffered to support this slur, but it was out there.

And that brings me to my next point. We heard last week about the football player who was suspended by his team for using “gay slurs” in some “Twitter” posts (never mind that the stories that repeated the slurs had to explain what they meant because no one else ever uses them). Of course people are accused in the media of using racial slurs all the time, as well. So I have a proposal. I realize this isn’t going to get any traction because no one actually reads this stuff, but I’ll throw it out there in case Ann Coulter or Mike Adams are bored one day. So here it goes:

Goodness and Decency win again in the battle against the redefinition of marriage. The news, yesterday was that polls generally showed that the people of Maine favored letting a man “marry” a man. This morning, gays everywhere were surprised (again), dismayed (again), and whining (again) that their goal of wrecking the institution of marriage by redefining it out of existence failed yet again. Gay marriage has failed every time it has come up for a vote from the people. Most importantly it fails in votes by the people in places like the People’s Republic of California, and the home state of Olympia Snowe, neither of which are conservative strongholds. In California it didn’t just fail, it didn’t just fail twice, and it didn’t just fail in a constitutional amendment, it was affirmatively voted against. It wasn’t laws allowing same-sex “marriage” that failed referenda (as was the case in Maine), it was laws disallowing same-sex “marriage” that passed.

The people don’t want same-sex “marriage.” Every time they’ve spoken, they’ve repeated that statement. It is only in states where the people have not been allowed to speak where it exists, and in most of those it was imposed by unelected courts, not even legislators.

Supporters of same-sex “marriage” say it is “inevitable.” It is not. Not as long as people continue to understand the consequences of moral relativism and fight these plans to remake society in the image of depraved minds.

I admit to having a prejudice in this case. In fact, it may even rise to the level of bigotry. I loathe sports owners. On the surface, that sounds like an odd thing coming from a solid conservative, but it’s not a case of simply being against management and pro labor. My prejudice also extends to the players’ unions and their bosses. Sports owners have a deserved reputation for being everything the Left hates about business executives. They are usually greedy, anything-for-a-buck, exploit-the-labor-and-the-customer businessmen when it comes to their teams, even if it doesn’t reflect in their other business dealings. Interestingly, many of these businessmen either have traditionally left-wing sources of income (media conglomerates (Former Atlanta Braves owner Ted Turner, the Tribune Company, etc.) , trial lawyers (Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos), etc) or support left-wing causes (The owner of the Atlanta Falcons, Arthur Blank, is a big supporter of Planned Parenthood).

Team owners often get a pass from city leadership because of the revenues sports teams bring to cities and their popularity among local voters. Cities will often fund the building of stadiums and arenas to keep teams around, and owners have been known to extort concessions from cities under threat of moving to another area. Some, including the late Robert Irsay, owner of the Baltimore/Indianapolis Colts get the concessions and move anyway (in Irsay’s case, in the middle of the night without even getting approval from the league). Others know that their best chance for revenues is in their current market, but they dress up the team in a big, modern stadium; market it like it’s going out of style; and put a poor product on the field. 

Among the worst of the lot is Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder. Snyder has not – and likely will not, knowing he will be lynched if he does – threatened to move the Redskins out of the DC area. Having said that, Snyder has done some things recently that have been almost as bad. The national sports media has focused on Snyder’s total mismanagement of the team on the field. He is infamous for spending many times market value for sub-par or past-their-prime big-name players. Yes, there have been some rare gems like the late Sean Taylor, LaRon Landry, Chris Horton, London Fletcher, Chris Cooley, and, maybe, Brian Orakpo, but the majority of the players Snyder has signed have been faded stars or anonymous players used to fill anonymous positions (Kicker, Punter, Offensive Line, etc.). His utter neglect of the Offensive Line has been the direct cause of the team’s sometimes mediocre, sometimes putrid performance on the field. But all of that is what the national fan knows.

What local fans in the DC area see is even worse. Aside from wrecking what had once been a premier NFL franchise, Dan Snyder has gone out of his way to alienate Redskin fans. To make a few extra ticket-sale dollars, he has sold tickets to brokers (who pay a premium). Those brokers, in turn, sell the tickets to visiting team fans (rather than people sitting on the legendary Redskins Waiting List) and the result is a home stadium half full with hostile fans. Season-ticket holders who have been unable (or unwilling) to renew because the prices are too high ($175 per ticket per game in the lower bowl) have been sued for breaching their 5-year commitment (cell phone companies just make you pay for the phone). And now his team is playing as poorly as they ever have, and he’s losing customers by the truckload. Is that the sort of company that Rush Limbaugh would like to join?

I am a fan of the Washington Redskins. I have been for almost 30 years. But rooting for Dan Snyder’s Redskins is analogous to living in Barack Obama’s America. My like of my team, like my love of my country, doesn’t diminish just because an idiot is in charge. I can only await the day when there will be a change at the top.

I did a little internet search this morning in an attempt to prove a point. And I succeeded. I searched the name James Pouillon to see if any new information had come out on his story. Pouillon, if you don’t recall, was the anti-abortion activist who was killed a few weeks ago with little media fanfare. I posted my rant on the topic on this blog on 17 September. In the search I did, you had to go four pages deep to find anything more recent than that. What I did notice this time – and missed last time because I didn’t search on his name – was that his son, James M., apparently has been quoted as saying that the elder Pouillon “didn’t care about abortion” but was just a misogynist who “wanted to scream at women.” Of course, this allegation got a fair amount of play in smaller (probably fringe Left) publications and made up about a fifth of my search results.  Interestingly such stories didn’t seem to be in the big media, so one has to wonder how much credibility it has.

Ad hominem attacks – which means, roughly, an attack “against the man” – are common in political discourse. The purpose of attacking the character of an opponent is to deflect his argument without responding to it. It’s an effective political tactic because the masses believe that if the messenger is bad, the message doesn’t matter. President Bush was a target in numerous ad hominem relating to his intelligence – often “proved” by his Texas accent and mispronunciation or misusage of words, or his ties to big oil, or simply calling him (and everyone else in his administration) Nazis. President Obama is no different in that regard. Many on the right have thrown ad hominem attacks at him in (generally futile) attempts to derail his credibility. The biggest problem with attacking the character of either of our last two presidents is that there is enough there for opponents to bring them down on policy alone while leaving character out of it. So in this piece I will refute some of the character attacks on Barack Obama so that the five of you who read it can focus on what he is doing rather than who he is, or isn’t.

Barack Obama is not the antichrist. Stripping away the theological discussions about what the antichrist is or isn't, I don’t believe that Barack Obama is the antichrist. He is not the putative embodiment of evil on earth. He is not Satan, Lucifer, the Devil, the Enemy, or whatever you (personally) call the Supreme Ruler of Hell. There are e-mails going around that indicate that the book of Revelation indicates that Obama is the antichrist, but no such passage (or anything describing the antichrist) exists. (And if you think it does, show me the chapter and verses.) He may follow a preacher who preaches a strange theology (“Black Liberation Theology”); he may denigrate true Christian beliefs on abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, and the like; he may even be as corrupt as Rod Blagoyevich or Bill Clinton (that last is simply a possibility, not an accusation) but he’s not the antichrist.

Barack Obama is not Adolph Hitler, nor is he a Nazi. Yes, his rise to power is based primarily on his celebrity. Yes, his policies indicate that he favors nationalizing the economy. Yes, some of the statements he has made, the people he has associated with, and the people he has hired – even as President – can lead a reasonable person to believe he harbors some racial animosity. But this does not indicate that he intends to actually carry out the systematic extermination of the white race, nor does it prove that he intends to rule the US as a brutal dictatorship and use its might to spread his evil across the world in a search for lebensraum. He has actually tried not to let his racial animosity be his guiding principle, despite letting it slip from time to time (the Cambridge police acted “stupidly”, for example). Recall that Hitler spent much of his time blaming the Jews for Germany’s problems. He was very public about his anti-Semitism, and fed on the general anti-Semitic feelings within Germany at the time, much as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad does today. Barack Obama does not do that himself. Yes, he lets his supporters call his opponents racists for opposing him, but he doesn’t give them credibility by acknowledging them.

Barack Obama is not a radical Muslim. I read the refutation of this one in Snopes, but it primarily dealt with things Obama has said about himself. I rarely let one’s own words prove or deny something about them. If Charles Manson said “I’m not a murderer” would that be enough to cast even the slightest amount of doubt in your mind? Having said that, however, there has been little indication that Barack Obama follows wahhabist Islam, as he has been accused. If favoring the Palestinian Authority over Israel is an indication of radical Islam, then just about every Democrat – even a lot of “Jews” – is actually a radical Muslim. Besides that, a radical Muslim would not spend his Sundays in a United Church of Christ church listening to a radical Black Liberation Theology preacher for 20 years. He may have had some Muslim upbringing. His father – who abandoned him – may have been a Muslim. He may have attended elementary school in Indonesia, a major Muslim country. But that doesn’t equate him to Osama bin Laden any more than it makes me, a Catholic, a member of Sinn Fein.

Barack Obama is not occupying the White House in violation of the Constitution. Sure, his policies may violate both the letter and the spirit of the Constitution’s goal of limited Federal government, but so far as any evidence exists, he, himself, is eligible to be President of the United States. There is independent evidence (in the form of newspapers and the like) that show that Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. was born in Hawai’i. Last I checked, Hawai’i is in the United States. Even in the unlikely, but I suppose not altogether impossible, event that there is some merit to the story, proving it is nigh impossible. Until and unless they start fingerprinting every infant at birth to include with the birth certificate – a process that would only help a situation like this as early as 2044 if they started right now – proving that a copy of a US birth certificate is a fake would be difficult at best. Of all the constitutional problems Barack Obama stands to cause in his administration, whether or not he was born in the US is the least of my worries.

Barack Obama does not think there are 58 states. I’ve never played this one up much because it’s so worthless a criticism. This stems from a comment he made on the campaign trail where he said he had been to at least 57 states at one point during the campaign. Ladies and Gentlemen, it was a joke! Maybe it wasn’t all that funny, but it was a joke! It’s like when you tell your coworkers that you were stuck in traffic for a week (a frequent comment where I live). You weren’t, you know you weren’t, your audience knows you weren’t, people who don’t like you know you don’t think you were. He was simply making a point as to how much traveling he’d done recently. I’d have probably made the same joke in his position because a lot of my humor is based on hyperbole.

These and other attacks against Barack Obama’s character only divert attention from his policies, which should be the point of the argument. He has done enough wrong – stimulus packages, Obamacare, the Henry Gates incident, Sonya Sotomayor, etc. – for conservatives to oppose him on ideological grounds. Ad hominem attacks are a waste of time.

Vick was charged with violating 18 USC §371, Conspiracy to commit an offence. The specific offense was traveling in interstate commerce to aid in unlawful activities and to sponsor a dog in an animal fighting venture. The charge stemmed from six years of operating “Bad Newz Kennels,” an illegal interstate dog-fighting ring. While not part of the charges, Vick was accused of killing dogs – often brutally, stealing pet dogs to train the fighting dogs (usually killing the pets), and illegal gambling. In the end, Vick got two years in federal prison and 3 years of post-incarceration supervision. Some said the sentence was fair – a sentiment with which I tend to agree. Others, particularly on the hard Left, said it was too light, and that he should have been punished more severely. I don’t recall anyone really saying the sentence was too harsh – I could be mistaken, though. Since then, Vick was released from prison, having served his sentence, and will be eligible to work at his chosen profession on Sunday.

Burress was charged with criminal possession of a handgun in New York City. The charge stemmed from an incident a year ago when he brought the gun into a night club and, when he took it out of his waistband, the gun fired, grazing Burress in the leg. No one else was injured and Burress was immediately taken to the hospital. It was revealed later that he had had a permit for concealed carry from Florida, which permit expired a few months before the incident. He plead guilty to possession of a handgun, and was sentenced to two years in prison.

What we have here are two widely disparate crimes with a very similar punishment. Vick’s crime was willfully participating in an illegal activity over a number of years. Burress’s crime was carrying a gun in New York City. Vick used his wealth to maintain a dog fighting ring, treated the dogs brutally, and lied about it to authorities, the media, and the NFL’s commissioner. Burress carried a gun in New York City. Vick is alleged to have stolen other people’s animals and used them for training bait. Burress carried a gun in New York City. Vick is alleged to have gambled on the fights and possibly have evaded paying taxes on the winnings. Burress carried a gun in New York City. Both got the same sentence.

My problem with this whole story is this. Michael Vick did something that is patently illegal, never mind disturbing to people with reasonable sensibilities, and got a reasonable sentence for it. Burress did something that is supposed to be legal (bearing arms) under the US Constitution, did something stupid – not bad, not wrong, not reckless, just stupid – with it, luckily did not hurt anyone else, and got precisely the same sentence. I in no way say that Vick’s punishment should have been less, nor do I generally feel it should have been significantly more. I do believe that, particularly given the recent Supreme Court ruling on guns in Washington, DC, Burress’s case could, and possibly should, be a test case for curbing unconstitutional gun control laws. I don’t believe what Burress did was necessarily right or necessarily smart. But it should have been legal, and in any case the punishment does not fit the crime.

As if any proof was needed that the policies supported by the Global-Warming-is-true eco-frauds are evil, we get a story in the AP today retelling a story in the British medical journal Lancet. Apparently some “experts” – precisely who these experts are is not stated in the article I read – have published an editorial in Lancet that supports “free birth control” to developing countries so that “environmental pressures” caused by “overpopulation” could be reduced. Translation: “have fewer babies, get a better environment.” As an interesting aside, the AP article, which was titled “Birth control could help combat climate change” ends with the pronouncement that “…normal population growth is unlikely to significantly increase global warming…” though the demands for basic necessities will “jeopardize” an environment already “struggl[ing]” with climate change.

Furthermore the article claims that some 200 million women want birth control and can’t get it. This, say the “experts,” has resulted in 76 million “unintended pregnancies” each year. The “experts” go on to state (paraphrased in the AP article) that “If those women had access to free condoms or other birth control methods, that could slow rates of population growth, possibly easing the pressure on the environment…” “Other birth control methods,” huh? I wonder what that could possibly mean.

Getting serious, now. Given that everything that the Left hates either proves your intolerance or is bad for the environment or both, and they want intolerance and, more importantly for this rant, anything that harms the environment legislated out of existence, how far is the leap from “giving” people free condoms to a China-style one-child policy of forced abortion and sterilization? Here’s the logic I’m following.  To the Left: People equal Environmental damage, in a direct, linear proportion. Therefore, more people equals proportionately more environmental damage. Conversely fewer people should equal less environmental damage. Since higher birth rates, obviously, equal more people, then to get fewer people we need to reduce birth rates. This has already happened in the West, where many European countries only grow because of immigration and immigrant births, and some (Russia, for example) are actually shrinking even if immigrants are counted. Since voluntary birth-rate reduction only goes so far – as some people are morally against artificially reducing the birth rate – at some point the world’s population will (not “may”) reach that critical mass where the voluntary methods can’t do “enough” and more people will “inevitably” cause far greater environmental damage. When (not “if”) that point is reached, what Leftist environmentalist, who has been (a) putting the environment over humanity, (b) believing that humans are a cancer on this world, and (c) supporting uninhibited abortion rights, for decades, will grow a conscience and decide that killing the unborn to support some cockamamie theory about the “population bomb” is actually morally repugnant? 

I’ll say it again, in case my explanation got lost in the paragraph. When (not “if”) voluntary contraception proves insufficient in curbing worldwide population growth to a degree deemed sufficient by the Left, what Leftist would not support forced contraception? Especially since those forced will almost exclusively be political enemies on the right (given that Leftists are more likely to be willing to do it voluntarily)? This article seems innocuous enough, but at its heart is a deeper, much more sinister attitude toward life, humanity, and the environment.

How many of you here know who James Pouillon was? Anyone? Anyone at all? Does the name seem familiar to you in any way? No, he’s not the French chef on Iron Chef America. So you’ve really never heard of him? I’m not shocked. I didn’t either till this morning.

How many of you here know who George Tiller was? If I were looking at a room of people, I’d expect to see about half the hands raised. Tiller, of course, was the Kansas abortionist who was killed in May by a lunatic claiming to be part of the anti-abortion movement. We heard about Tiller’s murder, and his “heroic” (their words not mine) choice to continue being a one-man death panel for the children of countless thousands of women – and reaping a significant financial reward for his “services” – despite death threats and the long history of unprovoked violence against abortion providers (which history mustbe long, as 10-20 years usually pass between high-profile abortionist murders.) And stories ran daily for weeks after Tiller’s murder most either explicitly or implicitly linking Tillers killer, Scott Roeder, to the mainstream anti-abortion movement.

James Pouillon, 63, died last week in a drive-by shooting in front of a high school in Owosso, MI. Pouillon was an anti-abortion protestor and had been sitting across from the school holding an anti-abortion poster in a quiet, one-man protest against the greatest evil of our age. His murderer, Harlan James Drake, also killed another man, an acquaintance of Drake’s unrelated to the abortion debate, some time later. The story was covered by most of the news media last Friday and Saturday (according to Google) and not much has been seen about it since. I wasn’t paying attention to the news those days, so I missed the story completely and it was only this morning when my wife told me some anti-abortion protestor had been shot in Michigan that I’d heard anything about it. After the initial coverage – mainly because the drive-by shooting of a 63-year-old man who needed leg braces and an oxygen tank is, in fact, news, even if his views are objectionable to the media – the story disappeared. If you weren’t paying close attention to the news last weekend, this may even be a breaking story to you.

Pouillon, nearest I can figure – the stories about his death have been very brief – was a quiet, unassuming man who was merely against abortion. He attended a number of protests with his local anti-abortion group and was often seen holding up anti-abortion posters at various locations around his community. Most stories that covered his death, including the one in the NARAL: Yes Times made a concerted effort to note that because the (unnamed) killer killed another man who had nothing to do with abortion, Pouillon’s murder was not motivated by his protest. That’s sort of like saying that because Lee Harvey Oswald killed a cop in the late afternoon on November 22, 1963 his murder of President Kennedy wasn’t politically motivated.

In giving credit where credit is due, what I would normally refer to as the Commie or Crescent (depending upon the story of the day) News Network, aka CNN, actually provided a complete, albeit brief, story on this event. According to CNN’s story, run on September 11, Harlan James Drake, 33, shot Pouillon because he “was offended by anti-abortion material that the activist had displayed across from the school all week.” So in a few dozen stories, I found only one, on CNN of all places, that (a) named the killer, and (b) indicated that his motive even could have been the anti-abortion protest. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the news media completely dropped this story after the initial reporting. There have been no retrospectives on Pouillon’s life, no one coming out and calling him heroic or courageous or a martyr, there hasn’t even been a more recent story on the prosecution of the case, or detailing Drake’s deep-seated hatred of anti-abortion protestors. There’s been nothing.

What kind of world do we live in when a man whose life’s work consisted of (a) convincing thousands upon thousands of young women that it’s OK to kill their children and (b) actually overseeing the killings is considered a hero and lauded in the Press for weeks (even having been brought up in stories about Pouillon), while a man who made it his mission to try to stop the slaughter gets a page-two blurb that told us that his death was not motivated by his politics? Something about that just disgusts me.

So I leave you with this. We may never hear James Pouillon’s name again, but please try not to forget it. He was a man who died exercising the rights we all have to peaceably protest what he (and many others) saw as a grave injustice. James Pouillon, requiescat in pace.

HJG

Courage, basically, is the ability to face danger effectively. There are two basic degrees of courage: Physical and Moral. Physical courage is the ability to accomplish your goal in the face of a danger that could cause actual physical injury or death. Particularly when death or injury is assured. Moral courage is the ability to stand up for the truth despite potential harm – which harm can be physical, psychological, financial, professional, or personal. One aspect of courage that is not considered is the fact that courage necessarily includes doing the right, moral, and just thing. Making an effort to put yourself into dangerous situations because you enjoy the “rush” (like “extreme sports” participants) is not courage, it is foolhardiness. Deserting from military service because you don’t approve of a war is not courage, it’s cowardice. Disagreeing with a power base that cannot or will not punish you in any way for that disagreement is also not courage. Merely standing up for what’s unpopular is also not courage. Some things are unpopular precisely because they are morally wrong, and standing up for that which is morally wrong – abortion, gay privileges, legalization of drugs, treason, supporting totalitarian regimes, etc. – falls into the realm of the foolhardy, because you not only risk your soul for supporting evil, but you risk committing the sin of scandal, which I’ve defined numerous times.

In case you’re still wondering what I see as courage, here are a few examples:

St. Maximilian Kolbe – Father Maximilian Kolbe, OFM Conv., was a Polish priest in the 1920s and 30s. His father was hanged by the Russians in 1914 for supporting Polish independence. During World War II, Father Kolbe operated a HAM radio broadcast in which he condemned the activities of the Nazis. He also sheltered refugees from the Nazi regime – including about 2,000 Jews – in his friary. He was arrested by the Schutzstaffel (SS) and sent first to the concentration camp at Pawiak, before being transferred to Auschwitz. While there a prisoner disappeared, and the camp commander ordered 10 prisoners starved to death to serve as a deterrent to additional escape attempts. One of the 10, a Polish sergeant named Franciszek Gajowniczek begged to be spared because he had a wife and children. Kolbe volunteered to take Gajowniczek’s place and the Germans allowed him to. After three weeks of starvation, Kolbe, who was stoically accepting his punishment, was executed by an injection of carbolic acid on August 14, 1941.   Gajowiniczek lived to see his rescuer’s canonization and died in 1995 at the age of 93. I’ve always considered St. Maximilian my favorite saint, owing to his great physical and moral courage.

Chaplain (Lt.) Vincent Capodonno, USN – Father Vincent Capodonno was a chaplain in the US Navy in the Vietnam War. He served with the 3^rd Battalion, 5^th Marines, 1^st Marine Division in Que Son. On September 4, 1967, the Marine company he was with was attacked by a larger force of North Vietnamese Army (NVA) soldiers. During the battle, Fr. Capodonno – who as a Chaplain was a non-combatant, and, thus unarmed – ran around the battlefield tending to wounded marines, giving last rites and Anointing of the Sick to the dying, and giving words of encouragement to those Marines still able to fight. He was severely wounded by a mortar round and instructed the corpsmen to assist the wounded Marines instead of himself. Fr. Capodonno was shot and killed by a machine gunner when he tried to aid a wounded corpsman. For his actions he was one of the very few chaplains ever to receive the Medal of Honor.

Norma McCorvey – Originally one of the great heroines of the Left, Norma McCorvey was the “Jane Roe” in the infamous Roe v. Wade Supreme Court case. McCorvey had originally fabricated a story in which her pregnancy resulted from a rape, later admitting that it had simply been consensual, non-marital sex. Furthermore, and less well known, she was involved in a long-term lesbian relationship during the 70s and 80s. By the mid-80s McCorvey was characterizing herself as a pawn of the pro-abortion movement, and by 1994 she had fully recanted her pro-abortion stance, converted to Catholicism, and even repudiated her own homosexual lifestyle. Now she serves as one of the most prolific anti-abortion activists even going so far as to risk arrest for protesting in the wrong place at the wrong time in the wrong way (shouting down Senator Al Franken during the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearings, for instance.) By standing up for what is right and good, not what is popular and expedient, Norma McCorvey has faced ridicule, jail, and her own personal demons with more courage than the vast majority of us. 

You’ll notice that I didn’t include people like the 9-11 hijackers, Bishop V. Gene Robinson, war protestors, Michael Newdow and the like, all of whom have been called “brave” and “courageous” by the media or others on the Left. As I said, standing up for wrong and committing acts of evil are not the marks of the courageous. They are foolhardy, self-serving, or cowardly people bent only on serving their own ends. They who call them “brave” twist the meaning of courage to suit their own ends. Like other virtues, true courage is detested by the Left, and they change its meaning to something like “falling in lock-step with the hard Left’s values and seeking to overthrow Western culture.” Those who express true courage are ridiculed, and those who support Leftist ideals (or oppose the Left’s enemies, including traditional America) are the new courageous.

So they said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst. But I told you that although you have seen me, you do not believe. Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me, because I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me. And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day.”

The Jews murmured about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven,” and they said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph? Do we not know his father and mother? Then how can he say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”

Jesus answered and said to them, “Stop murmuring among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him, and I will raise him on the last day. It is written in the prophets: ‘They shall all be taught by God.’ Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”

The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.”

These things he said while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. Then many of his disciples who were listening said, “This saying is hard; who can accept it?”

Since Jesus knew that his disciples were murmuring about this, he said to them, “Does this shock you? What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe.” Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe and the one who would betray him. And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father.”

As a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him.

Jesus then said to the Twelve, “Do you also want to leave?”

Simon Peter answered him, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”

- John 6:32-69 (New American Bible translation)

If you’ve been paying attention to the news, you probably know that the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) has voted to allow open, active homosexuals in “committed same-sex relationships” to be priests, removing the requirement that gays on the pulpit be celibate. There is a tragic irony to this whole story in that a church that takes its name from one of the originators of the philosophy Sola Scriptura – Scripture Alone – should turn its back on Scripture and attempt to bend God’s will to match that of men. 

The Catechism of the Catholic Church cites four examples, including three in the New Testament, where homosexuality is condemned. I know of at least one or two others. And it’s not a context thing, either. In most of these examples the entire point of the passage is to point out the “wickedness” of homosexuality, either by itself or along with other wickedness like thievery, murder, idolatry, etc. There is no instance in the Bible where homosexuality is considered good, moral, natural, healthy, or even neutral, amoral – that is, with no good or bad connotations – or some uncontrollable character trait that deserves pity. 

Some Christians who support the “Homosexuality-is-OK” mantra simply don’t know or understand the biblical injunctions against it. Others lessen it by saying that when homosexuality is mentioned as bad, it’s in conjunction with idolatry or some other such nonsense. These are the same people who believe that the sin of the men of Sodom (read that word carefully) was inhospitality. Still others, and this is a very common failing among modern people, believe that the Bible was written 2,000-6,000 years ago by mortals lacking divine inspiration, and, since most people don’t believe homosexuality is wrong, we can simply scrap that part of the Bible.

I’d been thinking all weekend how I was going to present this topic when it was dropped in my lap on Sunday morning while I was at church. The last several weeks in the Catholic Church have concentrated on the Gospel selection I included at the top of this article, commonly called the Eucharist narrative, wherein Jesus talks about the Eucharist as being essential for salvation. The obvious question is “What has this to do with homosexuality?” and the answer is “Not all that much, really.” What I’m really addressing here is not homosexuality, by itself. It’s a serious issue, and one frequently forced upon us, but it’s merely symptomatic of the deeper problems that many Christians have in their faith.

As I said, many people who support homosexuality as good, right, and moral – along with those who support abortion, euthanasia, promiscuous sex, and so forth – frequently believe that the Bible’s message is obsolete and the message of the Christian Church must be re-made to fit the social mores of the times. The problem with that line of thinking is that it is flat wrong, as evidenced by the passage I cited above.

In summary, Jesus tells his followers – not just the Twelve, but several thousand people, this story immediately follows the “feeding of 5,000” narrative – that “unless you eat of the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you shall not have life within you.” Many of his followers said “This saying is hard; who can accept it?” and stopped following him. The important part here – as pointed out by my priest on Sunday – is that at no point did Jesus change his story. In fact, if you read the passage carefully he only says what he means more succinctly and clearly so that everyone present can be sure to have heard him correctly. Jesus did not care that his message was “hard” for some – most, actually – to hear. It did not matter to him that people couldn’t accept what he said. It was of no consequence that, as my priest put it, his poll numbers were slipping. The fact of the matter is that God does not change His will to conform with that of men. He says what He says, and we are free to follow it or not at our own peril.

The greatest failure of many churches, priests, ministers, and lay Christians is in teaching the moral authority of scripture. A great many people look on the Bible as a set of guidelines, not rules, and take from it only what they wish to. They get the idea that Christianity is, and always was, an a la carte religion: Take what you want and leave the rest. They have become rooted in this philosophy that churches should change their moral teachings to fit the times. This, of course, is wrong. In fact, it used to be referred to as the heresy of “Modernism” in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. It’s nowadays more commonly called relativism, secularism, or liberalism, but they all mean the same thing.

The purpose of a church is to bend men to God’s immutable will. The idea is not to make you feel good about yourself, but to make you aware that you are a flawed being, and if you want to go to heaven you must love God. Jesus says “If you love me, you will keep my commandments,” (John 14:15) implying that if you don’t keep His commandments you do not love Him. Getting into heaven is difficult, and it is nigh impossible if you do not know the way. That churches are teaching that homosexuality is OK – either explicitly on the pulpit (as V. Gene Robinson, the gay Episcopal Bishop has), or implicitly by stating that people in active homosexual relationships are worthy of being clerics, or that same-sex relationships can carry the same spiritual and moral significance as marriage – are doing a grave disservice to their followers. The sin of scandal is the leading of another into sin. The scandalous are morally responsible not only for their own sin, but for the sin of those they tempted.   Even worse, those who are taught wrongly will also be punished if they do not repent.

By accepting their behavior as normal and moral, the ELCA is doing a horrible injustice to gays. Those who feel they have no need to repent cannot be saved.

It’s being reported in Reuters today that the government of Scotland is to decide the fate of Abdel Basset al Megrahi. Al Megrahi, 57, has been in prison since 2001 and is currently suffering from prostate cancer. The deliberations are to decide whether or not to release him on “compassionate grounds” and send him home to his native Libya. If you don’t know who Abdel Basset al Megrahi is, he is the man who was convicted of having placed a bomb on Pan American World Airways flight 103 on December 18, 1988. Said bomb exploded over the town of Lockerbie causing the Boeing 747 with 259 people aboard to break up at 31,000 feet and crash and burn in a cul de sac in Lockerbie killing not only the 259 people aboard, but 11 more on the ground.

Let me repeat that so that I may be perfectly clear. The government of Scotland is deciding whether or not to release on “compassionate grounds” a man who has been convicted of murdering 270 people. Yes, I understand that al Megrahi’s conviction is under appeal, but that doesn’t change the charges against him. He should be allowed the finest medical care that a prison system in a country with government-run healthcare can provide, but unless his conviction is overturned, he should not be released from prison just because he is sick.

The most laughable part of this is that he is to be released on “compassionate grounds.” Why are the civilized always expected to be “compassionate” to the barbaric? Given what we’ve seen in the 21 years since the Pan Am 103 bombing, is there any indication that compassion will be reciprocated by the barbarians? (And lest the Diversity Police clamp down on me, let me make it clear that by “barbarians” I mean those individuals who believe killing 270 innocent people is a perfectly acceptable form of political or religious expression.) If the appeals court decides he was wrongly convicted, he should be released post haste. Otherwise he should rot in prison. A life sentence should be just that – a life sentence. His having cancer simply means that we now know how his sentence will probably end. People who cause mass murder should not be shown compassion. No, they shouldn’t be tortured, and, yes, they should be treated humanely as far as is possible in a prison. But the idea of the “compassionate release” of a convicted mass murderer defies all logic.

Now, had Scotland had a death penalty we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Given the relatively short time since al Megrahi’s conviction, he would probably have not been executed, yet, and his appeals would still be going on. But there’s no parole for capital crimes. You don’t get a “compassionate release” if you are under penalty of death. You might get a stay of execution or a commutation of the sentence if someone decides that your conviction was not done right or mitigating circumstances from the crime itself arise. But, unless that happens, you’re not getting released and going home to your terrorist-supporting government because you are sick.

It used to be that a life sentence was a life sentence. If you were given a sentence of life in prison, you died in prison, naturally or otherwise. I’m all for allowing people the opportunity to appeal a conviction if the conviction was wrong – i.e. they didn’t actually commit the crime. But all this stuff about finding reasons to release people from prison early boggles my mind, particularly when the convict in question murdered 270 people because he wanted to express his political views.

Dennis Prager published a column today decrying the “Dissent is Patriotic” bumper-stickers you see on cars driven by Leftists all over the country. Prager’s thesis was both the meaninglessness of the phrase (Some dissent is patriotic, other dissent is unpatriotic, still other dissent has nothing to do with patriotism) and the inconsistency of its use (it’s OK to dissent against President Bush, it’s not OK to dissent against President Obama.) That column got me thinking about the words Dissent and Patriotism and how they are defined both in the real world and on the Left.

Dissent

Difference of opinion or feeling; disagreement.

American Heritage Dictionary

Dissent generally means a reasoned disagreement. The most frequent usage of the word refers to appellate courts – including the Supreme Court – when one or more judges disagree with the majority decision. Dissent can and does come in a more impassioned form, but true dissent, again, usually follows a pattern of reasoned disagreement. Disagreeing with your party’s line on, say, Social Security, or on the government’s philosophy on Capital Punishment is a form of dissent, particularly when your arguments are well thought out and reasonable. Writing blogs or columns such as this one that disagree with the government using well thought arguments, facts, and opinions are all forms of dissent. What the Left calls “dissent,” particularly for the purposes of “Dissent is Patriotic,” while it can technically be defined as “dissent,” usually ends up being the behavior of a rebellious child manifested in 60-year-old adults. Their idea of dissent is not to offer reasoned debate on a topic, but to throw out cliché ad hominem attacks against the dissentee – “Bush Lied, Kids Died,” “The Military Irradiates Soldiers with Depleted Uranium,” (sic) that sort of thing. The lack of reasoned debate gives the target of the dissent no way to respond, which, of course, is the point.

Patriotism

Love of and devotion to one's country.

American Herritage Dictionary.

The American Left has some very strange views of patriotism. The first is that patriotism is simply a display, and the corollary is that it is acceptable and necessary only to display patriotism when it suits you. They consider it patriotic to highlight America’s faults and downplay or disavow any of the good that it has done. They see nothing unpatriotic about praising America’s enemies or setting a moral equivalence between the freedom and liberty of the American system and the tyranny and oppression of regimes like the USSR, China, North Korea, Iran, Saddam Hussein, the Taliban, etc. Of course, since many on the Left – not all by any means, but many – consider themselves “citizens of the world” I suppose you could say it would be “unpatriotic” to support one country in favor of another. 

What’s worse is that the Left disparages true patriotism. “My country, right or wrong” is considered an example of blind chauvinism and “nationalism” which, to the Left are “Patriotism to the extreme.” They denigrate those who put on various uniforms and fight to preserve our liberty, security, and safety. The only patriotic soldiers to the Left are those who later leave the military and “dissent” against war or against a conservative government. They consider national symbols – such as the American Flag – to be divisive and inappropriate for display in times of trouble (like Berkeley, CA right after 9/11). They take issue with anyone who implies that in spite of her faults, America is the greatest nation on Earth.

What the Left doesn’t understand is that patriotism is not just a show. It’s not something that is turned on and off for the camera. It isn’t manifested by constant disparagement of America for her real and perceived faults or by morally equating freedom with tyranny. It isn’t on display when soldiers are suborned into “fragging” their officers. It isn’t evident in lies that are used for anti-American propaganda during a war. It’s not possible if you are “already against the next war.” Patriotism is true love of country. It’s in loving your country even while accepting its faults. It’s supporting America even if you disagree with the current administration. It’s doing what is necessary to win a war, even if you are against it. It’s believing that we are the greatest nation on earth and we wouldn’t rather live anywhere else. It’s using the wrongs of the past to keep them from happening again in the future, but not dwelling on them. It’s serving your country and putting that service before your own needs and desires.

Courage

The state or quality of mind or spirit that enables one to face danger, fear, or vicissitudes with self-possession, confidence, and resolution.

American Heritage Dictionary

While I was writing up the other two parts to this piece, courage jumped into my head as another word that has been distorted by the Left. The Left believes that vocal dissent against an administration with which they disagree is courageous. Anti-war demonstrators are called “brave” or “courageous” despite the fact that the only danger they face is a night in jail for a disorderly conduct charge. They called Leftist opinion journalists courageous during the Bush administration despite the fact that they faced no danger at all. They hailed the bravery of the 9/11 hijackers who were so overcome with suicidal fanaticism that they killed thousands of unarmed civilians. They call famous gays who “come out of the closet” brave despite the fact that they usually merely face condemnation from the right. But you never hear about the courage displayed by the likes of SPC Robert McGinnis, USA, MA2 Michael Monsoor, USN, Cpl Jason Dunham, USMC, SFC Paul Smith, USA, SFC Jared Monti, USA, LT Michael Murphy, USN, SFC Randy Shughart, USA, or MSG Gary Gordon, USA. They don’t tell you about the courage of Officer Daniel Faulkner, Philadelphia PD; Motorcycle Sgt. Mark Dunakin, Motorcycle Officer John Hege, SWAT Sgt. Ervin Romans, SWAT Sgt. Daniel Sakai, and SWAT Sgt. Pat Gonzalez, all of the Oakland, CA PD; Officer JD Tippett, Dallas PD; or Border Patrol Agent Robert Rosas. You’ve probably never heard about the courage of St. Peter, St. Jean d’Arc, or St. Maximillian Kolbe.

No, all the Left tells you is about the courage of people who disagree with a conservative administration, and who face no real danger. They elevate dissent against a war to at least a high a level of courage and patriotism as fighting in it. They disparage the patriotism of those who truly love their country while calling expressions of hatred for their country “patriotic.” And they seek to quash dissent of all sorts (calling it “un-American” and “racist”) when they are in power.

The following Republican senators voted to confirm racist leftist Judge Sonia Sotomayor as a justice of the Supreme Court and the year you can vote them out of the Senate. Of course it would be best to push them out in the primaries, but, failing that, I can only say at least if they were Democrats we’d expect them to confirm a racist leftist judge. 

• Lamar Alexander (TN) - 2014
• Christopher “Kit” Bond (MO) - 2010
• Susan Collins (ME) - 2014
• Lindsey Graham (SC) - 2014
• Judd Gregg (NH) - 2010
• Richard Lugar (IN) - 2012
• Mel Martinez (FL) - 2010
• Olympia Snowe (ME) - 2012
• George Voinovich (OH) - 2010

We conservatives need to send the message that we don’t want what the media calls “moderate” Republicans in office. We want people who will represent the social and fiscal conservative base of the party.

It’s worth noting, of course, that every Democrat and both independents voted for confirmation, so voting them out of office is always a good thing, but you didn’t need to read this piece of this blog to know that little piece of advice.