Free In Idaho!

” I want all of you to be safe. And please don’t feel bad for us. We are warriors. And as warriors have done before us, we joined this organization and are following orders because we believe that what we are doing is right. Many of us have volunteered to do this a second time due to our deep desire to finish the job we started. We fight and sometimes die so that our families don’t have to. Stand beside us. Because we would do it for you. Because it is our unity that has enabled us to prosper as a nation.” - Staff Sergeant Marcus Golczynski, written a week before he was killed in action in Iraq.

Gratitude poster link.  The story behind it is here.

When it is as obvious as the officially allowed Three-Self Church in China, it is easy to see government’s hand on religion.  Coming from a place of absolute repression, such a thing on first glance fools many who don’t know better.  But when it comes from the other direction, will it fool as many as easily?

.. London (CNSNews.com) - Religious charities in Britain will from next year have to show that they provide a “public benefit” or risk losing their government recognition.

That’s the camel’s nose under the tent.  That’s the frog in the pot.  And that’s a good place for the Church to say “Thanks gov, but stuff it”!

..Under sweeping new laws passed by parliament in late 2006, charities that promote religion, along with those dealing with poverty or education, have lost their long-standing automatic right to tax privileges.

In the future, they will have to prove each year that their activities have a “public benefit.”

I appreciate that tax breaks for religious organizations have been a good thing, and I’m grateful to live in a country that still extends such benefits.  But the church should NEVER allow itself to be placed in a position where it feels it must ok its good works with the State before bringing them before the Throne.  Render unto Caesar, AND go make disciples.  There is nothing about tax breaks in the Gospel.  Should we obey men and not God?  Are we to be men pleasers, or God pleasers?

..Although the government is still drawing up an exact definition of “public benefit,” a draft document released earlier this year broadly described it as an identifiable benefit to a section of the public, including low-income people.

The Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship (LCF), one of the groups worried about the new law, says it is unclear how the change may affect charities that focus on evangelism or promote traditional teaching on the family.

We have the same kind of encroachment in America, and it is a shame that so many churches focus on their tax status rather than their integrity to the  Word.  Would it be such a burden to lose that property tax break?  Yeah, if that mega-million dollar property and building is your idea of “doing God’s work in the community”.  And your tax exempt status?  Heaven forbid we should lose that, so maybe pastor ought to tone it down a bit this Sunday when he talks about the culture.   And I know there are some who might have trouble writing that tithe check, if they didn’t get to also write it on their 1040.  

Then there’s the other end of camel slipping under the tent.  Here is a quote from Barrack Obama, speaking from the pulpit of a New Orleans church last weekend

..The church is doing everything that it can. The church is trying to build that foundation on the rock, but they need a little helping hand from the state government and the city government and from the federal government.

If that doesn’t make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck, you might want to see if you can find your Bible and take a little quiet time.  And if you can’t find your Bible, at least Google up a copy of the Constitution.  Then repeat after me  “thanks gov, but stuff it!”

Actually, not THAT kind of holy water font, the Islamic foot-washing kind.  I’ve been seeing bits and pieces about this all summer long, but  I guess everyone is too busy playing outside and surfing the web looking for Hollywood skanklet pics.  It just doesn’t seem to be generating any big deal.  Is anyone paying attention here, or doesn’t anyone get vocal until they try to take the Christmas trees out of some public place, or tell everyone to say “happy middle to the end of December gift buying season” instead of Merry Christmas?   Accommodating a specific religion’s prayer requirements in the construction of a public building using taxpayer money goes a bit beyond the “free exercise” clause doesn’t it?  How long before we have Muslim only swimming?  Or separate entrances for believers and infidels?  From the Washington Times yesterday, this appears to me to be quite a different thing than a donated tree in a public place.

DEARBORN, Mich. — Plans to construct two foot-washing stations continue at the University of Michigan at Dearborn amid concerns that such action would constitute an establishment of religion by the public university.

The 8,700-student school near Detroit, which begins fall classes Tuesday, came under criticism in June when it announced that it would spend about $25,000 on the two foot-washing areas that were requested as an accommodation by a Muslim Student Association’s task force. The foot baths come while the state is in a budget crisis and tuition and fees have risen at all of the state’s public universities, up 7.9 percent at the Dearborn campus alone.

Data from a study of entering freshmen suggest that about 10 percent of students at the university are Muslim, and many have in the past used bathroom sinks for the foot washing, called an ablution, which Islam requires as a purity ritual before its five-times-daily prayers.

I’m at a loss as to how this gets past the “separation of Church and State” crowd and the ACLU (no I’m not).  But can you just imagine the anxiety attacks that would happen if some college wanted to install the holy water font in the picture, in order to accomidate the religious desires of the Catholic students?  Heck, I bet they could get a copy of the Bible for every student in the place who required on, and for much less than $25,000.

.. The new foot-washing stations, built at ground level, are part of a renovation project at two locations on campus and will be paid for with money from the school’s general fund.

The foot baths, while benefiting Muslim students, are open for use by all students and will be located in two new unisex bathrooms that will be renovated on campus.

Oh, that’s alright then… we’re accommodating the ever increasing population of unisex students as well.

..Zuhdi Jasser, a Phoenix physician who serves as chairman of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, said he is surprised there has not been more outrage.

“Supreme Court cases have been heard on far less-obvious violations of our Establishment Clause,” Dr. Jasser said. “Many if not most American Muslims are currently well able to accommodate our own prayers and ablution to the spaces and facilities provided to all other faiths on public grounds without special accommodations. Islamists use the ‘free exercise’ clause when it suits them and then turn around and use tax monies in the name of Islam when it suits them.”

Dr. Jasser said the foot bath marks the start down “a slippery slope of preferential treatment of one religion over another,” which he said is what the First Amendment was established to prevent.

Speaking of the ACLU, how about a little quote from an article on the Michigan ACLU’s website, written last December during the “war on Christmas” dust-up

..The United States does the best job in the world of protecting religion. Religion thrives in the American public sphere: Religious leaders preach on television and radio; religious books and magazines are a multibillion-dollar business; we have churches, synagogues and mosques of every kind.

That we do not have religious wars says something significant about the extent of our tolerance for each other’s beliefs. When there are so many places to display religious imagery, the issue is not “religion in the public sphere”; it is whether government property is the proper place for religious expression.

Emphasis mine… note, she omitted the word “Christian” religious expression.  Just pointing it out.

There are an awful lot of jokes out there about the Larry Craig situation, but you really ought to pop over to Huckleberries and listen to the musical tribute “Tap Three Times” (think Tony Orlando). 

The “alternative” newspaper in Boise, The Boise Weekly, has an article in this week’s issue entitled “A Fistful of Bullets - The Western Flavor of the modern Gun-Rights Movement”.  For my out of Boise readers, The Weekly is a mildly amusing, often useful (for events calendar type uses), but more frequently annoying example of what the old hippie papers of the 1960’s used to be have become.  Remember the Seattle Helix?  The Village Voice?  Avatar?  Or any of the other hippie street rags with names that often included the words “Free Press” in the name?  The Boise Weekly is a present day incarnation of those papers, tastefully grey haired (or the children of), with a little money, and that hip/urban arty/environmental/outdoor/liberal attitude one finds especially associated with college towns (which Boise is, in case you missed the bowl games last January).

Given that source, this is an interesting article.

TWIN FALLS, IDAHO—As 7 p.m. approaches, the high-desert sunlight lingers with a golden hue and 80 degree warmth, favoring the people who pull their vehicles into the downtown lot by the Lamphouse Theater. Disembarking and filing into the movie theater, they appear to be a Western cross-section: carefully stepping gray-haired ladies, a guy in an electric wheelchair, a few sweet little girls, the vice mayor, a toddler clinging to a mother’s shoulder, two doctors and the inevitable guy wearing camo pants.

Sounds like a cross-section of Weekly readers.  And, don’t look now, but camo in Idaho is a pretty common wardrobe item at any time of the year, not only for the large hunting crowd, but also among many of the young folks.  Camo is not sinister, nor does it indicate anything in particular in this state.  Now a Che T-shirt, a “peace scarf”, or an ELF bumpersticker might be noteworthy, but not camo.

The theater is the setting for a rally/fundraiser for Red’s Trading Post.  The fundraiser and the briefly told story of the trouble Red’s has had from the BATF these last few years is also the setting for what turns out to be another “gun nuts are weird and probably dangerous” article, with a bonus cameo by “the Jews“.  I’m serious.  It must have been hard for this writer to hold down what seems like some strong biases.  The theater is showing a film called The Gang.

..it was made by a super-hard-line national gun-rights group, Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership. The group believes the United States government has copied Nazi gun-control laws that disarmed Jews during the Holocaust; it is holding the movie’s national theatrical premiere here tonight, with no admission charge, to reinforce Horsley and Red’s Trading Post in the minds of the locals.

The Gang has the format of a documentary, presenting interviews and other evidence, but really it’s a one-sided attack on the ATF. For 85 minutes, it charges that the ATF operates as a $1 billion “criminal organization,” persecuting innocent gun dealers and gun owners, lying, conspiring with big-government politicians, and even murdering its way toward the goal of taking citizens’ weapons and imposing tyranny upon them.

For some people, guns are like abortion: politics boiled down to a single issue.

Gun-rights absolutists have some reason to be concerned about the course of recent history; there has been an incremental creep toward nationwide gun control.  Congress has passed laws in response to spectacular gun violence—first in the 1930s, as organized crime emerged, and then in 1968, 1986, 1993 and 1994, reacting to two race riots in Los Angeles and a wave of assassinations (with President John F. Kennedy, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy killed, and President Ronald Reagan wounded). Some state legislatures have taken their own steps, and gun-control advocacy groups have sprung up. Because of these regulations, which include heavier licensing fees that discourage small gun businesses, in the last 20 years the number of federally licensed gun retailers nationwide has declined by 80 percent, leaving about 50,000 in business today.

Thank you for that.  That’s the Weekly’s imitation of Fox’s ‘fair and balanced’.  But that’s about enough of that

..But the controls have awakened a powerful gun-rights movement composed not only of the single-minded National Rifle Association (3.6 million members), but also many smaller groups, down to the Wisconsin-based Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (about 6,500 members). This movement has thwarted attempts to pass more laws and rolled back provisions of existing regulations. It has also pushed new, blatantly pro-gun laws—allowing more people to carry concealed guns in more places, for example—while encouraging voters to evaluate political candidates in terms of their position on guns. And the number of civilian guns in the U.S. has continued to increase, topping 250 million now, more than one-third of the world’s total.

The whole gun-rights movement has a Western flavor, invoking the frontier mythology of fast-draw self-defense, says one of the region’s gun-fascinated academics, Jean Burbick, who is a professor of English and American Studies at Washington State University. She studied gun shows and other gun-related events in Idaho, Nevada, Washington and several states outside the region to write her 2006 book, Gun Show Nation: Gun Culture and American Democracy. At a gun show in Illinois, she found piles of Buffalo Bill memorabilia and booths for groups called Cowboy Action Shooting and the Single Action Shooting Society (members dress up like Wyatt Earp to do their blasting). She writes, “The mystique of the Western gun rested on an inflated belief in the individual and the power within reach of an ordinary human being.”

Oh please, not Jean Burbick (actually, I think he means Joan Burbick), who is pretty gun obsessed herself.  The article calms down and ranges on, touching on differing state gun laws, gun shows, machine guns, and the National database and registration, before turning once again to the problems that Red’s has had with the ATF. From there it touches on the recent changes in law after the Tech shooting, mentioning increased paperwork for gun transfers (which I understand take effect in a couple days, in September).  But just when you think you’re out of the baloney, the article finishes of with some of the most ignorant and racist BS I’ve read in quite awhile.

..In a phone interview, Professor Burbick says the gun-rights movement began not only in reaction to gun laws, but also as a reflection of white men’s anxiety about the civil rights movement. Right-wing politicians have deliberately exploited that anxiety, exaggerating the dangers of government power and of criminals who supposedly target every unarmed person, she says. “The gun has become a fetish—an emotional response to a changing America,” she notes, “the idea that somehow, the social problems of the U.S. will be solved through private gun ownership and a lot more guns.”

‘A reflection of the white men’s anxiety about the civil right movement’… wow.  We really ARE all camo-wearing racist skinhead gun-fetishists out here in Idaho, aren’t we?  I need to pick up that paper more often… ever since the Weekly World News folded, taking the Bat Boy and the Aliens Meet With Gingrich stories away, I’ve been missing a lot of good stuff!  Hippies are a hoot.

Today marks the second anniversary of Katrina’s landfall along the Gulf coast.  While everyone from Bush to Sean Penn will be reminding you of how great they are and how bad everyone else is, I’d like to remind you that legal guns were confiscated from legal owners during the Katrina mess.  It CAN happen in America.  Here is an ABC News clip of the cops going door to door.  Here is an article from September 2005.  NRA has a longer, more detailed video about it.  Xavier has a post about it as well, concerning the idea of using clergy to confiscate guns from their flocks. There is a lot to think about here.  (Poster is from Oleg Volk)

If he had pled guilty to punching out some guy who came on to him in a restroom, I might feel otherwise, but that isn’t the story.  The rumors and innuendos have been swirling for awhile now, and today the flames appeared.  Larry Craig has been coy about whether he would run again… this about tears it, for the few who might have been left after the shamnesty fight earlier this summer.  For those of you who care, or just want to know more, check out Gateway Pundit or Hot Air.  The Romney campaign has tossed him over.  Given his history, I hope the Idaho GOP isn’t too far behind in showing him the door, and that Craig resigns immediately.  Looks like Butch had more fires than he can handle today.

Morning Update: Michelle coins the term Lying Crapweasel

The other day, jimmyb had a post about the Perfect Woman.  I thought about that this afternoon, when I saw this out of state vehicle in the parking lot of Cabelas.

In my post previous to this one, I made a comment about missing fathers and certain aspects of culture… concerning the state of the “Western Male”, Mrs du Toit has an excellent post over at her place.  Get on over there and read it.  And here is a link to Kim’s original post, just in case you don’t know what she is referring to.