Chasing the Wind

State Sovereignty

The Ninth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

The Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

When the U.S. government is taxing our grandchildren for the purposes of increasing spending, the rights of the state are trampled. Thank goodness states are fighting back.

Lawmakes in 16 states have joined what’s become known as the Tenth Amendment Movement. And it’s picking up speed. At least that many are considering the same. Read more here and here and here.

Call your state representative. Tell them you want to govern your own state, not Washington. Before we’re all broke.

These states have already passed or have resolutions pending to pass the Tenth Amendment Movement: Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Washington.

Soon to come: Alaska, Alabama, California, Colorado, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Nevada, Maine, Pennsylvania.

Is your state on this list?

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US Government Restricts Free Speech and Expression of Religion

The “separation of church and state,” such as it is, should keep the government from imposing a religion upon the people of this country.

But regulations that squelch the speech of pastors? Can the US Government tell pastors what they can and cannot talk about?

There is no law that I’m aware of that restricts the speech of pastors, but IRS regulations in place for over 50 years threaten to withdraw the tax-exempt status of churches that speak on politics. I am convinced this is a contributing factor to the decline of morality in the USA. The churches are the center of what we consider moral in the country, and if the pulpits are silent, immorality blossoms.

Some pastors have begun specifically defying this regulation by specifically mentioning candidates by name. Their goal is to overturn the IRS regulation through the court system. Listen: all rules and regulations in this country should follow the US Constitution, right? Here’s the 1st Amendment to the US Constitution -

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

That tells me that the government can’t pass any laws on what churches can and cannot say, anymore than they can tell newspapers what they can and cannot print. Read that amendment and explain to me how it could be interpreted otherwise.

If you’d like to read more, the Alliance Defense Fund is spearheading this project.

“Pastors have a right to speak about Biblical truths from the pulpit without fear of punishment. No one should be able to use the government to intimidate pastors into giving up their constitutional rights,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Erik Stanley.

It’s a government restriction on the freedom of speech and the expression of religion. I cant see how anyone could interpret the Constitution any other way.

State of Cindy’s Delusion

You probably know Cindy Sheehan was arrested and removed before the President’s State of the Union address last night. That wasn’t really a surprise – the surprise to me was that a U.S. Representative, Lynn Woolsey, gave her a ticket. Sometimes the Left is really… Left, you know? Cindy was removed by Capital Police because, well, because it wasn’t a State of Cindy speech last night.

Cindy’s posted about her experience on Michael Moore’s website. I’m going to nitpick only a couple of pieces in it:

[...]
At that time, I was wearing the shirt that said: 2,245 Dead. How many more?
[...]
I had just sat down and I was warm from climbing 3 flights of stairs back up from the bathroom so I unzipped my jacket. I turned to the right to take my left arm out, when the same officer saw my shirt and yelled, “Protester.”
[...]
I wore the shirt to make a statement. The press knew I was going to be there and I thought every once in awhile they would show me and I would have the shirt on.

These snippets show she still doesn’t understand why she was escorted out. The show wasn’t about her. The wife of Republican Representative C.W. Bill Young was also escorted out for wearing a t-shirt supporting the troops. I remember a man being escorted out during one of Bill Clinton’s State of the Union speeches. The President is required by the US Constitution to tell Congress about the State of the Union every year. It’s all about the President on that night.

I have lost my First Amendment rights.
[...]
I have some lawyers looking into filing a First Amendment lawsuit against the government for what happened tonight.
[...]
I don’t want to live in a country that prohibits any person, whether he/she has paid the ultimate price for that country, from wearing, saying, writing, or telephoning any negative statements about the government.

I think a lawyer would have a hard time proving that her First Amendment rights are being violated, especially when she’s posted everything she wanted to say the very next day. The fact that she can’t say it there and that particular time and be disruptive at a Presidential event is supported by a Supreme Court ruling placing a “reasonable time, place or manner” restriction on speech.

Read some of her ranting. Does she sound oppressed to you?

Banning Christmas

An administrator, Patricia Sonntag, at California State University, has banned Christmas.

“Time has come to recognize that religious discrimination, as well as ethnic insensitivity to certain holidays, is forbidden,” Patricia Sonntag, director of the Office of Services to Students with Disabilities, stated in the directive she e-mailed to members of her staff on Dec. 9.

While Patricia was at it, she banned Thanksgiving, Halloween, Valentine’s Day, the 4th of July, St. Patrick’s Day and Easter on the grounds that they are “offensive.” She wrote in an email that the ban was necessary “in order to avoid offending someone else.” Someone else could not be reached for comment.

So in order to avoid offending “someone else,” it’s OK to offend everyone else?

The Catholic League has already pointed out the problem with an adminstrator of a public university taking such a stance.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue called the policy a violation of free speech rights. “It never occurs to these secular supremacists that it is their aversion to anything religious – or patriotic – that accounts for their desire to muzzle free speech.”

Try to remember this simple rule: The US Constitution say you cannot abridge freedom of religion. It doesn’t say to eliminate religion.

A Non-Christian Narna

People that hate Christians should not go see “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.”

The Guardian Unlimited, England’s ultra liberal rag, says “Narnia represents everything that is most hateful about religion.” Exceprts:

The Christian radio station Premier is urging churches to hold services on the theme of The Gospel According to Narnia. Even the Methodists have written a special Narnia-themed service. And a Kent parish is giving away £10,000 worth of film tickets to single-parent families. (Are the children of single mothers in special need of the word?)

I would say “yes.” I don’t know what the author has against single mothers, but apparently she’s opposed to them receiving Christian aid and encouragement in any form.

The president’s brother, Jeb Bush, the governor of Florida, is organising a scheme for every child in his state to read the book. Walden Media, co-producer of the movie, offers a “17-week Narnia Bible study for children”. The owner of Walden Media is both a big Republican donor and a donor to the Florida governor’s book promotion – a neat synergy of politics, religion and product placement. It has aroused protests from Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which complains that “a governmental endorsement of the book’s religious message is in violation of the First Amendment to the US Constitution”.

That would certainly be hard to prove since the words “Christ” and “God” never appear in the movie in any form.

Disney may come to regret this alliance with Christians, at least on this side of the Atlantic. For all the enthusiasm of the churches, Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ bombed in Britain and warehouses are stuffed with unsold DVDs of that stomach-churner. There are too few practising Christians in the empty pews of this most secular nation to pack cinemas. So there has been a queasy ambivalence about how to sell the Narnia film here.

If you were unsure of the author’s hatred of Christians, that should have cleared it right up for you.

Most British children will be utterly clueless about any message beyond the age-old mythic battle between good and evil. Most of the fairy story works as well as any Norse saga, pagan legend or modern fantasy, so only the minority who are familiar with Christian iconography will see Jesus in the lion. After all, 43% of people in Britain in a recent poll couldn’t say what Easter celebrated. Among the young – apart from those in faith schools – that number must be considerably higher. Ask art galleries: they now have to write the story of every religious painting on the label as people no longer know what “agony in the garden”, “deposition”, “transfiguration” or “ascension” mean. This may be regrettable cultural ignorance, but it means Aslan will stay just a lion to most movie-goers.

Explain to me again that if “Aslan will stay just a lion to most movie-goers” why the Americans United for Separation of Church and State are complaining? I find this sad, that the European young have lost touch with their faith and are no longer being taught by their parents.

Of all the elements of Christianity, the most repugnant is the notion of the Christ who took our sins upon himself and sacrificed his body in agony to save our souls. Did we ask him to?

Goodness. How repugnant. I wonder if the author feels free to insult all other religions, too, or if she’s reserved a special hatred for Christianity. The answer, by the way, is no, we did not ask Him to. God did it for us, unasked. It is a gift, it is grace.

There’s lots more hatred of Christians (and conservatives) aplenty if you’re interested:

• So the resurrected Aslan gives Edmund a long, life-changing talking-to high up on the rocks out of our earshot. When the poor boy comes back down with the sacred lion’s breath upon him he is transformed unrecognisably into a Stepford brother, well and truly purged. (The author doesn’t say what part of Edmund’s new behavior is repugnant.)
• Philip Pullman – he of the marvellously secular trilogy His Dark Materials – has called Narnia “one of the most ugly, poisonous things I have ever read”.
• Because here in Narnia is the perfect Republican, muscular Christianity for America – that warped, distorted neo-fascist strain that thinks might is proof of right.
• I once heard the famous preacher Norman Vincent Peale in New York expound a sermon that reassured his wealthy congregation that they were made rich by God because they deserved it. The godly will reap earthly reward because God is on the side of the strong. This appears to be CS Lewis’s view, too. In the battle at the end of the film, visually a great epic treat, the child crusaders are crowned kings and queens for no particular reason. Intellectually, the poor do not inherit Lewis’s earth. (The author has mistaken earthly riches for heavenly riches and so misses the point entirely – Michael.)

Children are supposed to fall in love with the hypnotic Aslan, though he is not a character: he is pure, raw, awesome power. He is an emblem for everything an atheist objects to in religion. His divine presence is a way to avoid humans taking responsibility for everything here and now on earth, where no one is watching, no one is guiding, no one is judging and there is no other place yet to come. Without an Aslan, there is no one here but ourselves to suffer for our sins, no one to redeem us but ourselves: we are obliged to settle our own disputes and do what we can. We need no holy guide books, only a very human moral compass. Everyone needs ghosts, spirits, marvels and poetic imaginings, but we can do well without an Aslan.

So ghosts and spirits are great, but not a faith in a redeeming savior. The author has preformed ideas about Christianity and uses those ideas to bash Christianity. Setup the strawman and knock it down. Do Christians use their faith to avoid taking responsibility, or do Christians feel their faith calls them to devote their lives to service in faith? There are thousands of Christian faith-based service organizations feeding the poor, helping the homeless, with millions of volunteers. That’s a far cry from the author’s portrayal of Christians.

And all of the Christian-bashing over a movie that never utters a scriptural word.