The Unitary Executive becomes a singularity

 

The Unitary Executive becomes a singularity
John Hayward 1-27-2014

Nothing about President Obama’s upcoming State of the Union address is a surprise. Of course he’s going to push the phony issue of “income inequality” as a massive distraction from the failures of ObamaCare, his domestic economic policies, his foreign policy, and all the rest of it. Of course he’s going to double down on the use of dictatorial powers to neutralize Congress and upset the Constitutional balance of power. If the day ever comes that a president uses this political ritual to say “I screwed up, I’m sorry I was wrong, and I apologize for savagely attacking the people who were right all along,” it will not be Barack Obama.

The status of the Union will never be downgraded from “strong” in the first paragraph of one of these speeches, no matter how badly the country is doing.  The subsequent paragraphs – about a thousand of them, if previous Obama speeches serve as any guide – will always be devoted to explaining “the challenges that remain,” and why the guy with low approval ratings parked behind the podium should be given even more power and money to address them.

This is not unique to Obama’s agenda or political style. No chief executive can afford to shut the coffin lid on the first year of his second term by declaring himself chastised and penitent.  Lame ducks do not waddle around Washington inviting everyone to sign the cast that will cover their broken legs for the next three years.  The president is also the titular head of his party. The party needs to be motivated and energized, at least for a couple of days.  Liberal presidents have a very easy formula for doing that: announce a hugely expensive agenda packed with wish-list goodies, talk about the cruelty and greed of everyone who opposes it, and let the editorial-page battles begin.  If nothing else, Obama will be able to count on plenty of ink from even his more disenchanted media supporters about his boundless compassion and good intentions. That counts for a lot, when you’re trying to trick three hundred million people into forgetting that you grabbed a trillion dollars of their money and used it to destroy health care.

It’s also easy to rack up a few political points by running against a perpetually unpopular Congress.  The big political lesson to be drawn from Shutdown Theater is that the public may not like or trust Big Government – the horrendously incompetent launch of ObamaCare has driven public faith in the State and our political system to remarkable lows – but they grow very angry when they think the political machinery they distrust has seized up entirely.  For all of this new skepticism, the public still expects government to function. Obama will attempt to reformulate this desire into support for an activist agenda.  If people want government to function, that means they want it to Do Something.  The President will present a long list of things he wants to do, while equating resistance to his agenda with that hellish shutdown-happy gridlock.

What makes this State of the Union address so disturbing, as its outlines emerge, is Obama’s plan to turn his already unitary office into a singularity. According to the Washington Post, his team thinks he hasn’t been arrogant or dictatorial enough:

Senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer outlined the lessons learned in a three-page memo that Obama discussed with his Cabinet in recent weeks, according to several administration officials who have read the document.

Among its conclusions is that Obama, a former state legislator and U.S. senator, too often governed more like a prime minister than a president. In a parliamentary system, a prime minister is elected by lawmakers and thus beholden to them in ways a president is not.

As a result, Washington veterans have been brought into the West Wing to emphasize an executive style of governing that aims to sidestep Congress more often. A central ambition of Obama’s presidency — to change the way Washington works — has effectively been discarded as a distraction in a time of hardening partisanship.

Even Democrats on Capitol Hill have quietly grumbled that Obama doesn’t work with them closely enough. Obviously, Republicans are even less happy with the “unitary executive” approach, which is something liberals spent many years loudly complaining about, until abruptly and universally falling silent in 2009 for some reason.

The American president may not be “beholden” to lawmakers, but he still isn’t one. There is a separation of powers between the executive branch and the legislature, which Obama has worked for years to erase, with a frightening degree of success – abetted by congressional Democrats who made a political calculation to surrender the powers of Congress to their Party leader, confident in the knowledge they can almost instantly take them back if they find themselves opposing a Republican president in 2017. You won’t believe how obsessed the media becomes with the prerogatives of Congress, the separation of powers, and the correct procedure for amending laws, ten minutes after a Republican president is sworn in. If Democrats don’t hold both houses of Congress on that day, you’ll also suddenly hear a great deal about respect for the minority, and the filibuster will one again become the bright blazing torch held aloft in Lady Liberty’s steady hand, instead of a dusty old relic of political arcana that serves only as a foolish obstacle to Progress.

Obama’s model of the unitary executive – imposing his rule by executive order, modifying legislation as he sees fit, turning Congress into a rubber-stamp legislature and reducing the opposition party to a debating society with an exceptionally strict dress code – is an offense against the people of the United States, not just elected representatives in Washington. It represents the wholesale transfer of power into the hands of someone you’ll never get to vote against, someone who cannot be punished or restrained with anything short of an impeachment Armageddon.

The old chestnut holds that Congress is always unpopular, but every state and district basically supports its own representatives; the other 49 states, and the knuckleheads they vote for, are the problem.  The reality behind that amusing dichotomy is that members of Congress are more accountable to voters.  They go through tough legislative battles that leave scars upon their popularity.  The messy legislative procedures that drag congressional approval down are also a mechanism that protects our liberties, That mechanism looks a bit rusty and unappealing these days, but you’ll hate what happens when it stops working altogether.

One of the intractable problems with our centralized government is its arrogance. Everything from its misbegotten programs to their bumbling execution can be traced to the arrogant conviction that Washington knows best, and the main reason its plans have not secured Utopia is the stubborn intransigence of dissenters. Appearing on CBS’ “Meet the Press” Sunday, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) told Bob Schieffer that Obama should use the SOTU to deliver the kind of humble apology he knows we’ll never get:

And, you know, for the State of the Union, one of the things President Obama really oughta do is look in the TV camera and say to the over five million Americans all across this country who’ve had their health insurance canceled because of ObamaCare, to look in the camera and say, “I’m sorry.  I told you if you like your health insurance plan, you can keep it.

“I told you if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.  And that wasn’t true.  I’m sorry.”  But then, Bob, here’s the real kicker. If you’re really sorry, you don’t just say you’re sorry.  You actually do something to fix the problem. The pattern we’ve seen over and over again with this president is he says he’s sorry and he expresses outrage but then he doesn’t fix the problem. He keeps doing it over and over again.

Do you think any corporate CEO enjoys admitting he made a hideous mistake that alienated consumers and cost his company a bundle? Of course not. They do it because they have to.  They discontinue failed programs, sack their architects, and grovel before customers because their survival depends on it.  Obama’s survival does not. He’ll get more mileage out of firing up his supporters and de-legitimizing his critics.  He sits at the head of a gigantic system that believes it can never run out of money, will never be prosecuted for fraud, and cannot lose its “customers” to competitors.

Obama, and those of like mind, are driven by the evangelical conviction that his system’s only flaw is that it’s not big enough. There is still too much room for what he thinks of as intransigence, but others call liberty. You are still allowed to make too many mistakes. Even within the realm of State control, you’re still allowed to cast too many unwise votes; your representatives have too much to say about the course our unitary executive charts for the nation. It’s so much more efficient to have one person calling all the shots, don’t you think? Then we’d have no “gridlock” at all.
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To read another article by John Hayward, click here.

Teaching to the Ten

 

Teaching to the Ten             
 1/15/2014 12:01:00 AM - Mike Adams

Dear CRM 381 Students:  Welcome back! I just wanted to write and let you know that the syllabus is up and running on the departmental web page. I have been instructed to direct you to the link rather than distribute individual copies. The university needs to save money on paper so the LGBTQIA Office can continue to offer orgasm awareness seminars and so the Women's Resource Center can continue to promote abortion. Remember kids, the more trees we save, the more babies we can kill!

 In addition to going over the syllabus on day one, I plan to introduce each one of you to my somewhat informal teaching philosophy. Actually, this will be the first time I ever make a statement of teaching philosophy, despite the fact that it is my twenty-first year to teach here at UNC-Wilmington. In a nutshell, that philosophy can be summarized in the phrase "twenty-seventy-ten." I'll explain it briefly, although I do plan to elaborate in class on Monday.

  Despite what Karl Marx says, there really are not just two kinds of people in this world. That's an oversimplification, although there are two types of communists - a) the ones who live off their more productive comrades and b) the dead ones. But when it comes to students, there are at least three distinct groups. They follow in order from the least pleasant to the most pleasant among you.

1. The Tweeny Twenty.

 2. The Sagacious Seventy.

3. The Tenacious Ten.

The first group, the Tweeny Twenty, derives its name from its character and its proportions. This is the group of students who, as the name implies, are woefully immature, to almost preadolescent proportions. Fortunately, they are only a minority - about twenty percent of the student population.

  The Tweeny Twenty somehow managed to get out of high school without having even a vague sense of what they want to accomplish in life. But they are able to go to college for a few years to explore their options because a) anyone can get into college these days, and b) anyone can get a government-backed loan to help pay for college these days. And so they go. What else is there to do?

  Having no clue what they are doing in college, they behave as clueless individuals do. They come and go from class as they please - arriving late and leaving early. They dress inappropriately as if they are coming from a bar or are heading to the beach. In short, they come to college for social reasons. To party. To meet a spouse. Or maybe to meet a "connection" or someone who will "hook them up" with a job upon graduation.

  I will do everything within my ability to drive these people out of the classroom before the drop date. That is my sincere promise to the other eighty percent of you.

  The second group, the Sagacious Seventy, also derives its name from its character and its proportions. This is the group of students who, as the name implies, are shrewder and more goal-oriented than the Tweeny Twenty. Fortunately - I only say "fortunately" because they are fairly well behaved and manageable - they are about seventy percent of the student population.

  Having some clue of what they are doing in college, they behave as rational individuals. They come to class pretty regularly and go through the motions in order to get their course credit. They have calculated that having a degree is better than not having a degree and that the amount they pay in student loans will be exceeded by the salary increase that accompanies having a college degree. Of course, many of these students have miscalculated and will never pay off their loans but that is another issue to be explored at a later date.

  In short, these students come to college to get credentialed. They know that employers want to see an applicant’s degree because that means they had the stick-to-it-ness to set a goal and follow through. They also know that it doesn't require much work to get their expensive degree so they divert study time toward work time. They take a part time job in order to keep their student loans down even if this means turning in sub-par work. They know their professors have come to expect sub-par work. Like most of our students, they are intelligent and keenly self-interested. They do the cost-benefit analysis and make a reasonable decision in a difficult situation that is becoming more difficult as college becomes more expensive.

  I will do everything within my ability to threaten these people into doing work that is only slightly sub-par, instead of clearly deficient. I know they are used to being given good grades for work that is clearly deficient. But I also know that they cannot risk failing my class. So I will threaten them and hopefully (through fear) motivate them to soar towards mediocrity in their academic work output. It's really the best I can hope for in an age of hyper-inflated hire (misspelling intentional) education.

The last group, the Tenacious Ten, also derives its name from its character and its proportions. This is the group of students who, as the name implies, are highly determined and persistent and cannot easily be distracted from their goals. Unfortunately, they are only about ten percent of the student population.

 The Tenacious Ten may well have good genes. I don't know for sure. But I do know that they usually had good parents who taught them good life lessons. Also, more than likely, they had good counselors in their schools or in the churches. And so they are focused and ready from day one.

 In short, the Tenacious Ten are here because they desire specific knowledge that will help them attain a specific goal. As a result, they have an intrinsic appreciation of the material I plan to teach throughout the semester. So there is no need to threaten or cajole or manipulate them into performing at expected levels. They just do it because they come to college having already gotten into the habit of doing it on their own.

This message is just my way of reminding you that when I talk about “our” class I am not talking about all thirty of you. I am talking to about three of you - those who constitute the Tenacious Ten percent. You are the only reason I am still teaching. I look forward to finding out who you are. I don't suspect it will take very long to identify you.

I hope this message finds you well. If you are in the Tweeny Twenty, I hope it scares the hell out of you – so much so that you drop the course. Otherwise, I will see you in class on Monday.
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To read another article by Mike Adams, click here.

Excerpt from My 'Thoughts For The Day' Post

 

Excerpt from My 'Thoughts For The Day' Post

The whole post can be viewed here.

1-18-2014 – Allow me to attempt to give you a little insight about why I hate it when people try to ram something down my throat. This is about Greg, whom I worked with in 1988 back when I worked for our local Parks Department. My job back then was a seasonal job, where I opened and closed and took care of the parks in the Cedar Hills area of our town. I didn’t do this job by myself; I usually had one or two people who helped me. I was unofficially their boss, but we would work as a team of equals and just do what needed to be done each day. Around this time I had been out of the regular U.S. Army for a few years, and I was in the local National Guard Unit part time (one weekend a month). This summer of 1988 I worked with Greg, who was several years younger than I was. Greg went to high school at Regis, which was a local Catholic high school from which I knew many people – so as a result we each knew many of the same people. I always got along good with Greg; he was a pleasant person who was interesting to talk with. He was also a good worker, which helped a lot. 

The reason I mention Greg is that he was gay, but he wasn’t ‘in your face’ about it. It was obvious mostly from his mannerisms, he was more feminine-like than masculine. I had worked with people who were openly gay before, and although I don’t understand their inclination, their gayness was never an issue with me. We didn’t talk a lot about his being gay, it was just understood, and he was comfortable with talking about it. I don’t think he lived a gay lifestyle openly, in other words I don’t think he lived with a boyfriend (at that time). Greg also had a sister who was gay, and he told me that his sister and he agreed that they weren’t born gay – it was more like a preference for them that was directly at odds with their Catholic religion. I told Greg that I knew several people (mostly in the service), who considered themselves to have switched from being straight to being gay, and vice versa. He believed me, and definitely believed that was possible. I often wonder if he still believes this to be true, because nowadays we are told that gays were born that way, and when we disagree, we are called a ‘homophobe’ or ‘bigot’ or ‘hater.’ In other words, most gays want it to be understood by everybody that it is normal behavior and they are just being who they are – they can’t help or change who they are. I know they are wrong. I have seen for myself that ‘gayness’ is not an identity, but a behavior that you choose. You may (or may not) be predisposed to this behavior, but a behavior it is. We can choose our behavior as humans. We can choose to be good or evil, or somewhere in-between. We can choose to be a murderer, or a thief, or we can choose to be a Christian who believes Jesus Christ is our savoir, who died on the cross for the sins of mankind.   

Unfortunately many gays have become militant and try to tell the rest of us what we must believe, and because their views of who they are conflict with the Bible’s teachings, they want to destroy the Bible and Christians, or convince people to marginalize the Bible’s teachings. This is just another way of saying they are trying to destroy their souls.  This is a conflict that is happening now, and it’s getting mean. Democrats are on the side of the Gay Agenda, and have become anti-Christian (not all gays and Democrats, but a significant number of them). Many other Democrats are duped by the mainstream media’s narrative, which is aligned with the Gay Agenda. This is part of what is to happen, and is happening in the end times. So directly gay = evil, and Democrat = evil because they are trying to drag you away from God (and in many cases – have succeeded). That is my belief, and much evidence backs me up. 

It would be interesting to see how this has all affected Greg and others like him over time. I heard that his sister has passed away from AIDS. Most Democrats (and/or gays) would read this post and think I’m a bigot or homophobe, but that would just show me they don’t understand the meanings of these words. I’m making my judgments based on my life experiences. Here is a funny coincidence about Greg. His father was the head football coach at his high school, and had a reputation for being tough. Greg grew up being neighbors with my future wife Cheryl. One day Cheryl changed a flat tire on Greg’s car (because apparently he didn’t think he could do it), and Greg’s father came outside and saw this happening. He berated Greg mentally and physically for having a female change his flat tire for him. So Cheryl knew Greg as well.
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To read the Gay Rights thread, click here.

Obama Administration Mandates Racism in Schools

Obama Administration Mandates Racism in Schools                

1/17/2014 12:01:00 AM - Mona Charen

The Departments of Education and Justice have teamed up to make the lives of students in tough neighborhoods even tougher. Framed as a measure to combat discrimination against black and Hispanic children, the guidelines issued by the Obama administration about school discipline will actually encourage racial discrimination, undermine the learning environments of classrooms and contribute to an unjust race-consciousness in meting out discipline.

Claiming that African-American and Hispanic students are more harshly disciplined than whites for the same infractions, the Obama administration now advises that any disciplinary rule that results in a "disparate impact" on these groups will be challenged by the government.

"Disparate impact" analysis, as we've seen in employment law, does not require any intentional discrimination. It means, for example, that if an employer asks job seekers to take a test, and a larger percentage of one ethnic group fails the test than another, that the test is de facto discriminatory because it has a "disparate impact."

In the school context, the federal government is now arguing that if a disciplinary rule results in more black, Hispanic or special education kids being suspended or otherwise sanctioned, the rule must be suspect. The "Dear Colleague" letter explains that a disciplinary policy can be unlawful discrimination, even if the rule is "neutral on its face ... and is administered in an evenhanded manner," if it has a "disparate impact" on certain ethnic and other groups.

The inclusion of special education students is particularly perverse, as special ed students frequently get that designation because their emotional disturbances cause them to misbehave in various ways. So if a rule against, say, knocking over desks, is found to be violated more frequently by special ed than regular ed students, then the rule must be questioned? That's circular.

As the CATO Institute's Walter Olson notes, the federal guidelines pass over one example of disparate impact with no comment -- namely the dramatically more males than females who face disciplinary action nationwide. If we are to judge a rule's lawfulness by the disparate impact on males, no rule would survive the inquiry. Is it possible that more boys misbehave in the classroom than girls? To ask this question is to venture into an area the federal government would have us avoid. Actual infractions by individuals are not the issue. We must have group justice, not individual justice.

We've actually been down this road many times before. Various state and federal agencies have raised concerns about the large numbers of black and Hispanic students facing disciplinary action. Such concerns helped to generate the rigid "zero tolerance" policies the administration now condemns. Zero tolerance is a brainless approach to a subject that requires considerable finesse and deliberation, but the disparate impact rule is even more pernicious.

Under the new dispensation, teachers, principals and other officials will have to pause before they discipline, say, the fourth black student in a month. "How will this look to the feds?" they'll ask themselves. Will the student's family be able to sue us? A variety of solutions to the federally created problem will present themselves. School officials can search out offenses by white and Asian students to make the numbers come out right. Asian students are disciplined at rates far below any other ethnic group. Is this due to pro-Asian bias in our schools, or is it because Asians commit many fewer infractions? Oops, there we go into territory forbidden by the federal guidelines.

Another solution will be to ignore misbehavior by blacks and Hispanics. For classes with large numbers of minority students, this guarantees that the learning environment for the kids who actually want to learn will be impaired as teachers -- reluctant to remove troublesome students -- expend precious time on kids who are rude, threatening, loud or otherwise disruptive. Every minute of the school day taken up by bad kids is taken away from good kids. It's a true zero-sum game.

So the Obama administration's pursuit of group justice actually leads to injustice to individual students. Whites and Asians will be disciplined more than they merit it by their conduct, and fewer students of all groups will get the kind of classroom atmosphere that is conducive to learning. Even the students who get a pass on their bad conduct are disserved, as they will not have learned that disrespectful language, tardiness and even violence are unacceptable in society.

Everyone loses. Obama strikes again.
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To read more about racism, click here.

What Happened When North Carolina Slashed Unemployment Benefits? People Got Jobs…Weird

 

What Happened When North Carolina Slashed Unemployment Benefits? People Got Jobs…Weird                

1/17/2014 12:01:00 AM - Charlotte Hays

A recent report on Market Watch—hardly a right-wing hangout—should be required reading for every Democrat who believes that extending “temporary” unemployment benefits is always the humane thing to do.

An experiment in North Carolina indicates that—as is all too often the case—Democrats actually may be hurting the very people they claim to be helping in their quest, temporarily halted, to extend unemployment benefits.

North Carolina, it seems, pressed for money and under the cruel sway of a Republican governor, resorted to drastic measures: slashing unemployment benefits and, as if that wasn’t draconian enough, cutting the number of weeks the unemployed could receive even these meager benefits.

“Within several months, the unemployment rate fell a few ticks and by November it fell to a five-year low,” Market Watch reported. The jobless rates declined similarly, if less spectacularly, in Georgia and South Carolina, where benefits were also reduced in 2012.

Market Watch was cautious not to conclude that the news from North Carolina is a vindication of critics of extending unemployment benefits. It noted that several states that did not cut benefits had also shown a decline in joblessness.

Nevertheless the North Carolina experience deserves a look. What happened in North Carolina is even more relevant because the state was particularly hard hit during the Great Recession. In dire straits, North Carolina availed itself of federal loans to help pay for unemployment benefits, which lasted 26 weeks.

When North Carolina ended up seriously in hock to the feds, Republican Governor Pat McCrory, who took office in 2013, faced a choice: raise taxes, a course of action McCrory maintained would harm businesses (which, after all, create jobs) or cut unemployment benefits. The brave governor cut benefits.

The maximum weekly benefit was cut from the previous high of $535 to $350, a not insignificant reduction. The time people could collect benefits was cut from 26 weeks to only 12 or 20. But that was not the end of the cruelty.

McCrory’s cuts imposed a further hardship on the unemployed: unemployed North Carolinians became ineligible for certain cash payments offered by the federal government, which requires states to pay a certain level of benefits to qualify for these payments. About 70,000 North Carolinians lost out on these payments.

If the congressional Democrats (and a few wayward Republicans!) who supported extending the benefits were right, McCrory’s cuts should have ushered in a humanitarian crisis that made the Armageddon that ensued from the sequester mild. Oh, wait…
Market Watch’s Jeffrey Bartash wrote:

North Carolina’s jobless rate rose a notch to 8.9% in July and then began a steady descent: 8.7% in August, 8.3% in September, 8.0% in October and a preliminary 7.4% in November, according to U.S. Labor Department figures.

That’s the lowest rate since late 2008, though monthly numbers are prone to sharp revisions.

This data doesn’t tell us what happened to everybody who is no longer classified as unemployed.
Market Watch speculated that some may have retired, ended up on welfare, or moved in with family. In other words, some of them may have gotten out of the work force, as many former workers across the nation have done, thus helping bring down the still dangerously high national employment rate.
Still, while there may have been people who didn’t get jobs, it is undeniable that North Carolina's unemployment rate declined. It is unarguable that more people were working than before the cuts, thus reducing the pool of human suffering.

The North Carolina success story should have been a rallying cry for Republicans when extending the benefits was debated on Capitol Hill.

It is unfortunate that some chose instead to focus on how to “pay for” extending the benefits, as if extending these benefits is inherently good, if only you can find a way to afford them.

They should instead have been willing to talk about the morality and utility of long-term unemployment benefits. As it happens, this is something about which I know a thing or two.
In the 1990s, living in New York and tossed by a publisher who didn’t like my column (talk about cruel!), I found myself receiving unemployment insurance benefits. I have to confess that they offered me peace of mind, especially at first, when life was raw.

I’ve written before about my experience with unemployment benefits. I should have headlined my saga “How I Lost My Benefits but Found a Job.”

Yes, ladies and gentleman, this rock-rib right winger, advocate of pluck and grit and elbow grease had been dawdling in her job search. I didn’t really realize I was lackadaisical, though in retrospect I know that some of my ideas for employment were fantastical. I won’t tell you which intellectual journal I tried to sell on the idea of my doing a gossip column for them!

But then the benefits were about to expire and the wolf is at the door: Mr. Wolf makes you lose your pickiness and take any job you can get. For me, it was a job I didn't really want but which turned out to be a long-term, life blessing. I am so glad I took it, but I might have spurned the offer if the benefits hadn’t stopped.

I hope that the next time unemployment benefits come up in Washington—and believe me, the issue will come up again—the Republicans will remember North Carolina and make an argument that is both moral and utilitarian. We shouldn’t be trying to “pay for” a “benefit” that keeps people on the dole.
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To read more about unemployment, click here.

Snapshot Comics

Snapshot Comics.

The following comics were discovered and posted here as a representation of what's currently going on in this new year.

click on picture to enlarge...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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To read more comics. click here. 

Duck Flap: Truth is ‘Hate’ to Those Who Hate Truth

Duck Flap: Truth is ‘Hate’ to Those Who Hate Truth                

12/23/2013 12:05:00 AM - Matt Barber

As widely reported, Phil Robertson, the patriarch in A&E’s breakaway hit “Duck Dynasty,” recently ran a-fowl of homosexual pressure groups, ruffling “progressive” feathers throughout concentrated pockets of deep blue America. He remains suspended “indefinitely” for candidly summarizing, in a recent interview with GQ Magazine, the millennia-long “Love the sinner, hate the sin” biblical stance on homosexual practice.

“It seems like, to me, a vagina – as a man – would be more desirable than a man’s anus. That’s just me,” he bluntly opined. “I’m just thinking: There’s more there! She’s got more to offer. I mean, come on, dudes!”

Dudes worldwide – save self-styled “gays,” Pajama Boy and a few liberal men actually rumored to be heterosexual – responded: “Eww! I know, right.”

“You know what I’m saying?” continued Robertson. “But hey, sin: It’s not logical, my man. It’s just not logical,” he noted.

Robertson also addressed other sins, paraphrasing 1 Corinthians 6:9-10: “Neither the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers – they won’t inherit the kingdom of God. Don’t deceive yourself. It’s not right.”
“I would never treat anyone with disrespect just because they are different from me,” he later added. “We are all created by the Almighty, and like Him, I love all of humanity.”

Barring a handful of “progressive” revisionists, Christian theologians have since observed that, while Robertson’s position on sexual sin is 100 percent biblically, morally and biologically correct, it is, nonetheless, precisely 0 percent politically correct.

Furthermore, Robertson seems to have been quoting directly from the rare, though accurate, “Louisiana Revised Standard Living Translation.”

Even so, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) was outraged. GLAAD spokesman Francis Twinklebean offered a scathing, though typically insightful, analysis of Robertson’s opinion: “Quack quack quack bigot,” said Twinklebean. “Quack quack vile quack intolerance quack quack homophobia quack,” he added, finally demanding: “A&E must fire Phil Robertson.”

The “gay”-activist Human Rights Campaign (HRC) was no less distressed, as evidenced by HRC mouthpiece Randy Van Grindr: “The First Amendment? That’s so 1776,” he said. “This is 2013. Speech isn’t free, you know. Intolerance will not be tolerated. Give us our pound of flesh! A&E must fire Phil Robertson.”

A&E, which had already begun censoring the cast’s Christian speech with fake bleeps to cover words like “Jesus” and “Christ,” dutifully complied. “We’re just sick of all this redneck Jesusy stuff,” A&E representative Moe Ronic told reporters. “And besides, making truckloads of money is really overrated,” he added, referencing the show’s No. 1 all-time ranking.

“In fact,” he continued, “just the other day I was sharing an Appletini with Bob, our program director, and he was pining for the good ol’ days – back when we had ratings like MSNBC’s ‘Winter Solstice Generic Holiday Special.’

“You know, more money means more work – what, with the bookkeeping and all,” he pointed out. “Most of us at A&E are actually quite excited to get back to the utter irrelevance and obscurity from whence we came.”

Meanwhile, the Fox Network and a bevy of cable channels have reportedly lined up with drool bibs to pounce on the show should relations with A&E go deeper south.

A Fox source offered comment on condition of anonymity: “Remember that time someone disagreed with Christianity and got fired?” he asked. “Me neither. A&E needs the Robertsons more than they need A&E.”

Still, questions remained as to who’s got it right on homosexuality; GLAAD, HRC and other “progressives,” or Phil Robertson and Christianity. To get answers, we went straight to the Source: God, Author of all truth, sovereign Creator of the universe and Maker of mankind.
God said to relax. The issue has been long settled.

All sexual sin – adultery, fornication, bestiality, incest and, yes, the practice of homosexuality – is “contrary to sound doctrine,” He noted unequivocally (1 Timothy 1:10). “Guys, when I said, ‘You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination,’ I meant it,” He added (Leviticus 18:22).

The Creator then offered an urgent admonition to GLAAD, HRC and others living under both sexual deception and the unrepentant homosexual lifestyle. He warned that unnatural behaviors beget natural consequences: “Because of this, [I] gave [you] over to shameful lusts. Even [you ladies] exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way [you fellas] also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. [You’ve] committed shameful acts with other men, and [have] received in [yourselves] the due penalty for [your] error” (Romans 1:26-27).

Still, being both wholly righteous and merciful beyond measure, The Heavenly Father then offered hope for homosexuals, as well as for every other sinner on the planet (that would be all of us). He was quick to point out that no one person is better than another, and that He loves us all, not because of our sins – to include the “intrinsically disordered” homosexual identity and lifestyle – but in spite of them. “None is righteous, no, not one,” He said (Romans 3:10).

We are all lost and in need of the Savior, He further urged (especially yours truly), saying, with specific reference to homosexuality, adultery and other forms of sexual immorality: “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by [My Spirit]” (1 Corinthians 6:11).

As untold thousands – likely millions – of former homosexuals will attest, through the unmatched grace of Christ, there can be freedom from all forms of bondage to sin – even “LGBT” behavior.
Meanwhile, since the Duck flap hit, Jesus Himself has reportedly reached out to Phil Robertson with a Word of encouragement. He told him to keep fishing for souls and hunting for ducks. He said that Robertson shouldn’t sweat the small stuff – like the ongoing assault for speaking truth in love.

“Phil,” He said, “You will be hated by everyone because of me, but [if you] stand firm to the end, [you] will be saved” (Matthew 10:22).

“Oh, and by the way,” Jesus added: “Well done my good and faithful servant.”
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To read more articles by Matt Barber, click here.

To read more about 'Duck Dynasty', click here.

Pandemonium: Obama partially waives individual mandate as ObamaCare comes crashing down

Pandemonium: Obama partially waives individual mandate as ObamaCare comes crashing down
By: John Hayward
12/20/2013 08:59 AM

It was already the biggest disaster in history, but even by the standards of ObamaCare failure we’ve grown accustomed to, this is jaw-dropping. Critics thought something like this was probably coming, but it’s still amazing to see it get here… delivered, of course, by the usual royal fiat of dubious legality. Barack Obama was kicking World War II veterans out of their own memorial during Shutdown Theater to thwart the kind of delay he just imposed.

Remember those old Obama lies about how virtually no one was actually losing their health insurance, and all the Democrats who sneered at those unfortunate souls as “red herrings” and “anecdotes?” Remember how the Republicans who accurately warned about this problem were dismissed as “Chicken Littles?”

Remember how, when he could no longer pretend it wasn’t happening, Obama tried to pin the blame for all those insurance cancellations on the captive corporations pinned under his boot? When that didn’t work, he tried to tell people who lost their insurance they should be glad he killed their plans – he did them a favor, because they were too stupid to realize their lousy old junk plans were “bad apple” products foisted upon them by shady insurance companies.

Attention all Obama drones, “journalists,” and liberal pundits: all Administration talking points from the past three months just became invalid. Fresh talking points will soon arrive from Obama’s vacation palace in Hawaii, where he’s jetting off for a fabulous 17-day holiday vacation after throwing the health insurance industry into utter chaos.

Rejoice, humble peasants, because if Obama’s Big Lie about “keeping your plan if you like your plan” resulted in your plan getting canceled, His Benevolent Majesty, King Clusterfark I, has decreed that you won’t be fined for not having the insurance that you can’t afford because of his idiotic “law,” and couldn’t buy if you wanted to, because of his crappy website. And the announcement was delivered in the most cowardly manner imaginable, on the eve of the Christmas holiday. From National Journal:

The Obama administration will not require the millions of Americans who received health-insurance plan cancellation notices to purchase a new policy next year.

They’re granting those consumers an exemption from the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate, a Department of Heath and Human Services spokeswoman confirmed. The mandate requires everyone to have health insurance or face a tax penalty, the greater of $95 or 1 percent of income in 2014.

The administration will also allow those consumers to sign up for catastrophic coverage. Those bare-bones plans are available to people who are under 30 or qualify for a “hardship exemption.”

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a letter to Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., that the administration is granting a “hardship exemption” to Americans whose plans were canceled and “might be having difficulty” paying for standard coverage.

To claim your hardship exemption, just write “OBAMA IS PRESIDENT” as the hardship on your paperwork. The old plan you liked was affordable and gave you all the coverage you needed, but now that Obama has destroyed it, he will graciously allow you to buy a bare-bones catastrophic plan instead. Why are you not on your knees with gratitude, lowly peasant?

Actually, these newly re-defined catastrophic plans are a bit more complicated than that. Avik Roy of Forbes - who predicts the “stunning reversal” of the individual mandate will unleash “utter chaos” in the industry – explains:

The catastrophic plans under ObamaCare aren’t like the ones you might be familiar with. ACA-compliant “catastrophic plans” have to cover all of the services defined as “preventive” by the government, along with all of the ObamaCare-defined “essential health benefits,” like drug-addiction therapy.

The major difference between the regular ObamaCare “bronze” plan and the ObamaCare “catastrophic” plan is that the catastrophic plan covers three primary care visits prior to hitting the deductible. Which isn’t that much of a difference at all.

The catastrophic plans are supposed to be available only to those under 30, and those older than 30 who can’t find coverage for less than 8 percent of their income. And the catastrophic plans are not eligible for ObamaCare’s premium support subsidies.

Which, as Roy notes, means that in some areas, the catastrophic plan will effectively cost more out-of-pocket than bronze-level coverage does. People confronted with this absurdity are likely to follow the path so many have already settled on, and make do without insurance altogether. But at least the King has decided to allow them a year’s grace before he begins fining them for surviving without the coverage he wiped out. You’re welcome, America!

The reason this news came in a letter to Senator Warner is that he’s part of a group of Democrats who wrote to Secretary Sebelius a few months ago, asking for “clarification” on whether that “hardship exemption” could be stretched to include the hardship of ObamaCare being a disaster.

Amusingly, flop-sweating anonymous Administration officials claim that only about 500,000 people will be affected by this exemption. That would mean over 90 percent of the nearly 6 million people who lost coverage when the Big Lie exploded have either made new arrangements with their providers, or miraculously got past the Healthcare.gov bugs to buy their shiny new hyper-expensive high-deductible Affordable Care Act plans. That seems… optimistic. But then, Standard Operating Procedure for the Administration throughout this debacle has involved conjuring whatever absurd factoids are necessary to survive the current news cycle, and hope everyone forgets it when the truth becomes impossible to spin. Judging by overnight reports of reaction from industry leaders, nobody really believes there will be only half a million people coming for those “catastrophic” plans, to say nothing of the folks who will just make do without insurance altogether.

You’re still out of luck if you didn’t have insurance before ObamaCare went into effect – i.e. you’re one of the people this pile of pseudo-fascist garbage was inflicted on the rest of us to help. You’ll still be paying a special tax if you haven’t overcome the odds to buy an insurance policy you probably can’t afford – assuming, of course, that His Benevolent Majesty doesn’t change the Settled Law of the Land with another wave of his hand next year.

How are the insurance companies taking this last-minute development, as they scramble to process a mountain of dead-tree applications and sort out the garbage data they’ve received from the ObamaCare exchanges, with just a few business days left on the calendar?

The deal for consumers is yet another burden for insurers, who earlier this week went along with the White House’s request to grant leniency to consumers paying premiums in January. Consumers will now be allowed to send payments until Jan. 10 and receive coverage retroactively to Jan. 1.

This change could have a more long-term impact. Catastrophic-coverage plans were priced with a 30-and-under consumer base in mind. And with thousands who were barred from the market due to preexisting conditions expected to purchase the new coverage, allowing people who already had coverage to go without it could upset the balance of the risk pool. The Affordable Care Act exchanges need enough healthy people to balance out the costs of care for the sick or premiums could rise in 2015, creating a “death spiral” and jeopardizing the law’s success altogether.

Consumers have until 11:59 p.m. EST on Dec. 23 to sign up for coverage that begins Jan. 1.

Oh, well, no pressure then. Plenty of hours remain until the deadline guillotine drops!

Karen Ignagni, president of the insurance industry trade associated AHIP, warned “this latest rule change could cause significant instability in the marketplace and lead to further confusion and disruption for consumers.” Avik Roy at Forbes says industry executives are describing the current state of the Administration as “panic mode.”

Tax serfs, prepare to dig deep and cough up billions to bail out the insurance companies caught in this death spiral. They supported ObamaCare to gain access to your wallets, and by God, they’re going to get the guaranteed profits Barack Obama promised them, one way or the other. Attention drones, journalists, liberal bloggers: prepare to shred all Obama talking points related to fiscal discipline and deficit reduction.

This would all have been much easier to deal with if it had been done months ago, but Obama’s arrogance and political needs wouldn’t allow that. Instead, like everything else to do with ObamaCare, lies were told, documents were hidden, and everything was pushed back until the last possible moment. Fox News has some Republican responses in an article that describes this as “an 11th-hour change,” but it’s really more like 11:58, and the doomsday chimes are starting to crank up deep inside the Armageddon clock, while the cuckoo of despair limbers up its throat.

“Holding a fire sale of cheap insurance is not a responsible fix for a broken program. This is a slap in the face to the thousands of Americans who have already purchased expensive insurance through the ObamaCare exchanges,” Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said in a statement.

House Energy and Commerce Committee Vice Chairman Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., described the move as “another major policy shift” from the Obama administration.

“We asked Secretary Sebelius point blank what would be the next holiday surprise, and she was silent. Yet, here we are with another major policy shift. The sad reality is that when the law takes effect come January 1, more Americans will be without coverage under Obamacare than one year ago,” Blackburn said in a statement released Thursday evening.

“Less than two weeks from going live, the White House seems to be in full panic mode. Rather than more White House delays, waivers, and exemptions, the administration should provide all Americans relief from its failed law.”

It may seem quaint to bring up the rule of law with respect to the naked power grab of ObamaCare, but it doesn’t seem entirely legal for the executive branch to arbitrarily waive a tax – certified as such by the Supreme Court, you may recall – for a select group of people. The only thing those people have in common is that they lost their insurance policies due to another Administration action, specifically the HHS regulations that made it nearly impossible for existing insurance plans to be “grandfathered” into the Affordable Care Act era.

We’ll probably have to wait months or years for retroactively processed lawsuits to sort that out, since in this lawless banana republic, there is no one to stop the Administration from doing whatever it pleases, statute and Constitution be damned. The choice always should have been between lawful implementation of the Affordable Care Act and repeal, but that’s how things work in better, stronger, more orderly republics.

I took the liberty of updating the infamous “Pajama Boy” ObamaCare ad to reflect the latest news:
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To read more about Obamacare, click here.

Story of the year

Story of the year
By: Charles Krauthammer
12/20/2013 02:42 PM

The lie of the year, according to Politifact, is “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it.” But the story of the year is a nation waking up to just how radical Obamacare is — which is why it required such outright deception to get it passed in the first place.

Obamacare was sold as simply a refinement of the current system, retaining competition among independent insurers but making things more efficient, fair and generous. Free contraceptives for Sandra Fluke. Free mammograms and checkups for you and me. Free (or subsidized) insurance for some 30 million uninsured. And, mirabile dictu, not costing the government a dime.

In fact, Obamacare is a full-scale federal takeover. The keep-your-plan-if-you-like-your-plan ruse was a way of saying to the millions of Americans who had insurance and liked what they had: Don’t worry. You’ll be left unmolested. For you, everything goes on as before.

That was a fraud from the very beginning. The law was designed to throw people off their private plans and into government-run exchanges where they would be made to overpay — forced to purchase government-mandated services they don’t need — as a way to subsidize others. (That’s how you get to the ostensible free lunch.)

It wasn’t until the first cancellation notices went out in late 2013 that the deception began to be understood. And felt. Six million Americans with private insurance have just lost it. And that’s just the beginning. By the Department of Health and Human Services’ own estimates, about 75 million Americanswould have plans that their employers would have the right to cancel. And millions of middle-class workers who will migrate to the exchanges and don’t qualify for government subsidies will see their premiums, deductibles and co-pays go up.

It gets worse. The dislocation extends to losing one’s doctor and drug coverage, as insurance companies narrow availability to compensate for the huge costs imposed on them by the extended coverage and “free” services the new law mandates.

But it’s not just individuals seeing their medical care turned upside down. The insurance providers, the backbone of the system, are being utterly transformed. They are rapidly becoming mere extensions of the federal government.

Look what happened just last week. Health and Human Services unilaterally and without warning changed coverage deadlines and guidelines. It asked insurers to start covering people on Jan. 1 even if they signed up as late as the day before and even if they hadn’t paid their premiums. And is “strongly encouraging” them to pay during the transition for doctor visits and medicinesnot covered in their current plans (if covered in the patient’s previous — canceled — plan).

On what authority does a Cabinet secretary tell private companies to pay for services not in their plans and cover people not on their rolls? Where in Obamacare’s 2,500 pages are such high-handed dictates authorized? Does anyone even ask? The bill itself is simply taken as a kind of blanket warrant for HHS to run, regulate and control the whole insurance system.

Remember the uproar over forcing religious institutions to provide contraception coverage? The president’s “fix” was a new regulation ordering insurers to provide these services for free. Apart from the fact that this transparent ruse does nothing to resolve the underlying issue of conscience — God sees — by what right does the government order private companies to provide free services for anyone?

Three years ago I predicted that Obamacare would turn insurers into the lapdog equivalent of utility companies. I undershot. They are being treated as wholly owned subsidiaries. Take the phrase “strongly encouraging.” Sweet persuasion? In reality, these are offers insurers can’t refuse. Disappoint your federal master and he has the power to kick you off the federal exchanges, where the health insurance business of the future is supposed to be conducted.

Moreover, if adverse selection drives insurers into a financial death spiral — too few healthy young people to offset more costly, sicker, older folks — their only recourse will be a government bailout. Do they really want to get on the wrong side of the White House, their only lifeline when facing insolvency?

I don’t care a whit for the insurance companies. They deserve what they get. They collaborated with the White House in concocting this scheme and are now being swallowed by it. But I do care about the citizenry and its access to a functioning, flourishing, choice-driven medical system.

Obamacare posed as a free-market alternative to a British-style single-payer system. Then, during congressional debate, the White House ostentatiously rejected the so-called “public option.” But that’s irrelevant. The whole damn thing is the public option. The federal government now runs the insurance market, dictating deadlines, procedures, rates, risk assessments and coverage requirements. It’s gotten so cocky it’s now telling insurers to cover the claims that, by law, they are not required to.

Welcome 2014, our first taste of nationalized health care.
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To read more about Charles Krauthammer, click here.

Center for the Study of Individual Rights

Center for the Study of Individual Rights
Mike Adams
12/19/2013 12:01:00 AM - Mike Adams

Dear UNC Board of Governors:

I appreciate very much the interest you have shown in meeting with me after my current case against UNC Wilmington heads to court in just a few months. I also appreciate the efforts of key members of the Senate to set up such a meeting now that Republicans control the NC Senate, State General Assembly, and the Governor's mansion. When we meet in the spring, I am going to present you with a specific proposal which will help start to reform the UNC system in three important ways:

1) It will cut administrative overhead.

2) It will reduce the amount of money the DNC is funneling through the system for political purposes.

3) It will reopen debate on several key social issues that have not been debated in the UNC system for years (due to the university endorsement of one particular side of the issue).

The need to cut administrative overhead is urgent. When I became a UNC professor, here at the Wilmington campus, there was only one administrator, the provost, who made over $100,000 per year. Within 15 years, the number of six-digit salary administrators skyrocketed to 153. Many of those new administrators were put in charge of offices meant to promote diversity.

Unfortunately, in order to pay their salaries we had to increase tuition. Ironically, this meant that a lot of poor prospective students (disproportionately non-white) decided they could not afford to get a college education. The people who have truly experienced the "richness of diversity" are administrators who already have their PhDs. It is shameful hypocrisy.

My plan will address this hypocrisy and reduce administrative overhead by replacing two university offices - and two corresponding sets of administrators - with just one. Accordingly, I am proposing that each UNC campus that has both a Women's Resource Center and an LGBT Office immediately shut down both of those offices and replace it with one. The new office will be called the Center for the Study of Individual Rights, or CSIR. Before I explain what the new CSIRs will do, let me first explain why the Women's Centers and LGBT Offices need to be closed.

Many UNC Women's Centers have been operating for years as satellite political offices for the DNC. For example, the Women's Center at UNC-CH has actually been caught doing mass mailings in support of pending legislation with the use of university personnel and university computers. But most of the women's centers are a little more discreet. They simply endorse the broader positions of the DNC without actually endorsing specific legislation.

Abortion is probably the best example of this tendency. Our own Women's Resource Center at UNC-Wilmington has consistently refused to promote crisis pregnancy centers on its website even when they have been asked. But Planned Parenthood always gets space on the WRC website. In 2012, the WRC even sold "I had an abortion" tee shirts to students who aborted their children. This was at an official WRC taxpayer funded event. It's pretty obvious that this government office officially endorses abortion. Well, so much for diversity of viewpoint. The debate on abortion is over. It’s time to implement the DNC agenda.

The LGBT offices are worse, including the LGBTQIA Office here at UNC-Wilmington. By the way, the "I" is for "inter-sexed" and the "A" is for "allies." The word "allies" is the key because these people are engaged in a political war. By way of example, the UNCW office actually used state computers to send mass emails organizing a political campaign against Amendment One (which sought to ban gay marriage back in 2012). They squandered taxpayer dollars on their losing political battle during a deep state budget crisis. More importantly, they broke the law with impunity.

We don't need these offices squandering tax dollars trying to pass legislation and implement policy on behalf of special interest groups. The job of the university is to promote debate over policy. That is where my proposed CSIRs come into the picture.

The CSIRs will be cost effective because they won't do much and will only require a part time director and a part time administrative assistant - probably just a graduate assistant. The office will publish two newsletters per year. Each will contain eight essays - two opposing opinions on four controversial topics. The authors will be experts in their fields and will be drawn from universities all around the nation. The CSIRs will also host four debates per academic year. Each will focus on one important question. For the first year, I will propose debates on the following questions:

1. Is marriage an individual constitutional right?

2. How would legislation defining a "person" affect individual rights?

3. Who does affirmative action help and who does it hurt: individuals or groups?

4. What are the relative long term effects of amnesty on Hispanic, African, and Caucasian Americans?

When we talk about same sex marriage, abortion, affirmative action, and amnesty for illegals we are bound to offend a lot of students. But that is the point. These students haven't been offended in years because they haven't heard a clash of dissenting opinions in years.

The best part of this plan is that it will save the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars while replacing ideological conformity with reasoned debate. I'm currently examining the budgets of the centers I plan to close and comparing them with the budgets of my proposed CSIRs. I'll publish the detailed fiscal plan in a future column.

In the meantime, count on the Women's Center saying that my plan to shut them down will deprive students of much needed services. But what services are they talking about? I know they set up tables on campus in order to teach students how to put a condom on a cucumber. But students learn that in the public high schools, long before they get to the public university. I know they sell candy covered vagina shaped lollipops on Valentine's Day. But students learn puerile vulgarity in middle school, long before they get to the public university. To be fair, I don't know of another place where students can buy "I had an abortion" tee shirts. Even Planned Parenthood had the good sense to stop doing that years ago.

And count on the LGBTQIA Office to throw an even bigger hissy fit. They will insist that their orgasm awareness seminars are the intellectual climax of the semester. They'll also tout their occasional showings of controversial films – for example, "Breasts: A Documentary" - as indispensable educational services. But the university is located just three miles from Wrightsville Beach. Unlimited exposure to breasts is practically within walking distance.

College students deserve better than this. They need an educational experience that is less expensive, less politicized, and less one-sided than the one they are getting in the UNC system. I'm not saying each individual has a right to a first-class education. But I do think the question is worthy of debate.
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To read another article by Mike Adams, click here.

Duck Dynasty, Gay Activism, and the Clash of Two Cultures

Gay Activism, Duck Dynasty, and the Clash of Two Cultures
Michael Brown
12/19/2013 9:05:00 AM - Michael Brown

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Py6sEf5d92M

Video of Michael on Piers Morgan Show.

You knew it would happen sooner or later. An outspoken, wildly popular, conservative Christian who doesn’t give a hoot – or in this case, a quack – about political correctness would air his views about homosexuality, and overnight, Hollywood hell would break loose.

To catch you up on the latest events, earlier this week, the text of Phil Robertson’s interview with GQ Magazine was released online, containing controversial comments about homosexual practice, among other things. (For those who have been living under a rock, Phil Robertson is the patriarch of the Duck Dynasty clan, and he is a self-proclaimed “Bible thumper.”)

Shortly after the interview was released, and quite predictably, GLAAD issued a statement condemning Robertson’s remarks as “some of the vilest and most extreme statements uttered against LGBT people in a mainstream publication” and said “his quote was littered with outdated stereotypes and blatant misinformation.” (Reminder: GLAAD officially stands for the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, but I have long suggested that a more appropriate name would be the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Disagreement.)

GLAAD spokesperson Wilson Cruz said that, “Phil and his family claim to be Christian, but Phil's lies about an entire community fly in the face of what true Christians believe. He clearly knows nothing about gay people or the majority of Louisianans -- and Americans -- who support legal recognition for loving and committed gay and lesbian couples. Phil's decision to push vile and extreme stereotypes is a stain on A&E and his sponsors, who now need to re-examine their ties to someone with such public disdain for LGBT people and families.” (Note to GLAAD: The majority of Louisianans do not support same-sex “marriage.”)

This was followed by a clarification and apology of sorts by Robertson: “I myself am a product of the 60s; I centered my life around sex, drugs and rock and roll until I hit rock bottom and accepted Jesus as my Savior. My mission today is to go forth and tell people about why I follow Christ and also what the bible teaches, and part of that teaching is that women and men are meant to be together.

“However, I would never treat anyone with disrespect just because they are different from me. We are all created by the Almighty and like Him, I love all of humanity. We would all be better off if we loved God and loved each other.”

The Human Rights Campaign, the world’s largest gay activist organization, also condemned Robertson’s remarks and called for A&E, the cable network which airs Duck Dynasty, to take action: “The A+E Network should take immediate action to condemn Phil Robertson’s remarks and make clear they don’t support his views.”

Later the same day, A&E issued its own statement: “We are extremely disappointed to have read Phil Robertson's comments in GQ, which are based on his own personal beliefs and are not reflected in the series Duck Dynasty. His personal views in no way reflect those of A+E Networks, who have always been strong supporters and champions of the LGBT community. The network has placed Phil under hiatus from filming indefinitely.”

In support of Robertson, the Faith Driven Consumer Facebook page started an “I Stand with Phil“ campaign, while another Facebook page, “Boycott A&E Until Phil Robertson Is Put Back On Duck Dynasty,” had more than 100,000 Likes in a matter of hours. Talk about a clash of two cultures!

What did Robertson actually say that was so controversial?

First he remarked, “Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men.”

Was he accusing all (or most) gays of engaging in bestiality or of sleeping with multiple women? It appears not, although I can easily see why his critics would think otherwise, and in that context, he was right to clarify his comments.

What he was saying, though, was that gay sex should be seen as part of the “anything goes” mentality of the sexual revolution of the 60s, and in that regard he was right. In fact, while gay activists emphasize homosexual identity, placing the gay rights movement in the context of the Civil Rights movement of the 60s, Robertson and other conservative Christians emphasize homosexual behavior, placing gay activism in the context of the sexual revolution of the same era.

Robertson next quoted from 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, a famous passage in Paul’s letters in which he clearly states that practicing homosexuals, along with practicing heterosexual sinners of various stripes, will not inherit God’s kingdom. (For the record, despite frequent objections to the contrary, the Greek text is quite clear in terms of its overall sense.)

Was A&E genuinely unaware that he held to these views? I seriously doubt it. My guess is that they were just glad (not GLAAD) that he hadn’t aired them publicly.

Finally, he suggested (speaking first for himself) that the female sexual organ was “more desirable” than a man’s rectum and that a woman had “more to offer” a man.

And for these comments he was promptly suspended.

The fact is, though, no matter how much two men may love each other, it remains indisputably clear that men were biologically designed to be with women, and vice versa. In that regard, no matter how crude Robertson’s comments may have been, they were correct.

As for his quotation from 1 Corinthians 6, did anyone really think that Robertson would say, “You know, now that I’ve become a TV celebrity, I’m going to revise my views on God’s intent for human sexuality and marriage”?

Personally, I don’t believe for a moment that Robertson will bow down to A&E and compromise his convictions, although I could see him offering a further clarification of his statements, explaining, for example, that he was not accusing homosexuals of practicing bestiality any more than heterosexuals engage in such perversion.

And I don’t see how A&E can back down from their position regardless of how popular the show is. The gay lobby is far too powerful. (I imagine that Alec Baldwin has an opinion on this as well, although, to be clear, I am not comparing Robertson to Baldwin.)

In fact, I don’t see either of them about to blink, which means that the culture wars are about to hit the fan, and this could very ugly very quickly.

I suggest that those of us who agree fundamentally with Robertson make clear that: 1) We are unashamed of our belief in Jesus and in biblical morality. 2) We stand against the mistreatment of all people, including gays and lesbians. 3) We will not support the radical redefinition of marriage, regardless of the cost involved, nor do we see cultural capitulation to gay activism as inevitable.

Now would be a perfect time to take a stand, but with grace, precision, and wisdom.
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To read more on the subject, click here.