Then he’ll declare martial law. First neck on the guillotine is Sanctomoron’s.
Christian Lorentzen · ‘Anyone but Romney’ · LRB 23 February 2012
[T]he Republican Party … some decades ago adopted its own version of identity politics, that of the victimised white Christian compelled by the state to subsidise abortions and attend gay weddings ….
Christian Lorentzen · ‘Anyone but Romney’ · LRB 23 February 2012 [hat tip to dangerousmeta]
Drumming up a phony war on religion – The Washington Post
But it is Rick Santorum who wins the award for histrionics. Progressives, he said last week in Texas, are “taking faith and crushing it.” From that ridiculous proposition, he went on in truly hallucinatory fashion:
“When you marginalize faith in America, when you remove the pillar of God-given rights, then what’s left is the French Revolution. What’s left is a government that gives you rights. What’s left are no unalienable rights. What’s left is a government that will tell you who you are, what you’ll do and when you’ll do it. What’s left in France became the guillotine. Ladies and gentlemen, we’re a long way from that, but if we follow the path of President Obama and his overt hostility to faith in America, then we are headed down that road.”
Wow. …
This is a war? This is a march to the guillotine?
Romney and Gingrich know better; they’re just cynically pandering to religious conservatives. Santorum, at least, is sincere in his pre-Enlightenment beliefs. But rejection of the intellectual framework that produced not just the French Revolution but the American Revolution as well does not strike me as an appropriate philosophy for a U.S. presidential candidate to espouse, much less a winning platform to run on.
The Founders wisely decided to institutionalize separation of church and state. The references to God, the Creator and Divine Providence in the Declaration of Independence mask the fact that the Founders disagreed on the nature and existence of a Supreme Being. They understood the difference between faith and religiosity.
Within our secular governmental framework, religion has thrived.
Yoga Is the Pathway to Spiritual Ruin [abqjournal letter]
IT’S COMPLETELY inappropriate for the Bernalillo County Metropolitan Detention Center to be teaching yoga to inmates. Yoga is the practice of Eastern religion.
Dr. John Ankerberg and Dr. John Weldon have written several articles on this topic. They write: “… yoga practice is intended to validate occult yoga theory. And as noted, yoga theory teaches that everything is, in its true inner nature, divine — not only divine but ultimately equal to everything else—everything from God and the devil to the athlete and the AIDS virus.”
Yoga is a way to achieve union with impersonal spiritual forces — demons — and to destroy the individual so he can be liberated and learn that this mortal life isn’t worth living.
Those who believe they can practice yoga merely as exercise don’t realize that they’re opening themselves up to the occult. We do not want our tax money supporting occult practices!
CATHY MONTOYA
Albuquerque
I’m not sure any amount of deep breathing and relaxation can keep me from wanting to scream at the idiot who wrote this. Most of my yoga teachers present it as an exercise. There is an element of “don’t worry, be happy,” some encouragement to accept your own limitations, not to compete. You know, heretical thoughts like that. Cathy’s ignorance is jaw-dropping.
As for the program she objects to, it may, just may, help these inmates break out of the trap that otherwise will return them to jail. It should be applauded and imitated. And anyone who thinks there are demons – well, maybe they’re right. Cathy is clearly possessed by something evil, these demons named Ankerberg and Weldon. Namaste. Shanti, shanti, shanti.
Those were the days, my friends. The Valentine’s Day Pajama Party: was there another anywhere? (Besides the Playboy Mansion.) Could it have been so original and unique? It might be misleading to describe the intent of three twenty-something males as innocent, yet the modern mind, smutted-up by advertising and all the dreck around us, cannot conceive that degree of innocent interaction. To us, they were wild times; looking back, they were more mild than wild. But such great fun to dance with abandon, to cavort and frolic and flirt. Yes, those were the days. (To which I pay fond tribute but have no desire to return to. This is not nostalgia, just timely recollection.)
I have many invitations, including the years we had concurrent parties in Albuquerque and Alexandria. But I don’t have that very first invitation. Does anyone?
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| More Valentine’s Day Pajama Party Invitations |
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From yesteryear Date: Feb 13, 2012 |
Sierra Club: Email – Last chance to stop Keystone XL?
It’s time to pull out all the stops.
Big Oil is asking Congress to ram through the dirty, dangerous Keystone XL tar sands pipeline — and we have just 24 hours to stop them before the vote.
Keystone XL would be such a disaster for clean air and water that it could never pass on the merits alone. That’s why certain members of Congress, after taking Big Oil’s big donations, have attached it to "must-pass" transportation bills in both the House and Senate and are forcing a vote on them this week.
Sierra Club: Email – Last chance to stop Keystone XL?
Republicans know Obama will veto this (if only they had succeeded in passing line item veto for the president!). Then, they’ll blame him again and again and again.