Citizen Tom

Check out Raising an American flag on a free standing pole isn’t “aethetically pleasing” at Smash Mouth Politics.  

I first heard about the subject of John Doe’s post, an argument over taste and decor     , on the Mark Levin show.   Levin is caustic, but downloading his show is free, and his show is generally informative.  So I listen. 

When Levin mentioned what the Sussex Square homeowners’ association and their idiot lawyers  (Coates and Davenport) want to do to a 90-year-old veteran, I found myself shaking my head in disgust.   How can lawyers be so arrogant and stupid and still stay in business?  To make the affair impossibly absurd, the senior citizen these fools want to push around earned the  Medal of Honor.  Even at 90 years, Barfoot has more grit than any slick shyster.     

Other Views

United Conservatives of Virginia links to a poll, Take the Poll.  The site with the poll provides a little more background. UCV also has a couple of other posts on the subject.

Decision Virginia notes the politicians who are jumping on the bandwagon.  Here is the latest, Webb sends letter to HOA in defense of Barfoot.

VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local links to a good video, RHIP: Let him fly the flag.

The Lee Brothers Blog makes its position clear.  The Sussex Square community board of directors has No honor!  Honor.  That is a term we hear too little of these days, but we each should be willing to risk death for that in which we believe.  That is what Col Barfoot’s medal says about him.  He risked his life to protect us.  If we allow his service to be dishonored, we shame ourselves.

 The Prince William and Manassas Family Alliance blog provides thoughtful consideration of family related issues.  Here are the last two posts.

• WHEN BUSYBODIES MAKE PUBLIC POLICY -  This concerns the feud in Washington DC over granting special rights to homosexuals.   However, our governor has stuck his nose in it.
• WHEN A GOVERNMENT PROGRAM IS WORKING, WHY WOULD POLITICIANS WANT TO TERMINATE THE PROGRAM? - This is another DC brouhaha.   Nonetheless, because the money is Federal, we have a say.

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, it must be a duck.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: (Italian)

Of late, a commenter who goes by the name of RR Edwards has sought to dominate the discussion on this blog (at this post).   His basic technique is to be disagreeable.   Unless you agree with him, you are entirely wrong.   Other than in the eradication of Christianity and apparently every other religion, it is difficult to figure out what Edwards believes.  So even if you want to, you probably could not agree with him.

Is Edwards an “Internet troll?”  Perhaps.  For those who are unfamiliar with the term, the Old Fashion Liberal came up with this definition.

An Internet troll is someone who posts offensive, controversial, or divisive material on an Internet community. Trolls are an unfortunately common occurrence on many communities across the Internet, and there are various steps which can be taken to combat them. If you are currently struggling with an Internet troll, the best thing to do is to walk away, since trolls feed on attention, and they will usually disappear if they are ignored.  (continued here)

Based upon the definition and that old duck proverb, I think we can safely classify Edwards as an Internet troll.  He certainly has not had much that is positive to say about anybody or their beliefs.  Moreover, I think his cause, the eradication of Christianity, is at least somewhat controversial.

Anyway, Edwards visits do provide an excuse to quote a few Bible verses.  What verses?   Since Edwards sows confusion over what it means to be a Christian, I will quote some verses from 1 John that clarify the matter.

First of all, what does it mean to be a follower of Christ?

1 John 1:5-10 (Today’s New International Version)

Light and Darkness, Sin and Forgiveness

This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth.  But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.

So Christianity is about the forgiveness of sins and the effort to become holy.  To become holy, we must avoid sin.   What does it take to avoid sin?  How do we avoid being lead astray?

1 John 3:7-10 (Today’s New International Version)

Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.  Those who are born of God will not continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God.  This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Those who do not do what is right are not God’s children; nor are those who do not love their brothers and sisters.

We must seek what is righteous, and we must be reborn of God.  And how do we know what is right?  How are we reborn?

1 John 4:7-21 (Today’s New International Version)

God’s Love and Ours

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.  Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit.  And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.  If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God.  And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.  This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus.  There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

We love because he first loved us. If we say we love God yet hate a brother or sister, we are liars. For if we do not love a fellow believer, whom we have seen, we cannot love God, whom we have not seen.  And he has given us this command: Those who love God must also love one another.

Ultimately, Christianity is about faith in God’s love in the form of Jesus Christ.  What distinguished Jesus?  We say that Jesus was a man, and we say that Jesus was God.  As a man Jesus needed the love of the Father.  As God, Jesus knew the love of the Father with absolute certainty.  No one else before or since has had such certainty.   Thus, no man is good, certainly not as good as was Jesus.  Yet when we strive to love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us.

Yesterday I posted this comment on this post at ANTI-BVBL.   What was my complaint?  One of their posters praised a Washington Post editorial that included this paragraph.

In ethnic politics, symbolism matters. And recent Republican signals to Hispanics have often been crudely unwelcoming. During the 2006 congressional debate on immigration reform, Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) grabbed the Republican microphone to call Miami a “Third World country.” The same year, Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.) darkly warned of illegal immigrant murderers as a “slow motion nightmare” greater than Sept. 11. A provision of the House immigration reform bill would have made it illegal for priests, ministers and volunteers to “assist” illegal immigrants — criminalizing a religious duty. Republican presidential candidates conspicuously avoided Hispanic forums during the 2008 primaries. Conservative shock radio, on its frightening fringes, can be overtly racist, referring to Mexican immigrants as “leeches,” “the world’s lowest primitives” and diseased carriers of the “fajita flu” who may “wipe their behinds with their hands.” Pat Buchanan sells books with this title: “State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America.”  (from here)

The implication, of course, is that Republicans don’t like Hispanics.    The poster at ANTI-BVBL used this editorial to accuse Republicans of pandering to extremists.  In other words, the author called Republicans bigots, but carefully skittered around using that word.

Frankly, I think the author, Michael Gerson, wrote a bigoted article.  When ANTI-BVBL praised such trash, they joined in the same behavior.

In my comment, I pointed out that Americans have every right to protect their cultural heritage.   Democracy is an invention.  Just like any other invention, democracy requires experience and expertise to operate, but we are we doing?   What would the people who call Republicans extremists have us do?  They would have us open our borders and let anyone who wants enter our nation.  Would they give strangers the keys to other people’s homes?  Who knows?   As it is, they insist on giving the children of illegal immigrants a free education, and they insist subsidizing the health care of illegal immigrants.  What reason do we have to doubt that they would happily and self-righteously allow illegal immigrants  to vote, even to the point of printing our voting ballots in a dozen languages?

Yet to complain of such rapacious stupidity is extreme.  Thus Moon-howler promptly answered my comment with this reply:  “You are the bigot because you come here and look at us all as one rather than individuals who have united on a blog to exchange ideas.”   What can I offer in defense?  I ask my readers to consider Moon-howler“s own words.  He and his fellow blog compatriots have and are united.  If Moon-howler does not want to be associated with ANTI-BVBL’s other bloggers (Elena and Alanna seem to the only others in the last couple of weeks.), he can blog on his own blog.  He can at least put up a page that describes the views of the individual authors and what the website is about. As it is there is nothing — nothing except what each author posts that distinguishes one author from another.

Nonetheless, Moon-howler did offer “positive” advice.

Why would any minority want to be a Republican? I have yet to even understand the Log Cabin Republicans. In order to get people to join, you have to offer something for them to identify with, appeal to their belief system. That is the place to start–not with platitudes or trotting out token Latinos or blacks.  (from here)

What are we to make of Moon-howler’s helpful advice?   It seems Moon-howler thinks Republicans need is to start thinking like Moon-howler.  Otherwise, we are evil, stupid, bigoted or some other such thing.   And, of course, Black and Latino Republicans are just tokens.  So there is no reason treat them with any respect.  Perhaps, that is why Democrats so readily and enthusiastically trash the reputations and character non-WASP Republicans.  How else can you explain why such tolerant souls so readily call others bigots?

In this post, WHAT DISTINGUISHES CONSERVATIVE FROM LIBERAL THOUGHT, we discussed the difference between Conservative and Liberal thinking processes.  In order to bring home the point, we should do some case studies.   In order to make this case study both interesting and topical, I chose this post, Unintentional Comedy Flows Through Streets of DC, by Miles Grant of Blue Virginia.

To begin, let’s consider the wording of title, Unintentional Comedy Flows Through Streets of DC.  With this title, what author admits up front is that he has no intention of taking the Tea Party protesters seriously.   Thus, we know the post is solely intended to ridicule.   How common is this snide disdain amongst the members of Democratic Party and most of the corporate news media?  That you can judge for yourself.  Nonetheless, I think it puts Grant’s quote of Dave Weigel in context.

The irony of a pack of red-staters coming to DC to yell about THEIR lack of representation is delicious.

When neither the majority party nor most of the corporate news media take the Tea Party protesters seriously, why should these protesters feel represented by either?

Consider how the post begins.

Thousands of anti-tax protesters have come to DC — all through tax-funded methods, either traveling on tax-funded roads, landing at tax-funded airports, or riding tax-funded Amtrak. To get to the protest, most rode tax-funded Metro. And they’ll gather on tax-funded public lands to have their protest.

Look at the disconnect.  When did the Tea Parties begin?   Did they not start long after the Federal Government started spending our hard earned money like water and the economy went sour?  With any effort, anyone can tell the Tea Party protesters are ordinary Americans.  Their protests are orderly; these people know how to behave well.

Further, the Tea Party protesters want  to understand what is going on.  That is because what they see scares them.  What we are seeing is an out of control Federal Government.   We see elected officials disregarding the Constitution, and that should frighten all of us.  Don’t we have a constitutional republic?  If we do not enforce the limits set by the Constitution, what will define the limits of the powers of our leaders?   If we allow our leaders unlimited power, will we have any rights?  Will we still be a free People?

Unfortunately, what Grant apparently sees is an enemy that needs to be discredited.  So he looks for any possibility to ridicule and belittle the intelligence of his opponents.  When he does so, he demonstrates exactly the attitude the Tea Party protesters fear in our leaders, the inability to listen and take their concerns seriously.

Other Views

Tertium Quids has link to a great video here, Time Lapse of the 9/12 March.  The video leaves no doubt we had a big crowd today in DC.

Yankee Phil emphasizes the numbers too, DC IS FILLED WITH AVERAGE AMERICANS.  He adds number, 1.5 million, but he does not provide a reference.  When I was leaving, I heard that number floated about too.  Frankly, there is no way to get an accurate estimate of the crowd size.   It should suffice to say there were lots and lots of people of the sort who usually do not demonstrate.  Instead, they are too busy earning the money that fills our government’s coffers.

UPDATE:  Here are some more reports.

In the post, Faces of Freedom…, The Journey provides more pictures.

In its post, Express, 9-12 Project First Report, novatownhall blog provides and on-the-spot video with sound.