Evangelical Religion’s War on Common Sense

by Nomad

Hostility and Antipathy

During their failed runs for the Republican nomination in this year’s presidential election, GOP candidates such as Gingrich and Santorum, made the shocking claim that Obama was waging a war on religion. That sort of nonsense might play well to the average Fox News watchers who seem to be fully prepared to swallow any anti-Obama rhetoric, no matter how preposterous.

Naturally this meme was picked up by conservative religious leaders, eager to make a name for their crusade against the evils of secularism and the horrors of the separation of Church and State.

As Mother Jones reports:

Gary Marx, the executive director of Ralph Reed's Faith and Freedom Coalition, sent out a fundraising letter this month urging people to sign a petition fighting Obama's "war on religion," writing: "The Obama Administration's actions are evidence of a pattern of hostility towards religious institutions and an antipathy to uphold and protect the nation's most fundamental founding principles."

Despite showing precious little in the way of evidence of Obama's hostility, apart from not taking orders from the Church, people like Marx are allowed to promote this claim without anybody challenging them. 

Mitt Romney and the NRA: The Conning of the GOP Voters

by Nomad

Damn the historical record! To hell with what I said in my past. I'll say anything! I'll do anything! I am severely conservative, Darn it.

That seems to be the line that Mitt Romney thinks will carry him to the White House. And it's entertaining for your average progressive liberal to watch Romney attempt to con his own party into believing he has somehow actually changed- reversed every one of his positions.

The latest scrubbing redacting and erasing involves the National Rifle Association (NRA). Speaking National Rifle Association's annual convention in St. Louis with an estimated 70,000 people in attendance, Romney last weekend made every attempt to win the hearts and minds of gun owners.

America's Dystopian Future? You Have Been Warned.

Artwork by Masakatsu Sashie

by Nomad

It's getting increasingly more difficult to decide what is science fiction and what is the real world. I stumbled across a couple of stories that might give us an unpleasant foreshadowing of things to come if things keep going the way they are now. One note of caution, however: this kind of speculation is not for the paranoid.

Discover Magazine has a story ( Seeing Crime Before It Happens ) that could have been snatched from the Philip K. Dick novel, "Minority Report.

Ladies, Listen Carefully: A Free Poster

I based this poster design on some of the old war posters.  I thought that don't-mess-with-this-gal look fit the bill quite nicely. "Bent on revenge" is how I would describe that expression on her face. This poster is free for anybody who wants to download it. 

There are only 203 days left until the next election. Some people are counting on the public (and especially women) to be forgetful or distracted by the time November rolls around. It's possible but I hope not. 

The Quote Game: Who on Earth Said That?

Like a game of "Pin the tail on the Donkey," the Quote Game pins the quote on the person. 

Time for a little game. An afternoon diversion. I have collected these quotes by the famous and the infamous and I realized that without more information, it's becoming harder and harder to know the difference.
Take your best shot. The answers are given at the end.

1. Today Christians ... stand at the head of [this country]... I pledge that I never will tie myself to parties who want to destroy Christianity .. We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit ... We want to burn out all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the theater, and in the press - in short, we want to burn out the *poison of immorality* which has entered into our whole life and culture as a result of *liberal excess* during the past ... (few) years.

a. Newt Gingrich
b. Sarah Palin
c. Rick Santorum
d. Adolph Hitler
e. Jerry Falwell

In the Absence of Justice

(Source)

St. Augustine tells us that "In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery?" 

As the these articles illustrate, when there are two standards of justice, then there is none at all. You cannot allow the major offenders to loot and steal with impunity while the needy are punished simply for attempting to secure their daily bread. 

And a nation with no justice is an illegitimate state. The expectation of fairness, of being given a fair hearing in a court of law is the lowest standard for a civilized society. 
As Professor of Politics at the University of Oxford Alan Ryan writes: 

Justice is the most "political" or institutional of the virtues. The legitimacy of a state rests upon its claim to do justice.  

Nomadic Roundup: Three Attempts to Silence Dissent

by Nomad

Three stories caught the endlessly roving blue eye of Nomad. The theme to this round-up is the attempts by the power-holders to silence dissent. From the silly and clumsy, to the heavy-handed and counter-productive and finally to the technical and sophisticated. 

Let's start in Arizona:

Caperton, writing for the blog Feministe, throws a spotlight on the recently drafted Arizona bill essentially outlawing the Internet. This has to be the most embarrassingly ignorant thing that politicians have come up with ..er, this week regarding the Internet.