STRAIGHT OUTTA’ DENVER

As the title would suggest, this is mainly written to P. muse so as to bring comfort and understanding but also to clarify to the best of my ability what really is going on with Israel today. As soon as I read an e-mail sent out by P. muse that was nearly the same as his latest post I urged him to lay it all out here so that we as a community can see and understand what it is he’s been going through. As Paul tells in his first letter to the Corinthians “If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it, and if one part is honored, all the parts are glad.” (12:26) I see that your suffering here P. muse so I urged you to place it up here so that we could all bring comfort and prayers in his time of need. So please do bring prayers on behalf of P muse and also for peace in Israel. This is certainly proving to be trying times in that region and it has had me rethinking a lot of my believes towards Israel but I know that the Palestinians hold a special place in your heart as they should. But we all need to remember that we all need each other here and when a bother is suffering we need to lift him up. You all have done the some for me and now it’s my turn to lift up a brother in Christ. So I’m sure you’ll all be interested and I’m sure that Bear will get a kick out of it but here’s my letter to P. Muse:

My brother: your exactly right! Looking at the situation as it exists today, this is completely unacceptable! What did we immediately say when Russia started blowing the crap out of little Georgia (the country Georgia not the state south of Carolina)? We started condemning them immediately! Well I did, Invot still has his arguments but they don’t matter for the purpose of this letter :P. But just as you spelled out in your latest post, it looks like the oppressed have become the oppressors! Just looking at what they have been doing over the past few years, like building walls to hold in the Palestinians and such things, just are the sort of things that we’ll find unacceptable in these days from a devolved nation. Going through and shooting down aid ships trying to help the starving and hurting people in Gaza is something that we never do! Why would we allow Israel to do it? It’s starting to be a really strange set of circumstances where we are starting to support a state that just throws all caution to the wind and start to blow things away just because their angry. Now you’ll get the argument “well if we had rockets shot off over our border wouldn’t we get angry?” Well, of course we would! We’d go kick some butt! But unlike what Israel is doing, we also have the tendency to rebuild that country we destroy and leave it in a place of peace and prosperity so that we won’t have to deal with any more attacks from that country. We’ve rebuilt Germany and Japan, and depending on Obama, we’ll also be leaving Iraq and Afghanistan in places of peace and prosperity or at least that’s what we were trying to do. But on the other hand you have Israel, who’s walling up the people they don’t like rather than actually making peace for them, and they’re treating them like dogs! Can we really that it’s all right for the Israelis to go ahead and keep fighting this war of attrition and completely starve out the Palestinians from the land that they have lived in for generations? What would that be saying of us? Just because your granpa went though the Holocaust does not mean that you have a right to go shooting someone who had nothing to do with it. Didn’t Jeremiah say of his own people:

Jeremiah 3:19-20
“I thought to myself,
‘I would love to treat you as my own children!’
I wanted nothing more than to give you this beautiful land—
the finest possession in the world.
I looked forward to your calling me ‘Father,’
and I wanted you never to turn from me.
But you have been unfaithful to me, you people of Israel!
You have been like a faithless wife who leaves her husband.
I, the Lord, have spoken.”

So what really has changed with the Jews? They’re still acting this way! They’re still doing the same evil acts that they were back in the day of Jeremiah! Didn’t Isaiah tell us:

Isaiah 5:8
What sorrow for you who buy up house after house and field after field,
until everyone is evicted and you live alone in the land.

Humm, What are the Israelis doing today? Evicting the Palestinians so that no one else lives there! Yea, their still doing the same things that they always have been doing for thousands of years. And all their doing is just invoking more and more wraith upon themselves! What they are doing is for one, wrong and two, not working! So are we really to be supporting this? NO!

I remember going to Israel awareness day back in 2005 or so, down at that maga-church, and going to listen to Denis Pager speak about Israel, and it was a good speech. There where alternating Israeli and American flags hung up on the ceiling, and he just started out by taking about how these two flags belonged together. It was just an amazing sight to see, one of the men I looked up to as a mentor in my growing up and learning how to think rationally in this world, it just felt like the place for me to be! And I still do look up to and admire Pager a lot! He has certainly helped bring me out of a dark and dismal period of my life by his theories that he came up with on happiness. Something that I have tested and proven to be true in my own life, but now I have to part company with this line of thinking. Not out of anger at him or others that hold his positions, and I still very much look up to thous that still do hold these positions. But to sanction the mass killings without some sort of cause and vision to at least build up a society that is open and truly free, is just something that I can no longer do. I can’t say that it’s alright for the Israelis to go ahead and just imprison a large group of people without some sort of means to rebuild and make a new life for themselves. They’re not trying to make these people part of a greater society that holds equality as a value, but they are enslaving a group of people in certain towns. I can’t agree with that!

Now having said all that, your call “that the rouge state of Israel be brought to justice and swiftly dissolved for being the racist” is just not possible at this time nor do I support that idea ether. We also have to remember that there is an evil side to the Palestinian cause as well and to dissolve the state of Israel would just be switching roles. At this time there is no possible way for us to dissolve the state of Israel without massive blood shed of Israelis and displacement from their homes because there is a group of people in the Palestinian camp who also wish to kill off all of the Jew as well. And you can’t deny this fact as well. They are locked in mutual hatred of each other and they will continue to fight this war, unfortunately I think, until God decides to intercede here. We have two sides of different faiths fighting out a holy war here and our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ are getting cut up in the middle. And just like you, I am very heart broken over these turn of events, as we should. We should not accept this situation as it is and there is plenty of blame to go around. But while there is a burning of hatred going on around this whole region, I beg you to please, don’t let your heart to get too hard. You were a big part of helping me to find my way and calling, please let me be that brother to you as well. I still think that this rouge state will have a part to play in the grand story that is being written. Paul tell us in Romans:

Romans 11:19-21
“Well,” you may say, “those branches were broken off to make room for me.” Yes, but remember—those branches were broken off because they didn’t believe in Christ, and you are there because you do believe. So don’t think highly of yourself, but fear what could happen. For if God did not spare the original branches, he won’t spare you either.

So while the Jews are broken and lost branches, we were also broken and lost branches. And God very much wants them to be grafted back into His tree of life as well as the rest of us. So don’t let your experiences start to also make you hard as well. That’s something that we all have to deal with and by the grace of God, He gave me such an amazing friend as you to help me along through my darkest periods in my life. Keep on loving the Lord your God with all your mind, your heart and your strength and He will bless you for it. He will bring you though your most difficult times so keep Him close and never let go. It might just be that the Palestinian Christians are just the first who are going to go through a suffering that we will all have to endure. So really the only bit of advice that I can give to them is:

Romans 13:1-3
Everyone must submit to governing authorities. For all authority comes from God, and those in positions of authority have been placed there by God. So anyone who rebels against authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and they will be punished. For the authorities do not strike fear in people who are doing right, but in those who are doing wrong. Would you like to live without fear of the authorities? Do what is right, and they will honor you.

I know that’s easy for me to say when I’m not the one getting my home taken away and getting shot at, but if we support each other, I believe that we will also keep true to our principals when it’s our time of persecution. I’ll tell you to remember the words that God told me Himself when I started moving into my recent dark period: “Don’t worry my son, I AM still in control.” I know that it just doesn’t look possible right now but what Isaiah said will come to pass:

Isaiah 2:4
The Lord will mediate between nations
and will settle international disputes.
They will hammer their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will no longer fight against nation,
nor train for war anymore.

That day is still coming and we are still looking and working towards that day, and when it comes there will be much rejoicing for we will be vindicated by our faith in Jesus.

I love you
Your Brother and Fellow bondsmen in Christ
Bryan Federowicz

2 comments.

Things are blowing up in Israel, Again!

Posted on December 30th, 2008 by Darth B'strad.
Categories: Political, Ethics, War, Terrorism, Islam, Judaism, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Religon, Palestine.

It’s actually quite strange that the American media had to take several days to analyze the situation but they eventually did. P. muse has been on top of the bombings Israel just committed and sent this article around form electronicintifada.net:

“I will play music and celebrate what the Israeli air force is doing.” Those were the words, spoken on Al Jazeera today by Ofer Shmerling, an Israeli civil defense official in the Sderot area adjacent to Gaza, as images of Israel’s latest massacres were broadcast around the world.

Hey Israel! When Al Jazeera is praising you, that’s not a good thing!

A short time earlier, US-supplied Israeli F-16 warplanes and Apache helicopters dropped over 100 bombs on dozens of locations in the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip killing at least 195 persons and injuring hundreds more. Many of these locations were police stations located, like police stations the world over, in the middle of civilian areas. The US government was one of the first to offer its support for Israel’s attacks, and others will follow.

Reports said that many of the dead were Palestinian police officers. Among those Israel labels “terrorists” were more than a dozen traffic police officers undergoing training. An as yet unknown number of civilians were killed and injured; Al Jazeera showed images of several dead children, and the Israeli attacks came at the time thousands of Palestinian children were in the streets on their way home from school.

Shmerling’s joy has been echoed by Israelis and their supporters around the world; their violence is righteous violence. It is “self-defense” against “terrorists” and therefore justified. Israeli bombing — like American and NATO bombing in Iraq and Afghanistan — is bombing for freedom, peace and democracy.

The rationalization for Israel’s massacres, already being faithfully transmitted by the English-language media, is that Israel is acting in “retaliation” for Palestinian rockets fired with increasing intensity ever since the six-month truce expired on 19 December (until today, no Israeli had been killed or injured by these recent rocket attacks).

But today’s horrific attacks mark only a change in Israel’s method of killing Palestinians recently. In recent months they died mostly silent deaths, the elderly and sick especially, deprived of food and necessary medicine by the two year-old Israeli blockade calculated and intended to cause suffering and deprivation to 1.5 million Palestinians, the vast majority refugees and children, caged into the Gaza Strip. In Gaza, Palestinians died silently, for want of basic medications: insulin, cancer treatment, products for dialysis prohibited from reaching them by Israel.

What the media never question is Israel’s idea of a truce. It is very simple. Under an Israeli-style truce, Palestinians have the right to remain silent while Israel starves them, kills them and continues to violently colonize their land. Israel has not only banned food and medicine to sustain Palestinian bodies in Gaza but it is also intent on starving minds: due to the blockade, there is not even ink, paper and glue to print textbooks for schoolchildren.

That article continues on painting an even grimmer picture of Israel’s bombing, and assuming that it’s true, then Israel is guilty of some serous war crimes here. Being a former conservative, I would have most certainly rationalized Israel’s attack as a necessary loss to get as the enemies that they face. And there is still some truth to that statement but with how much that Israel keeps everyone in the dark about what they’re trying to do, you really can’t know all of the truth of the situation. But it does seem that Israel tried to explain themselves here but were cut off. This from commentarymagazine.com:

Yesterday, the IDF did something innovative: it opened a channel on YouTube and posted videos to it that help explain why Israel is fighting Hamas. The site hosted about a dozen videos showing things like Israeli humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza and airstrikes that prevented terrorists from firing rockets at Israeli civilians.

This was apparently too much for YouTube, which moments ago removed several videos from the IDF’s channel, including the most-watched video, which showed a group of Hamas goons being blown up in an air strike as they loaded Katyusha missiles onto a truck. The point of such footage, as if it needed to be said, is not to revel in violence — it is to show the legitimacy of Israeli self-defense.

The rank double-standard that YouTube has applied to Israel is disturbing. YouTube hosts all manner of similar footage — much of it far more gory than the grainy infrared images posted by the IDF — of U.S. air strikes. Why is YouTube capitulating to those who do not wish for Israel to be able to tell its side of the story?

So this does get even more complicated just due to the fact that there are interests in hiding the truth in our media. There are many interest groups in portraying Israel in the worst light possible or in the best light possible. So it’s hard to really know what is accurate here but ironically enough here the New Republic actually does have the best analysis:

It was Israel at its best. In response to random attacks aimed at its civilians, Israel launched precise attacks aimed at terrorists. In place of political schism, Israel suspended election campaigning, and initiated coooperation between government and opposition. Instead of illusions about an imminent peace agreement with Bashar Assad or about half a negotiated peace agreement with half of the Palestinian leadership, we exhibited sobriety and a willingness to defend ourselves. And instead of military confusion and ineptitude, as we displayed in Lebanon two years ago, we showed the most impressive display of our intelligence, air power, and psychological warfare in decades.

But what’s next? Here are some of the possible consequences to watch for in the coming days and weeks.

So for a paper that been praising Obama like crazy, they just move in on supporting Israel. I thought Obama was suppose to keep them under control?

Israel’s Options: There are three possible scenarios for how this operation will evolve. The first is that the government will opt for a limited attack whose goal isn’t the overthrow of the Hamas regime but merely the attainment of better terms in the next round of ceasefire–such as supervision over tunnels linking Gaza with Egypt and through which Hamas has smuggled in missiles. The argument for a limited operation is that Mahmud Abbas’s men aren’t ready to secure the Strip from Hamas–and even if they were, they would bear the mark of collaborators if they took control of Gaza courtesy of Israel.

The second scenario is the overthrow of Hamas and turning the Strip over to a foreign power–ideally Egypt, as the Palestinian Authority’s chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, has suggested. It’s doubtful, though, that Egypt will agree to relieve Israel of its Gaza burden. And NATO is on record as refusing to commit peacekeeping troops in the Palestinian territories.

The third option is to begin with the first option of a limited operation but, as fighting intensifies, find ourselves reluctantly implementing the second option of all-out war against Hamas. That may well be the least desirable option of all, leaving Israel vulnerable to events beyond its control. But given previous Israeli experience, that could be the most likely scenario.

The Iranian Bomb: The countdown to a nuclear Iran is now being measured in months rather than years. Few here in Israel believe that President Obama’s diplomatic efforts will succeed; and if those efforts fail, there won’t be enough time to galvanize the international community to adopt effective sanctions. The danger of the current conflict in Gaza, then, is that Israel will be too preoccupied with fighting Hamas and perhaps Hezbollah to effectively respond to the Iranian threat.

The Gaza conflict, though, could also have the opposite effect, especially if the IDF loses focus and finds itself immersed yet again in a no-win battle. Israeli policymakers may begin asking themselves what the point is of fighting Iran’s proxies every few years rather than confronting Iran itself, especially given the urgency of stopping a nuclear Iran.

The Fate of a Two-State Solution: The future of the West Bank may well be resolved in Gaza. If the international community forces the IDF to end the operation before the missile threat against southern Israel is resolved, Israelis will inevitably conclude that, even when we withdraw to the 1967 borders, as we did on the Gaza front in 2005, the international community will not allow us to protect ourselves. And the likelihood then of convincing a majority of Israelis to withdraw from the West Bank–within easy rocket distance from our major population centers–will be close to non-existent. Ultimately, then, the creation of an independent Palestine depends on neutralizing Hamas.

The Moderate Arab Response: About six months ago, during a meeting with a senior Palestinian official, I was stunned when he asked me matter of factly, “So when are you Israelis going to invade Gaza already?” “You mean you want us to?” I asked. “If you want a peace agreement,” he replied, “you will have no choice.” I never expected that position to be made public. But some Arab leaders–including Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and even the feckless Abbas–have both come as close as any Arab leader can dare go in expressing support for the Israeli attack by condemning Hamas for inviting it.

In the 1990s, there was hope that a “new Middle East” would emerge through peace talks. For Israel, that turned out to be a near-fatal illusion. Now, though, a new Middle East may actually be emerging–not through peace but conflict. And in this new Middle East, moderate Arabs are siding with Israel against Iran and its proxies. That is the reason why several Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, condemned Hezbollah rather than Israel in the initial phase of the Second Lebanon War. And it’s the reason why most of the Arab world failed to condemn Israel’s air strike last year against the Syrian nuclear reactor–intended, according to one intelligence report, as an eventual nuclear bomb factory for Iran.

In the interest of not making this post way too long I’ll cut to the end of the article:

As I am writing this article, a ground operation appears imminent. That may be necessary to prevent Hamas from firing rockets at southern Israel, but it will also result in growing casualties in Gaza. And that will increase international pressure against Israel and undermine the Israeli domestic consensus on which the success of the operation depends. The Israeli Zionist left, which so far supports the government, has resricted its backing to a limited operation. We still don’t know what the government wants to achieve, and what the army believes is achievable. What constitutes victory? Will we know how to translate military success into political gain? Will the government be strong enough to resist world pressure, even in the event of a disastrous accident that results in Palestinian civilian casualties? Most of all, what’s required is patience, and the realization among Israelis and our friends abroad that this battle is part of the larger war against jihadism that shifts from one part of the world to the other, and whose outcome will define our generation.

But I find it really funny that this one comes out supporting Israel. While I do see Iran a major threat to us and the rest of the world, especially as they complete a nuclear bomb and can be a helpful as an ally in that region. However on the other hand, Israel is becoming exactly like the people that they hate! They’re starting to shoot down any aid that comes to Gaza and are starving them out. Is this indiscriminate killing really helping their cause? P. muse is calling for us to contact our congressmen to protest these chain of events. I’ll give you the link here, but I don’t have any faith that it will change anything. The real solution is to have Israel to cease all operations and allow us to take over the situation along with some sort of solution to Iran to get at the heart of the problem. But theirs no will left in the American people. So with Israels excessive force and the Palestinians desire to destroy Israel, were looking at a middle east that is just going to continue to get more and more bloody. I pray that Obama will have the wisdom to do what is right here.

6 comments.

The Courts in CA have just changed something for the first time in history!

Posted on May 22nd, 2008 by Darth B'strad.
Categories: Political, Law, Constitutional Law, Philosophy, Islam, Judaism, Religon, Christianity.

The Issue is same sex marriage and just last week the California Supreme court just through out California’s ballot initiative to ban same sex marriage (even though it was overwhelmingly pass by California voters). It came down to a 4 to 3 vote and 4 judges decided that they were wiser than the entire state of California. This is a bad development for many reasons. Dennis Prager has been on this issue from day one and he has a new article out at townhall.com:

Americans seem mesmerized by the word “change.” And, by golly, they sure got it last week from the California Supreme Court. It is difficult to imagine a single social change greater than redefining marriage from opposite sex to include members of the same sex.

Nothing imaginable — leftward or rightward — would constitute as radical a change in the way society is structured as this redefining of marriage for the first time in history: Not another Prohibition, not government taking over all health care, not changing all public education to private schools, not America leaving the United Nations, not rescinding the income tax and replacing it with a consumption tax. Nothing.

Unless California voters amend the California Constitution or Congress amends the U.S. Constitution, four justices of the California Supreme Court will have changed American society more than any four individuals since Washington, Jefferson, Adams and Madison.

And what is particularly amazing is that virtually none of those who support this decision — let alone the four compassionate justices — acknowledge this. The mantra of the supporters of this sea change in society is that it’s no big deal. Hey, it doesn’t affect any heterosexuals’ marriage, so what’s the problem?

“What about ancient Greece?” No, there was no Gay marriage there. There was a lot of homosexuality in ancient Greece but thous men still married women and had kids. They didn’t marry the other men that they had sex with. And this was the same for ancient Egypt as well.

This lack of acknowledgment — or even awareness — of how society-changing is this redefinition of marriage is one reason the decision was made. To the four compassionate ones — and their millions of compassionate supporters — allowing same-sex marriage is nothing more than what courts did to end legal bans on interracial marriage. The justices and their supporters know not what they did. They think that all they did was extend a “right” that had been unfairly denied to gays.

However they do still have the right to marry just as much as anyone else in this society. Where on the Marriage form does it have a sexual orientation check box? Just like everyone else in this society we are limited to marring one person of the opposite sex. I’m Heterosexual but it would be nice to get a tax brake, so why don’t I just marry Bieren to get a tax brake even though I have absolutely no sexual attraction to him whatsoever? More money in my pocket!

Another reason for this decision is arrogance. First, the arrogance of four individuals to impose their understanding of what is right and wrong on the rest of society. And second is the arrogance of the four compassionate ones in assuming that all thinkers, theologians, philosophers, religions and moral systems in history were wrong, while they and their supporters have seen a moral light never seen before. Not a single religion or moral philosophical system — East or West — since antiquity ever defined marriage as between members of the same sex.

That is one reason the argument that this decision is the same as courts undoing legal bans on marriages between races is false. No major religion — not Judaism, not Christianity, not Islam, not Buddhism — ever banned interracial marriage. Some religions have banned marriages with members of other religions. But since these religions allowed anyone of any race to convert, i.e., become a member of that religion, the race or ethnicity of individuals never mattered with regard to marriage. American bans on interracial marriages were not supported by any major religious or moral system; those bans were immoral aberrations, no matter how many religious individuals may have supported them. Justices who overthrew bans on interracial marriages, therefore, had virtually every moral and religious value system since ancient times on their side. But justices who overthrow the ban on same-sex marriage have nothing other their hubris and their notions of compassion on their side.

Modern Christianity doesn’t ban you from marring a non-believer anymore and most churches don’t excommunicate for that reason anymore. Although it is still strongly discouraged but that is mostly for common sense reasons. You will have a much easier marriage if your spouse does have the same religious values as you do. However we understand that life happens and you really can help who you fall in love with all that much.

Since the secular age began, the notion that one should look to religion — or to any past wisdom — for one’s values has died. Thus, the modern attempts to undo the Judeo-Christian value system as the basis of America’s values, and to disparage the Founders as essentially morally flawed individuals (They allowed slavery, didn’t they?). The modern secular liberal knows that he is not only morally superior to conservatives; he is morally superior to virtually everyone who ever lived before him.

Which leads to a third reason such a sea change could be so cavalierly imposed by four individuals — the modern supplanting of wisdom with compassion as the supreme guide in forming society’s values and laws. Just as for religious fundamentalists, “the Bible says” ends discussion, for liberal fundamentalists, “compassion says” ends discussion.

If this verdict stands, society as we have known it will change. The California Supreme Court and its millions of supporters are playing with fire. And it will eventually burn future generations in ways we can only begin to imagine.

This will be destructive to the idea to the family and bring with it many implications that will be hard for our society to get through and here is a big part of the reason:

Outside of the privacy of their homes, young girls will be discouraged from imagining one day marrying their prince charming — to do so would be declared “heterosexist,” morally equivalent to racist. Rather, they will be told to imagine a prince or a princess. Schoolbooks will not be allowed to describe marriage in male-female ways alone. Little girls will be asked by other girls and by teachers if they want one day to marry a man or a woman.

The sexual confusion that same-sex marriage will create among young people is not fully measurable. Suffice it to say that, contrary to the sexual know-nothings who believe that sexual orientation is fixed from birth and permanent, the fact is that sexual orientation is more of a continuum that ranges from exclusive heterosexuality to exclusive homosexuality. Much of humanity — especially females — can enjoy homosexual sex. It is up to society to channel polymorphous human sexuality into an exclusively heterosexual direction — until now, accomplished through marriage. But that of course is “heterosexism,” a bigoted preference for man-woman erotic love, and therefore to be extirpated from society.

Any advocacy of man-woman marriage alone will be regarded morally as hate speech, and shortly thereafter it will be deemed so in law.

Companies that advertise engagement rings will have to show a man putting a ring on a man’s finger — if they show only women fingers, they will be boycotted just as a company having racist ads would be now.

Films that only show man-woman married couples will be regarded as antisocial and as morally irresponsible as films that show people smoking have become.

Traditional Jews and Christians — i.e. those who believe in a divine scripture — will be marginalized. Already Catholic groups in Massachusetts have abandoned adoption work since they will only allow a child to be adopted by a married couple as the Bible defines it — a man and a woman.

Anyone who advocates marriage between a man and a woman will be morally regarded the same as racist. And soon it will be a hate crime.

Me and Prager will end up in jail because I won’t shut up and I think Prager won’t ether.

Indeed — and this is the ultimate goal of many of the same-sex marriage activists — the terms “male” and “female,” “man” and “woman” will gradually lose their significance. They already are. On the intellectual and cultural left, “male” and “female” are deemed social constructs that have little meaning. That is why same-sex marriage advocates argue that children have no need for both a mother and a father — the sexes are interchangeable. Whatever a father can do a second mother can do. Whatever a mother can do, a second father can do. Genitalia are the only real differences between the sexes, and even they can be switched at will.

And what will happen after divorce — which presumably will occur at the same rates as heterosexual divorce? A boy raised by two lesbian mothers who divorce and remarry will then have four mothers and no father.

We have entered something beyond Huxley’s “Brave New World.” All thanks to the hubris of four individuals. But such hubris never goes unanswered. Our children and their children will pay the price.

And that has been one of the most foolish developments in our society to date. The Idea that the only difference between men and women is genitalia is absurd. Mothers have different things to offer a child and like wise fathers have different things to offer a child. Both offer good things to a child that help them grow! This is not to discourage single parents, many of them do the best that they can and work amazing wonders with their kids. However I am sure that most of them would admit that it would have been easier if they have had a good man or woman in the home as well. Also there are some kids that absolutely need both parents in the home or they won’t survive. I know this for a fact because I am one of them. As I have talked about in my A True B’Strad posts, I wouldn’t be alive today if I only had one of my parents raising me. This isn’t always the case, I am a special case and there are children that are much more resilient in this way than me but still I have to encourage marriage as much as possible because I am not the only one like this.

Anticipating reactions to this column — as to all defenses of man-woman marriage — that it or its author are “homophobic,” i.e., bigoted and unworthy of respectful rejoinder, it is important to reaffirm that nothing written here is implicitly, let alone explicitly, anti-gay. I take it as axiomatic that a gay man or woman is created in God’s image and as precious as any other human being. And I readily acknowledge that it is unfair when an adult is not allowed to marry the love of his or her choice. But social policy cannot be made solely on the basis of eradicating all of life’s unfairness. Thus, we must love the gay person — and his and or her partner as well. But we must never change the definition of marriage. The price to society and succeeding generations will be too great.

That is why Californians must amend their state’s Constitution.

That last part was absolutely critical that Prager wrote it and actually I think his piece might have been better if he had lead in with that paragraph instead of sticking it at the end. As a Christan, I do feel that my church does owe the gay community an apology for how the church has been handling this entire issue. On one side, Christians have been overly hateful towards gays and they forget that Jesus had commanded us to love them. We are not to lash out at gays with hate. To be perfectly honest here I used to be one of them and I think that most of that I did hate gays was because I kept on getting teased as being gay when I wasn’t. I am here now saying I’m sorry for hating you gays out there and I shouldn’t have let my feeling get in the way of the real issue here. I am still growing and learning and God is now taking control of my life and changing me into the man that he wants. However on the other had you have Christians that are taking the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy here. The bible is firm in saying that this is a sin that is destructive. We Christians should not be afraid to talk about it and as Prager pointed out here they are still people made in God’s image and he still wants to be apart of their lives. Just because some can not find them selfs attracted to the opposite sex does not mean that God can be apart of their life. We are all sinners and none of us Christians are any better than anyone that is gay! We all have to work on trusting God and bringing people in to our faith and teaching them to trust God too. And that includes gays as well! We need to work at loving them and being kind to them just like when Jesus encountered the prostitute at the water well.

Now that I have tried to make amends for me and my religion, I still must say that I can not support gay marriage. This has nothing to do with who people love and how people decide to live their lives but rather the impact that this will have on our society. The vast majority of our society wants to keep our current definition of marriage as one man and one woman but now you have 4 judges that are saying “to hell with what you people want! We’re going to force this down your troughs anyway!” The absolute hubris and arrogance for them is absurd here and now we no longer have any freedom in this county! Now all it takes is 4 or 5 judges to make laws up that aren’t elected and can overrule anything in this county! This is a bad development that is setting up a judicial dictatorship in this county where the courts rule everything. Why bother with ballot initiatives if courts can just say that it’s unconstitutional when they have no basis to make that ruling. Even if you are for gay marriage you should be against this ruling because if the courts can make it then the courts can also take it away. We no longer have a say anymore in our county! Laws are now made by the judicial branch here. Why bother with the legislature anymore because anything that they pass can be overturned by judges that think they are going to save the world. I know they have good intentions but this can get really bad really quick.

Now on the actual issue, the reason why this is so important is because marriage is what the society deems is the basic family unit. Again, this is not to put down single parents here but explain that we should try our best to obtain this ideal. Having one man and one woman raising children is the healthiest environment for kids to be raised in. I understand that life happens and that it gets messy but we as a society should work hard to try to make this ideal easier. As Prager had explained, having gay marriage will confuse kids and make this harder on religious families to follow their values. This is a development that will degrade our society and destroy the family. There are many people that don’t get to marry who they want! You can’t marry your sister or brother! You can’t marry someone who is already married! You can’t marry many different people in this society. If we keep down this path then marriage will no longer hold any meaning and our children will pay the price for it.

0 comments.

Here’s a post for the Pacifist Muse

Posted on April 22nd, 2008 by Darth B'strad.
Categories: Political, War, Terrorism, Islam, Judaism, Israel, Christianity, Palestine.

Just Read up here P Muse, I have an article from the New York Times just for you:

The Islamist Hamas group said on Monday it would accept the establishment of a Palestinian state on land occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, but it was not prepared to recognize the Jewish state.

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, in an apparent softening of the group’s position, was confirming an account of his remarks given by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter after two meetings in Damascus over the weekend.

“We accept a state on the June 4 line with Jerusalem as capital, real sovereignty and full right of return for refugees but without recognizing Israel,” Meshaal told reporters, referring to the borders as they stood before the 1967 war

Sounds great doesn’t it! All they need to do is go back to pre-67 borders and you have peace! Well actually NO! here is the real key to the entire article:

Carter said his understandings with Hamas called for a referendum to be preceded by reconciliation between the group and Abbas’s Fatah faction. Hamas seized the Gaza Strip from Fatah in June and Abbas has demanded the territory’s return.

Gaza-based Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said Palestinian refugees living in exile must take part in a referendum — a condition that could dim the chances of approval since Israel opposes their mass return to what is now the Jewish state.

“TRANSITIONAL”

Abu Zuhri also noted Hamas would see any future Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as “transitional.”

Speaking later to reporters, Carter said Hamas leaders whom he met “didn’t say anything about transitional.”

Translation: we start with the west bank and then start a “transitional” move into Israel. Once they move into Israel then you no longer have a Jewish state there but another Palestinian one that will just oppress the Jews just like the others do. Quite a grate deal that good OL’ Jimmy has cooked up for the Israelis, ay. And he still doesn’t get it even when people inform him of it. “Well they never said anything about that?” That doesn’t really invoke confidence now does it? Not to mention that in Hamas’es charter is the destruction of Israel (another words the reason that this terrorist group exists is to destroy Israel). Mass moving Palestinians into Israel and taking control of the government is an easy way to do that. We have also seen them do the same thing to other countries in the past, for example Lebanon. Lebanon was a majority Christan country for a long time until Palestinians started moving into their country and slowly started to take over and anyone who was not one of them was pulled out of their car and shot on the spot. Don’t believe me? How about you try reading Because they Hate by Brigitte Gabriel a woman who was there when the Jihadist took over her country. So if you are “open minded” then why don’t you try and read the other side and go ahead and let your emotions get wrapped around that one too! Since you make no distinction will your emotions still lead you to the Palestinians side or thous who lives they destroy. Most of the time I just want clarity but this is a subject that I do want to change your mind because it threatens us as well. The Jihadist calls the Israelis the “little satin” but they call us the “big satin” and we are just as much in their cross hairs as the Israelis are. I don’t even agree with Brigitte Gabriel on everything but she does have life experiences with the enemy that we face and it is critical that we defeat them. This is war and a hard one at that because not only do we need to kill the Jihadist but also we need to somehow train up their children not to follow the ways of their fathers but to work for real peace and not the fake kind that you want. Introducing liberty in these cultures will not be easy and may even take many generations to accomplish be we need to do it because we can’t fight a billion Muslims. And we’re not going to nuke them because we just don’t do that sort of thing and also there are many peace loving Palestinians and they do deserve a chance at life! The peace you want is not realistic because every time the Israelis give up something to the Palestinians they turn around and use to to attack the Israelis and any peace agreement just gives them time to rebuild for the next attack as the article puts simply here:

“Israel is targeted on a daily basis by rocket barrages from Hamas controlled territory in the Gaza Strip. Israel sees no change in Hamas’s extremist positions,” said David Baker, a spokesman in Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s office.

Not to mention that the Hamas leader, Khaled Meshaal, will take the deal and then continue to kill Jews as he had said here:

“We accept a state on the June 4 line with Jerusalem as capital, real sovereignty and full right of return for refugees but without recognizing Israel,” Meshaal told reporters, referring to the borders as they stood before the 1967 war.

Translation: they will just use the west bank as another platform to attack Israel. There will be no peace without victory and Israel is an ally of ours and we need to help them out. If we sit around and wait to see Jerusalem go up in a cloud of smoke then the entire middle east will also go up in a cloud of smoke because by that time Israel will not care anymore. Sorry bro, but we are at war here and while it is true that the Israelis can do some appalling things but it still fails in comparison to the Russians who we had to ally our selfs with in order to win the second world war. First we need victory then we can work on changing them. We just need to do what America does best; free enslaved people and teach them about liberty. We did it for Germany, Japan, South Korea, Afghanistan and we are still in progress with Iraq. This is The United States of America and if we set our minds to and and work hard for it we can get it done!

0 comments.

The entanglement called Palestine: Identity and Narrative

Posted on April 15th, 2008 by Pacifist Muse.
Categories: Political, Creative Writing, Islam, Judaism, Religon, Christianity, Palestine.

Occupied East Jerusalem, The Old City, Summer 2007.

The warm light of a slow solar setting casts its animating rays over the signs of too much in too little a space. The competing symbols of multiple multi-faced traditions collide and tensely co-inside in a space that necessarily implies an opposed overlap. Seemingly so.

The confusion of talking tongues narrating too many tales makes faithful repetition far too complex for politicians and outsiders and insiders alike. The babel of rhetoric is deafening. And yet the narratives stand up and demand rightful recognition like the symbols, edifices, and persons to which they give situation and meaning.

The day’s old rays cast the red-orange light of gold off the muezzin’s minaret onto the faint white blue landscape of the Zionist’s national symbol. The whole scene casts a long dark shadow over the last wailing prayers of an Ashkenazic Jew at the walls of Kotel remembering deliverance from the persecution of Christian eugenic madness. As the last evening prayers at the gates of heaven called Kotel fade the sound of the muezzin’s call to prayer rings out and is echoed back by other muezzins in other minarets. Three birds christen the moment, fleeing like prayers into the sun’s eclipsing crescent as it falls belows the earth’s horizon.

The architectural entanglement that is Old City Jerusalem is a stone and metal symbol of the competition of national narratives in Israel and Palestine. In Palestine. In Israel.

The wanton demolition of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem: a destructive symbol of a wider disentanglement of allegedly opposed narratives and identities, in which one people’s remains and the other’s is at best repressed and at worst cleansed from existence.

“They” say that the ensuing violence is a causal inevitability of such an entanglement and certainly such a disentanglement. I wonder. Wonder if such an entanglement could not be interpreted differently? Could it be that in the interpretation of entangled difference, as the possibility of coexistence, there is beauty and truth far more poignant than any sterilized uniformity or deterministic assumption of violence? Could it be that the assumption of perpetual conflict is as racist as it sounds? Could it be that it is the misuse of power and weaponry and not the difference itself that necessitates violent conflict?

The birds over this picture of entangled identities are doves. A Judaic, Christian, and Muslim symbol of peace.

12 comments.

Because they Hate: By Brigitte Gabriel

Posted on April 28th, 2007 by Darth B'strad.
Categories: Political, War, Terrorism, Reviews, Books, Philosophy, Islam, Judaism, Christianity.

Because they hate is a book by Brigitte Gabriel that illustrates the horrific terror of Islamic Fascism. As a little girl in Lebanon, she grew up during the Lebanese civil war. Before the the civil war Lebanon used to be a very peaceful country as the only middle eastern county with a majority Christian population. Through out the wars with Israel Lebanon would open up it’s arms to Muslim refuges and integrate them into their society. However after awhile the Muslims started to over populate the Christians there and when it did the Muslims did not treat the Christians the same way.

In Lebanon everyone carried a national ID card that identified not only our religion but also what sect of that religion we belonged to. It proved to be something that could mean the difference between living or dying. Incidents were being reported of Muslims setting up checkpoints and stopping cars to check IDs. Sometimes, if the Muslims saw that a car’s occupants were Christians, they would order everyone out of the car and then shoot them all. they didn’t kill us because they were Communists and we were capitalists. They killed us because we were Christians. They would shout “Allahu Akbar,” “God is Great,” as they sprayed Christians with machine-gun bullets. These became known as “identity card killings.”

In November of 1975 the fighting in the civil war started to brake out. Brigitte Gabriel in her little town was hit by motor fire and one landed right on her house. A little girl of 10 years old she had just barely survived the attack on her house that night. However it was not over then they had to live in a bomb shelter with a dirt floor, rats and shorting food rations. living there in fear that if a shell fell directly on their shelter then they would die. they would have to go out at night and crawl in ditches (in order to avoid snipers) to get food. After three years of this the Muslims were preparing to attack her little town in southern Lebanon. At 13 years old Brigitte Gabriel wanted to look pretty before she died so she dressed up before the attack. But guess who saved her? Not the US, not France, Spain or Italy but Israel did. The next day Israel entered the war and pushed back the Muslims (actually they ran from Israel). Israel was getting tired of bing shelled by Lebanon. One of the favorite tactics of the Muslims was to put artery around heavily populated Christan areas and then run like hell when Israel responded. So then they were able to kill more Christians and also have the UN blame Israel. In the years that Followed Brigitte Gabriel moved to Israel to become a news broadcaster and eventually moved here to the United States. After the history lesson and her personal story Brigitte Gabriel then moves on to the political and tell us how critical it is that we fight the Islamic extremist because their trying to do the same thing here that they did to Lebanon. This book is a must read in order to understand the real nature and threat that we face. And the reason why can be summed up in a simple phrase: It’s because they hate.

0 comments.

Christian Blood still used to make Matzos, mmm mmm mmm Tasty

Posted on March 2nd, 2007 by Darth B'strad.
Categories: Islam, Judaism.

Just read this and tell me what you think

0 comments.

Iran: pop stars, cellphones, silicone and persecution

Posted on February 26th, 2007 by Bieren Skidels.
Categories: Political, Islam.

I found an interesting video about Iran - in particular, the city of Tehren. What an interesting city! and people! According to a friend of mine, this is somewhat biased, obviously it can’t cover the underground activity in Iran, including many progressive ideas, amazing art, parties - activities not allowed in public.

What about the differing views of the Iranian people? Consider the case of Ahmad Batebi. This picture showed up on the cover of the economist and he has been imprisoned ever since. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison (later reduced to 10)…

What does this say? That just like the US, Iran is filled with people of differing views and of course, differing actions. This should always be kept in mind when discussing the issue of Iran. I don’t think the US should be judged by the actions of a few of its citizens, and likewise Iran should not generalized by the actions of a few…

To evaluate the question of Iran, what it means for Americans today… To discuss this issue - I challenge each American to first become intimate with Iranian culture, to understand and love the beauty of their culture - at which point an educated, objective evaluation can be made. Let’s prove to the world that Americans are not ignorant and narrow-minded - that we are able to love and understand others. Would not America’s involvement in the Middle East be understood better and made more legitimate if our interest and understanding outweighed our military presence?

Is America capable of showing signs of enlightnment? If our American culture is more than violence, jingoism, and ignorence - the responsibility is on our shoulders to prove that to the world…

“How do you make pop songs without mentioning sex or teenage rebellion?”

“I’ve seen a lot of empty swimming pools in town”

“This city has more plastic surgery than Los Angelos, if it wasn’t for the Hijab - this city could be LA”

one minute your at a protest burning American flags… and then the next moment your wearing American clothes styles and studs in your ears?- “we have no problem with Americans… but of course we will support our country”

A country changing slowly, in conflict with itself - must be understood and never generalized

Bieren out

3 comments.

The illusions of the Left and the Right (kitsch)

Posted on February 24th, 2007 by Bieren Skidels.
Categories: Political, Ethics, Party System, Republicans, Islam, Democrats.

Milan Kundera wrote “What makes a leftist a leftist is not this or that theory but his ability to integrate any theory into the kitsch called “The Grand March” - earlier in the same book (The Unbearable Lightness of Being) he had referred to the Communist propaganda of “good and better” (as opposed to good and bad). The implication was the the Grand March of mankind (or the Communists) was arriving at a paradise. I would agree that “what makes a leftist a leftist” is the belief that by sweeping away certain bad things in society (capitalism, consumerism, racism, death penalty, etc…) that mankind may arrive at a paradise that does not deal with the question of “good or bad” but rather “good or better” since mankind would have moved beyond the bad. This of course is an illusion, yet it drives a leftist to be a leftist.

So what makes a person on the right a rightist? not the illusion of paradise, of good or better. Conservatives tend to be more pessimistic about mankind (especially those unlike themselves) … No, they definitely believe in the bad, in fact - they desire to prove its existence, to identify it and show it magnified on their enemies. In facto, the illusion of the right is exactly that of “good or bad.” The rightest desires (not just does, but desires to) see the world as “good or bad.” The conservative American does not desire to read about abstract qualities of mankind, attempting to theoretically understand the nature of good and evil (so as to interpret the world around them). No, the Conservative American wants a simple explanation and justification for the world - one that doesn’t require thought, one that they would believe comes from their heart! The belief:

That John the neighbor is basically good, he may get a few speeding tickets - but he’s basically good. That John’s son is in the American Army - he is the epitome of goodness - in Iraq, killing the enemy, protecting Americans, fighting bad, protecting good. That there is a man named Akbar, he is basically evil - he may have a few kids he loves, and he may even do things for his community - but he is basically evil, that his whole purpose in this world is to hate the Americans and threaten their existence with every ounce of his being.

Consider John and Akbar, now attempt to categorize every person as either a John or an Akbar. A conservative might believe that a few Johns exist in Iran, but obviously those are the few good men that don’t oppose America. They may even believe that a few Akbars exist in America, and they hope to get rid of them as soon as possible! Why? Because America is “basically good” and mostly full of good ol’ Johns - Iran, on the other hand, is “basically bad” full of evil Akbars. This is the illusion of “good or bad.” The idea that the world is cleanly divided into John and Akbar - either with you or against you. The existence of a third point-of-view is never allowed to exist, and ambiguity is hidden or denied - this is the kitsch of the right.

Many people fall under these two illusions. In my country, we usually call those who believe in the illusion of “good or better” Democrats. We call those who believe in the illusion of “good or bad” Republicans.

1 comment.

“Can we judge religions?”

Posted on February 4th, 2007 by Darth B'strad.
Categories: War, Terrorism, Islam.

That is a question posed by Dennis Prager and I think he is right on. Aside form all of the other arguments that he put in his article I would also like to add that we don’t need to anger a billion Muslims. I don’t want to fight them all. Besides, not all of the Muslims are the evil Islamic Fascists that are out there to kill us. I work with two Muslims and they are both good men. They too want to win this war and hate what these people are ding to their religion. Despite the fact that I completely disagree with their theology we both hold similar values and we are both Americans. Now I think that Islam does need a reformation in with we can get some Muslims to really step out and tell these evil people to stop perverting their religion and help us find them and kill them. It is going to take courage to do this because of how these evil people particularly target moderate Muslims that speak out against the violence. However I think we have to have moderate Muslims if we are going to win this war.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/column.aspx?UrlTitle=can_we_judge_religions&ns=DennisPrager&dt=01/23/2007&page=full&comments=true

1 comment.

Islam

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Index for posts concerning Islam

A letter to the Pacifist Muse.

Things are blowing up in Israel, Again!

The Courts in CA have just changed something for the first time in history!

Here’s a post for the Pacifist Muse

The entanglement called Palestine: Identity and Narrative

Because they Hate: By Brigitte Gabriel

Christian Blood still used to make Matzos, mmm mmm mmm Tasty

Iran: pop stars, cellphones, silicone and persecution

The illusions of the Left and the Right (kitsch)

“Can we judge religions?”