Tuesday, November 26, 2019

"Born That Way" Allow ALL Sexual Attractions

KPTV Channel 12 in Portland, Oregon reported man sexually assaults calf at dairy farm. My comments below were originally posted to Facebook on 11/26/2018:

If we are "born that way" and therefore our sexual desires are immutable then one can be born with a sexual desire toward the opposite sex, same sex, animals, children, inanimate objects and so on.
The moment one says any particular sexual desire is wrong they have made the "born that way" argument mute; that is, whatever the sexual desire one may be born with, it is viewed through the prism of a moral standard.
We are human beings with physical bodies made for sexual relationship with the opposite sex. As human beings we also have a will and thus autonomy to determine our actions and thus must consent.
- Opposite-sex sexual relationships can fulfill both these standards.
- Same-sex sexual relationships can only, by definition, fulfill the consent clause. But human bodies are not made to engage in a same-sex sexual act. Since it fulfills the consent clause it shouldn't be made illegal as it once was but neither should moral condemnation against it be illegal.
- Sexual relationships with children, even an opposite-sex child who willingly participates, has violated the consent clause because we recognize the child until some age cannot fully understand the dynamics of sexuality.
- Sexual relationships with animals (or inanimate objects) violate consent also because animals do not have the autonomy to give consent. But it also violates the first principle: an animal is not a human and our bodies are not made for sex with animals. Thus, a "disturbing" story about "inappropriate contact with a calf".
If we our "born that way" and thus cannot bring moral judgement then ALL sexual attractions are allowed.
The "Wokes" of our society hide this TRUTH under the mantra of equality. But it is only "equality" for their anointed sexual desire.
And to display intellectual honesty would reveal that the "Wokes" were lying to us all along.

Saturday, September 29, 2018

Believing the Alleged Sexual Assault Victim Unconditionally

This notion that a woman's accusation of rape must be believed because of the trauma and difficulty of coming forward and that therefore they couldn't be wrong is deeply unjust.
Tell me what government agency the Duke Lacrosse Team can go to have their names and lives restored! Their trauma reversed. [1]
A woman who reports a sexual assault should be respected and have the evidence gathered. But that evidence must be objectively evaluated to see if it meets the burden of proof. To say we must believe whatever the woman says even in the face of unsubstantiated allegations is to say justice does not matter.  It's not enough to say I believe her or I believe him.  Your belief must be grounded in and supported by the evidence. Anything less is evil. =======
[1] Mary Katherine Ham, "Fantastic Lies: 10 Appalling Moments from the Duke Lacrosse Case", The Federalist; March 16, 2016; Last accessed 9/28/2018. 

Friday, September 28, 2018

The Not So Fine Stain of Senator Feinstein

Reluctant admission is a concept of logic where in the process of denying one fact in an area, one reluctantly admits to important facts that eventually undermine his support of that area.

For example, take a suspect who denies committing a murder yet his DNA is found at the crime scene. To explain the DNA, the suspect claims that the victim asked him to help move some furniture that day but still insists he didn't commit the murder.  As J. Warner Wallace writes in Cold-Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates The Claims of the Gospels,

"The suspect now admitted to the fact that he had been in the room where the murder occurred and on the vary day when the victim was killed.  While he still denied the fact that he committed the crime, he reluctantly admitted important facts that would eventually be assembled with other pieces of circumstantial evidence to form the case against him."[1]

Since the sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh first broke, the Left has demanded an FBI investigation.  But the Left isn't interested in an investigation.  They don't care about Dr. Ford.  They want Kavanaugh's confirmation delayed or scuttled. And Diane Feinstein reluctantly admitted it.

  1. Senator Diane Feinstein received an allegation of sexual assault. 
  2. She didn't turn over the information to the FBI which could have investigated it and kept Ford's identity confidential; confidentiality which Feinstein says she was trying to honor.
  3. Nor did Feinstein turn the information of an alleged crime over to the authorities who had actual jurisdiction to investigate.
  4. She kept it hidden from the Senate Judiciary Committee for at least 6 weeks.
  5. She kept it hidden during the entire confirmation process; a process designed to vet that very kind of information.
  6. In her public comments during the hearing, she said nothing of the allegation.
  7. During her private interviews with Kavanaugh, she said nothing of the allegation.
  8. During the September 27th hearing, Feinstein claimed that her staff didn't leak the allegation and Ford's name; that it must have been Ford and her friends:
"Let me be clear: I did not hide Dr. Ford's allegations. I did not leak her story. She asked me to hold it confidential and I kept it confidential as she asked."

That last point is Feinstein's reluctant admission.  If Feinstein truly didn't leak the allegation then she intended to keep it confidential. In other words, according to Feinstein herself, she wasn't going to call for an investigation.

Yet, Feinstein prodded Kavanaugh during the hearing that if he was innocent, why isn't he calling for an FBI investigation.

My question to Feinstein is if the allegation against Kavanaugh was so meritorious, why didn't you turn it over to the authorities? Instead you hid it!

That is, of course, if you really didn't leak the allegation.  If you did leak it then that is even more damning that you used Dr. Ford as a tool for your political agenda.

Either way, Feinstein's and the Democrats calls for an FBI investigation had nothing to do with Truth, with Dr. Ford, or in defending an alleged abuse victim.  

The priority was political expediency.

Anyone who does not condemn Feinstein is condoning the use of Dr. Ford as a tool.

Feinstein and the Democrats are engaged in a vile, despicable act.  

They have left a not-so-Fine Stain on America's soul.

======
[1] J. Warner Wallace, Cold-Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates The Claims of the Gospels, (Colorado Springs, CO: David C. Cook, 2013), p. 195.
[2] Grace Panetta, Sen. Diane Feinstein denies withholding Christine Blasey Ford's allegations against Brett Kavanaugh for political reasons, Business Insider, Sept 28, 2018.

Sunday, August 26, 2018

Media's Use of Euphemisms Creates Fake News


Last week, I countered two editorials in the Camas Post-Record corresponding to the coordinated journalistic response across the nation to President Trump’s charges of fake news.
As I noted, an illegal alien, wanted for murder in Mexico, was arrested as he drove his wife to the hospital to deliver their baby.  My post addresses the specific examples of this misreporting by the media.[1]  In addition, I highlighted another method in which the media engages in fake news – the use of euphemisms:
How many times does the media employ euphemisms? An ‘undocumented immigrant’ doesn’t sound as bad as ‘illegal alien’.”[2]
On August 22, the following report appeared on Good Morning America’s website:[3] 
Why is the phrase “Undocumented immigrant” inappropriate?  Because the phrase manipulates language to sanitize and misrepresent reality.  Let’s analyze the two phrases.

The term “alien” simply means foreign, i.e. from another place.[4]  The term tells us nothing except the person is from another country.  The adjective “illegal” describes an act that circumvents an enacted law. [5]   So, an “illegal alien” is someone from another country who is in this country without proper legal authorization.

An “immigrant” is someone or something that comes from elsewhere to take up permanent residence in a new place.[6]  The adjective “undocumented” describes something or someone that doesn’t have the supporting evidence to support their claim.[7]  So, an “undocumented immigrant” is someone from another country that doesn’t have the paperwork to affirm their presence within the United States.
See, the “undocumented immigrant” isn’t a bad person.  He’s no different from all the immigrants that make up this country’s population.  After all we are a nation of Immigrants.  He just doesn’t have some paperwork. That’s all.
But why doesn’t he have his paperwork?  Because he circumvented the very legal process that would provide him with the proper documentation!  Thus, the euphemism “undocumented immigrant” sanitizes the truth.
As I stated in my previous post:
The media are professional journalists.  They make their living in the use of language. And they know when they manipulate that language.[8]
If there was no difference between “undocumented immigrant” and “illegal alien”, then the media would have continued using the latter.  The fact that they changed shows the media understands very well that there is a significant difference.
Every media outlet that uses the term “undocumented immigrant” is not reporting, at least on this subject, in a manner that corresponds to the Truth.  They have manipulated language to further an agenda.



[1] Larry Rambousek, “US Newspapers Coordinate Response to Trump's Charge of Fake News and Provide Evidence of Fake News”, https://ncontx.blogspot.com/2018/08/us-newspapers-coordinate-response-to.html
[2] Ibid.
[3] Good Morning America, ABC, “Undocumented migrant charged with murder of missing Iowa woman”,https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/news/video/undocumented-immigrant-charged-murder-missing-iowa-woman-57328557.
[8] Rambousek, ibid.

Tuesday, August 21, 2018

US Newspapers Coordinate Response to Trump's Charge of Fake News and Provide Evidence of Fake News


Recently newspapers around the country joined together criticizing President Trump’s “relentless ‘fake news’ attacks on our constitutionally protected free press”.[1]

The Post-Record joined their “brothers and sisters in journalism”[2] with an editorial [3] by Post-Record managing editor, Kelly Moyer and a guest column [4] by Fred Obee, the Executive Director of the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association (WNPA).

These columns actually provide examples of “fake news”.

Obee leads off with six reports from papers around the state including: "a grieving orca … carrying her dead calf", an attempt to “exempt [state] lawmakers from portions of the Public Records Act”, and how to support a Port Townsend firefighter “following his heart surgery.”[5]

Obee then asks “Is this fake news?”  But Obee’s examples are not the type of news stories in which Trump criticizes as fake news.

Similarly, Moyer’s defense references stories with emotional content: a stepmother who learns her son died on 9/11, a USS Indianapolis survivor who watched shipmates be “picked off by sharks”, and Paralympic athletes.

She claims “these stories happened”.  But the real question is did the story happen in the way it was reported?  For example,

On August 18, an illegal alien wanted for murder in Mexico was arrested driving his wife to the hospital to deliver their baby.  Media outlet headlines proclaimed:

·         “ICE arrested a man driving his pregnant wife to give birth. She drove herself to the hospital” (Washington Post)[6]

·         "ICE detains man driving pregnant wife to hospital to deliver baby" (CBS News)[7]

·         "Ice Agents, Part Of Trump Crackdown, Detain Husband Driving Pregnant Wife To Deliver Baby” (Newsweek)[8]

Neither did the actual reports mention the man was wanted for murder.  That absence of these facts mislead on what actually happened?  That false narrative then fuels outrage for those already protesting the Trump administration’s separating children from their families at the border and calls to abolish ICE. 

To their credit, NBC News did report the man was wanted on an outstanding murder warrant in both the headline and in the report: “ICE arrests murder suspect as he takes pregnant wife to the hospital”.[9] Few followed suit.

In addition, how often does the media employ euphemisms? An “undocumented immigrant” doesn’t sound as bad as “illegal alien”.  Opposition to illegal immigration is labeled as hostility to immigration implying disapproval of the legal form also.  This manipulates language creating a reality that doesn’t exist. The media are professional journalists.  They make their living in the use of language. And they know when they manipulate that language.

The same day the editorials appeared, the Post-Record printed a News Brief about a Resolution co-sponsored by Sen. Patty Murray condemning the White House’s attempts to restrict media access and affirming the importance of a free and unfettered press”[10] because the White House banned “CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins from a press event after she questioned President Trump on his relationship with his former attorney Michael Cohen.”

The brief ignores the fact that Collins shouted six questions AFTER the Oval Office event ended.  When asked to leave she refused.  She was barred from only one event, an event at which other CNN reporters were invited.  

Does barring one reporter from one event “violate the spirit of the First Amendment” as claimed in the Resolution?  The reader isn’t given the facts that lead to that question.

Did the media coordinate a defense against the Obama Administration for seizing the private emails of Fox News reporter James Rosen or wiretapping the Associated Press thereby treating the media as an actual “enemy of the people”?  Or is coordination only warranted when a President utters that phrase?

Moyer provides another example: “When they hear scientists saying climate change is destroying us and we must make changes right now if our children are to have a future on this planet, they don’t believe it.”[11]

Except that a vigorous scientific debate does exist on the impact of climate change. Two, the climate is extremely complex with many variables. Any computer model is only as good as its underlying algorithms and the data being processed.  We cannot correctly predict a 10-day forecast let alone accurately forecast 5, 10, 70 years out.  Third, “climate change” is a euphemism that hides the real issue: Is man’s use of fossil fuels causing global warming?

Yet, Moyer uses emotionally-charged language: 
  • “climate change is destroying us”, 
  • need to “make changes right now” for our children “to have a future on this planet”. 
  • “The dangers of not believing factual information is going to bring us all down”.  

Can Moyer be trusted to accurately report opposing factual information that she believes will destroy us? 

Several years ago, the LA Times said they wouldn’t publish claims of climate skeptics.  Clearly the LA Times doesn’t share Obee’s view that “Our free press supports the rights of people expressing every imaginable political viewpoint”?

A “constitutionally protected free press” has no constitutional protection from criticism when they abuse the power of the pen.

Misleading headlines, euphemisms, factual omissions, equivocation are routinely employed by and undermine today's media.

The national media bears the brunt of the fake news blame. But their culpability is also “settling even on small newspapers”.  A free people needs a free and honest press.  To truly serve “as watchdogs to protect the public interest”, the media needs to police themselves and eradicate misleading information. This will also “protect the public interest” and, as Moyer writes, “create a richer, more sustainable community.”



[1] Kelly Moyer, “Will you believe the propaganda or fight ‘fake news’ attacks?”, Camas-Washougal Post-Record, August 16, 2018. https://www.camaspostrecord.com/news/2018/aug/16/will-you-believe-the-propaganda-or-fight-fake-news-attacks/
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Fred Obee, “No excuse for fake news rhetoric”, Camas-Washougal Post-Record, August 16, 2018. https://www.camaspostrecord.com/news/2018/aug/16/no-excuse-for-fake-news-rhetoric/
[5] Ibid.
[10] “Sen. Murray condemns Trump’s escalating attacks on the media”, News Brief, Camas Post-Record, p. A5
[11] Moyer ibid.

Thursday, August 17, 2017

The Washington Post's False Claim Of The Charlottesville Counter-protesters' Permit

The August 17 Washington Post headline broadcasts: President Trump's false claim that counter-demonstrators lacked a permit

The first observation is that the headline and article specify either counter-demonstrators or counter-protestors.  Not once does the reporter mention that these counter-protesters consisted of the group, AntiFa, whose Marxist/Anarchist members have used threats and violence across the country to intimidate and disrupt those with whom they disagree.  For a better understanding of AntiFa, see here and here.

This omission leaves the impression that the counter-protesters were innocent people simply standing against the evil of white supremacy.  The truth is that one hate group (AntiFa) opposed another hate group (Nazis).

This brings us to the question of the validity of Trump's claim that AntiFa did not have a permit.  The Post's analysis concludes:
"President Trump twice claimed that counterprotesters lacked a permit to demonstrate in Charlottesville. But they did have permits for rallies — and they did not need one to go into or gather near Emancipation Park, where white nationalists planned their rally. The president earns Four Pinocchios."
The article produces the permit obtained by AntiFa to refute the President's claim that they "came charging in without a permit":
"Walt Heinecke, a professor at the University of Virginia, told [Washington Post colleague Justin] Moyer that he received a 'special events certificate of approval' for events at McGuffey Park and Justice Park — sites blocks from Emancipation Park, where white nationalists had a permit for a Saturday rally. . . 
Charlottesville spokeswoman Miriam I. Dickler told Moyer that only one permit was issued for Emancipation Park — the one received by white nationalists staging the 'Unite the Right' rally. However, counter-protesters did not need permits to protest that rally, she said. 
'Please bear in mind that people do not need a permit to enter a public park, even when another event is scheduled to take place there, nor are they required to have one to be on streets or sidewalks adjacent to or outside the park,' Dickler said in an email." (emphasis mine)
From this we know that:
  1. The Nazis had the only permit for Emancipation Park.
  2. AntiFa did have permits for McGuffey and Justice Parks. 
  3. McGuffey and Justice Parks are each blocks away from Emancipation Park.
  4. The city spokeswoman says a permit is not needed to enter a public park.
This last point raises a question: If a permit is not needed to enter a public park then why did the city issue permits to both the Nazis and AntiFa?

The answer is because both groups were not just entering public parks but engaging in a rally, protest, or demonstration. And for these types of special events, the city requires a permit (see City code Sec 28-29) for, among other reasons, "the preservation of public order and safety".

In fact, that same Standard Operating Procedure defines:
3.1.3 "Demonstration" shall  refer to non-commercial expression protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution (such as picketing, political marches, speechmaking, vigils, walks, etc.) conducted on public property, the conduct of which has the effect, intent or propensity to draw a crowd or onlookers.  This term does not include casual activity by persons which does not have an intent or propensity to attract a crowd or onlookers . . ." (emphasis mine)
That is, the only way AntiFa did not need a permit to enter Emancipation Park was if they were engaged in "casual activity" and did not have "intent or propensity to attract a crowd or onlookers".  Neither case was true for AntiFa or the Nazis, which is why the city issued each group permits in the first place. 

In fact, Dickler even referred to AntiFa as "counter-protesters" thereby showing they did not fall under the "casual activity" interpretation. Dickler equivocated on who required a permit.

So both groups required permits which the city issued; one to the Nazis for Emancipation Park and one to AntiFa for McGuffey and Justice Parks.  AnftFa did not have a permit for Emancipation Park which they entered and where violence ensued.

Compare this with the Post's report of Trump's statement:
You had a group on the other side that came charging in without a permit, and they were very, very violent. . . . You had a lot of people in that [white nationalist] group that were there to innocently protest and very legally protest, because you know — I don’t know if you know — they had a permit. The other group didn’t have a permit.” (emphasis mine)
AntiFa did not have a permit for Emancipation Park which they entered for the purpose of counter-protesting.  That is, they had a permit just not for the park in which they gathered!

Nit-picking that the permits for other parks satisfied the requirement or that they didn't even need a permit paints a false narrative.

The President may deserve Pinocchios for saying things like that the neo-Nazis "were there to innocently protest" or there are "good people on both sides".  The Post gets it wrong. And while they rightfully hold up the evil of the Nazis for condemnation, their manipulative analysis white washes the evils of AntiFa.

The Post earns Four Pinocchios.

Wednesday, August 16, 2017

AntiFa is the Antithesis of the Greatest Generation

This meme seems very popular right now in the aftermath of the Charlottesville violence and President Trump's Monday press conference.



The posters' rightly stand against the great evil of white supremacy and Nazism.  But in using this meme they have, whether by ignorance or malice, compared those who stood for freedom with a group, AntiFa, that uses fascist tactics to intimidate and crush those with whom they disagree under the guise that they are against fascism.

AntiFa is grounded in Marxism and anarchy and they use threats and violence as their tools to squash dissent.  They represent a great evil that killed and enslaved millions under communist regimes.  It is a great evil to white-wash this group.

It's possible for two things to be true at the same time: White Supremacy/neo-Nazism and Marxism/Anarchists are both evil.  Don't chest-thump against one evil while ignoring the other.

And don't dishonor the memories of those who sacrificed their lives and their bodies to save the world directly and indirectly from both evils.


Updated on 8/17/2017 with the following:
For more information on AntiFa, see these articles: