Monthly Archives: July 2008

WTF?! Wednesday: Dedoublement

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I realize that not everyone is capable of dedoublement*, and I don’t know if it can be taught.  What I do know is that there would be an significant decrease in drama, wasted time, pain, and anger if it could.  I would wager that only roughly 45% of the people I know are capable of detaching themselves from situations to look at things from a cold, factual, objective point of view.  Those people tend to achieve whatever goals they set for themselves.  Sometimes they’re also considered cut-throat or heartless, but it’s not necessarily a requirement. 

I have watched family, friends, and even public figures nearly, if not completely, destroy themselves (careers, relationships, friendships, you name it) because they refuse to even attempt to remove their own emotions from the equation and look at facts.  I don’t just mean personal feelings, as in how you feel, but how society plays into your understanding of circumstances as well.  If people were more honest about facts, behaviors, and their contributions, people’s lives would be a hell of a lot more different.

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As If Traveling Weren’t Bad Enough Already

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The Department of Homeland Security is looking into requiring all airline passengers to wear a special bracelet that would allow the crew of a plane to cause an “electro-muscular disruption” (EMD) to immobilize disorderly passengers.

What about people with pacemakers? What about the small percentage of people with undiscovered conditions who may be killed by such a device? And who decides the sufficient level of disorderliness to justify the use of EMD? What about particularly paranoid airline crews? What happens if somebody is immobilized and mass hysteria breaks out among the paranoid passengers, who then beat the living daylights out of the immobilized person, causing severe injuries or even death? And if you’re worried about terrorists on airplanes, does this just invite them to figure out a way to immobilize people easily to avoid another one of those “Let’s roll” incidents?

As the legal threshold for government detainment and infliction of force against citizens seems to be falling, things like this do not bode well for freedom.

The New Evangelization Contrasted

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“I think the greatest sin in the world is bringing children into the world–that have disease from their parents, that have no chance in the world to be a human being practically. Delinquents, prisoners, all sorts of things just marked when they’re born. That to me is the greatest sin — that people can — can commit…” Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, during an interview with Mike Wallace.

“Given my background, the Catholic idea that we are always to treat the sexual act with awe and respect, so much so that we should simply abstain if we are opposed to its life-giving potential, was a revolutionary message. Being able to consider honestly when life begins, to open my heart and mind to the wonder and dignity of even the tiniest of my fellow human beings, was not fully possible for me until I understood the nature of the act that creates these little lives in the first place.” Jennifer Fulwiler, she converted to Catholicism from atheism in 2007

While reading the First Things blog, I was struck by the contrast between the two above quotes. May Catholics, Protestants, other religious, and Atheists be converted by the new Evangelization to a culture of Life. John Paul the Great pray for us.

The abortion debate will go nowhere until we all revisit the consequences of using the contraception poison that M. Sanger pushed in her eugenic agenda.

This black genocide continues with Obama.

Buncha Whiners

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So Phil Gramm, who supports John McCain in November, says, “We have sort of become a nation of whiners.”

A good response from John McCain would have been something like, “Damn straight! And it’s time to wean the American people from their dependence on the government, restore their civil liberties, get them back in the driver’s seat, and foster individual responsibility, independence, and innovation!”

Instead, McCain’s campaign just illustrated Gramm’s point with a whiny response:

John McCain travels the country every day talking to Americans who are hurting, feeling pain at the pump and worrying about how they’ll pay their mortgage. That’s why he has a realistic plan to deliver immediate relief at the gas pump, grow our economy, and put Americans back to work.

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State Religion

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A blogger syndicated here, Peter Wall, is upset that an atheist soldier has been the recipient of harassment by Christians in the military. While I agree that such behavior poorly represents Christ to the world and is inexcusable, I’m more frightened and annoyed by this quote from Michael Weinstein, a retired senior Air Force officer and founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation:

“Our Pentagon, our Pentacostalgon, is refusing to realize that when you put the uniform on, there’s only one religious faith: patriotism.”

The State giveth and the State taketh away. Blessed be the State!

*shudder*