Monsters, Gnats, and the Path of Least Resistance

We hear buzzing, knowing it’s far off, of no consequence, yet we focus on it. Overhead is the giant paw of a monster, and we’re aware of it. Yet we choose to ignore it. Sometimes the gnat is the focus of all the people around us. Sometimes we choose to focus on it of our own volition. We don’t want to recognize that giant paw in our personal lives either.

I take a look at what’s happening politically. We have a president and his Party that focuses on vaginas. Sex. Abortion. Contraception. A totally fabricated war on women. That’s the gnat. The monster whose paw we’re aware of and whose hot breath we can feel on our collective neck is the rise of terror which is dismissed in a barrage of euphemisms and apologetics, terrorists and diseases coming across open borders with the attendant humanitarian crises, over ninety million people out of work but not counted because their unemployment payments have run out, record number of people on food stamps, Russia making serious threats to the security of Europe and the world, China able to crumble our economy with the snap of its communist fingers, and cyber-attacks on both our military and civilian computer run infrastructure. Our national debt plus unfunded liabilities bring us very close to the limit of the total value of everything in this country. Plus, of course, anti-Semitism not only tolerated in Europe, but here in the US and supported by Jews. That last especially stuns me.

Not important; any of it. What’s important is that gnat. Vaginas, pay equality, and most recently, “free” junior college, and calling names, throwing insults at people that say, “Hey, we better pay attention to this monster”!

What or who is the big gnat, the evil in this country? Conservatives, Christians (more dangerous and evil as terrorists whose religion of death and destruction, but we better not say that of Islamofacists), TEA Party members, people that think the US Constitution is good law and should be followed, combat experienced vets. What’s good is abortion, the race industry (what Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton do) having open borders, protecting Hamas, PLO, ISIS, Muslim Brotherhood, and supporting the destruction of Israel and the attendant anti-Semitism. Heterosexual marriage is evil, homosexual marriage good. Hating the successful is good, unless the successful (wealthy) got that way through entertainment or corrupt politics. 

At the personal level, we find that far away gnat. Instead of expressing to someone how much they irritate us we take it out on some unsuspecting soul. Then they think, what the hell is wrong with him? They won’t say anything either. Then at work, if you’re in a position of authority, you find who you can rely on. Why take grief from a belligerent whiner when you can reliably and seamlessly get the job done by selecting the same people you know, regardless of the stress or unhappiness it causes them, will uncomplainingly get the job done. 

In church, we fall so short of our religion. There’s the power plays, the undermining, the badmouthing. There though, it’s expected the other cheek to be turned. The bad actors get a pass and the good guys get marginalized. This is of course an overstatement; just making the point. One would think we can escape the focus on the gnat, and support one another battling the giant in the room. Dare I say it? The Enemy. Our environment, planet, world, institutions and all the rest are the playground of Satan.

We have the gnat on entertainment (I’m guilty of overindulging too), the gnat of not communicating, of focusing on the buzz on no consequence.

The monster is breathing down our necks is roaring and we choose not to acknowledge it. What kind of men and women does this make us? 

In the Name of Security- Ignoring the Fourth Amendment

True of any totalitarian state, using the reason of security to control citizens has reached epic proportions. Like much else the Obama Regime and the Democrat Party does, there's a lot of anti-Constitutional, serious violations of that and legislated law.

We have of course the NSA and it's massive spying on US citizens. Spying on journalists and News organizations (even Leftist ones that support the totalitarian Obama regime), IRS spying on and trying to financially cripple organizations that oppose Obama and his Leftist oligarchy, and TSA harassment of ordinary law abiding citizens traveling within the US. We have Homeland Security buying up ten of millions of rounds of ammunition, reportedly as much or more per person than what's allocated to military personal. That sounds suspiciously like a domestic military force.

Just a reminder of what the Fourth Amendment requires of the government. "The Fourth Amendment (Amendment IV) to the United States Constitution is the part of the Bill of Rights that guards against unreasonable searches and seizures, along with requiring any warrant to be judicially sanctioned and supported by probable cause. It was adopted as a response to the abuse of the writ of assistance, which is a type of general search warrant, in the American Revolution. Search and seizure (including arrest) should be limited in scope according to specific information supplied to the issuing court, usually by a law enforcement officer, who has sworn by it. The Fourth Amendment applies to the states by way of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment." [Wikipedia]

I'll say the usual and obvious here. If a Republican president and his political party were violating the Forth Amendment this openly and outrageously, Democrats/Leftists/Socialists would be screaming bloody murder. Remember the big kerfuffle with Bush II and the Patriot Act allowing Feds to check what people checked out of the library? Or tracking terrorist organizations financials. Or listening to known terrorist phone conversations? Oh my God, Bush is a dictator! All our rights have been violated!

And yet, here we have a president and his political party clearly ignoring the Constitution and openly spying on citizens. The Federal Government's [anti] law enforcement agencies focus on the law abiding. A couple of recent examples that have just emerged that is even more blatant violations of citizens' rights are searching cars in airports without a search warrant, and police cars that record license plates on tens of thousands of cars, and those go into a national tracking database.

Here's the report of searching cars at the airport without a search warrant or notifying the owner of the car. Full article here.

Here's what being done by the government monitoring cars. They justify it by saying there's no expectation of privacy, this is done in public domain, and there's no intent of using the information to track or monitor the public. Seriously? Of course it is.

" WASHINGTON (AP) — Chances are, your local or state police departments have photographs of your car in their files, noting where you were driving on a particular day, even if you never did anything wrong.

Using automated scanners, law enforcement agencies across the country have amassed millions of digital records on the location and movement of every vehicle with a license plate, according to a study published Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union. Affixed to police cars, bridges or buildings, the scanners capture images of passing or parked vehicles and note their location, uploading that information into police databases. Departments keep the records for weeks or years, sometimes indefinitely." Full article here.

It amazes me that so many Americans are willing to submit to being spied on, harassed, inconvenienced, and have all their private movements, their health issues, their communications and everything else in their lives monitored by the government in violation of the Constitution and all laws that flow from it. 

They're Only Terrorists, It's No Big Deal

Department of Homeland Security, a supporter of open borders, has been catching and releasing bad guys. Not all of them are just from south of the open border of US/Mexico. It turns out 481 of them are from countries that are state sponsors of terrorism, or countries that are on a watch list suspected of sponsoring terrorism.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) database of current of active fugitives :
Cuba-137
Nigeria-97
Pakistan-87
Lebanon-34
Iran-29
Iraq-26
Somalia-22
Sudan-14
Syria-13
Yemen-8
Algeria-8
Afghanistan-4
Saudi Arabia-2
Libya-0

Of course they're only fugitives because ICE released them.

State sponsors of terrorism: Iran, Syria, Sudan and Cuba
Countries of interest: Afghanistan, Algeria, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Iraq, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen... all of them support terrorism.

ICE Spokeswoman Gillian Brigham on why so many are being released. “On any given day, the immigration detention system has about 32,000 beds available for people going through immigration proceedings.”... “There are 1.6 million people going through some kind of immigration court proceeding. So you can’t detain everyone.”

Boohoo....This administration spends billions bailing out big business that in turn give them money back, and today they voted to send $26.1 billion to states to fund teachers and such. Blue states that have way overspent, and several $million will go teacher's and other unions that will send money back to the Dems. Fiscally responsible states have to bail out negligent states so the negligent states can take a huge chunk of that money to pay Dems so the Dems can give them more money for more negligence.

But this administration can't find money to keep bad guys locked up. Oh yeah, they have enough money to sue AZ, but not enough to help AZ protect her borders. They can find enough money to support those that will support them, but not enough money to do those things specifically mandated by the Constitution to govern this country in a way that is an expression of liberty and success.

Looks Like Those Christian Terrorists Are Back

I had written about Christian Terrorists!!! a year ago, about the idea of Christian fundamentalists and Muslim fundamentalists being equivalent. Since then the idea just keeps popping up.

The latest transgression is by none other than Harvey Cox, one of the most influential and insightful theologians of the twentieth century. How a thinker of his stature could fall to this low is beyond me. Writing in the Boston Globe, article here, about the history of religious fundamentalism, he drew the comparison.

Cox: "As the 20th century ended and a new one began, fundamentalism has taken on more formidable shapes, both politically and religiously. Though most of its adherents work through spiritual and educational channels, the small minority that turn to violence have caught the media’s attention. If some seem ready to die for faith, others are ready to kill for it, gunning down abortion doctors in church, hijacking planes, and exploding bombs at weddings. For plenty of thoughtful people, fundamentalism has come to represent the most dangerous threat to open societies since the fall of communism."

My observations in my previous blog show that the comparison is outrageous. In the context Cox puts it, the gunning down of an abortion doctor in church happened exactly one time. No Christian fundamentalist has ever hijacked a plane. Since 1972, when Roe vs Wade was passed, that's thirty two years, eight abortion doctors or staff have been murdered, all of them denounced by Christians. I don't hear any, well maybe very weak, denunciations of acts of Islamofasist violence by Muslims. The massive violence and terror is perpetrated by Muslims. Just look at the hard cold numbers.

I expect such nonsense from anti-Christians, but am very surprised that Harvey Cox expressed it. There's a lot of good observations in the article, and it's worth the reading time. I recommend his most widely read book 'The Secular City: Secularization and Urbanization in Theological Perspective'.

I'm just disappointed that someone I so admired since I was a teenager would say something like this. I'll just chalk it up to an aberration, and hope he doesn't revisit the comparison. Hopefully he'll correct it.

Christian Terrorists!!!

After I saw the satirical movie "An American Carol", I was commenting to a liberal, non-Christian friend about a funny scene of people going through all the security hassles at the airport, shoes off, metal detectors, extra waiting in line, profiling, the whole security drill, and blaming it on the terrorism of Christian fundamentalists. My throw away comment was the nonsensical and patently untrue observation that Christian fundamentalists are just as threatening as Islamic fundamentalists. She commented back, with seriousness, that Christian fundamentalists were as dangerous and threatening. I'm sick of hearing it. I hear and read it in many media outlets. Christians may have a few nutty cults that usually isolate themselves from society, and a few loopy preachers that make wacky comments. Remember these?


1. 1968 Bobby Kennedy was shot and killed by a Muslim male extremist.

2. In 1972 at the Munich Olympics, athletes were kidnapped and massacred by Muslim male extremists.

3. In 1979, the US embassy in Iran was taken over by Muslim male extremists.

4. During the 1980's a number of Americans were kidnapped in Lebanon by Muslim male extremists.

5. In 1983, the US Marine barracks in Beirut was blown up by Muslim male extremists.

6. In 1985 the cruise ship Achille Lauro was hijacked and a 70 year old American passenger was murdered and thrown overboard in his wheelchair by Muslim male extremists.

7. In 1985 TWA flight 847 was hijacked at Athens, and a US Navy diver trying to rescue passengers was murdered by Muslim male extremists.

8. In 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was bombed by Muslim male extremists.

9. In 1993 the World Trade Center was bombed the first time by Muslim male extremists.

10. In 1998, the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by Muslim male extremists.

11. On 9/11/01, four airliners were hijacked; two were used as missiles to take down the World Trade Centers and of the remaining two, one crashed into the US Pentagon and the other was diverted and crashed by the passengers. Thousands of people were killed by Muslim male extremists.

12. In 2002 the United States fought a war in Afghanistan against Muslim male extremists.

13. In 2002 reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and murdered by-- you guessed it-- Muslim male extremists.

What do we do? Ensure we Americans never offend anyone, particularly fanatics' intent on killing us, airport security screeners aren't allowed to profile certain people... Absolutely No Profiling!

They conduct random searches of 80-year-old women, little kids, airline pilots with proper identification, secret agents who are members of the President's security detail, 85-y ear old Congressmen with metal hips, and Medal of Honor winner and former Governor Joe Foss, but leave Muslim Males alone lest they be guilty of profiling.



Can I hear from any of my non-Christian, secular friends, or liberals, about the same acts of violence by Christian fundamentalists? I doubt it. I'll take a loopy preacher any day.