Technology, Innovation & Telecomm

http://www.afr.net/newafr/wekickedgodout.asp

Call me thick-headed, but I’m really having a hard time with this whole attorney-firing “scandal”. Where is the originating malfeasance? Last I heard, US attorneys work at the pleasure of the President. The department fired 8 of 93. When Bill Clinton was President, he and Janet Reno fired all 93, didn’t they? In fact, those kinds of positions are always in jeopardy, since they are “at the pleasure of…” jobs.

Now, if you’re tempted to analyze this from a “yeah, but were the firings motivated by the goal of serving some political purpose…” perspective, consider these:

1. At least one of the 93 attorneys fired during the Clinton administration were in the process of investigating him.

2. Since when is *anything* in Washington *not* politically motivated?

3. Since when is the motivation for firing someone subject to Congressional investigation, subpoena, etc.?

4. Nowhere in my career has there ever been a guarantee that if I were fired, it would be for the “right” reasons. That may not make it right, but it is the way of the world.

5. What particular advantage would be gained by firing only the 8?

This is yet another case of a media-enhanced, drive-by “scandal” created to try to make the current administration look as bad as possible for the upcoming election. No, by itself it won’t make or break the election, but the more of these kinds of trumped-up situations that can be shoved in the public’s face, the better, as far as the liberals and liberal press is concerned.

Lastly, when you place individuals into a situation (our current attorney-general) where they have to justify something they should have free reign to do, with the glaring lights of the media on them, what kind of responses would you imagine they’d give? I will never justify lying, but this isn’t a clear case of that either.

Plus, just what is the real importance of any of this?

You’ll be surprised by the author, but this article is absolutely worth the read.  I don’t think I could have said it better myself!

I just read this on Yahoo news. It simply blows my mind. It definitely makes me wonder what our society has come to.

…
Just so I understand, the Toys for Tots folk turned down *free* toys for kids, on the basis of a fear that they may end up in the hands of non-Christians who would most certainly be offended by a FREE gift.

A few questions come to mind:

1. Would they turn down a talking Allah doll? How about a doll extolling Satanism? Or, would they refuse a Pilgrim doll, since it could be taken as an affront to the Indians who felt abused at the hands of the early settlers? What about those with gender sensitivity? If someone gave a male doll to someone who prefers female dolls, what do you do about them?

2. How can the Toys for Tots folks say what the reaction will be to the dolls? It seems to me that they’re depriving a potentially large, grateful group of recipients of the *opportunity* to actually approve of the gift they’ve been given.

3. If someone is offended by the gift, what stops them from getting rid of it, perhaps by themselves giving it to some needy, appreciative Christian (or at least not anti-Christian) soul?

4. What is the percentage of folks who would dearly love such a gift vs. those who would be offended by it? Seems like a pretty un-balanced decision.

If the Toys for Tots folks start making these kinds of distinctions (which clearly they are), then aren’t they obligated to treat *every* gift as potentially offensive? We are talking about charity here…giving gifts, expecting nothing in return.

Man, have we gotten screwed up…

A few questions:

1. Do you accept the notion that the U.S. government’s acknowledgement of divine rule under one God represents the imposition of religion on you as a citizen?

2. Does that acknowledgement change, in any way, your day-to-day behavior?

3. Are you willing to concede your right to view, respect and perhaps promote a religious document or belief, based on the assertion that some small minority is offended by that same document or belief?

4. Do you believe that those who wish to eradicate the mere appearance of religion, do so for the greater public good?

5. Do you believe that if you are offended at someone else’s belief, that they should not be able to display the artifacts of that belief in public?

6. Do you think that there is no such thing as absolute right and wrong?

7. Should the country pass laws that represent its moral foundations?

8. Should a country even have a moral basis?

Here’s what some of the founding fathers had to say about those questions and more:

Thomas Jefferson:

#1 Declared that religion is: “Deemed in other countries incompatible with good government and yet proved by our experience to be its best support”

#8 “God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God?

George Washington:

#8 “And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintaind without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on the minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principal.”

#4 “And of fatal tendency…to put, in the place of the delegated will of the Nation, the will of a party;- often a small but artful and enterprising minority…they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the Power of the People and to usurp for themselves the reigns of Government; destroying afterword the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion…”

Andrew Jackson:

#3 In reference to the Bible: “That book, Sir, is the rock upon which our Republic rests.”

John Jay (first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court):

#7 “Providence has given to our people, the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians as their rulers.”

William Jay (son of John Jay, first Chief Justice):

#5 “He who admits the authority of the Bible will not readily acknowlege that whatever is “highly esteemed among men” must be right, nor that which is unpopular is, of course, wrong.”

Abraham Lincoln:

#6 “In regard to this Great Book, I have but to say, I believe the Bible is the best gift God has given to man. All the good Saviour gave to the world was communicated through this Book. But for this Book, we could not know right from wrong. All things most desirable for man’s welfare, here and hearafter, are to be found portrayed in it.”

…

The phrase “separation of Church and State” was originated by Thomas Jefferson. The principle that he was communicating was far different than what we see being represented today. The phrase originated in a letter that Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptists, who had suffered great persecution for their faith. He borrowed some phraseology from Baptist minister Roger Williams. Jefferson’s letter stated this: “…, I contemplate with solemn reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church and State”. — he was reassuring them that the United States government would in no way interfere with the free expression of their religious freedoms. Nowhere did he imply that the government was to be disassociated with religion or the Christian principles on which it was founded. Nor was there any communication that the belief system on which the government was based would be forced on anyone else.

When you think about the freedoms you have today, please take the time to remember what the principals were that were set as the foundations of so many of them.

Don’t allow a “small but artful and enterprising minority” to erode the basis of what made this country so great. Don’t be fooled by that minority into thinking that you have the right not to be offended.

Don’t allow a judiciary whose purpose was to ensure the proper application of the Constitution, to now make policy, all while usurping the authority of the those that you elected to represent you.

Freedom is like a kite: Without restraint, it can’t remain aloft.

I was doing my usual fast-pass on some blogs and came across a headline something to the effect of : “CPB names new anti-public-interest chief”. I wish I could find the link to that post. Anyway…

I have the title completely wrong, but the part that stuck out was what followed. It held out that notion that the new leader, Ken Ferree is a Bush administration puppet who has no interest whatever in the public interest and in fact has only administration-approved conservative propaganda to push. Please.

It’s not like the CPB has been some kind of bastion of all things American, Mom and Apple pie for lo these many years. I’m a fan of public radio and TV but one could hardly claim that it’s been impartial or right-leaning as a whole. So, I do what anyone would do: I watch and listen to the material that I want to and pass on the stuff that doesn’t interest me. I don’t feel like I’m forced to take in crap that I don’t like or want to hear, nor do I think that anyone else is forced to listen/watch the things that I do.

What always slays me is that notion that if the prevailing leadership of some organization shifts from left-wing to conservative, suddenly the constituency will suffer a mortal blow due to loss of democratic freedoms. For all the hand-waving about Conservatives being “intolerant”, this kind of overreactive post carries the same one-sided slant as the subject is supposed to be.

Let time tell whether or not you like what Ken Ferree does. Don’t let somebody’s paranoid post about the erosion of public-interest values stop you from seeing for yourself.

It’s your brain.

I have a lot of respect for Dave Winer. He’s a brilliant, creative individual who has done an enourmous amount of good work on the “personal publishing” front and in other areas. However, I have to take issue with a post he made on his blog “Scripting News”.

The post was entitled “Liberal is a Code Word“. His premise is:

“When someone uses the L-word in conversation, chances are 999 out of 1000 that they’re using it as a code-word to mean: weak, effeminate, misguided, powerless geek without morals.”

I disagree. Not that he isn’t right that sometimes that’s the implication of the use of “liberal” in a conversation. But it’s absurd to suggest that “999 out of 1000″ times it’s true.

What I disagree with even more is the notion that if you consider yourself “not conservative”, then you must naturally be balanced, caring, ecology-wise, tolerant, nuetral on sexual orientation, etc. He suggests that if someone cares about Terri Shiavo and is concerned that her death is a cruelty that we wouldn’t impose on an animal, we must be nut-jobs and louts. Please… Isn’t that the same generalization that he says his dinner-mate made about liberals?

Here are the facts:

1. Dave, with that post, you’ve just joined the ranks of those that you just derided. What an unbelievable, intolerant generalization!

2. The government *does* have a responsibility to protect individuals from cruel and unusual treatment at the hands of those who have fooled themselves into believing that killing someone is reasonable behaviour. There are too many associated facts in her case to simply state that this is a case of someone trying to carry out the wishes of a loved one. Not by a long shot.

3. This country and government *was* founded (like it or not) on religious principals of morality and overall behaviour. These principals permeate the writings of the founding fathers, whose wisdom is ignored when convenient by those that want to systematically remove all remnants of what we built this country on to start with. Worse, the same founding fathers get quoted to somehow justify distancing ourselves from those same principals. Just because an individual or small group of individuals *want* something to be ok doesn’t make it so. The point here is that the people of the USA give the government certain powers and like it or not, there will be decisions made with that power that go counter to what we want to do at times. Believe me, they make decisions that I don’t like every day. Telling families when they can pull the plug *does* come under their rule if the decision violates greater rules of decency and respect for life.

4. Making comparisons of conservatives to someone you don’t like has to be one of the worst forms of disrespect and intolerance I’ve ever seen. It’s a low blow and the last resort of someone who doesn’t respect differing points of view despite assertions to the contrary. I’m always blown away by folks whose premise is: “If you don’t agree with my point of view, you’re an intolerant louse the likes of “. So, if I disgree with you on some point and in fact agree with someone you don’t like, I’m an intolerant idiot. However, if you disagree with me you’re simply being the rational, reasonable humanist you claim to be. Interesting.

I know that I make generalizations all the time. Often it’s wrong. This one by Dave Winer is just way beyond reasonable.