For the first time in his presidency, Obama has actually made a smart decision.

President Obama met with White House counsel Greg Craig and other members of the White House counsel team last week and told them that he had second thoughts about the decision to hand over photographs of detainee abuse to the ACLU, per a judge’s order, and had changed his mind.

The president “believes their release would endanger our troops,” a White House official says, adding that the president “believes that the national security implications of such a release have not been fully presented to the court.”

At the end of that meeting, the president directed Craig to object to the immediate release of the photos on those grounds. In an Oval Office meeting with Iraq Commander General Ray Odierno, the president told him of his decision to argue against the release of the photographs.

The move is a complete 180. In a letter from the Justice Department to a federal judge on April 23, the Obama administration announced that the Pentagon would turn over 44 photographs showing detainee abuse of prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq during the Bush administration.

Of course, transparency to the point of stupidity advocates, the ACLU are very upset!

The Obama administration’s adoption of the stonewalling tactics and opaque policies of the Bush administration flies in the face of the president’s stated desire to restore the rule of law, to revive our moral standing in the world and to lead a transparent government. This decision is particularly disturbing given the Justice Department’s failure to initiate a criminal investigation of torture crimes under the Bush administration.

It is true that these photos would be disturbing; the day we are no longer disturbed by such repugnant acts would be a sad one. In America, every fact and document gets known – whether now or years from now. And when these photos do see the light of day, the outrage will focus not only on the commission of torture by the Bush administration but on the Obama administration’s complicity in covering them up. Any outrage related to these photos should be due not to their release but to the very crimes depicted in them.

Yada, yada, yada… the ACLU whine that if we don’t release criminal photos to the media circus to circulate around the world, and enflame our enemies, that we are not being patriotic. I applaud the president’s first smart decision. The crimes can be dealt with and punished without a media frenzy.

From Ed Morrissey:

What changed? The decision angered the military, which recalled the hysterics over the Abu Ghraib photos. Even Obama’s allies on the decision admitted that the release would damage security and put American troops in more danger, including John Kerry, who said they made great propaganda for our terrorist enemies. With the CIA already battling the White House after the release of the OLC memos, the last thing Obama needed was a war with the Pentagon.

In the end, this decision may not matter at all. You can count on the ACLU to pursue this all the way to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court may uphold the lower court decision.

The value of freedom of expression, in a country whose governance is democratic, is the potential for a very well informed electorate. The hope is that in open discussion all the facts will be exposed, all the nuances will be explored. The voters can then make the best possible choices among candidates for election to public office. Also, the savvy citizens can give the most cogent advice and feedback to their representatives in government. In short, free speech should optimize the selection of officials and the quality of the letters, faxes, emails and phone calls we send to them while they are in office.

What does free speech include? To support the goal of winnowing out every hidden negative about potential candidates or pending legislation, or of estimating every possible positive outcome, everything should be on the table. In a civilized society, understandable exceptions can be made for extreme pornography, incitement to hurtful behavior, advocacy of crime, exposure of government classified material, and so on. Legal prohibitions are made for slander and libel. The public discourse should occur in the full range of territory that remains after these taboos are emplaced.

However, there is another practical limitation on what may be written or said. That is the fact that most of the channels for reaching wide audiences are financially supported through the sponsorship of commercial products and services, by advertising. So those media outlets will not want to carry material that offends the audience demographic that purchases their advertised products. Some recent examples of retracted material include:

1. Don Imus’ remarks about Adam “Pacman” Jones’ race
2. Absolut’s vodka advertisement showing Mexico taking a large portion of US territory
3. a Heinz Deli Mayo ad showing two men kissing — the portrayal of a family unit parented by two homosexual males drew numerous complaints

You can check out the Heinz Deli Mayo ad and decide for yourself:

The rise of the Internet has provided a path around the problem of commercial sponsorship, particularly among the growing segment of web surfers who develop their politcal outlook by reading and commenting in the Blogosphere. The bloggers have also forcibly reformed the mainstream media, exposing forgery and doctored imagery.

But the American public has been mesmerized into accepting a self-imposed limitation on necessary political debate without even realizing that they have been mentally shackled. We evaluate our options within the intellectual straitjacket of political correctness. This is a tool used by so-called minorities (often large segments of the population) who first claim some sort of victimhood and then protest bitterly when they are identified with their personal demographic. The consummate practitioner of PC is Al Sharpton, although the Islamofascist front organization Council on American-Islamic Relations comes in a close second. Women, actually a majority of our national population, have worked this to death and largely moved on, except perhaps for Nancy Pelosi who still feels the sting of sexism.

Two current dustups in the public conversation this week show us that PC is alive, well and very limiting. First, there is the flap over at NRO’s The Corner about this insensitive cartoon:

And then there is all of the Hullabaloo about remarks made by John McCain’s advisor Charlie Black. Would a terrorist attack on the United States just before the election be good for McCain? Most likely, since Obama comes across as a wet-behind-the-ears peacenik and John McCain has the persona of a seasoned warrior. But supposedly we are not allowed to say such things.

The most egregious instance of political correctness to date is the January 1999 Niggardly Controversy from Washington DC. The word niggardly is right along there with cheap, mean, miserly, parsimonious, penny-pinching, penurious, stingy, and tightfisted. It’s way worse than frugal. Grammatically, semantically, linguistically it has absolutely no racial connotations whatsoever. But when a white aide to then Mayor Anthony Williams (somewhat black) used the word IN AN APPROPRIATE CONTEXT IN A PRIVATE BUDGET COMMITTEE MEETING, he lost his job! The reason — he used a word that sounded like nigger.

The insidious mental manipulation of the American public by the power brokers behind the media and other institutions that shape public thought, especially our schools, has gone on so long that most people have no idea how distorted their perceptions have become. Again and again, we see people criticized and even fired for saying something that is perfectly factually true, but about subjects which the PC police have conditioned us not to see accurately, and we do not blink.

At least in the Blogosphere, we should be able to reclaim our right to free speech. On every subject of discussion, we can assemble all pertinant data, without arbitrarily excluding any. We can lay every bit of it on the table, and we can talk openly about all of it. I hope.

UPDATE, very early Wednesday morning — Marc Ambinder says Charlie Black’s Position Is Secure, For Now

‘Things fall apart, the center cannot hold….’

W. B. Yeats sounded the alarm, and now, ‘As the best lack all conviction/And the worst [Obama's Pastor Jeremiah Wright?] are full of passionate intensity’………………

• The Rodham of Clinton goes on ‘right-wing conspiracy’ Fox News with Bill O’Reilly.
• Media icon Don Imus, still sheltered in foxhole with his race-hustling tormenter Reverend Tawana Sharpton, endorses ‘Satan’ (The Rodham) over Charisma Barry (while saying he’ll still vote for John McCain in the general.)
• The increasingly deranged Democrats and progressives hope to convince someone that the unpopular Georgie Bush is running against their black proggy or their female proggy in 2008.
• Our new member of GAB (Gringo Advisory Board), gringoBro, an Obama stalwart, likes ‘egg fool young’ but does not want to open up “a Chinee fortune cookie that say, ‘USA, Game Over.’”
• Georgie Bush’s Great Black Hope, Condy Rice, has ordered a politically correct gag on the State Department: NO mention of Jihad OR Islamic terrorist OR anything else that will offend the muslims. (Entire U.S. Government must and will follow suit, exactly like the Euro pc-ers.)

John McCain still dares to use ‘Islamic’ as an adjective with ‘terror’.

As many of you know, the pc police now consider this to be an adjectival crime, or certainly a transgression. No less than Georgie Bush’s Condoleeza Rice, the SecState herself, now forbids the pairing of ‘Islamic’ with ‘terror,’ just as the very mention of ‘jihad’ is now verboten to anyone on Government payroll.

Question: In light of enormous pressure from muslims, Saudi gold dinars, Free Trade Republican wussies doing Sheikh deals, Free Trade Democratic dhimmis doing Sheikh deals, and the media’s cowardly little Christian bashers, not to mention the fact that McCain will be getting Government funds for his election campaign, how much longer will Johnny Boy stand firm on ‘Islamic terror?’

Will he continue to ‘offend’ and transgress?

Or is the more cogent question: When will he buckle?

Recently, the ACLU set their doomsday clock at six minutes before midnight! Once it reaches the ‘dark hour’ of midnight…we will be slaves to the ominous and evil ‘surviellance society’. This isn’t science fiction. This is typical scare tactics from the ACLU.

They prey upon the paranoid. This is how they get donations to fund their machine. They cry about “American citizens being spied upon” when in fact there is no evidence that anyone has been hurt by the government’s terrorist surviellance program.

While the ACLU cry that they are the guardians of liberty, and that privacy is one of those liberties, they have been exposed as being violators of that very liberty. They have a massive database of their own members’ private financial information they use for soliciting donations.

The group’s new data collection practices were implemented without the board’s approval or knowledge and were in violation of the ACLU’s privacy policy at the time, according to Michael Meyers, vice president of the organization and a frequent internal critic. He said he had learned about the new research by accident Nov. 7 during a meeting of the committee that is organizing the group’s Biennial Conference in July.

He objected to the practices, and the next day, the privacy policy on the group’s Web site was changed. “They took out all the language that would show that they were violating their own policy,” Meyers said. “In doing so, they sanctified their procedure while still keeping it secret.”

Now the ACLU are proudly defending Rep. Larry Craig on grounds of privacy. In another recent case they are defending a “pre-operative transsexual” anatomically male’s “right” to use the female public restroom. Terrence Jeffrey calls out the ‘privacy hypocrisy’ on this one.

“The government does not have a constitutionally sufficient justification for making private sex a crime,” said the ACLU. “It follows that an invitation to have private sex is constitutionally protected and may not be made a crime. This is so even where the proposition occurs in a public place, whether in a bar or a restroom.”

But then the ACLU went a step further, arguing that there is not only a right to solicit sex, but also to engage in it, in a public restroom.

“The Minnesota Supreme Court,” said the ACLU, “has already ruled that two men engaged in sexual activity in a department store restroom with the stall door closed had a reasonable expectation of privacy. They were, the Court held, therefore acting in a private, not a public place.”

The conflated logic of the ACLU’s bathroom briefs seems to be that someone entering a public restroom intending to use it for traditional purposes has no protection either from the gender sign posted at the door or from the otherwise vaunted right to privacy. Someone entering a public restroom intending to solicit and engage in sex, on the other hand, is protected by both the First Amendment and the right to privacy.

What else would you expect from a group that embraces an ideology that holds that partially born babies have no right to keep their skulls intact?

Indeed. As my good friend Glib Fortuna puts it:

This about sums up the ACLU’s worldview. To the ACLU, the only “freedom” the ACLU truly believes in is “sexual freedom” and the concomitant “right” of people who choose aberrant sexual behavior to be free of any criticism and free from anyone else exercising common sense (and more threateningly, religious liberty) if it “infringes” on these “rights” recently invented by the ACLU and its partisans.

This article is cross-posted from Stop the ACLU Blog, and is a production of the Stop The ACLU Blogburst. If you would like to join us, please email Jay at Jay@stoptheaclu.com or Gribbit at GribbitR@gmail.com. You will be added to our mailing list and blogroll. Over 200 blogs already onboard.

Here in the United States, we take freedom of speech and freedom of religion for granted. We ignore, at our peril, the many insidious and creeping assaults on those freedoms. Around the world, every day, individuals who do not enjoy those rights are risking their lives to share ideas. Here’s one example.

From a news release by Christian Solidarity International:

On August 8, members of the Egypt’s State Security Investigations (SSI) arrested Christian activists Dr. Adel Fawzy Faltas, Peter Ezzat Mounir and Adeeb Ramses Kosman in Cairo, and took them to State Security Intelligence (SSI) headquarters at Lazoghly Square, where they remain incarcerated.

The Egyptian government routinely tortures prisoners within the first three days of arrest. Some of the atrocities and malicious practices of the Egyptian Police came to public notice when bloggers managed to publish videos of torture and abuse of citizens at the hands of the Police.

Although no formal charges have been levied, arresting officers have accused the activists of insulting Islam, preaching Christianity and having an unlawful association with an external organization. Attempts by their attorneys to contact the accused have been unsuccessful. Other administrators are now in hiding in fear of arrest and torture.

The Christian activists are all representatives of Middle East Christians Association (MECA), a Human Rights NGO, founded by immigrant Christians from the Middle East to act as a voice for their people in their homelands. MECA is based in Ontario, Canada. The organization’s mission statement calls for secularism, equality and full citizenship for Christians living in the Middle East….

From the Globe and Mail:

2 held in Egypt for work on website operated by Canadian group
August 9, 2007 at 6:43 AM EDT

CAIRO — Egyptian police have detained two Egyptian Christians for their work on the website of a Christian Arab group based in Canada, police sources said on Thursday.

Named as Adel Fawzi and Peter Ezzat, the two worked for the Middle East Christian Association, which has its headquarters in Scarborough.

Unnamed lawyers had complained to the prosecutor general that the organization and its website “insulted Islam and the prophet Mohammad on behalf of diaspora Copts,” said one police source, who asked not to be named.

It was not immediately clear what kind of work Mr. Fawzi and Mr. Ezzat did for the organization which has a mission statement calling for secularism, and equality and full citizenship for Christians living in the Middle East….

For working on a website, these men will most likely be beaten and tortured, perhaps worse. If nothing else, observing this incident should cause us to redouble our watchfulness over our own freedoms. Since the issue at hand is the discussion between Christianity and Islam, we should be particularly alert to the efforts in our own country by the Council on American-Islamic Relations to intimidate and muzzle our own freedom of speech. (The most recent effort is described here.)

The total establishment suffered a crushing defeat last Thursday at the hands of an outraged American public with the failure of the “comprehensive immigration reform” legislation in the Senate. And that defeat was historically unprecedented, with the sheer volume of incoming calls from an aroused electorate crashing the Senate switchboard for the first time.

All of the traditional information sources — the President of the United States, the bigwigs in both political parties, most of the mainstream media, big business and most national religious leaders — were supporting the amnesty for illegal aliens. So how did Middle America find out what was going on behind the closed elitist Washington doors? They got the facts from a handful of determined advocacy groups, from the bloggers, and from conservative cable news and talk radio programs.

Stung by the ability of the American public to get at the truth despite their best efforts to ram the S.1639 bill through without even committee exposure, the politicians set about trying to muzzle talk radio. While most of us were preoccupied with the battle on the Senate floor, on that very same day in the House they were trying to resurrect the “Fairness Doctrine.”

This isn’t about Republicans versus Democrats. It’s about the establishment versus the American people, and the elitists of both parties were in support of government control of programming.

• From Trent Lott — “Talk radio is running America. We have to deal with that problem.”
• From Diane Feinstein — “…in my view, talk radio tends to be one-sided. It also tends to be dwelling in hyperbole. It’s explosive. It pushes people to, I think, extreme views without a lot of information….I’m looking at [reviving the Fairness Doctrine] … because I think there ought to be an opportunity to present the other side. And unfortunately, talk radio is overwhelmingly one way.”
• From John Kerry — “I think the fairness doctrine ought to be there, and I also think equal time doctrine ought to come back….These are the people that wiped out … one of the most profound changes in the balance of the media is when the conservatives got rid of the equal time requirements and the result is that they have been able to squeeze down and squeeze out opinion of opposing views and I think its been a very important transition in the imbalance of our public eye….”

Here’s the story as reported in The Hill:

Fairness Doctrine hammered 309-115
By Alexander Bolton

The House voted overwhelmingly Thursday to prohibit the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from using taxpayer dollars to impose the Fairness Doctrine on broadcasters who feature conservative radio hosts such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.

By a vote of 309-115, lawmakers amended the Financial Services and General Government appropriations bill to bar the FCC from requiring broadcasters to balance conservative content with liberal programming such as Air America.

The vote count was partly a testament to the influence that radio hosts wield in many congressional districts.

It was also a rebuke to Democratic senators and policy experts who have voiced support this week for regulating talk radio….

And here’s an excellent analysis of the subject from About.com:

Opinionated Talk Radio: Is it Fair to Require a Rebuttal?
From Corey Deitz

Let me ask you a question: if you stand on a corner with a sign that says, “I don’t support cabbage!” should somebody be required to stand next to you with a sign that says, “I’m in favor of cabbage!”?

Most reasonable people will answer “No.” Why? Because most of us know that the guy who supports cabbage is expressing his opinion – his 1st Amendment right – and the rest of us who don’t agree can look away or ignore him….

What this comes down to is simply this: liberals have not been able to compete with conservative talk radio as well as hoped. So, instead of playing a better game (i.e., create more compelling programming), they want the rules changed to make it easier for them to WIN the game. Maybe we should call this new movement about talk radio “No Party Left Behind”….

Also read Talk Radio Is a Business:

Why is talk radio conservative? …. The best answer is that conservative talk radio has listeners and liberal talk radio does not….

At the end of the day, privately owned radio stations respond to listeners and the advertisers. Radio is a business….Why blame conservatives? Blame the liberals who are not supporting liberal hosts!

The ever-reliable Wall Street Journal has surfaced yet another attempt by Democrats to subvert the democratic process through deceptively titled campaign “reform.” Read this post, here. As I have said many times before, whenever a Washington politician talks about “reform,” watch either your wallet, your back, or both.

You can worry even more any time “reform” is proposed by a Massachusetts Democrat, as it has in this case. Marty Meehan, a leftist (what Massachusetts congressman or Senator isn’t?) member of the thoroughly corrupt Massachusetts contingent, has proposed legislation that would force grassroots campaigns to register as lobbyists. Now why would a corrupt politician, who depends on the labyrinthian campaign finance system to carry out his plans, want to pass legislation that that makes life even tougher for some of us? Hint: it certainly isn’t for “reform” purposes.

As I’m sure most of you recognize, this will merely hamstring groups that rely on the grassroots support of little guys like you and me, groups who usually have a real beef, like for instance trying to stem the flow of illegal immigration. Instead of “reforming” the process, this is just another backdoor attempt at stifling free speech, so the wonderful Congressmen and Senators can conduct business as usual without the bothersome anklebiting we grassroots activists occasionally trouble them with, and move more deliberately forward to the socialist nation they are preparing for us.

This legislation is backed by Democracy 21, a deceptive name for a very anti-democratic group. And as with virtually all of the campaign “reform” we have already suffered, the real player in the shadows is George Soros, about the most corrupt, evil, anti-reform minded person on the face of the planet.

Regarding this and other issues, I refer you to a blogger I just stumbled upon, Centerman. I have not checked out a lot of his posts, but those I have provide a lot of good , factual background on George Soros’s demonic, anti-Democratic, anti-Republican campaign finance “reform” movement.

Businessman and freelance writer Jim Simpson is a former White House staff economist and budget analyst (1987-1993). His writings have been published in the Washington Times, FrontPage Magazine, DefenseWatch, Soldier of Fortune and others. You can read more of his articles on his blog, Truth and Consequences.

[Editor's note: We're delighted that our contributor, Jim Simpson, has discovered one of our favorite bloggers. Back in July 2005, when Centerman wrote his very first blog post, we had the privilege of leaving the very first comment. A few days later Centerman wrote a post titled I Love American Daughter and we have deemed him a gentleman and a scholar ever since!]

Americans, listen up!  You have as much to fear from the Christian Right as you do from radical Islam.   In fact, the Christian Right is probably more dangerous than al-Qaeda, more threatening than Nazi Germany.
 
So say folks like

• Amy Goodman — Democracy Now!
• Chris Hedges — author of American Fascism: The Christian Right and the War on America
• Carolyn Baker — author of Coming Out from Christian Fundamentalism
• Michelle Goldberg — author of Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism in America
• Robert Reich — former Clinton labor secretary, U.C. Berkeley professor, editor of American Prospect
• Bill Moyers — former Lyndon Johnson press secretary, journalist

Their message has been preached for several years.  It is getting more play in more places at higher volumes.  The wild, irrational accusations carried forward by these and other people would be easy to dismiss without comment, were it not for the growing number of people accepting these characterizations.
 
Oddly, the self-proclaimed champions of freedom are calling for the curtailment of freedoms for certain groups of Christians labeled dangerous.   Believe it or not, Reich has actually proposed that certain Christians have their freedom of speech restricted, citing the Supreme Court decision in Schenck v. United States, 1919.  Can imprisonment be far behind?   Already, pastors are being muzzled in their own churches.  Behind increasingly inflammatory rhetoric, can more persecutions be expected, and if so, what is the appropriate response?
 
Strange, isn’t it:  non-Christians scolding Christians for not following the ways of Christ at the same time denying Him a place at the table. 
 
More bizarre than all this: the faithless critics of faith asserting faith itself sufficiently irrational to warrant suspicions of mental illness.
 
“Recently,” writes Baker, reviewing Hedges’ book favorably, “I viewed a chilling documentary —‘Jesus Camp.’   One need not be a licensed mental health professional to find emotional manipulation, indoctrination, and outright brainwashing of the Jesus Camp both repulsive and enraging.  Its squeaky-clean, almost exclusively white, puerile participants mouth all the right jargon, concepts, and scripture verses impeccably and robotically like good little Christian boys and girls—more chillingly, like Hitler youth.”  
 
Jesus Camp is run by  Kids in Ministry, led by Becky Fischer of North Dakota.  The “Jesus Camp” documentary, produced by a secular film company out of New York, was nominated for an Academy Award this year, but lost to Al Gore’s film about global warming.  (Has the Academy created a new category: Best Schlockumentary?)
 
Here is Becky Fisher’s side of the story — JESUS CAMP: A Documentary Film About KIMI.

We have not seen the documentary.  Judging from the website, Kids in Ministry International (KIMI) appears fairly mainstream, although the emphasis on exercising spiritual gifts is, and always has been, controversial in the body of Christ. 
 
However, we don’t see kids on the site shooting the Nazi salute, imprisoning Jews, or setting fire to the Constitution.
 
Fischer sounds like a reasonable person of faith given the tone of her article on line.   Baker, however, characterizes Fischer as a “control-freak youth pastor who makes Nurse Ratchet . . . look like Snow White…”
 
So much for reasoned discussion.
 
OK, so kids in North Dakota worshipping The Master and learning the law of love, God-style, are Hitler youth.  Ah, ok.  (Perhaps Carolyn Baker is in need of a licensed mental health professional.)
 
Does all this begin to sound familiar?  Historically, the mass psychology of fascism is always stimulated by campaigns working successfully to demagogue, slander and scapegoat certain groups as dangerous, insidious, conspiratorial, worthy of imprisonment, even extermination.
 
The nuance Baker and Hedges and others miss in accusing Christians of this same kind of activity is Christians are not denigrating other human beings, they are rightly identifying the problem: sin.   Christians are not fighting flesh and blood.  Rather, they are resisting evil.   Christians are not interested in earthly kingdoms so much as they welcome increasing measures of love, goodness and beauty from the Source.   How any of this can be made out fascist is indeed beyond rational understanding. 
 
Recently, Hedges appeared on Goodman’s national television program to promote his book American Fascism: The Christian Right and the War on America.    In an article written two years prior, the precursor to the book, Hedges wrote:

All debates with the Christian Right are useless.  We cannot reach this movement.  It does not want a dialogue.  It cares nothing for rational thought and discussion.  It is not mollified because John Kerry prays or Jimmy Carter teaches Sunday school.  These naïve attempts to reach out to a movement bent on our destruction, to prove to them we too have ‘values,’ would be humorous if the stakes were not so deadly.  They hate us. They hate the liberal, enlightened world formed by the Constitution.  Our opinions do not count.  This movement will not stop until we are ruled by Biblical Law, an authoritarian church intrudes in every aspect of our life, women stay at home and rear children, gays agree to be cured, abortion is considered murder, the press and the schools promote ‘positive’ Christian values, the federal government is gutted, war becomes our primary form of communication with the rest of the world and recalcitrant non-believers see the flesh eviscerated at the sound of the Messiah’s voice. 
 
The ideology of the Christian Right is not one of love and compassion, the central theme of Christ’s message, but of violence and hatred.   Let us not stand at the open city gates waiting passively and meekly for the barbarians.  They are coming.  They are slouching rudely towards Bethlehem.  Let us, if nothing else, begin to call them by their name.

Wow.  Now there’s a Pulitzer Prize winning rant if there ever was one.  
 
Hedges apparently grew up in a Christian home, and earned a master’s degree in divinity from Harvard, claiming the central theme of Christ’s message is love and compassion.  Most theologians would dissent.  The central themes of Christ’s message are sin, repentance, salvation, sanctification, and the kingdom of heaven. Those themes are the most loving and compassionate ever heard by man on earth!
 
Hedges, a former New York Times reporter, is altogether familiar with the importance of supporting assertions with evidence, noting proper sources, providing attribution, yet he provides none of this.  Yes, he attempts to connect dots between Rushdooney’s reconstructionist movement, an outlandish quote from his son-in-law, and the Dominion movement, extending those connections to the rest of the American evangelicalism, but anyone taking even a casual look will soon realize Hedges paints with a very broad brush.  
 
Rushdooney was an orthodox Presbyterian minister who passed away in 2001.  Not all evangelicals canonize Rushdooney, taking their cues from him in all things theological or political.   Judge for yourself if he is the evil genius and racist fascist Hedges makes him out to be — watch AN INTERVIEW WITH R.J. RUSHDOONY.
 
The fact is the Christian community is as diverse, if not more diverse, than other definable groups, be they religious or political or a combination of the two.  Hedges and his allies commit the fundamental error of throwing all of us in one pot, putting fire to it, then complaining about the boil.
 
Those of us calling ourselves conservative Christians assume we are the ones Hedges rails against.  The problem is, we don’t hate anybody, we aren’t trying to destroy anything or anyone, and we are astounded to learn we refuse to engage in rational dialogue, that we are indeed the new Nazis hell-bent on destroying America, goose-stepping toward oblivion, glad to promote Armageddon so that Jesus will come back sooner (as if the will of man can force the hand of God). 
 
Hedges breaks off calling us “by our name” in his 2004 magazine, but in his book and in his interview with Goodman, he makes it clear we are Christian Fascists, and he names names:

• Pat Robertson
• Jerry Falwell
• D. James Kennedy
• Dr. Tony Evans
• Tom DeLay
• Zell Miller

If you look at the lives of each of these individuals you find accomplished people who’ve devoted their lives to service, all mainstream in doctrine, tireless in their work on behalf of the poor, the dispossessed, the wounded, the widow, the orphan.  (One wonders the percentage of gross income Hedges gives to charity?)
 
Hedges continues, saying if the “Christian Right” comes to power . . . “Labor unions, civil rights laws and public schools will be abolished…. and all those deemed insufficiently Christian will be denied citizenship.”
 
The Christian right could come to power, he suggests, if we had “another catastrophic terrorist attack, an economic meltdown or huge environmental disaster.” At that point, Hedges asserts, evangelical leaders such as Kennedy, Falwell and Robertson could be “calling for the punishment, detention and quarantining of gays and lesbians — as well as abortionists, Muslims and other nonbelievers.”  
 
Ah, well, until the recent mid-term elections, the Christian Right had been in power for the last six years.   Did any of this happen?  Anyone?   Don’t be bashful.  Speak right up.
 
Hedges concludes that Americans face the same kind of threat posed by the Nazis, thanks to right-wing Christians and their desperate desire to replace democracy with theocracy.
 
Over the top?  Don’t kid yourselves, folks.  These people really believe this stuff.
 
We could go on and point out that three years ago Robert Reich and Bill Moyers simultaneously asserted something must be done about right-wing Christians, the so-called “anti-modernists,” the “American Taliban” they called it. 
 
When was the last time a Baptist hauled a hooker into a sports arena to shoot her in the head?  Recall the riots and looting of Jewish neighborhoods after the screening of “The Passion of the Christ?”
 
Years ago, Moyers and Reich prophesied right-wing Christians will ruin America, and they’ve repeated the screed many times since.    We note for you the wild accusations of people like Michelle Goldberg who accuses Christians of demonizing homosexuality, promoting creationism irrationally, perverting the judiciary, and seeking bans on abortion and birth control.
 
We ask you, in point of fact, can anyone cite an actual instance of Christians trying to destroy gays, destroy public education, rig the judiciary or police peoples’ bedrooms?  Who wants to ban contraception?  Opposing gay marriage does not in any way directly imply a companion desire to destroy homosexuals.  Let’s use just a pinch of logic, shall we?
 
Yes, a moral objection to abortion, as well as opposing government funding and endorsement, is a mainstream Christian concern, but is that a precursor to fascism, an illegitimate moral and political position to hold?
 
The bottom line is Hedges and Goldberg and Goodman and the rest simply disagree with our faith, and some of the social and political positions we take given our understanding of truth as revealed in God’s word, and they are willing to declare war on us, based on false assumptions, and misunderstandings, more than willing to use the rhetoric of radicalism to demonize us and encourage the mass of people to oppose, perhaps destroy, Christians of most any flavor.
 
We should not be surprised.
 
Christ said:  “If they hated me, they will hate you.  In the world, you will have trouble, but be courageous, I’ve overcome the world.”
 
We are not to fight flesh and blood.  We are commanded to love no matter what, turn the other cheek, and like Christ, stay true to what is right, even if threatened with death.  Our weapons are not of this world.  With the full armor of God as outlined in Ephesians 6, we are commanded, not to fight, but to stand, and having done all, stand.
 
In all this, we are also instructed to be “gentle as doves, wise as serpents.”
 
We need to understand that storm clouds are gathering, and we will need to be filled with the Spirit in order to maintain a good and effective witness, so that more and more can come to a saving knowledge of the Holy One, a true belief that opens heaven’s doors. 
 
We need always “be ready to give an answer to every man who asks, the reason for the hope that lies within us, in meekness and fear.”   And we will have to do all these things, understanding that the people who seek our destruction, “know not what they do.”
 
Chris Hedges, Goodman, Baker, Goldberg, Reich and Moyers, and all those with like minds, need our prayers.  Who knows why they are so angry, so paranoid, so unhappy?  Our prayer is they soon embrace the Source of Happiness, and receive the healing we all so desperately need. 
 
PS:  Chris—as to your fear of an emerging theocracy, take heart.   Even Presbyterians are split three ways.  Imagine the impossibility of getting all denominations together on a political platform.  You’ve nothing to worry about…In fact, Christians were the ones who insisted on the First Amendment.  Look it up.

Gideons handing out Bibles on public sidewalk arrested after school officials complain

Cross-posted from Stop The ACLU Blog

From an article in WorldNetDaily:

© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

Two men who are members of Gideons International, the Christian organization that is famous for, among other ministries, placing Bibles in motels and giving them to children, have been arrested after trying to hand out Bibles on a public sidewalk in Florida, according to a law firm.

Officials with the Alliance Defense Fund have confirmed they will be representing Anthony Mirto and Ernest Simpson, who were arrested, booked into jail and charged with trespassing.

Jeremy Tedesco, one of the ADF’s lawyers on the case, confirmed to WND that the organization’s clients were on a public sidewalk when they were handing out Bibles and school officials summoned police.

Yes, it reads public sidewalk and yes, it reads school officials. I hope you’ll also notice that it doesn’t say anything about sex offenders, child molesters or military funerals.

“The First Amendment protects the right to engage in religious speech on a public sidewalk,” ADF Senior Legal Counsel David Cortman said. “Members of the Gideons have been highly respected for decades as peaceful providers of free Bibles to those who want them.”

The arrest happened Jan. 19, when Mirto and Simpson were on the sidewalk outside of Key Largo School in Key Largo, Fla., and were distributing copies of the Bible to those interested.

“Neither man entered school grounds,” the law firm said. “After the school’s principal called police, a Monroe County sheriff’s officer asked the men to leave immediately or face trespassing charges. As the men prepared to leave, the officer decided to arrest both individuals.”

A hearing is scheduled March 5 in Monroe County Court in the cases, and ADF attorneys are preparing motions to dismiss the charges.

“Officials cannot use fear of arrest as a means of bullying law-abiding Christians into silence,” Cortman said. “These men broke no laws when they decided to communicate their message on a public sidewalk.”

Tedesco noted that sometimes school officials have a misconception about whether they can control activities on school grounds and adjacent public sidewalks. But the First Amendment does provide a protection for speech on those parcels of ground that are public, he said.

Lets see… public schools, public grounds, public sidewalks, public officials and public law enforcement.

“There’s no reason why they should be put in jail,” he said.

The ADF is a legal alliance defending the right to hear and speak the truth, through strategy, training, funding and litigation.

The Gideons, a group founded in the late 1800s, has as its “sole purpose” the goal “to win men, women, boys and girls to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ through association for service, personal testimony, and distributing the Bible in the human traffic lanes and streams of everyday life.”

Members of the Gideons, who pay their own expenses so 100 percent of the donations to the group go toward Bible purchases and distributions, have placed the Bible in 181 nations in 82 different languages over the years.

The organization focuses on hotels and motels, hospitals and nursing homes, schools, colleges and universities, the military and law enforcement and prisons and jails.

“The demand for Scriptures in these areas far exceeds our supplies that we are able to purchase through our donations. Much more could be done – if funds were available. However, we are placing and distributing more than 1 million copies of the Word of God, at no cost, every seven days in these areas” the group said.

The organization only gives away the Bibles with the Gideon logo on the covers, but plain Bibles are available for consumers to purchase at its distribution center at P.O. Box 140800, Nashville, Tenn., 37214-0800. Information about the products is available on the group’s website.

The Gideons serve as an extended missionary arm of the Christian church and are the oldest Christian business and professional men’s association in the United States.

Great! Get those laws keeping sex offenders away from our school kids and daycares overturned. Get those laws that permit our loved ones to grieve and honor our dead in peace overturned.

But get them Christians, handing out Bibles, in jail. Got to protect the kids and…

Did they legalize drugs in Florida or are they putting something in the water? The Dixie County Ten Commandments issue, immigration raids in Miami, and now this.

References:

Principal Annette Martinson  305-453-1255 ext. 455

Sheriff Rick Roth  305-292-7001

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