Many Utahns show how pathetically petty they can be

Hill Air Force Base is strategically located in Northern Utah. Typically we hear the fighters, tankers, and other aircraft near the base up here in Davis County. It’s usually quiet at night, with minimal numbers of aircraft coming in and out. Last night, the 388th Squadron at HAFB were conducting night ops in their range in the west desert. Because a storm was moving in from the north, they were forced to land from the south. This shifted their flight path over parts of Salt Lake County.

These pathetic whiners actually took time to complain and the local news, KSL, gave them a platform from which to bitch and moan. Click here for the article, click here for the stupid-ass comments from the babies.

Sure, the noise can be a little annoying, but to go on the news and say, “It was a total disruption of my privacy…” is simply pathetic. Anyone who complains forgets about a few key aspects of having that base in our backyard:

• We are a nation at war. These pilots are saving lives in the war theaters.
• The nighttime disruption in Salt Lake is VERY rare.
• That base brings tens of millions of dollars in revenue to the state

All summer during wildfire season, where we live on the East Bench of the Wasatch Mountains, we have fire tankers flying overhead constantly, even at night, as we are in the flight path from Hill to all the fires south of us. I’d never consider complaining.

Reminds me of this one prick I new when I lived in the dorms at the University of Utah. The guy was there to one day become a doctor, yet found the need to bitch about the Life Flight that would occasionally fly over at night taking trauma patients to the University Medical Center.

Roll over and go back to sleep you pathetic, spoiled brats!

Victimology in Black Liberation Theology

By Anthony B. Bradley

Black Liberation theology actually encourages a victim mentality among blacks. John McWhorters’ book Losing the Race, will be helpful here. Victimology, says McWhorter, is the adoption of victimhood as the core of one’s identity–for example, like one who suffers through living in “a country and who lived in a culture controlled by rich white people.” It is a subconscious, culturally inherited affirmation that life for Blacks in America has been in the past and will be in the future a life of being victimized by the oppression of Whites. In today’s terms, it is the conviction that, forty years after the Civil Rights Act, conditions for Blacks have not substantially changed. As Wright intimates, for example, scores of black men regularly get passed over by cab drivers.

Reducing black identity to “victim” distorts the reality of true progress. For example, was Obama a victim of widespread racial oppression at the hand of “rich white people” before graduating from Columbia University, Harvard Law School magna cum laude, or after he acquired his estimated net worth of $1.3 million? How did “rich white people” keep Obama from succeeding? If Obama is the model of an oppressed black man, I want to be oppressed next! With my graduate school debt my net worth is literally negative $52,659.

The overall result, says McWhorter, is that “the remnants of discrimination hold an obsessive indignant fascination that allows only passing acknowledgement of any signs of progress.” Jeremiah Wright infused with victimology, wielded self-righteous indignation in the service of exposing the inadequacies Hilary Clinton’s world of “rich white people.” The perpetual creation of a racial identity born out of self-loathing and anxiety often spends more time inventing reasons to cry racism than working toward changing social mores, and often inhibits movement toward reconciliation and positive mobility.

McWhorter articulates three main objections of victimology: First, victimology condones weakness in failure. Victimology tacitly stamps approval on failure, lack of effort, and criminality. Behaviors and patterns that are self-destructive are often approved of as cultural or presented as unpreventable consequences from previous systemic patterns. Black liberation theologians are clear on this point: “People are poor because they are victims of others,” says Dr. Dwight Hopkins, a black liberation theologian teaching at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

Second, victimology hampers progress because, from the outset, it focuses attention on obstacles. For example, in Black liberation theology, the focus is on the impediment of Black freedom in light of the Goliath of White racism.

Third, victimology keeps racism alive because many Whites are constantly painted as racist with no evidence provided. Racism charges create a context for backlash and resentment fueling new attitudes among whites not previously held or articulated, and creates “separatism”–a suspension of moral judgment in the name of racial solidarity. Does Jeremiah Wright foster separatism or racial unity and reconciliation?

For black liberation theologians Sunday is uniquely tied to redefining their sense of being human within a context of marginalization. “Black people who have been humiliated and oppressed by the structures of White society six days of the week gather together each Sunday morning in order to experience another definition of their humanity,” says James Cone in his book Speaking the Truth (1999).

Many black theologians believe that both racism and socio-economic oppression continue to augment the fragmentation between Whites and Blacks. Historically speaking, it makes sense that Black theologians would struggle with conceptualizing social justice and the problem of evil as it relates to the history of colonialism and slavery in the Americas.

Is black liberation theology helping? Wright’s liberation theology has stirred up resentment, backlash, Obama defections, separatism, white guilt, caricature, and offense. Preaching to a congregation of middle-class blacks about their victim identity invites a distorted view of reality, fosters nihilism, and divides rather than unites.

Anthony B. Bradley is a research fellow at the Acton Institute, and assistant professor of theology at Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis. His PhD dissertation is titled, “Victimology in Black Liberation Theology.”

Get over yourself, Obama…

Not only does Obama believe that white people are responsible for all the world’s problems, from hurricanes to AIDS, the guy thinks his passport records are somehow worth George Bush’s time checking out.

It’s been reported that a few dipsticks working for the State Department (outside IT contractors like myself) got curious about Barack’s passport information and accessed his records recently. Anyone can see this was just a few people who were curious and dumb, a bad combination for job security.

Two contractors have been fired, another has been disciplined, but Obama can’t leave it at that. No, his campaign has to spin this as some sort of plot by the Bush administration. If it was really Bush, don’t you think he’d have access to far more tantilizing and useful information that passport records? I think so. Get over yourself Obama. You are NOT the second coming of Christ.

In the words of your spiritual leader, “B.S. walks.”

Bill Burton, a spokesman for Obama’s presidential campaign, called for a complete investigation.

“This is an outrageous breach of security and privacy, even from an administration that has shown little regard for either over the last eight years. Our government’s duty is to protect the private information of the American people, not use it for political purposes,” Burton said.

Anti-war Democrats who aren’t so anti-war

The hypocrisy is just astounding. I am so sick of the lunkheads in Washington, on both sides of the aisle, but especially the “enlightened” left. Here’s a few notable quotes from some Anti-war Dems who want to cut and run. At least this is what they thought when it was politically expedient to think this way:

On June 6, 2006, Senator Barack Obama said,

“A hard, fast, arbitrary deadline for withdrawl offers our commanders in the field and our diplomats in the region insufficient flexibility to implement that strategy.”

On September 22, 2005, Senator Hillary Clinton said,

“I don’t believe it’s smart to set a date for withdrawl. I don’t think you should ever telegraph your intentions to the enemy so they can await you.”

On January 31, 2005, Senator Harry Reid said,

“As far as setting a timeline…that’s not a wise decision, because it only empowers those who don’t want us there.”

On June 21, 2005, Senator Joe Biden said,

“A deadline for pulling out will only encourage our enemies to wait us out. It would be a Lebanon 1985, and God only knows where it goes from there.”

Benjamin Franklin on corn and poverty

This is a very interesting article by Benjamin Franklin for the London Chronicle in 1766…it’s actually a timely read. My favorite quote, however, and the reason I am posting this is his view on the poor saying, “I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. — I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it.” The full paragraph on poverty is an amazing read. I put the full passage in bold if you’re as challenged for time as I am…

On the Price of Corn, and Management of the Poor
For the LONDON CHRONICLE.

To Messieurs the PUBLIC and CO. I am one of that class of people that feeds you all, and at present is abus’d by you all; — in short I am a Farmer.

By your News-papers we are told, that God had sent a very short harvest to some other countries of Europe. I thought this might be in favour to Old England; and that now we should get a good price for our grain, which would bring in millions among us, and make us flow in money, that to be sure is scarce enough.

But the wisdom of Government forbad the exportation.

Well, says I, then we must be content with the market price at home.

No, says my Lords the mob, you sha’n't have that. Bring your corn to market if you dare; — we’ll sell it for you, for less money, or take it for nothing.

Being thus attack’d by both ends of the Constitution, the head and the tail of Government, what am I to do?

Must I keep my corn in barn to feed and increase the breed of rats? — be it so; — they cannot be less thankful than those I have been used to feed.

Are we Farmers the only people to be grudged the profits of honest labour? — And why? — One of the late scribblers against us gives a bill of fare of the provisions at my daughter’s wedding, and proclaims to all the world that we had the insolence to eat beef and pudding! — Has he never read that precept in the good book, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn; or does he think us less worthy of good living than our oxen?

O, but the Manufacturers! the Manufacturers! they are to be favour’d, and they must have bread at a cheap rate!

Hark-ye, Mr. Oaf; — The Farmers live splendidly, you say. And pray, would you have them hoard the money they get? — Their fine cloaths and furniture, do they make them themselves, or for one another, and so keep the money among them? Or do they employ these your darling Manufacturers, and so scatter it again all over the nation?

My wool would produce me a better price if it were suffer’d to go to foreign markets. But that, Messieurs the Public, your laws will not permit. It must be kept all at home, that our dear Manufacturers may have it the cheaper. And then, having yourselves thus lessened our encouragement for raising sheep, you curse us for the scarcity of mutton!

I have heard my grandfather say, that the Farmers submitted to the prohibition on the exportation of wool, being made to expect and believe, that when the Manufacturer bought his wool cheaper, they should have their cloth cheaper. But the deuce a bit. It has been growing dearer and dearer from that day to this. How so? why truly the cloth is exported; and that keeps up the price.

Now if it be a good principle, that the exportation of a commodity is to be restrain’d, that so our own people at home may have it the cheaper, stick to that principle, and go thorough stitch with it. Prohibit the exportation of your cloth, your leather and shoes, your iron ware, and your manufactures of all sorts, to make them all cheaper at home. And cheap enough they will be, I’ll warrant you — till people leave off making them.

Some folks seem to think they ought never to be easy, till England becomes another Lubberland, where ’tis fancied the streets are paved with penny rolls, the houses tiled with pancakes, and chickens ready roasted cry, come eat me.

I say, when you are sure you have got a good principle, stick to it, and carry it thorough. — I hear ’tis said, that though it was necessary and right for the M —— y to advise a prohibition of the exportation of corn, yet it was contrary to law: And also, that though it was contrary to law for the mob to obstruct the waggons, yet it was necessary and right. — Just the same thing, to a tittle. Now they tell me, an act of indemnity ought to pass in favour of the M —— y, to secure them from the consequences of having acted illegally. — If so, pass another in favour of the mob. Others say, some of the mob ought to be hanged, by way of example. — If so, —— but I say no more than I have said before, when you are sure that you have got a good principle, go thorough with it.

You say, poor labourers cannot afford to buy bread at a high price, unless they had higher wages. — Possibly. — But how shall we Farmers be able to afford our labourers higher wages, if you will not allow us to get, when we might have it, a higher price for our corn?

By all I can learn, we should at least have had a guinea a quarter more if the exportation had been allowed. And this money England would have got from foreigners.

But, it seems, we Farmers must take so much less, that the poor may have it so much cheaper.

This operates then as a tax for the maintenance of the poor. — A very good thing, you will say. But I ask, Why a partial tax? Why laid on us Farmers only? — If it be a good thing, pray, Messrs. the Public, take your share of it, by indemnifying us a little out of your public treasury. In doing a good thing there is both honour and pleasure; — you are welcome to your part of both.

For my own part, I am not so well satisfied of the goodness of this thing. I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. — I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer. There is no country in the world where so many provisions are established for them; so many hospitals to receive them when they are sick or lame, founded and maintained by voluntary charities; so many alms-houses for the aged of both sexes, together with a solemn general law made by the rich to subject their estates to a heavy tax for the support of the poor. Under all these obligations, are our poor modest, humble, and thankful; and do they use their best endeavours to maintain themselves, and lighten our shoulders of this burthen? — On the contrary, I affirm that there is no country in the world in which the poor are more idle, dissolute, drunken, and insolent. The day you passed that act, you took away from before their eyes the greatest of all inducements to industry, frugality, and sobriety, by giving them a dependance on somewhat else than a careful accumulation during youth and health, for support in age or sickness. In short, you offered a premium for the encouragement of idleness, and you should not now wonder that it has had its effect in the increase of poverty. Repeal that law, and you will soon see a change in their manners. St. Monday, and St. Tuesday, will cease to be holidays. SIX days shalt thou labour, though one of the old commandments long treated as out of date, will again be looked upon as a respectable precept; industry will increase, and with it plenty among the lower people; their circumstances will mend, and more will be done for their happiness by inuring them to provide for themselves, than could be done by dividing all your estates among them.

Excuse me, Messrs. the Public, if upon this interesting subject, I put you to the trouble of reading a little of my nonsense. I am sure I have lately read a great deal of yours; and therefore from you (at least from those of you who are writers) I deserve a little indulgence. I am, your’s, &c. ARATOR.

The London Chronicle, November 29, 1766

Quote of the Day – - From 1978

“Persons who rely on the Supreme Court Test that something is obscene only if it has no redeeming value are depraved, mentally deficient, mind-warped queers.” – Utah Supreme Court, 1978

This was written as part of a State Supreme Court decision justifying the position that the State can impose more stringent, farther reaching community standards of what is considered obscene. Utah still has some of the most aggressive community standards against obscenity including pornography and strip bars.

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Exxon-Mobil Needs a Hug

This is a great article written by the great Ben Stein. I think everyone should read this, especially the anti-business libs out there…

Here’s the NY Times article by Ben Stein

One thing Ben doesn’t bring out in the article is that in addition to Exxon Mobil pulling in $40 billion last year, they also paid $30 billion in taxes to the U.S. treasury. So not only do major companies like Exxon Mobil, Coca Cola, Microsoft, GM, etc. provide millions of U.S. jobs, billions in profit to the various investors and investment funds like pension plans, but they also pay billions upon billions of dollars in taxes. They’re already being raped by the Feds.