Local Idiocy

Well, it looks like I've sent my last letter to the local paper, The American Press, referred to by many as The American Mess. Of course I will continue writing and sending it out to other papers, but the Press has shown its religious and political bent once too often to suit my taste.

Lord knows how many letters I send to them and sometimes have to wait weeks before they will print just one of them in their Sunday edition that has Opinion letters.. But let someone object to what I have written and they seem to find the space the following Sunday. Amazing.

Of course I was taken to task just today (5/29) by one of the local geniuses about a letter I wrote just last Sunday. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. I don't mind people disagreeing with me, I just wish they would afford me the same courtesy when I send a letter in answer to someone's opinion. They have never published one of those.

But then again, the idiocy of some really starts to get to me when I see a letter like they published today. True the paper doesn't write these letters, it just prints them. But somehow I think they should draw the line and stop catering to the ignorance that is so prevalent here. Here's what someone wrote under the headline "God doesn't approve of stem cell research.":

I read Henry Mouton's letter to the editor advocating that the state of Louisiana should allow stem cell research. I don't agree with him. I know my God and know he never would do that. I know he never meant for our bodies to become factories of body parts. I believe that from conception we have life and a soul. Some of the people don't care because they just want to relieve their pain and some just want to live longer. (Me-For shame, wanting no pain and living longer.) God never promised we would not have any pain and he has his time to call us home. He says, "I will come like a thief in the night. You have to be ready when he comes. If you're not ready, you know where you'll go.

Wow! Here is a woman who has evidently never taken an aspirin, never worn glasses, never had a flu shot, never put anything on her child's skinned knee, for fear of relieving pain or lengthening life. Maybe I should take the pacemaker out of my chest since it is relieving my pain and lengthening my life. I am so glad that this lady has such a personal relationship with God that He has personally told her what He wants. Is this a service provided by Southern Bell? Can I get the same service?

This is typical of what the Press prints.

Dept. of Defense New Math

In a report from the Christian Science Monitor:

"By 2010, war expenses might total $600 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Much depends on when - and how many - US military personnel can be withdrawn from the Iraqi theater of operations."

I guess we as Americans shouldn't worry too much about these costs that are putting this country deeper and deeper into debt. After all, Mr. Rumsfeld is pushing to close many military facilities that will save $50 billion over a ten year period. Somehow I think that $50 billion in ten years doesn't quite equate to $600 billion in five more years. But then again, I never was too good at math.

Maybe we will pay for it with another tax cut for the richest Americans

Senator Frist and The Big Lie

I have always put original writings on my Blog at http://SamSchoolsky.blogspot.com, but today I have run across an column written by Bill Press for Tribune Media Services that I must copy from. Here is part of what he wrote, dealing with Senator Bill Frist and his intentions to do away with the age old Senate right of a filibuster by the minority party. Please read it all before you make a decision.

“First, because Democrats dared filibuster a handful of President Bush’s judicial nominees, Frist has accused them of being ‘sore losers.’ Stop right there. He’s got it backwards. In Bush’s first term (with Republican control,) the Senate confirmed 208 out of his 218 nominations to the federal bench. Only 10 nominees, the most extreme right-wingers were stopped by filibuster. Which meant Bush got 95 percent of what he asked for.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I’d be wearing a big grin if I ever got even 75 percent of what I asked for. If I won 75 percent of the elections I voted in, I’d be on cloud nine. There’s only one thing worse than a ‘sore loser,’ and that’s a ‘sore winner,’ namely George Bush and Bill Frist.

Frist also charges that filibusters were never used against judges until Democrats started doing so in the last few years. Big lie. In 1968, Republicans mounted a successful filibuster against LBJ’s nomination of Abe Fortas as chief justice. More recently, in the year 2000, Republican Sen. Bob Smith led an unsuccessful filibuster against Richard Paez and Marsha Berzon, two Clinton appointees from California. And—get this—Smith was joined by none other than Sen. Bill Frist himself. Does Frist have early Alzheimer’s? Or does he just think he can lie and get away with it?

More than 60 Clinton nominees never made it to the Senate floor (Republican controlled). They weren’t even given the courtesy of a vote in the Judiciary Committee by Chairman Orrin Hatch (Rep). This happened, of course, before Republicans suddenly adopted their new mantra of ‘Every nominee deserves an up or down vote.’ To which they should have added: ‘As long as there’s a Republican in the White House.”

I could quote more and more from this column, but it isn’t necessary. Anyone with any sense of reality would recognize the “Big Lie” coming from our government, and especially Mr. Bush and Mr. Frist. Everyone should be aware of this and not take for granted what the truth really is, and not just what presidential wannabe “Rev” Frist says.

Exclusivity, Intolerance, and Bigotry

Dear editor:

It is time for Americans to listen to what is really being said in the name of religion today. What they will hear is not the tolerance, love, and understanding of gracious, true religion, but the ancient, dangerous thoughts of exclusivity, intolerance, and bigotry. Listen carefully.

Ministers, preachers, and self styled religious leaders are calling for changes in our government to reflect their so-called pious beliefs. They want to change the face of our courts with judges who pass their litmus test of “Christian” morality, ethics, and thinking, even if that way of thinking truly isn’t Christian. And by the way, based upon these requirements, Jews, Moslems, Buddhists, and members of any other religion need not apply. This is an exclusive club wherein you have to agree with and think like “us”.

Some of these same ministers, preachers, and self styled religious leaders are demanding that their followers vote only for who they approve of as “good Christians”, and if they don’t they will be drummed out of the church. Here again they are showing their bigotry for anyone who disagrees with their view of America (and tomorrow the world.) Once again they want a single voice in our government that reflects their brand of Christianity, and other Christians, Jews, Moslems, Buddhists, and member of any other religion need not apply.

And once again the intolerance for knowledge is showing up in Kansas where so-called “good Christians” are challenging the accepted science of evolution since it differs with their interpretation of the bible. Haven’t we been through this before? And of course this isn’t limited to that one state alone.

What America is hearing isn’t the voice of the loving belief in true Christianity, but the exclusivity, intolerance, and bigotry of those who want everyone to be like, think like, and do like them. It is called control. And it is as un-Christian and un-American as anything can be. It is political bigotry masquerading as religion. It is nothing new. It has been tried and tried before. The sounds are familiar. You can hear the jack-boots marching, anthems singing, flags waving, intolerance of “the other” growing. Welcome to the world of Nazi Germany in 1932.

Grammar School Anonymity

Dear editor:

Many, many years ago, when I was a young boy in grammar school, one of the first things I learned was to always put my name at the top of the page. This action would guarantee that the teacher would always know whose paper she (or he) was looking at and could give the proper credit for whatever was written on that particular page. Seemed like a simple, responsible system, and one that I, as a result, have learned to live by most of my life. I even have stationery with my name at the top so that whoever I write to will know that it came from me.

If only our government leaders felt the same way about pride in authorship.

Just yesterday there was a report in a national newspaper that Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) was scaling back some of his rhetoric and bullying due to the many questions swarming around his ethical lapses. "He's withdrawn, he's tired, he looks like he's not sleeping," said a Republican aide who has worked closely with DeLay, but who agreed to share his observations only on the condition of anonymity. Anonimity? That means the person sharing this information never learned in grade school to put his (or her) name at the top of the page.

A high ranking officer in our military was reported to have said that things are not going well in Iraq in our war against the insurgents, who daily bomb, destroy and kill. Of course he said this only on condition of anonymity. Guess he started school in the fifth grade, long after everyone else had already learned about putting your name at the top of the page.

So much of our governmental news today is given out in the form of planned leaks by “anonymous” people that we have to assume that we are being governed by people who are not very proud of the job they are doing. Maybe they need to go back to the first grade and put their name at the top of the page.

Maybe next year I’ll send in my income taxes, and in the box where you are supposed to write your name I’ll state, “Submitted on condition of anonymity.”

Religion's Back Door Government

Dear editor:

The Founding Fathers of our country framed the Constitution very carefully, based upon their history of religious persecution in Europe, and included the need for separation of church and state. They thought they had closed that door for all time, but evidently they only closed the front door and left the back door open. Yes, they made sure that the government could not specify and promote a religion, but they never thought about a religion specifying and promoting a government. And that’s where we are today.

Look at some of today’s scary front page news stories in nationally recognized papers.

From the Washington Post: “In the small East Waynesville (NC) Baptist Church Pastor Chandler led an effort to kick out congregants who did not support President Bush. Nine members were voted out at a Monday church meeting in this mountain town about 120 miles west of Charlotte. Forty others in the 400-member congregation resigned in protest. During the presidential election last year, Chandler told the congregation that anyone who planned to vote for the Democratic nominee, Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), should either leave the church or repent, former member Lorene Sutton said.”

From the New York Times: “In his home town of Pearland, Tex., Baptist minister Rick Scarborough was tireless in promoting his conservative Christian way of thinking. He recruited like-minded candidates to run for the local school board and city council. He crisscrossed the country to protest the ousting of Roy S. Moore, former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, for installing a Ten Commandments tablet at his courthouse. And Scarborough created a network of "Patriot Pastors" to lead evangelicals to the polls in 2004.”

As individuals these, and many other extreme Fundamentalist leaders, have a right to express their political opinions. What they are doing, though, is misusing their pulpits in the name of religion and trying to remake our government into their particular religious viewpoint no matter whose rights they step on. And they do so at our expense. Our expense? Yes! All of the religious organizations that these people head or control have tax free status and “donations” to them are tax deductible. In addition they pay no property tax, their travel is paid for out of church or related funds and the government has no way (or desire) to check into their politically motivated slush funds.

It’s time we closed that back door and did away with the tax free status of these demagogues who want to take over our government and change our rights. Or would that be un-Christian?

Religion and Politics

Dear editor:

With all the talk from the majority leaders of the House and Senate, Rep. Tom DeLay and Sen. Bill Frist, about the need for “morality” (their definition) and a judiciary that is “more Conservative and Christian” (again, their definition), one can not help but think back to some of the Founding Fathers of our country and what they had to say on the subject. We should be thankful that it was they that set up our government and not today’s crop of self-serving legislators.

From Benjamin Franklin…. “A man compounded of law and gospel is able to cheat a whole country with his religion and then destroy them under color of law.”

From James Madison….“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands….may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”

They knew what they were talking about.