Monday, September 26, 2005

INCORRECT TO DISAGREE WITH THE DALAI LAMA

Post lifted from Red State

About six days ago, I blogged about Reverend Bryan Fischer's statement on the Dalai Lama's visit to Idaho. For a refresher here's what he said regarding the Dalai Lama's visit:

"He was very likable but I think his view of evil is simplistic. There is no dialogue that is going to stop an insane terrorist from attacking innocent people. His views on human nature are also very naive. He believes we are born good, but parents know you don't have to teach your children to be bad. They know how to do that. You have to teach them to be good. He also doesn't believe in a creator. If the colonists had been Buddhists, we wouldn't have the United States."

Now, this is his statement of honest disagreement with the Dalai Lama's views, but Joyceann Fick wrote in letters to the editor to the Statesman:

Fischer seems to think he alone has cornered the market on "acceptable" beliefs. That he would actually criticize the tenets of the Dalai Lama only proves how narrow-minded and intolerant Fischer's message really is.

He didn't say that the Dalai Lama's beliefs were unacceptable, he said they were wrong. He disputed and challenged them, he respectfully disagreed and expressed his opinion. He took the good, the bad, and as a pastor called to speak the truths of the Christian faith, he pointed out what were the problems in this message. Last I heard, debating and discussing viewpoints was an American tradition, apparently not when the Dalai Lama is here. We're to have our religious leaders pretend down is up and 2+2=5 to please the left. Next up, we have Kurt Caswell, from Lubbock, Texas who just had to join in from 2,00 miles away:

I find it astonishing that a spiritual leader would help to cultivate an atmosphere of fear and vengeance over hope and light...If Fischer would only compare his words with the words of the terrorists he wishes to kill, he'd find his world view is identical...

If the colonists had been Buddhists we would indeed have a United States (see Fischer's comments), but instead of a United States founded on acts of terrorism against the 500 Indian Nations, we'd have, perhaps, a true union of states and peoples.

Wow, now Christians who after politely sitting through a speech by the Dalai Lama and disagree with him are the equivalent of Al Queda terrorists. This is Mr Caswell's attempt to spread hope and light instead of vengeance.

Secondly, Fischer had a point. America had a very strong protestant (particularly reformed influence) in its founding. Books have been written about the role Scottish Presbytrianism played in the country's founding.

More importantly, the point he made is that the Declaration of Independence refers to a Creator and the rights, King George violated were given to us by the Creator. If you believe there's no Creator, how do you fight a Revolution based on violations of rights He gave you.

However, there were some people who had some common sense about this, among them was Stacey Boone:

According to an article in The Idaho Statesman on July 24, the Dalai Lama is believed to be "an incarnation of Avalokiteshvara, the Buddha of Compassion." This is religion. This is a form of Buddhism. Since the state is not supposed to support one religion over another, I wonder if Gov. Kempthorne and his office will be promoting a visit and speaking engagement to Idaho's children by Billy Graham or maybe the pope.

Now our state, because of the White Supremacist problem up North for many years is always ready to show itself diverse and tolerant with things like this, but I have to question where the ACLU was. Apparently, they're warming up for their fight against Christmas trees and manger scences. I've heard garbage about Buddhism being a philosophy, but most people are going to say its a religion. The Separation of Church and State, the danger of religion in the public square can only be used against Christians.



Hurricane Katrina and Political Correctness

"If Hurricane Katrina is not America's greatest natural disaster, it's near the top of the list. There are many important lessons to be learned from it. For example: building a city below sea level was a big gamble. And building levees to withstand a category 3 hurricane instead of a category 5 hurricane was pennywise and pound-foolish.

The leftist politicos and their media allies are furiously blaming white Republican men (President Bush, Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff and Federal Emergency Management Administration Director Michael Brown) for the enormous scope of the disaster. They are desperately trying to keep the public from focusing on the fact that a black man (New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin) and a white woman (Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco), both Democrats, actually are mostly to blame.

And another white woman who earned a large share of blame (Senator Mary Landrieu) became hysterical and actually threatened to punch President Bush: "If one person criticizes [our sheriffs], or says one more thing, including the president of the United States, he will hear from me - one more word about it after this show airs and I - I might likely have to punch him - literally," Landrieu announced on ABC's "This Week." [Note to Secret Service: Watch her carefully.]

Pointing out that an elected black man and a couple of elected women (all Democrats) failed their constituents miserably and that black man and one of the women then lost self-control during the resulting crisis is not politically correct. BUT, it's true. And it DOESN'T mean that there aren't plenty of qualified blacks and women who would have performed admirably in their place.

Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco deserve to be designated as the main culprits. And Mayor Nagin is much worse (see Ray Nagin Is NOT America's Mayor ). And quicker to blame others. After Hurricane Ivan last September, Mayor Nagin had absolutely no excuse for failing to have the Superdome ready, waiting to order mandatory evacuation (despite urging from President Bush) and failing to use the school buses and municipal buses to get people without their own vehicles out of harm's way (see AN OUNCE OF PREVENTION ). On September 1, 2005, Mayor Nagin "calmly" offered a constructive suggestion: "Governor Blanco and President Bush need to stop holding "goddamn press conferences" and "get their ass[es] on a plane and sit down, the two of them, and figure this out right now."

His strategy was to scream and to blame others: "I don't know whose problem it is. I don't know whether it's the governor's problem. I don't know whether it's the president's problem." (All he "knew" was that it was someone else's problem.). White Republican males are supposed to be the only scapegoats, Mr. Mayor. Didn't you get the word?

Or did you retaliate becausing Governor Blanco publicly acknowledged the embarrassing truth--that President Bush had urged a mandatory evacuation long before you ordered (but failed to really implement) New Orleans' first mandatory evacuation?

The event most of the major media disregards or downplays: Governor Blanco, standing beside Mayor Nagin, at a news conference, announced that President Bush called and personally appealed for a mandatory evacuation. It took until September 6, 2005 for Mayor Nagin to issue the appropriate declaration.... Better late than never!

Senator Barbara Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland, and House Democrat Leader Nancy Pelosi called on FEMA Director Brown to resign for not acting faster, but not Governor Blanco. Sexists! Governor Blanco declined to let the federal government take control of disaster relief efforts when she received the offer!

"Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans," the Washington Post reported. No, said the Governor, concerned that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. Governor Blanco also failed to use more than a hundred school buses parked near the Superdome to transport stranded citizens who didn't have the means to obey earlier evacuation orders. And the buses were rendered useless by rising flood waters after the levees broke. Governor Blanco even dawdled over invoking a multi-state mutual aid compact for assistance until the day after the levees broke.

Dick Morris rightly blames not only Senator Mary "I'll punch the President" Landrieu, but also former Senator John Breaux, for leaving New Orleans so vunerable to a category 4 hurricane like Katrina: "Where was Sen. Mary Landrieu demanding aid? If this swing-state senator, whose father was a mayor of New Orleans, had made clear to her party's leadership and to the White House that her legislative course would be determined by their response to this critical need for a new levee, she could have exerted the pull needed to get the project under way. "Likewise, ex-Sen. John Breaux -- who was probably the single most influential senator during the Clinton years. In the '90s, he could have weighed in successfully and gotten the capital support his state needed. "Breaux and Landrieu have always been among the handful of swing votes in the Senate. Where were they? They have a bit of explaining to do as well."

They do indeed. But Democrats are busy trying to distract the public from their own failures while the federal government, the national guard, those New Orleans police who did not flee or fly to Las Vegas for a vacation (courtesy of Mayor Nagin) and good people across America and even abroad are dealing with a preventable crisis".

More here

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