An Excellent Summation

H/T Wraith: Learned Helplessness and Operant Conditioning

Sometimes, in my writings, I mention that my writings are a vehicle by which I am trying to overcome the brainwashing of my youth. Melody Byrne describes what I’m talking about pretty exactly in the article linked above. I think I’m about the exact same age as her, given we entered high school and graduated from it at about the same time.

 I was lucky, in that my father never gave up trying to wake me up to Truth, and that I wasn’t always in the public school system. Note, though, that private schools must be accredited, and accreditation standards are often written to ensure that the brainwashing and conditioning of public schools is at least somewhat reflected in the private institutions. For this reason, my high school which was very rigorous intellectually, while not furthering the conditioning or brainwashing all that much, also didn’t do much to counter it. What conditioning I’d received remained to be re-inforced again once I went to college (of which very, very few are not awash in the conditioning programs).

Advertisement

28 June 2012, St. Irenaeus of Lyons

Big News Day. See below for some SCOTUS and Colorado Fire coverage.

Let’s get to the rest:

The House votes 255-67 to hold Eric Holder in contempt. Ace writes that since 17 Dems voted for contempt, that means it’s a bipartisan move. And:“The Democrats staged a walk out. From WI and IN to the House of Representatives, when Democrats don’t get their way they walk away like spoiled little brats.”

UPDATE: Missed this earlier– Fulton Sheen declared “Venerable”. Heck to the yeah, man! Next step, Beatification!

Soros-Funded Group Plans to Undermine Fortnight for Freedom Campaign | Women of Grace

From Women of Grace

Soros-Funded Group Plans to Undermine Fortnight for Freedom Campaign

The memo contains “talking points” on how to handle the bishops, what kind of questions to ask them to trip them up and otherwise make them look bad in the public eye.

Read the whole thing.

Reason to Homeschool the Chirrn, #4

Detroit teen given 4 vaccines without parent’s permission.

The point being, of course, that this was a violation of the rights of both the child and the parents. This is not about the value or dangers of vaccines. This is about people deciding on medical treatment for themselves. This is about the government deciding every little intimate detail about how you live your life. [You’d think the “My Body, My Choice” crowd would get that idea, but I guess it only counts when ending innocent life is concerned.]

While I do believe in the concept of “herd immunity”– I’ve also never had the flu shot. And only gotten the (repertory) flu twice in my life. Whereas, everyone I know who gets the shot, ends up with the illness. I’ve never known someone to get the shot, maybe be symptomatic for a couple of days after (as we are warned can happen), but then go on to have a perfectly healthy flu-season. Everyone ends up with a respertory bug of some nature, every season, except those of us who don’t get the shot. That tells me all I really need to know . . .

Do Not Be Taken In By False Choices!

The news today is all about an “Accomodation” the White house is proposing in the whole Birth Control Mandate Dabacle. I hope and pray no one falls for this. Here’s how it’s being described:

One source familiar with the decision described the accommodation as “Hawaii-plus,” insisting that it’s better than the Hawaii plan – for both sides.

In Hawaii the employer is responsible for referring employees to places where they can obtain the contraception; Catholic leaders call that material cooperation with evil. But what the White House will likely announce later today is that the relationshio between the religious employer and the insurance company will not need to have any component involving contraception. The insurance company will reach out on its own to the women employees. This is better for both sides, the source says, since the religious organizations do not have to deal with medical care to which they object, and women employees will not have to be dependent upon an organization hostile to that care in order to obtain it.

This announcement would not go that far. Sources say it will involve health insurance companies helping to provide the coverage, since it’s actually cheaper for these companies to offer the coverage than to not do so, because of unwanted pregnancies and resulting complications.

Rick Moran adds:

Basically, the White House is offering a sleight of hand solution, allowing Catholic organizations to deliberately turn the other way when insurance companies offer the coverage, thus “sparing” them the burden of having to offer it themselves.

Let me make something clear. There are two ways to sin– by commission and by ommission. Commision is doing something sinful. Omission is failing to even try to prevent sin when you have the ability to stop it, or failing to do something you ought to be doing. It works like this: If you murder someone, you have sinned by commission. If you see someone being murdered, and take no action to stop it, you sin by omission. The second is equally as severe a sin as the first. Got it? [My own failings on some issues condemn me, I fear, as I have not been as zealous in my duties as I should have been.]

So, what the WH is offering here, is basically this: “Instead of forcing you to sin by commission, we’re offering the option of sinning by omission instead.”

Speaking of Contraception . . .

The Anchoress points out a surprising source for support of the Church’s teaching re: Birth Control– Business Insider, of all places!

Here’s a tasty bit:

Today’s injunctions against birth control were re-affirmed in a 1968 document by Pope Paul VI called Humanae Vitae.  He warned of four results if the widespread use of contraceptives was accepted:

1. General lowering of moral standards
2. A rise in infidelity, and illegitimacy
3. The reduction of women to objects used to satisfy men. 
4. Government coercion in reproductive matters. 

Does that sound familiar? 

Because it sure sounds like what’s been happening for the past 40 years.

As is said, read the whole thing!

To be honest, I used to be a lot more laissez-faire about the issue myself. After all, if God wanted you to have a kid, it would happen– both myself and my little brother were conceived while our mother was using birth control.

Related to previous post: Forced Abortions and Sterilizations

AT is humming today, as usual. While skimming their headlines today, I ran across the following from their blog portion, and it also fits into what I’m piecing together:

Is Hitler’s World Our Own? by Casey Mattox

The forced sterilization of those whom society has rejected because of their race, economic standing, or mental condition rightfully brings to mind Planned Parenthood’s founder, Margaret Sanger.  Adolf Hitler also comes to mind, with his absolute inhumane treatment of 400,000 fellow humans via forced sterilizations under his “Law for the Prevention of Progeny with Hereditary Diseases.”

 

But that was then, and this is now. And what happened under Sanger and Hitler couldn’t happen in a society as “advanced” as ours — or could it?  (Or is it?)

 

In December 2010, the Boston Herald reported on Norfolk Probate and Family Court Judge Christina L. Harms’ order to force a 32-year-old woman, referred to by the pseudonym “Mary Moe,” to have an abortion and then to be sterilized — all against the woman’s consent.

 

Harms’ justification for her decision was Moe’s mental state.  (One of Hitler’s reasons for forcing women to be sterilized in the 1930s was “mental illness” as well.)  What’s especially horrifying about Moe’s situation, however, is that her mental problems are documented to be the direct result of an abortion she had to end an earlier pregnancy — an abortion she now regrets because she believes that through it, “she killed her baby.”

 

And even though a guardian ad litem concluded that Moe “would have refused an abortion even if mentally sound” because of her Roman Catholic faith, Harms was unmoved.

 

Rather, Harms summarily dismissed the guilt and misery Moe still feels from having her first abortion, as well as her faith, and “claimed in her ruling that Moe would choose the abortion if she were mentally competent.”  She also “directed that any medical facility that performed the abortion also sterilize Moe at the same time to avoid [sic] this painful situation from recurring.”

 

It’s like Orwell’s world is now our world, and it’s neither brave nor new.  Instead, it’s an ugly rewrite of the kind of place Sanger and Hitler both envisioned.

 

Yet as bad as this story could end, by God’s grace, State Appellate Court Associate Justice Andrew R. Grainger reversed Judge Harms’ ruling, stating that “[n]o party requested this measure … and the judge appears to have simply produced the requirement out of thin air.”

 

The Alliance Defense Fund, in its litigation on many other life-related matters, sees far too many tragic stories involving abortion.  We thank God that the angst which undoubtedly has consumed Moe since her first, and hopefully last, abortion will now be somewhat abated.  In this instance, life has triumphed over death.

 

Casey Mattox serves as legal counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund at its Washington, D.C. Regional Service Center.

 

Nazi Roots of “Sustainability”

Texan59 over at The Conservative Treehouse linking this article in the Open Thread this morning, from The American Thinker (I’m copying the entire text, because it’s working into something I’ve been working on, but I’m not yet sure which bits are the most relevant):

Green Lebensraum: The Nazi Roots of Sustainable Development By Mark Musser

Much of the European Union’s green sustainable development plans are largely based on government controlled land use planning theories rooted in the lebensraum tradition.    Literally, lebensraum means “living space.”   Lebensraum was originally developed by German geographer Friedrich Ratzel (1844-1904) and then greatly expanded under the banner of National Socialism (1933-1945). 

The Key to Immortality

Is doing the opposite of what the government recommends for “health”. I am ever more and more convinced of this. In support, 2 links:

Heart Muscles and Fat

Could Eating Less Salt be Deadly?

The Hypocrisy of Modern Gaia Worship

One thing I’ve never understood about the current environmental movement is their insistance that humans are part of nature, but at the same time, we’re not. To the modern Evironmentalist, Humans are Animals, yes. But, we exist to another standard than every animal that has gone before.

Evironmentalists like Van Jones want Mother Earth to have Rights, many maintain that she is an organism on a grand scale, and even has some sentience and awareness. But, then, on the other hand, they fail to ignore some key communiques from Her Bigness . . .

Many people in this cult seem to be of the belief that the ecosystems of the world “Exist in a delicate balance.” This is pure and utter horsesh!t– if things in nature were balanced, we’d all be single celled blobs living in the ocean. The very nature of Earth is imbalance– from tides, tectonic shifts, the weather. . . to the greatest arms race on the planet, Evolution. Imbalance drives life, it drives everything in this planet. (Unless, like me, you believe in God, in which case it is He that is the Prime Mover who shifts and tips and weighs along the way.)

Species have been going extinct for millions of years. We’ve had absolutely nothing to do with most of them. Nature herself has killed off most of her own creations (again, speaking from the Gaiaist POV, not the Christian). If, as the Gaiaists posit, we humans are simply another animal that evolved out of the muck, then we are just as sumbject to her whims, caprices, and planning as every other creature. We are part of that “balace.”

If Gaia is sentient, is it not possible that, instead of being her enemy as the Gaiaists say, we are in fact her arms? Her hands? If a small species only exists in a place that is necessary to use for human society, is it not part of the Evolutionary Arms Race to do as it seems Gaia desires, and rid the planet of the species? Everyone in this cult assumes that Stasis is Her desire, but all indications are that Gaia likes movement, change. New things come, other things go. The Dinosaurs got old, so they were blasted away. The Mammoths were troublesome, so they were melted and hunted down. This bird over there was a pest, to the fleas took care of it. . . that little mammal was a problem, so a convenient lightning strike burned down their forest.

If we are Gaia’s creatures, and if another species exists in the place of our activity as a species, are we not to do the same thing that every other species on the planet does, and just go ahead and do our thing? If this causes the extinction of an owl, fish, or lizard. . . one that doesn’t exist in a lot of places and seems deliberately placed in our way . . . oughtn’t we heed the apparent wish of Gaia and roast the buggers?

Likewise, if we do our thing, and the creatures adapt (like crows and coyotes),  is this not a sign that Gaia favors those creatures? The Ceolocanth clearly is a favorite of hers. . .

I just want to get these beliefs straight. Either we humans are animals subject to Gaia’s Desires, or we are not.

UPDATE: Here’s the overview of a recent meeting on the matter.